It’s weird. Less than 24 hours ago, we were being firmly told that a vote in the Scottish Parliament was an insignificant, indeed “meaningless”, choice between two words that meant exactly the same thing and were “interchangeable”.
So when the Parliament decided last night, by an overwhelming 113-9 margin, which of the two words it wanted to use, you’d imagine that that’d be no big deal and everyone would shrug it off in a casual, indifferent sort of way, right?
The list below is a much, much shorter one than we were expecting to run. In the end, just nine MSPs voted today against Johann Lamont’s amendment on forensic medical examinations, with one abstention. The amendment passed by a margin of 104 votes after SNP MSPs voted in favour, with only the Greens and Lib Dems opposed.
Every last one of them is a disgusting coward who doesn’t care about the feelings of rape victims and we’re ashamed to share a nationality with them.
We’ve had plenty to say already this week about the amendment that will be debated at Holyrood this afternoon. So instead we’re going to present you today with the case for each side, as made by two Scottish women on Twitter in the last few hours, and let you decide for yourselves whose argument is the more compelling.
First up, in favour of the amendment, is Scotsman writer Gina Davidson.
The media is focusing on Murrell’s continued evasion of the question of his WhatsApp usage (Murrell bizarrely states he has several messaging apps installed on his phone but uses none of them), but there’s a much more interesting revelation in the second of the letter’s two sections.
This is a direct, unambiguous and categorical statement from the First Minister that the investigation into the false allegations against Salmond was a Scottish Government matter that was absolutely nothing to do with the SNP.
This site and other gender-critical voices are regularly accused of being “obsessed” with trans issues, even though the subject has been mentioned in fewer than 0.7% of Wings posts. But this week the SNP’s transgender faction – when it hasn’t been STILL raging about its battering in the NEC elections – has been swamping social media with organised complaints about a tiny prospective legislative change that they themselves insist doesn’t actually matter at all.
Rape Crisis Scotland, who are almost entirely dependent on the Scottish Government for funding, have chosen this evening to wade into the debate over the wording of a new law which is intended to lessen the trauma of people (nearly all women) who’ve been raped. We can only speculate as to whether they were pressured to do so, but the intervention seems likely only to pour petrol on the fire.
In his evidence to a Holyrood inquiry today, having been asked about some troubling WhatsApp messages concerning the case from 2018 which appeared to suggest the possibility of a conspiracy against the former First Minister, Murrell told members of the committee “I’m not on WhatsApp, it’s not a social media platform I use”.
Alert readers will have noticed a very careful use of the present tense there.
We’ve now filed a formal complaint with the Scottish Information Commissioner about this, because what we’d forgotten last week was that our original request was actually sent in September and it’s now been almost 60 working days with no sign of a proper response, not the 20 it’s supposed to take.
Because for some reason the Scottish Government REALLY doesn’t want you to know what the First Minister and Geoff Aberdein talked about in March 2018, and we think that you probably should.
We don’t normally like to devote much time on Wings to things that have been more than adequately covered elsewhere in the media, which is why you haven’t read much here about eg the Internal Market Bill. Unlike some we don’t see much point spending our limited human resources telling people stuff they already know and agree with.
But we’re going to make an exception for this next thing, which was already covered pretty well by Susan Dalgety in last week’s Scotsman, because (a) a lot of our readers, quite reasonably, will have an instinctively adverse reaction to either anything printed in the Scotsman or anything written by Susan Dalgety, and (b) a number of people have asked us to amplify this issue because it’s so important and so awful.
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “Thanks Sven I typed that on the hoof without checking. Sorry. Appreciate it! 🙂” Apr 21, 22:00
George Ferguson on The Pit Of Vipers: “@Young Lochinvar I genuinely think people dont understand what is happening. The Lord High Commissioner did a great job last…” Apr 21, 21:11
Sven on The Pit Of Vipers: “I believe it’s the other way round for the Scripture reference, YL, 32:23. Very appropriate.” Apr 21, 20:50
George Ferguson on The Pit Of Vipers: “@Young Lochinvar 7:22pm I am OK with the King appointing the Lord High Commissioner for the second time. A Catholic…” Apr 21, 20:41
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “100 percenter Yup, Does make you think doesn’t it? Wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs Redacto was a COS elder as…” Apr 21, 20:40
100%Yes on The Pit Of Vipers: “It appears to me Sturgeon power is entirely from people she has around her, who are complete and utter morons…” Apr 21, 20:18
100%Yes on The Pit Of Vipers: “Reply to Young Lochinvar Sarah What must Swinney’s wife think to all this, she has to know. If the rolls…” Apr 21, 20:09
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “Lorncal The phrases you are looking for are: -Stairheid rammies -Manipulation -Daren’t leave the group incase they get talked about…” Apr 21, 19:41
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “Screams; GUILTY.. Nae wonder Sturgeon was in tears of gratitude when he said he’d take over eh!? Can’t last forever…” Apr 21, 19:22
sarah on The Pit Of Vipers: “100%Yes: I don’t subscribe to the National but saw this story posted by other independence supporters. It is a shocker.” Apr 21, 19:18
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “C’mon Wullie Cicero is uber untrendy now after Bojo the Clown used him as an example in his getting sacked…” Apr 21, 19:16
100%Yes on The Pit Of Vipers: “You subscribe to the national, just wondering what is it you get from this Rag??” Apr 21, 19:05
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “Lorncal Faggats and their legions of handmaidens..” Apr 21, 19:04
100%Yes on The Pit Of Vipers: “John Swinney rejects calls for public inquiry into Alex Salmond ‘conspiracy’, What a shocker.” Apr 21, 19:02
twathater on The Pit Of Vipers: “@ Angus, Colin Alexander has been posting comments on WOS since at least 2014 , his comments have been scathing…” Apr 21, 18:32
Alf Baird on The Pit Of Vipers: “Yes, Fanon tells us that ‘the colonialist may speak in the native tongue’, and that ‘colonialism is always a co-operative…” Apr 21, 18:28
Lorncal on The Pit Of Vipers: “Rev: stooshie going on at ‘The National’ and ‘The Herald’ newspapers because they wouldn’t run an ISP campaign advert unless…” Apr 21, 18:24
Lorncal on The Pit Of Vipers: “YL: not saying she wasn’t at the centre. Just that she did not kick the thing off, I believe. Others…” Apr 21, 18:16
Lorncal on The Pit Of Vipers: “I hate to say it, but, you know, this is women – or, at least some of them. It’s always…” Apr 21, 17:45
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “George @ 4.59 Correct.” Apr 21, 17:45
Lorncal on The Pit Of Vipers: “And look what happened to poor old Cicero, Willie. Mark Antony did for him.” Apr 21, 17:29
George Ferguson on The Pit Of Vipers: “@Alf Baird Fine Alf but when I served in Northern Ireland we were regarded as peace keepers. The context which…” Apr 21, 16:59
sam on The Pit Of Vipers: “You can add to that list the so called Troubles of NI. In which grievances over civil rights and the…” Apr 21, 16:36
100%Yes on The Pit Of Vipers: “Keir Starmer has resigned and his last wish is to grant Swinney a section 30 order.” Apr 21, 16:21
Lorncal on The Pit Of Vipers: “I didn’t say she was not, 100%. I said that she did not kick it off, others did. The opportunity…” Apr 21, 16:20
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “Fat Slag Wilma Flintstone @2.26 “paaaaal”” Apr 21, 15:29
TURABDIN on The Pit Of Vipers: “TUCKER CARLSON one of the US rights many paper messiahs opined re my country of birth, «Iraq is a crappy…” Apr 21, 14:26
Captain Caveman on The Pit Of Vipers: ““Werthers Original”” Apr 21, 14:26
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “Fat Slag Wilma Flintstone @ 1.56 “maaaaaate”..” Apr 21, 14:06
