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Wings Over Scotland


If you want to know the facts 197

Posted on May 02, 2024 by

…just read Wings Over Scotland, folks.

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Volkssturm John 414

Posted on April 29, 2024 by

In the dying days of World War 2, as Berlin crumbled to rubble under Russian bombs and rockets, the Nazis played a desperate last card in the shape of the Volkssturm, an ad hoc fighting force primarily comprised of old men, invalided veterans and those not deemed fit for normal military service. (As most of those were already dead.)

They were rounded up and sent off to the front (usually only a few hundred yards away) in their civilian clothes, armed with whatever odds and sods of weaponry could be scrabbled together – most commonly the one-shot Panzerfaust anti-tank grenade, as seen in the pic above – and invariably slaughtered in the streets by the disbelieving battalions of the Red Army, because it didn’t matter to Hitler whether they lived or died.

And here we are again.

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The Feral Ferret 117

Posted on April 29, 2024 by

So there it is. In a massive, humiliating and abrupt reverse, the Scottish Greens have announced that they’ll support the Scottish Government – still led for the foreseeable future by Humza Yousaf – in this week’s confidence motion.

Shockingly enough, the debate about the Greens’ principles, intellectual consistency and integrity was an extremely brief one. Faced with the loss of their relevance and influence, they crumbled like month-old carrot cake and rushed their cards onto the table before the SNP had time to do any thinking.

Any hope Kate Forbes might have had of leading the SNP just evaporated, and so did any hope of grown-up government between now and 2026. The SNP will now spend the next two years as pathetic, grovelling puppets, doing whatever the Greens want as long as the paycheques and pension contributions keep rolling in.

It’s a tragic demise for a party that just a couple of years ago still crushed all before it in Scottish politics. But that’s showbiz, folks.

The Twist 67

Posted on April 29, 2024 by

So Humza Yousaf has resigned, as we told you on Thursday night he would.

But there was one interesting line in his farewell speech.

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Marking Time 115

Posted on April 28, 2024 by

We don’t really have very much to add to our analysis of yesterday. Sunday’s papers and politics shows have just confirmed our view of where things stand.

But for those whose heads are spinning, let’s see if we can make it simpler.

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The Makings Of Men 147

Posted on April 27, 2024 by

We apologise for making you look at Ross Greer’s face on a weekend.

But what he said to the Holyrood Sources podcast yesterday is important.

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An Embarrassment Of Riches 49

Posted on April 27, 2024 by

The Labyrinth Of Stupidity 142

Posted on April 26, 2024 by

It’s probably as good an illustration of the madness currently engulfing Scottish politics as anything that the most unusual suspect, Anas Sarwar, may have just – temporarily at least – saved Humza Yousaf’s job.

And although our head hurts already, we’ll try to explain why.

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Here You Go Again 92

Posted on April 26, 2024 by

We’ll make this short, because we’ve had a long day. Wings is told by a very reliable source that there’s ANOTHER emergency Cabinet meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning, which at least means we get to use this image now.

So here’s the “exclusive” you’ll be getting from Paul Hutcheon seven hours from now.

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Fanny Dancing 101

Posted on April 25, 2024 by

Oh, wait, scratch everything.

Because this guy’s just wasting everybody’s time.

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The Asking Of The Question 93

Posted on April 25, 2024 by

At FMQs today, Douglas Ross announced that he was putting down a motion of no confidence in the Scottish Government in the wake of the collapse of the Bute House agreement. That creates an enormously interesting situation, because the arithmetic of Parliament is extremely finely balanced, and particularly in the light of Patrick Harvie’s subsequent contribution.

In short, what it means is that the future of the government hangs on Ash Regan.

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The People We Don’t Want 94

Posted on April 25, 2024 by

We tweeted this last night as a teaser for our big exclusive. (Which is now hilariously being claimed by Paul Hutcheon of the Daily Record seven hours later.)

And it does now seem to be the case that the news is that the SNP are ending the Bute House Agreement and kicking out the Greens before the Greens do it first.

And what that tells us, for a starter, is that the SNP’s once-legendary skill in news management really is now well and truly on fire, as in “bin”.

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