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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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    • twathater on Holiday Relief: “One of the reasons I vehemently support direct democracy is the inclusion of a formation of a citizens assembly group…Jun 22, 03:22
    • twathater on Holiday Relief: “Re “Nothing Going On In Scotland”exposed by ISP I find it eye watering the amount of money given to private…Jun 22, 02:58
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    • Neil Singleton on Holiday Relief: “Ar what cost (millions) to pander to the less than 1% Gaelic speakers. More speak Klingon than Gaelic in Scotland.Jun 21, 20:50
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    • Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “So what does it mean, Xaracen, every time you conform with a law fraudulently and criminally passed by WM? Or…Jun 21, 20:17
    • Xaracen on Holiday Relief: “What do you mean “so what”? It’s an ongoing constitutional and democratic crime, Andy, that’s what; an illegal exertion of…Jun 21, 19:54
    • Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “True democracies are only possible with a mono cultural demos. It is only with a shared outlook that all citizens…Jun 21, 19:54
    • TURABDIN on Holiday Relief: “The world is divided between those who live and those who think about living. «Systems» much prefer the latter, so…Jun 21, 19:22
    • Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “Evidence, perhaps, of the fallacy of UDI. It’s a big unfriendly world out there! Discuss 🙂Jun 21, 19:00
    • TURABDIN on Holiday Relief: “Oh for god’s sake «None of the Above»….okay?Jun 21, 18:39
    • agent x on Holiday Relief: “So basically you have no idea what you are talking about and no answer to my simple questions. Who will…Jun 21, 18:00
    • James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “It is questionable which country at the moment will break out first, It may not be Scotland, the people have…Jun 21, 17:46
    • James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “And who will in charge of Ireland or Wales and come to think of it, who will be in charge…Jun 21, 17:40
    • TURABDIN on Holiday Relief: “@ agent x Being less «conventional», one might endeavour to think outside the strictures of the westminster/parliamentary box. Democracy, which…Jun 21, 17:33
    • agent x on Holiday Relief: “I have no idea what your reply means. Who will be the President of the Democratic Republic of Scotland (DROS)?…Jun 21, 17:03
    • Andy Ellis on Holiday Relief: “So what? The actions of people who fashioned the Treaties 300 years ago have SFA to do with our proximate…Jun 21, 17:02
    • TURABDIN on Holiday Relief: “SUCH a scenario would be a critical test of how democratic a Scottish state would be. Democracy MAX, would be…Jun 21, 16:45
    • Chas on Holiday Relief: “Link posted for the 792nd time. Only 208 to go before the magic number. This will probably be achieved in…Jun 21, 16:28
    • Chas on Holiday Relief: “I wonder how long it took you to write that drivel? On the plus side, Alfie boy will be pleased.…Jun 21, 16:21
    • Xaracen on Holiday Relief: “It’s called sovereignty, Andy, and neither party to the Treaty gave their sovereignty up, or agreed to subordinate their sovereignty…Jun 21, 16:07
    • agent x on Holiday Relief: “Once the UN declare that Scotland should be Independent and UDI is declared, who will form the Scottish Government?Jun 21, 16:00
    • Captain Caveman on Holiday Relief: “Indeed Andy. It’s like they’re all trying to outdo each other in the stupidity stakes; one ever more idiotic claim…Jun 21, 15:56
    • TURABDIN on Holiday Relief: “ANY system which creates a psychological dependency might be termed a species of «slavery». In the contemporary world whips and…Jun 21, 15:40
    • Insider on Holiday Relief: “Codeman! Perhaps you and “puir auld alf ” should get a cave together somewhere ! Just think ! You could…Jun 21, 14:47
    • Andy Ellis on Holiday Relief: “@xaracen Where does it say in the Treaties of Union that Scots MPs could overturn the decisions of the whole…Jun 21, 14:43
    • Andy Ellis on Holiday Relief: “I’m afraid for the hard of thinking such hyperbole is de rigeur. See also Ms Goldberg and her recent false…Jun 21, 14:31
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