When we suggested yesterday that the SNP was turning into New Labour, we didn’t expect them to go to quite so much trouble to provide us with a timely illustration.
In happier times, almost seven years ago, a united and focused Yes movement had a bit of fun at the expense of Labour MP Ian Murray when he had a huge pearl-clutching fainting fit over someone putting a couple of stickers on his constituency office.
It brings us genuinely no pleasure at all to report that events in Scottish politics are panning out exactly the way we’ve been telling you they would for nearly two years.
Like an old man getting up for the fourth time in the middle of the night, the Scottish Government has squeezed out another little dribble of its legal advice in respect of the conduct of its shambolic investigation into false allegations against Alex Salmond.
And to push that gross analogy to its outermost limit, it must have found releasing one of the documents in particular as painful as passing a rather large kidney stone.
Yesterday’s evidence session at the Fabiani inquiry had several standout moments, but by a narrow margin this was our favourite.
And just in case you were wondering, yes, that IS Scotland’s top prosecutor, the Lord Advocate, chief of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, James Wolffe QC, repeatedly refusing to tell an MSP whether or not it’s a criminal offence in Scotland to refuse to comply with a court-ordered search warrant.
So next time you’ve ramraided a load of iPads and the polis come knocking on your door asking if they can have a nosy around your attic for them, just tell them they can’t come in because it’s a matter of your motivations.
We’re just watching today’s session of the Fabiani inquiry, featuring the Lord Advocate, the Crown Agent and the Principal Crown Counsel. There’s been an extremely long preamble from both Fabiani and James Wolffe mainly concerned with the anonymity order passed by Lady Dorrian during (not before) Alex Salmond’s trial, which is the foundation stone of everything crooked that’s happened around the Salmond case.
The order – and for clarity we make no suggestion whatsoever that this was its intent – is the basis for every piece of evidence that’s been suppressed in the inquiry, and for the prosecutions of Mark Hirst, Craig Murray and others, and also for the threats of prosecution issued to this site, The Spectator and to Alex Salmond himself, preventing him giving his evidence in full to the inquiry.
And we couldn’t help wondering how different things would have been, how much less damage would have been done to the integrity and credibility of the entire Scottish political and legal establishment, if it hadn’t been for this guy.
(Doleman was not prosecuted for actually naming one of the women, although Craig Murray still awaits a verdict, five weeks after his trial, which could see him imprisoned for up to two years for merely allegedly hinting at their identities.)
Without the order, it would have been perfectly lawful for people to discuss the names of the complainers – whose allegations the jury found to be false – after the trial. It would have been possible for people to know, and form an opinion based on, who they were and who they were connected to and what the “plan” they were “mulling” was.
But because it isn’t, Scotland has been turned into a laughing stock – a byword for ham-fisted corruption and malice – the independence movement has been torn in two, and the Scottish Government itself may yet collapse.
So, y’know, thanks for all of that, James. Great job.
The highlighted part was not in the draft, and it amounts to an explicit and absolutely terrifying redesignation of basic human biology as a hate crime.
We’d been wondering why our traffic was so crazy high that we’d already smashed last month’s four-year record to bits with a full week of February still to go.
We’ve just been sent this report from today’s meeting of the SNP’s National Executive Committee, which ended a short time ago. There’s no official confirmation yet but it’s come to us from several independent sources and we’re sure it’s true.
(“NS” and “JC” are of course Nicola Sturgeon and Joanna Cherry.)
Two weeks ago a Wings scoop caused quite a furore to erupt around the SNP’s ham-fisted and corruptly-motivated attempts to increase BAME and disabled representation at this year’s Holyrood election.
We’ve always been opposed to what were until recently known as “quotas”, and prior to that “positive discrimination”, but have now been cunningly rebranded as “diversity and inclusion” because that’s a much more difficult thing to say you object to.
It’s easy to make an honourable-sounding case against any form of “discrimination”, because decent and civilised people are taught to automatically think of discrimination as a bad thing, even if you put “positive” in front of it.
So the word “quotas” was adopted to move the concept from a pejorative term to a neutral noun – objecting to “quotas” doesn’t sound intolerant, any more than objecting to (say) “procedures” does. So that’s fine, because you can still discuss it like adults without too much unpleasantness.
But those pushing the agenda got smarter still by changing the name again. If you say you object to “diversity and inclusion”, you sound like a monster and a racist, because diversity and inclusion are plainly good things – no decent person wants to live in a monoculture, or to exclude anybody from society – and so the debate is immediately drowned out by self-righteous tossers screaming “BIGOT!” and “NAZI!” at everyone.
And yet in the context of social policy the three phrases mean the exact same thing. They’re all systems for overriding raw democracy so as to increase the representation of selected groups at the expense of other groups, for one reason or another.
(Sometimes it’s ostensibly just penance for historical wrongs, while at other times it’s supposedly for economic benefits, and so on.)
And while the proponents of those systems will openly argue that the only group being disadvantaged is straight white men so it’s all fine (because nobody likes straight white men and anyone standing up for them can be easily dismissed as a “gammon” for lots of woke points and Twitter likes), it isn’t even remotely close to the truth.
Because in “diversity and inclusion”, some groups are a lot more included than others.
In an attempt to freshen up its usual panel of tired and tiresome politicians and pundits, last night’s Question Time (ostensibly from an oddly-vague location in “the North East”) featured moderately-known circus fortune-teller Gypsy Rose Petulengro, crossing her palm with silver for some analysis in a short break from one of her celebrated seances.
The clip above was her take on whether Nicola Sturgeon would resign if either of the current inquiries found that she’d systematically and repeatedly lied to Parliament and broken the Ministerial Code, and the strange thing about it was that for someone who was professing to be looking into the future, she didn’t even appear to know the basic pertinent facts of the present or the past.
Young Lochinvar on When the law breaks the law: “HMcH What exactly don’t you understand about the 15th of March? Like missing-in-action bestie of yours (overweight/ overblown) Wilma Flintstone…” Feb 22, 23:58
Young Lochinvar on When the law breaks the law: “HMcH @ 10.35 Nope! There’s nothing that indentured you (through coercion) beyond your time of service. Look it up unless…” Feb 22, 23:47
Young Lochinvar on When the law breaks the law: “Alf Given a perusal of tedious posts and GPs Scotchland Office and (ahem) “sponsors” unrebuked bombshell then I think it’s…” Feb 22, 22:51
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “A bit early, YL. You’re never in the zone much before 2 AM. I think that oath of allegiance you…” Feb 22, 22:35
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “Didn’t he also say “never try to introduce new ideas to those whose heids are dense as stone”? He should…” Feb 22, 22:27
Young Lochinvar on When the law breaks the law: “HMcH Given GP as good as outed you as a Scotchland Office stooge further up BTL then should any “rational…” Feb 22, 22:17
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “Surely exactly as predicted by Fanon and Memmi, Alf. I do wonder why nobody is ever up for dealing with…” Feb 22, 22:16
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on When the law breaks the law: “Not sure whether the late Ruaraidh MacThòmais / Derick Thomson (who was certainly committed to Scottish independence) is preoccupied in…” Feb 22, 21:34
Cynicus on When the law breaks the law: “@Alf Baird, 22 February, 2026 at 7:43 pm ======== Alf, I commend to you the advice of HH Asquith: “Never…” Feb 22, 20:27
Alf Baird on When the law breaks the law: “You must be on piece-work from whoever pays you, Hatey, that’s 28 worthless diversionary contributions on this article alone from…” Feb 22, 19:43
Saffron Robe on When the law breaks the law: “I agree entirely with both your comments, Twathater. The current crop of Scottish politicians are indeed merely actors for independence…” Feb 22, 19:40
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “Graves used to be a lot more spacious. Shrinkflation gets its teeth into everything. Back in the Victorian Age, when…” Feb 22, 18:18
Northcode on When the law breaks the law: “Although “turn” was most likely used first in a speech given by a Mr Windham on the 4th November 1801…” Feb 22, 18:02
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: ““comprehensively lost the argument in Scotland vis-a-vis EU membership. the ship has sailed” Blethers. The argument has never been made.…” Feb 22, 17:48
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “Surely “brocht low”, Northy, not “brought low”. It angers me more than mere words can express that I’m better at…” Feb 22, 17:41
Northcode on When the law breaks the law: “Since there’s nothing much happening on here again theday… here’s anither fragment of a braw poem scrieved by that most…” Feb 22, 17:29
agentx on When the law breaks the law: ““Alex Salmond will be rolling in his grave” ——————————————— The usual phrase is “turning in his grave”.” Feb 22, 17:27
Andy Ellis on When the law breaks the law: “@Hatey There’s no way the EU would have accepted separate memberships for Scotland and rUK on the same terms and…” Feb 22, 16:58
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: ““We’re economically significantly worse off than if we’d have become independent, because if that had happened brexit would never have…” Feb 22, 16:27
Andy Ellis on When the law breaks the law: “@Hatey Those who like to over-exaggerate the disaster of leaving one union (Brexit) sabotage the chances of leaving another (Indy).…” Feb 22, 15:50
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “Gie’s a brek, Alf. Real nationalists ken fit self-determination is. It’s just the faux nationalists who want Scotland immediately locked…” Feb 22, 15:31
Alf Baird on When the law breaks the law: “““real” nationalists should be focused on… self determination” That is correct, but nationalists also need to better understand what self-determination…” Feb 22, 14:47
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “Sorry, Andy, I replied to you a puckle of times, but every reply incurred the wrath of the moderation bot…” Feb 22, 14:30
Hatey McHateface on When the law breaks the law: “Calm doon, Northy. It’s likely just a poor translation into the lying tongue of the coloniser (Inglis) from the original…” Feb 22, 14:08
Southernbystander on When the law breaks the law: “Just for the record, England is not in deep trauma, a mad sort of conception that bears no relationship to…” Feb 22, 12:46
Sven on When the law breaks the law: “Ah me, if only it were an ill chosen metaphor which were to anger me more than words could express…” Feb 22, 11:52
Northcode on When the law breaks the law: “This angers me more than mere words can express: A source close to Alba added: “If Ash Regan was elected…” Feb 22, 10:38
agentx on When the law breaks the law: “Isle of Islay arrived in Scotland 🙂 https://www.vesselfinder.com/?imo=9970923” Feb 22, 10:08
TURABDIN on When the law breaks the law: “SCOTLAND MIGHT JUST POSSIBLY be on the right track when people of certain type are no longer in charge of…” Feb 22, 09:38
