Welcome back to what will hopefully be normal service after we’ve been spending the last few days battling off a determined and temporarily successful attempt at hacking the site. Apologies to those who had clicks intercepted and redirected to a malware site which tried to get people to download dodgy .EXE files, but our readers are far too alert to ever fall for such things so no harm should have been done.
So back to business, which for us often means pointing out things that have been said in newspapers that aren’t true, which brings us to last Friday’s issue of The National.
As alert Wings readers will know, we’re fond of a WW2 analogy from time to time. The conflict is so extensively documented, and so deeply embedded in British culture (for both good and ill), that it’s a reliable tool for getting points across concisely and clearly.
(It’s also one of the last major wars in which, overall, the good guys and the bad guys were pretty indisputably easy to identify.)
So let’s keep that in mind for a moment while we look at this.
The wild thing about this poll isn’t the headline that six months after winning a massive landslide majority, Keir Starmer now trails Nigel Farage – leader of a party with five MPs to Starmer’s 411 – as the electorate’s choice for best Prime Minister.
It’s the little grey numbers sitting quietly at the bottom.
As more horrific experiences from survivors of rape torture gangs surface from across the UK, we must focus not on knee-jerk political posturing but on the root cause that led to the failure of these children by our society.
Political inaction has now opened the door to inevitable political mileage, nurtured from stoking vengeance in a rightly-angered public. Those only interested in creating cultural conflicts no more support justice for survivors than those who allowed this abomination to fester by looking away or worse, covering up the problem.
For any functioning society, inflicting unimaginable pain on children on an alarming scale seems unimaginable. Yet, the evidence has been in front of us for years – so why has immediate action to ensure the safeguarding of children – and vulnerable adults – not been a pressing priority?
Any rational assessment of Scottish (or indeed UK or world) politics at the moment tends to be negative and depressing, so since it’s a new year we thought we’d make an extra-special effort at writing something positive.
Unfortunately that does require us to enter the realm of fantasy. But hey, everybody needs a little holiday from time to time, right?
Polling in Scotland, the UK and Wales in the last few days has shown Great Britain taking a fairly heavy swerve to the right after just five months of Sir Keir Starmer’s government. Labour now lead Reform (who have five seats to Labour’s 411) by just three points in the UK and are even more remarkably now in THIRD place in Wales, a country where the party has won every single election for over 100 years.
Scotland, meanwhile, is heading for a hung Parliament in 2026 in which – as this site has been telling its readers for the last year and a half – the only possibility of a stable administration will be an SNP-Labour coalition.
The proceedings at the Supreme Court this week were a tough follow even if you could get the court’s abominably bad livestream to work. They’re all archived here now, but non-lawyers will probably glaze over quickly during the nine hours of intense legalese.
We’re not allowed to clip up any illustrative sections, on pain of possible contempt of court, so perhaps the best way to explain the key parts of what happened in a vaguely comprehensible way is by showing you some commentary from social media.
Phil on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Excellent post Red. You are dead right, there is nothing there. Or, as my Dad said when she first appeared…” May 31, 06:51
Dave on Marvola The Memory Woman: “No need to apologise for lacking a sense of humour, sweet cheeks 😉” May 31, 05:34
Young Lochinvar on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Probably realised at long last she isn’t getting any sympathy here except from the microscopic tranny community and that all…” May 31, 03:31
paul on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “That’s because the scotch folk are so horrible to embezzlers ,perjurors and criminals. It will be a warm breath of…” May 31, 02:05
Onlooker on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Don’t even think it’s as complicated as that, Alf, though what you say may be wee part of the overall…” May 31, 01:56
paul on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “The SNP have won lots of by-elections and elections before but since the sturgeon era (I include js and hy)…” May 31, 01:53
Cynicus on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Sorry, a link in the previous post became detached: https://www.headline.co.uk/titles/quintin-jardine/secrets-and-lies/9781035402939/” May 31, 01:53
Onlooker on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “It would be ‘mibbes naw’, smart cunt. Only middle class folk know big German words, and how to use them…” May 31, 01:41
Cynicus on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “in his quest for appropriate book titles, how did the Rev miss Quintin Jardine‘s Secrets and Lies ? It’s subtitle…” May 31, 00:16
Charles Mackay on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “The English press are reporting she has now moved to London-brazen betrayal” May 30, 23:48
100%Yes on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Nicola in the Kitchen with Husband and guest making cups of coffee, she really knows her way around the kitchen.…” May 30, 22:25
sarah on Off-topic: “Chortling at that, TC!” May 30, 22:24
robertkknight on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “D’Izzie… Your attempts to promote Independence via the morally, politically and financially bankrupt SNP will no doubt be welcomed by…” May 30, 22:02
sarah on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Izzie has mentioned that arthritis in her hands makes typing difficult. And if her IT system has predictive text then…” May 30, 22:01
Alf Baird on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: ““so many of the other writers” What writers? Aside from Doun-Hauden, I don’t see any other books explaining the colonial…” May 30, 21:34
Hatey McHateface on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Careful, Izzie! Some of the public do care about spelling. More specifically, they conclude that somebody who doesn’t respect them…” May 30, 21:11
Hatey McHateface on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “As a writer of “colonially permitted literature”, Alf, why do you think you have been granted permission to publish, when…” May 30, 21:01
Izzie on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Meanwhile we who care abiut Scittish Independence are leafleting and canvassing to win bith by-elections. The public dont care about…” May 30, 20:52
Alf Baird on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: ““Crime novels are boring, tedious shit” What passes for Scots ‘literature’ today seems to be smothered by crime books from…” May 30, 20:38
Hatey McHateface on Marvola The Memory Woman: ““disturbed wee brain” Please, Twat H. Disturbed big brain. Get yer basic facts right.” May 30, 20:27
Hatey McHateface on Marvola The Memory Woman: “I would have sworn I only pressed “Submit Comment” once. And it can’t be the DT’s, not this early in…” May 30, 20:17
Red on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “They keep pretending Nickla can write, when she can hardly speak in joined up paragraphs that make sense. The SNP…” May 30, 20:06
Hatey McHateface on Marvola The Memory Woman: “For that comment, Spartan 117, we intend to cram you into a barrel of boiling tar. Then we’ll set fire…” May 30, 20:05
Tinto Chiel on Off-topic: “@sarah: ah, I see my original has been “passed”. I think it was the reference to JB wot done it.…” May 30, 20:01
