The above story is feeble enough as it stands, even allowing for it being a desperately slow news week for Scottish politics. Maureen Watt is 66 years old and has asthma, and making a pensioner with breathing difficulties sprint a mile to get to a speech on time probably isn’t the most cost-effective way for the Parliament to save four and a half quid, once you’ve factored in the cost of the ambulance and everything.
Sometimes it’s hard for Yes supporters in Scotland not to be a bit jealous of Catalonia.
Despite their would-be nation being only a little bit bigger than Scotland, and despite being faced with very real physical and legal intimidation, the Catalan independence movement regularly manages to put hundreds of thousands of people on the streets.
Yes marches and rallies in Scotland, by comparison, often struggle to get attendances numbered in the hundreds, largely because squabbling factions refuse to get along with each other and by far the biggest entity in the Yes movement – the SNP – wants nothing to do with them.
Marches don’t win independence, of course. But what does?
We referenced this a few days ago because we definitely remembered it happening, but we’d been unable to actually locate the evidence, and at Wings Over Scotland that sort of thing bothers us. After a very considerable amount of effort we’ve now tracked it down, so we’re bunging it up here to preserve it for the record.
(At that point host Frank Skinner gave up and moved on.)
It’s from one month after the indyref, and the interesting thing is that Robinson is twice given the opportunity to respond to Skinner’s question about whether he thought that the pro-Yes supporters had any sort of fair point about his alleged bias, and both times – rather than, say, just dismissing it with a quick “Of course not” – he ducks it.
Readers can, as always, make their own judgements.
Amid the horror of events in Catalonia yesterday, the Prime Minister of the UK – quite unintentionally – said something during an interview on the Andrew Marr Show which was highly pertinent not only to the Catalan referendum but to British domestic politics too. We thought it needed saving for the record.
This site can’t claim to know enough about Spanish and Catalan politics to have an opinion about whether independence for Catalonia is a good idea or not. All we can say is that democracy is a good idea, and the draconian and extreme attempts of the Spanish government to suppress the referendum – ludicrously under-reported in the UK media, particularly broadcast media – are a terrifying throwback to its fascist past. We very much hope they don’t succeed.
Young Lochinvar on Pick Your Poison: “Geri Strangely fitting.. The “gayest wee Parliament” in the world will transition to be the “queerest wee Parliament in the…” May 9, 01:58
Geri on Pick Your Poison: “I hope Cowardly John draws the short straw & has to inform them it’s the LAW that they use the…” May 9, 01:43
Young Lochinvar on Pick Your Poison: “Sarah But, but.. Anne Thewliss burst into tears! Again.. And anyway, back in the day they used to say the…” May 9, 01:33
Cynicus on Pick Your Poison: “Final results for Highlands and Islands: Vic Currie (Reform) Ariane Burgess (Scottish Greens) Tim Eagle (Conservative) Max Barrowman (Reform) Morven-May…” May 9, 01:28
Geri on Pick Your Poison: “Can they not count? Why do they always have issues? According to X reporter – there were four counts at…” May 9, 01:27
GM on Pick Your Poison: “Interesting question. We’ll see how the Holyrood ladies deal with it.” May 9, 01:24
Geri on Pick Your Poison: “It gets worse Lorna… Allegedly, one has a crowd funder cause they don’t have a work visa (WTF?) & the…” May 9, 01:04
Confused on Pick Your Poison: “I see some foreign p00f on a student visa has gotten elected to the Scots parliament; I wonder how he…” May 9, 00:56
Cynicus on Pick Your Poison: ““ Is no-one else annoyed and embarrassed that 26 hrs after the polls closed the final results still haven’t been…” May 9, 00:53
Young Lochinvar on Pick Your Poison: “Oh well.. Hey ho! That’s that then for some more years.. “Honest” John has got what he “really” wanted all…” May 9, 00:53
L.U.T.B on Pick Your Poison: “Christ on a bike! Is no-one else annoyed and embarrassed that 26 hrs after the polls closed the final results…” May 9, 00:27
Big Jock on Pick Your Poison: “I don’t think any of us can take another 5 years of this sand dancing. It is like trying to…” May 9, 00:13
GM on Pick Your Poison: “I hope the lady takes the Scot gov. to the cleaners. It is the only thing that will shift them,…” May 9, 00:08
Cynicus on Pick Your Poison: “sarah says: 8 May, 2026 at 10:22 pm “This is now officially the worst set of MSPs we have been…” May 9, 00:02
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Pick Your Poison: “EX-GOVERNOR: ‘STOP HOUSING MEN IN SCOTLAND’S PRISONS FOR WOMEN’ All men who identify as women should be immediately removed from…” May 8, 23:41
Lorncal on Pick Your Poison: “The thing is, Aidan/Caveman, everything has to be tried before you go for broke. It’s like the wee boy or…” May 8, 23:09
GM on Pick Your Poison: “A court case might stir things up a bit. I suspect Scotland (does it still exist at Holyrood?) is too…” May 8, 23:06
Lorncal on Pick Your Poison: “Every silver lining has a cloud, Geri, and the Greens’ cloud – hopefully as black as the Earl of Hell’s…” May 8, 22:39
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Pick Your Poison: “Beannachd leat, a Sheumais. Piseach ort! (Blessings/ Good-bye, James. All the best!)” May 8, 22:33
Lorncal on Pick Your Poison: “I know. It’s the same everywhere. It will be around three-quarters to a million votes lost to Unionists and the…” May 8, 22:29
sarah on Pick Your Poison: “This is now officially the worst set of MSPs we have been cursed with. Is there a single one with…” May 8, 22:22
James Che on Pick Your Poison: “I will say goodby to everyone on wings over Scotland, and to Rev Stu for many years providing information, stats,…” May 8, 22:14
Geri on Pick Your Poison: “SNP wasted regional votes in my area around 88,000. Seats 0 Reform – around 59,000. Seats 3. #@#@#” May 8, 21:50
robertkknight on Pick Your Poison: ““Izzie says: 8 May, 2026 at 5:43 pm Well it looks like we (SNP) have won. But Im not hete…” May 8, 21:46
red sunset on Pick Your Poison: “A good number of constituencies below 50% turnout, typical seems to be around 55% turnout” May 8, 21:14
SilentMajority on Pick Your Poison: “What an absolute shower of embarrassments we now have ‘in power’…” May 8, 21:09
Geri on Pick Your Poison: “53.2% https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2026/scotland/results” May 8, 21:07
