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Wings Over Scotland


In Ruins 164

Posted on January 11, 2025 by

Don’t watch this. You’ll only waste 12 minutes of your life making yourself angry.

It’s our job to be angry for you.

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Eyes Full Of Beams 204

Posted on January 09, 2025 by

The National carried a strange article yesterday, apropos of seemingly nothing, about a Brussels-based political thinktank supposedly linked to the right-wing Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban. The piece actually originated on superwoke “fact-checking” site The Ferret a couple of days earlier, and professed to expose how the thinktank was “stoking Scotland’s culture war”.

Alert readers will already have pricked up their ears at this point, because “culture war” is a radical-left dogwhistle term used to obscure, belittle and dismiss groups (largely though not exclusively comprising left-wing feminists) fighting for the safeguarding of children and the protection of women’s and LGB rights.

And sure enough, nothing’s different this time.

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Safeguarding Is Not Right-Wing 130

Posted on January 09, 2025 by

As more horrific experiences from survivors of rape torture gangs surface from across the UK, we must focus not on knee-jerk political posturing but on the root cause that led to the failure of these children by our society.

Political inaction has now opened the door to inevitable political mileage, nurtured from stoking vengeance in a rightly-angered public. Those only interested in creating cultural conflicts no more support justice for survivors than those who allowed this abomination to fester by looking away or worse, covering up the problem.

For any functioning society, inflicting unimaginable pain on children on an alarming scale seems unimaginable. Yet, the evidence has been in front of us for years – so why has immediate action to ensure the safeguarding of children – and vulnerable adults – not been a pressing priority?

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Dreaming Of Perfection 276

Posted on January 07, 2025 by

Any rational assessment of Scottish (or indeed UK or world) politics at the moment tends to be negative and depressing, so since it’s a new year we thought we’d make an extra-special effort at writing something positive.

Unfortunately that does require us to enter the realm of fantasy. But hey, everybody needs a little holiday from time to time, right?

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Where We Stand Now 333

Posted on January 05, 2025 by

Nobody really answered the question in this article from a few days ago. A few of the dimmer bulbs in the indy movement have been getting over-excited at what are still currently a couple of outlier polls from fringe polling companies, which suggest that the 2026 election could unexpectedly return a pro-indy majority due to the Unionist vote being split four ways in the wake of UK Labour’s implosion in government.

That scenario depends on all sorts of dubious propositions, but in any event what none of them have addressed is what that would change even if it did happen, given that Holyrood has a pro-indy majority RIGHT NOW (and has done so on every single day since the indyref more than a decade ago) and it’s produced nothing whatsoever in terms of movement towards independence by any possible measure.

And it occurred to us that we had genuinely no idea what the SNP’s current official indy strategy is, because the party’s been in such farcical chaos and turmoil ever since Nicola Sturgeon’s sudden resignation. So we thought we should go and check.

To be honest, we’re not much the wiser for having read it.

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Once more around 464

Posted on December 31, 2024 by

And Then What? 481

Posted on December 29, 2024 by

Look, we know that mocking front pages on The National is low-hanging fruit, and this particular example could hardly be any more of a self-parody if it tried.

But just for the sheer mental exercise in that stone-dead last week of December when nobody even knows what day it is, let’s imagine if it came true.

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Bad Santa 506

Posted on December 21, 2024 by

The Cost Of Truth 509

Posted on December 17, 2024 by

The Scottish Government just issued another response in the long-running Freedom Of Information battle with alert Wings reader Benjamin Harrop over its conspiracy to frame and imprison the late Alex Salmond on false charges. Here’s a genuine extract.

Yeah, definitely nothing to hide here.

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Trump’s Card 292

Posted on December 14, 2024 by

Keeping the fire burning 66

Posted on December 12, 2024 by

Since it was founded back in November 2011, Wings Over Scotland has been solely financed by its readers. The site has never carried any advertising, we have no secret corporate backers, everything we do is funded by transparent voluntary donations and subscriptions, mostly of a few pounds a month.

We have the freedom to write what we believe, thanks to you, our readers. And since those earliest days, opponents have tried to end that freedom by blocking our funding.

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The Wage Thief 385

Posted on December 09, 2024 by

6 November 2024 was a normal sitting day in the Scottish Parliament, so we shouldn’t be surprised that Nicola Sturgeon spent the previous evening in London, watching a special screening of a dreadful BBC Three sitcom about – of course – drag queens.

But remarkably, though she must have been puffy-eyed and weary, the 6th was one of the few days when she did actually manage to turn up at Holyrood to do her job.

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    • Dan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “^^^ That’s a very lame post, but I guess Mark jist tried to squeeze in as many derogatory digs as…Jul 24, 16:53
    • factchecker on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Fair enough, sam; but you are quoting the opinion of Jim Cuthbert, a single civil servant, albeit a well-informed one,…Jul 24, 16:40
    • Lorncal on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “I’m not into male-female rivalry, Mark/H McH. There has never, to my knowledge been a matriarchy in human history because,…Jul 24, 16:39
    • Lorncal on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Proselytise means to aggressively push your religion/ideology/whatever on to others, not to give them a wee lecture and a couple…Jul 24, 16:21
    • sam on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Factchecker says: “Please note: Analysts from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre concluded that the fiscal changes set out in the…Jul 24, 16:16
    • Dunx on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “And there was me thinking that you couldn’t sink any lower.Jul 24, 15:34
    • factchecker on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “100%Yes says: 24 July, 2026 at 1:36 pm Scotland had a referendum in 2014, I know the Unionist mention it…Jul 24, 15:24
    • Mark Beggan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Colonial. This word is getting thrown about here as if it has some sort of special powers. Just add “colonized”…Jul 24, 14:15
    • 100%Yes on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Scotland had a referendum in 2014, I know the Unionist mention it all the time. The day before the referendum…Jul 24, 13:36
    • Northcode on The Wheels Of Industry: “There’s a lot of interesting history in your comment, but I think you might be mixing together several different concepts…Jul 24, 12:51
    • Dan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Let’s see if this makes it through moderation filter. It states it is just over an hour’s read. https://www.decolonise.scot/scotland-stolen-scotland-restored-non-alignment-and-decolonisation-the-foreign-policy-of-a-nation-liberated-from-the-english-colonial-state-beyond-jim-sillars-discussion-paper-from-colo/Jul 24, 12:32
    • Cynicus on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Sorry for cut & paste typo “corrections” from Notes!Jul 24, 12:31
    • MaryB on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Rather than watching the colonial games, it’s much better to spend your time reading Christoph Doigne Thompson’s paper: Scotland Stolen,…Jul 24, 12:18
    • Cynicus on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Confused says:? 23 July, 2026 at 10:23 pm ?“EFTA came up, in the context of GDP/capita – .. …Some of…Jul 24, 12:08
    • Oneliner on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “It was enough to make Faslane’s nuclear warheads sweat in their casings.Jul 24, 12:05
    • Southernbystander on The Wheels Of Industry: “A place can never ‘recover’ from colonialism, and situations also vary a lot, as is how it is viewed; there…Jul 24, 11:49
    • Northcode on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “It was a terrible show, Alf. Boak-inducing, fifth-rate, shoddy imperial cheerleading, right enough. I’m surprised there wasn’t a cenotaph for…Jul 24, 11:42
    • Alf Baird on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Aye Northcode, instead of “a loud, symbolic objection from the independence movement” all we got was Swinney singing the colonizer’s…Jul 24, 10:44
    • James on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “What a Prick.Jul 24, 10:22
    • willie on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “And whilst we are reflecting on the new Lord it might be interesting to reflect on the family history. Anas…Jul 24, 10:21
    • willie on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Sarwar follows a well trodden path of nominal Scots who get picked to be unelected lords and masters. Who in…Jul 24, 09:43
    • Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Thanks for watching it on our behalf, Northy. I trust you’ll continue to put in the shifts and report back…Jul 24, 09:27
    • Andrea on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “I understand what you are saying, but wouldn’t you jump at the opportunity to get away from holyrood? It must…Jul 24, 09:25
    • Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “@Xaracen Have you checked the status of the England-Scotland border and for how long that has been no more than…Jul 24, 09:22
    • Northcode on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Yesterday offered a striking sight: the remnants of the British Empire gathering to celebrate their shared colonial inheritance. And what…Jul 24, 09:14
    • Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Odd that you continue to lump Eastern Europeans in with the Africans. I’ve never noticed much of the Sharia, stabby…Jul 24, 09:14
    • Xaracen on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “factchecker said: “The Act specifies the creation of a unitary country, not a partnership of two.” Nonsense! Since neither kingdom…Jul 24, 08:57
    • Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Aye, sam, we’re in the 21st century now. It’s ludicrously unrealistic to expect that hospitals should be able to count…Jul 24, 08:39
    • Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““Post colonial theory is of no help here” Death to the heretic!!! It’s the only language he’ll understand. Talking of…Jul 24, 08:32
    • sam on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Factchecker “Regarding piss poor management of resources etc, I agree – but it’s equally incompetent relative to England.” Regarding the…Jul 24, 08:22
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