The beam on Kate Forbes’ face was quite something.
She’d clearly been exhausted by the contest some time ago, and must have been dreading winning and having to continue fighting the assault from within her own party. Her evident delight and relief at her own failure was a revealing moment.
The great unknown in this election was just who the SNP membership was. No poll could tell us, and with over 50,000 people having quit the party in the last three years, nobody knew who was left. But we know now: idiots.
Today is the last day of Nicola Sturgeon’s record-breaking reign as First Minister of Scotland. In a few hours we’ll know who is to succeed her in the role. She was only the second SNP occupant of Bute House, and the legacy she bequeaths compared to the one she inherited from Alex Salmond is a matter of measureable record.
This is the second time Wings Over Scotland has asked Police Scotland a question through the proper official channels, only to read the response in the tabloid press before we’d heard it firsthand (which we still haven’t, incidentally, several days after the 28-day deadline expired).
But the sidebar piece in today’s Sunday Mail raises more questions than it answers.
We’ve been thinking about it since last night, and we’re not sure if Humza Yousaf now still has ANY of the policies he started the leadership election with.
But this one‘s got us extra-specially perplexed, since at the start it was pretty much the main unique selling point he was hanging his whole campaign on.
According to SNP President and acting CEO Mike Russell, SNP members are too thick to understand the concept of changing their vote, and integrity is “disruptive”.
We’re not very clear on why a revote would be susceptible to “hacking” in any way that the original vote isn’t, but we’re sure there’s a great explanation.
There can surely be no credible disputing that the SNP leadership election – and therefore that of Scotland’s next First Minister – is, to put it very mildly, under a cloud.
As things stand, whoever wins will be forever tainted by the process – easy meat for the Unionist opposition in the Holyrood chamber and the media and a potential legal challenge could cause untold further damage to the party.
With six days still left for voting, the case for a reballot – an administratively fairly trivial task in an election being conducted almost entirely online – is now unanswerable, and needn’t even involve a delay.
The SNP having a fondness for lying about their membership wouldn’t have come as quite such a shock to the Scottish press if they paid a little more attention to this website. Because we were pointing it out two and a half years ago.
It was in October 2020 that we told you how the SNP’s 2019 accounts revealed the party’s true membership figures weren’t the claimed 126,000 but more like 87,000.
You might think that Scottish political journalists would all be in a shark-like frenzy of excitement at the events of the last few days. But not over on The Guardian.
Apparently it’s all a bit too much for the delicate wee flowers.
sarah on Faces In Sand: “Rev, David Henry suggests at 3.28 hours in the Sunday 18th October youtube of the SSRG conference that MI5 blocked…” Oct 20, 16:34
Geri on Faces In Sand: “It’s not such a bad idea to self delete themselves fae social media until the adults are back in room.…” Oct 20, 15:31
Captain Caveman on Faces In Sand: “”… modernism/neoMarxism/oppressor-oppressed nonsense that, if they had one critical braincell, they would question and refute. However, so powerful a hold…” Oct 20, 15:26
Northcode on Faces In Sand: “Sam, yes — the Knight case is an important moment in Scots legal history. It’s just not related to the…” Oct 20, 15:23
sam on Faces In Sand: “Northcode, For your information. Posted earlier further up the thread. In 1778 Scots law rejected slavery. The Court of Session…” Oct 20, 15:00
Northcode on Faces In Sand: “I’m not debating intent or moral responsibility. My point throughout has been purely structural: participation by elites is not the…” Oct 20, 14:41
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: ““I daresay, this is actually quite amusing in its own right” Hmmm. Aren’t you an “outsider” though? This requires prior…” Oct 20, 14:27
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: ““Something has happened to the last two generations” There’s a world of difference between destitute people who emigrate to make…” Oct 20, 14:24
Captain Caveman on Faces In Sand: “You’re tying yourself into knots again, aren’t you Northy? A right old cul-de-sac there. I daresay, this is actually quite…” Oct 20, 14:09
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: ““thus establishing that no person could be held as a slave under Scots law” Fascinating. Take the underage Scottish lassies,…” Oct 20, 14:08
sam on Faces In Sand: “Robert Wedderburn was the illegitimate child of James Wedderburn and a black slave, Rosanna. His early life shaped his attitudes…” Oct 20, 14:03
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: ““talking absolute pish” Naw. You just can’t bear to acknowledge that when hostile, armed aggressors are hundreds of miles into…” Oct 20, 13:59
Southernbystander on Faces In Sand: “Sure and I didn’t mean to do that but at the end of the day is not your analysis suggesting…” Oct 20, 13:52
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: ““I’m describing why insider humour and outsider humour land differently — which is a descriptive point, not a moral one”…” Oct 20, 13:49
sam on Faces In Sand: “In 1778 Scots law rejected slavery. The Court of Session ruled in the case of Joseph Knight that Scotland could…” Oct 20, 13:47
Captain Caveman on Faces In Sand: “Not for the first time, Northy, you’re (disingenuously) trying to hide behind a dictionary definition of “sovereignty” to dodge the…” Oct 20, 13:44
sam on Faces In Sand: “Sir John Wedderburn fought at Culloden for the Jacobites, was captured and executed. His two sons who had fought with…” Oct 20, 13:42
Lorncal on Faces In Sand: “H McH: It is a strange thing that those of us, from previous generations, who emigrated to far-flung places perhaps…” Oct 20, 13:38
Northcode on Faces In Sand: “I’m not talking about absolution or moral judgement. I’m talking about the structural difference between elite participation and national sovereignty.…” Oct 20, 13:23
Spartan 117 on Faces In Sand: “Sorry, you’re talking absolute pish, as per. Have a nice day.” Oct 20, 13:22
Northcode on Faces In Sand: “It seems you both are responding to an emotional claim I didn’t make. I’m not arguing that Scots should be…” Oct 20, 13:05
Captain Caveman on Faces In Sand: “You’re applying a clear double standard here to absolve pre-1707 Scotland while holding England to a completely different metric. First…” Oct 20, 12:53
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: “Sorry, Northy, but “only following orders” was debunked decades ago. I hope you’re not about to be indicted for something…” Oct 20, 12:33
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: ““brainwashed us with being supposed to hate for, er, “reasons”” Check out Vinted. They’ll have plenty of pedestals to sell,…” Oct 20, 12:30
Southernbystander on Faces In Sand: “There are valid points here. It is interesting that in my experience jokes about (against) the English by non-English people…” Oct 20, 12:23
Northcode on Faces In Sand: “It’s also worth noting that imperial England recruited elites from many places — Ireland, Wales, India, Africa, the Caribbean, Canada,…” Oct 20, 12:18
Hatey McHateface on Faces In Sand: ““Essex humour is not tied to national identity” And there we see the core of the matter exposed. Northy is…” Oct 20, 12:12
Northcode on Faces In Sand: “Caveman, the point isn’t whether some Scots participated — they clearly did. The distinction I’m making is between elite participation…” Oct 20, 12:06
Captain Caveman on Faces In Sand: “I think the germane point is that Scotland – in conjunction with England – was a very willing, highly effective…” Oct 20, 11:28
Northcode on Faces In Sand: “Aidan, yes — elites on both sides participated in imperial expansion, and the effects weren’t evenly distributed across either society.…” Oct 20, 11:18
