As Twitter followers will have noticed, we’ve been busy this week with an extensive remodelling of Wings HQ, which involved the main computer being out of commission for several days while the office was basically torn down and rebuilt from scratch. (It seemed a good time to do it, given that there’s nothing remotely of interest happening in Scottish politics.)
Unfortunately the lack of activity on the site caused the comments on the last post to degenerate into the most wretched playground shrieking match, so let’s see if we can’t distract the children and talk about something else for a bit.
Particularly alert observers will have noted that Kezia Dugdale, the most spectacularly inept and unsuccessful Scottish political leader in history, this week demitted her role as Director of the John Smith Centre, which she was handed as an incentive to quit Scottish Labour after dragging it to 14% in the opinion polls.
We make no apology for returning once again to the depressing subject of the Scottish Government’s proposed new law to ban “conversion practices”, because it provides such an illuminating microcosm of how far a once competent and widely-respected administration has fallen since 2015.
Emma Roddick, who is piloting the bill towards the statute books in much the same way that Mohamed Atta piloted American Airlines Flight 11 towards the World Trade Centre, is a 26-year-old who by her own admission suffers from a serious and debilitating mental illness that any sane country would regard as an insurmountable bar to political office.
To the surprise of most of those watching, including ourselves, the Court Of Session delivered its judgement immediately at the end of today’s hearing, after only the most cursory of conflabs between the three august panel members.
The short version is that the Scottish Government lost, and must now comply with Wings reader Benjamin Harrop‘s FOI request regarding evidence that was supplied to independent adviser James Hamilton during his inquiry into the unlawful investigation of false allegations against Alex Salmond.
We were interested to read about this earlier this evening:
Not least because it was the first we’d heard about it. At the time of writing this post we’ve still had no communication from the Standards Commission to alert us to the judgement, which is frankly a bit of a poor show. We might file a complaint with the Standards Commission about it, depending on whether we can be bothered to wait another year and a quarter for the result.
We are of course pleased that the odious Cllr Joji has finally been formally censured for her obnoxious behaviour, but frankly she’s gotten off very lightly.
Cynicus on Response Level Upgrade: “SNP hold Arbroath SLab drop to 4th having run SNP close in 2024. “Starmer factor” seems to have benefited SNP…” Jun 19, 02:11
Cynicus on Response Level Upgrade: “SNP hold Arbroath and Broughty Ferry -with 41% of the vote. SLab down to 4th.” Jun 19, 01:59
Cynicus on Response Level Upgrade: “Tories have indeed won Aberdeen South Tories destroy SNP there with majority of c. 6000 votes Should they send their…” Jun 19, 01:52
Young Lochinvar on Response Level Upgrade: “Aidan Bad enough that it may have been so without you wishing it so and now crowing over it..” Jun 19, 01:31
Cynicus on Response Level Upgrade: “Tories tipped to win Aberdeen South. SNP source:”we have lost”” Jun 19, 01:15
Cynicus on Response Level Upgrade: “Tories tipped to win Aberdeen South. SNP siurce:”we have lost”” Jun 19, 01:15
Young Lochinvar on Response Level Upgrade: “Jimmy 6 of Scotland, held and tutored (mentally tortured?) by Protestant Lords and what I suppose you would call (English…” Jun 19, 01:04
Young Lochinvar on Response Level Upgrade: “CC My goodness! When you post all teary eyed and Unionist like this it’s difficult to read yer posts without…” Jun 19, 00:00
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