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The Front On The Volga 91

Posted on February 11, 2025 by

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.

And then let’s talk about Stalingrad.

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The Great Hollowing 140

Posted on January 20, 2025 by

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.

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Dreaming Of Perfection 276

Posted on January 07, 2025 by

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?

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Trump’s Card 292

Posted on December 14, 2024 by

The Unbargain Bin 215

Posted on November 23, 2024 by

The Way Forward 212

Posted on November 17, 2024 by

As a lifelong political geek and former SNP and Alba Party member, I’ve spent years supporting Scotland’s independence movement. However, over the last few years, I’ve watched the campaign (as opposed to support for independence) wither away. Being a Scottish nationalist has become increasingly disheartening, like watching someone you love succumb to a slow, debilitating illness. In frustration, I switched off from my homeland and turned my focus to the drama of US politics.

Over the last three years I immersed myself in it, watching both left and right-wing outlets. I became so hooked and invested that I jumped on a plane to Washington DC for the 2024 election. I canvassed with DC Democrats in rural Pennsylvania (that’s me third from the left in the pic below), attended Kamala Harris’s concession rally, and went to Trump’s only watch party in DC.

My journey led me to believe that Scotland’s independence campaign could learn a great deal from Trump’s victory and the Democrats’ failure.

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The Show Goes On 256

Posted on November 09, 2024 by

How it happened 420

Posted on November 06, 2024 by

So it looks like the USA has elected a mad orange rapist convicted of 34 felonies who could yet be in jail by the time of his inauguration. (He would remain President even if that happened, which would be really funny.) And we can’t even blame them for it, because the alternative they were offered was, remarkably and stupendously, worse.

Wings called it like we called Trump’s first victory (and most other things). We tweeted this last year when thinking about the upcoming election. It’s a variant on something we wrote about on Wings eight and a half years ago. We’re posting it again now in the desperate hope that one day, maybe, far in the future, someone will actually listen.

But, y’know, we’re not holding our breath or anything.

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The Last Legs 67

Posted on September 06, 2024 by

In the 1990s, Dr. Robert Smith, a surgeon at Falkirk Royal Infirmary, performed a pair of amputations on two men. Neither of the men involved had anything physically wrong with them, but both were suffering from apotemnophilia – a rare psychiatric condition involving the desire to have healthy limbs amputated.

Sufferers, counterintuitively, claim not to feel “whole” with four limbs and obsess over having their unwanted body parts chopped off. Smith argued the surgeries were life-saving, claiming the patients would commit suicide otherwise.

Apotemnophiles, like autogynephiles, insist that there is no erotic element, but it was later discovered that one of the men Smith operated on ran an amputee fetish website.

Upon investigation, the hospital deemed the procedures unethical. Smith was banned from mutilating healthy bodies (although he was found not to have breached any of the hospital’s rules at the time and not sanctioned), and the dubious experiment ended.

But let’s imagine for a moment an alternate reality.

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The Manipulation Of Perception 212

Posted on August 13, 2024 by

In many ways, the fabricated, hysterical furore of Humza Yousaf Vs Elon Musk is the ultimate in summer-silly-season politics stories.

Absurdly plainly, the former First Minister ISN’T going to take any legal action against the billionaire owner of Twitter. He only likes bullying small nurseries, and even then he doesn’t follow through. He didn’t even sue us for calling him racist a few months ago, so there’s zero chance he’s going to square up to the world’s richest man.

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How To Punch Women In The Face 368

Posted on August 01, 2024 by

(And Get Away With It)

You’d have to be living in a pretty strict prison not to have heard the big story from today’s Olympics in Paris, in which male Algerian cheat Imane Khelefi was put in a boxing ring with young Italian woman Angela Carini and allowed to hit her in the head for 46 seconds until she retired, in tears and in fear for her safety, saying “I had to preserve my life”.

Sound like your kind of fun, men? It’s surprisingly easy!

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The Wailing Walls 443

Posted on February 24, 2024 by

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    Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)

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    • Mark Beggan on Mad caps: “SignedApr 5, 16:22
    • sarah on Mad caps: “@ Mark – if you click on the blue link in my comment, the petition comes up for you to…Apr 5, 16:14
    • sarah on Mad caps: “Petition is: PE2135 Implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR] in Scottish legislation.Apr 5, 16:02
    • Mark Beggan on Mad caps: “Where do I sign.Apr 5, 15:56
    • sarah on Mad caps: “We CAN get control over any of these politicians. All we have to do is get the UN International Covenant…Apr 5, 15:42
    • Mark Beggan on Mad caps: “Wouldn’t it be nice if Greer was parachuted into a mountainous desert where the locals armed to the teeth didn’t…Apr 5, 15:13
    • Young Lochinvar on Mad caps: “They are ALL dangerous nut-cases. They don’t even consider or care about Scotlands inalienable right to self determination, ALL they…Apr 5, 15:09
    • Sven on Mad caps: “Yoon Scum. Wow, that seems to have pushed your buttons in a fairly immoderate manner. I’ve no idea why you’d…Apr 5, 14:55
    • Skip_NC on Mad caps: “YS, the policies each party currently pursues are, in the main, a creature of the devolution settlement. When we attain…Apr 5, 14:45
    • Mia on Mad caps: “Oh, is it a handbag? And that was me thinking it was the cap of some handmaid…Apr 5, 14:38
    • Mark Beggan on Mad caps: “Greer is a dangerous nut case.Apr 5, 14:32
    • Mark Beggan on Mad caps: “Does step three involve halusnagenic mushrooms?Apr 5, 14:19
    • Yoon Scum on Mad caps: “So you love Ross for his BANANA politics Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone I hate the wee turd but…Apr 5, 14:09
    • sarah on Mad caps: “That’s a good selection, George. We thought the handbag was a whoopee cushion!Apr 5, 14:05
    • Mark Beggan on Mad caps: “More like Lavernetiy Beria.Apr 5, 13:56
    • Mark Beggan on Mad caps: “Sorry not interested in any country that easyJet doesn’t fly to.Apr 5, 13:55
    • Sven on Mad caps: “Yoon Scum @ 12.40. To be frank, I can’t really speculate what Mr Greer would rather do than spend money…Apr 5, 13:19
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    • Yoon Scum on Mad caps: “Gaddafi would be a better prospect then the Scottish greensApr 5, 13:09
    • Yoon Scum on Mad caps: “You have nicely side stepped my point leaving the control of the English doesn’t instantly equal paradise If it does…Apr 5, 13:02
    • Mark Beggan on Mad caps: “You guys really like jumping back and forward a couple of hundred years to make your argument hold. If you…Apr 5, 13:02
    • Yoon Scum on Mad caps: “We can safely ignore all unionist parties as they are nothing more then far right scottish hating English worshipping tools…Apr 5, 12:44
    • TURABDIN on Mad caps: “Yoon Scum 10:11 UTOPIAS, as the name implies do not exist in reality, however the former American colonies have done…Apr 5, 12:44
    • yoon scum on Mad caps: “Both of us are trying to pick up the turd by the clean end I’d far rather we had politicians…Apr 5, 12:40
    • Mark Beggan on Mad caps: “Mark Ruskell another graduate groupie. Another Ponce on the Vine. SCOTLAND NEEDS ADULTS!! Stop the graduate brat mafia destroying our…Apr 5, 12:25
    • Old John on Mad caps: “A veritable tombola of hats. I’m a trifle confused as to who would wear the Roundhead or Cavalier ones though.…Apr 5, 12:08
    • George Ferguson on Mad caps: “@ Sarah Tin Foil Hat Ross Greer Black YMCA hat Patrick Harvie Trans Hat Maggie Chapman Dunce Hat Lorna Slater…Apr 5, 12:05
    • Mark Beggan on Mad caps: “Sums up the freak show nicely.Apr 5, 12:04
    • Skip_NC on Mad caps: “I should have thought it was obvious that, after independence, the constitutional question goes away almost completely. So parties and…Apr 5, 11:50
    • Anthem on Mad caps: “That’s the thing. You can’t! They sneek in through the list system.Apr 5, 11:37
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