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Wings Over Scotland


Yelling at the tide 310

Posted on January 21, 2026 by

We figured someone had to at least try.

So in the light of this, we’ve sent a letter.

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The Secondhand Amendment 137

Posted on January 19, 2026 by

We’re really not sure this makes things any better with regard to the incredible tale that’s unfolded around the judgment in Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife.

In fact, on any interpretation we can think of, quite the reverse.

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Learning Insanity 154

Posted on January 14, 2026 by

This clip was broadcast on ITV News Wales this week.

It’s a staggeringly obvious mess for a whole raft of reasons – a number of completely spurious, illogical and unsupported claims are accepted as facts without any sort of challenge or balancing voice (which has been standard practice on ITV News for a while now across almost any contentious political topic) – but it led us to somewhere magnitudes of crazier still.

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Governing For Beginners 108

Posted on January 12, 2026 by

My first ever real experience of politics was playing Dictator.

Originally written by Don Priestley for the Sinclair ZX81 in 1982, it was a simple text-based game which subsequently came to other formats including the Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Elan Enterprise and the ZX Spectrum, which is where I encountered it.

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Grandpa John’s Nightmare 257

Posted on January 07, 2026 by

It’s almost – almost – worth voting SNP in May because of this:

Because it would be at least momentarily absolutely hilarious watching Swinney try to explain why his “100% guaranteed” second indyref didn’t happen if the SNP actually did get a majority on 30% of the vote (which is narrowly feasible on current polling).

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Failure To Learn 101

Posted on January 05, 2026 by

Scotland take on Haiti on Sunday 14 June (in the wee small hours of the morning), so this is nice, isn’t it?

At least, it would be if incompetent idiots weren’t in charge.

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And every day was exactly the same 169

Posted on January 03, 2026 by

List Voting For Cretins 122

Posted on January 02, 2026 by

This week The National published a poll it commissioned from Find Out Now for this May’s Scottish Parliament election, alongside a seat projection from Sir John Curtice. Here are the list-vote figures from the poll.

The seat projection calculated that the election would result in 59 SNP MSPs (six short of the number John Swinney says is the minimum needed to force a second indyref), 25 for Reform, 13 for the Greens, 12 each for Labour and the Tories and eight for the Lib Dems.

It didn’t specify how many of the seats were constituency ones and how many were list ones, so we dropped Sir John a line and asked him.

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The Gulf War 86

Posted on January 01, 2026 by

Yesterday we noted in passing that independence support now outstrips that of the SNP by more than 20 points, making the party into a gigantic liability as the vehicle for enabling Scots to leave the UK. Put simply, even when voters want independence (as most now do), they’re not willing to vote SNP to get it.

(Not, of course, that they WOULD get it if they voted SNP – the party still having no coherent or credible strategy to achieve it – but more than 40% of would-be Yes voters are no longer prepared to even try giving them the benefit of yet another mandate.)

And since what everyone loves most of all on New Year’s Day is a good old wade in some political stats, we thought we’d take a little more detail on that.

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The Fear Of The Briar 47

Posted on December 31, 2025 by

With Reform now pretty consistently miles in front in polling for the next UK election, logically this is brilliant news for the Scottish independence movement, isn’t it?

So can anyone explain why the SNP is so desperate to stop them?

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The Curious Fringes 131

Posted on December 29, 2025 by

There’s a post on the superwoke poll-analysis account Ballot Box Scotland today bemoaning the lack of interest in the forthcoming Scottish Parliament election from polling companies, and presenting it as some sort of anti-Scottish conspiracy.

The real reason nobody’s very interested, of course, is that as things stand the election is an obvious foregone conclusion in which the party that’s been in power for the previous 19 years will stay in power for another five, and nothing will change.

The only minor intrigue around the election is to be found at the edges and is only of real interest to politics nerds, but since we ARE politics nerds we may as well take a look at it.

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A matter of class 543

Posted on December 19, 2025 by

Something very odd happened when the Sandie Peggie employment tribunal delivered its judgment – and it wasn’t just the made-up quotes and mangled law.

Call it institutional bias, ideological capture, or just the law doing its job, but what Employment Judge Sandy Kemp’s tribunal delivered was the most one-sided outcome since Butch and Sundance decided to come out shooting.

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    • Chas on Steadying The Ship: “Seek help.May 16, 08:24
    • Aidan on The Broken Rainbow: “LOL Geri yes because that’s how it works. The UN writes to private citizens with a big list of things…May 16, 07:16
    • James Barr Gardner on Steadying The Ship: “If Swinney had been a football manager he would have been long gone by now along with his coaching staff…May 16, 05:41
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Steadying The Ship: “Excerpt from CONTACT podcast hosted by Montréal-born STÉPHAN BUREAU. Here he interviews Louis Sarkozy (son of Nicolas Sarkozy). Louis Sarkozy…May 16, 00:42
    • Cynicus on Steadying The Ship: “A picture really IS worth 1000 words. The chart above illustrates perfectly what I’ve often said. Swinney was a dud…May 16, 00:20
    • Young Lochinvar on The Broken Rainbow: “HMcH Jeyes fluid? Hmmmm.. I am guessing that is an in-joke in your homosexual circles? What you types get up…May 15, 23:08
    • Geri on Steadying The Ship: “To be honest, Salmond was the only good thing about the SNP. Margo & Jim too. If I remember correctly…May 15, 22:17
    • Northcode on The Broken Rainbow: ““A Voluntary Union? Not only was it not voluntary, it was unconstitutional and unlawful, and so was the Treaty since…May 15, 21:43
    • Geri on The Broken Rainbow: “AI Dan Then why continue to phap yersel intae a frenzy over it? Unless they’ve written to you directly stating…May 15, 21:05
    • Geri on Steadying The Ship: “? You’re government is run by paedophiles….? I don’t think I’ll ever tire of that tune…May 15, 20:59
    • Lorncal on Steadying The Ship: “Personally speaking, both Swinney and Starmer’s voices send me spiralling into a coma out of which I have to be…May 15, 20:48
    • Northcode on Steadying The Ship: “If all the years on the chart from the latest WoS post (bar 1999) are added together we arrive at…May 15, 20:24
    • Bilbo on Steadying The Ship: “There has been article upon article about a £5 billion deficit over the course of next Holyrood parliament. There is…May 15, 20:01
    • Mark Beggan on Steadying The Ship: “Joke Time! When is a resignation Not a resignation? When it’s a Wessignation!May 15, 19:18
    • Aidan on The Broken Rainbow: ““ The UK is an English criminal enterprise run by the English establishment for the English establishment. That is the…May 15, 19:18
    • Mark Beggan on Steadying The Ship: “You can take oor freedom but you’ll never take oor benefits!!May 15, 19:12
    • Xaracen on The Broken Rainbow: “Nothing in your response to me is relevant, Hatey. As ever, you carefully ignored the point. You changed the subject…May 15, 18:54
    • Blackhack on Steadying The Ship: “Probably better with the Benny Hill tuneMay 15, 18:22
    • Mark Beggan on Steadying The Ship: “The Dance of the Cuckoos is the tune you’re looking for. What about ‘The Band Played On’ would be more…May 15, 17:20
    • Effijy on Steadying The Ship: “Yes, no one in sight has the skills of Alex Salmond but do we wish Swinney to be replaced by…May 15, 17:11
    • Colin Alexander on Steadying The Ship: “The Dance Of The Cuckoos is Laurel and Hardy’s theme tune.May 15, 17:11
    • Dan on Steadying The Ship: “FFS, are you enjoying a holiday in the Southern Hemisphere or doing a headstand? Because that’s about the only way…May 15, 17:00
    • agentx on Steadying The Ship: “But there has just been an election where the SNP lost seats and had fewer votes!May 15, 17:00
    • Izzie on Steadying The Ship: “Two by-elections next month should perhaps show whether the SNP is, as I suspect, on the up.May 15, 16:33
    • 100%Yes on Steadying The Ship: “I don’t know about anyone else but can you imagine JS running a country what a freighting thought, thank god…May 15, 16:21
    • Hatey McHateface on Steadying The Ship: “The band should start rehearsing. Does the Laurel & Hardy theme have a name, other than the “Laurel & Hardy…May 15, 16:14
    • Mark Beggan on Steadying The Ship: “‘Nearer my God to me’. Was the tune the the band played as the Titanic was sinking.May 15, 16:00
    • Mark Beggan on Steadying The Ship: “The Captain always goes down with the ship.May 15, 15:56
    • Mark Beggan on The Broken Rainbow: “Satisfying because it’s the Last Waltz for radical lunatics. Time to pay the Tillerman.May 15, 15:48
    • Knuckle_heid on Steadying The Ship: “Swinney definitely isn’t Salmond! With a collapsing vote like that, they should exit stage left at the next HR election…May 15, 15:37
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