So Cathy Newman of Channel 4 News got herself a scoop last night.
And to be honest, readers, we were a bit confused. “Gender critical views” are not only lawful things to hold and express, they’re one of a small subset of opinions that are explicitly protected as such in law. And why would a man very occasionally airing some lawful and protected views on social media be a news story? You might as well run “BREAKING: Premiership footballer discovered to enjoy cheese-and-ham toasties”.
This clip was broadcast on ITV News Wales this week.
It’s a staggeringly obvious mess for a whole raft of reasons – a number of completely spurious, illogical and unsupported claims are accepted as facts without any sort of challenge or balancing voice (which has been standard practice on ITV News for a while now across almost any contentious political topic) – but it led us to somewhere magnitudes of crazier still.
My first ever real experience of politics was playing Dictator.
Originally written by Don Priestley for the Sinclair ZX81 in 1982, it was a simple text-based game which subsequently came to other formats including the Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Elan Enterprise and the ZX Spectrum, which is where I encountered it.
With Reform now pretty consistently miles in front in polling for the next UK election, logically this is brilliant news for the Scottish independence movement, isn’t it?
So can anyone explain why the SNP is so desperate to stop them?
Because, y’know, you can call us old-fashioned purists or sticklers or whatever if you like, but government ministers probably shouldn’t openly lie in prepared statements to the High Court in order to pervert the course of justice.
In a 12-month period running up to the last UK general election, the UK state gave the SNP a little over £1.3 million.
In the corresponding period for the last year, after the party was reduced to just nine seats, that figure plunged to just over £0.4 million, a drop of over £0.9 million.
Disgraced ex-policeman and notorious vexatious serial complainant Lynsay Watson is having quite the meltdown on the groomer-and-paedophile haven Bluesky tonight.
Perhaps the key graphic from last night’s by-election in Caerphilly is this one (green means Plaid Cymru in the context of Wales):
In the end, Plaid won pretty comfortably in what had been predicted to be a very tight contest between them and Reform, with a majority of almost 4,000. But Plaid aren’t going to be the next government of the UK, so what’s the real story?
Last month, when half a football team of armed police ambushed and arrested comedy writer Graham Linehan at Heathrow Airport for a couple of tweets, we said this:
Today, even more swiftly than we thought, this happened:
Alf Baird on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Tut tut, only 13 out of 46 comments here for Hatety ower Scotland. Ye’ve drapped belaw yer usual 30%.” Mar 5, 13:54
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““The solution? STOP ILLEGALLY INVADING OTHER COUNTRIES. Simples” I find myself on the horns of a dilemma. Is it flattering…” Mar 5, 13:49
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““the current crop of politicians may not have the requisite skills & intelligence to handle” Maybe aye, maybe naw. I…” Mar 5, 13:35
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “That so? These people sound like what we would call colonialists on here. Happy to be proved wrong. Maybe they’re…” Mar 5, 13:19
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Wheesht, Northy, that carpet has been gnawed to threads. There’s a plush new carpet on the flair, 100% acrylic, with…” Mar 5, 13:14
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““Who started this?” To be fair, I would say the Romans. To be unfair (and why not?), the First Caliphate…” Mar 5, 13:09
TURABDIN on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “INDEPENDENCE is a good, but a good that in a deeply troubled & divided world imposes responsibilities that the current…” Mar 5, 12:53
diabloandco on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Don’t know about the Middle East but I’ve certainly gone off the American Government.That said I am awaiting news of…” Mar 5, 12:48
Geri on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “The solution? STOP ILLEGALLY INVADING OTHER COUNTRIES. Simples. Then people won’t be forced to move. They’ll be more than happy…” Mar 5, 12:36
TURABDIN on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “AMERIKA is now involved in Ecuador. Supposedly to crush drug cartels the US being the largest user. Doha where my…” Mar 5, 12:36
Breastplate on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “John, everything thing you fear and hate is because you and your friends got exactly the politicians you wanted into…” Mar 5, 12:27
lothianlad on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “The SNP used to do everything to promote and achieve independence. Now, They do everything to avoid it. Parcel of…” Mar 5, 12:18
Northcode on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “War? What war? I see no war. I see only the insane murdering each other with their flying or swimming…” Mar 5, 11:42
Northcode on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Ah, the preposterous Swinney; the man who would be king, and his own court jester all at once; the humourless…” Mar 5, 10:21
TURABDIN on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “The favoured domain of the «sociopath» is politics. No one ought to be allowed to enter the field before first…” Mar 5, 10:04
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “What’s your solution, then, TURABDIN? We’ve already tried letting every one who can escape the shitholes come here. We pretended…” Mar 5, 09:58
TURABDIN on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “and EVIL’s spawn. https://archive.is/RBCXa Reckon Mr Swinney might benefit from reading this. Statecraft….phew!” Mar 5, 09:22
100%Yes on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Swinney could win a referendum, he could also make as many excuses as he likes not to hold it. I’d…” Mar 5, 09:06
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Live by the sword, die by the sword, TURABDIN. There’s not one single Scot who hasn’t been adversely affected by…” Mar 5, 08:51
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “The only explanation of “the plan” I’ve found so far: https://unherd.com/2026/03/trumps-plan-for-iran/ It has a certain superficial plausibility to it. And…” Mar 5, 08:35
TURABDIN on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “AMERICA IS EVIL, root and branch. No more mealymouthed verbiage.” Mar 5, 08:31
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““Me too” I guess talk is cheap. I guess we’ll wait a long time to discover the “man of principle”…” Mar 5, 08:03
Cynicus on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “‘And then Swinney (and indeed all his idiot apologists) will have to turn to expectant SNP voters and say “Ehm,…” Mar 5, 01:33
Angus on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Those were the days of the Alex Salmond led SNP, which was genuinely pro-independence. What followed has been the SNP…” Mar 5, 00:36
Cynicus on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “RobertG says: 4 March, 2026 at 9:05 pm “I am far from convinced with the polling projections. I suspect that…” Mar 5, 00:13
Big Jock on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “He already has the excuse lined up. The war in Iran. Which England is dragging Scotland into. Now is not…” Mar 5, 00:08
Rob on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Even in the extremely unlikely event that the UN agrees with you there will still need to be a referendum.” Mar 4, 23:44
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “IAIN UIG Chaochail a bhean. Ghoid iad a chàr. Mharbh iad a chù. Bhuail òrd air làr. Sìor spadadh dhe…” Mar 4, 22:50
Andy Wiltshire on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “If by some miracle there is a referendum, and indy wins, I sometimes wonder if we would be forced to…” Mar 4, 22:28
100%Yes on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “I’ll tell you who believes Swinney the one’s making a living out of pretending to support Independence when they don’t.” Mar 4, 22:28
