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Ashes, Two Ashes 183

Posted on October 31, 2023 by

Maybe he thinks Ash Denham and Ash Regan are two different people.

Still, consistency, honesty, decency and integrity: no great loss.

Fatima’s Blush 121

Posted on October 30, 2023 by

We were interested to read about this earlier this evening:

Not least because it was the first we’d heard about it. At the time of writing this post we’ve still had no communication from the Standards Commission to alert us to the judgement, which is frankly a bit of a poor show. We might file a complaint with the Standards Commission about it, depending on whether we can be bothered to wait another year and a quarter for the result.

We are of course pleased that the odious Cllr Joji has finally been formally censured for her obnoxious behaviour, but frankly she’s gotten off very lightly.

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An absence of grace 279

Posted on October 28, 2023 by

We expected nothing better from Mhairi Hunter, of course, a once-decent human being corrupted by Nicola Sturgeon into an unthinking party drone.

But the reaction of the First Minister of Scotland to Ash Regan’s defection to Alba today is a sour, ugly and childish thing that would have been unworthy of the leader of the Monster Raving Loony Party, never mind a serious grown-up in a position of power.

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Catching fire 148

Posted on October 28, 2023 by

It’s taken longer than we hoped and urged. But the SNP, having already lost one Parliamentarian to the Tories and kicked another one out for actually trying to achieve independence, has now lost one to a pro-indy party, with Ash Regan’s defection to Alba this afternoon.

(Which as far as we can tell is the first direct switch in Scottish Parliament history. Others have stood down to become independents, and subsequently stood for other parties, but nobody has moved straight from one party to another.)

We hope she’s only the first of many. Because the SNP is over. It has no credibility left either as a party of independence or a party of government, and anyone who stays on board the smoking wreck can have no complaints when they go down with it.

Golden Plans 386

Posted on October 25, 2023 by

Our apologies for the lack of recent activity here, readers, but there’s just been nothing happening worth talking about. Meanwhile, here’s some more music.

See you soon, hopefully.

Now The Traffic Lights Change 762

Posted on October 19, 2023 by

The unwritten rules 119

Posted on October 18, 2023 by

The average prison term for rape in Scotland is just under seven years. So we really don’t want to think about what Andrew “Amy George” Miller did to the poor young girl he abducted to get 20. (Indeed, strictly speaking 28.)

Miller wasn’t charged with rape, the 11-year-old was described as “safe and well” when the police found her and she was missing for just over one day. Miller also entered a guilty plea. So our blood runs cold at the thought of what must have happened in those 27 hours to nevertheless attract such a huge sentence, and we hope never to know.

But there are some things we DO want explained.

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The World Without She 79

Posted on October 17, 2023 by

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.

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The National Embarrassment 156

Posted on October 16, 2023 by

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.

Ach weel, as they used to say.

Down The Pipe 64

Posted on October 16, 2023 by

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.

(SPOILER: a really big one.)

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.

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The Fifth Columnist 115

Posted on October 15, 2023 by

This is the end of Humza Yousaf’s speech to the SNP conference today.

And if you examine what those words mean, the conclusion couldn’t be clearer.

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On The Wall 360

Posted on October 12, 2023 by

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.

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    • Alf Baird on Vibecoding A Better World: ““the “non-existent” union” exists only in the assimilated colonized mind, Hatey, it does not exist in the decolonized mind.” Oct 31, 23:17
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    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Vibecoding A Better World: “THE NEWS WHERE YOU ARE James Robertson (4 June 2014) www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhL57cjN8xY” Oct 31, 19:31
    • Captain Caveman on Vibecoding A Better World: “… and long may it continue! 🙂” Oct 31, 18:52
    • Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: “I’ve been critical of you in the past, Alf, for writing about the “non-existent” union when it very obviously does…” Oct 31, 18:15
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    • Alf Baird on Vibecoding A Better World: “The usual colonialist doublethink there Northcode, which can readily be reversed to reflect a dominant ‘Unionist’-Scotland rhetoric which disempowers the…” Oct 31, 17:57
    • WhoRattledYourCage on Vibecoding A Better World: “A few notes on the Scottish poetic, literary, and political crossover scenes: https://whorattledyourcage.blogspot.com/2026/10/this-has-few-expletives-in-it-and-some.html” Oct 31, 16:02
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    • Confused on Vibecoding A Better World: “You could use the AI to write some more articles. Just sayin – I mean, let it do all the…” Oct 31, 14:20
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    • TURABDIN on Vibecoding A Better World: “Is there a right way to recover Scottish independence? Yes there is. The one that works. The problem is the…” Oct 31, 13:35
    • Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: “Anybody supporting anonymity in such cases needs to support it for both – accuser and accused.” Oct 31, 13:31
    • Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: ““This is the reality” Hmmm. If you continually assert the union doesn’t exist, Alf, best not make reality one of…” Oct 31, 13:27
    • Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: “Yer maw gaun oot agin, James? Mind and dinna question her too closely when she comes hame. Sometimes best not…” Oct 31, 13:19
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    • Aidan on Faces In Sand: “Shut up James” Oct 31, 13:08
    • Northcode on Vibecoding A Better World: “If a strategist wanted to neutralise the independence movement, the most effective tactic would be to replace: – strategic thinking…” Oct 31, 12:32
    • James on Faces In Sand: “That right, aye? Prick.” Oct 31, 11:14
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    • Ex President Xiden on Vibecoding A Better World: “There is a compeditor to Claude on the market called Nicola. You can ask it anything you want and it…” Oct 31, 08:37
    • Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: “Precisely. Coming too, from the same Scottish government that refuses to state clearly what a woman is.” Oct 31, 08:24
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