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Archive for the ‘debunks’


Catch 2022 529

Posted on July 02, 2022 by

A few days have now passed since Nicola Sturgeon’s announcement of the supposed routemap to an independence referendum, and we’ve had time to analyse it properly.

You’re not going to like it much.

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Beware of liars 337

Posted on June 15, 2022 by

Even when you’re retired, some things are too journalistically offensive to let pass, such as this piece of absolute garbage we just saw from The National today.

The paper’s anonymous reporter set off all our red warning lights at once.

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Firing blanks 1,154

Posted on May 22, 2022 by

This is getting properly embarrassing.

Because that starting gun must be red-hot by now.

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Signing up new seamen fast 134

Posted on May 08, 2022 by

As we’re a polling site now, a brief post on polls.

In a column for today’s Herald on Sunday, Iain Macwhirter repeats the frequently-made assertion that “Boris Johnson is loathed in Scotland and is the best recruiting sergeant for independence since Margaret Thatcher”.

The first part is certainly true, as it has been of pretty much every Tory Prime Minister of the last 40 years. But the second part simply isn’t borne out by the facts.

Above (click to enlarge) is the graph of Yes polling since Johnson became PM. It shows support for independence FALLING from 52% to 49% during his term in office.

If you discount the Lord Ashcroft poll from a few days after he entered Downing Street (because Ashcroft isn’t a British Polling Council member), the graph becomes Nicola Sturgeon’s political speciality – a flat line, from 49% to 49%.

Johnson has “recruited” nobody. Those are the cold hard facts.

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The Auld Sang 98

Posted on February 04, 2022 by

We’ve observed that over the last few days a number of Unionists, led by tuba-honking dunderhead Blair McDougall (the man who turned a 30-point No lead into a 10-point one, who lost Labour 5000 votes when he stood in East Renfrewshire in 2017 on the basis of being the guy who saved the UK – trailing in an embarrassing 3rd in a seat where Jim Murphy had once won over 50% of the vote – and who is probably more responsible than any other individual for the utter destruction of Scottish Labour as a political force), have revived the ancient “Better Together” scare story about pensions in an independent Scotland.

So as a small public service, we republish below this article from November 2016 on the subject, which remains an accurate and up-to-date summation of the reality.

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The Idiot 287

Posted on July 24, 2021 by

Although we’re retired we already wrote this, so we may as well put it up for the 99.9% of Scots who don’t read the comments on David Leask‘s columns in the Herald.

Scotland’s worst, most reliably wrong and most pathologically insecure self-identified “real journalist” rehashed one of his favourite hobby-horses yesterday, namely that it’s a “nationalist myth” that Scotland got poorer after discovering oil in the North Sea.

It’s a claim he’s been banging on about since at least 2014, without ever providing a scrap of evidence to support it (his standard modus operandi), and yesterday was no exception. So let’s show Little Dave how proper big-boy journalists do it.

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Dawn Of The Imbeciles 211

Posted on May 09, 2021 by

The SNP collected slightly over 1 million list votes in Thursday’s election, which nevertheless elected just two list MSPs because SNP voters care about power for the SNP rather than about independence, and chose to let dozens of Unionist MSPs get seats rather than other pro-indy parties.

But the bigger tragedy is that one of those two was Emma Roddick.

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What Nicola Says 133

Posted on May 05, 2021 by

…about women’s rights after she wins the election:

And what the truth is:

Just hold it in, girls.

Queen Of The Mushroom Kingdom 127

Posted on April 23, 2021 by

It really is deeply dispiriting the see the level of utter burning contempt in which Nicola Sturgeon holds the independence movement, if this is the sort of ludicrously insulting garbage she thinks it’ll swallow.

Who told us it’s garbage? Nicola Sturgeon did.

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If it hit you in the eye 156

Posted on April 10, 2021 by

There’s something missing from this.

Can you spot it, readers?

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This won’t take a minute 177

Posted on April 05, 2021 by

At the weekend we all beheld the bizarre sight of two supposed investigative Scottish politics journalists sneering and trying to play down what appeared to be a genuinely major story about a live police inquiry into a possible £600,000 criminal fraud involving the party of government in Scotland.

Both of them work for the same rival outlet, so the most generous interpretation that could reasonably be put on their curious behaviour is that they were simply trying to focus attention instead on that outlet’s own big Sunday splash – also ostensibly a story of political fraud, albeit on a much smaller scale.

So let’s just clear that one up now to help them out.

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The seekers of fury 395

Posted on March 30, 2021 by

While we were out this afternoon diligently patrolling for bears in the 20C beauty of a Bath early spring (largely because there’s a rather implausible 40% chance of snow forecast for next Wednesday), an email flooded in from Tom Gordon of the Herald.

“Hello Stuart. We’ve been contacted by a reader who says he also contacted you about a post on the website in the early hours of Saturday. Referring to Nicola Sturgeon, the poster says “Decapitating this witch would stop the SNP dead in their tracks.” 

Our reader, Ian Reid, an SNP activist in the Borders, has been a regular Wings reader but was taken aback by the language. He had hoped you would have deleted the post, but that hasn’t happened.

He has reported it to the police and given a statement to them.

He has also given us these comments on why the Alba Party should condemn this sort of material and cut its ties to the Wings site.

“Alex Salmond and the leaders of the new party need to separate themselves from that, they need to call it out. They seem to be trying to set themselves up as the moral guardians for women’s rights, which I absolutely support. At the same time, we’ve got somebody posting this on a blog that they clearly associate with and clearly use.

On the one hand, they’re talking about gender-proofing their policies, which is great. On the other hand, they’ve got this where a woman is being described as the devil herself, and where there’s a reference to decapitating the witch having a justifiable end.

That needs to be called out. The party needs to come out and say something about it. The best possible outcome would be that they do condemn it. It would be such a powerful message. Separating themselves from that cesspit would be a very politically astute thing for them. As long as they don’t, it’s colluding with it, it’s condoning it.”

This is for a potential story online and in print.

Would you care to comment?”

And, y’know, of course we would.

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    • socratesmacsporran on The Empty Hearse: “Definitive proof of that old chestnut about a stopped clock being correct twice a day. Donald-John Trump had noticed that…Jul 30, 16:12
    • Callum on The Empty Hearse: “Indy movement needs a ‘No Votes SNP’ election strategy (seat by seat) that maximises the chances of Indy candidates at…Jul 30, 16:00
    • Stuart on The Empty Hearse: “Haha… Donald Trump has delivered an unprompted attack on former Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon, describing her as a “terrible first…Jul 30, 15:57
    • Callum on The Empty Hearse: “Totally agree – NO VOTES SNP. SNP have abandoned INDY and indy supporters should abandon the SNP.Jul 30, 15:46
    • Stuart on The Empty Hearse: “Never has a political party been so wilfully determined to sabotage its own chances. As you say Reverend, the gravy…Jul 30, 15:34
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    • Hatey McHateface on The Empty Hearse: “Not strictly true, Mark. A small segment of the people voted. Male, free (not slaves), property owning.Jul 30, 15:15
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