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?
To be honest, readers, the peculiar events of yesterday continued to nag at us all day as every news broadcaster in Scotland and beyond leapt eagerly on the ludicrous non-story from the Herald On Sunday’s front page. (It was even the #2 item on BBC Radio Wales, inexplicably).
For such an absolute nothingball of scurrilous sub-gossip to so dominate the entire news media was just too strange to ignore. We cannot remember the last time a low-grade freelancer managed to sell the same story to FOUR major Scottish newspapers – who normally, remember, only want exclusives for their big front-page splashes – let alone a crummy opinion columnist (not even an actual news reporter) who’s only been back in journalism for five minutes after a 15-year break as a failed PR guru.
(Once they’d all run the shoddy hatchet piece, TV and radio then had all the excuse they needed to blare it across the airwaves. “Oh, it’s not us inflating and amplifying this garbage, guv, we’re just reporting what the papers are saying.”)
So in our eternal quest for enlightenment and understanding we thought we’d see if we could find out a bit more about the little-known but recently-revived sleeper assassin with the ironic name: Carlos Alba.
James Cheyne on Too Tight To Mention: “Undemocratic elections, Rigged elections for Scots. They knew they should give the Scots a vote ‘they” had discussed it in…” Jul 10, 08:41
twathater on Too Tight To Mention: “It never ceases to amaze me how many fuckwits actually think they are in the same rich league as these…” Jul 10, 03:05
Young Lochinvar on Too Tight To Mention: “Wow! Did the paramedics get to you in time and are you alright? Would have sent you a posse of…” Jul 10, 02:06
Young Lochinvar on Too Tight To Mention: “That I believe would be the Celtic mythical Tuatha de Danann, the Celtic equivalent of the Gods of Mount Olympus.…” Jul 10, 01:48
Young Lochinvar on Too Tight To Mention: “Reply to Chas @ 8.26 Oi Chas Leave James alone! It’s me that goes fishing and frankly, it’s no-one here’s…” Jul 10, 01:38
Young Lochinvar on Too Tight To Mention: “Well that would be you P3nisbreath; posting about “sucking blokes off” (your post), shafting blokes between “spread bum cheeks” (your…” Jul 10, 01:13
Alf Baird on Too Tight To Mention: “Yes, worthless treaties simply used ‘to legalize colonialism’, at least in the eyes of an Imperial justice system. A hoax…” Jul 9, 22:59
Chas on Too Tight To Mention: “How’s the carp fishing going James?” Jul 9, 20:26
Xaracen on Too Tight To Mention: ““–the chair of C-24 is quoted in a Guardian article explicitly saying that C-24 cannot.” Irrelevant, Aidan, because it doesn’t…” Jul 9, 19:56
Captain Caveman on Too Tight To Mention: “I literally asked you to provide evidence for any single one of your dumbass, unsubstantiated assertions. That’s not a “rebuttal”…” Jul 9, 19:39
TURABDIN on Too Tight To Mention: “Treaties are worthless, not unlike cease fires. How many treaties did the imperialist British sign before annexing the other signatories…” Jul 9, 19:30
AndrewR on Too Tight To Mention: “Aidan She didn’t participate in acts of terrorism, and certainly not of treason (this was in Syria). This same murderous…” Jul 9, 19:26
Dan on Too Tight To Mention: “Ah, jist noticed this post by Aidan trying to diminish understanding of how much energy is exported from Scotland’s geographic…” Jul 9, 19:22
Aidan on Too Tight To Mention: “@Andrew – I suggest she had her life destroyed by the decision she took to join a murderous death cult…” Jul 9, 19:09
AndrewR on Too Tight To Mention: “Hatey – “… you expect me to feel sorry for the people who slaughter and abuse my country’s and my…” Jul 9, 18:29
James on Too Tight To Mention: “Sam – did the university poll a wide range from the UK? Scotland only would probably throw up different results?…” Jul 9, 18:17
James on Too Tight To Mention: “What, that was your rebuttal? Lol. You surely don’t think I’m wasting any of my time on any of that…” Jul 9, 18:11
agent x on Too Tight To Mention: ““Police preparing for Donald Trump to visit Scotland The Scottish government said it was working with the UK government to…” Jul 9, 17:49
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Too Tight To Mention: “See following Wings over Scotland article ‘Death from above’ (March 13, 2012). Stu writes: « We have a paid subscription…” Jul 9, 17:48
Hatey McHateface on Too Tight To Mention: “Midgies tae. When oor junkies and jakies start being stealed an a’, we’ll ken we’re in the end game.” Jul 9, 17:45
Hatey McHateface on Too Tight To Mention: “@AndrewR Sorry, but when it come to that kind of people, being heartless is the only language they understand. We’ve…” Jul 9, 17:42
James Cheyne on Too Tight To Mention: “Captain caveman, 12:04 pm. Actually the programme I am watching is How to Save England, -. The word England being…” Jul 9, 17:03
Hatey McHateface on Too Tight To Mention: “Does any left of centre politician care about the young people born in the UK, sam? Much of the evidence…” Jul 9, 16:48
Hatey McHateface on Too Tight To Mention: “Sae true, NC, the scribblin is oan the wa. In fact, it’s only going to be (checks notes) 4-5 years…” Jul 9, 16:40
sam on Too Tight To Mention: “When you don’t know what you think you know. Cambridge Journal of Economics Cover Image for Volume 44, Issue 2…” Jul 9, 16:36
Aidan on Too Tight To Mention: “I’ve just run a couple of searches on ChatGPT for for similar search criteria. Which is helpful and revealing because…” Jul 9, 16:32
sam on Too Tight To Mention: “Not many people agree with you. https://www.derby.ac.uk/blog/margaret-thatchers-legacy/ Survey results In January and February 2019, researchers at the University of Derby…” Jul 9, 16:28
Hatey McHateface on Too Tight To Mention: “Great stuff sam. Now do the type of “personality” that posts interminably about pricks, penises, wanking, shirt lifting, glory holes…” Jul 9, 16:22