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?”
Slacky The Holiday Boy is once again on his monthly two-week break, so it falls to us to try to amuse you on a Saturday morning with an image of some sort. Unfortunately very little funny is happening in Scottish politics, so all we’ve got is this.
We are, as always, absolutely enthralled at the prospect of discovering from James Kelly what our vile secret masterplan has been over the last 18 months.
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.
Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: “Quote Cesaire until the cows come home, Alf, it won’t undo the fact you selectively cropped Northy’s post to change…” Oct 5, 21:56
Alf Baird on There May Be Justice: “That’s quite a meaningless diversion even for ‘an operator’ like you Hatey. The obvious reality here is that Scotland is…” Oct 5, 21:36
Rev. Stuart Campbell on There May Be Justice: “I’m in touch with Paul, but he’s not an ATM. He’s been supportive and we’ll see where we are if…” Oct 5, 21:08
100%Yes on There May Be Justice: “Who can blame him, I wish him well and thank Bruce for all he’s done. grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com is no longer available.…” Oct 5, 20:43
Hatey McHateface on The Love Of Big Brother: “The cheek of her to complain. When she’s looking so well, hale and hearty on the very fare she’s complaining…” Oct 5, 19:59
Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: “Your selectively cropped quotation is blindingly obvious, Alf. Not quite the best way for an academic to impress his peers.…” Oct 5, 19:54
Dickie on There May Be Justice: “Ever considered contacting Paul McManus?” Oct 5, 19:54
Aidan on The Love Of Big Brother: “The right to self-determination is indeed universal and inalienable, but outside of a military occupation or colonialism (neither of which…” Oct 5, 19:49
Hatey McHateface on The Love Of Big Brother: “Which is going to break up first then, Alf? The UK or Orcland?” Oct 5, 19:14
Alf Baird on There May Be Justice: ““Scotland is the mess it is because it isn’t independent” Indeed so. Colonialism is ‘a Manichaean world’ (Fanon) where light…” Oct 5, 19:14
Hatey McHateface on There May Be Justice: “Don’t waste your time. The list of independent, corrupt countries is longer than both your arms.” Oct 5, 19:10
Hatey McHateface on The Love Of Big Brother: “Very happy indeed to be a white man, Confused. Equally happy for you to self identify as something inferior. Long…” Oct 5, 19:00
Al-Stuart on There May Be Justice: “. The whimpering sound of something curled up in a mingin, damp, dirty corner is wee James Kelly crying himself…” Oct 5, 18:55
Alf Baird on The Love Of Big Brother: “” Article 2 guarantees the territorial integrity and political independence of all member states.” Which only applies if the state…” Oct 5, 18:50
Lorncal on The Love Of Big Brother: “H McH: we have had a nationalist government for around 20 years of over 300 years in the Union, so,…” Oct 5, 18:38
Dave on There May Be Justice: “The SNP’s entire raison d’être and defining mission should have always been about just one thing: independence for Scotland. However,…” Oct 5, 17:32
100%Yes on There May Be Justice: “Well done Rev. Hopefully history being made.” Oct 5, 17:21
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on There May Be Justice: “Attempt at a Gaelic version of the above – AN RÒS BEAG GEAL Chan eil mo shùil air ròs an…” Oct 5, 17:12
Northcode on There May Be Justice: “For those interested, a Scottish judicial review typically takes 6–18 months from lodging the petition to a final decision, depending…” Oct 5, 17:05
Rev. Stuart Campbell on In The Eyes Of The Law: “For the reasons explained in last week’s post about it. Does anyone bother reading past the fucking headline?” Oct 5, 16:22
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Love Of Big Brother: ““I thought the introduction of these rules matched those already in place in England and Wales from a year ago.”…” Oct 5, 16:20
holymacmoses on There May Be Justice: “The Scottish people owe yourself, Roddy, David and Lynne and no doubt a few more ‘good men’, a huge debt…” Oct 5, 15:44
Gordoz on There May Be Justice: “Q- Why do I always end up agreeing with Rev Campbell ?? A- Turns out he is pretty much the…” Oct 5, 15:44
Northcode on There May Be Justice: ““This is about being a country worthy of independence…” It could be argued that Scotland is the mess it is…” Oct 5, 15:28
panda paws on There May Be Justice: ““So please don’t donate any more money at this stage, unless you ARE one of said eccentric billionaires” I’m not…” Oct 5, 15:22
TURABDIN on There May Be Justice: “There are two mindsets. The one that operates from the general to the particular and one that operates in the…” Oct 5, 15:01
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on There May Be Justice: “Willie writes (5 Oct 2026 at 1:09 pm): « This one’s for Moira…Democracy is a fragile flower » —————- Brings…” Oct 5, 13:53
Terry on There May Be Justice: “Proud to be part of this – especially when I complained to the police about the donations I gave, got…” Oct 5, 13:25
Aidan on The Love Of Big Brother: “Yes “Confused” – an accurate and concise description description of the formation of Great Britain is “irrelevant pedantry”, whereas your…” Oct 5, 13:23
Ian on The Love Of Big Brother: “People in glass houses……. https://archive.ph/3OAhZ” Oct 5, 13:12
