Tonight sees what’s likely to be a highly-charged Scottish Cup quarter-final replay at Ibrox Stadium. Defeat will effectively end the losing side’s season, and games between the participants, Aberdeen and Rangers International, have tended to be fierce affairs ever since the latter club was formed in controversial circumstances in 2012, with this season’s clashes already having seen numerous red cards.
(Mainly for the home team’s temperamental striker Alfredo Morelos.)
Football authorities will be hoping for a minimum of flashpoints on the field which might lead to repeats of shocking recent scenes of abuse and violence from spectators, which have prompted the nation’s media to wring its hands in theatrical angst and demand that something be done.
The public’s view on the subject, meanwhile, has remained absolutely consistent.
Sundays have been the low point of Scottish political journalism for a while now. Traditionally a day when newspapers are heavy on comment and light on news (because politics tends to happen on weekdays), they unleash all the weary old dinosaurs who’ve been driving away readers for the last 30 years.
So you really have to stand out to be noticed for especially appalling hackery on a Sunday, which is probably why nobody from Scotland On Sunday wanted to have their name on this toe-curling piece of second-hand, lifted-from-another-paper garbage.
Professor Ronald MacDonald, you say? That name seems to ring a bell.
MARR: “What would [Theresa May] need to bring back [from Brexit negotiations] to win you over?”
DAVIS: “She needs to bring back a clear ability on the part of the United Kingdom to be able to leave this treaty when it chooses to. There is no other treaty in the world I’m aware of where a sovereign nation undertakes to join up and can only leave when the other side says so.”
We’re pretty sure we can think of an example, David.
Michael Glackin of the Sunday Times is the only serious contender to the Scotsman’s demented Brian Wilson as the most poisonously, blindly instinctive hater of anything even passingly connected to the SNP or independence in the Scottish media. His weekly bilious rants in the paper make even Scottish Daily Express hacks wince and say “Blimey, that’s a bit strong”.
But even by those standards, this week’s column is quite something. So let’s take a little look at just how much of an idiot you can make of yourself if you never allow facts to get in the way of your rage.
Watching the Six Nations rugby tournament every year is usually quite a dispiriting experience – not just because of Scotland’s invariably underwhelming performances (broken up by the occasional false dawn), but because talking about it on social media always results in an extremely tedious flood of comments about how rugby is a sport played and watched exclusively by middle-class Tory No voters.
(That’s Scotland skipper Greig Laidlaw there, with Wings mascot Hamish.)
Speaking as someone whose interest in the tournament (in the pre-inflation days when it was the Five Nations) was first sparked when my extremely working-class Bathgate comprehensive school started taking pupils to Murrayfield in the 1980s – 50p for the bus and 50p for the match ticket, which got you a seat on wooden benches actually on the grass – this attitude has always instinctively felt like complete nonsense.
So when we did our latest Panelbase poll during this year’s competition, we figured we may as well actually find out.
Today is International Women’s Day, and we wouldn’t normally pay much attention to that fact because this is a Scottish politics website, not a feminist one. But the Scottish Government is currently putting itself at odds with women in a way it would have been hard to imagine when Nicola Sturgeon became First Minister, and since what Wings does specialise in is hard data – and at the request of a lot of women – we thought it was worth putting some solid numbers on a few things in our latest poll.
Scottish Labour’s 2019 conference, which starts in Dundee tomorrow, isn’t taking place in the most auspicious of circumstances, to put it kindly. The branch office is trailing a breathtaking 22 points behind the SNP in the latest Holyrood polling, 8 points behind the Tories, and the gap is getting bigger.
Westminster polling isn’t a great deal better, with the SNP 15 points ahead despite having been in power for 12 years and doggedly attempting to commit electoral suicide with a raft of increasingly unpopular policies (more on that to come).
A few days ago we received a reply from the Information Commissioner’s Office, and as a result have sent a letter to the Conservative Party’s compliance department. You can read it below.
We’ve just got the tables from a new Panelbase poll back, and they make grim reading for Labour (North British Branch Office) on the eve of their conference.
Holyrood voting intentions (constituency):
SNP 41% (nc)
Con 27% (+2)
Lab 19% (-4)
LD 8% (+2)
Grn 3% (nc)
UKIP 2% (+1)
(1002 Scottish voters, 2-6 March 2019) Changes from December 2018
That’s getting perilously close to the all-time low of 14% achieved around the tail end of Kezia Dugdale’s disastrous leadership. And the list vote isn’t much better.
Holyrood voting intentions (region):
SNP 36% (-2)
Con 26% (nc)
Lab 19% (-3)
LD 9% (+2)
Grn 6% (nc)
UKIP 3% (+2)
But even with astonishing leads of 14% and 10% after 12 years in power, the SNP have nothing to be complacent about either – according to the Weber Shandwick seat projector, these numbers would give Nicola Sturgeon’s party 57 seats and the Greens just 4, meaning Holyrood’s pro-independence majority would be a goner and the Nats would need backing from at least one Unionist party to pass any bills, meaning no new mandate for an indyref.
Like everywhere else, Scotland is currently split down the middle and nobody knows which side of the tightrope it’ll fall off in the event of a push.
sarah on Vibecoding A Better World: ““Does the SNP really want independence?” asks Kevin McKenna. He says they don’t. I wish the Herald had a far…” Oct 31, 21:11
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Vibecoding A Better World: “THE NEWS WHERE YOU ARE James Robertson (4 June 2014) www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhL57cjN8xY” Oct 31, 19:31
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: “I’ve been critical of you in the past, Alf, for writing about the “non-existent” union when it very obviously does…” Oct 31, 18:15
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: ““bleeding from eyes, arse, cock and ears” Steady oan there, Confused. Hoo ye entertain yersel oan the weekend is nae…” Oct 31, 18:09
Alf Baird on Vibecoding A Better World: “The usual colonialist doublethink there Northcode, which can readily be reversed to reflect a dominant ‘Unionist’-Scotland rhetoric which disempowers the…” Oct 31, 17:57
WhoRattledYourCage on Vibecoding A Better World: “A few notes on the Scottish poetic, literary, and political crossover scenes: https://whorattledyourcage.blogspot.com/2026/10/this-has-few-expletives-in-it-and-some.html” Oct 31, 16:02
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Vibecoding A Better World: “Worthwhile, indeed important, watch… Discussion between James Robertson (“the news where you are”) and Alexander Linklater: ‘Imagining Scotland: Walter Scott…” Oct 31, 15:33
Aidan on Vibecoding A Better World: “For those of us familiar with your output, it will come as no surprise that your use of the internet…” Oct 31, 14:52
Confused on Vibecoding A Better World: “You could use the AI to write some more articles. Just sayin – I mean, let it do all the…” Oct 31, 14:20
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: “No chemists in ScotGov, TURABDIN. They never even tried to study chemistry, after failing biology so spectacularly.” Oct 31, 13:47
TURABDIN on Vibecoding A Better World: “Is there a right way to recover Scottish independence? Yes there is. The one that works. The problem is the…” Oct 31, 13:35
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: “Anybody supporting anonymity in such cases needs to support it for both – accuser and accused.” Oct 31, 13:31
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: ““This is the reality” Hmmm. If you continually assert the union doesn’t exist, Alf, best not make reality one of…” Oct 31, 13:27
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: “Yer maw gaun oot agin, James? Mind and dinna question her too closely when she comes hame. Sometimes best not…” Oct 31, 13:19
Northcode on Vibecoding A Better World: “In law, anonymity in sexual-offence cases is a structural safeguard. It is: – permanent – designed to protect complainers, not…” Oct 31, 13:13
Aidan on Faces In Sand: “Shut up James” Oct 31, 13:08
Northcode on Vibecoding A Better World: “If a strategist wanted to neutralise the independence movement, the most effective tactic would be to replace: – strategic thinking…” Oct 31, 12:32
James on Faces In Sand: “That right, aye? Prick.” Oct 31, 11:14
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Vibecoding A Better World: “May be of interest to some… ‘Shakespearean England and Views of the Irish Language’ – Mícheál Ó Mainnín « This…” Oct 31, 11:11
Alf Baird on Vibecoding A Better World: ““It’s proof, not that it’s needed, that the SNP now sits playing cards at the same table with those they…” Oct 31, 10:00
BLMac on Vibecoding A Better World: “Maybe we’re all being conned. I’ve just realised AI could also mean Actual Idiocy. We’re certainly seeing a lot of…” Oct 31, 09:32
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: “Hmmm. Implanted in a hyper-realistic, humanoid robot companion, that behaviour might have some very real advantages. You could always change…” Oct 31, 09:30
Ex President Xiden on Vibecoding A Better World: “There is a compeditor to Claude on the market called Nicola. You can ask it anything you want and it…” Oct 31, 08:37
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: “Precisely. Coming too, from the same Scottish government that refuses to state clearly what a woman is.” Oct 31, 08:24
agentx on Vibecoding A Better World: “Information commissioner in Salmond case: ” A Scottish government spokesperson said: “The Scottish government welcomes the decision of the Court…” Oct 30, 23:23
robertkknight on Vibecoding A Better World: “Sickening indeed, but what can you expect from a pig but a grunt. Talking of pigs… It’s proof, not that…” Oct 30, 22:12
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: “You just don’t get the genocides these days like you used to. Although I guess that once WW3 really kicks…” Oct 30, 20:52
100%Yes on Vibecoding A Better World: “Can’t wait, its has to have genocide and all the nasty bits or no one will believe it. Nobody does…” Oct 30, 20:24
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: “I would imagine asking AI to indentify the alphabetties would be a dawdle. Although I do sometimes think I must…” Oct 30, 20:10
