It was exactly one year ago today that the Supreme Court delivered its judgment in the case of For Women Scotland Vs The Scottish Ministers, a judgment which has still not been implemented by the Scottish or UK governments, so it was quite bold of the SNP to choose it as the launch date for their manifesto.
The judgment (which the SNP are in fact still fighting in court) is not referenced in the document and the phrases “women’s rights” and “single-sex” do not appear anywhere in it, although it does say “We are committed to upholding and protecting the human rights of trans people as far as possible within our powers and we will do all we can to ensure that trans people’s identities are recognised and respected”.
So, y’know, more of the same to come for the next five years.
As all alert readers will know, this site likes to keep a watchful eye on the shady and disturbing activities of paedophilia-plagued charity LGBT Youth Scotland. So we were naturally intrigued to hear that they’d hired a new convenor last month.
And if you’re sitting there thinking, “Blimey, AI Christopher Walken looks very very ill”, well, stay tuned, because this story gets more and more interesting.
Alert readers will have noticed something of a minor furore in recent days around a boneheaded Scottish Greens candidate (as if there were any other kind) calling for the complete abolition of prisons.
So far Kate Nevens – who on the latest polling has a very reasonable chance of being elected on the list – has resisted calls to step down, which is probably for the best as, incredibly, her replacement would be even worse.
With the implosion of Your Party concentrating the nutter vote firmly in Green hands, the next term of the Scottish Parliament is set to feature the worst array of MSPs in Holyrood’s history, with almost everyone in the SNP with any sort of ability or experience resigning to be replaced by hyper-obedient young party drones, while the opposition are mostly putting forward the same old faces who’ve been such utter failures for the last 20 years.
It’s a grim prospect, but we do have a solution to propose.
Because the truth is that we should all be quietly sending BBC Scotland bouquets in appreciation for doing the independence movement a favour for once.
We think the lads at The Scotsman might have gotten a bit confused and/or carried away when it came to putting the clocks forward at the weekend. At 6am on Sunday morning they tweeted this:
But the link was a 404. We checked the print edition of Scotland On Sunday but there was nothing there either. Finally, though, the article has shown up in today’s paper and on the website, and to be honest with you, readers, we still think it must be some sort of mistake, because it’s two days early for April 1st.
The turnout at the “independence march and rally” yesterday was so abysmally poor that it seems almost unfair to pick on any of the scores of SNP elected representatives who didn’t bother to show up.
But dear old Cosy Feet Pete Wishart had the most chef’s-kiss excuse of all.
The reason he didn’t fancy getting his wee Billy Whizz quiff blown about a chilly Calton Hill was that he had important business “taking on the far right” – who were of course nowhere to be seen – with “half a million” (50,000) of his British besties, a convenient short Tube ride away from his London residence, at a pretty openly anti-Semitic protest called, with a double layer of delicious comedic value… UK Together.
If events in Edinburgh today are anything to go by – when a march and rally announced with great fanfare seven months ago, backed by both the “independence” parties in the Scottish Parliament and featuring the First Minister as main speaker, attracted perhaps 1,500 people at the most to Calton Hill on a bright and sunny day – the independence movement faces an imminent final apocalypse.
So here’s how to prepare yourself for when the SNP win a landslide with 35%, Keir Starmer says “So what?” and then a deathly silence descends for another five years.
Even Kelly Given and Iona Fyfe didn’t show up for this one. That’s how bad it is.
The last faint hope of any remotely positive or at least interesting outcome of May’s election just left the building.
It wasn’t MUCH of a hope, and it’s absolutely no surprise in the wake of the comically shambolic, belief-defyingly inept farce that has been the birth of Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s fringe-of-the fringe party, but all the same its extinguishing means the next two months will be even more of a waste of time than they looked like being.
Frankly, readers, we may as well not bother having an election at all.
The number of parties who got MSPs elected at the last election is… five. (Though in fairness there are now six, Reform having a single MSP after Graham Simpson defected from the Tories. The Lib Dems are even outnumbered by independents, of whom there are seven.)
So Cathy Newman of Channel 4 News got herself a scoop last night.
And to be honest, readers, we were a bit confused. “Gender critical views” are not only lawful things to hold and express, they’re one of a small subset of opinions that are explicitly protected as such in law. And why would a man very occasionally airing some lawful and protected views on social media be a news story? You might as well run “BREAKING: Premiership footballer discovered to enjoy cheese-and-ham toasties”.
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Broken Rainbow: “SCOTS PRIMARY SCHOOL CHALLENGED OVER FAILURE TO PROVIDE SINGLE-SEX TOILETS A pupil has been left in pain and distress after…” May 14, 00:40
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Broken Rainbow: “DRAFT ‘CONVERSION THERAPY’ BILL IN KING’S SPEECH AGAIN The Government has repeated its pledge to bring forward a draft Bill…” May 14, 00:31
Geri on The Broken Rainbow: “Polling means absolutely zero. It can be manipulated, rigged, depends on how the questions are asked & who exactly is…” May 13, 23:46
Hatey McHateface on The Broken Rainbow: “@Geri Polling evidence is clear enough. If a Reform government offered us a referendum next week, a majority of Scots…” May 13, 23:08
Geri on The Hills Of Far Away: “SNP had various mandates. How do you know they vote for something else? An election isn’t a referendum. The Yes…” May 13, 23:06
Geri on The Broken Rainbow: “Reform wouldn’t offer Independence. They certainly wouldn’t deliver on it. They’d not let the UK cash cow just walk out…” May 13, 22:56
Hatey McHateface on The Hills Of Far Away: ““refused what we vote for” You’re refused what YOU vote for, Geri, because the majority of Scots vote for something…” May 13, 22:44
John on The Broken Rainbow: “well- the only way to fix it would be to “true” proportional representation, as in the German Bundestag. Problem with…” May 13, 22:14
100%Yes on The Broken Rainbow: “John Swinney will now sell Scotland for federalism make no mistake this is what’s going to happen. The SNP leadership…” May 13, 22:01
Geri on The Hills Of Far Away: “AI Dan “fluff”? Yer sounding more & more like Franchise Fanny by the day. You just can’t help yersel. As…” May 13, 21:45
Hatey McHateface on The Hills Of Far Away: “Havers, Northy, you’re confusing meaning with interpretation. The Egyptians, demonstrably the finest stone workers who have ever graced this planet…” May 13, 20:47
100%Yes on The Broken Rainbow: “Has anyone watch the mid week Scottish Prism, take a look. Already JS has backed track on what he said…” May 13, 19:47
Northcode on The Hills Of Far Away: “Rhetoric shapes meaning; a lie hollows it out. A lie is the crack in the stone not a carving… as…” May 13, 19:44
Hatey McHateface on The Broken Rainbow: “Good Lord, Northy! So even the Picts are now using the lying language of the coloniser – English.” May 13, 19:30
100%Yes on The Broken Rainbow: “This policy of kicking Indy into the long grass is now showing in the opinion polls for the SNP. There…” May 13, 19:29
Northcode on The Hills Of Far Away: ““… insults aren’t meant to arguments…” To be or not to be, but where is the ‘be’… I forgot to…” May 13, 19:28
Hatey McHateface on The Hills Of Far Away: “You omitted to say where bare-faced lying fits in, Northy.” May 13, 19:27
Northcode on The Broken Rainbow: “Colonialists in this place very often mistake disruption for cleverness and noise for wit, but “the stone knows the difference”,…” May 13, 19:18
Northcode on The Hills Of Far Away: ““Calling people “thick cants” isn’t an argument either.” Correct, but then again insults aren’t meant to arguments… not directly, anyway.…” May 13, 19:08
Hatey McHateface on The Hills Of Far Away: “Well, well. So the Falklands now has an outfit backed by a state with the determination, skill, technology and balls…” May 13, 18:48
Hatey McHateface on The Hills Of Far Away: “@Aidan There’s a war crimes tribunal in permanent session atween Geri’s lugs. In the interests of efficiency, she volunteered to…” May 13, 18:40
Hatey McHateface on The Broken Rainbow: “Lucky for Scotland that the boys petitioning the UN make all of this democratic voting malarkey a pointless sideshow. Beats…” May 13, 18:35
duncanio on The Broken Rainbow: “I didn’t say it was an alternative. I said it was imperfect but less imperfect than FPTP. Otherwise you would…” May 13, 18:31
Hatey McHateface on The Hills Of Far Away: ““Do you think have a special, unique entitlement to type insults” Does not compute. Re-type and re-submit.” May 13, 18:25
Hatey McHateface on The Hills Of Far Away: ““Calling something “horseshit” isn’t an argument” Hark at Northy! Only yesterday he was calling people “thick cants”. Ken fit sane,…” May 13, 18:19
Jay on The Hills Of Far Away: “Commander-in-Chief Caveman, I’ve no idea whether you will read this.. What is pretentious in my comment? I do not pretend,…” May 13, 18:17
Captain Caveman on The Hills Of Far Away: “@Aidan “Of course people living in a rich and prosperous country cosplaying as victims is one thing you missed from…” May 13, 17:38
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Broken Rainbow: “Ever since 2016, the SNP’s policy has basically been to kick it down the road for two years at a…” May 13, 17:33
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Broken Rainbow: “It made zero difference to the point anyway. But gah, too many numbers flying around at once.” May 13, 17:32
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Broken Rainbow: “But that’s not the alternative. The alternative is a proportional system that actually works.” May 13, 17:32
