Wings Over Scotland

I’ve just remembered that I meant to leave this pinned to the front page when I shut Wings down as a blog, so here it is. It’s just a short one.

I am willing to bet anyone in the UK any amount of money of their choosing that there will NOT be a second independence referendum in Scotland while Nicola Sturgeon is First Minister.

If you still believe she’ll deliver one, now’s your chance to demonstrate your faith in public AND get yourself some free cash. (It’s a matter of public record that I’ve never failed to pay up on a losing wager.)

So come on, SNP loyalists and true believers, let’s see you. Put your name and the amount you want to bet in the comments below* and let’s find out how much you really trust her. This is an entirely genuine, serious offer and remains open to anyone** until such times as Nicola Sturgeon stands down as First Minister, even if that’s 20 years from now. Any amount you like. I’m waiting keenly for your responses.

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*PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT EXCEPT TO TAKE THE BET.

**WAGERS FROM GERRY “THE WELCHER” HASSAN NOT ACCEPTED.

Craig Murray is due to be released from HMP Edinburgh a week tomorrow, having served half of an eight-month sentence for contempt of court via “jigsaw identification”. Our latest poll data from Panelbase, surveying 2000 Scottish voters last week, reveals that just a quarter of Scots think that such an offence merits imprisonment.

Readers may find the figures for male and female respondents of note. The full data tables can be downloaded here.

So, in accordance with the wishes of the readership (and despite rather peculiar claims on some sites that all polls in Scotland are now commissioned by Unionists), Wings has its first polling data for you in its present form, relayed without comment.

In association with Panelbase, this month we surveyed 2000 Scottish voters (double the normal sample size) on a couple of subjects. The first question was this:

“Barring unforeseen events, next year Nicola Sturgeon will overtake Alex Salmond as Scotland’s longest-serving First Minister. She took office in November 2014, in a Scotland which was evenly split on the constitution. (Average support for independence in polling was at 50%, compared to the current 48%.)

Which of the following, if any, do you personally regard as her greatest achievement in office?”

The results are below. Click images to enlarge.

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When the Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts died last month, the first of their songs that popped into my head, for no particular reason, was “Under My Thumb”, a mildly controversial 1966 album track the band never released as a single in the West.

Its most infamous place in history, though, is this.

Until Watts’ death I was only very broadly aware of the events at Altamont Speedway in 1969, a free festival at a racetrack near San Francisco at which four people died in scenes of malevolent chaos and which is widely regarded as the grim headstone of the hippy era.

But on seeing the extraordinary footage above for the first time on the day of Watts’ death – taken from “Gimme Shelter”, notionally the official movie of the show, although the first two-thirds of it are actually a mundane travelogue of the preceding tour dates – I did some proper reading up on it.

And as I did, a horribly familiar feeling started to unfold.

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…appear to be absolutely raging tonight about this:

Folk used to accuse Wings of being divisive. But look who we’ve united!

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Craig Murray’s speech to the Alba conference yesterday, delivered by his wife Nadira.

Her Majesty’s Prisoner No. 157095, or Craig Murray as we still prefer to call him, is a fascinating piece of living evidence of the Kafkaesque country Scotland has become under the despotic rule of Nicola Sturgeon.

Craig has a number of serious medical conditions, one of which causes him frequent dizziness and fainting spells. To gauge their severity (because obviously it’s hard for Craig to judge, given that he’s dizzy and/or fainting at the time), his doctor gave him a device called a pulse oximeter. Depending on the readings from it after an attack, Craig’s life could be in danger and an ambulance should be called.

HMP Edinburgh, however, confiscated the device when he was taken into custody, on the grounds that it uses batteries and batteries could be used for some unspecified nefarious purpose in prison. (Presumably in the rare moments when Craig isn’t getting high from smoking drug-soaked books or running an illegal-postage-stamp empire.)

But because presumably even the Scottish prison authorities realise that it would look quite bad if a political prisoner like Craig died in jail, they did offer him an alternative.

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Our cartoonist is still on holiday, but he’d never have beaten this for a joke anyway.

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