A casual observer might perhaps wonder if JK Rowling, no longer writing books about wizards for children, simply wants to be noticed.
Twice in the space of a few weeks she’s appeared on newspaper front pages bleating piously about the terrible hordes of cyber- and other-nats. Yesterday the Independent, Telegraph, Scotsman, Herald, Daily Record and more all ran dismal, whiny pieces about her (entirely evidence-free) claims that the SNP was infested with mad, bitter Anglophobes just waiting for a signal to invade Derby again or something.
No particular barrage of abuse appears to have been unleashed upon the former author to provoke the outburst, but seemingly for a lack of anything better to do with her time she had a good old moan anyway and the press lapped it up.
And the reason it’s all so very tedious is that the papers might as well run stories claiming that there’s a chance of rain tomorrow.
Yesterday we highlighted a quote from Labour MP Kate Hoey about how the party secretly expects their next leader, whoever it is, to be in opposition for the next 10 years, meaning the UK will have a Conservative-led government for at least 15 years. Kate Hoey is on the Labour fringes, but today one of the front-runners for the leadership job proved her right.
Michelle Mone, the titular head of a loss-making underwear company mostly owned by a shady Sri Lankan business group, who’s spent much of the last eight years trying to blackmail Scots by threatening to punish them with hundreds of job losses if they don’t vote the way she tells them to, has a 1400-word whine/house advert in the MoS today about how beastly cybernats have forced her to finally move to England.
Who wants to be the one to break it to her that they have Twitter in England too?
Many of you won’t have seen this quite extraordinary performance from the Guardian’s assistant editor Michael White on last night’s Scotland Tonight, and you really should.
“Just go on the radio, play it all with a dead bat, fob them off with some bland waffle and kill the story”, the Lib Dems will have said to Sir Malcolm Bruce this morning.
The general election 2015 has rounded the last bend and is heading down the final straight, with no clear winner in sight. Four days from now the UK electorate will go to the polls and deliver, if the numbers are to be believed, an unholy mess. Only one part of the country seems to know with clarity what it wants, and that’s “not Labour”.
The North British branch of the party has in truth been a political Easter egg for years – big and impressive-looking on the outside, but entirely hollow within – and this year it looks like the voters are finally going to shatter the shell and leave nothing but a small heap of fragments revealing just how little chocolate was ever there.
And the realisation has sent Labour completely out of its mind.
At today’s First Minister’s Questions, the Scottish Labour deputy leader Kezia Dugdale launched into an ill-advised attack over an SNP candidate who’d made some foolish (but not especially outrageous) comments on Twitter in 2012. Rather than simply issuing the standard generic condemnation of abusive remarks, Nicola Sturgeon did so but also drew Dugdale’s attention to the beam in her own eye.
Labour activist, blogger, lawyer and regular BBC pundit Ian Smart (he hasn’t been seen on STV since accusing them repeatedly, without any evidence, of letting the SNP pre-approve all interview questions some time ago) is well known to readers of this blog. Bizarrely, however, Dugdale feigned ignorance of his activity.
To help her, we’ve compiled some of Mr Smart’s greatest hits.
sarah on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “As ever, Northcode, this is the sad truth. I cannot for the life of me understand how any Scot would…” Jan 12, 13:09
Northcode on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Time for a reminder: In braw rich Scots leid: Ther scarce be a wird pit doun here fae colonialists (unyonists…” Jan 12, 12:34
Northcode on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “It’s hardly worth the effort, but let’s gie it juist wan mair try, eh? Defintion of the Scots word Plummet…” Jan 12, 12:23
DaveL on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “What? You don’t like my suggestion? What’s wrong with you? Go on tell us about Stepan Bandera then…” Jan 12, 12:06
James Cheyne on The shifting sands of memory: “There was always a reason why I chased and persued the treaty of union relentlessly, Perhaps a few more people…” Jan 12, 12:01
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “@DaveL Why don’t you practise swinging your keyboard at arms length. Firmly grip your keyboard on the short side, really…” Jan 12, 11:55
James Cheyne on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “And this is where it becomes very complicated for the Snp and the devolved governance. They either trust they are…” Jan 12, 11:49
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “@ Northcode says: 12 January, 2026 at 10:33 am “plomet (Wyclif), -ette (Caxton), plommet (1483), plummet(te (1494), ball of lead…” Jan 12, 11:45
DaveL on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Hatey, you could get the UK government to invite some of your Azov Brigade pals (the UK government loves them…” Jan 12, 11:42
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “@ Alf Baird says: 12 January, 2026 at 11:06 am “Scots language speakers, aboot twa million o us still” I’ll…” Jan 12, 11:34
James Cheyne on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Sarah, It will come to many eventually that they will have to make a decision on wether the treaty of…” Jan 12, 11:23
Alf Baird on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “The reason the Scots language is of central importance to the matter of independence is because it is primarily the…” Jan 12, 11:06
Willie on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Just finished listening to the live stream of the court of session proceedings in the case of the proceeding relating…” Jan 12, 10:52
Northcode on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Scottish National Dictionary (pre 1700) PLUM(M)ET, -at, n. Also: plwm(m)-, plumb-, plomand -ett, -it. Only Sc.: The pommel or knob…” Jan 12, 10:33
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “@ Northcode says:11 January, 2026 at 10:43 pm “‘plummet’ means something other in the language of the Scots than your…” Jan 12, 09:56
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “An article about Homeless Project Scotland: https://unherd.com/2026/01/scotlands-rebel-homeless-shelter/” Jan 12, 09:45
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““disna bather lairnin ony o his host fowk’s languages, neither Scots nor Gaelic” Whoops! Correction required. “disna bather lairnin ony…” Jan 12, 09:22
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Great news, sarah. Personally, I can’t wait until it becomes legal to march through Scotland’s streets, chanting about “rivers” and…” Jan 12, 09:14
Cynicus on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““I might also take the opportunity to draw attention to a recent quality illustrated book investigating the Gaelic and Welsh…” Jan 12, 02:42
Cynicus on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““there’s an oven ready and legitimate Stuart pretender Franz, Duke of Bavaria” ========== Be careful! The Crown Prince, Francis of…” Jan 12, 02:18
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Northcode writes « Tho if a culture had the nature of a coloniser aboot it… then a wid hae nae…” Jan 12, 01:20
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Alf writes: « The point, which you appear to have missed, is that our friend wha comes here tae bide…” Jan 12, 00:59
Alf Baird on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““plummeting” The point, which you appear to have missed, is that our friend wha comes here tae bide notes he…” Jan 11, 23:49
Northcode on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““You’re plummeting, Alf.” Only in your eyes, Gael. And only because Professor Baird challenges your false narrative on the importance…” Jan 11, 22:43
Northcode on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Dinna be daft, Alf. Us Scots fowk be ane o the wrechit o the Earth… ye micht as weel expect…” Jan 11, 21:53
sarah on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “www.scotcourts.gov.uk/livestream/ – to watch tomorrow Monday 12th Jan from 09.30 the Court of Session case of Craig Murray applying for…” Jan 11, 21:50
Tinto Chiel on Off-topic: ““So where is Scotland’s Atom Bomb moment?” At this rate, any century now. The British Brainwashing Corporation and MSM generally…” Jan 11, 21:23
Alf Baird on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““I speak and read three forms of Arabic plus Syriac, French, English, some German, Spanish, Hebrew, Farsi and Turkish and…” Jan 11, 18:30
