Scottish Greens candidate and transactivist Matt “Ellie” Gomersall, with whom Wings readers will be familiar, appeared on the Jeremy Vine show today and blundered straight into an elephant trap a myopic mole could have seen coming on a foggy night.
Having just embarked on a diatribe in which he dismissed as “ridiculous” the idea that predatory men would ever pretend to be transwomen to gain access to vulnerable women, Vine asked him about Adam “Isla Bryson” Graham, the convicted double rapist that even hapless Humza Yousaf felt able to confidently assert was “at it”.
Having just painted himself into a corner, Gomersall was then embarrassingly unable to disown Bryson as a “real” transwoman, thereby implicitly admitting that transwomen do indeed present a danger to women in exactly the same way that predatory men do, and torpedoing his entire core point that it was unfair to “discriminate” against them in exactly the same way single-sex spaces discriminate against non-trans men.
(Outrageously, earlier in the speech he’d tried to claim that it was only natural that some transwomen would be sex offenders because some biological women were.)
It’s tempting to believe that Gomersall was demonstrating an intellectual vacuum by making such vacuously cretinous arguments and failing to spot even the most obvious pitfalls in them, but the truth is far worse. Gomersall, and people like him, know that they’re lying (which is why they always try to silence opponents), but they lack the moral courage to face up to the fact that the inevitable price of their lies is vulnerable women being raped by what he revoltingly waves away as “fringe cases”.
All rapists are fringe cases. 95% of men would never dream of raping anyone. But we discriminate against ALL men in women’s spaces because you can’t tell which ones are rapists by looking. Men like “Ellie” Gomersall, though, think that the price of a few women being raped is worth paying to validate their delusions and fetishes (in his case, the creepy fetish of skinwalking as his pretty sister), and they don’t even have the shred of decency to bother coming up with a coherent line of bullshit to cover it.
It’s one of the most profoundly disappointing things about the last decade of Scottish politics that for about five minutes in 2015 we all thought that this awful dunderheaded foghorn was a bright new hope for the future.
In April 2021, the SNP were still the undisputed masters of all they surveyed. A poll conducted by Ipsos MORI that month showed them on 53% of the vote for the Scottish Parliament, a jawdropping 33 points ahead of their nearest rivals.
When the Holyrood election a month later was held, they won 64 seats, one more than they had done in 2016. Yet despite having led a minority government without any significant difficulties for the preceding five years, Nicola Sturgeon chose to invite the Greens to form a coalition with her party, and the effect that had on the public’s view of the government was… well, let’s see.
The difficulty is that any minute now, someone is going to ask the beleaguered First Minister the staggeringly obvious question that arises from the fact, namely:
This is the SNP’s latest messaging. Ministers, MSPs, payroll drones and the central party account were all tweeting the graphic and variations on the line yesterday.
And it’s quite difficult even just to count the number of different ways in which it’s not just mind-bogglingly offensive, but also clatteringly, jaw-droppingly stupid.
The wild thing about this poll isn’t the headline that six months after winning a massive landslide majority, Keir Starmer now trails Nigel Farage – leader of a party with five MPs to Starmer’s 411 – as the electorate’s choice for best Prime Minister.
It’s the little grey numbers sitting quietly at the bottom.
Nobody really answered the question in this article from a few days ago. A few of the dimmer bulbs in the indy movement have been getting over-excited at what are still currently a couple of outlier polls from fringe polling companies, which suggest that the 2026 election could unexpectedly return a pro-indy majority due to the Unionist vote being split four ways in the wake of UK Labour’s implosion in government.
That scenario depends on all sorts of dubious propositions, but in any event what none of them have addressed is what that would change even if it did happen, given that Holyrood has a pro-indy majority RIGHT NOW (and has done so on every single day since the indyref more than a decade ago) and it’s produced nothing whatsoever in terms of movement towards independence by any possible measure.
And it occurred to us that we had genuinely no idea what the SNP’s current official indy strategy is, because the party’s been in such farcical chaos and turmoil ever since Nicola Sturgeon’s sudden resignation. So we thought we should go and check.
To be honest, we’re not much the wiser for having read it.
Look, we know that mocking front pages on The National is low-hanging fruit, and this particular example could hardly be any more of a self-parody if it tried.
But just for the sheer mental exercise in that stone-dead last week of December when nobody even knows what day it is, let’s imagine if it came true.
James on Response Level Upgrade: “Adrian got it half right for once. The first half, obvs; you’re right; I couldn’t give a flying fuck about…” Jun 18, 22:52
sam on Response Level Upgrade: “Was he not already king of Scotland, therefore crowned here, before he was offered and took crown of England?” Jun 18, 20:35
Aidan on Response Level Upgrade: “Well that’s good news on this lovely summer evening, let’s all open a beer to celebrate.” Jun 18, 20:00
Aidan on Response Level Upgrade: ““James” Rather than expressing completely ingenuine and totally unnecessary concern for me, why don’t you address your own enormous and…” Jun 18, 19:54
James Che on Response Level Upgrade: “The Westminster parliament for England and annexed Wales was a little bit too anxious to capture Scotland and rushed it…” Jun 18, 19:18
James Che on Response Level Upgrade: “Sam, Correct me if I am wrong, Was king James coronated or crowned in Scotland or did he self declare…” Jun 18, 19:01
James Che on Response Level Upgrade: “It is a devolved parliament in to Scotland that serves two masters,” Jun 18, 18:40
James Che on Response Level Upgrade: “The old Scottish parliament was adjourned under Sine Die in Scotland on 25th March 1707, The monarch of England under…” Jun 18, 18:30
James Che on Response Level Upgrade: “Sam, And the rest of Scotlands land and sea was taken under the posed question that the parliament for England…” Jun 18, 18:10
James Che on Response Level Upgrade: “100% yes. If the treaty of union were real, then article XV11 for the subjects of Scotland would provide Scotlands…” Jun 18, 18:02
100%Yes on Response Level Upgrade: “In The Rag “John Swinney refuses to halt AI data centres amid ‘free-for-all'” it amazes me how anyone can read…” Jun 18, 17:12
agentx on Response Level Upgrade: “Good luck to Scotland (women) tonight.” Jun 18, 17:06
Captain Caveman on Response Level Upgrade: “Awww, bless! Much wailing and gnashing of teeth I see; GOOD! 🙂 Zero self awareness as per; we’re back to…” Jun 18, 16:10
Aidan on Response Level Upgrade: “Well, I think you must have done quite a lot of reading to identify the writing that involves “rage”,anger, “bitterness”…” Jun 18, 16:09
Northcode on Response Level Upgrade: “I’ve been thinking – an activity alien to colonialists – and I’ve arrived at this… “The name of the thing…” Jun 18, 15:59
sam on Response Level Upgrade: “Well, I think you must have done quite a lot of reading to identify the writing that involves “rage”,anger, “bitterness”…” Jun 18, 15:54
Young Lochinvar on Response Level Upgrade: “BREAKING! Harry “top of the morning” Kane has tried to defend his Riverdance approach to kicking penalties on the fair…” Jun 18, 15:46
Mark Beggan on Response Level Upgrade: “You are a busy bee Sam. Ever considered getting a job?” Jun 18, 15:45
sam on Response Level Upgrade: “https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/?p=84849 “Last month (year 2020) Andrew Mackillop and I published a report disclosing connections between landownership in the west Highlands…” Jun 18, 15:40
Tinto Chiel on Response Level Upgrade: “@ diabloandco: yes, I don’t know what would have appalled Jimmy Reid more, the grifting, mediocre and unprincipled politicians of…” Jun 18, 15:39
Mark Beggan on Response Level Upgrade: “Stop hiding behind a fake name or we will have to call you Karen.” Jun 18, 15:38
Aidan on Response Level Upgrade: “I don’t generally read your posts ”Confused”, I doubt many people do. The maelstrom of anger, rage, bitterness and hatred…” Jun 18, 15:32
Young Lochinvar on Response Level Upgrade: “CC Hahahaha “Cry me a river” Slaphead “old boy”.. 🙂” Jun 18, 15:22
Northcode on Response Level Upgrade: ““Oh do fuck off, you thick fat twat…” “Yeah, but that’s enough about your porcine dietary habits.” “Another day, another…” Jun 18, 15:22
Mark Beggan on Response Level Upgrade: “The Leftys are having a meltdown. Wonder what could have caused that? I think we need to start calling them…” Jun 18, 15:15
Young Lochinvar on Response Level Upgrade: “NC Never mind, Susannah Reid made a non-apology the other day for decrying Scots as drunken sots needing a bank…” Jun 18, 15:11