The indyref sometimes caused feelings to run rather high, and people on both sides made themselves very unpopular with those on the other side. But four years of water has flowed under the bridge since then, and not everyone is still in the same trenches.
Some high-profile names have switched to from No to Yes (often but not exclusively as a result of Brexit), and the reception afforded to floor-crossers like Murray Foote, Eric Joyce, Jackie Kemp, Mike Dailly, Tom Morton and Simon Pia hasn’t always been an entirely warm one, with some unable to keep a lid on their old grudges.
And in a similar vein, some of the remarks in recent days on the reported switch to Yes of Billy Connolly – a few from people I thought better of – are deeply offensive and potentially deeply damaging.
Well well, look who suddenly believes in second referendums.
It’s fascinating to note how you can completely reverse Kezia Dugdale’s position on the subject simply by substituting the word “Scotland” for the words “the UK” in that second tweet, and imagine she was talking about the independence march in heavily-Remain-voting Edinburgh earlier this month instead of the (proportionately smaller) one in London yesterday.
The BBC’s Scottish politics website today prominently carries this story:
Our famously alert readers may recall as far back as five-and-a-half months ago, which was the last time the Scottish media tried to whip up demented scare stories about baby boxes, which have been given to every new mother in Finland for approximately 70 years and caused absolutely no documented problems.
So what’s fresh about the story to justify this significant new coverage? Let’s see.
Tory MP Kirstene “dumber than a box of” Hair is best known for being the member of the UK Parliament who didn’t vote in the Brexit referendum because it was too difficult.
The Scottish Daily Mail today has a big headline relaying the seemingly-unambiguous bad news that unemployment in Scotland has apparently risen by 11,000.
But cheer up, folks, because better times are ahead.
We’re pretty sure it was “Listen to you about being ‘better together’, so that they ended up with a Tory government they didn’t vote for but which was imposed on them by the people in a much larger country, and which has a long track record of imposing brutal, callous welfare policies on the poor for largely ideological reasons, and which has entirely predictably continued to do so”.
We’re blacklisted by the press regulator IPSO, but fortunately when we raise issues with especially blatant inaccuracies in UK newspapers alert readers sometimes take up the cudgel and file complaints with them because we can’t.
When indoor-hat-wearing uberYoon nutter George Galloway appeared in some of the madder corners of the gutter press this week after appearing on RT to extravagantly belittle last weekend’s indy marchers, we didn’t bother talking about it because who cares what that irrelevant old zoomer thinks, right?
But when an alert reader drew our attention to this spectacular clip of Galloway’s pre-indyref and post-indyref views on the EU we couldn’t let it go, because it so perfectly encapsulates not just what a huge buffoon George Galloway is, but the jaw-dropping, bare-faced, crass hypocrisy of so much Unionist argument.
We’re only sad he’s neither a politician nor in Scotland, or he’d be a shoo-in.
agentx on Irony you can’t buy: ““Alf Baird says: 20 March, 2026 at 9:11 am My preference would be for Scotland to reduce dependence on England’s…” Mar 23, 15:52
Del G on Irony you can’t buy: “First I wash my clothes. Then I dry them. Then I do the irony.” Mar 23, 15:06
Geri on Irony you can’t buy: ““London governments sold Scotland’s public utilities including port monopolies for peanuts based on the specific argument that private owners would…” Mar 23, 12:43
James on Irony you can’t buy: “Yoon Troll X; “A £3m funding pledge…” LOL. ‘Here’s some crumbs, Jock’” Mar 23, 11:56
Alf Baird on Irony you can’t buy: ““investment in Rosyth from the UK’s Growth Mission Fund” London governments sold Scotland’s public utilities including port monopolies for peanuts…” Mar 23, 11:31
agentx on Irony you can’t buy: ““A £3m funding pledge for a Scottish port comes with hopes that a new ferry service to France will set…” Mar 23, 11:01
Alf Baird on Irony you can’t buy: “Fog should not necessarily prevent a sailing. Modern ships have excellent navigation systems, they can tell what is around them.…” Mar 23, 10:42
Geri on Irony you can’t buy: “The SNP & it’s membership have been completely captured. There is zero point in hoping for a road to Damascus…” Mar 23, 09:54
Mark Beggan on Irony you can’t buy: “What about building tunnels. Lots and lots of tunnels.” Mar 23, 09:02
diabloandco on Irony you can’t buy: “A question for Alf with his maritime hat on, I thought ships sailed on merrily in fog only to discover…” Mar 23, 08:50
diabloandco on Irony you can’t buy: “Wheesht YL! – It might hear you and return to make me scroll on by ad nauseam.” Mar 23, 08:43
100%Yes on Irony you can’t buy: “I posted a video from The Independence Forum, here is the video link again, if you haven’t watched the video…” Mar 23, 08:32
Geri on Irony you can’t buy: “Iran has responded to Trumps rant with ultimatums of their own. I’ll raise ye with five of oors.. They weren’t…” Mar 23, 01:24
Young Lochinvar on Irony you can’t buy: “Who, the doped-up out of control trigger-happy half trained conscript IDF? They’ll kill anything on 2 legs, four legs and…” Mar 23, 00:53
Young Lochinvar on Irony you can’t buy: “Just where is Hatey? I see death now stalks the w3st b8nk.. What’s the bets ol’ Hatey is over there…” Mar 23, 00:47
Mark Beggan on Irony you can’t buy: “The hour of doom is at hand for the Iranian people. Their chance to free themselves from a terror not…” Mar 23, 00:30
DaveL on Irony you can’t buy: “You’ll notice also how they’re staying away from the phrase ‘weapons of mass destruction’, WMD. They just say atomic bomb,…” Mar 22, 22:08
Geri on Irony you can’t buy: “The Labour party should be shunned just as equally as the Tories are and run out of Scotland. They’ve been…” Mar 22, 21:50
Geri on Irony you can’t buy: “They passed that point with a Jenny side. Issy doesn’t work alone. Everything needs American approval. His BS he’s telling…” Mar 22, 21:38
sam on Irony you can’t buy: “Trump’s adventure in the Niddle East is likely to lead to a humanitarian disaster there and a more repressive regime…” Mar 22, 21:22
Geri on Irony you can’t buy: “Aye, Alf. They didn’t serve under a Scottish political party. They served under the colonisers & not one of them…” Mar 22, 21:15
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Africa. New Orleans was a French colony. They sold it to the Americans.” Mar 22, 20:56
Alf Baird on Irony you can’t buy: ““Tony Blair was born in Edinburgh and Gordon Brown was born in Giffnock” So that makes three centuries of colonial…” Mar 22, 17:30
Young Lochinvar on Irony you can’t buy: “Agentx JBG clearly means forthwith. Anyway; Teflon Tone survived so long as he made himself more English than the English…” Mar 22, 17:28
agentx on Irony you can’t buy: ““That being the case London will make sure that there will NEVER ever be a PM who is a SCOT”…” Mar 22, 16:54
James on Irony you can’t buy: “It is not a derogatory racist term as ‘scot free’ has zero to do with Scots or Scotland, see posts…” Mar 22, 16:09
sam on Irony you can’t buy: “Yes, Andy. The majority of people in Ireland (south of border), around 66% favour reunification. Their wishes are likely to…” Mar 22, 14:48
James Barr Gardner on Irony you can’t buy: ““Scotland is entirely FREE to leave only if its granted by the PM @ Westminster”. That being the case London…” Mar 22, 14:40