We must admit, the terrible people that we are, we’ve been enjoying watching today’s extended meltdown by the SNP’s woke faction about last night’s NEC election results. Because it appears their egos are so huge that they’re not even smart enough to play dignified to spoil our schadenfreudish fun. It’s been full-on public tantrums.
Ridiculously, more than eight hours after voting closed in an all-electronic election in which “counting” should have taken a maximum of one second, and at 11.30pm, the SNP have released the results of this year’s NEC elections.
There are some big stories.
Alyn Smith is OUT as Policy Development Convener, replaced by Chris Hanlon.
We had, we think it’s only fair to say, extremely low expectations of Nicola Sturgeon’s keynote speech this afternoon to the SNP’s soporific, strangled 2020 non-conference. It seems that members felt the same, because 15 seconds before the speech began only 1,166 of them were logged in to watch it.
The speech she just delivered, though, limboed under those expectations in platform shoes and a stovepipe hat without even grazing the underside of the bar.
In a post last month we referenced a ZX Spectrum computer game from 1984 called “Worse Things Happen At Sea”. Today as we watched the First Minister on the Andrew Marr Show, we were put in mind of another nautical-disaster-themed one from a great deal nearer to the end of the Speccy’s life.
When’s a Plan B not a Plan B? Well, when it’s something that could and should have been done already, and won’t be anywhere near adequate even if delivered.
Yet that seems to be what some colleagues are now arguing for. It’s welcome that their thoughts are at last turning to the possibility of the Tories saying No to the Scottish people’s democratic vote. But it’s happening dangerously slowly as the dismantling of devolution and reintegration into the UK gathers pace. Which’s why the Yes Movement needs to act now, not after a Holyrood election.
This week on Wings has been altogether more navel-gazey than we’re comfortable with, as various SNP MPs have mounted a series of all-out personal attacks on the site before the weekend’s crucial NEC elections.
So we’ll have a proper article for you a little later on today, but in the meantime it’d be remiss of us not to tidy up the last fragments of shrapnel, so we’ll direct you to the right of reply to Alyn Smith’s column that The National kindly gave us today:
(Sadly they chose to disable comments, we’d quite have enjoyed the reaction from the few remaining diehard leadership loyalists still posting there.)
We couldn’t help but chuckle yesterday when the £100K-a-year Westminster MP and obsessive Wings Over Scotland reader “Pension Pete” Wishart announced – in the space of six minutes – that this site was simultaneously an irrelevance that nobody listened to, but also somehow one of the greatest threats to independence.
Young Lochinvar on Pick Your Poison: “Geri Strangely fitting.. The “gayest wee Parliament” in the world will transition to be the “queerest wee Parliament in the…” May 9, 01:58
Geri on Pick Your Poison: “I hope Cowardly John draws the short straw & has to inform them it’s the LAW that they use the…” May 9, 01:43
Young Lochinvar on Pick Your Poison: “Sarah But, but.. Anne Thewliss burst into tears! Again.. And anyway, back in the day they used to say the…” May 9, 01:33
Cynicus on Pick Your Poison: “Final results for Highlands and Islands: Vic Currie (Reform) Ariane Burgess (Scottish Greens) Tim Eagle (Conservative) Max Barrowman (Reform) Morven-May…” May 9, 01:28
Geri on Pick Your Poison: “Can they not count? Why do they always have issues? According to X reporter – there were four counts at…” May 9, 01:27
GM on Pick Your Poison: “Interesting question. We’ll see how the Holyrood ladies deal with it.” May 9, 01:24
Geri on Pick Your Poison: “It gets worse Lorna… Allegedly, one has a crowd funder cause they don’t have a work visa (WTF?) & the…” May 9, 01:04
Confused on Pick Your Poison: “I see some foreign p00f on a student visa has gotten elected to the Scots parliament; I wonder how he…” May 9, 00:56
Cynicus on Pick Your Poison: ““ Is no-one else annoyed and embarrassed that 26 hrs after the polls closed the final results still haven’t been…” May 9, 00:53
Young Lochinvar on Pick Your Poison: “Oh well.. Hey ho! That’s that then for some more years.. “Honest” John has got what he “really” wanted all…” May 9, 00:53
L.U.T.B on Pick Your Poison: “Christ on a bike! Is no-one else annoyed and embarrassed that 26 hrs after the polls closed the final results…” May 9, 00:27
Big Jock on Pick Your Poison: “I don’t think any of us can take another 5 years of this sand dancing. It is like trying to…” May 9, 00:13
GM on Pick Your Poison: “I hope the lady takes the Scot gov. to the cleaners. It is the only thing that will shift them,…” May 9, 00:08
Cynicus on Pick Your Poison: “sarah says: 8 May, 2026 at 10:22 pm “This is now officially the worst set of MSPs we have been…” May 9, 00:02
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Pick Your Poison: “EX-GOVERNOR: ‘STOP HOUSING MEN IN SCOTLAND’S PRISONS FOR WOMEN’ All men who identify as women should be immediately removed from…” May 8, 23:41
Lorncal on Pick Your Poison: “The thing is, Aidan/Caveman, everything has to be tried before you go for broke. It’s like the wee boy or…” May 8, 23:09
GM on Pick Your Poison: “A court case might stir things up a bit. I suspect Scotland (does it still exist at Holyrood?) is too…” May 8, 23:06
Lorncal on Pick Your Poison: “Every silver lining has a cloud, Geri, and the Greens’ cloud – hopefully as black as the Earl of Hell’s…” May 8, 22:39
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Pick Your Poison: “Beannachd leat, a Sheumais. Piseach ort! (Blessings/ Good-bye, James. All the best!)” May 8, 22:33
Lorncal on Pick Your Poison: “I know. It’s the same everywhere. It will be around three-quarters to a million votes lost to Unionists and the…” May 8, 22:29
sarah on Pick Your Poison: “This is now officially the worst set of MSPs we have been cursed with. Is there a single one with…” May 8, 22:22
James Che on Pick Your Poison: “I will say goodby to everyone on wings over Scotland, and to Rev Stu for many years providing information, stats,…” May 8, 22:14
Geri on Pick Your Poison: “SNP wasted regional votes in my area around 88,000. Seats 0 Reform – around 59,000. Seats 3. #@#@#” May 8, 21:50
robertkknight on Pick Your Poison: ““Izzie says: 8 May, 2026 at 5:43 pm Well it looks like we (SNP) have won. But Im not hete…” May 8, 21:46
red sunset on Pick Your Poison: “A good number of constituencies below 50% turnout, typical seems to be around 55% turnout” May 8, 21:14
SilentMajority on Pick Your Poison: “What an absolute shower of embarrassments we now have ‘in power’…” May 8, 21:09
Geri on Pick Your Poison: “53.2% https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2026/scotland/results” May 8, 21:07
