We must admit, we don’t quite get what the Daily Record is trying to achieve.
Having already told its dwindling band of readers that voting for both the SNP and Labour is the only way to stop Reform in today’s Hamilton by-election, for the last two days it’s deployed some random loony in a hard hat and the vegan former Rangers captain Graeme Souness to the same ostensible end.
Souness, famously a supporter of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives, tells Record readers today that they must vote Labour in order to prevent Thatcher’s right-wing heirs from winning the seat – even though Labour are dead, plucked, stuffed and cooked geese in the eyes of the bookmakers and voting for them only increases the chances of both Reform AND the SNP.
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.
Regular readers of Wings won’t need any reminding that Dani Garavelli of the Herald is, among some very stiff competition, one of the most contemptible pieces of nightsoil currently operating in the Scottish media.
But if you’re new here, we can give you a quick illustration.
If the sneering piety of that opening paragraph made you feel a little revolted, a bit angry and somewhat nauseous, then congratulations, because that means you’re still something minimally approximating to a decent human being. But unfortunately it gets a lot worse from there.
We’ll be honest, readers, we gasped out loud when we saw this.
That such a basic, fundamental truth of human existence should ever be front page news with the capacity to shock 100,000 years after we invented language is a sign of just how insane our world has become since 2015.
But magnificent as it is, it’s not even today’s BEST front cover.
We’re stuck indoors waiting for a repairman today, so we had a little read-around of some of the less popular Scottish politics blogs to pass the time, and noted this:
James Kelly of Scot Goes Pop, which we gather from its front page was seemingly one of the “Top 50 Left-Wing Blogs of 2011”, is noticeably insistent on making the argument that we’re “stalking” and “obsessed” with him.
The National carried a strange article yesterday, apropos of seemingly nothing, about a Brussels-based political thinktank supposedly linked to the right-wing Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban. The piece actually originated on superwoke “fact-checking” site The Ferret a couple of days earlier, and professed to expose how the thinktank was “stoking Scotland’s culture war”.
Alert readers will already have pricked up their ears at this point, because “culture war” is a radical-left dogwhistle term used to obscure, belittle and dismiss groups (largely though not exclusively comprising left-wing feminists) fighting for the safeguarding of children and the protection of women’s and LGB rights.
As more horrific experiences from survivors of rape torture gangs surface from across the UK, we must focus not on knee-jerk political posturing but on the root cause that led to the failure of these children by our society.
Political inaction has now opened the door to inevitable political mileage, nurtured from stoking vengeance in a rightly-angered public. Those only interested in creating cultural conflicts no more support justice for survivors than those who allowed this abomination to fester by looking away or worse, covering up the problem.
For any functioning society, inflicting unimaginable pain on children on an alarming scale seems unimaginable. Yet, the evidence has been in front of us for years – so why has immediate action to ensure the safeguarding of children – and vulnerable adults – not been a pressing priority?
DaveL on According As We Need Them: “‘…on the route to liberation, I reckon mime and interpretative dance are the only way to go.’ Can you explain…” Jul 15, 02:20
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Poetry is all very well if you’re into that sort of thing. But when it comes to illustrating the oppressed…” Jul 15, 00:17
Confused on According As We Need Them: “guy charged was an “aussie”, in a kilt; maybe done an ancestry.com and got told he was “connor macleod of…” Jul 14, 23:32
Confused on According As We Need Them: “I was never an inmate unlike yourself. Did we meet? – if they had held onto the asylums we could…” Jul 14, 23:20
Confused on According As We Need Them: “there was a young poster on wings cheap snarky disruption his thing agent x was his name the union his…” Jul 14, 23:18
Alf Baird on According As We Need Them: “Development of poetry in the native tongue forms a key part of the liberation process and in understanding the colonial…” Jul 14, 23:01
agent x on According As We Need Them: “@ James What in particular did you find Excellent?” Jul 14, 22:00
James on According As We Need Them: “Funny how the unionist rag describes the removal of the stone from a thief as ‘notorious’….” Jul 14, 21:48
Gribble on According As We Need Them: “On the subject of intimidation on the stump, the impression as often given that this is a worsening problem. But…” Jul 14, 21:39
Northcode on According As We Need Them: “Excellent article about a young Martinican psychiatrist’s time studying with the great Francesc Tosquelles at the Saint-Alban psychiatric asylum. Thanks…” Jul 14, 21:30
Breastplate on According As We Need Them: “John Main, You Unionists seem to routinely register your disapproval on the reliance of 300 year old documentation, but accept…” Jul 14, 20:43
agent x on According As We Need Them: “@ Northcode I notice there has been minimal, or maybe make that no support or encouragement for your poems on…” Jul 14, 20:15
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Just Good Friends: “In case you are unaware (and for comparison): WAR O THE WARLDS By H. G. Wells – Owerset intae NOR-EAST…” Jul 14, 20:11
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Enjoying your use of iambic quadrameter, NC. And your random departures from it too. If you’re taking requests, highlights from…” Jul 14, 19:49
Northcode on According As We Need Them: “I posted one of ma braw poems recently about the demon Nuckelavee being cawd up fae the depths o’ the…” Jul 14, 19:38
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: ““trying as usual to undermine anything about Scotland” You should read Rev Stu’s articles and not just jump straight to…” Jul 14, 18:06
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “In this heat you need to be eating salads.” Jul 14, 17:55
twathater on Just Good Friends: “Wow the yoonies are out in force trying as usual to undermine anything about Scotland ,they’re like wee yapping dugs…” Jul 14, 17:35
Dan on According As We Need Them: “In a bid to disrupt mental Main’s posting stream… Related to this article, there’s a fair few quid being spaffed…” Jul 14, 17:14
Mark Beggan on According As We Need Them: “The Gravy boat is just a woke away. Just a woke away Just a woke away Just a woke away.” Jul 14, 16:55
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: ““can a thief be robbed?” Now I’m confused, Confused. You have stated on here many times that when it comes…” Jul 14, 16:48
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: ““nothing of the colonizer’s is appropriate for the colonized” Stand out post from Professor Baird. Anybody with him on calling…” Jul 14, 16:20
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Nice try, NC, but easily discounted, as you have failed to provide any evidence for your assertion that Scotland’s high…” Jul 14, 16:01
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: ““Scotland as a Lunatic Asylum” When Confused writes on a subject so aligned with his own, lived experience, it behoves…” Jul 14, 15:51
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Another post from Confused enthusing over the idea of a bankrupt and socially fractured England just south of our unprotected…” Jul 14, 15:47
Confused on According As We Need Them: “mythology – when Edward 1 stole the stone of destiny it was to make himself legitimate, for a “true king”…” Jul 14, 15:21
James Cheyne on According As We Need Them: “Northcode. The trouble with ignorance is that it can, if left unfettered become an indoctrination of the mind. Even if…” Jul 14, 15:01
Insider on Just Good Friends: “James at 2:34 If you know “exactly what they mean” why do you misuse them ?” Jul 14, 14:58