The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland


Archive for the ‘idiots’


How elections work, with the Lib Dems 240

Posted on March 12, 2017 by

Scottish leader Willie Rennie on today’s Sunday Politics Scotland:

Read the rest of this entry →

If you thought Willie Rennie was funny 182

Posted on March 11, 2017 by

…on Good Morning Scotland yesterday, then we suspect you’re going to love the Lib Dems’ heroically glaikit MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton on the same show today.

(Good Morning Scotland, BBC Radio Scotland, 11 March 2017)
.

Our favourite line is probably “the SNP didn’t win an election”, although it’s run quite close by “If you listen to Christine Jardine”.

Read the rest of this entry →

When one plus one is one 186

Posted on March 10, 2017 by

We don’t want to fall into the trap of portraying the Liberal Democrats as a party of any political relevance or consequence in Scotland, but for the sheer comedy value alone Willie Rennie’s interview with Gary Robertson on today’s Good Morning Scotland is worth a couple of minutes of your time.

(Good Morning Scotland, BBC Radio Scotland, 10 March 2017)
.

So, are we all clear?

Read the rest of this entry →

For Sadiq Khan 216

Posted on February 25, 2017 by

What does racism and separatism actually look like? How would we know it if we saw it? What are its defining characteristics? Who are its advocates?

miliforeign

Let’s see if we can find out.

Read the rest of this entry →

News values depreciate further 133

Posted on February 23, 2017 by

Almost a year ago we ran a short piece mocking a Scotsman headline which claimed that “THOUSANDS” of people had signed a Tory anti-referendum petition, when the actual number was a strictly-accurate-but-pathetic TWO thousand.

We didn’t think that could ever be beaten for technically-true hyperbolic exaggeration, but we’d reckoned without the bold boundary-pushing ingenuity of the Daily Express.

exp1000s

Hundreds of thousands? How many hundreds, exactly?

Read the rest of this entry →

The Modern Videogames Console: A Guide 6

Posted on February 23, 2017 by

The process of simply buying the Xbox One took me either three days or eight weeks, depending on how you look at it, due to a combination of how retail works these days and the gibbering random madness that is GAME's pricing and corporate structure. But I'm not even going to get into that here.

forz1

What you should know is what happened next.

Read the rest of this entry →

Wee Willie Won’t-He 142

Posted on February 12, 2017 by

Here’s Willie Rennie in the Times this week, castigating the Scottish Government for not having successfully done a £10bn deal with China:

willie1

Read the rest of this entry →

A very long time in politics 116

Posted on February 05, 2017 by

Five minutes and 51 seconds, to be precise, is how long David Mundell, Secretary of State for Scotland, spent frantically quacking out meaningless noise on this morning’s Sunday Politics Scotland in order to avoid answering a simple Yes/No question until the interview ran out of airtime.

We could quibble with presenter Gordon Brewer making the assertion that a Section 30 order would in fact be necessary for a second referendum (something which has never been established in law or conceded by the Scottish Government, with strong and genuine legal opinion on both sides of the argument), and with him letting Mundell get away with the blatant falsehood that an overwhelming majority of Scots don’t want another referendum – in fact, 50% want one within the next two years.

But sometimes you have to let some smaller things slide to avoid distraction and stay focused on your main point, and in our view this was one of those occasions.

Bringing it on 374

Posted on February 02, 2017 by

These are the comments of UK defence secretary Michael Fallon in a short interview with today’s Herald. We don’t know about you, folks, but to us it feels like Christmas.

fallon

We think our favourite line is “There are other voices in Scotland now, not least Ruth Davidson’s”, but there are a lot to choose from.

The simpler version 292

Posted on January 26, 2017 by

Way back in October last year we analysed what now seems to have become the key plank of Unionist argument against independence in the wake of Brexit – the idea that because Scotland does more trade with the rest of the UK than it does with the EU, independence would be economic suicide because Scotland would be sacrificing “the UK single market” (a thing that doesn’t actually exist ) for a much smaller one.

wto

It’s a completely idiotic position, but to be honest we didn’t do a very good job of boiling the counter-argument down to something snappy and quoteable, so let’s have another go and see if we can manage something a little better.

Read the rest of this entry →

With their bombs and their guns 282

Posted on January 23, 2017 by

We followed with interest an exchange over the weekend between Times columnist Kenny Farquharson and the anti-Brexit QC Jolyon Maugham, regarding the difference between the UK government’s insistence that there won’t be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland because of the UK leaving the EU, and its continued insistence that there WOULD have to be one between the rUK and an independent Scotland, despite the legal circumstances being indistinguishable.

Farquharson, who like much of the Scottish political commentariat clings doggedly to the implausible dream of a “federal” UK, was adamant that the rules would – and indeed that they should – be different for the two ostensibly identical situations, and his given reason was a deeply disturbing one.

kfni1

Kenny, it seems, thinks Scottish nationalists should do a lot more murdering.

Read the rest of this entry →

The next pages of the script 203

Posted on January 20, 2017 by

It’s morning in America, readers.

booth0

Judge Dredd: Origins was published in 2007, although in fact the basic story of how Bad Bob Booth became the last President of the USA and what he did next was established right back at the 1970s beginnings of Dredd’s parent comic 2000AD.

We actually have a theory that it’s all the Lib Dems’ fault.

Read the rest of this entry →

  • About

    Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.

    Stats: 6,986 Posts, 1,252,385 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • sarah on There May Be Justice: “@ sam at 8.18. GlobalScot sounds a great organisation. You are right – the Scottish diaspora will help. Every Canadian…” Oct 8, 22:29
    • sam on There May Be Justice: “The Scots diaspora is likely to be a big help to a newly independent Scotland just as the Irish diaspora…” Oct 8, 20:18
    • Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: ““everything that happens in a colony is due to colonialism” I’m starting to come around to your way of thinking,…” Oct 8, 19:07
    • Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: ““the North Sea no longer has any oil that is economic to produce” It’s a fact not widely understood that…” Oct 8, 18:54
    • Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: ““you vote the useless shower out. We simply can’t do that to Westminster, the more alert of you may have…” Oct 8, 18:39
    • factchecker on There May Be Justice: “Fair comment, I think, Rob I can only see one way – vote the SNP out. Abstaining/spoiling a ballot paper…” Oct 8, 18:24
    • Alf Baird on There May Be Justice: ““You grab independence so you have all the levers to make things better” Indeed so. A colonized people have no…” Oct 8, 18:12
    • am firinn on There May Be Justice: “Sarah is right. The idea that you have to set up a perfect administration before you thrown off the shackles…” Oct 8, 17:44
    • Rob on There May Be Justice: “You would trust the current mob in any way at all, I think they make even Westminster look good and…” Oct 8, 17:40
    • Alan Austin on There May Be Justice: “The mines closed because the coal was not economic against oil so the miners lost thier jobs due to economics.…” Oct 8, 17:17
    • Aidan on The Love Of Big Brother: “@“James” – if you want some peace and quiet why don’t you log off the library computer and go and…” Oct 8, 16:50
    • factchecker on There May Be Justice: “sarah says: 8 October, 2026 at 2:44 pm Stay in the false union until we find better local administration? What…” Oct 8, 16:33
    • Aidan on There May Be Justice: “If you listen to Sam, insider, one of them could be our very own Alf Baird!” Oct 8, 15:58
    • Onlooker on There May Be Justice: “Thank you.” Oct 8, 15:48
    • Insider on There May Be Justice: “o.k. sarah! Spill the beans! Who are these honest,trustworthy,capable,inspiring leaders who will magically appear if Scotland becomes independent ? Where…” Oct 8, 15:12
    • sarah on There May Be Justice: “Stay in the false union until we find better local administration? What a very strange position to take.” Oct 8, 14:44
    • Aidan on There May Be Justice: “There are only two countries in the world with double or more GDP than the U.K. – USA 7.7x and…” Oct 8, 14:10
    • sam on There May Be Justice: “Source is BBC and UK government “England’s surface waters face significant chemical pollution challenges, with legacy substances like heavy metals…” Oct 8, 13:38
    • Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: “Exactly, Rob. We’ve had a number of examples since 2014 when it’s the WM government and the UK Supreme Court…” Oct 8, 13:06
    • Rob on There May Be Justice: “So we have two bad governors, one in Westminster and one in Holyrood. Removing Westminster, which on balance does less…” Oct 8, 12:40
    • Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: ““Things are even worse across the Channel” There’s the usual tensions between the “yoof” and the wealthy wrinklies. The French…” Oct 8, 11:44
    • Captain Caveman on There May Be Justice: “Ever heard of the expression “non sequitur?” Small NW European nations prosper (relatively) because of high productivity, low population density,…” Oct 8, 11:35
    • Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: ““The obvious lesson is that colonized Scots need to ditch Anglo imperial rule here asap” Sadly, just saying “we’re colonised”…” Oct 8, 11:33
    • Alf Baird on There May Be Justice: “You Britnats dinna appear tae notice how its the larger former imperial countries that are aye in financial freefall and…” Oct 8, 10:54
    • James on The Love Of Big Brother: “Aw, Adrian, petal; put a sock in it gie’s a’ some peace.” Oct 8, 10:37
    • Aidan on The Love Of Big Brother: “James – imagine being a grown adult man and writing something like that in response to losing an argument. Juvenile…” Oct 8, 10:20
    • Captain Caveman on There May Be Justice: “To be fair to Confused, he’s right about the water privitisation shitshow and its aftermath, as yet unconcluded.” Oct 8, 09:51
    • Captain Caveman on There May Be Justice: “It’s hard to know where all this is going to end – but end it most certainly will, sadly. “We”…” Oct 8, 09:50
    • gm on There May Be Justice: “Summed up well, Confused.” Oct 8, 09:06
    • Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: ““In the year to March 2026, central government spent nearly £100bn on debt interest alone, nearly 80% per cent of…” Oct 8, 08:20
  • A tall tale



↑ Top