As a rule I try not to respond to the literally dozens of deranged attacks on this site that are posted by James Kelly of Scot Goes Pop, but I really dislike being called a liar so I’m going to take a moment for this one.
James appears to have taken extraordinary offence to a two-paragraph stats post I put up to mark Wings’ 11th birthday this week, and has written two purple-faced rants about it. So for the record’s sake I’m going to comply with his demand as best I can.
Yesterday we watched the first day’s proceedings of For Women Scotland taking the Scottish Government to court over its definition of what a woman is.
The topic is really very niche but will affect us all if the judge rules for the government (we won’t know the outcome for at least a month or two), so here’s the short version of what it’s all about.
Scotland’s whole future, 300 years of struggle to regain control of its own destiny, could hang in the balance, held solely in the hands of one man, and rather than disappoint the grey eminences of the British establishment and risk being frowned upon in their oak-panelled subsidised dining rooms, Pete Wishart would say “No”.
(We don’t know if you get an even bigger pension for being the Speaker than the £50,000 or so a year that Wishart will trouser when he leaves the UK Parliament after 20 years of spectacular non-achievement, but we’d be prepared to hazard a guess.)
There’s a word to describe people like that, which is never used on Wings, but we’re making an exception just this once.
How long this situation will last is unknown – New Improved Elon Musk Twitter is still stuffed with all the same activist moderators it was before, and we don’t doubt that the SNP’s purple-haired sturmjugend will even as we speak be engaged in an obsessive frenzy of malicious reporting and complaining to try to have us shut down once again.
Someone had to remind us that today is Wings Over Scotland’s 11th birthday.
In a grim indictment of Scotland’s once-vaunted political new media, a site that’s been officially closed since May 2021 is still far and away the most-read in the country, despite that readership now being mostly angry overgrown children squabbling with each other in the comments. People would apparently still, by a vast margin, rather read that than endure the tedium of Bella Caledonia or Believe In Scotland.
We’ve said pretty much all that there is to be said about that miserable state of affairs already, so we won’t repeat ourselves. God help the independence movement.
Last week Nicola Sturgeon’s government introduced the Gender Recognition Reform Bill (GRRB) at stage one. Cabinet Secretary Shona Robison’s introductory speech sounded reasonable and fair, but those words do not match the deeds of the SNP leadership and they do not reflect reality.
The behaviour of the SNP leadership towards anyone with even the most benign question about this legislation has been aggressive, dismissive, and openly hostile.
In the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, the Scottish Greens received just 4.7% of all the votes cast. (255,314 of 5,419,544). The SNP got 44% – almost 10 times as many.
So we’re not sure how the Greens – a party that well over 90% of Scots don’t support – suddenly appear to be in charge.
Nor, perhaps more to the point, do we understand why.
Blue-haired brain vacuum Kirsty Blackman in Westminster yesterday, during the SNP’s big showpiece “let’s pretend we’re doing something about independence” debate.
So presumably she’s made it a priority since being elected seven years ago, right?
As well as being the Director of the John Smith Policy Centre (a job with no known responsibilities but which nevertheless pays around the same as being an MSP making laws in the Scottish Parliament) she writes regular columns in The Times and The Courier and is now, hilariously, the new Professor of Practice in Public Service in Glasgow University.
(A post with unspecified duties and unknown salary and which was also not, as far as anyone can tell, ever publicly advertised.)
We were bored so we thought we’d find out, via Panelbase, if her latest lucrative role was perhaps the result of a noticeably impressive performance in the first one.
A year and a quarter ago, we contrasted the performance of the SNP’s last two leaders in terms of building support for independence. As the First Minister crows about how much better she’s been at staying in power than a succession of UK leaders, it seems only proper to bring the stats up to date.
Do you remember, readers, how the next UK election was supposed to be a single-issue de facto referendum on independence if the Supreme Court ruled Holyrood didn’t have the power to hold one itself?
Well, it appears that policy has been abruptly and quietly ditched.
Because just a couple of hours ago SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford told BBC News that “I can assure you” the SNP “will have a growth manifesto” for the whole UK whenever the next election comes around, because in his view the UK economy hasn’t been growing enough for the last few decades and the SNP would have a plan to fix it. Because apparently fixing the UK is the SNP’s purpose now.
Guess we better hope for a good result from the Supreme Court, then.
PhilM on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “I’m thinking of retiring to France soon and when I do I’m going to be welcomed by universal acclaim as…” Jun 25, 21:14
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “I’m disappointed, NC, I expected your dog to bark in Scots.” Jun 25, 20:48
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Holiday Relief: “Northcode, a peace-token, with respect and paragraphs… About a year ago I picked up for £4 in a second hand…” Jun 25, 20:25
Northcode on Holiday Relief: “woof woof woof” Jun 25, 20:11
AndrewR on Anatomy Of A Lunatic: “Hatey – “BTW. You seem to have an inaccurate picture of what I support and don’t support.” Sorry, huge apologies,…” Jun 25, 20:05
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “Too bad, Fearghas. You’ve failed Northcode’s ideological purity tests and now you must be reclassified yoon. You too Sven. You…” Jun 25, 19:52
Chas on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “794th time. Inching forward to the big 1000. Gaun yersel Alfie boy.” Jun 25, 19:32
Hatey McHateface on Anatomy Of A Lunatic: ““I find myself looking for Hatey’s reactions” Then you must be on the wrong forum. Because of the lack of…” Jun 25, 19:31
Northcode on Holiday Relief: “I don’t detect much in the way of respect emanating from your comment… so let’s not bother with that particular…” Jun 25, 19:21
Hatey McHateface on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “Isn’t NI hoaching with yoons? In the event that demographic change forces unification of the island of Eire, won’t many…” Jun 25, 19:15
Anthem on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “I agree totally. Even though the tools are there to dismantle this disgusting, corrupt organisation, the streets and voices are…” Jun 25, 19:04
Hatey McHateface on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “Shame. We’ll never know just how good it was. Anyhoo, Xaracen already has today’s Stellar Post Award, although Confused has…” Jun 25, 19:03
Ian McCubbin on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “Northern Ireland has no resources do England wants rid of it and it’s people too costly to keep. Contrast that…” Jun 25, 18:51
100%Yes on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “I have no doubt in my mind that Swinney is happy for the Holyrood MSP’s to be sacrificed the same…” Jun 25, 18:17
James Jones on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “NI would be looking for reunification, not independence. Eire would have to be willing. Would they? Perhaps, but it’s complicated.…” Jun 25, 18:11
AndrewR on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “not for publication I think I was just modded, for my email about Hatey. Thankyou! Again. He can look after…” Jun 25, 17:55
Callum on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “GTF Seamus GTF Scotland 1 & 2 for me in 2026 for any party that backs national elections as de…” Jun 25, 17:46
Alf Baird on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “This fits well with what postcolonial theory tells us about the decolonization process: https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2024/05/25/the-three-phases-of-decolonization-lessons-for-scotland/” Jun 25, 17:26
Frank Waring on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “Why not organise to have a true independence referendum in, say, 18 months, and raise the money to pay for…” Jun 25, 16:50
Mark Beggan on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “And people talked about MI5 conspiracy. Who needs to conspire when you’ve got Scotlands very own guide to Failure. An…” Jun 25, 16:29
Insider on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “A “soupsong ” ??? Minny, minny, minny, minestrone…. We are the alphabetties…happy girls and boys… Cock-a-leekie (favourite of many MSPs)…” Jun 25, 16:22
Aidan on A different school: “@Xaracen – you aren’t making any recognised form of legal argument that can be engaged with though. You seem to…” Jun 25, 16:15
James on A different school: “Don’t waste your time engaging, James C, these are paid trolls.” Jun 25, 16:07
duncanio on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “After saying “challenging the Westminster parties to concede the principle of consent in letting Scotland determine its own democratic future…” Jun 25, 15:59
Athanasius on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “Of course, there is also the fact that Westminster would like nothing more than to actually get rid of Northern…” Jun 25, 15:51
Aidan on A different school: “Without going into too much detail, essentially it gives the Scottish people the ability to act as a check on…” Jun 25, 15:50
AndrewR on Anatomy Of A Lunatic: “Confused: do you know any English people? Or any Muslims for that matter. I find myself looking for Hatey’s reactions…” Jun 25, 15:41
Xaracen on A different school: “But you still haven’t addressed any of my actual arguments, Aidan. You never pay the slightest attention to them, and…” Jun 25, 15:35
robertkknight on But Don’t Give Yourself Away: “Ever get the feeling you’re being gaslit? Independence for Scotland! SNP Out!” Jun 25, 15:34
