…on Good Morning Scotland yesterday, then we suspect you’re going to love the Lib Dems’ heroically glaikit MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton on the same show today.
We joke, of course. The Spanish government has made this position abundantly plain several times over a number of years, and it still doesn’t stop idiot Yoons (and media pundits who should know better) from spouting it.
But this time, in the flesh, it’s really quite hard to spin a way out of.
We don’t want to fall into the trap of portraying the Liberal Democrats as a party of any political relevance or consequence in Scotland, but for the sheer comedy value alone Willie Rennie’s interview with Gary Robertson on today’s Good Morning Scotland is worth a couple of minutes of your time.
First Minister’s Questions today (featuring stand-in FM John Swinney in a theatrical mood) was one long howl of “TOO WEE AND TOO POOR!”, with both Ruth Davidson and Kezia Dugdale using all of their questions to hark back to oil revenue forecasts from 2013 and insist that an independent Scotland would face economic apocalypse.
It was a dispiriting spectacle, and we found ourselves experiencing (not for the first time) pangs of sympathy for the remaining tiny rump of Scottish Labour voters, who must surely watch in broken despair at the antics of the hapless pack of squawking diddies representing their views in the Parliament.
(As an alert reader wryly noted: “Well, that’s a first. A one party state raises a motion against its own policy and defeats itself.”)
And we thought you’d like to be reminded that the Scottish Parliament was expressly designed from the beginning so that it would always work like that.
They must be pretty chuffed with how it’s turned out.
We haven’t said much about the huge furore whipped up by the Guardian in recent days around spurious allegations of racism/online abuse by supporters of Scottish independence, made first by Sadiq Khan and then by a deranged “Better Together” activist who also thinks all vegans are racist (or something).
Partly that’s because we covered the initial speech by Khan and the fallout from it pretty extensively, and partly because we didn’t want to feed the Guardian’s clickbait.
However, when the activist who was allegedly “hounded off Twitter” in fear for her life – fear caused by supposed comments that nobody has actually seen – miraculously recovered her bravery less than a week later (coincidentally just in time for the launch of her book), we thought it was probably time someone started keeping some records.
Last year, as we’ve done a number of times in the past, we wrote about the dangers of handcuffing the independence movement to a particular narrow political agenda. Conflating a Yes vote with a number of hardline ideological positions which are more or less unquestioned within the liberal commentariat and the radical left, but actually highly unpopular with the general public, is self-evidently a huge strategic mistake.
Many of those positions are ones which this site supports in their own right, such as abolition of the monarchy and the abandonment of nuclear weapons, but our stance has always been that those arguments – like membership of the EU and NATO – are ones which ought properly to be conducted among the people and elected politicians of an independent Scotland in their own good time, not imposed without debate as part of the package of independence.
This weekend the notionally pro-independence Sunday Herald newspaper – as well as taking part in a media-wide Unionist smear campaign against this site and defending a “Better Together” activist who’d written a deeply offensive clickbait Guardian article claiming that Scottish nationalism was racist – carried a front cover and inside spread on the heated topic of mandatory gender quotas, which the paper supports.
As it happened we’d asked about the subject in our Panelbase poll last month.
Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “Beggars; People are generally aware of the latter, sadly not the former. I only point out historical facts for those…” Mar 17, 01:32
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Just think, shitey.. An Islamic NATO! I’d LMFAO if that is true cause I just know you’d not be able…” Mar 17, 01:28
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Wrong. As said many times during indyref, you buy the house first before you start arranging the furniture on policy.…” Mar 17, 01:11
Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “HMcH Eh? No. You’re making a complete diddy of yersel yet again. England lost the 1st War of Independence as…” Mar 17, 01:03
Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “HMcH Eh? No. You’re making a complete diddy of yersel yet again. England lost the 1st War of Independence as…” Mar 17, 00:59
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Shiteface, No. They’ll be watching the telly thinking FUCK! Would you jist look at all those eejits who are being…” Mar 17, 00:45
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “He said womens rights would be protected. Yes. He also said the TRA community is a discussion Scotland should have…” Mar 17, 00:09
Cynicus on Looking up at the stars: ““….No invasion that wiped out one group and replaced it. “-Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh, 16 March, 2026 at 10:54 am ======== Fearghas,…” Mar 16, 23:47
Geri on Looking up at the stars: ““100%YES: so how do you see it being sorted AFTER independence” Because we’ll have our own parliament. Not a Unionist…” Mar 16, 23:39
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Looking up at the stars: “Championing Scots is an entirely justified and laudable enterprise. There is world-class literature in it. All Scottish children should become…” Mar 16, 23:38
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Dan: I don’t hate you for accusing me of being a Unionist when I was probably a nationalist when you…” Mar 16, 23:28
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Geri: Alec Salmond said no such thing. He ensured that women’s rights were embedded in Alba policy. You, like several…” Mar 16, 23:03
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “100%YES: so how do you see it being sorted AFTER independence? Do tell. Because sorting it PRIOR to independence is…” Mar 16, 22:46
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Aye, Northy, if you start by ignoring the fact that the 2022 census found 5.44 million people in Scotland you…” Mar 16, 22:34
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Not saying any of the blokes in Your Party hate women. But many of them are enthusiastic followers of a…” Mar 16, 22:24
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““keep on making weapons on our soil” FFS, Dan, that ship sailed over 4 years ago. “makes you look obsessed…” Mar 16, 22:19
Northcode on Looking up at the stars: “This from the 2022 Scottish Census: 4.74 million Scots identified as white Scottish/British. 62.4% of that number identified as “Scottish…” Mar 16, 22:13
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “I was told that when you finish a packet of smoked salmon, the most environmentally sound course of action is…” Mar 16, 22:09
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Oh, I think he’s given it a great deal of thought, Sarah. He just has a problem with women who…” Mar 16, 22:04
Dan on Looking up at the stars: “Best you keep voting for that Union Jack safety blanket then Lorna. Aye, there’s jist no point in returning to…” Mar 16, 21:54
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “H McH: what are you doing? Destroying the only policy we have? If we can’t top anything England does in…” Mar 16, 21:53
sarah on Looking up at the stars: “@ Lorncal at 8.52 p.m.: I feel very much the same as you. The world as it is being run…” Mar 16, 21:30
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “H McH: Every statistic and every study undertaken shows categorically that a country where women are treated as less than…” Mar 16, 21:04
Dan on Looking up at the stars: “Hmm, think I’ll finish my fishing session as some quarries jist aren’t worth the effort… But I’m all but fucking…” Mar 16, 20:59
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Sarah: your faith does you proud; but I very much doubt it would be possible to dislodge them after independence…” Mar 16, 20:52
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “I’m sorry to have disappointed you, but equally I do feel the likelihood was always that it was going to…” Mar 16, 20:29
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““It cannot be Gaelic because only 50,000 people speak the latter” Scots speakers are a minority too, Alf. A bigger…” Mar 16, 20:06
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Lebanon is in for a kicking because they lack the ability to expel the terrorist cuckoos who have been occupying…” Mar 16, 20:00
Dan on Looking up at the stars: “Dan says: “Would you eat a wild Scottish caught salmon or trout out of the Tay, when we still pump…” Mar 16, 19:56
Alf Baird on Looking up at the stars: ““Gaelic, the language of the actual historical ‘Scots’.” No one can dispute this, Fearghas, however it is only ever part…” Mar 16, 19:45
