As several alert readers have already spotted, our Twitter account was suspended at some point in the early hours of this morning. We’ve had no email from Twitter offering any sort of explanation, but it seems most likely to have been at the behest of a Daily Express hack called Siobhan McFadyen who’s been huffily bleating to the company’s executives over the weekend about this tweet:
The reason we tweeted that comment is detailed here and here. But apparently it’s an opinion that you’re no longer allowed to have.
We rarely do stat posts now, because readership has settled to a pretty steady level (generally bobbing between around 250,000 and 300,000 users a month) and we’ve run out of ways to blow our own trumpet. But we’re making an exception this month.
The snide, arrogant, pompous and casually factually-inaccurate comment above was made by a founder/editor of a rather less popular Scottish political website. And in the (statistically unlikely) event that you happened to read it and became concerned, we thought you’d like a little more information about our “ever-decreasing readership”.
Below is a very interesting 13-minute chat from this afternoon’s John Beattie Show on Radio Scotland, also featuring Stuart Cosgrove (presenter of the excellent footy prog Off The Ball) and Eamonn O’Neill, who we presume is this Eamonn O’Neill.
Naturally we like it because there’s mention of Wings, which – for just about the first time we can recall on broadcast media in our four-year life – isn’t about how vile and awful we are, but the whole thing is much more wide-ranging and well worth a listen.
(The line “The media the media doesn’t like to talk about” is Beattie’s, not ours.)
So, it’s our birthday. It was exactly four years ago today, on the 7th of November 2011, that Wings Over Scotland published the first post of what was supposed to be a pretty insignificant spare-time blog picking out interesting politics stories in the day’s Scottish media and challenging any inaccuracies in them.
Another three months have come and gone – where does the time get to, eh? – so it’s time for a quick Wings readership-stats update. There’s nothing particularly interesting or dramatic about them, so we’ll just give you the numbers and move on.
UNIQUE VISITORS IN OCTOBER 2015: 293,793
PAGE VIEWS: 4,616,334
In what’s been mostly a very sleepy time for politics, we’re thrilled with that.
Alert readers of The National will have noticed an article by me in it today. It reads slightly weirdly, jumping from subject to subject, because it was originally done as an interview but they then decided to cut the questions out to get more text in.
That’s all absolutely fine – they okayed it with me first – but some readers may be interested in seeing the full original piece, which is about twice as long. If you are, you can read it below. If you’re not, um, do what you like. I’m not your mum.
For reasons best known to himself, and almost certainly NOT related to the recent publication of his new book, the BBC’s Nick Robinson has today chosen to reignite the issues surrounding his infamous questioning of Alex Salmond a week before last year’s independence referendum, claiming that the reaction to his presentation of the incident was reminiscent of “Putin’s Russia”.
The state broadcaster’s political correspondent then inflamed social media further by claiming on Twitter that a grassroots protest – neither instigated nor endorsed by the SNP or Yes Scotland – outside BBC Scotland’s headquarters in Glasgow a couple of days later was in fact organised by “a governing party”.
(Robinson also claimed the mob had been 4000-strong, although the BBC’s own report had put the figure at “up to 1000”. The demo was sedate and entirely peaceful – no arrests were made, nobody was hurt and no damage was caused.)
The footage showing that Robinson had lied on air about his encounter with Salmond was captured and published by this website, in a pair of videos which garnered well over 600,000 views on YouTube and one of the most-read posts in Wings history.
When we mentioned that fact earlier today, a reader asked what other posts were in the top 10. So we looked, and noticed that the biggest ones had a common theme.
We’re only doing stats posts quarterly now, but since the last one we ran was for the January readership figures that means it’s time for a quick update.
Almost 23,000 extra readers compared to last month and nearly 600,000 more page views? Yeah, we’ll take that. (For perspective, here’s April 2014.)
Perhaps we’re just being over-sensitive, readers, but we think the Daily Record might be a little bit upset with us.
That’s the editor of the semi-popular Scottish Labour fanzine, Murray Foote, pictured above this afternoon apparently issuing his own very special honours list, but it’s not the crankiest thing the Record’s published in the last 24 hours.
twathater on Too Tight To Mention: “Sara thanks for that link to the parliamentary petition, unfortunately it is coming back as server not found And Sarah…” Jul 6, 03:05
twathater on Too Tight To Mention: “Just like your fellow unionists, TOO stupid to realise that you are in the same lunatic asylum as the rest…” Jul 6, 02:59
twathater on Too Tight To Mention: “Thanks for that link Dan, apparently there are things happening in Scotland that may be relevant to independence supporters or…” Jul 6, 02:49
Young Lochinvar on Too Tight To Mention: “Very well said Ian! From apparently halcyon days they are now an incompetent “progressive” (in its worst sense) boil that…” Jul 6, 02:09
Young Lochinvar on Too Tight To Mention: “I an energy rich country like Scotland,that is surely the most preposterous thing to say.. To look at it another…” Jul 6, 02:03
Andy Ellis on Too Tight To Mention: “@Alf So if (when?) the UN refuses to recognise cases like Scotland, Quebec and Catalonia as de-colonisation…..what then? Seems like…” Jul 5, 21:44
Aidan on Too Tight To Mention: “@Andy – all valid points, but the thing that chopped it off at the knees is that the UNCDC has…” Jul 5, 21:13
Alf Baird on Too Tight To Mention: “Nobody said independence is easy, but it helps if you know what the word means. It means decolonization, according to…” Jul 5, 21:06
Andy Ellis on Too Tight To Mention: “@anthem 7.06pm I’m not the one on the losing side of the reference to the UN colonisation committee bud, so…” Jul 5, 20:56
Young Lochinvar on The Con Merchant: “Captain Caveman @ 6.48 Nope, wrong yet again r3tard.. Own your own crap, you have after all spouted it all…” Jul 5, 20:54
Andy Ellis on Too Tight To Mention: “@aidan 7.16pm Yes, I’m aware. Not unexpected. I never had any expectations the UN would accept that those making the…” Jul 5, 20:53
Anthem on Too Tight To Mention: “Sarah. This is the type of thing that should leafleted through every door in in Scotland! The SNP should be…” Jul 5, 20:39
Dan on Too Tight To Mention: “Stuff going on in Scotland… With a familiar name popping up again… https://www.isp.scot/june-28th-july-4th-2025/” Jul 5, 20:33
Aidan on Too Tight To Mention: “@Andy – you might have missed that the Salvo petition has gone to the UN decolonisation committee, back in June.…” Jul 5, 19:16
Anthem on Too Tight To Mention: ““Far from indicating duplicity an bias, it simply indicates that not all of us are easily led by charlatans and…” Jul 5, 19:06
Captain Caveman on The Con Merchant: “Clingfilm…. Estrogen…. School toilets…. Sheesh. An awful lot of wishful thinking going on here… joining the dots etc. maybe Hatey’s…” Jul 5, 18:48
Ste fella on Too Tight To Mention: “Published on scotgoespop 18:33 050725 “I’ll bet you £20 James that SNP get zero list seats. Your sooky return to…” Jul 5, 18:33
Dan on Too Tight To Mention: “Andy Ellis says: at 4:57 pm “Surely the onus is on those who agree with something to make their case,…” Jul 5, 18:32
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Con Merchant: “Further to my previous comment, I have often thought that nothing unites the establishments of North and South Ireland more…” Jul 5, 18:22
agent x on Too Tight To Mention: “You must have missed Alf’s comment that in Scotland “half the population living in or close to poverty”. You expect…” Jul 5, 18:09
TURABDIN on Too Tight To Mention: “ERSKINE CHILDERS, A GREAT irish Nationalist who died in the gun sights of an Irish firing squad.” Jul 5, 18:04
sarah on Too Tight To Mention: “I thought that Wings readers will want to support this practical, explicit, way to leave the “Union”. If people don’t…” Jul 5, 18:02
agent x on Too Tight To Mention: “Signatures 638 Goal 100,000 Any day now!” Jul 5, 17:43
agent x on Too Tight To Mention: “It’s 50 pence too much for a 179 word “speech”!” Jul 5, 17:36
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Con Merchant: “@ Andy Ellis 3.18 « The Irish government spent decades promoting the Irish language with only limited success » For…” Jul 5, 17:30
Dan on Too Tight To Mention: “Hmm. As a practical person and an absolute demon on the hand tools that fixes and builds all manner of…” Jul 5, 17:16
Andy Ellis on Too Tight To Mention: “Surely the onus is on those who agree with something to make their case, and those who disagree to make…” Jul 5, 16:57