Wings just can’t seem to stop breaking traffic records these days.
Despite having considerably fewer posts (46 to March’s 69), April saw the highest number of unique visitors to the site in close to three years. And that’s even more remarkable when you consider how hard just about everyone is trying to stop them.
Our always-alert readers will probably have noticed that Nicola Sturgeon’s constant catchphrase this week has been how Yes supporters still need to “build the case for independence”, rather than actually do anything to achieve it.
But the thing is, she’s the leader of the SNP. Building the case for independence is literally her job, and she’s now been doing it for six and a half years. So how much progress have we made?
There’s a strange new affliction affecting the SNP: fear of figures.
Now, we should say that we don’t believe for even a second that the SNP has actually had 10,000 new members in the last two days. It’s ridiculous to the point of insulting. But purely for the sake of argument, let’s imagine it was true.
After this morning’s mini stats post, quite a few people have asked in the comments if there’s any means of comparison between Wings and mainstream media outlets. And the shortest answer is no. The Scottish press is terribly coy about its online readership, offering almost nothing by way of verified figures.
(For a meaningful comparison it would also be necessary to separate out their politics coverage from general news, sport and everything else, which they’ve never done.)
But what used to be possible was at least comparing their print sales, via the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) figures that newspapers published monthly (for national media) or six-monthly (for supposedly “regional” papers like the Herald and Scotsman), which we kept a record of in our Reference section.
When we went to look at the page today we noticed we hadn’t updated it in just over a year, and figured it could do with a dusting and sprucing. But we were in for a surprise.
We’d been wondering why our traffic was so crazy high that we’d already smashed last month’s four-year record to bits with a full week of February still to go.
Two weeks ago a Wings scoop caused quite a furore to erupt around the SNP’s ham-fisted and corruptly-motivated attempts to increase BAME and disabled representation at this year’s Holyrood election.
We’ve always been opposed to what were until recently known as “quotas”, and prior to that “positive discrimination”, but have now been cunningly rebranded as “diversity and inclusion” because that’s a much more difficult thing to say you object to.
It’s easy to make an honourable-sounding case against any form of “discrimination”, because decent and civilised people are taught to automatically think of discrimination as a bad thing, even if you put “positive” in front of it.
So the word “quotas” was adopted to move the concept from a pejorative term to a neutral noun – objecting to “quotas” doesn’t sound intolerant, any more than objecting to (say) “procedures” does. So that’s fine, because you can still discuss it like adults without too much unpleasantness.
But those pushing the agenda got smarter still by changing the name again. If you say you object to “diversity and inclusion”, you sound like a monster and a racist, because diversity and inclusion are plainly good things – no decent person wants to live in a monoculture, or to exclude anybody from society – and so the debate is immediately drowned out by self-righteous tossers screaming “BIGOT!” and “NAZI!” at everyone.
And yet in the context of social policy the three phrases mean the exact same thing. They’re all systems for overriding raw democracy so as to increase the representation of selected groups at the expense of other groups, for one reason or another.
(Sometimes it’s ostensibly just penance for historical wrongs, while at other times it’s supposedly for economic benefits, and so on.)
And while the proponents of those systems will openly argue that the only group being disadvantaged is straight white men so it’s all fine (because nobody likes straight white men and anyone standing up for them can be easily dismissed as a “gammon” for lots of woke points and Twitter likes), it isn’t even remotely close to the truth.
Because in “diversity and inclusion”, some groups are a lot more included than others.
There’s still a day and a half of January 2021 to go, but it’s already been the busiest month for traffic on Wings Over Scotland in several years, despite endless claims from detractors (both Unionists and Pete Wishart types) that we’re in tragic decline.
And since Saturday afternoons are the one quiet moment we get these days – and it’s not like we can go out for a nice walk in the sunshine or have a potter round the shops – we thought we’d take a deeper look into the stats.
In 2014, it was women who stopped Scotland becoming independent.
But it was still a man’s fault, of course. Those of us who were around at the time, while many of the SNP’s earnest young activists of today were still squeezing their spots, will recall a multitude of media articles on how it was apparently the fairer sex’s personal antipathy to Alex Salmond that was responsible for the No camp’s victory.
And who knows, maybe that was true and maybe it wasn’t. We have no idea. But what we do know is that you can’t have it both ways.
Since the events of the last few days, folks, we’ve noticed a real ramping up of abuse towards Wings on social media from what one might call the small-L “loyalist” cult wing of the SNP. Like this dude, for example.
(A “miserable misogynist misanthrope” and “yesterday’s boring fart”? That’s a simply outrageous slur. I’m not misogynist.)
Alarmed at the news our traffic was apparently “collapsing”, we thought we’d check to see whether the situation was beyond saving.
One of the dumber things we see regularly posted on social media is that Yes voices should stop criticising the First Minister because her leadership is the only reason Yes is now consistently ahead in the polls and we would have no chance of winning a new referendum with someone else in charge.
This is obviously nonsense, because Nicola Sturgeon was SNP leader and FM for five years in which support moved barely a single millimetre, until COVID-19 came along. Our current lead is due entirely to a tiny invisible virus and a giant Etonian buffoon.
During the 2014 indyref, the astonishingly vast imbalance of the mainstream Scottish media was partly compensated by a huge rise in new media, with dozens and dozens of sites filling the gaping chasms where printed and broadcast media would have been in any country with a press worthy of the name at such an exciting time.
The subsequent shrivelling of that presence has been one of the least observed and explored phenomena of the six years since the referendum, and especially since the SNP’s election victory in 2016. The incredibly wide-ranging, mutually-supportive pro-Yes new media is now down to a tiny handful of outlets, most of which are barely read (and most of which would celebrate if the others burned down in a chemical fire).
There are many and varied reasons for this worrying situation, but before we get into those let’s have a quick look at who’s still who and what’s still what.
James Cheyne on The shifting sands of memory: “Thank you stu for taking this discussion up, it is sorely needing clarification, It is without doubt that England presumed…” May 21, 16:47
Ian McCubbin on The shifting sands of memory: “Northcode has it clearly. The book legitimacy….self determination clearly sets out the legal routes for colonies like Scotland. The Independence…” May 21, 16:28
GM on The shifting sands of memory: “Aye, it is a wonder Peter. I recall at the time being extremely frustrated at Swinney accepting what was on…” May 21, 15:55
Northcode on The shifting sands of memory: “My understanding of Professor Black’s view is that Scotland was illegally annexed as a territory of England and that the…” May 21, 15:48
Peter McAvoy on The shifting sands of memory: “As I have mentioned on previous comments to articles on Wings Why do the SNP and other independence supporting parties…” May 21, 14:47
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The shifting sands of memory: “Scottish Sovereignty Research Group Conference (17 May 2025) KEYNOTE SPEECH BY PROFESSOR ROBERT BLACK KC Starts at 1.46.35 into youtube…” May 21, 14:30
Skip_NC on The shifting sands of memory: “Can you extrapolate a Scottish sub-sample of Westminster voting intentions to Holyrood with any accuracy? Voters (well some at any…” May 21, 14:30
Peter McAvoy on Just a couple more shots: “While watching the tv baftas,I wondered if someone would make a drama about For Women Scotland and their long and…” May 21, 14:24
Effijy on The shifting sands of memory: “House Boy Kerr sits happily on the gravy train and no second class colony is going to take it away.…” May 21, 14:13
PhilM on The shifting sands of memory: “Re: the inevitable comments of people unqualified to discuss the history of international law or the constitutional history of the…” May 21, 13:59
Vivian O’Blivion on The shifting sands of memory: “Extremely rare for the SNP to hit 2%, four times in a row on UK wide, Westminster voting intention polls.…” May 21, 13:53
aLurker on The shifting sands of memory: “CJ that link is broken. 🙁 So use this one instead: “The UK – A Voluntary Union or Capture by…” May 21, 13:20
Ian McCubbin on The shifting sands of memory: “Well it just clarifies to us all that Scotland is a colony . Thus seeking independence has clearer reasons to…” May 21, 13:19
100%Yes on The shifting sands of memory: “What ever happened to the new site layout, I preferred it.” May 21, 13:17
Young Lochinvar on The shifting sands of memory: ““We have catched Scotland and will hold her close” The Speaker at Westminster 1707 following the Treaty. Says it all…” May 21, 13:17
100%Yes on The shifting sands of memory: “I believe whats upset Mr Kerr is the fact he’s been running about like a tit all his life shouting…” May 21, 13:12
Jennifer Livingston on The shifting sands of memory: “Robert the Bruce has made it clear by being accused of being a leper that he plans on being resurrected…” May 21, 13:07
Aidan on The shifting sands of memory: “I’m not aware that anyone has ever said that ‘Scotland is a partner in the Union’ as a legal position,…” May 21, 13:06
Robert Hughes on The shifting sands of memory: “One irony being the current SNP have studiously avoided referring to anything related to the * Union * , eg…” May 21, 13:05
BLMac on The shifting sands of memory: “If Scotland has been “absorbed” into England, why isn’t it called England? Or how about “North Britain”? – They tried…” May 21, 12:48
Tormod on The shifting sands of memory: “Well, tories (of whatever complaexion) are going to tory.” May 21, 12:36
aLurker on The Ace Attorney: “Mia 20 May, 2025 at 9:41 pm >I do not know if they were nutters or not. What I do…” May 21, 12:35
Mark Beggan on Just a couple more shots: “Exactly Lorn. How did we survive in the past, how did we ever manage to survive. I agree with whoever…” May 21, 12:34
Hatey McHateface on Just a couple more shots: “I know what you mean, but if you take a look at the manboobs on some of those lardy trans…” May 21, 12:31
aLurker on The Ace Attorney: “@Captain Caveman Every day is a learning opportunity eh? It is indeed a well known political saying. Often attributed to…” May 21, 12:24
Hatey McHateface on The Ace Attorney: ““religious differences, none of which matter today” If only that was true. I’ve been slow to pick up on this,…” May 21, 12:22
Northcode on Just a couple more shots: “James Cheyne I thank you, too, for the sentiment. Of course, you couldn’t have missed my comments if you weren’t…” May 21, 11:37