This really is grim, folks. Remember the days when there had to be overflow rooms for the leader’s speech at the SNP conference, in venues holding thousands? Now they can’t come close to filling 750 seats in a 2000-seat arena.
The reception afforded to Sturgeon yesterday, who left the party in the pile of wreckage that the hapless Yousaf is still trying to stumble through, was a symptom of desperate people clinging forlornly to the shadow of better times, like an abandoned dog seeking the last bits of warmth and scent from its owner’s chair.
But those days are gone, never to return. This is the barren, foreboding autumn of the SNP, the cold ground thickly carpeted in the lifeless, crumbling and silent remains of lost members fallen from branches.
We thought this was overdue an update. It’s got about 16 new front pages on it, one whole new row and a handful of newly-rediscovered replacements. It really is worth taking a few minutes to peruse it properly (click on the pic to enlarge it) to get the full effect of eight wasted years of deja vu disappointment.
It’s not even The National’s fault. They’re a business, they’re simply trying to sell a few papers to a diminishing audience of endlessly gullible eejits. The real fault lies with the halfwitted SNP members who just keep on doggedly failing to learn a single lesson, and repeatedly vote to carry on doing what they know doesn’t work and never will.
As alert readers will have noticed, Wings has been perusing the SNP’s Governance And Transparency Review over the last couple of days, a document which tentatively attempts to discern just how big a mess the party’s previous leadership has left it in.
The paper has now also reached the mainstream media.
Wings already touched on that particular aspect of the party’s mismanagement back in August, but in the light of the report now formally acknowledging the problem it’s worth taking a moment to establish just how astonishingly bad it is.
The writing, we mean. Because it’s not until you see it baldly written down in black and white that it really hits you how insane it is.
The SNP has 44 MPs now, and has not managed to enter independence negotiations.
Winning 29 seats would represent a LOSS of 15, or more than a third.
And they’re about to stand up in front of voters and insist that that would somehow compel the UK government to hand over what they’ve been flatly refusing since 2016.
(It’s all pretty academic anyway, obv, as we’ll be amazed if they get double figures.)
The very last shred of credibility has left the building, readers.
Labour won far more handsomely in last night’s by-election than anyone – and we very strongly suspect that includes themselves – expected. If the swing of over 20% was to be repeated nationwide next year (which it won’t be, but we’ll get to that in a minute), the SNP would be reduced to six or seven seats, as Wings has predicted for a while.
From the abject pit of despair of 2015, when Labour lost 40 of its 41 MPs in Scotland, let’s look at how the party has powered back to recapture the hearts of voters.
Humza Yousaf didn’t turn up to the count tonight. In the end, even on a dreadfully low turnout of 37%, Labour won by 9,446 votes, with more than twice as many as the SNP.
It was a much worse defeat for the governing party than most expected. There should be only one outcome.
Hatey McHateface on Seven Days Too Long: ““carpet bomb Tehran – that’ll show them! So now those who maybe were West leaning are all dead” An odd…” May 2, 07:39
Hatey McHateface on Seven Days Too Long: “Here you go, YL. Your one (1) response per Diem in which I validate your pathetic, pointless, and obsessively focused…” May 2, 07:24
Hatey McHateface on Seven Days Too Long: “Interesting ideas, Confused. But who will talk for the Benefits Classes? Who will champion the grifters, those with hands permanently…” May 2, 07:09
Aidan on Seven Days Too Long: “Oh yes Dan you have me worked right out mate, don’t let me “divert” or “distract” you from whatever exceptionally…” May 2, 07:06
Hatey McHateface on Seven Days Too Long: ““The gas chamber again eh? Do you never bore yourself tae death playing yer banjo again?” Not where you’re concerned,…” May 2, 06:58
Hatey McHateface on Seven Days Too Long: ““There’s nothing that stipulated a lifetime” Naw? Which part of the “heirs and successors” clause continues to defeat your comprehension?” May 2, 06:50
Geri on Seven Days Too Long: “We know where it is. What we don’t know is… Where’s Scotlands oil fund? Where is £15.5 BILLION in fake…” May 2, 03:13
Geri on Seven Days Too Long: “The gas chamber again eh? Do you never bore yourself tae death playing yer banjo again? Treacherous liars & devious…” May 2, 03:03
Mark Beggan on Seven Days Too Long: “Talking money. Where’s the 600K?” May 2, 02:46
Geri on Seven Days Too Long: ““Rational, wise, educated people might well believe it’s far too early to say.” They admitted it, ya plank. The orange…” May 2, 02:03
Geri on Seven Days Too Long: ““The last ugly, overweening monstrosity cost a billion” A Yoon government. A farce from start to finish. It wasn’t their…” May 2, 01:28
Young Lochinvar on Seven Days Too Long: “George I swore-in in sectarian divided Glasgow during the troubles era where the oath was accepted if mumbled. Nonetheless I…” May 2, 01:13
Confused on Seven Days Too Long: “One of the problems with trying to start a new party (there are many) is that politics in a “democracy”…” May 1, 23:31
Young Lochinvar on Seven Days Too Long: “HMcH Highest taxing WESTMINSTER government ever.. I put that in bold as I had to do a double take! It’s…” May 1, 23:20
George Ferguson on Seven Days Too Long: “@Young Lochinvar I will fight alongside you. You are a mucker or a brother. But you must have sworn allegiance…” May 1, 23:20
Young Lochinvar on Seven Days Too Long: “George Aye.. But.. Hardly compares with Westminster and Buckingham Palace ongoing costs really though eh..” May 1, 23:06
George Ferguson on Seven Days Too Long: “@Hatey McHateface The original Scottish Parliament building cost £414 million. Well over budget I grant you that. My estimate of…” May 1, 22:53
Hatey McHateface on Seven Days Too Long: “@Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Two posters referencing Hemingway in the same day. What are the chances, eh? I’m not issuing a direct…” May 1, 22:45
Geri on Seven Days Too Long: ““SCOTLAND does not need more WASPS on mobility scooters.” LOL! Sad but true. It wouldn’t be so bad if they…” May 1, 22:42
Hatey McHateface on Seven Days Too Long: “How about Raynor? Is Raynor bleating about it? Or perhaps growling? There’s a part of me that desperately wants Prime…” May 1, 22:27
robertkknight on Seven Days Too Long: “I’ll no doubt find someone palatable on the Regional paper, but my constituency paper will be defaced by a black…” May 1, 22:23
Hatey McHateface on Seven Days Too Long: “Once the designs are finalised, we Scots should submit a FOI request to find out how many of the public…” May 1, 22:18
Hatey McHateface on Seven Days Too Long: ““Aren’t Christians supposed to be charitable & believe in rehabilitation” They defo don’t believe in the gas chambers for those…” May 1, 22:11
George Ferguson on Seven Days Too Long: “I looked at standing as an Indendepence Candidate I informed this blog after research it was implausible that any Candidate…” May 1, 22:07
Hatey McHateface on Seven Days Too Long: “Reminds me of the joke about how the oldest profession could never work in certain parts of Scotland because the…” May 1, 22:04
Hatey McHateface on Seven Days Too Long: “@Alf There’s some kind of eejit above pretending to be you.” May 1, 21:58
Iain More on Seven Days Too Long: “I am curious – Does the English NAZI Reform Party in Wales have a leader who also has 6 houses,…” May 1, 21:55
Geri on Seven Days Too Long: “I dunno, redacting documents, hiding evidence, committing perjury & trying to jail an innocent man seems pretty criminal to me…” May 1, 21:54
Geri on Seven Days Too Long: “I remember Du*dale promoting this openly on Twitter after indyref. Be paid to troll. Also the paid activists to ‘bus…” May 1, 21:36
