But until this morning we’d regarded Kate Forbes as a decent consolation prize – no plan for indy, but at least someone who’d lead to the withdrawal of the toxic Scottish Greens from government and probably a mass exodus of the SNP’s Twitler Youth, leaving the party in a better place to rebuild for the future.
And after her disappointing chickening-out from the vote on the Gender Recognition Reform bill, we’d been impressed at the fortitude she’d shown by carrying on in the contest after the (justifiable) furore around her views on abortion and equal marriage, and her combative showing in Tuesday night’s STV debate.
Erin Lux, the co-convener of the extremist SNP affiliate Out For Independence, is the ultra-woke Canadian activist who tried to have Forbes kicked out of the election for “transphobia” almost as soon as she’d declared her candidacy.
OFI, whose membership is measured in dozens, has a disproportionate influence on policy but a microscopic percentage of votes in the election. The chances of any of its members ever voting for Kate Forbes under any circumstances are less than nil. She could have waded into the crowd and decapitated Lux with a chainsaw for all the difference it would have made to the number of votes she’s going to get from OFI.
But Forbes still folded like a deckchair in a hurricane.
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?
Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “Racist yesterday, Alf, and now fascist today. You academics don’t half like to throw the big, complicated words around. How…” Jul 28, 19:54
Andy Wiltshire on The Nobodies: “Apropos of nothing, Rev, what ever happened about Lynsay Watson? Was any kind of justice ever served?” Jul 28, 18:26
Alf Baird on The Nobodies: “Indeed, “another lesson learned” is that fascist colonialism always has the ultimate method in its toolbox, if assimilation disna wirk,…” Jul 28, 16:06
Dan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “I had also wondered what Monsier Pantalon in Scottish thought about the GSA situation. Robin ain’t happy. http://robinmcalpine.org/an-elegy-for-scotlands-dark-age/ Was thinking…” Jul 28, 15:52
Chas on The Nobodies: “It appears Labour are shite. The SNP are useless. Lib Dems are nonentities. Tories are well Tories. Reform are the…” Jul 28, 14:09
Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “No connection between colonialism and democracy, Alf? Doesn’t postcolonial theory also have something to say about the dead ends the…” Jul 28, 13:54
Captain Caveman on The Nobodies: ““Labour: 22% (+1)” “Up 6 points in about 2 months and it is not a bounce.” “Since 14th May 2026…” Jul 28, 13:21
Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “Having exhausted all other decent options, Professor Baird resorts to trying the historically most fruitful one – blaming the Jews.…” Jul 28, 13:21
Dan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Are your posts still getting held in moderation Mr Scottish troosers? It’s jist that I haven’t seen several of your…” Jul 28, 13:11
sam on The Nobodies: “On May 14th 2026 the Labour MP, Josh Simons, announced his resignation in the Makerfield constituency in order to allow…” Jul 28, 13:07
Captain Caveman on The Nobodies: “Whether you like it or not (and whether you can even comprehend the implications – unlikely), the SNP has to…” Jul 28, 12:53
Cynicus on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Breeks, I will occasionally re-visit this site in the hope of seeing a post by you, or by the one…” Jul 28, 12:47
Captain Caveman on The Nobodies: ““there is a Burnham bounce for now.” “Labour recorded in our tracker since September last year, and is up six…” Jul 28, 12:44
sam on The Nobodies: ““Although these three parties are all within the margin of error of our previous poll, this is the highest figure…” Jul 28, 12:28
Alf Baird on The Nobodies: “The “desire for independence” as you put it is entirely negated since the national party leadership enters into ‘an accommodation’…” Jul 28, 12:19
sam on The Nobodies: “I can only find surveys from 2023 about levels of trust the people in England and Scotland have in their…” Jul 28, 12:18
Aidan on The Nobodies: “Now that the approach to the UN has failed and been rejected, does that mean therefore that there is no…” Jul 28, 11:55
Captain Caveman on The Nobodies: “You’re trying to tell me things that are painfully obvious (and in keeping with what I myself have been saying…” Jul 28, 11:48
Captain Caveman on The Nobodies: ““Burnham Bounce” “Labour +1%” If that’s a “bounce”, Sam, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. 😀 Well within statistical…” Jul 28, 11:32
Alf Baird on The Nobodies: ““save for the moribund issue of the constitution” Its clear as day (except to colonialists it seems) that Swinney does…” Jul 28, 11:24
sam on The Nobodies: “While Scottish Labour elects another useless leader, there is a Burnham bounce for now. “Voting intention, 26-27 July 2026: Ref…” Jul 28, 11:11
Captain Caveman on The Nobodies: “Totally agree, Mincehead, red and blue rosettes both. Mind, I think most would agree that incomers hailing from Eastern Europe…” Jul 28, 10:42
Minceheid on The Nobodies: “Captain Caveman says: 28 July, 2026 at 10:02 am The product of years of counter-reality, supremely naïve, black-is-white doublethink politics…” Jul 28, 10:34
Captain Caveman on The Nobodies: “I admit nothing of the sort, Alf. As Stu notes in his piece (assume you read it, emphasis added): ‘……” Jul 28, 10:33
Alf Baird on The Nobodies: ““comparing the SNP to Labour is akin to looking at two near identical turds” So you finally admit that the…” Jul 28, 10:14
Captain Caveman on The Nobodies: “The product of years of counter-reality, supremely naïve, black-is-white doublethink politics of the Left forced down our collective throats has…” Jul 28, 10:02
Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “Hmmm. Yet I keep reading reports that across Europe, support for what the MSM likes to call the “far right”…” Jul 28, 09:41
James Che on The Nobodies: “Small in- fights To distract and hide behind from the bigger picture of collapsing GB, Every diversion has been used…” Jul 28, 09:32
James Che on The Nobodies: “The political union of blue labour and red tories , right being left and left being the end game, To…” Jul 28, 09:20
Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “You’re right, sam. Must be my time of the month.” Jul 28, 09:06