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Wings Over Scotland


The Old Ways 159

Posted on February 24, 2023 by

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.

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Losing the plot 158

Posted on February 23, 2023 by

This is beyond insane.

Like, obviously Rangers aren’t better than Celtic.

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Tears Of Terror 171

Posted on February 23, 2023 by

We read some harrowing tweets this week from an Edinburgh SNP activist. Sensitive readers should look away now, as the following article contains potentially triggering information about the wild and lawless streets of [checks notes] Corstorphine.

Steel yourselves, folks. Unsettling images follow.

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Sunk costs 84

Posted on February 23, 2023 by

We got up this morning intending to do a funny little piece about how Humza Yousaf’s attempt to fiddle an online poll on The National had spiralled into farce last night, with rival teams of bots spamming the poll with over 400,000 extra votes in 12 hours.

But then something a bit more significant happened.

Because a compulsory strike-off notice being filed in the First Gazette is a warning that a company is about to be dissolved.

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The feather-light touch 132

Posted on February 22, 2023 by

Yesterday, readers, we warned you that “online newspaper polls are self-selecting and vulnerable to manipulation”. Here’s what that looks like in practice.

Let’s crunch some numbers.

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The White Flag Gang 139

Posted on February 22, 2023 by

It’s remarkable how openly a certain faction of the SNP is now declaring surrender.

And it’s becoming increasingly clear that the events of the next few days and weeks will not just determine the future of the independence movement, but whether in any meaningful, practical sense it continues to exist at all.

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A time of fear 136

Posted on February 22, 2023 by

The Indian Council of Scotland and the Muslim Council of the United Kingdom have this morning issued an extraordinary joint statement regarding their serious concerns about the SNP leadership contest. We reproduce it below at their request.

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A change of tone 111

Posted on February 21, 2023 by

Alex Cole-Hamilton, December 2022:

“I want to thank Beth, who’s compered and did that amazing speech at the start. Beth was with us in the public gallery of the Scottish Parliament throughout all of those late night sessions before Christmas, and you know, in the really dark hours and the really dark times we’d look up and see Beth and the people beside her.

And it was for Beth and for you guys that we were doing it, we were fighting it.”

Alex Cole-Hamilton, February 2023:

We wonder when Patrick Harvie, Ross Greer and Maggie Chapman will follow suit.

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The Hand Of The State 154

Posted on February 21, 2023 by

We’ve already noted how the Unionist press appears to be trying to influence the outcome of the SNP leadership election, but last night the big beast of Scottish media – the BBC – waded into the fray.

A major piece by the Corporation’s Scotland editor James Cook focused on interviews with two of the three contenders – excluding Ash Regan – on the basis that both had launched their official campaigns yesterday while Regan’s isn’t expected to be until later this week.

That’s fair enough. No problems there, right?

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The Three Fates 145

Posted on February 20, 2023 by

So this is interesting. Last week we were about to release some results from our latest Panelbase poll when events intervened. Naturally we’d asked a few questions about gender issues, and one of them concerned the Scottish Government’s potential legal challenge to the UK government’s use of a Section 35 order to block the Gender Recognition Reform bill.

There were three options in the question, and as luck would have it the three potential new leaders of the SNP each advocates a different one.

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If you want to know 174

Posted on February 20, 2023 by

…always stick with Wings, readers.

If you need ill-informed guesswork, that’s what the Scottish MSM is for.

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The racecard 216

Posted on February 19, 2023 by

So we finally have two official runners.

And to be honest, we’ve never had an easier decision to make since that time when we caught fire while standing next to the sea.

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