All we can say is that the other nine points better be amazing.
Because this, readers, is ZZZ-grade donkey fodder.
Tonight’s poll data from Survation is really quite remarkable.
We can’t wait to hear what “Pension Pete” Wishart makes of it.
When we have a rare spare moment, readers, there’s nothing we enjoy more for a bit of fun and relaxation than to fire off a few Freedom Of Information requests.
And just for some variety, last month we sent a couple to the UK Parliament – mainly on behalf of our Number One fan, Pete Wishart MP.
The answers came in this week.
You know everything’s definitely going swimmingly for Nicola Sturgeon when the white knight riding heroically to her defence is… [checks notes twice] Duncan Hothersall.
We’re very excited to find out what our secret plan is.
(We must apologise to readers at this point for the late arrival of this week’s typically splendid Chris Cairns cartoon, which in fact arrived entirely on time from our hard-working crayonist but which we’ve put on hold for a bit while we cover last night’s major breaking story and its immediate aftermath. Now on with the show.)
Dr Tim Rideout is one of the most serious and respected people in the Yes movement and the SNP. As convener of the Scottish Currency Group he’s presently engaged in trying to solve the party’s self-inflicted weakness over its lack of a coherent currency policy, and he’s sufficiently highly rated by SNP members that earlier this month he was elected to the party’s Policy Development Committee.
So you might think he was entitled to a view on, well, development of policy.
Twitter yesterday was full of SNP MPs crowing about having been elected exactly one year ago, something achieved on the back of a pledge to “STOP BREXIT” and put Scotland’s future in its own hands. But curiously, none of the pics any of them posted with their tweets depicted the party’s main campaign slogan.
Which, y’know, is pretty understandable.
The list below is a much, much shorter one than we were expecting to run. In the end, just nine MSPs voted today against Johann Lamont’s amendment on forensic medical examinations, with one abstention. The amendment passed by a margin of 104 votes after SNP MSPs voted in favour, with only the Greens and Lib Dems opposed.
Every last one of them is a disgusting coward who doesn’t care about the feelings of rape victims and we’re ashamed to share a nationality with them.
We note in passing that all but one are male, and that the list includes all (excepting Alison Johnstone, currently absent from Parliament recovering from an operation) of the Scottish Greens, the party which has – by choice – the lowest proportion of women in the Parliament. The Lib Dems, of course, are second lowest, in every sense.
When’s a Plan B not a Plan B? Well, when it’s something that could and should have been done already, and won’t be anywhere near adequate even if delivered.
Yet that seems to be what some colleagues are now arguing for. It’s welcome that their thoughts are at last turning to the possibility of the Tories saying No to the Scottish people’s democratic vote. But it’s happening dangerously slowly as the dismantling of devolution and reintegration into the UK gathers pace. Which’s why the Yes Movement needs to act now, not after a Holyrood election.
We couldn’t help but chuckle yesterday when the £100K-a-year Westminster MP and obsessive Wings Over Scotland reader “Pension Pete” Wishart announced – in the space of six minutes – that this site was simultaneously an irrelevance that nobody listened to, but also somehow one of the greatest threats to independence.
It got a lot funnier today, though.
Wings Over Scotland marked its ninth birthday earlier this month. To be honest, we totally forgot about it until someone reminded us. Normally we mark the anniversary with a small reflection and taking of stock over how things are going, but this year we couldn’t be bothered – we’d already mentioned readership stats in August.
But today in The National we found out that we were apparently dead.
But reports of our demise have been, as the saying goes, somewhat exaggerated.
Sometimes, despite everything, you just have to laugh.
No matter how black and rueful a laugh it might be.
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
Wings Over Scotland
