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.
And while the prediction itself wasn’t vindicated, the reasoning behind it certainly was, because she duly lost her majority just as we said she would, and limped pitifully into oblivion over the next two painful and shambolic years. (While Nicola Sturgeon ponced around hopelessly trying to stop Brexit instead of saving Scotland by getting it the hell out of the UK before it was too late.)
So it’s in that spirit that we’re going to stick our necks out once again and predict that despite the opinions of most political pundits Liz Truss is going nowhere any time soon, because as incredible as it seems, she’s almost certainly the least worst option for the Conservative Party right now.
Between recesses and the mourning period for the Queen, the UK Parliament has been sitting for just four weeks since the 1st of July this year.
In that time the government has somehow managed to lose three Chancellors Of The Exchequer and is about to engage its fourth in the alarming form of Jeremy Hunt, a man whose primary claim to fame and utility to the UK is as rhyming slang.
Sometimes even fools and liars and charlatans speak the truth.
Thing is, we rather liked it when the horses south of the border were frightened. Things happened in those days. But to coin a phrase, those days are past now.
Northcode on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “I doubt Donald would settle for being king of a mere territory. There can’t be the slightest doubt that President…” Jan 10, 22:11
william G Walker on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Alf Baird writes a lot of sense, though tongue-in-cheek! Or is it? Better a peripheral “territory” of the USA than…” Jan 10, 21:14
Alf Baird on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Aye Northcode, that’s the dilemma with a national tradition whereby oor leeberator aye gets tae be crouned Keeng! The Scottish…” Jan 10, 20:37
Northcode on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““Scotland a poodle rather than another poodles bitch” It’s a step up from where we are now for sure… the…” Jan 10, 19:44
Alf Baird on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““A very unhelpful comment, TURABDIN” I think what you mean, Fearghas, is that such a view is ‘unhelpful’ to the…” Jan 10, 19:35
Northcode on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““…an argument that presents negative consequences is not inherently fallacious…” There goes “Dances Without Facts” dancing without facts again. All…” Jan 10, 19:30
Alf Baird on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “As a son of Scotland there is no doubt Scotland is on President Trump’s radar. What does he have in…” Jan 10, 19:00
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “A very unhelpful comment, TURABDIN. Unsound in various ways already very well aired on Wings. It would be wearisome to…” Jan 10, 18:51
TURABDIN on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “SCOTLAND was invaded and settled «colonized» by three cultures, Irish aka Scotti, Anglian aka Inglis and Norsemen. The indigenous locals…” Jan 10, 18:08
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““Young women” can well speak for themselves, but I particularly deplore your anti-Jewish pitch. I would draw people’s attention to…” Jan 10, 17:45
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Aye, Confused, the towel heids just like being oppressed. Their women can’t get enough of being beaten to death if…” Jan 10, 17:18
James Cheyne on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “I don’t think Scots, germans or Americans are welcome to invade Englands Britain, only the old crusading Countries are made…” Jan 10, 16:15
James Cheyne on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Willie, Thought provoking post, He did indeed fly the flag of Scotland from his limousine when in the Country of…” Jan 10, 15:48
James on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “I gave up on your post after a few lines…. Did Confused upset your Anglo sensibilities?” Jan 10, 15:42
Sven on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “willie @ 14.55. Gosh, even though I can’t quite believe a word of that imaginitive scenario, you didn’t half bring…” Jan 10, 15:37
willie on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “when Trump came for his trip to Scotland and his motorcade went to Turnberry the Beast limousine bore not the…” Jan 10, 14:55
Chas on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Isn’t it remarkable the breadth of knowledge that the regular nutters on here possess when it comes to world affairs.…” Jan 10, 14:54
Confused on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Anyone who doesn’t think the iran situation has the CIA/Mossad all over it … I have a high yield investment…” Jan 10, 13:39
factchecker on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “NC quotes a definition of ‘Argument ad baculum”; namely that “This fallacy is often used to intimidate or coerce agreement…” Jan 10, 13:36
Confused on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “rumour has it, trump saw 2001 : A Space Odyssey the other day, thought it was an intelligence briefing from…” Jan 10, 13:34
James Cheyne on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Aye, a few more might help Scotland shake on the dumbing down effect of minds controlled. I For one are…” Jan 10, 13:29
Insider on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Blimey ! Alf Baird, “James” Cheyne, Willie and Northcode have all come out to play together ! The four Nutters…” Jan 10, 13:05
James Cheyne on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Just acknowledging that Scotland does not hold and never did make a treaty with the Great Britain parliament in 1707…” Jan 10, 11:47
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “What an odd post, sarah. It’s like CM’s defection to Your Party in October last year has completely passed you…” Jan 10, 11:37
James Cheyne on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “How can the Great Britain parliament even challenge a 1707 Scottish parliament that no longer exist and that never made…” Jan 10, 11:27
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “A Setterday sermon, Northy! Fit are ye angling at noo? Ye’ll be claiming the Picts were the Lost Tribe next!” Jan 10, 11:15
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “My Great Brutish Empire and my British Labour? Like many Scots of a certain age, I worry about creeping cognitive…” Jan 10, 11:10
James Cheyne on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Alf Baird, I agree with you regards Colonialism, However I do come to that conclusion from a slightly different angle…” Jan 10, 11:08
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Should be a slam dunk. 319 years of documented real world history rendered, what? Imaginary? Overnight! An absolute bummer for…” Jan 10, 11:03
