We’ve got a shock result for the inaugural winner of this exciting new award, readers. Remarkably it’s NOT David Torrance – who wrote an arch review of a chapter of a book about Donald Trump that didn’t actually exist. Good effort, Davey, but no cigar.
No, the first ever Wings Absolute Fanny Of The Week is… Anas Sarwar!
In common with half of Scottish Labour, Sarwar has been raging at Paisley MP Mhairi Black for her “silence” over the closure of a 16-bed children’s ward in the town, which has been replaced by an entire new state-of-the-art 256-bed children’s hospital 10 minutes down the road, right next to the sparkly new Southern General.
But only Sarwar did it by enclosing a picture of the local paper’s front-page splash on the story. In which there was one teeny-weeny slight problem for him.
Remarkably, the notoriously unreliable and yet somehow omnipresent Scottish political commentator and reality-disputer David “Davey” Torrance was still digging last night in the wake of this story from three days ago.
Previous episodes in the series are here. If you’ve got a story like this to tell, or you know anyone who does, Phantom Power want to hear from you – drop them a line.
Late last night in the House Of Commons saw one of the most significant votes in the history of UK constitutional politics. A group of Scottish Tory MPs voted to oppose an amendment which would have protected the central building block of Scottish (and Welsh) devolution – the principle that any powers not explicitly reserved are devolved – from the UK government’s attempted huge power grab under the cover of Brexit.
Last night they could have fixed it by supporting the amendment (backed by every other Scottish MP right across party lines), which would have tipped the arithmetic and ensured its success. Instead they betrayed every voter in Scotland – including their own – by waving the bill through unamended and passing the buck to the unelected House Of Lords, which has no representatives from Scotland’s most popular party.
This morning, BBC Scotland led on the fact that it snowed a bit in Scotland in January.
It also saw the return of ubiquitous Scottish politics scribe David Torrance from a trip to San Francisco, the details of which he shared at stultifying length with the unfortunate readers of The Scottish Review.
Or at least, what he SAID were the details of where he SAID he’d been.
We’ve commented quite a few times in recent months about the Scottish media’s habit of running statistical stories rendered meaningless by the absence of any context.
The reasons for this aren’t necessarily sinister – sometimes journalists are just lazy or the full stats are hard to establish because like-for-like figures aren’t published – but usually it’s just a way to get an SNP BAD story out of isolated numbers which, if the full picture was presented, would render that impossible.
The above story from STV News today contains no furious rentaquotes from Labour or the Tories (at least not yet), so we should place it in the former category. Nevertheless, we do feel it’s our duty in a general sense to provide readers with the information that the Scottish media can’t be bothered to, so let’s do that.
An alert reader this weekend linked us to a 1963 speech by the famed American civil rights and racial equality campaigner Malcolm X.
We’d never heard of it before, which is probably to our shame, but as we read it we were overcome by an inexplicable sense of incredible familiarity.
We present it to you below for your interest, without further comment or editing, but we’ve included a few pictures just to break up the block of text.
Ruth Davidson appeared on Good Morning Scotland today as part of their series of interviews with what they call “the leaders of the larger parties in Scotland”, which for some reason is also including the Lib Dems and Greens.
You can listen to the piece – which showcased the usual evasive, time-killing waffle technique Davidson employs as standard, noticeably uncomfortable only when Gary Robertson pressed her on welfare-cuts suicides – for yourself if you want, but in our Panelbase poll last month we discovered a difference between Davidson and Nicola Sturgeon we thought was quite interesting, so we’re going to talk about that instead.
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “Well said. I love it when you wade right in. Their wits have never been addled, imo. Their wits are…” Jan 19, 18:38
Hatey McHateface on The Secondhand Amendment: “I’ll take your bet, Sven. Is £20 too rich for you? Even if a plea negotiation (the Scots Law term…” Jan 19, 18:35
Lorna Campbell on The Secondhand Amendment: “It is the baleful influence that the ‘trans’ issue/lobby is having, apparently, on so many people in positions of trust…” Jan 19, 18:08
Lorna Campbell on The Secondhand Amendment: “Very well said, sir. So many lies and delusions and half-truths surround the ‘trans’ issue that it needs to have…” Jan 19, 18:04
Sven on The Secondhand Amendment: “I doubt in this potential scenario that Mr Murrell would give evidence against any other defendant, as far as I’m…” Jan 19, 18:03
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “I’ll say it, cos as far as I am aware no one else has passed comment on this: the USA…” Jan 19, 17:59
Lorna Campbell on The Secondhand Amendment: “Excellent piece again, Rev. Puts all the points that require to have light shone upon them. I never believed that…” Jan 19, 17:56
agentx on The Secondhand Amendment: “A plea bargain to give evidence against whom? I’m thinking about this: “The brother-in-law of Scotland’s former first minister Humza…” Jan 19, 17:53
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “If that kinda thing is a legal possibility in Scotland, then yeah. And what we know of Scotland’s institutions is…” Jan 19, 17:47
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “Talking of Nigel, did you know he’s currently in DAVOS? Annual WEF Conference is currently underway. Is he there to…” Jan 19, 17:40
Sven on The Secondhand Amendment: “What is the betting that Mr Murrell takes a plea bargain in bar of trial and no details are ever…” Jan 19, 17:30
Lorna Campbell on Learning Insanity: “James, that is not what her speech to the newly-created British parliament states, and nor is it the majority view…” Jan 19, 17:17
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “That’s why he already described it as ‘lazy’. Not that you are wrong in offering further detail.” Jan 19, 17:11
Hatey McHateface on The Secondhand Amendment: ““Murder is murder whether by axe or by guillotine or by a government’s austerity policy or a social security sanction…” Jan 19, 17:08
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “It’s something. A scrap, a morsel . . . the first separation away from the ‘flock’ of a sacrificial lamb,…” Jan 19, 17:05
Hatey McHateface on The Secondhand Amendment: “£20 says this goes nowhere before the May 2026 HR election.” Jan 19, 17:02
Northcode on The Secondhand Amendment: “Aye, Sam. David Walsh’s Youtube video is a real eye-opener for Scots and ither folk roond the world. I, of…” Jan 19, 16:52
agentx on The Secondhand Amendment: ““Former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell will appear in court next month for a preliminary hearing, the Crown Office has…” Jan 19, 16:48
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “Yes, I agree. Thank you to you both. I suspected Stu was going to write a piece on this from…” Jan 19, 16:41
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “You make some very good points. Your second last paragraph begs the questions: Does Walker already know something we don’t?…” Jan 19, 16:32
Hatey McHateface on The Secondhand Amendment: “Surely you should be writing “murthered”, Northy? Or do you delight in murdering logical consistency? Whatever, don’t take this as…” Jan 19, 16:31
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “Yes indeed, yet more infuriating masquerading. And as Northcode says – fuckuppery by design. I’ve been reading some excellent articles…” Jan 19, 15:47
sam on The Secondhand Amendment: “Northcode You said,”Scotland is being murdered…” Recommend you do a search for “youtube, social murder, david walsh”” Jan 19, 15:12
Alf Baird on The Secondhand Amendment: ““Can it be any wonder Scotland and the Scots are in such poor condition given the battering they’ve been taking…” Jan 19, 13:39
Northcode on The Secondhand Amendment: ““… the woefully inadequate levels of accountability and transparency across all of Scotland’s establishment and civic society…” The monumental fuck-up…” Jan 19, 13:03
Frank Gillougley on The Secondhand Amendment: “Brilliant! Thank you Rev for having the gift of succinctly rising above the obfuscatory legal minutae and calling out the…” Jan 19, 12:22
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Learning Insanity: “Back in May 2014 I wrote replies to negative reviews of Doug Gay’s above-mentioned ‘HONEY FROM THE LION’ book by…” Jan 19, 12:09
Anton Decadent on The Secondhand Amendment: “Thank you both for bringing this to light. It looks as if the plan is to bullshit, lie and bluster…” Jan 19, 12:04
Michael P on The Secondhand Amendment: “I speak as an English Barrister who has followed this wretched story and is dismayed/bamboozled by it. I do not…” Jan 19, 12:03
