We must admit it’s a shock – we were expecting the SNP President to remain neutral in the leadership election – but it’s hard to reasonably interpret this any other way.
(We’re not aware of Russell giving any media interviews last night so we assume from the timing that these comments were made at the regular meeting of the SNP Westminster Parliamentary group.)
Because both Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes couldn’t have been any clearer that their indy strategies centre on getting Westminster to agree to another Section 30 order, and by pointing out that that’s never going to happen (which we all knew anyway), Mike Russell is admitting that a vote for anyone but Ash Regan is a vote to surrender any hope of independence for the foreseeable future.
We don’t often agree with him these days, but on this one he couldn’t be more right. For the sake of the SNP (and the Yes movement) we hope its members heed the sage, albeit coded, advice of their President.
Last month this site ran an article entitled “All The Nice Greens Love A Rapist”, and two days ago the Scottish version of the party officially confirmed it.
Let’s take a moment off, folks. In our latest Panelbase poll, we also threw in a question just for fun, with genuinely no agenda at all, simply because we were curious to know what the answer was. Here it is:
By now many of you will have seen last night’s article on Craig Murray’s site, in which a current SNP branch convener revealed how the party machine is setting fire to all its own rules in a desperate attempt to secure the succession of Humza Yousaf.
Yousaf is the party establishment’s last hope of keeping all of its misdeeds in the last few years under wraps, and realising the magnitude of what’s at stake if he loses to Ash Regan or Kate Forbes, they’re abandoning all pretence of neutrality or integrity and throwing everything they’ve got at getting him elected.
Last month Wings broke a story about a “survey” being conducted by dozens of primary schools in the Aberdeen area in which children as young as nine were being asked about their sexual orientation and “gender identity”.
The charity LGBT Youth Scotland is currently the subject of a live police investigation over its involvement in a second major child-abuse scandal in little over a decade.
So you’d expect Police Scotland to be taking that pretty seriously, right?
Wings Over Scotland has been monitoring the BBC’s coverage of Scottish politics for over 11 years now, readers, and other than The Nick Robinson Incident we’re honestly struggling to remember seeing anything worse than this.
The Corporation’s “coverage” of Ash Regan’s campaign launch for the SNP leadership election ran for roughly seven minutes. And we suppose we should be grateful that it did at one point feature a brief, incidental cameo appearance from Ash Regan.
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
Hatey McHateface on The Broken Rainbow: “Not seeing that at all, Lorncal. Scotland is just as much a group of regions as England is. The Borders,…” May 15, 15:05
Hatey McHateface on The Broken Rainbow: “It’s not the miners being consigned to the scrapheap this time – it’s the oil and gas workers. It’s not…” May 15, 14:58
Aidan on The Broken Rainbow: ““ A study that involved two Universities, accepted by the electoral commission, Lord Ashcroft polling & the Scottish Referendum study…” May 15, 14:35
Hatey McHateface on The Broken Rainbow: “@ Northcode says: 15 May, 2026 at 11:36 am “I’m calling it, Geri” Crivens, Northy. I do hope that comma…” May 15, 14:27
Hatey McHateface on The Broken Rainbow: “Fine, Alf. I asked you to clarify a fairly straightforwards situation. You decided to evade the question, as per usual.…” May 15, 14:20
Hatey McHateface on The Broken Rainbow: “Here you go, Geri: “Instead of futilely repeating the pointless point scoring of the past 5 years, you really should…” May 15, 14:11
Geri on The Broken Rainbow: “Scots voted Yes in 2014, dip shit. A study that involved two Universities, accepted by the electoral commission, Lord Ashcroft…” May 15, 13:38
Young Lochinvar on The Broken Rainbow: “Andy Burnham; King orf ooop Norf, future former failed PM to give him his full title.” May 15, 12:35
Ross on The Broken Rainbow: “Link to the latest poll,campebll? The latest I see is from the Sunday Times and os a Yes majority?” May 15, 12:35
Mark Beggan on The Broken Rainbow: “Deja vu! It’s the 1970’s all over again. Dirty Filthy Labour meltdown and the Death Cult in the East cutting…” May 15, 12:34
Alf Baird on The Broken Rainbow: “Even Churchill warned that the west including imperial England would ultimately abandon the Z******s if they continued with their N*z*…” May 15, 12:25
Alf Baird on The Broken Rainbow: “Fowk canna ser twa maisters, like some o oor MSP’s mak-believe, Hatey. Fowk canna plicht lealtie tae twa soveranes. For…” May 15, 12:14
Hatey McHateface on The Broken Rainbow: ““Public feeling was known to be overwhelmingly against the Union” Indeed. I guess that in 1707 Scottish public feeling was…” May 15, 11:41
Northcode on The Broken Rainbow: “I’m calling it, Geri. It’s not even noon and us liberty-seeking Scots in this place have already won the day…” May 15, 11:36
Hatey McHateface on The Broken Rainbow: “His online site hoaching BTL with antisemitism and “river and sea” jihadists may or may not assist with that aim,…” May 15, 11:27
Hatey McHateface on The Broken Rainbow: ““Absolutely ANYTHING AT ALL that doesn’t involve the English” My, Northy, so there will be no English spoken. Shame you…” May 15, 11:16
Hatey McHateface on The Broken Rainbow: “Sure, Northy, and that’s why everybody on here is posting and responding in Scots.” May 15, 11:08
Hatey McHateface on The Broken Rainbow: “Nice use of apostrophes, Geri. Still not taking lessons from you, though. Not after your call for portable gas chambers…” May 15, 11:06
Alf Baird on The Broken Rainbow: “And unlike the moaners here and the ouf-tae-King Charlie English croun and English soveranety takkin pensioned-aff SNP, Ambassador Murray has…” May 15, 10:52
Jamie on The Broken Rainbow: “Considering how many kids go to school in nappies nowadays, and nappies for 8 year old are also more popular…” May 15, 10:37
Geri on The Broken Rainbow: “Shiteface is a Nazi. Just yesterday he was cheering on Germany nearly destroying Europe until those pesky ‘Orcs’ captured Berlin.…” May 15, 10:03
Geri on The Broken Rainbow: “It’s cause it’s an English administration & we should refer back to it as such. It’s not a Scottish parliament.…” May 15, 09:40
Northcode on The Broken Rainbow: ““…outmoded language spoken, written and understood by only a minority of Scots. 55% of all Scots living in Scotland, and…” May 15, 09:37
