It’s probably as good an illustration of the madness currently engulfing Scottish politics as anything that unlikely suspect Anas Sarwar may have just – temporarily at least – saved Humza Yousaf’s job.
And although our head hurts already, we’ll try to explain why.
The Cass Review into gender medicine, which has been almost six long years in the making, was finally published this morning, and despite the fears of some – including us – that it was going to be watered down, it’s turned out to be an absolutely explosive document even on a quick skim. (It’s 388 pages long.)
The most damning aspect, though, is almost certainly this one:
Those quotes annihilate any concept of an “innocent good intentions” defence for the gender clinics. Because if you genuinely believe that you’re doing good, you don’t try to bury all the evidence.
Welcome, readers, to what may be the final week of Wings Over Scotland.
We’ve been covering the Scottish Government’s horrific, draconian Hate Crime Act for almost four years now. But until this month, we hadn’t felt directly under threat by it. Wings is – sorry if this comes as a shock to anyone – based in Bath, in England, and we couldn’t see how the Scottish police could come after us.
I make no apology for what I am about to write because while I’ve said it before, the time to do so is running out.
In a couple of weeks, the Scottish Government’s Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 will come into effect and my world, and that of women up and down Scotland will enter a very dark place.
(1) What was the total cost of the “Hate Monster” campaign?
(2) Of that, how much was spent on the production of the “Have you met the Hate Monster?” video (below)?
(3) Which pronouns should be used when referring to the Hate Monster in reporting of the campaign? Does the Hate Monster have a sex and/or gender? Were any full-body images of the Hate Monster commissioned, or only its upper body? If the former, please supply any such images held by Police Scotland.
(4) Would the reference on this page to “young men aged 18-30 […] with ideas about white-male entitlement” constitute a possible hate crime or hate incident, under the protected characteristic of race, since it seems likely to stir up hatred of young white men as being disproportionately bigoted and violent on the basis of their colour and lead to their victimisation?
(5) If so, is there a particular third party (such as a sex shop or mushroom farm) to whom this crime/incident should be reported, as when the alleged offender was the police a person might for obvious reasons not “feel comfortable reporting the incident to the police”, as noted on the campaign website?
(6) Which organisations, if any, were employed to provide suitable training to the staff of Third Party Reporting Centres and how much, if anything, were they paid?
(7) Are Third Party Reporting Centres required to accept any report, or can they use their discretion to refuse some reports if they find them objectionable or offensive?
(8) Are there circumstances whereby a report of a hate crime/hate incident could itself constitute a hate crime/hate incident?
Rev. Stuart Campbell Editor Wings Over Scotland
We’ll keep you updated with developments as they occur.
Wings has been regularly pointing out for the last 11-and-a-half years that by far the most reliable indicator of who’s going to win an election isn’t voting-intention polls, but “Who would make the best Prime/First Minister?” polls.
So the SNP should be really really alarmed about this.
Everyone’s having a lot of fun with the farcical Hate Crime Act that will finally come into operation in Scotland in just a couple of weeks’ time, fittingly on April Fools’ Day.
There’s a Calvin And Hobbes cartoon we like to post on social media when someone’s got themselves in such a pickle that they’re just flailing around desperately firing off every slogan, argument or insult they can think of to get themselves out of it.
We’re reluctant to even mention the farcical, embarrassing goings-on in the House Of Commons last night, but the very short version is that the SNP somehow contrived to save Keir Starmer from an embarrassing mass rebellion of Labour MPs.
And in so far as anyone cared about them at all, the people of Gaza were the losers.