Now, we’re not putting ourselves up as some sort of expert fundraising authority just because we’ve run a few successful ones, but you didn’t have to be a genius to slap your forehead with your palm last month when the official Yes Scotland campaign AND two of the country’s biggest pro-indy websites (as well as a couple of smaller ones) contrived to launch appeals for very large amounts of cash not only all at once, but in the weeks leading up to Christmas when everyone’s budgets are stretched to the limit.
(To give plenty of notice so that hopefully this sort of thing doesn’t happen again, our second annual Wings fundraiser will be in late February and March 2014.)
Still, we are where we are, and all three are now entering their final phases some way short of their targets. That’s not necessarily a big deal – the Scotland Yet one looked like failing by a big distance at this stage (as did the Common Weal’s before it), but reached the finishing line after a big boost from generous Wings readers.
But time’s getting tight, and the Herald has already had a bit of a sneer about the response to the Yes Scotland pledge drive, so if you can spare a quid or two for any or all of the three, we’re sure it’d be both appreciated and well used, especially in the context of the grisly collection of Tory millionaires, bankers and spooks who just handed “Better Together” another million and a half quid.
Julie McDowall’s splendid piece for this site on call centres yesterday is causing something of a stir in the medical community today – social media is alive with shocked and disgusted doctors horrified or disbelieving at the news that their trade union, the British Medical Association, outsources its legal-advice helpline to a Serco call-centre and misleads members about its nature.
For those questioning the veracity of the claims, some references follow.
We have a stalker. It’s a long story, pre-dating Wings Over Scotland and involving creepy, highly detailed rape/murder threats, sustained harassment over a period of months, a dedicated blog many tens of thousands of words long (including all manner of truly vile sexual stuff involving family members and ex-girlfriends), abusive phone calls to our home and far too much more to describe.
It eventually resulted in an arrest, and a report by Glasgow police to the Procurator Fiscal recommending prosecution, which to everyone’s surprise was declined, after a very long delay and for unclear reasons.
The main perpetrator, although several people were involved, was a virulent Unionist and Rangers supporter (he’s a proud advocate of “The Famine Song” and a big fan of Loyalist multiple-murderer Michael Stone) in his 20s called Murray Brady. He continued with the campaign even after he’d been arrested and questioned, but eventually went to ground after the discovery of a revived version of the forum on which he made some of the comments. It was all a pretty ugly business.
Okay, it seems safe to say already that reaction to the idea is very positive, so why waste time? The new fundraiser page is now live. The more money we raise the more questions we can ask, so let’s see what we can find out.
[EDIT: Base target crushed in 70 minutes. Wow. But keep it coming, folks, because we’d love to get to 10 questions, which will take a total of about £3,600.]
For the sake of tidiness, comments on this post will be closed – please carry on commenting and suggesting questions in the original thread.
Recently we’ve seen quite a few people on social media wondering why there hadn’t been any opinion polls on independence published in a while. We thought it was a bit curious ourselves, so we rang a few polling companies with a view to commissioning our own one, but Panelbase told us they were doing fieldwork on one as we spoke, to be published roughly a week today (they’re every two months).
But even though we don’t need to do one on the straight Yes/No thing now, that’s no reason why we can’t take it upon ourselves to ask a few other questions.
So here are some things to catch up on while we pull ourselves together, particularly for those of you still too scared of tractors and television sets to follow our Twitter feed.
We’re still mulling over the exclusive design/logo for “Heroes” in the fundraising campaign, but we were so pleased with this when we came up with it this morning that we thought it was too good to limit to people with lots of money.
It’s also the first Megastore sub-section with the new version of our masthead logo, designed to show progress from 2012 to 2013. (Last year we’d just found our old wings in the attic, now we’ve well and truly got them on. Not sure what we’re going to do for 2014 yet, maybe patch up all the holes.)
We might do a special version or exclusive colour run for Heroes or something, or come up with something different entirely. For now, click the image to see the product range, or just simply look at it and bask in our genius
Alert readers might have noticed that this morning we tweeted a link to a post on the Facebook page of Labour For Independence. It was a retort to a sneering claim from Anas Sarwar that the group had “one or a maximum of two Labour members” and was in fact a front for the SNP, and it responded by printing a list of 13 named Labour Party members who were active in the group. One of them stood out a little.
Now, we have absolutely no idea if that Alex Foulkes is the same Alex Foulkes who’s the son of arch-Unionist peer and Nat-basher Lord George Foulkes. We’re sure there are lots of people called Alex Foulkes in the Scottish Labour Party. But given that Lady Judy Steel (the excellent wife of Sir David, another prominent No voice) came out for independence a while ago – prompting a slightly misjudged joke from Murdo Fraser last week – it’d be a moderately amusing development if it was.
After all, if the leading lights of the No campaign can’t even convince the closest members of their own family to back the UK, how the heavens are they going to be able to sell the ailing Union to the rest of Scotland?
I’m a fairly placid chap, readers. I really am. I’ve been around a bit, seen a few things. It takes a lot to raise my blood pressure. You’ve been reading this site for over a year and you know the only thing that’s really got under my skin is Craig sodding Levein.
But tonight I’m just about boiling over with rage. When it came down to it, four Liberal Democrat MPs – including the one I’ve voted for for the last 20 years – rebelled against pretty much the most evil thing any UK government’s done for about a century. Four. They couldn’t even be bothered to try to make it look good.
I’ve already got my most upbeat Spotify playlist running just to stop myself screaming profanities into the night out of the window. I should probably delete the last hour’s tweets. (But won’t.) So post cute pictures of kittens. Tell a few jokes or heartwarming stories. Anything, anything at all that’s nice and beautiful and good and suggests maybe this entire country isn’t just a stinking, rancid sewer full of subhuman scum.
I hate these people so much – these vicious, monstrous Tories, these treacherous Lib Dems, these grubby, cynical Labour hypocrites – that I’m scaring myself a little.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie should be commended for starting 2013 with a legitimate request rather than a party-political attack. The Herald today reports his renewed call for a public inquiry into the events of the Lockerbie disaster.
The call was prompted by the new Libyan government’s pledge to release documents relating to the incident “as soon as time, security and stability permitted”. But what will such documents reveal beyond what we already know?
Merry Christmas, readers. We hope you have one filled with peace and love. There are still at least two-and-a-half years of Tory-led Westminster government to come.
George Ferguson on The thickness of blood: “Anyway back to the matter in hand. Sandy Peggie will win the industrial tribunal because their deliberations will be based…” Feb 18, 20:07
gregor on The thickness of blood: “I love the fact that I’m stuck in your head, Flying Paranoia.” Feb 18, 19:55
agent X on The thickness of blood: “To quote a great film: Is it safe? (here)” Feb 18, 19:22
Marie on The thickness of blood: “Someone (can’t remember who) used the term “petty venom “ on this thread earlier – petty venom on show right…” Feb 18, 18:07
TURABDIN on The thickness of blood: “ARC i.e alliance for responsible citizenship currently conferencing in east London at a venue owned and operated by an Abu…” Feb 18, 17:22
George Ferguson on The thickness of blood: “OK I seem to be clear now. Hopefully the same for other wingers. But be cautious I have just realised…” Feb 18, 17:17
George Ferguson on The thickness of blood: “New malware. Red lettered signal saying download this on your PC.” Feb 18, 16:44
George Ferguson on The thickness of blood: “I will try this. Dave Narey and Paul Hegarty were a better central duo than Willie Miller and Alex McLeish.” Feb 18, 16:30
George Ferguson on The thickness of blood: “It’s dead on here for a reason. This site is compromised. Normal service will be restored eventually. Paying the ransonware…” Feb 18, 16:24
diabloandco on The thickness of blood: “Looks as though life has returned to normal on Wings ! Thank goodness!” Feb 18, 15:11
gregor on For Mridul And Sandy: “The National @ScotNational: “It’s 51 years since the McCrone Report detailed Scotland’s incredible oil wealth – yet Scotland has some of…” Feb 18, 10:54
Hatey McHateface on The thickness of blood: “Je suis gregor!!! (Note capitalisation – these details matter )” Feb 18, 10:01
gregor on The thickness of blood: “BBC (18/02/25): Review of school sex survey to be published: “The Scottish government’s Health and Wellbeing census first hit the…” Feb 18, 09:53
Xaracen on The thickness of blood: “Now it’s d/loading a new file- Update.Client.exe” Feb 18, 08:33
The Flying Iron of Doom on The thickness of blood: “This is true but then the server is still gubbed. J’accuse Gregor and his spam campaign ” Feb 18, 08:27
Hatey McHateface on The thickness of blood: “Wow! Lots going on in the world. Even happenings in Auld Scotia. Deid on here though.” Feb 18, 07:27
Young Lochinvar on The thickness of blood: “? True, but then again I always reckoned Glasgow looked best in the rear view mirror. Face it; the bulk…” Feb 18, 03:04
twathater on The thickness of blood: “Geoff if these arsewipes continue with their disciplinary procedure on Friday and SP’s lawyers are forced to go to court…” Feb 17, 17:15
Hatey McHateface on The thickness of blood: “I’ve tried everything FIoD. £50 says the problem lies in Bath. Karma for the leccy thieves ” Feb 17, 14:55
The Flying Iron of Doom on The thickness of blood: “Any update on the server problem? Anyone?” Feb 17, 14:04
Hatey McHateface on The thickness of blood: ““Apparently we have free speech and live in a democracy” I’m free to call you an eejit and vote out…” Feb 17, 12:07
James Gardner on The thickness of blood: “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Crusades” Feb 17, 11:48
James Gardner on The thickness of blood: “Looks like Sandie can take them to the cleaners for harassment………..” Feb 17, 11:43
Marie on The thickness of blood: “She’s possibly been shadow banned by some entity intent on destroying free speech. Apparently we have free speech and live…” Feb 17, 11:11
Andrew scott on The thickness of blood: “Dr whatever is a BLOKE no gender certificate why was a bloke in a frock allowed-to go into the ladies…” Feb 17, 09:35
diabloandco on The thickness of blood: “Biology is no longer a hard and fast science in Scotland even in medical circles – utterly beyond belief and…” Feb 17, 09:30