The closure of the UK Parliament for the summer holidays this week marked the end of my first political “year” with the SNP Group at Westminster, albeit a truncated one under unusual circumstances. Having served in Holyrood much is similar and familiar, even if anachronistic in style and reeking of snobbery. Staff are remarkably helpful and individual members can be exceedingly pleasant.
But this isn’t our Parliament and we’re most certainly not amongst friends.
Maybe the flag could have been a bit bigger, but a solid 8/10 for the staunch rejection of all things nationalistic in this picture and tweet.
Jamie Halcro Johnston, incidentally, secured a whopping 4.1% of the Orkney vote for the Tories in the 2016 election, losing his deposit in the party’s lowest vote share ever (the nadir of a long slide from 23% in 2003), so we’re not absolutely sure he’s qualified to speak on behalf of the whole constituency, but we’ll let that one go this time in the light of such an absolutely stunning rejection of nationalism. Trebles all round.
The Scottish media is in a total frenzy this morning over the long-delayed publication of the “Russia Report” into alleged interference by Vladimir Putin’s regime in UK politics.
The Herald, Scotsman, Mail, Express and the i all lead their front pages with the story today, and the Telegraph did it yesterday. So we thought you might like to see the entirety of the indyref coverage that’s actually in the 55-page report.
But don’t worry, readers. The SNP have a cunning plan to secure independence by 2050, maybe, if they can find time in between letting rapists into women’s changing rooms, criminalising almost any sort of speech and stopping you getting cheap pizzas. No rush. There’s still a lot of MP wages and Short money to be claimed.
The Huffington Post published a poll today, to the great delight of the likes of Stonewall Scotland, which seemed to fly in the face of every previous one on the idea of gender self-identification, a policy which appears to have been dumped by the UK government but is still very much in favour with the Scottish one.
That the poll had been commissioned by trans uber-fundamentalist website Pink News immediately set off alarm bells, especially as the site had previously asked a similar question, found dramatically different results and swiftly disappeared them.
We’ve just been out for our evening constitutional in the relatively cool night air (Bath sweltered at an oppressive 30C today and Bear Patrol was pretty gruelling), and we thought readers might be interested in what we saw.
The city has observed lockdown with great diligence, as we’ve previously documented, and to be honest we’re not sufficiently familiar with the latest rules to say it wasn’t still doing so tonight. But a nearby park, around 9.30pm, was a disconcerting scene.
Now, as we noted earlier this month, that might just be down to people getting weary of false dawns. But it might also indicate that a measure of realism is belatedly beginning to dawn on the Yes movement about the lack of connection between nice poll numbers and actually securing another referendum.
gm on The Party Of The Dead: “Well spotted Turabdin. The Ruling Class.” Aug 11, 22:05
James on The Party Of The Dead: ““….Who is the pathetic twat?” Still you, Bubba.” Aug 11, 21:10
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Generally speaking, TURABDIN, in our culture, we don’t expect the offspring of anybody to be held accountable for the sins…” Aug 11, 21:06
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Isn’t that how to deal with a fatberg? Divide it into smaller lumps that can then be individually flushed.” Aug 11, 20:56
Aidan on The Party Of The Dead: “What useful activities do you spend your day doing that you can be “diverted” and “distracted” from?” Aug 11, 20:40
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “OL Probably to hide the fact he hadn’t fully thawed out, plus all the resuscitation equipment he requires when brought…” Aug 11, 19:39
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “HMcH I suspect it was the Diet Coke supplies that got hardest hit. He’s a fan apparently.” Aug 11, 19:36
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “Well hold on there Bald Eagle! True. I uncharacteristically missed that one 🙂” Aug 11, 19:31
James on The Party Of The Dead: “Well said, diabloandco. Those 4 Yoon trolls are endless. Here all day, every day to divert, distract and divide. As…” Aug 11, 19:29
Aidan on The Party Of The Dead: “Have you thought about moving to South West Scotland? It’d be nice to get some more English voices into the…” Aug 11, 19:21
James on The Party Of The Dead: “What a fucking clown you are, Adrian. You keep good company. Cue the SP.” Aug 11, 19:20
TURABDIN on The Party Of The Dead: “FILTHY LUCRE… https://archive.is/AkQ3T the spawn of a major war criminal keeping it in the family.” Aug 11, 18:42
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “Sure! Keep the cash rolling in. £20 on the meter so far. 🙂 Never done a good grift before, sounds…” Aug 11, 17:53
Minceheid on The Party Of The Dead: “Captain Caveman says: 11 August, 2026 at 4:39 pm No, no Aidan, I’m actually quite touched that Fatso would give…” Aug 11, 17:34
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “*margarita even 😀 Jeez, what a typo… don’t want Fatso to think I’m holding a French white daisy for him…” Aug 11, 17:21
Oneliner on The Party Of The Dead: “Gordon Brown had a black-windowed cavalcade of Range Rovers when he went to his ‘How To Save The Union’ meeting…” Aug 11, 17:17
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “I’ll be sure to do so too, just for him – marguerite in hand. 😀” Aug 11, 17:16
Aidan on The Party Of The Dead: “He probably hasn’t twigged that you’ll still be able to post on the internet, exactly as today, from another location…” Aug 11, 16:58
Stevie on Anatomy Of A Grift: “Mentally ill, delusional, perpetually-victimhood-angry, self-righteous = dangerous” Aug 11, 16:43
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “No, no Aidan, I’m actually quite touched that Fatso would give me his life savings to help move out. :)…” Aug 11, 16:39
James on The Party Of The Dead: “£20 towards your moving expenses, no problem. Just say the word. Good riddance.” Aug 11, 15:18
Aidan on The Party Of The Dead: “Some of this “analysis” borders on being absurd and is clearly written from the standpoint of another agenda. – Nobody…” Aug 11, 15:04
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “Somebody would have had to count the pies and sandwiches, etc, before and after. If it’s the same employee that…” Aug 11, 14:29
Hatey McHateface on The Party Of The Dead: “I guess the imperial nationalist Scots aren’t “True Scots”, what with being brainwashed and all. If they might be concerned…” Aug 11, 14:20
Captain Caveman on The Party Of The Dead: “I daresay even an airport catering truck is preferable to, say, a luxury campervan paid for with embezzled funds. 🙂” Aug 11, 14:14
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “Batman had the Batmobile, the Pope has the Pope Mobile, JFK an open top saloon, the King a carriage and…” Aug 11, 13:50
Alf Baird on The Party Of The Dead: ““definition of “Scot”” An interesting point, Hatey. We may say there are different forms of nationalist ideology at play, and…” Aug 11, 13:49
Young Lochinvar on The Party Of The Dead: “HMcH Those artisans hung At Lauder Bridge.” Aug 11, 13:40
