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A Butterfly On Absinthe 116

Posted on June 02, 2025 by

If you’ve been reading Scottish social media or the Scottish press for the last year and a half or so, the following graph is going to come as a bit of a shock to you.

But there it is all the same.

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Let’s Make Jen Safe Again 109

Posted on May 04, 2025 by

On reflection, we feel we may have not taken this story seriously enough. After all, they don’t put just ANY old guff on the front page of the Sunday Mail.

So we’ve decided to make amends.

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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 421

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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    • Mark Beggan on Points Into Prongs: “Well put. Couldn’t agree more.Jul 18, 20:57
    • Young Lochinvar on Points Into Prongs: “Meantime NHS Fifes DEI “expert”(sic) Ms Bumba replied when asked to comment on the £9m £6m new (non working) House…Jul 18, 20:38
    • Frank Gillougley on Points Into Prongs: “Having just read all this political bollocks above, the simple thought occurred to me that to compare and contrast what…Jul 18, 19:47
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    • Confused on Points Into Prongs: “Frankly: The revelatory memoir from Scotland’s first female and longest-serving First Minister the greatest living englishmen provides us with much…Jul 18, 18:36
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    • twathater on According As We Need Them: “NC I am not a dedicated lover of poetry but I am a lover of the Scots language, our culture…Jul 18, 18:19
    • 100%Yes on Points Into Prongs: “Alf Baird, I would have thought you would have been the best person placed to continue Iain Lawsons blog, Welcome…Jul 18, 18:07
    • socratesmacsporran on Points Into Prongs: “Mark Beggan @ 4.33pm You posted: “Swinney isn’t useless. You are quite correct, Swinney isn’t even competent enough to pass…Jul 18, 17:45
    • Alf Baird on Points Into Prongs: “Swinney and previous SNP leaders since 2015 have been very effective at delaying independence, which is clearly their main purpose,…Jul 18, 17:38
    • Dickie Tea on Points Into Prongs: “VeryJul 18, 17:05
    • joolz on Points Into Prongs: ““the way to deliver independence is only with an emphatic SNP win in 2026”. Goodbye indy. They never learn ?Jul 18, 16:39
    • Mark Beggan on Points Into Prongs: “Swinney isn’t useless. Useless was the other one.Jul 18, 16:33
    • agent x on Points Into Prongs: ““Nicola Sturgeon compared to Barack Obama in ‘sycophantic’ review of new book Nicola Sturgeon was mocked after she was compared…Jul 18, 16:33
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    • Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “James, back in my student days we fuckology students used to look down on the wankology class. Since graduating, I’m…Jul 18, 16:15
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    • Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: ““Scotland, there is no better country in the world” Hmmm. I can defo think of a few. But that’s not…Jul 18, 16:11
    • agent x on Points Into Prongs: ““But I will also be urging people who were not persuaded of the merits of independence in 2014 to see…Jul 18, 16:02
    • sarah on Points Into Prongs: “Thanks for this, Cynicus – I thought Cup hook was updating Diderot. It is even better to know of the…Jul 18, 16:00
    • Mark Beggan on Points Into Prongs: “The BbC used to be known as Aunty until it was revealed as a perverted old Uncle who the rest…Jul 18, 15:59
    • Mike on Points Into Prongs: “Exactly. If Scotland ever achieves independence there will be no need for the National cheerleaders, nor for the SNP, who…Jul 18, 15:57
    • Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: ““the Scots might produce works which show the Scots existing without, before, in no need of, and in no relation…Jul 18, 15:56
    • Hatey McHateface on Points Into Prongs: “That’s 10 minutes I won’t ever see again.Jul 18, 15:48
    • Doug on Points Into Prongs: “Professional politicians of all estlished parties continue to separate themselves from their traditional support base. I can see Swinney greetin…Jul 18, 15:35
    • 100%Yes on Points Into Prongs: “If people commenting in The National about Swinney being useless and lets remember these are the Sturgeon loyalist so It…Jul 18, 15:29
    • agent x on Points Into Prongs: ““Dr Pitt outlined what happened on that night when she came across Dr Upton, saying she “looked very shaken, distressed…Jul 18, 15:28
    • 100Yes on Points Into Prongs: “I just want to take a minute and have a little giggle. For me I left the SNP in 2015…Jul 18, 15:24
    • Andew scott on Points Into Prongs: “He was SOBBING big girls blouse(that’s the problem) -he is a six foot man +peggie much smallerJul 18, 15:09
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