Readers, we swear to you we are not making this up. What you’re about to read are genuine extracts from the SNP’s official new (probably illegal) Equalities Mechanism explanatory note, detailing what does and doesn’t count as a disability when it comes to jumping the queue for a regional list nomination.
And straight away it’s a real punch in the gut for firestarters, muggers, rapists, flashers and, in most cases, hay-fever sufferers. THIS BIGOTRY WILL NOT STAND.
Because 2020 is the maddest year in history, Ruth Davidson opened her contribution to Holyrood’s debate on the Brexit deal today with a lengthy quote from this website.
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.
When we first saw this video on Twitter through bleary half-asleep eyes this morning, we thought it was a well-done satire. But no. He actually put it out himself.
There can surely in history have never been anything that demeaned both the office of President and the USA as a nation more than the image halfway through that video of him prancing around in front of Air Force One.
Today America decides its future. And dear lord, what a choice it has.
Scotland’s media is still unable to contain its outpouring of bitter, resentful rage over Alex Salmond’s exoneration by a jury on trumped-up sexual assault charges.
Flailing blindly in all directions it’s achieving little other than to embarrass itself, such as last night when Scotland On Sunday had to change its front page in a late panic. But the media’s toxic fury at being denied Salmond’s head on a pole has also led it to do something far, far more serious and reckless.
And every one of them knows exactly what they’ve done.
There are now exactly two weeks remaining of the Scottish Government’s second fake “consultation” into its proposed reforms to gender law.
We say “fake” not out of cynicism or mad paranoia, but because the cabinet minister responsible for the reforms has already made it explicitly, publicly and repeatedly clear that she intends to press ahead with them regardless of the responses, and that the only purpose of the “consultation” is to try to persuade people to agree with them.
Shirley-Anne Somerville reiterated this position just days ago, telling Scotland Tonight that she was “absolutely determined” to enact the bill and only interested in silencing opposition and removing any “medicalisation” of the process of gender transition.
While the Scottish Government has met literally hundreds of times with transactivist groups with regard to the reforms, it has refused to meet women’s groups critical of them, and frequently lied about that refusal.
The consultation document and the draft bill leave enormous logical and legislative gaps which are likely to cause untold chaos if the reforms are implemented. The Scottish Government has apparently learned nothing from the shambolic fiascos around the Offensive Behaviour (Football) Act and Named Person legislation, both of which have collapsed despite widespread public support – something the proposed gender reforms emphatically do NOT enjoy.
We’re obliged for the sake of sanity to assume that at some point the First Minister, the Cabinet Secretary or both will have to undertake at least one proper interview on the subject of these extremely serious and potentially catastrophic proposals.
For the consideration of whoever may conduct these interviews, we submit below some questions which a very considerable number of people in Scotland – primarily but by no means exclusively women, and encompassing a majority of every political and social demographic – urgently want answered.
It’s a long time, apparently. Because while a general election on 12 December would be a “barking mad” idea according to the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford on Thursday, having one on 9 December instead is genius.
So in a month in which this site has been extensively screamed at by SNP diehards as the work of a “traitor” and an “MI5 plant” for suggesting that maybe the SNP could vote with the Tories (or perhaps just abstain) to let Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal go through in exchange for a second indyref, the official SNP plan is to now vote with the Tories to give them the election Boris Johnson has been trying to call for weeks – which all polls suggest he’d win, allowing him to enact any sort of Brexit he wants – but to cleverly NOT get a second indyref out of it.
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.
We saw this exchange on Twitter this morning, involving left-wing Labour activist Eoin Clarke, a reader, and Scottish Labour list MSP Elaine Smith.
Smith professed to find it “unbelievable” and “scary” that the reader thought he’d had Tory governments for most of his lifetime. (We asked him how old he was and he said 34, which means he’s had Tory governments for 62% of his life, so that checks out.)
But it’s a standard Scottish Labour line that there’s no real difference between Scottish and English voters in terms of favouring left-wing politics, so we thought we’d just quickly check the arithmetic on that. The results are unlikely to shock you.
Marie on The Valley Of The Dolls: “Scottish judges – what are they like eh? Third rate – that’s what they’re like.” Dec 10, 00:37
sog on The Valley Of The Dolls: “I got as far as the ‘Assigned male at birth’ bollocks, and gave up. Anyone quoting that should be fired,…” Dec 9, 23:24
Lorncal on The Valley Of The Dolls: “If you do, those spaces become mixed sex spaces, not single sex spaces. Would you allow women who have had…” Dec 9, 23:08
Lorncal on The Valley Of The Dolls: “Because, Kate, we let them get away with the “stunning and brave” bulls**t instead of calling them out as that…” Dec 9, 23:00
sarah on Off-topic: “NHS dentist, Tinto? No chance, I’m afraid. Though it sounds as if we have been let off lightly compared with…” Dec 9, 22:16
Lorncal on The Valley Of The Dolls: ““… The argument was essentially of a man using the façade of gender reassignment for improper purposes, including for sexual…” Dec 9, 21:55
McDuff on The Valley Of The Dolls: “Congratulations rev on another powerful article.” Dec 9, 21:27
Jay on The Valley Of The Dolls: “Sarah: Agreed that Rev Stu has conducted a masterly exercise of demolishing the position taken by the Tribunal, a wonderful…” Dec 9, 21:16
Tracey on The Valley Of The Dolls: “Thanks for this. Excellently written and explained. I am glad I am already subscribed. You are worth it!” Dec 9, 21:06
sarah on The Valley Of The Dolls: “You missed your calling, Rev. You could have been a senior judge in Scotland or England. There was a wonderful…” Dec 9, 19:29
Hatey McHateface on The Valley Of The Dolls: “As always, a masterful analysis from Scotland’s greatest living journalist. Just one tiny quibble: “It’s not often you see a…” Dec 9, 19:24
Hatey McHateface on The Valley Of The Dolls: “They’re aiming for the institutionalized watering down of women’s rights. It’s a war. The trannies are the leading shock troops…” Dec 9, 19:21
Kate L on The Valley Of The Dolls: “Thank you for this breakdown, even though it may lead to a breakdown of my own. This is legitimately bonkers.…” Dec 9, 19:20
agentx on The Valley Of The Dolls: “There will be an appeal from both sides and the decision will go to the higher courts. But please note…” Dec 9, 19:18
diabloandco on The Valley Of The Dolls: “Excellent idea! The whole thing is stratospherically ridiculous.” Dec 9, 19:17
Tinto Chiel on Off-topic: “Forgot to mention that thoughts of Gruinard Bay and its seals always make me think of the incomparable Julie and…” Dec 9, 19:10
diabloandco on The Long Walk To Freedom: “I think I must have met that man in Edinburgh one lovely sunny afternoon in the gardens when a great…” Dec 9, 19:07
Tinto Chiel on Off-topic: “I don’t give up, Sarah, I adapt 🙂 . Despite the best efforts of the security services, the Edinburgh Proclamation…” Dec 9, 18:59
Hatey McHateface on The Long Walk To Freedom: “Ah, the fragrant James has dragged himself once again, out from under his stone. You can choose to believe that…” Dec 9, 18:51
Craig on The Valley Of The Dolls: “Any chance for a copy of THAT dogs breakfast to be sent to the Supreme Court judges so they may…” Dec 9, 18:46
twathater on The Valley Of The Dolls: “I would believe that judges decision had been made at the start of the tribunal , anyone who uses the…” Dec 9, 18:32
100%Yes on The Valley Of The Dolls: “Trying to fit a square into a circle is never going to work. I’m afraid the SNP and the Greens…” Dec 9, 18:07
Iain More on The Valley Of The Dolls: “It is a toxic world for any white heterosexual males and females.” Dec 9, 18:04
Vronsky on The Valley Of The Dolls: “It’s too easy to point out the madness, we need to understand that to your average politician this apparent silliness…” Dec 9, 17:57
panda paws on The Valley Of The Dolls: “Indeed it isn’t. It is illegal for someone who in an official capacity knows another person has a GRC to…” Dec 9, 17:44
