Actual result: Labour 37, SNP 9, Lib Dems 6, Tories 5. The two horses in the two-horse race finished second and fourth, and won just 19% of seats between them.
And here’s John Swinney a week and a half ago:
The two horses finished second and third.
The matter of whether Yousaf and Swinney are a pair of massive liars, or are simply hopelessly out of touch with political reality, is one we’ll leave to your own judgement.
The Scottish Tory MSP reacted furiously to a story in The National which said Scotland had been absorbed into England by the 1707 Act Of Union, rather than becoming a “partner” in anything, and had ceased to exist as a state in international law.
Which was a weird response, because that’s been the official stated position of both the UK government and the Conservative Party for at least the last 12 years.
As alert Wings readers will know, we’re fond of a WW2 analogy from time to time. The conflict is so extensively documented, and so deeply embedded in British culture (for both good and ill), that it’s a reliable tool for getting points across concisely and clearly.
(It’s also one of the last major wars in which, overall, the good guys and the bad guys were pretty indisputably easy to identify.)
So let’s keep that in mind for a moment while we look at this.
For 10 years in Germany between 1935 and 1945, Jewish people were not legally human. The Nuremberg Laws, drafted in large part by Wilhelm Stuckart, established the principle in law that Jews were to be denied any rights on the basis that they were untermensch, a German word literally meaning “subhuman”.
It would be, to say the least, highly controversial for anyone to put forward in 2025 the idea that Jewish people had actually ceased to be human beings during that period, even though the various laws had been passed by a legitimately-elected government in peacetime and attracted little in the way of international condemnation.
The truth is that regardless of what the law said, Jewish people remained humans for the whole time, which is why Nazi war criminals were tried after the war for “crimes against humanity”. The passing of a law had had absolutely no effect on their biological reality. (Other than that it led to millions of them being murdered, of course.)
But anyway. Nicola Sturgeon.
Is the above how she imagined her feminist legacy, do you think, readers?
Y’know, maybe we were a little harsh on the lads at Holyrood Sources yesterday when we implied that a more direct and aggressive interviewing style might have cut through John Swinney and Kate Forbes’ pathetically feeble waffling evasion on the SNP’s lack of an independence strategy in their recent podcast.
But the closest thing (along with Colin Mackay at STV) that the Scottish media has left to a proper Rottweiler interviewer – Peter Adam Smith of ITV – had a shot at that five years ago and didn’t do any better.
Smith noted that even back in 2019 Nicola Sturgeon had been droning on about how Westminster’s refusal to grant a second indy referendum was “unsustainable” for two years already. But no matter how hard he pressed, Sturgeon just kept on glibly and smugly insisting that they’d concede.
“The UK government strategy is to say no. Do you have a way around it?”
“My strategy is to say yes.” [smirks]
Readers might be forgiven for wondering how long it’s going to take the SNP to accept that that “strategy” is a failure, if seven years and three First Ministers isn’t enough for them to have worked it out. But as long as the pathologically gullible keep voting for them anyway, we suppose they have no reason to.
On 15 October 2012, I signed the Edinburgh Agreement with David Cameron to secure the independence referendum of September 2014.
On the same day Peter Kellner of the polling company YouGov wrote one of his condescending commentaries from London dissing any hope for the Yes campaign.
Kellner’s view was almost universal, and not just among the London pack of journos and politicians. Most, if not all, of the Scottish media agreed with him.
However, by September 2014 things looked very different.
Those of you on Twitter will probably be aware of this already, but for the rest:
It should be a bit of a lark, although the retrospective part will probably be rather more fun than the looking-forward part. I don’t get out much, so if you want to come along and throw some rotten fruit and/or say hi, tickets are here.
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Inspirational stuff, NC. Do The Collected Speeches Of Nicola Sturgeon next.” Jul 13, 00:30
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Stick around, Dave, all will become clear. OK, maybe not the posts in Scots.” Jul 13, 00:10
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Ah kent ye’d say that, Alf. Remarkable, no?, hoo muckle fowk pick up ootside o formal education when they’re interested…” Jul 13, 00:07
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Epic fail there, YL Sah! Mind and keep your UK passport and your UK driving license safe. It’s the “logical”…” Jul 13, 00:02
Alf Baird on Just Good Friends: “A ‘mediocre meritocracy’ is the inevitable reality within a colonial society (Memmi), much as we see. But this is not…” Jul 12, 22:28
Alf Baird on Just Good Friends: “” if Scotland is still in large parts a Scots speaking nation, there’s precious little evidence for it on here.”…” Jul 12, 22:20
Shug on Just Good Friends: “It is very telling that the BBC is not making hay with this material. They will when that are ready…” Jul 12, 21:25
Northcode on Just Good Friends: “This infernal heat has driven me mad and in my madness I’ve been forced to transcribe the first few paragraphs…” Jul 12, 20:33
agent x on Just Good Friends: “http://www.manifestoforindependence link to petition.parliament.uk those links don’t work for me.” Jul 12, 19:47
Young Lochinvar on Just Good Friends: “In reply to P3nisbreath McP3nisbreathface @ 4.04pm The sexual perversion thing is all yours, just trawl back through your posts,…” Jul 12, 17:25
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Alf, if Scotland is still in large parts a Scots speaking nation, there’s precious little evidence for it on here.…” Jul 12, 16:11
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “If “logically” the UK no longer exists, you’ll have burned your passport and your driving license. Looking forwards to your…” Jul 12, 16:04
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Not too bad a post, NC, but it lacks fundamental clarity. Which union are you discussing? The UK or the…” Jul 12, 15:59
Young Lochinvar on Just Good Friends: “Good post NC. One small correction, the construct was first called Great Britain. The United Kingdom came along later when…” Jul 12, 15:34
sarah on Just Good Friends: “A lot of us do, Dan – just not speaking up much nowadays. I shall mention, again, several things that…” Jul 12, 13:49
TURABDIN on Just Good Friends: “PILE it HIGH, sell it cheap in POUNDLAND. https://archive.is/VLCVd Everything must go!” Jul 12, 13:23
TURABDIN on Just Good Friends: “FALSE FRIENDS. DEMOCRATIC SYSTEMS fail when people with ability don’t have authority and people with authority don’t have ability What…” Jul 12, 12:45
Aidan on Just Good Friends: “Have you done any polling on how important the issue of the formation of the union in 1707 is to…” Jul 12, 12:13
Alf Baird on Just Good Friends: “Yes Hatey, if we “look at voting preferences against geographical areas in recent times” what we find is that the…” Jul 12, 11:49
Dan on Just Good Friends: “Things going on in Scotland… (Not that anybody here seems to give a shit) https://www.isp.scot/july-5th-july-11th-2025/” Jul 12, 10:23
Northcode on Just Good Friends: ““It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t…” Jul 12, 09:52
Northcode on Just Good Friends: “Naebody wid hae thocht hit possible tae uise ersecheeks tae blaff oot Inglis lees oan a keybuird an hae whit…” Jul 12, 08:38
James Cheyne on Too Tight To Mention: “Alf Baird. I apologise for late reply as busy thinking about re- locating.” Jul 12, 08:33
James Cheyne on Too Tight To Mention: “Alf Baird. ” Thus the old Scottish parliament members became [English parliamentarians]when they entered the continued English Westminster parliament resting…” Jul 12, 08:30
DaveL on Just Good Friends: “What the fuck are you talking about? What’s a ‘Da Dews’? I’ve never heard of it. While I’m here you…” Jul 12, 00:28
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “I was confident you were going to morph onto Da Dews there, Confused, but you didn’t. Well done you. Bit…” Jul 11, 23:55
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “@Alf I must hae colonised masel! Partition is a possibility if the kind of eejits currently ruling the roost at…” Jul 11, 23:45