Apologies for the shortage of content in the last couple of days, folks. The 10-year-old Wings PC has been wheezing and groaning and emitting smoke for a few weeks, but it’s now reached a point where we can barely keep it from crashing for five minutes at a time, and we’ve run out of sticking plasters (and stuff to delete on its tiny C drive to give it a bit of cache space and stop it falling over clutching theatrically at its throat).
(Don’t even get us started on a rant about all the idiot software that insists on stealthily clogging it up with mysterious useless bloat but won’t work anywhere but the C drive. Who knew it was even possible to hate iTunes any more than we already did?)
We ordered a new one a while back, but until it gets here we might be a bit light on anything that involves a lot of typing, linking or formatting. Please bear with us.
And we do mean rank. It’s been quite a week already for super-hapless Labour MP Hugh Gaffney, but he excelled himself today when joining in with Scottish Labour’s campaign to resist building a new hospital in Gartcosh (which is the recommendation of an independent NHS panel), rather than on the site of the current one in Monklands.
(And yes, that is the same one Labour wanted to shut down in 2007.)
Because it wasn’t terribly long ago that he took a rather different view.
In many ways the Glasgow equal-pay dispute feels like the impotent final fury of the dinosaurs after the dust cloud of a prehistoric asteroid impact blacked out the sun and condemned them all to death.
What we’re seeing now is a futile howl of rage against irrelevance by the shady cabal of Labour politicians and senior trade union officials who used to treat the city as their personal fiefdom, as they sink into inglorious extinction.
We highly recommend clicking that link to read the whole series of tweets from Labour member and solicitor Ian Smart, who readers won’t need reminding is no sort of friend of the SNP or inclined to their defence. Because the story goes much deeper than the common-or-garden hypocrisy we saw yesterday.
We don’t know whether Sky News’ senior Scotland correspondent James Matthews recognised double-jobbing Labour MP and councillor Hugh Gaffney on today’s strike march in Glasgow or not. (We suspect he did, but as Gaffney’s only been an MP for a year and a half we can’t be sure.)
What’s certain is that he gave him plenty of time, opportunity and cues to disclose who he was, and Gaffney didn’t take any of them, leading to this extraordinary clip.
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.
James on Pick Your Poison: “Well Northy…here we go…. The United Nations Has Received the Evidence: Scotland Is a Colony and the World Now Knows…” May 7, 22:08
Wally Jumblatt on Pick Your Poison: “I was handed the peachy sheet for the List candidates, a rag, tag & bobtail sheet of non-people and fantasy…” May 7, 22:06
James on Pick Your Poison: “To paraphrase a great thinker talking about Fish Face previously; not all people who vote “Reform” are racist, but all…” May 7, 21:29
James on The value bet: “Excellent. Boxes full here as well. Hopefully ATLS will do weel! Soar Alba.” May 7, 21:10
Chris Downie on Pick Your Poison: “At this stage, would it actually be better if the pro-independence majority was lost, so that minds could refocus and…” May 7, 21:02
Geri on Pick Your Poison: “They’re read by the candidates throughout the count so they can all agree to discard them/proof they’re spoiled. It may…” May 7, 20:51
Bilbo on Pick Your Poison: “I don’t know if I have understood Grousebeater correctly but is he saying that we should be voting for SNP…” May 7, 20:33
Marie on Pick Your Poison: “If you’d read my original post you would know that I intend to vote on the list paper. That’s where…” May 7, 20:30
Bilbo on Pick Your Poison: “@ Cuphook 7 May, 2026 at 12:22 pm Of course for those that support Reform and have made up their…” May 7, 20:29
Rev. Stuart Campbell on Pick Your Poison: “One of you has a capital J, the other doesn’t.” May 7, 20:28
Rev. Stuart Campbell on Pick Your Poison: “Even if lots of idiots vote SNP 1+2 it won’t be because that mad wee chimp told them to.” May 7, 20:26
agentx on Pick Your Poison: “There is still time to go to vote.” May 7, 20:15
agentx on Pick Your Poison: “Absolute nonsense. Go back to sitting on your hands and see how much that does for you.” May 7, 20:11
Marie on Pick Your Poison: “agentx @7.10pm – The system is rigged. Candidates are bought. Candidates are captured. This isn’t the early 1900s. Our “elites”…” May 7, 19:50
george wood on Pick Your Poison: “Seems to have been a big green turnout in my ward in Edinburgh Central. Maybe somebody should have taken Stu…” May 7, 19:50
robertkknight on Pick Your Poison: “No idea. I exercised my civic duty and democratic right to vote in a manner whereby I declined to endorse…” May 7, 19:46
Campbell Clansman on Pick Your Poison: “Asking for evidence is so 1990s. Just yell “Yoon!” at anyone who disagrees with you. That is (sadly) the intellectual…” May 7, 19:39
Jay on Pick Your Poison: “With reference to comment from jay on 7 May 2026 at 12:41: I did not make that comment. Are there…” May 7, 19:26
agentx on Pick Your Poison: “Women fought for years to get the vote and you want to just “sit on your hands”!” May 7, 19:10
agentx on Pick Your Poison: “Is there any evidence anywhere that spoilt voting papers ever changed any Party policies whatsoever?” May 7, 18:49
George Ferguson on Pick Your Poison: “Hi Alf/ Dan Mathematics and Statistics tells me that not one of these minor parties will get elected.The only plausible…” May 7, 18:46
Potace on Pick Your Poison: “Didn’t vote. Just couldn’t be arsed and wasn’t giving that lot my vote. Fool me once…” May 7, 18:42
agentx on Pick Your Poison: ““Cuphook says: 7 May, 2026 at 11:16 am Today I’m staying at home.” —————————————- Polls are open till 22.00. There…” May 7, 18:41
Rev. Stuart Campbell on Pick Your Poison: “On the constituency ballot? Pretty much all you’ve got are the Tories and Reform.” May 7, 18:26
Dan on Pick Your Poison: “Aye, Alf, I found that quite bizarre. But again, it highlights Scotland’s hamstrung political predicament when even some of the…” May 7, 18:18
George Ferguson on Pick Your Poison: “@Hi Dan My brothers journey is a failure of the Political System in Scotland. This is the last free speech…” May 7, 18:04
Alf Baird on Pick Your Poison: “Grouse Beater’s List vote decision ignores the fact Ambassador Craig Murray is number 1 for ALLIANCE TO LIBERATE SCOTLAND on…” May 7, 17:49
Dan on Pick Your Poison: “Cuphook says: “You seriously think any politician appreciates the nobility of your spoilt ballot?” And you clearly choose to focus…” May 7, 17:42
Geri on Pick Your Poison: “Wrong AI DAN. They intervened because R speaking regions were being ethnically cleansed. That’s what the Minsk agreements were about…” May 7, 17:25
Dan on Pick Your Poison: “George, your brother’s journey of vote choices is jist a product of the political paradigm Scotland endures within the Union.…” May 7, 17:11
