The great unknown in the SNP leadership contest is an extremely significant one: who are the voters? Nobody but Peter Murrell really knows how many members the party has, but almost nobody believes the claimed number of over 100,000. (Our guess, based on pretty much nothing but a gut feeling, is 75,000 plus or minus 5000.)
But more to the point, nobody knows who they are. The average member age in most political parties is over 50, and according to figures published in 2019, more than 80% of SNP members are over 40, with half of those being over 60. There’s also an almost 3:2 bias in favour of men.
Humza Yousaf will not be the next First Minister of Scotland. We’re calling it now. His trainwreck of a performance on last night’s leadership election debate on STV dealt a blow to his chances that we can’t see him recovering from, and the SNP establishment is now under such intense scrutiny over the electoral process that the chances of a fix being orchestrated by Peter Murrell are receding fast.
In the debate Yousaf declared that Nicola Sturgeon was the best politician in the UK, that he wasn’t as good as her, and that she’d failed to find a successful strategy for independence and therefore he couldn’t either.
If you’re talking about “transwomen”, you’re almost always talking about people with a fully intact and functional penis. More than 95% of people who identify as trans have NOT undergone any genital surgery, and that’s a fact that’s still not widely understood.
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?
100%Yes on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Scotland had a referendum in 2014, I know the Unionist mention it all the time. The day before the referendum…” Jul 24, 13:36
Northcode on The Wheels Of Industry: “There’s a lot of interesting history in your comment, but I think you might be mixing together several different concepts…” Jul 24, 12:51
Dan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Let’s see if this makes it through moderation filter. It states it is just over an hour’s read. https://www.decolonise.scot/scotland-stolen-scotland-restored-non-alignment-and-decolonisation-the-foreign-policy-of-a-nation-liberated-from-the-english-colonial-state-beyond-jim-sillars-discussion-paper-from-colo/” Jul 24, 12:32
MaryB on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Rather than watching the colonial games, it’s much better to spend your time reading Christoph Doigne Thompson’s paper: Scotland Stolen,…” Jul 24, 12:18
Cynicus on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Confused says:? 23 July, 2026 at 10:23 pm ?“EFTA came up, in the context of GDP/capita – .. …Some of…” Jul 24, 12:08
Oneliner on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “It was enough to make Faslane’s nuclear warheads sweat in their casings.” Jul 24, 12:05
Southernbystander on The Wheels Of Industry: “A place can never ‘recover’ from colonialism, and situations also vary a lot, as is how it is viewed; there…” Jul 24, 11:49
Northcode on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “It was a terrible show, Alf. Boak-inducing, fifth-rate, shoddy imperial cheerleading, right enough. I’m surprised there wasn’t a cenotaph for…” Jul 24, 11:42
Alf Baird on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Aye Northcode, instead of “a loud, symbolic objection from the independence movement” all we got was Swinney singing the colonizer’s…” Jul 24, 10:44
willie on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “And whilst we are reflecting on the new Lord it might be interesting to reflect on the family history. Anas…” Jul 24, 10:21
willie on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Sarwar follows a well trodden path of nominal Scots who get picked to be unelected lords and masters. Who in…” Jul 24, 09:43
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Thanks for watching it on our behalf, Northy. I trust you’ll continue to put in the shifts and report back…” Jul 24, 09:27
Andrea on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “I understand what you are saying, but wouldn’t you jump at the opportunity to get away from holyrood? It must…” Jul 24, 09:25
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “@Xaracen Have you checked the status of the England-Scotland border and for how long that has been no more than…” Jul 24, 09:22
Northcode on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Yesterday offered a striking sight: the remnants of the British Empire gathering to celebrate their shared colonial inheritance. And what…” Jul 24, 09:14
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Odd that you continue to lump Eastern Europeans in with the Africans. I’ve never noticed much of the Sharia, stabby…” Jul 24, 09:14
Xaracen on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “factchecker said: “The Act specifies the creation of a unitary country, not a partnership of two.” Nonsense! Since neither kingdom…” Jul 24, 08:57
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Aye, sam, we’re in the 21st century now. It’s ludicrously unrealistic to expect that hospitals should be able to count…” Jul 24, 08:39
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““Post colonial theory is of no help here” Death to the heretic!!! It’s the only language he’ll understand. Talking of…” Jul 24, 08:32
sam on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Factchecker “Regarding piss poor management of resources etc, I agree – but it’s equally incompetent relative to England.” Regarding the…” Jul 24, 08:22
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “@Aidan The CM blog is where the antisemites hang out. Although Robin McAlpine is not averse to donning the tea…” Jul 24, 08:22
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Prepare for a shock, Alf. BOO!!! I’ll go organise the clean up for you.” Jul 24, 08:15
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “I listened to Swinney’s sad interview on BBC R4 this morning. The interviewer was struggling to hide his frustration and…” Jul 24, 08:10
Aidan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Now that he’s on pre-mod (I expect) he’ll go off and haunt some other forum.” Jul 23, 23:15
robertkknight on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “His King’s Colours didn’t go down too well either, with the Scots deciding upon their own design, which was contrary…” Jul 23, 23:12
Alf Baird on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““I’m every bit as much a Sovereign Scot as you.” In a colonial society there are plenty of assimilated natives…” Jul 23, 22:41
Angus on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““Ain’t it funny how things change?” Ain’t it also funny how things never change? Labour has been promising to abolish…” Jul 23, 22:35
Captain Caveman on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Heh, oh really… Well, I’d “knock it on the head” and quit whilst you’re (self evidently) behind, Confused. 🙂” Jul 23, 22:23