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.
We knew this would be a fast-moving phenomenon when we created it, but we’re only just beginning to realise the magnitude of the rod we’ve made for our own backs. Because the supply of rock-headed clownshows sucking up taxpayers’ money on the opposition benches at Holyrood appear to be effectively infinite.
There’s only actually one “l” in “intolerable”, but that’s still the intellectual high point of the tweet. It really is hard to adequately convey what a brainless piece of idiocy this is without just swearing for a solid hour, but we’ll try.
We felt sure that our awarding of the inaugural Thickest Politician In Scotland title this morning would be taken as the throwing down of a gauntlet, and we weren’t wrong. Because within just hours, the Prince Regent had staked his claim to the crown.
Greene – who was rejected by the voters of Cunninghame North by almost 9,000 votes but sits in Parliament anyway – is in fact supposed to serve the people of the West Scotland region as a list MSP, not the whole country, and we’re not aware of any breakdown of how Scotland’s eight list regions voted in 2014 so we have no idea how many voted No in WS. But that’s by far the least idiotic part of the tweet.
A famous quote commonly attributed to Albert Einstein (and hotly disputed, as always, by point-missing Quote Nazis), runs that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”.
It’s been bouncing around our heads for the last couple of days, because with the SNP annual conference in full swing in Glasgow, Scottish political pundits have taken it upon themselves to start issuing bizarre assertions/advice about the party’s strategy for securing a second independence referendum.
This version, from the Herald’s cut-price David Torrance knockoff Mark Smith today, is no more than we’d expect from that source:
But we were a lot more surprised to see the notion also being taken up by someone we’d previously credited with a lot more insight and intelligence.
Alert readers will be aware that while the absolutely mind-numbing empirical stupidity of Scotland’s latest batch of Unionist MPs and MSPs is a recurring theme on Wings, we’ve never attempted to place it on any sort of formal footing. And to be honest, that sort of laziness on our part is no longer sustainable.
Especially alert readers may have noticed that we’ve had a new page on Wings for a while, maintaining a current list of Scottish newspaper circulations.
We were just checking it today and noticed that – seemingly unreported anywhere – the Scottish “regionals” had had their biannual figures published, so we thought we may as well keep you updated.
The plugin which normally embeds our Twitter feed on the Wings front page still isn’t working (doubtless because Twitter have made yet more spiteful and idiotic changes to their API), so those of you who don’t use the social media platform may have missed out on a gem this morning from everyone’s favourite Labour ultra-moderate.
Phew! Saved from economic devastation! Sounds like a narrow escape!
When the news is slow, we sometimes steel ourselves and go for a little paddle in the Yoonstream – a private collection of the most unhinged hardcore-Unionist accounts on Twitter – and see what they’re getting themselves all worked up about.
For a good few months now, they’ve all been posting mad graphs like this:
For our money – and by an admittely wafer-thin margin over the likes of Annie Wells, Miles Briggs, Alex Cole-Hamilton and James Kelly – Tory list MSP Jamie Greene is still the lowest-watt bulb in the Scottish Parliament’s festival of lights.
(Our alerter readers may have spotted that that’s an official watermarked Scottish Conservatives pic, so that’s them making him look as intelligent as they can.)
To stand out as especially doltish in a group of epic dolts like the current Tory cohort in Holyrood, you also need to be incapable of following simple logical trains of thought. So let’s see if we can illustrate with a topical example.
It’s probably time we started collecting all the media articles from the last couple of weeks about our ongoing legal battle with former Scottish Labour branch manager Kezia Dugdale, because it’s getting increasingly hard to plough through them all.
The story that Labour were pulling Dugdale’s legal funding was first broken by the Huffington Post on 19 September. Below is all the coverage we’ve found between then and now (most recent first). As best as we can recollect, incidentally, we’ve been asked for quotes for TWO of these stories.
Sven on Seven Days Too Long: “He should be okay as long as he doesn’t go onto the roofs of any high building or too near…” May 3, 13:29
Mark Beggan on Seven Days Too Long: “James was locked in a cupboard as a child. That’s when the voices started.” May 3, 13:00
Mark Beggan on Seven Days Too Long: “Even the Scottish Greens are afraid of the Tit Whisperer. A gay Jew who is best chums with Islamic cut…” May 3, 12:53
Towbar Sullivan on Seven Days Too Long: “OIC…I didn’t realise. I’ll say a prayer for the poor demented old dear.” May 3, 12:47
Insider on Seven Days Too Long: “Towbar Don’t be too hard on “James”. It is actually a very old lady who has sadly “lost the plot”.…” May 3, 12:28
Geri on Seven Days Too Long: “Oh Sturgeon had her moments. Who could forget her idiotic post glorify the death count of Rs with various muscle…” May 3, 12:19
Towbar Sullivan on Seven Days Too Long: “James, have you been on the poitin? It was the 1800 Acts of Union, there was an Anglo-Irish Agreement, but…” May 3, 11:51
Bilbo on Seven Days Too Long: “@ Geri Have you not considered that Polanski, as a person well known in the media at the present time,…” May 3, 11:23
James Che on Seven Days Too Long: “Recognising that the elections held in Scotland are actually the elections of United kingdom of Anglo-Irish parliament agreement 1800 and…” May 3, 11:21
James Che on Seven Days Too Long: “These records can be checked, Once you dissolve one of the Countries of only two parties to the 1706/07 treaty…” May 3, 11:06
James Che on Seven Days Too Long: “Today The UK is the united kingdom and parliament of England and Ireland, And does not include Scotland (twice).” May 3, 10:56
James Che on Seven Days Too Long: “Scotland regained its status as an independent Country in 1707 and in 1800 respectively. Minus a monarch. Due to the…” May 3, 10:53
James Che on Seven Days Too Long: “There has not been a Scottish parliament in the parliament of Westminster until the united kingdom of The new state…” May 3, 10:40
James Che on Seven Days Too Long: “Englands parliament which it rebranded as the parliament of Great Britain held NO Scottish parliament since 1707, Twice Scotland had…” May 3, 10:19
James Che on Seven Days Too Long: “The Anglo- Scottish parliament was dissolved 1800, resulting in a ceased union parliament of Great Britain Meaning that the transferred…” May 3, 10:07
Geri on Seven Days Too Long: “Bilbo, He probably apologised because he’d have received the Corbyn treatment. Bullied, intimidated, threatened by media mauling, Lawfare etc. I’ve…” May 3, 10:02
Bilbo on Seven Days Too Long: “@ James Curious how the trolls have been quiet for a while and then they coming piling in here just…” May 3, 10:01
Bilbo on Seven Days Too Long: “If anybody who doesn’t realise that the SNP can’t deliver independence by now isn’t going to change their mind to…” May 3, 09:57
James Che on Seven Days Too Long: “How, where and when, The case for lord gray, Hansard, Debate, a) That the kingdoms of Scotland and England continue…” May 3, 09:56
Northcode on Seven Days Too Long: “Yet another excellent comment by Geri. The rhetoric is strong in this one…” May 3, 09:42
Geri on Seven Days Too Long: ““Didn’t you also assert that our planes would never get off the ground?” Wrong conflict, shitface. Do keep up with…” May 3, 09:21
Northcode on Seven Days Too Long: ““I disavow nothing.” Ouch!! I suspect even God Himself is having a divine chuckle at Geri’s devilish comment. Geri puts…” May 3, 09:19
Captain Caveman on Seven Days Too Long: “@“Geri” 13:35 Well, I’d say your bizarre sentiments and misplaced sense of priorities serves as a handy “User Guide” for…” May 3, 09:15
Sven on Seven Days Too Long: “I’d guess that their plan B will be the same as it’s always been, 100%. That is, to make plan…” May 3, 08:54
100%Yes on Seven Days Too Long: “The SNP getting a majority isn’t a bad thing!! When the UKG turns it down the SNP has going to…” May 3, 08:02
Bilbo on Seven Days Too Long: “@ Sven You are right and it is wishful thinking on my part that these revelations about Mr Paulden/Polanksi conveniently…” May 3, 08:01
Bilbo on Seven Days Too Long: “Just to add as a thought from my previous reply, it’s ironic that while there is so much hate towards…” May 3, 07:50
Sven on Seven Days Too Long: “Hi Bilbo, In direct reply to your point, I greatly doubt that the now retracted comment by the man once…” May 3, 07:28
Bilbo on Seven Days Too Long: “The independence debate is framed that an iScotland would be in billions and billions of debt at time of creation…” May 3, 07:09