The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland

The grand sacrifice 251

Posted on August 12, 2017 by

The mainstream media is now, by our count, up to at least 13 sizeable articles on the Great Yes-Movement Schism Of 2017 – a minor online spat between a tiny handful of people who’ve never liked each other and most of whom the general public has never heard of – and shows no signs of tiring of gleefully revelling in the subject.

There’s nothing particularly surprising or even diabolical about that. As any reality-TV show viewer will tell you, viewers absolutely love to watch people fighting, and doubly so if it’s the summer silly season and there’s no real news. Most of the stories have attracted large responses and therefore lots of juicy and profitable clicks for tired hacks who long ago stopped having anything of any interest to say but still have to honk out 1000 words a week in order to get paid.

But the more sinister aspect of them is the way they’ve been weaponised to (further) demonise and silence the Yes movement. If someone attacks other Yes figures with a provocative, offensive and dishonest piece, the extra bonus for the media is that any legitimately angry response to it can be used as yet more proof of The Vileness Of The Cybernats: “Look! They even turn on their own if they dare disagree!”

For the Unionist press, that’s a win-win every way up, and there are some on the Yes side who seem only too willing to co-operate with the narrative.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags:
Category analysis, comment, media, scottish politics

More Bad News 96

Posted on August 12, 2017 by

Tags: ,
Category comment, media, scottish politics

The magic money rigs 388

Posted on August 10, 2017 by

A reader sent us an interesting snippet of information today.

That seemed a startling fact, so we looked into it. And it’s true.

Read the rest of this entry →

Category analysis, comment, scottish politics, stats, uk politics

The Vanishings 133

Posted on August 09, 2017 by

The Scottish media this week has started to rather resemble Argentina under General Galtieri’s military junta – everywhere you look are the ghosts of the disappeared.

We’ve already documented at length the sudden non-existence of the Herald’s madly inaccurate front-page lead story from Monday (along with the corresponding piece in the Evening Times). And today two more things joined the missing list.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: ,
Category comment, debunks, media, scottish politics

Forever bad 103

Posted on August 09, 2017 by

Here’s Daniel Sanderson in the Times in January this year, complaining that too few university students come from poor backgrounds and therefore the SNP are bad:

So he’d be chuffed if that situation improved, right?

Read the rest of this entry →

Category comment, media, scottish politics

The King Of Irony World 261

Posted on August 08, 2017 by

In case you don’t know, Alan Roden is the former Scottish Daily Mail politics editor who’s now Scottish Labour’s director of communications. We haven’t edited this pic in any way, those genuinely are two consecutive tweets he posted yesterday.

So this is almost too beautiful.

Read the rest of this entry →

Category debunks, media, scottish politics

A series of coincidences 106

Posted on August 07, 2017 by

Earlier today we reported on the mysterious failure of the Herald to notice that its front page lead story about supposedly poor ScotRail punctuality figures made a number of serious errors with regard to the facts, most notably confusing the excellent figures for last month with a 12-month rolling average which was significantly worse.

But as we read the rest of the papers, we noticed the oddest thing.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags:
Category analysis, debunks, idiots, media, scottish politics

Newspaper misses accuracy targets 95

Posted on August 07, 2017 by

This is the front-page lead on today’s Herald.

Let’s fact-check that, shall we?

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags:
Category analysis, debunks, media, scottish politics

The ever-shifting goalposts 46

Posted on August 07, 2017 by

We’re back in the archives again today, because there’s still no news. (The Herald is desperately trying to whip up outrage over trains arriving 61 seconds late, and David Torrance has finally turned up at the “OMG YES MOVEMENT SPLIT” party just as the last stragglers are heading home and the hosts are going to bed.)

And we’re particularly enjoying this one, for a whole list of reasons:

Read the rest of this entry →

Category comment, history, scottish politics

Out come the freaks 282

Posted on August 06, 2017 by

In the continuing summer absence of any sort of Scottish politics news (the Sunday papers consist of Michelle Thomson understandably taking a swipe at the SNP in the Sunday Post, the Sunday Times spluttering in impotent fury that Michelle Thomson wasn’t prosecuted, and the Sunday Herald giving a glowing write-up to idiot Tory MSP Annie Wells while savaging sections of the Yes movement yet again – this time “older white men”), we thought you might enjoy a piece from the archives.

Discovered by an alert reader, this 1976 Times article features Labour MP for Basildon Eric Moonman discussing the seemingly-imminent prospect of Scottish devolution, to which he was implacably opposed and instrumental in defeating, ultimately leading to the collapse of a Labour government and the election of Mrs Thatcher.

Read the rest of this entry →

Category comment, history, scottish politics, uk politics

Pups on parade 215

Posted on August 05, 2017 by

Tags: ,
Category comment, europe, uk politics

The Too Wee Club #4 166

Posted on August 04, 2017 by

A series inspired by a Unionist blog insisting that “On a practical level, I do not believe for one moment that Scotland could thrive alone”, and which led to our thinking about some of the world’s other independent nations.

NO. 4 – SWITZERLAND

Switzerland has a problem, readers.

Those poor Swiss, eh?

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags:
Category analysis, debunks, europe, scottish politics, world

← Previous Entries
Next Entries →

  • About

    Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.

    Stats: 6,868 Posts, 1,234,634 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

    and finally and firstly arithmetic fail braveheart klaxon britnats captain darling cartoons Chris Cairns confused cringe crybabies dateline debates Devo Nano Douglas Daniel Federalists Unionists and Devolutionists flat-out lies foreigner watch from the archives fundraisers galleries hamish hypocrisy liars light-hearted banter lizards memogate misinformation one nation perspectives poll project fear project feart qft Scott Minto smears snp accused soapbox the positive case for the union The Vow ticktock toldyouso too wee too poor too stupid unionist of the day vote no get nothing

  • Recent Comments

    • TURABDIN on The Secondhand Amendment: “WHY IS TRUMP SO ANGRY? https://archive.ph/OJUzd Infantile peavishness or too much constipation causing American food? Henry 8, that figures.” Jan 20, 14:47
    • sam on The Secondhand Amendment: “100%Yes below. Yes, 100% Yes. Assimilation of Intuit culture and monopolised trade” Jan 20, 14:35
    • Lorna Campbell on The Secondhand Amendment: “Was listening to Scotcast re the FWS case against the SG on the question of men in the women’s prison…” Jan 20, 14:11
    • Hatey McHateface on The Secondhand Amendment: ““timed to do maximum damage to the independence vote” Wow! Professor Baird believes the SNP are still driving hard for…” Jan 20, 13:52
    • Lorna Campbell on The Secondhand Amendment: “Yes, Nae Need, I agree. However, I can understand the self-interest of those who claim to be ‘trans’. That does…” Jan 20, 13:43
    • Lorna Campbell on The Secondhand Amendment: “Computers cannot make up facts that are not actually there. They can introduce errors as to provenance. This is not…” Jan 20, 13:28
    • Lorna Campbell on The Secondhand Amendment: “She knows that AI could not have made some of the errors in the way they were made. It had…” Jan 20, 13:19
    • Lorna Campbell on The Secondhand Amendment: “Of course, AI is used extensively, but not in the way that this judgement pans out, so, either lies are…” Jan 20, 13:09
    • Confused on The Secondhand Amendment: “aircrew training video for the new F47 stealth superfighter (this should be the real top gun) www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECRWT9TEaj0 us foreign policy…” Jan 20, 13:01
    • Lorna Campbell on The Secondhand Amendment: “James, every piece of legislation, in Scotland’s history, and every piece of legislation in England’s history referred to two sexes…” Jan 20, 12:59
    • Confused on The Secondhand Amendment: “not you, Scotland! https://archive.ph/PrffD but wait … trump is on a roll; while “the current thing” is no longer iran,…” Jan 20, 12:59
    • 100%Yes on The Secondhand Amendment: “No mention of the Inuits, why am I not surprised. Took great detail to write the Kingdom of Denmark, interesting…” Jan 20, 12:46
    • Alf Baird on The Secondhand Amendment: ““it’s hard to know it’s true meaning and who exactly is a fascist” According to Cesaire, numerous intellectuals including Robinson,…” Jan 20, 12:43
    • James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “Lorna, Do not confuse the two separate speeches the monarch made as they were on two separate chronological time lines.…” Jan 20, 12:37
    • James on Learning Insanity: “Really? That’s all you two losers have got? The great Unionist debaters. LOL. Mass debaters maybe.” Jan 20, 12:32
    • PC Foster on The Secondhand Amendment: “I wonder how much scope Murrell has to spill the beans on his wife or will he mysteriously die between…” Jan 20, 12:24
    • James Cheyne on The Secondhand Amendment: “From political attacks on farmers in France to British farmers to American farmers. From trans cults in Canada to it…” Jan 20, 12:15
    • sam on The Secondhand Amendment: “?Foreign Affairs Committee? ?@afet.europarl.europa.eu?· 59m Today at 13.00 European Parliament will discuss territorial integrity and sovereignty of Greenland and the…” Jan 20, 12:07
    • James Cheyne on The Secondhand Amendment: “We can only accept it was a America problem if we discount every other Country that is under going the…” Jan 20, 11:56
    • sam on The Secondhand Amendment: “Ms Forstater says of Judge Kemp’s error: ““The quote in my section wasn’t found anywhere else, so it was either…” Jan 20, 11:47
    • Alf Baird on The Secondhand Amendment: “According to postcolonial theory all we can ever expect in a colonial society is a ‘mediocre meritocracy’ (Memmi), much as…” Jan 20, 11:29
    • Alf Baird on The Secondhand Amendment: ““Timing as broadly predicted by many on here!” Yes, colonial ‘justice’ seems predictable, in this instance timed to do maximum…” Jan 20, 11:08
    • TURABDIN on The Secondhand Amendment: “EUROPE & THE YANKEE BULLY BOY & HIS BAGGAGE Could the EU be getting its mojo back. Conceived as the…” Jan 20, 10:38
    • Hatey McHateface on The Secondhand Amendment: “Jane Russell, eh? Whew, what a scorcher! But I thought she was deid. How depressing that while still alive she’s…” Jan 20, 10:13
    • sam on The Secondhand Amendment: “Is it possible that Ms Russell is the “judicial colleague” who exchanged correspondence with Judge Kemp? On the face of…” Jan 20, 10:12
    • James Cheyne on The Secondhand Amendment: “In Lorna’ version of the treaty of union case being real you will find only two biological sexes entered into…” Jan 20, 10:03
    • agentx on The Secondhand Amendment: ““The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) confirmed that a preliminary hearing on Murrell’s case is scheduled to take…” Jan 20, 09:58
    • sam on The Secondhand Amendment: “In Sandie Peggie’s case against NHS Fife, the representation for NHS Fife was provided by KC, Jane Russell. Ms Russell…” Jan 20, 09:16
    • Hatey McHateface on The Secondhand Amendment: ““should be allowed into a female only space, such as a public toilet, on a case by case basis” Sure.…” Jan 20, 08:56
    • Hatey McHateface on The Secondhand Amendment: ““This implies that it is not inherently unlawful for a trans female to be given permission to use a female…” Jan 20, 08:47

  • A tall tale



↑ Top