It’s nearly over, readers. Just one more week of this to endure.
The most miserable Holyrood election campaign of all time will end next Thursday with an election which will deliver Scotland’s most miserable devolved government of all time. Only the exact form, colour and shape of the misery remains to be determined.
So as the SNP promise through forked tongues to cut the cost of living with a pledge they know full well they have no chance of being able to actually implement, while using the powers they DO have to INCREASE the cost of everything that makes life WORTH living, let’s look at exactly what flavour of dog vomit we can expect to be choking down along with our state-approved organic broccoli and fat-free gruel for the next half-decade.
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.
Heather McLean on And Nothing Happened Forever: “The franchise for the Scottish Parliament needs to be revisited and reformed so that only permanent residents in Scotland can…” May 9, 12:39
Geri on And Nothing Happened Forever: “The moment I read about the work visa – klaxons sounded. USaid activists are funded from all over the world…” May 9, 12:23
Minceheid on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Bilbo says: 9 May, 2026 at 10:32 am In 2020, the Scottish Parliament passed the Scottish Elections (Franchise and Representation)…” May 9, 12:19
Lorncal on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Izzy: there is not one day passes that does not witness someone enter the BTL commentary to tell everyone how…” May 9, 12:15
Andrew Kidd on And Nothing Happened Forever: “I think the voters rather than the press will make an association with the performance of pro-indy parties and the…” May 9, 12:14
Northcode on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Aye, Geri… setting my facetious nature aside for a moment, garnering so many votes in just a couple of months…” May 9, 12:11
TURABDIN on And Nothing Happened Forever: “«You are offered a piece of bread and butter that feels like a damp handkerchief – and sometimes, when cucumber…” May 9, 12:09
Stevo on And Nothing Happened Forever: “You have seen the news this morning. The crypt has been opened and he’s back as and economic advisor!” May 9, 12:06
Lorncal on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Bilbo: indeed. Nowhere else would this be allowed. I believe that Lorna Slater was born in Scotland and moved to…” May 9, 11:59
Cuphook on And Nothing Happened Forever: “It’s not too early, and it’s not really an electoral issue: it’s about polarity. The Greens are limited to university…” May 9, 11:58
panda paws on And Nothing Happened Forever: ““even the BBC highlighted that if a party wins big on the constituency the party isn’t going to win any…” May 9, 11:54
Minceheid on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Bilbo says: 9 May, 2026 at 10:59 am * It is possible that the Green MSP has been illegally elected…” May 9, 11:51
Andrea on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Dear me… What about Lorna, is she a dual national? I couldn’t find any info.” May 9, 11:46
Rev. Stuart Campbell on And Nothing Happened Forever: “That’s what they said about Theresa May, and Boris Johnson, and etc etc etc.” May 9, 11:44
Bilbo on And Nothing Happened Forever: “@ Sven I’ve got a feeling that the fella isn’t Transgender or Queer but a grifter. It’s a good way…” May 9, 11:38
Bilbo on And Nothing Happened Forever: “You would be treated with a bit more respect if you actually took the time to spell check rather than…” May 9, 11:34
TURABDIN on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;…” May 9, 11:30
KOF on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Satan’s nonce parties win again. Joh 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth…” May 9, 11:29
Izzie on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Im sorry this platform has degenerated into baseless name callimg and hurling of insults. We used to have discussion. I…” May 9, 11:28
Bilbo on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Meanwhile, in England the Muslim / left and radical right are squaring up to each other. Listen to the victory…” May 9, 11:12
Geri on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Wake up! The SNP do not want Independence. They consistently vote AGAINST it. Ash Regan offered it on a plate…” May 9, 11:06
Northcode on And Nothing Happened Forever: “In Gumpian Logic justice is as justice does. Or, put another way, “Justice exists only where actions make it real.”…” May 9, 11:02
Bilbo on And Nothing Happened Forever: “With the disappointing result of no AtLS candidates not being elected, you need to look at the very few positives.…” May 9, 10:59
BroughtyBoy on And Nothing Happened Forever: “The big winner is Stephen Flynn. Ready to take leadership in early 2028. Swinney will take the pain of the…” May 9, 10:48
Bono bunny on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Is it possible to ascertain how many Reform MSP’s got in due to SNP 1 + 2?” May 9, 10:43
Bilbo on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Just ran the Scottish Elections (Franchise and Representation) Act 2020 through AI and it has come out of the following…” May 9, 10:39
Geri on And Nothing Happened Forever: “Aye, not a bad result for an alliance only established eight weeks ago & with very limited coverage & funding.…” May 9, 10:35