Just a quick bit of housekeeping here with regard to the new Wings comments section, which offers far more functionality but has also attracted a few complaints because it’s no longer a straight chronology of oldest-to-newest tweets.
(We could actually change that back, but the cost would be losing the ability to reply directly to individual comments, which is a big loss, so we’re leaving it as it is for now.)
To those beefing because that means you can’t now immediately tell which comments are new, a couple of helpful pointers. The easiest way to fix the problem is a simple one: keep the tab open.
If you keep the most recent page open in a tab on your browser, the Comment Bubble (visible at the bottom left of that pic) will keep track of all new comments – it refreshes every 30 seconds – and highlight them for you in yellow until you’ve read them.
(The little orange circle should take you to the first unread one if you click it.)
Sadly the Bubble stops working if you close the tab or navigate to a new page from it, but since most people have scores of tabs open at a time that shouldn’t be a problem. So there you go.
Welcome, readers, to what may be the final week of Wings Over Scotland.
We’ve been covering the Scottish Government’s horrific, draconian Hate Crime Act for almost four years now. But until this month, we hadn’t felt directly under threat by it. Wings is – sorry if this comes as a shock to anyone – based in Bath, in England, and we couldn’t see how the Scottish police could come after us.
We were curious to find out what we’d said, but it seems to have been expunged from The National’s website. We eventually managed to track the email down in our vaults, though, so just as a bit of a change, here it is, as a reminder of a different time.
The SNP having a fondness for lying about their membership wouldn’t have come as quite such a shock to the Scottish press if they paid a little more attention to this website. Because we were pointing it out two and a half years ago.
It was in October 2020 that we told you how the SNP’s 2019 accounts revealed the party’s true membership figures weren’t the claimed 126,000 but more like 87,000.
A week ago, readers, I had not the slightest interest in bringing Wings Over Scotland back full-time. I had my Twitter account again and was having fun and I was happy with that. It scratched the itch of being able to engage with politics (and people) without the depressing business of wading in it for work.
And then I witnessed the quite extraordinary sight of an elected member of Parliament, in the shape of the SNP’s pico-witted ambulant brain vacuum Karen Adam, publicly gloating about having managed to shut down the voice of someone critical of her party.
At the same time, an extremely minor blogger (the word “rival” would be to over-dignify them) re-opened hostilities in his campaign of self-declared “open warfare” against this site, with a rapid succession of posts (just a few of dozens) forming such a demented scattershot tirade that to patiently debunk all of it would have taken until Christmas.
And I’ll be honest, folks, it all pushed my buttons a wee bit. It really shouldn’t have, but it was properly outrageous and I’m occasionally human, so I thought “Sod it, if I’m going to have to put up with all this crap anyway I might as well make it worthwhile”.
As a rule I try not to respond to the literally dozens of deranged attacks on this site that are posted by James Kelly of Scot Goes Pop, but I really dislike being called a liar so I’m going to take a moment for this one.
James appears to have taken extraordinary offence to a two-paragraph stats post I put up to mark Wings’ 11th birthday this week, and has written two purple-faced rants about it. So for the record’s sake I’m going to comply with his demand as best I can.
Someone had to remind us that today is Wings Over Scotland’s 11th birthday.
In a grim indictment of Scotland’s once-vaunted political new media, a site that’s been officially closed since May 2021 is still far and away the most-read in the country, despite that readership now being mostly angry overgrown children squabbling with each other in the comments. People would apparently still, by a vast margin, rather read that than endure the tedium of Bella Caledonia or Believe In Scotland.
We’ve said pretty much all that there is to be said about that miserable state of affairs already, so we won’t repeat ourselves. God help the independence movement.
Since Wings confirmed its formal closure as a blog there have nevertheless been 19 posts in eight-and-a-half months, comprising a mixture of polls (the site’s remaining purpose), guest posts, admin, a couple of throwaway joke videos and very occasional one-off, polling-related comment pieces on significant occasions like the SNP marking 15 years in power or Nicola Sturgeon becoming the longest-serving First Minister.
So it’s a little bit startling that it’s still – and by a considerable distance – the world’s most-read Scottish politics site.
(In fact, bigger than the next three put together.)
Robert Hughes on The Long Unravelling: “Yes , indeed , B . I’ve never known such levels of mendacious propaganda being spewed 24/7 by MSM &…” Nov 22, 06:03
Oneliner on The Long Unravelling: “Yep – better to stick to an ad hominem like ‘microbe’ Do you have any mirrors in your butt an’…” Nov 22, 05:21
Mark Beggan on The Long Unravelling: “He should have grown a moustache like Neil Gray.” Nov 22, 04:59
Breeks on The Long Unravelling: “I haven’t either, indeed it’s something of a fallacy calling them newspapers. A cursory glance in the direction of the…” Nov 22, 04:56
The Flying Iron of Doom on The Long Unravelling: “Don’t you mean “You fall out with the Tsar, you fall out of a window”? 🙂” Nov 22, 03:00
Robert Matthews on The Long Unravelling: “https://www.progressscotland.org/uploads/Progress-Scotland-Nov-Release.pdf” Nov 22, 02:51
Robert Matthews on The Long Unravelling: “https://www.progressscotland.org/uploads/Progress-Scotland-Nov-Release.pdf” Nov 22, 02:49
Robert Matthews on The Long Unravelling: “Julius Evola – The Yoga of Power: Tantra, Shakti and the Secret Way, should steer you in the Right direction.” Nov 22, 02:43
Campbell Clansman on The Long Unravelling: “I see that I’m living rent-free in your head. … Perhaps you’d explain how childish name-calling advances your cause?” Nov 22, 02:23
Michael Laing on The Long Unravelling: “Perhaps you could explain to us, Camp Bellend, how Scotland benefits from being in the UK? How does having governments…” Nov 21, 23:37
Michael Laing on The Long Unravelling: “It’s deliberate. He’s an unelected UK state plant. He’s just continuing the sabotage and destruction that’s been ongoing since 2014.” Nov 21, 23:11
Zander Tait on The Long Unravelling: “You do like your facts embedded in your fantasy future Dumpster CamelMan. Unfortunately for you Cancer FannyBaws the last two…” Nov 21, 22:58
Shug on The Long Unravelling: “I do hope Swinney and co turn up at Salmond’s memorial so we can tell them what we think of…” Nov 21, 22:52
wull on The Long Unravelling: “Flynn should also have known that Alex Salmond also donated one of the two salaries he had at one point…” Nov 21, 22:39
Campbell Clansman on The Long Unravelling: “Glasgow is an Indy stronghold. If these areas vote 2-1 Unionist parties, all the Alba/Salvo fantasies and all the lies…” Nov 21, 22:37
Zander Tait on The Long Unravelling: “There ain’t no medals for his kind of bravery.” Nov 21, 21:38
Mac on The Long Unravelling: “I have not bought a newspaper in 20 years but I have an X subscription which I bought just a…” Nov 21, 21:30
Mac on The Long Unravelling: “What Craig Murray is doing is beyond brave. I really thought he had a death wish this last couple of…” Nov 21, 20:56
Ian Brotherhood on The Long Unravelling: “Watching that right now. It’s remarkable, listening to these people, (regardless of whether you agree with them or not) and…” Nov 21, 20:50
znovak on The Long Unravelling: “Craig Murray’s argument about purity is fallacious. When organic chemists say that that the product of synthesis was 95% pure,…” Nov 21, 20:46
Zander Tait on The Long Unravelling: “And you are a thing of wonder, Camel Humpster TransMan. Let’s see, the last 2 polls on Scottish Independence clearly…” Nov 21, 20:31
Campbell Clansman on The Long Unravelling: “There are four council elections today. Three are in Glasgow, an SNP stronghold. I wonder if the “Indy” parties (assuming…” Nov 21, 20:12
George Ferguson on The Long Unravelling: “I was surprised Flynn didn’t know that Ross donated one of his salaries to charity when questioned on the Sunday…” Nov 21, 19:41
Zander Tait on The Long Unravelling: “And, of course, let’s not forget the double salary, double staff and double expenses. There are few more impressive sights…” Nov 21, 19:17
George Ferguson on The Long Unravelling: “Stephen Flynn finding out that double jobbing motivated by naked ambition is not a good look especially when sitting politicians…” Nov 21, 19:09
Stevie on The Long Unravelling: “Actually, people have been asking for decades what happened to huge donations left to the SNP in deceased wills” Nov 21, 18:45
Al Dossary on The Long Unravelling: “Cant watch that and Danny Haiphong / Mark Sleboda at the same time unfortunately……..” Nov 21, 18:33
twathater on The Long Unravelling: “NO he”s just a fucking corrupt moron elected by imbeciles” Nov 21, 18:25
Mia on The Long Unravelling: ““Close Holrood” No. I have a much better solution: get a political party to stand on a manifesto to: gain…” Nov 21, 18:23
twathater on The Long Unravelling: “I vote Alan that we get rid of the BIGGER more incompetent and more corrupt WM parliament and while we…” Nov 21, 18:23
