The SNP love to indignantly tell everyone how healthy the party’s finances are these days, especially in response to impertinent queries about the infamous “ring-fenced” £600,000 for a second indyref that everyone now knows isn’t going to happen.
Word reaches us, readers, that Nicola Sturgeon was “furious” when she joined the most recent meeting of the SNP’s Westminster group by Skype. Her rage was driven by the suggestion that the party should trigger a Holyrood election to act as a de facto independence referendum, a policy we’re reliably told is supported by a number of MPs who are too scared of being browbeaten by Sturgeon in front of their colleagues to actually speak out in favour of it.
(We won’t mention their names at this point.)
Our source mentioned to us that they seemed to remember an interview in which the First Minister had revealed a possible reason for her extreme antipathy to the idea – one for the BBC’s extensive and rather good three-part documentary “Yes/No – Inside The Indyref”, which was broadcast in August 2019 and never seen again.
It’s not available on iPlayer or YouTube, but fortunately we happened to still have the show recorded on our Sky+ box, so we went to check, and lo and behold our source’s recollection was correct. Apologies for the slightly wonky quality of this video, as we had to record it off the TV screen.
It’s nice to see the British media (and perhaps, if we might be allowed to dream for a moment, the law) catching up with Michelle Mone.
It’s such a shame nobody did any proper investigative journalism into what a crooked, venal chancer she is before now – seven years ago or even four years ago, say – or the country might have been saved a few billion quid. Ah well, you live and learn, eh?
For anyone with the slightest remaining grip on their critical faculties, the cat was truly let out of the bag on the day of the First Minister’s infamous “broom cupboard” video last January, in which she abjectly grovelled at the feet of a tiny handful of adolescent transactivists who’d left the party in a loud and choreographed public tantrum because it still hadn’t burned Joanna Cherry at the stake for believing in human biology.
One of those she was abasing herself to that day was the repulsive and now mercifully deceased drug dealer and abusive racist misogynist Leeze Lawrence (above, left), but he was only the tip of a filthy iceberg.
We were sent something disturbing recently. It’s from a training course civil servants are being sent on by the Scottish Government.
As you can see, one of the sites that staff are directed to is something called The Trans Language Primer. We thought you should see some of its content.
For many years now, whenever I’ve done one of those “Which Political Party Should You Be In?” online quiz things, it always says that I’m a Green, which is weird because I really hate cyclists. Nevertheless, it was still the result when I did one most recently, just last month.
So I decided that for the first time in my life it was finally time to join a political party.
Craig Murray, a former ambassador to Uzbekistan, the father of a newborn child, a man in very poor health and one who has no prior convictions, handed himself over to the Scottish police last Sunday morning. He becomes the first person ever to be imprisoned on the obscure and vaguely defined charge of “jigsaw identification”.
Murray is also the first person to be jailed in Britain for contempt of court for their journalism in half a century – a period when such different legal and moral values prevailed that the British establishment had only just ended the prosecution of “homosexuals” and the jailing of women for having abortions.
Hi lads. This website has, we’d be the first to admit, made some pretty strong criticisms of you fellas in the last week or two, but we’re pleased to note that you finally HAVE actually manned up and released your “minifesto” tonight.
We’ll let readers judge it for themselves, but we do have one question.
Fresh from being embarrassed over a ridiculous smear story this week about someone complaining to the police about the use of a well-known political phrase by a Wings commenter, Tom Gordon of the Herald went on quite the attack yesterday.
The thread, which contains a number of basic factual errors about events*, continued for several more tweets all generally rubbishing our scoop from Friday afternoon and suggesting that no proper journalist (“the rest of us”) would have run the story.
So he must be feeling quite left out this morning.
Alert readers will know that for the past 15 months Wings has been investigating the apparent disappearance of almost £600,000 raised from supporters of independence (not just SNP voters) by the SNP in two fundraising campaigns in 2017 and 2019.
The money was supposedly to be “ring-fenced” for spending ONLY in a future indyref, and the party gave explicit and hotly-stated guarantees at the time of the first appeal that the money would definitely NOT be spent on party business.
But when the party’s 2019 accounts were published they showed that the SNP had less than £100,000 in the bank at the end of that year, and total net assets of less than £272,000. The £600,000 from the fundraisers was nowhere to be found, and the then-party treasurer’s feeble insistence that it was “woven through” the accounts in some unspecified way satisfied only the most gullible.
This week Wings Over Scotland has been told that the matter is now officially under investigation by the police.
100%Yes on A Long Hard Think: “Nicola is being protected why? Because she saved the union, so what John Swinney’s roll in all of this? He’s…” Sep 11, 16:48
agentx on A Long Hard Think: ““if she was half way decent she’d want to divest herself of everything possibly tainted by Murrell’s crimes.” ——————————————– I…” Sep 11, 16:47
gm on A Long Hard Think: “Did the polis recover any of that?” Sep 11, 16:44
100%Yes on A Long Hard Think: “So in the Swagg bag you’ll find SNP, Crown office, Police Scotland, UKG, SG all working hand in hand. She…” Sep 11, 16:38
Hatey McHateface on A Long Hard Think: ““not at all clear whether the laws of Scotland apply to Sturgeon” Don’t tell me you’re losing it, Stu. Seems…” Sep 11, 16:38
GM on A Long Hard Think: “That still leaves 400k worth of stuff that the police are required by law to recover.” Sep 11, 16:35
agentx on A Long Hard Think: “When linked to the postponement of Murrell’s proceeds of crime action to December, absolutely everything about this long term investigation…” Sep 11, 16:35
Hatey McHateface on A Long Hard Think: “She must love the Venus razors too. Surely nobody’s believing Murrell bought them for his own use?” Sep 11, 16:33
MP on A Long Hard Think: “Just re-looked – funny how they have no information as to their own intention to follow the goods up or…” Sep 11, 16:33
MP on A Long Hard Think: “Remember how £70k odd of stuff was taken off the indictment before Pete Murrell pleaded. There is still a whole…” Sep 11, 16:28
J Robertson on A Long Hard Think: “Wouldn’t the reaction of most right minded individuals in this situation be to find the items tainted and want to…” Sep 11, 16:27
Edward McPhee on A Long Hard Think: “Murrell had lent money to the SNP to help their cash flow position and the items purchased for his wife…” Sep 11, 16:26
Captain Caveman on Anything But That: ““Which do you think is likely to give an accurate picture?” Hmm, well, since you pose the question, Sam, let’s…” Sep 11, 16:25
David L. on A Long Hard Think: ““If you require any FURTHER assistance…”?!?” Sep 11, 16:22
Andrew scott on A Long Hard Think: “I did not think I lived in North Korea but it seems i do” Sep 11, 16:10
Knuckle_Heid on A Long Hard Think: “So Police Scotland took years painstakingly recording what money was spent to buy what items – it is their duty…” Sep 11, 16:01
Ian on A Long Hard Think: “I would pretend to be surprised, but I can’t even bother with that nowadays. I bet they haven’t responded to…” Sep 11, 15:54
Andrea on A Long Hard Think: “I am sure the answer is no, but has there been a follow up on the he latest letter from…” Sep 11, 15:48
Cynicus on Anything But That: ““Just how many times have hearings been postponed,..?” ====== The number of The Beast?” Sep 11, 15:23
agentx on Anything But That: “Murrell “The proceeds of crime action against him was set to call on Monday, September 14. But a high court…” Sep 11, 14:26
sarah on Anything But That: “@ 100%Yes:TASP hasn’t attached the video, so far as I can tell. Have you managed to find it somewhere else?” Sep 11, 14:18
sarah on Anything But That: “@ Fearghas M: one has to ask why isn’t the Scottish executive following the example of Wales in requiring all…” Sep 11, 14:14
sam on Anything But That: “Keep up at the back. “stop interpreting a man’s words we CAN ALL READ FOR OURSELVES” Northcode was doing a…” Sep 11, 13:48
Alf Baird on Anything But That: “Once you begin considering our nation through a perspective of colonialism everything starts to make a lot more sense: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYXR4s8RavE” Sep 11, 13:45
Insider on Anything But That: “100%Yes says: 11 September, 2026 at 10:45 am “I like listening to Alf Baird and to be honest I could…” Sep 11, 12:36
sam on Anything But That: “It was hostile. The Aliens Act used to get the Commissioners to sign up to negotiate the deal threatened about…” Sep 11, 12:20
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “One point where I have to agree with Confused. Trump could declare Scotland Independent. I seriously wonder why SALVO isn’t…” Sep 11, 12:11
Alf Baird on Anything But That: “Yes indeed, colonial denial is soon enough forced to shift to such desperate denials as Cesaire’s ‘the moon is made…” Sep 11, 12:01
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Come oaf it Confused. You’d fight tooth and nail against any policy that attempted to make the UK, or Scotland…” Sep 11, 11:55
Captain Caveman on Anything But That: ““Stop interpreting a man’s words by reading” Yeah, perish the thought eh. Idiot.” Sep 11, 11:26