Readers may be aware that Wings Over Scotland is (fairly remarkably, really) the UK’s second-most-read politics blog, behind the hardcore right-wing “Guido Fawkes”.
Our “competitor” isn’t a site we look at a lot – the comments make the Daily Mail readership seem like enlightened and thoughtful moderates – but last week someone asked us about a smear piece they’d run on SNP MP Corri Wilson, and we only just remembered today to check it out. Our initial findings weren’t well received.
It seems that Mr Fawkes and his minions aren’t too keen on scrutiny themselves.
Ever since Scottish Daily Mail political editor Alan Roden jumped ship to go and rearrange the deckchairs for Labour, his former paper has very noticeably toned down its hysterical “SNP BAD” content. We can go through the Mail for days on end now without finding some ludicrously distorted misrepresentation or screaming outrage piece about how a Nat MP found 20p down the back of their sofa without declaring it to HMRC or such.
But we suppose that it’ll at least be bleakly funny, whenever the second independence referendum comes round, watching Labour try to sell a vote for the UK as a vote for internationalist brotherhood and solidarity.
To be honest, readers, we gave up on taking any notice of David Torrance‘s mundane attempts at trolling in the Herald some time ago. But some alert readers pointed us towards this week’s column, suggesting that it was a bald rewriting of history some way beyond their usual bland irritancy.
This was the passage they objected to:
It’s a patronising piece of “shut up and eat your cereal” condescension for sure. But to be fair to Torrance, it does also happen to be true. Wait, not true. The other thing.
The starting pistol hasn’t actually been fired on the two-year Brexit process yet, but now we have a clear statement of when it will be: this morning on The Andrew Marr Show, the Prime Minister pledged that it would happen before the end of next March.
(We might end up broke, in other words, but at least we’ll be good old British broke, with none of those awful smelly foreign Euro-Johnnies around to see it.)
And nobody was getting a sick note.
And for supporters of independence, that’s about as good as news gets.
The Daily Telegraph just released a video called “100 Reasons Why Brexit Was A Good Thing”. It listed them to a soundtrack of “Jerusalem”, the same song that closed the Labour Party conference earlier this week with its stirring ode to just one of the four nations of the United Kingdom.
We’ve saved a few of the highlights below, just in case the Telegraph should delete the video in a fit of sanity. We’ve also added one fake one. See if you can spot it.
Low-wattage Labour list MSP Neil Findlay (rejected by the electorate of Almond Valley by a thumping 8,393 votes in May) puffed himself up to maximum socialism this week and attacked the SNP’s rather more popular Paisley MP Mhairi Black over a Scottish Daily Express story about travel expenses.
It might have been an idea if he’d read the piece all the way to the end.
Al-Stuart on A matter of class: “. Hi Stuart, I see the Scot-Goes-Splat fundraiser Jimmy McGrifty has now gone full stalker mode with his obsession about…” Dec 21, 19:55
Dan on A matter of class: “Franchise Fanny returns! But tae fuck with offering a shred of crimbo goodwill to fellow supporters of Scotland returning to…” Dec 21, 19:53
Cynicus on A matter of class: “Andy Ellis says: 21 December, 2025 at 4:09 pm “One wonders if the Post Colonial Snake Oil Salesman in Chief…” Dec 21, 18:44
Northcode on A matter of class: ““Lovely people the Finns…” I’ll write to the Finnish embassy in London and let them know you think they’re patronizingly…” Dec 21, 18:25
Northcode on A matter of class: ““How about the >5% of Finns who are of Swedish language and ethnicity, having lived in Finland for centuries?” You…” Dec 21, 18:09
Alf Baird on A matter of class: “Is that you on the colonial backshift, Andy? Hatey on his weel-deserved brak. Surprised ye didna ken that language aye…” Dec 21, 18:00
Mark Beggan on A matter of class: “Well God Bless you sir. Merry Christmas.My Grandfather would be proud of that.” Dec 21, 17:46
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@Northcode 4pm Ethnic Finns, or Suomalaiset, are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland, with a rich cultural heritage…” Dec 21, 17:15
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “I think that qualifies you to play for Ireland’s national football team if not outright for Irish citizenship Mark. Odd…” Dec 21, 17:07
Northcode on A matter of class: “Correction: The Ethnic Egyptians are known as Misriyyun not whatever nonsense Wordpress created when it processed the text of my…” Dec 21, 16:16
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “@factchecker 2.3ppm In fact, his concept of each country being run by a separate ethnic group seems distinctly wrong. Is…” Dec 21, 16:09
Northcode on A matter of class: ““The eminent professor…” As usual the point being made immediately, and irredeemably, soars swiftly over the minds of colonists. There…” Dec 21, 16:00
Mark Beggan on A matter of class: “And there was me drinking Guinness with the Irish. It all went well until I happened to mention I was…” Dec 21, 15:51
Mark Beggan on A matter of class: “You need to get over that or you will not go forward.” Dec 21, 15:49
Mark Beggan on A matter of class: “You will be arrested for that.” Dec 21, 15:41
factchecker on A matter of class: “The eminent professor says “You know, like ethnic Norwegians run Norway. Or ethnic Finns run Finland. Or ethnic Indians run…” Dec 21, 14:39
Alf Baird on A matter of class: “Hatey, I assume you have good reason for suggesting that ethnic Scots should not run their own country? You know,…” Dec 21, 14:05
James Cheyne on A matter of class: “Westminster parliament of England and Ireland simply pretended through deceit and lies it was the same legal construction and legal…” Dec 21, 14:03
James Cheyne on A matter of class: “Some information omitted perhaps on purpose is that when you dissolve the GB parliament treaty 1800 you dissolve the monarch…” Dec 21, 13:41
Captain Caveman on A matter of class: “Oh good grief, here I am sat with a “negroni hangover” following a rather spectacular dinner with friends (Mrs C…” Dec 21, 13:40
Northcode on A matter of class: “DANCE, SLAVE, DANCE! Yet another imprinted sex-bonded colonist to add to my entourage of sex-bonded colonists.” Dec 21, 13:36
Northcode on A matter of class: ““… does not an imprinted sex-bonded slave make.” This is an example of another flower of rhetoric called Hyperbaton. Made…” Dec 21, 13:31
Alf Baird on A matter of class: ““Why, oh, why… do the colonists on here come across as being a tad thuggish?” Maybe because ‘colonialism is force’…” Dec 21, 13:26
Northcode on A matter of class: “I mispeeled incomprehemsibeness (I’m big enough to own my literary failures)… it should, of course, read as incomprehensibleness (which is…” Dec 21, 13:20
James Cheyne on A matter of class: “Perhaps Scots do not wish to replace pretend union for the civic nations kind of union,” Dec 21, 13:08
Northcode on A matter of class: “A colonist speaks… and, as usual, it speaks incomprehemsibeness… and Inglis its first lingo tae. I shall deal with its…” Dec 21, 13:06
Andy Ellis on A matter of class: “The responses BTL from the usual suspects tend to give the lie to your assertion though Northy. We all know…” Dec 21, 13:01
James Cheyne on A matter of class: “For a English Irish parliament and the Queen of England and Ireland cannot fit that Humpty dumpty parliament again,” Dec 21, 12:59
James Cheyne on A matter of class: “History is replete with the ghosts of vanished States. So it is, No more Succession to the Hanoverian dynasty since…” Dec 21, 12:54
GM on A matter of class: “Interesting juxtaposition Ben Hope. Dinnae gie up hope o’ a court case or twa in the new year. I haven’t.…” Dec 21, 12:45
