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.
Since it was founded back in November 2011, Wings Over Scotland has been solely financed by its readers. The site has never carried any advertising, we have no secret corporate backers, everything we do is funded by transparent voluntary donations and subscriptions, mostly of a few pounds a month.
We have the freedom to write what we believe, thanks to you, our readers. And since those earliest days, opponents have tried to end that freedom by blocking our funding.
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.
Hatey McHateface on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Today’s vote on the assisted dying bill will hold up a mirror to the true opinions of our legislative elite.…” May 13, 07:33
Hatey McHateface on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Not just yoons. Anybody who even looks like they might not see eye-to-eye with you on everything. Why take chances?” May 13, 07:22
Hatey McHateface on The Blindness Of Hatred: “You’re 74 TH, so surely ideal guinea pig material. Why don’t you step up to the plate and give the…” May 13, 07:15
GM on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Yes, a good writer. I don’t know here bu A genuine person I believe. I read her articles.” May 12, 22:45
Anthem on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Totally agree James. I’ve suggested many times that it will be English mps at Westminster that’ll cause the union to…” May 12, 21:17
Dan on The Blindness Of Hatred: “I’m appreciative of a lot of Leah Gunn Barrett’s output. https://dearscotland.substack.com/p/privatisation-foreign-ownership-and It sure beats a pair of dung beetles argybargying…” May 12, 20:14
Robert Matthews on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Great idea sarah, i think i will too.” May 12, 19:44
Skip_NC on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Sarah, ach, I wonder if Alba senior leadership is still struggling with Alex’s death. There is a lot of talk…” May 12, 19:32
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Dishonesty is the hallmark of how he handles all interactions with anyone.” May 12, 19:27
Skip_NC on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Do you really want a system where two main parties take turns at being an elective dictatorship? It’s all very…” May 12, 19:19
George Ferguson on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Good article Stu on the Electoral Stats. One thing I would have commented on was the win versus expenses ratio.…” May 12, 18:53
James Cheyne on The Blindness Of Hatred: “MaryB, When we get around to running our own parliament perhaps it would be wiser to just count a single…” May 12, 18:29
James Cheyne on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Anthem. Only starmer knows what goes on in his head, not even the rest of the labour party know.it took…” May 12, 18:19
twathater on The Blindness Of Hatred: “TBQH I support the dignity in dying bill as long as proper rules and regulations are adhered to, I am…” May 12, 18:18
agent x on The Blindness Of Hatred: “For God’s sake – the head of the Royal Navy cannot bonk a willing WREN. What on Earth is the…” May 12, 18:03
twathater on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Del you strike me as a snp apologist or sycophant with your snp good pish, where have you been for…” May 12, 17:56
James Cheyne on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Fearghas, I will look for those snippets of information. Here is another one of those glitches to Scots being in…” May 12, 17:47
Wilson Pickett on A Poor Example: “So this is the level of contribution to Wings now, is it? How the mighty have fallen, son.” May 12, 17:42
Anthem on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Does Starmers immigration announcement apply to the English in Scotland?” May 12, 17:32
factchecker on The Blindness Of Hatred: “The concept of the ‘sovereign Scots’ is interesting. Can anyone tell me when in history the sovereign Scots were ever…” May 12, 17:14
Owen Mullions on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Today marks the 4th blog in a row from James Kelly about the man he says is obsessed with him.…” May 12, 15:56
MaryB on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Is it any wonder that people are confused about how the Scottish voting systems work when there are three different…” May 12, 14:36
Martin McGarry on The Blindness Of Hatred: “I’m not Scottish and have never had a vote in Scotland, so Scottish tactical voting is not something I know…” May 12, 14:03
Xaracen on The Blindness Of Hatred: “King Charles is not entitled to demand allegiance from any Scot for any reason, and no-one is entitled to demand…” May 12, 13:56
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Blindness Of Hatred: “As introduction and tribute to Paul H. Scott (mentioned in my Lockhart post above) please visit the following Sir Walter…” May 12, 13:48
James Cheyne on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Holyrood usage As a secondary ( even a sub-parliament ) by extention from Westminster, passing “Scots law” bills separately in…” May 12, 13:32
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Blindness Of Hatred: “I would like to draw attention to the book: ‘SCOTLAND’S RUINE: LOCKHART OF CARNWATH’S MEMOIRS OF THE UNION’ (Edited by…” May 12, 13:02
James Cheyne on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Re – The assisted Killing / murder bill going through Holyrood. The problem with these bills going through Scotlands parliament…” May 12, 12:37
sarah on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Thanks for the nudge – I will email my MSPs now.” May 12, 12:28
sarah on The Blindness Of Hatred: “Well, Skip NC, for heaven’s sake why doesn’t Alba come under the umbrella grouping? It would mean no wasted votes…” May 12, 12:27
