A minor confusion 463
Posted on
June 03, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Oh no, someone’s let Ian Murray say words again.
There’s only one small problem with that complaint.
Never changing, never learning 249
Posted on
June 02, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re STILL officially on holiday, readers, and that means that for the last four months we’ve barely watched the news or looked at a newspaper, because who wants to be depressed by being lied to by a never-ending parade of scumbags when they’re on holiday? Not us, and we’ll tell you that for nothing.
So we’re grateful to alert readers who still point us to stuff like this.
EIGHT YEARS since Scottish Labour got into bed with the Tories to ensure the Tories kept ruling Scotland, and they still haven’t grasped why they don’t get the “protect us from the Tories” vote any more. Honestly, folks, if it wasn’t so tragic it’d be hilarious.
Justice for some 212
Posted on
June 01, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ve been fobbed off again with another generic response from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, which again wholly fails to answer our simple and legitimate journalistic question, and to which nobody has been prepared to sign their name.
(We should also note in passing that not a single Scottish newspaper appears to have followed up on the story in that last link except the Sunday National, btw.)
But this one is considerably more disturbing. You can read it below if you want to know what shameless, transparent corruption sounds like.
The test case 191
Posted on
May 29, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Some in the independence movement got quite excited yesterday about a widely-reported poll showing that 63% of Scots want a new indyref in the next five years. It reminded us that we’d had a question on the subject in our own Panelbase poll earlier this month that we hadn’t got around to talking about.
Because of what we wanted to find out, that question was asked in a slightly strange way, so let’s quickly explain.
The hot potato 271
Posted on
May 28, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Our ongoing quest to discover just who is actually willing to take responsibility for the actions of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) with regard to the trial of Alex Salmond and its aftermath took another diversion yesterday when we received a reply from HM Inspectorate of Prosecutions in Scotland.
It had sounded like a promising lead. After all, HMIPS’ apparent purpose is to “inspect the operation” of COPFS, “improve the way COPFS serves the public” and “make COPFS more accountable”, all of which are exactly what we were after.
Sadly we had another disappointment in store.
Of no materiality 351
Posted on
May 27, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ve just learned that we’ve lost the appeal over our defamation by the then-Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, when she repeatedly and publicly made the appalling, damaging and wholly untrue smear that I was a homophobe, even though the appeal judges all agreed with the original sheriff that the smear was false and defamatory.
But when it comes to deciding the verdict in a defamation case, it seems that the fact that absolutely everyone agrees I was definitely defamed is, to borrow a phrase from later in the judgement,“of no materiality”.
Left to their own devices 156
Posted on
May 26, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ve received a response from the Scottish Government to our follow-up letter of last week regarding the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. It’s attached below.
Another problem solved 454
Posted on
May 21, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
When the news isn’t news:
Lots of Scottish newspapers (most notably everything in the Herald And Times Group) had already ducked out of providing ABC figures at all, but this will be a godsend for the rest to save their growing embarrassment.
Wings readers can remember the pitiful state of the last published figures here.
Passing the buck 179
Posted on
May 20, 2020 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
With commendable swiftness, we’ve received a reply to our letter of earlier this week to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice. You can read it in full below (click to enlarge).
Sadly, however, it’s precisely the sort of evasion we expected, and it is not acceptable.
In the hands of others 121
Posted on
May 20, 2020 by
Chris McEleny
On the 1st of January, Chinese authorities took the decision to close the Wuhan food market. The following day, 41 admitted hospital patients in Wuhan, were confirmed to have contracted 2019-nCoV (novel coronavirus) which we now know as COVID-19.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a New Year message, from the private island of Mustique in the Caribbean, that the “first item” on his agenda remained his commitment to take Britain out of the EU by the end of January.
Within weeks the virus had spread across the world to many countries including Italy, Germany, Australia, the USA and of course the UK.
