Warning: despite the quite zingy title this is actually going to be a very dry stats post, readers. It is, on the other hand, based on a man having something disturbingly close to a complete psychotic mental breakdown, so there’s always that for a bit of colour.
Because the paragraph above, and in particular the highlighted part, is without a doubt the most dishonest, diametrically false and wildly extreme lie about Scottish politics that we’ve ever seen anyone tell in the 13.5 years of Wings Over Scotland’s existence.
And as a rule we don’t bother addressing them because they’re so demented you could spend 5,000 words pulling apart all the individual strands of lunacy every time, and lunatics thrive on attention, but this one does merit a very brief comment.
Because “Vote Labour, get indy” wasn’t our plan. It was John Swinney’s.
As readers may already be aware, my main hobby to distract myself from my day job in the profoundly depressing world of politics is to delve into retro videogaming via my Retropie. It’s an endlessly rewarding fount of discovery and entertainment for many reasons, but sometimes the two spheres collide in extremely unexpected ways.
So let’s talk about GORF.
Midway’s 1981 arcade hit was a pioneering and innovative game. It was the first game to be comprised of multiple highly distinct sub-games, boldly including direct lifts of other people’s coin-ops in the form of Space Invaders and Galaxian. And while it wasn’t the first arcade game to feature synthesised speech – it was beaten to that punch by the likes of Berzerk and Wizard Of Wor the previous year – it was famous for the extensive and iconic vocabulary with which it taunted and goaded the player.
It got numerous conversions of variable quality to various home systems, whether as contemporary licences or later homebrew ports, and that’s where we come in.
Even by the embarrassing standards of The National, the gulf between this morning’s blaring front-page splash and the weak, watery weasel words in the actual article is a chasm so wide and so yawning (in every sense of that word) that it would put the epic planetary scar of Mars’ Valles Marineris to shame.
Coupled with a feebly underwhelming Programme For Government (in which the main policy was the re-abolition of peak rail fares just months after the SNP insisted such a move was unaffordable, with no clue as to where the money had suddenly been found) and a pitiful list of candidates for next year’s Holyrood election featuring the likes of Sally “all aboard the gravy bus!” Donald, Kaukab “DECAPITATE TERFS” Stewart, Kirsten “DECAPITATE TERFS” Oswald, Alison “DECAPITATE TERFS” Thewliss and Alyn “throw anyone who doesn’t want to DECAPITATE TERFS out of the SNP” Smith, the story was an abject vision of a bleak future for independence.
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.
The less said about the Scottish Government’s toe-curlingly embarrassing “summit” last week, the sooner we can all pretend it never happened. We’ve got little to add to the withering assessments of Robin McAlpine and Kevin McKenna and just about everyone else who’s bothered covering this pathetic waste of everyone involved’s time. (Not that the time of most of these useless quangocrats was worth anything anyway.)
We take a moment only to note something remarkable: the closest Scottish Labour’s hapless branch manager Anas Sarwar has ever come to understanding anything.
Yesterday the Scottish media gave Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman what she’s never willingly given anyone else – a platform on which to make her case.
Most did a very poor job challenging her on her outrageous comments about the Supreme Court, with BBC Radio Scotland’s Drivetime show being an especially wretched example of allowing the interviewee to ignore every question and then just ramble on endlessly about something else entirely, but LBC’s Gina Davidson was on top of her brief and put all the points that reasonable people wanted to be made, while giving Chapman ample time to answer uninterrupted.
Let’s break down how that went, with the help of our handy Bullshit Buzzer.
At the weekend, Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman was filmed applauding as a notoriously unhinged transactivist ranted through a megaphone to a small and almost exclusively male crowd of protestors about how he was going to openly break the law by continuing to use women’s public toilets, and addressing JK Rowling with the words “We should all take a shite on you, you heinous creeping old bitch”.
At another protest, Chapman herself asserted that the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling on the correct interpretation of the Equality Act 2010 was motivated by not by a solemn consideration of the law or by the arguments of counsel who appeared before it, but by “bigotry, prejudice and hatred”.
Chapman is – incredibly – Deputy Convener of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament, and as such her comments sparked a storm of wholly justified outrage over her flagrant breach not only of Parliamentary rules but also of the law – specifically the Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act 2008, which requires all MSPs to uphold the independence of the judiciary.
Mark Beggan on Two Men Unalike: “Don’t forget your stab vest.” Mar 2, 00:04
Dee Dubya on Two Men Unalike: “Every time one of these stories comes up I feel more and more that they are taking the p. Deliberately…” Mar 1, 22:56
Geri on The Tactics Of Suicide: “Hi Twathater. I hope yer well. Aye, I’ve had a nice break, ta x” Mar 1, 21:27
Alf Baird on Two Men Unalike: “Cultural Imperialism theory is not that difficult to comprehend. The ultimate aim of cultural imperialism is to remove and replace…” Mar 1, 21:25
Geri on The Tactics Of Suicide: “GM I dunno why Stu allows them to infest his site. They’re clearly not here to add anything to each…” Mar 1, 21:24
Geri on Two Men Unalike: “Aye, remember the “lead don’t leave” bullshit? Just more of their lies. It must be shit being a Yoon. The…” Mar 1, 21:14
GM on The Tactics Of Suicide: “You and yes pals think you can act as site moderators of acceptable political opinion? FUDS. Paid troll brits setting…” Mar 1, 20:36
Mark Beggan on Two Men Unalike: “Iranian news reporting that their leader “had drunk the sweet pure draught of martyrdom” Now available in cans at your…” Mar 1, 19:56
Mark Beggan on Two Men Unalike: “Big Satan and Little Satan go together like Rock and Roll. Clap if you agree.” Mar 1, 19:33
agentx on Two Men Unalike: “” Alba bosses have insisted the pro-independence party is “financially insolvent” after being urged to contest the Holyrood election or…” Mar 1, 18:35
TURABDIN on Two Men Unalike: “The media photos of the Madboy of the Western World, with custom patriotic headgear, has the vengeful look of a…” Mar 1, 18:34
Hatey McHateface on Two Men Unalike: “Thanks, lorncal. No, I didn’t see Clarkson’s take on it. I’ll see if I can find it.” Mar 1, 18:15
agentx on Two Men Unalike: “https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/crowdfunder-request-alliance-to-liberate-scotlan This is the correct link.” Mar 1, 18:06
Hatey McHateface on Two Men Unalike: “You’re at it again, sam, spouting stats with no context to allow interpretation. Literacy in which language?” Mar 1, 18:05
Mark Beggan on Two Men Unalike: “He has spent the last five years spouting the same crap. Week in and week out. Never changing dribble hungarily…” Mar 1, 17:59
Young Lochinvar on Two Men Unalike: “Dot B under the spotlight again for tipping the wink to pen pal “Honest” John over Tricky Nicky’s investigation status..…” Mar 1, 17:27
sam on Two Men Unalike: “In education the Scottish gubmint for aw its faults seems to be doing better than England’s labouring gubmint. https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-statistics/education That’s…” Mar 1, 16:59
sarah on Two Men Unalike: “www.crowdfunder.co.uk for Alliance to Liberate Scotland Holyrood 2026 – target is £10,000 for all the campaign materials etc etc. Spread…” Mar 1, 16:52
lorncal on Two Men Unalike: “I know I probably shouldn’t have, but I did laugh out loud at that, H. McH. Have you read Jeremy…” Mar 1, 16:08
Hatey McHateface on Two Men Unalike: “Generous, Geri. No question about that. But the crowdfunder can’t use your number two.” Mar 1, 16:05
Hatey McHateface on Two Men Unalike: “Sure, Alf, but only a few more weeks until we can all vote for this to be swept into the…” Mar 1, 16:00
Hatey McHateface on Two Men Unalike: “Dinna ye tak ony lip frae God, Northy. It’s ye that tells Him, nae the ither wuy roond.” Mar 1, 15:43
Alf Baird on Two Men Unalike: “As well as public bodies, universities etc and the NHS being “the most trans-captured organisations in the entire UK” it…” Mar 1, 15:41
Hatey McHateface on Two Men Unalike: “James, ye need tae read fit happened tae Onan. Nae day like the Sabbath fir opening the Guid Book. If…” Mar 1, 15:39
Hatey McHateface on Two Men Unalike: “One step back, Mark. I’m first.” Mar 1, 15:30
Hatey McHateface on Two Men Unalike: “Any boady mind “Hello, I’m Julian and this is my friend Sandy”? Innocent times they were.” Mar 1, 15:27
Young Lochinvar on Two Men Unalike: “J Good point!” Mar 1, 15:10
Confused on Two Men Unalike: “M&S Food Hall last night, getting some of those spicy breaded chicken things. Past the checkout, the news stand -…” Mar 1, 13:59
Sven on Two Men Unalike: “I see your “Toodle-oo the noo, the noo agin, agin…fir noo” and raise you one; “Hello, Farewell, Hello”. Kürt Vonnegut.” Mar 1, 13:58
