We just noticed a finding from the most recent opinion poll that surprisingly seems to have escaped the attention of every Scottish newspaper except the Press & Journal.
As far as we can ascertain, the P&J was alone in reporting the obviously newsworthy fact that just a quarter of Scots believe the First Minister’s ridiculous cock-and-bull story about “forgetting” the occasion when she first heard that her friend, colleague and mentor of 30 years was facing charges of trying to rape some of her other friends.
But the figures are part of a wider and depressing trend.
We’ve just received the most extraordinary Freedom Of Information response from the Scottish Government, readers. Trust us, you want to go and make yourselves a strong cup of tea before you read it. Or get this guy to bring you one.
Back in the 1980s there was a hit game for the ZX Spectrum home computer called Worse Things Happen At Sea. In it you play a robot whose job is to get a heavily-laden cargo ship safely to port, except that more and more disasters keep befalling it.
It springs leaks, it veers off course, the engine overheats and the robot’s power runs down, until eventually the catalogue of catastrophes overwhelms the harassed metallic custodian and the boat slides down into the murky depths.
We wonder if that feels familiar to anyone at the moment.
We’re very busy today writing more FOI requests and the like, so we’ll just take a brief moment here to note that hiring super-expensive lawyers to object to the questions you’re being asked DEFINITELY sounds like the behaviour of people who are keen to co-operate fully and in the most transparent way possible with an inquiry:
The comments from committee convener and SNP MP Linda Fabiani (we guess she must be another of those MI5 plants/secret Unionists) are really quite extraordinary. In terms of Parliamentary language they’re only a hair’s-breadth short of an invitation to step outside and settle things with an old-school dust-up in the car park.
The weekend just past saw a convulsion as big as any we can ever recall witnessing on Yes social media, triggered by a series of tweets by Nicola Sturgeon which caused an extraordinary negative reaction out of all proportion to their ostensible content.
The reason was that the First Minister – who had remained silent about countless episodes of hideous misogynistic abuse aimed from her own side at MPs and MSPs like Joan McAlpine and Joanna Cherry – had chosen to suddenly leap into action in defence of the toxically divisive horror that is Glasgow councillor Rhiannon Spear after Spear had been widely criticised for making blatantly false claims in a video promoting her attempt to be selected as the candidate for Argyll & Bute.
(Sturgeon had no such public condemnation for the torrents of abuse the SNP Twitler Youth then unleased on Kirsten Thornton, the female SNP activist and Generation Yes founder who’d pointed out Spear’s untruths.)
The move sent the party’s woke and sane factions into a frenzy of bloodletting which in itself will have little if any impact on the wider electorate, but nonetheless threw into sharp relief the life-and-death battle currently going on for the SNP’s soul.
And since that’s related to what we’ve been writing about on Wings for the bulk of this year, it seemed worthwhile to get some things down on the record once and for all.
Just two days ago the Electoral Commission gave us a fourth supposed date for the publication of the SNP’s 2019 accounts: having first been due out in early August, they then told us to expect them in early September, and then last week, and then in “the next three weeks”, ie the middle of October.
But someone gave us a tipoff that we might be able to request them via Freedom Of Information, since ostensibly the only holdup was that the EC wanted to wait until ALL of the main parties’ accounts were ready and publish them all at once for tidiness.
So we sent one in, and we just got a very quick reply.
During a debate on the UK government’s recent decision to abandon the notion of gender self-ID, SNP MP Anne McLaughlin told the Commons chamber that it was still the Scottish Government’s “strong commitment” to go ahead with highly controversial reform of the law BEFORE next year’s Holyrood election.
But that isn’t what Scottish voters were told earlier this year.
The SNP have historically been swift to suspend any party members when there’s any hint of inappropriate conduct, never mind even a whiff of illegality. It’s been that way since 2015, with the axe falling on elected members as well as candidates in target seats and critical elections, and ordinary activists.
Not even a by-your-leave, let alone an explanation, is afforded – just suspension with immediate effect. And that’s all well and good, some might say. No hint of impropriety should attach to the party and making a virtue of acting swiftly can be both necessary and appropriate.
So why then no action against the Chief Executive?
Senator Claire Chandler is a Liberal Party member of the Australian Parliament. Some recent experiences she’s had send a very serious warning about the likely outcomes of the Scottish Government’s wildly unpopular new Hate Crime Bill. She’s graciously allowed us to publish this column she wrote on the subject.
Early this month I received a letter from Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Commissioner directing me to attend a compulsory “conciliation” conference with somebody offended by my comments about the need to protect women’s sport and women’s toilets and changerooms. You can watch them here:
Ironically, the complaint against me was about an opinion article I wrote about free speech. You can read it here and make up your own mind whether bureaucrats at the Anti-Discrimination Commission should be able to censor any Australian citizens for this kind of public policy discussion.
Following up this morning’s article, we’ve been trawling through the Publications/FOI section of the Scottish Government website to see which other articles might be being hidden from its search function. We found quite a few, and you’re never going to guess what the common factor in all of them is.
We’ve given you a wee clue with that picture, though.
Dan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “TBF Hatey probably can’t hear much due to blasting out da Ed Sheeran tuneage… No sane, rational, or productive human…” Sep 17, 18:34
Confused on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “another thing – you can’t let the anglos control your food supply they have a bit of previous ireland and…” Sep 17, 18:19
Confused on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “leg hump you’ve never refuted a damn thing, never won an argument, you are like the black knight in monty…” Sep 17, 18:02
Confused on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “it is for the houthis. They think strategically. Trump started a real stupid war because the “epstein people” were probably…” Sep 17, 17:58
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““Strange that Scotland as a net exporter doesn’t have decent port infrastructure” Scotland is only a net exporter because of…” Sep 17, 17:17
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Sure, Confused, £2 for a liter of diesel is one of the greatest things ever. I guess the death toll…” Sep 17, 17:06
Spartan 117 on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Dan – bang on. The Edinburgh Trams (read: Shams) was a tremendous waste of public money that caused untold suffering…” Sep 17, 17:05
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Even easier to refute than usual, and that’s saying something. Belgium 4, USA 1. 6th July 2026. Oh dear, Confused,…” Sep 17, 16:52
Dan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Not much consistency with you is there. So you were happy for shitloads of taxpayers money to be spaffed on…” Sep 17, 16:47
Aidan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “If a private operator wants to run the Rosyth to Europe ferry and they can do so on a commercial…” Sep 17, 15:30
Dan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “No shit Sherlock, that’s why I said a ferry service could be included in future port plans, not be the…” Sep 17, 15:08
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “THE PROCLAIMERS: ‘TRANS ACTIVISTS ARE TRUTH-PHOBIC’ The belief that a man can be a woman is pure myth, Scottish music…” Sep 17, 14:02
James Che on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “The private finances from the private subjects within Scotland that gave to a private matter of Scottish independence within the…” Sep 17, 13:18
Aidan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “What a odd thing to say, other than a ferry service a port can be used for: – exporting and…” Sep 17, 12:29
sarah on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Yet another failure by the SNP executive. They and Westminster were each putting up £3million to get this ferry service…” Sep 17, 12:28
Confused on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “come on now, Dan – everything Scotland runs on must come through Carlisle on a lorry. That way if the…” Sep 17, 12:24
Confused on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “yeah I am sure this lawfare will work this time negotiating the legal system in Scotland is easy – apply…” Sep 17, 12:21
Dan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““The Port of Rosyth is an important asset for Scotland and we are committed to exploring a number of business…” Sep 17, 12:03
BLMac on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “When you see so much prevarification, you know there was not just one bad apple. The whole basketful is rotten.…” Sep 17, 11:27
TimePilot on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Police Scotland’s response to FOI requests within the 20 working days timescale is abysmal. I might submit a FOI to…” Sep 17, 09:16
James Che on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “I surmise that the SNP have also dedicated themselves to the people/ subjects within Scotland as they are a Scottish…” Sep 17, 09:13
James Che on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Do the Subjects within Scotland pay out of….their private incomes within Scotland for the Police or Crown offices in Scotland.…” Sep 17, 08:57
James Che on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Stu, The Law Society of Scotland, 2007. Article XV 111 private Rights. Which is unalterable by the parliament of Great…” Sep 17, 08:38
Willie on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Maybe Big John Swinney, assuming he’s not in pokey too, could have his old mucker Murrell back in post helping…” Sep 17, 08:37
Captain Caveman on Like Responsible Citizens Do: “Multiple posters take the time and trouble to objectively, politely, patiently and provably show that Alf Baird is plain wrong…” Sep 17, 08:24
Spartan 117 on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “I see some firey Greek madam absolutely tore Empress VDL a new ring in the EU Talking Shop, sans lube.…” Sep 17, 08:09
James Che on Fear And Favour: “Aidan, The dates that I have provided are facts, They are information, The facts are from Westminster parliament own site.…” Sep 17, 07:46
Aidan on Like Responsible Citizens Do: ““General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples” General Assembly resolutions are…” Sep 17, 06:07
PhilM on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “I see now why I was confused. I read ‘taking a punt’ as metaphorical and the person taking a punt…” Sep 16, 22:13
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “‘POWER, CORRUPTION & LIES’ Bit of research on article title ‘A THOUSAND ISLANDS IN THE SEA’. Line from ‘Leave Me…” Sep 16, 21:59
