If events in Edinburgh today are anything to go by – when a march and rally announced with great fanfare seven months ago, backed by both the “independence” parties in the Scottish Parliament and featuring the First Minister as main speaker, attracted perhaps 1,500 people at the most to Calton Hill on a bright and sunny day – the independence movement faces an imminent final apocalypse.
So here’s how to prepare yourself for when the SNP win a landslide with 35%, Keir Starmer says “So what?” and then a deathly silence descends for another five years.
Even Kelly Given and Iona Fyfe didn’t show up for this one. That’s how bad it is.
As the six-year fight for justice for Alex Salmond continues, we thought you might like to see this clip from this morning’s Mike Graham Show, interviewing Paul McManus, the businessman and drummer in Glasgow rock band Gun who’s stepped up to fund the Salmond family’s case against the Scottish Government despite disagreeing with much of what Alex stood for politically.
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.
The first and most important thing to note about yesterday’s judgment in the Sandie Peggie tribunal is that it’s a very big victory. The tribunal found that Sandie Peggie was gravely and heinously harassed by her employer through no fault of her own, and she’ll be entitled to substantial compensation as a result.
It also ruled, repeatedly and unequivocally, that Dr “Beth” Upton (who’s referred to in the judgment as “the second respondent”) is a man.
The motion completely ignored both the findings of the Cass Review and the Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland, but not a single MSP spoke in opposition to it. (Jenni Minto, the Minister For Public Health And Women’s Health, actually broke down in tears at the end because she wasn’t managing to get children’s futures permanently destroyed with sufficient urgency, mainly because the UK Parliament took legislation out of Holyrood’s hands to protect them.)
It’s really very hard to overstate what mendacious, duplicitous shite this is.
It did its job, though. As expected, the SNP conference comprehensively voted down the rebel amendments to Swinney’s motion on independence “strategy” and backed his grand plan of winning a majority, begging Keir Starmer for a second referendum – just like Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf had done before him with Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak – and then scuttling obediently away with his tail between his legs when Starmer told him to get lost.
It’d be quite hard to find an image that more completely summed up the wretched state of the SNP in 2025 than this one. Look at that tiny handful of miserable faces, sitting dejectedly around a near-empty function room. It’s so bleak Mike Leigh could make an entire movie out of it.
And we know what you’re thinking – that we sat through some internet livestream to find the most pitiful-looking freezeframe imaginable to show them in a bad light. But nope. Kevin Stewart MSP posted this cheery snapshot of his own free will on Twitter on Sunday morning, presumably in the hope of boosting party morale in some way.
But this extract from an interview to be aired on ITV tonight is actually interesting.
In it, Sturgeon doggedly continues to refuse to use male pronouns for multiple rapist Adam “Isla Bryson” Graham, despite admitting that he IS male, instead calling him “they”. But it was the bit before that that raised our eyebrows.
Breastplate on Clocks And Calendars: “Yes, James, There’s no sense of irony or hypocrisy from Mark. Of course Scotland has oil and of course, they…” Apr 2, 09:50
Northcode on Clocks And Calendars: “A hae the urge tae tak aboot the Americas, aye, and in the Scots leid, tae… maistly onywey. It sud…” Apr 2, 09:42
Young Lochinvar on Clocks And Calendars: “Beggars Oh dear.. Is that the sort of parties you go to? Never can tell with Tories eh.. You aren’t…” Apr 2, 03:00
Captain Caveman on Clocks And Calendars: “Oh do piss off mate. You claimed “400” innocent people were killed by the regime (like, as if this is…” Apr 1, 23:04
Mark Beggan on Clocks And Calendars: “Just put your car keys on the tray.” Apr 1, 22:36
Geri on Clocks And Calendars: ““Worst of all, we have fluffers and apologists for the worst, most murderous regimes on Earth, killing tens of thousands…” Apr 1, 22:20
James on Clocks And Calendars: ““…Just as well we aren’t part of it and we’ve got our own oil….” Oh, ma sides. Stop it!” Apr 1, 22:07
Geri on Clocks And Calendars: “It’s bankers that are the parasite. Forever looking to back & bankroll the Next Empire in it forever wars to…” Apr 1, 22:05
Captain Caveman on Clocks And Calendars: ““Caveman (demoted to private): I read WoS with a degree of detachment but you never fail to impress me with…” Apr 1, 21:53
MaryB on Clocks And Calendars: “Tommy Sheridan’s been reported to the police for calling out USA and I*real. Is this because he’s standing as a…” Apr 1, 21:51
Geri on Clocks And Calendars: “Cave dweller, Okay, I’ll gie yeh just wan the noo.. Willie McRae. Not only did this man shoot himself in…” Apr 1, 21:31
Jay on Clocks And Calendars: “Caveman (demoted to private): I read WoS with a degree of detachment but you never fail to impress me with…” Apr 1, 21:20
Geri on Clocks And Calendars: “I dunno, the EU is detangling itself from the tech mafia & it’s vision of 24 hour surveillance & it’s…” Apr 1, 21:14
Mark Beggan on Clocks And Calendars: “Baby Trump says I was right about everything.” Apr 1, 21:13
Mark Beggan on Clocks And Calendars: “So Europa is to go and fight for their oil. I reckon the EU has 5 years left to exist.…” Apr 1, 21:11
Captain Caveman on Clocks And Calendars: ““Lolz, I’m finding it quite funny being a cave dweller.” It is! I’m mainly here for the shits and giggles.…” Apr 1, 21:04
Mark Beggan on Clocks And Calendars: “1916 Ireland to 2026 Scotland. For starters the uprising in Dublin was a disaster. Half the Irish never turned up…” Apr 1, 21:02
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Nae Need, I think the next generation won’t be as daft – especially given world events over food & energy…” Apr 1, 20:42
Nae Need! on Clocks And Calendars: “Geri, You do make me laugh. Lolz, I’m finding it quite funny being a cave dweller. Now, just for shits…” Apr 1, 20:37
Captain Caveman on Clocks And Calendars: ““I see yer drooling in anticipation..” Um, hardly. It’s not like you have credible information to back up your outrageous,…” Apr 1, 20:31
Nae Need! on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “I couldn’t agree more, Sarah. Of course its a false construct. It’s an absolutely, almost fantastical, ridiculous situation. But having…” Apr 1, 20:08
Nae Need! on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Holyrood is helping no one, Alan. I think I’ve reached my tolerance limits. my patience limits . . . get…” Apr 1, 20:00
Young Lochinvar on Clocks And Calendars: “4 subs; of which 2 are write offs, 1 is undergoing major surgery while 1 (the very very rusty one)…” Apr 1, 19:55
robertkknight on Clocks And Calendars: “As “basket cases” go I recon the UK has the EU beat, and well beat. As for the the Scottish…” Apr 1, 19:48
Northcode on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: ““People must remember that Holyrood is a Colonial Administration… Scotland must gather 57 pro independence candidates, either party or standing…” Apr 1, 19:43
