And as a rule we don’t bother addressing them because they’re so demented you could spend 5,000 words pulling apart all the individual strands of lunacy every time, and lunatics thrive on attention, but this one does merit a very brief comment.
Because “Vote Labour, get indy” wasn’t our plan. It was John Swinney’s.
Even by the embarrassing standards of The National, the gulf between this morning’s blaring front-page splash and the weak, watery weasel words in the actual article is a chasm so wide and so yawning (in every sense of that word) that it would put the epic planetary scar of Mars’ Valles Marineris to shame.
Coupled with a feebly underwhelming Programme For Government (in which the main policy was the re-abolition of peak rail fares just months after the SNP insisted such a move was unaffordable, with no clue as to where the money had suddenly been found) and a pitiful list of candidates for next year’s Holyrood election featuring the likes of Sally “all aboard the gravy bus!” Donald, Kaukab “DECAPITATE TERFS” Stewart, Kirsten “DECAPITATE TERFS” Oswald, Alison “DECAPITATE TERFS” Thewliss and Alyn “throw anyone who doesn’t want to DECAPITATE TERFS out of the SNP” Smith, the story was an abject vision of a bleak future for independence.
The less said about the Scottish Government’s toe-curlingly embarrassing “summit” last week, the sooner we can all pretend it never happened. We’ve got little to add to the withering assessments of Robin McAlpine and Kevin McKenna and just about everyone else who’s bothered covering this pathetic waste of everyone involved’s time. (Not that the time of most of these useless quangocrats was worth anything anyway.)
We take a moment only to note something remarkable: the closest Scottish Labour’s hapless branch manager Anas Sarwar has ever come to understanding anything.
Yesterday the Scottish media gave Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman what she’s never willingly given anyone else – a platform on which to make her case.
Most did a very poor job challenging her on her outrageous comments about the Supreme Court, with BBC Radio Scotland’s Drivetime show being an especially wretched example of allowing the interviewee to ignore every question and then just ramble on endlessly about something else entirely, but LBC’s Gina Davidson was on top of her brief and put all the points that reasonable people wanted to be made, while giving Chapman ample time to answer uninterrupted.
Let’s break down how that went, with the help of our handy Bullshit Buzzer.
At the weekend, Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman was filmed applauding as a notoriously unhinged transactivist ranted through a megaphone to a small and almost exclusively male crowd of protestors about how he was going to openly break the law by continuing to use women’s public toilets, and addressing JK Rowling with the words “We should all take a shite on you, you heinous creeping old bitch”.
At another protest, Chapman herself asserted that the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling on the correct interpretation of the Equality Act 2010 was motivated by not by a solemn consideration of the law or by the arguments of counsel who appeared before it, but by “bigotry, prejudice and hatred”.
Chapman is – incredibly – Deputy Convener of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament, and as such her comments sparked a storm of wholly justified outrage over her flagrant breach not only of Parliamentary rules but also of the law – specifically the Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act 2008, which requires all MSPs to uphold the independence of the judiciary.
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.
Mark Beggan on A Long Hard Think: “To think, out of all the very clever people on here no one thought to point to the most obvious.…” Sep 13, 14:16
Captain Caveman on A Long Hard Think: ““That we are treated similarly to a colony is, I think, indisputable” “indisputable”? I beg to differ. As Northcode rightly…” Sep 13, 14:04
Ex President Xiden on A Long Hard Think: “If it is the case that Sturgeon has not surrendered these items voluntarily then the police must petition the court…” Sep 13, 13:54
Confused on A Long Hard Think: ““we never got it as bad as the darkies”? – alas, Scots and Anglos are the same shade of pink…” Sep 13, 13:51
Mark Beggan on A Long Hard Think: “And to think Scotland got taken to the cleaners for the price of a campervan and a few pens. How…” Sep 13, 13:51
lothianlad on A Long Hard Think: “Police Scotland are corrupt. Establishment lackies!” Sep 13, 13:37
Captain Caveman on A Long Hard Think: “That’s because it isn’t.” Sep 13, 13:31
Lorncal on A Long Hard Think: “Northcode: spot on. That we are treated similarly to a colony is, I think, indisputable, but that we ARE a…” Sep 13, 13:28
TURABDIN on A Long Hard Think: “IT IS A FACT that Scots/Scotland have become rather accustomed to the grave insult of being the mere appendage. >300…” Sep 13, 13:24
agentx on A Long Hard Think: ““Key Dimensions of Memmi’s “Geographic Violence” Forced Spatial Segregation (The Ghetto vs. The Bourgeoisie): Drawing heavily from his own upbringing…” Sep 13, 13:17
Alf Baird on A Long Hard Think: ““I’m questioning the fit between Scotland’s constitutional position and the postcolonial contexts described by Fanon, Memmi, Said, and other theorists”…” Sep 13, 12:41
robertkknight on A Long Hard Think: “FYI I don’t support any team other than Scotland. And when your ill-informed, self-opinionated drivel constitutes ~25% of every BTL…” Sep 13, 12:36
Chas on A Long Hard Think: “Scotland will get the chance to vote for Independence only when there is an overwhelming desire for it. A case…” Sep 13, 11:46
Alf Baird on A Long Hard Think: “Perhaps you should engage a little more with Scotland’s actual very lengthy history of conflict with our ‘procurer’, before and…” Sep 13, 11:29
Captain Caveman on A Long Hard Think: ““I’m questioning the fit between Scotland’s constitutional position and the postcolonial contexts described by Fanon, Memmi, Said, and other theorists.…” Sep 13, 11:00
Northcode on A Long Hard Think: “A personal reflection, a confession if you will, prompted by recent discussions about Scotland’s constitutional status. I supported Alf Baird’s…” Sep 13, 10:41
TURABDIN on A Long Hard Think: “@ SPARTAN & HATEY, Whatever the ethics of buying into political parties or doing deals à la trump with countries…” Sep 13, 10:09
Captain Caveman on A Long Hard Think: ““… but as long as we are ruled by Totalitarian Internationalist Communists we are stuffed, regardless of whether we become…” Sep 13, 10:01
Hatey McHateface on A Long Hard Think: “Whataboutery. But no need to fall out. I’ll STFU for £5k. Bank of England notes will do at a pinch.…” Sep 13, 09:33
BLMac on A Long Hard Think: “Is there no legal way to make the police do their duty? Some sort of injunction or such like?” Sep 13, 09:32
Spartan 117 on A Long Hard Think: “Scotland might indeed be “hoaching” with natural resources however the key thing Communists fail to understand is someone has to…” Sep 13, 09:28
Hatey McHateface on A Long Hard Think: “Some people try to bribe us with their money. Some politicians try to bribe us with our own money. I’m…” Sep 13, 09:27
Hatey McHateface on A Long Hard Think: “Potential FM material. Unless … Perhaps too white, white white.” Sep 13, 09:14
Spartan 117 on A Long Hard Think: “Not that I’m that interested, but the hysterical outpouring of seethe and permatantrum from the usual Communists over Reform’s donations…” Sep 13, 09:12
Hatey Mchateface on A Long Hard Think: “An interesting article on why leccy prices are going to continue to rise for the foreseeable future: https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2026/sep/13/mapped-150bn-megaproject-aims-to-protect-britain-from-energy-shocks Strap in,…” Sep 13, 09:10
TURABDIN on A Long Hard Think: “FOR SALE: ENGLAND…. a BARGAIN @ 72 million. includes also dependencies.” Sep 13, 08:59
Spartan 117 on A Long Hard Think: “Remember Cap’n Blackadder, pants on the head, pencils up the nose and reply to everything with “wibble”. There’s a good…” Sep 13, 08:54
Hatey McHateface on A Long Hard Think: “They’ll certainly fight you off. Interesting and educational to see you harbour the “traditional” Scottish Indy sentiment of cheering on…” Sep 13, 07:53
Hatey McHateface on A Long Hard Think: “Bob says: “Prick 1 and Prick 2” What a tired, pathetic, sterile approach to discourse. The “go to” policy of…” Sep 13, 07:35
