We did so because we’d just been told – by a completely random source – that Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney would both resign today, and Brown would be the interim leader while a replacement was elected. We’d never spoken to this person before, but the manner in which they said it made us take it more seriously than all the “someone told me” rumours we get told and ignore every other day.
As yet only the first part has been confirmed, but you have to admit that our source is looking pretty darn hot right now.
We’ve just had the results back from some very interesting new polling, and the first snippet is a particularly instructive one.
When challenged on questions of gender, the reflex response of politicians of most parties in the Scottish Parliament is to bang on about how overwhelmingly MSPs voted for the Gender Recognition Reform bill.
Curiously, so far no journalist has bothered to ask whether they care that according to every poll, they’re utterly failing to represent the views of their constituents on the subject – which is, after all, what they’re supposed to be there for.
So we just asked directly if people felt their MSPs were doing their jobs.
Ouch. By well over 2 to 1, respondents felt that they were being let down by the people who are supposed to speak for them. (Excluding DKs the margin is just shy of 70/30, very similar to the margin by which people in polls oppose self-ID generally.)
But it’s when you drill down into the detail that it gets a bit disturbing.
There are terms beloved of politics activists and commonly used on social media which are a baffling mystery to the general public. We’ve spoken several times of the word “gaslighting”, which is understandably used as shorthand for quite a complex thing that’s difficult to describe concisely, but nevertheless acts as a barrier to understanding for anyone not overly political.
Below are two news reports from the Scottish Sun this week:
Both of the people arrested were male-bodied individuals who identify as women. As far as we’re aware, neither of them has a Gender Recognition Certificate. They are both the same sex, biologically and legally, and both describe themselves as female.
Yet in giving statements about their respective arrests, Police Scotland called one of them a man and one of them a woman. And we’re having no luck finding out why.
But isn’t that the Scottish Greens co-leader in that picture, in the bunnet, between his colleague Ross Greer and Scottish Liberal Democrats leader Alex Cole-Hamilton, all enthusiastically clapping Douglas just a few weeks ago?
Diligently alert readers may have noticed that the SNP MP, former vomit-mopper and permanent embarrassment to braincells Stewart McDonald has an article in today’s National about the best way to look like he’s trying to secure independence without risking losing his cosy lucrative job in glamorous London with all his fancy MP pals.
(McDonald is also one of the party’s most virulent advocates of its massively unpopular gender reforms, which isn’t relevant to anything but we’ve got a streak to maintain.)
Unfortunately it’s 4,000 words long and unbearably boring, but since you pay us we’ve taken the bullet for you, read the whole thing and now present it here in précis form:
The title of this article might sound a bit like the name of a band making their debut at Glastonbury this year, but in fact it’s something infinitely more serious.
News broke late last night that the person we must presumably now refer to as an “individual” who had been arrested in connection with the disappearance of a missing Galashiels schoolgirl (happily found safe and well and back home with her parents) had in fact been charged with an as-yet-unspecified crime.
But the alleged crime wasn’t the only thing going unspecified.
People across Scotland breathed a sigh of relief this morning when missing Galashiels 11-year-old Kaitlyn Easson was found safe and well after a multi-service search.
The police have arrested[EDIT: and now charged] a 53-year-old man in connection with her disappearance, named by the Daily Record as Andrew Miller, a local butcher. This was one of two names that numerous sources had been passing to Wings since the man was detained, but the two names only referred to one person.
Captain Caveman on Anything But That: “Che spambot in full flow, I see. Give it a bloody rest, will you?” Sep 10, 10:02
Colin Alexander on Anything But That: “My gut instinct is that the YES campaign was deliberately designed to fail. I suspect that pressure was also applied…” Sep 10, 09:46
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “I made no comment about my personal life, James. 🙂” Sep 10, 09:42
James Che on Anything But That: “Hatey, I don’t think anyone enquired about your’e personal life.” Sep 10, 09:17
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Much like dogging.” Sep 10, 09:08
James Che on Anything But That: “Hence my interest in researching historical records, maps, buildings, old battles and history in general began,” Sep 10, 09:03
James Che on Anything But That: “Forgot dozens of horse shoes and tools, A interesting hobby because its like a lucky dip, some days you come…” Sep 10, 08:36
James Che on Anything But That: “Did I find any thing interest? Yes I suppose depending on what a person is interested in, every thing from…” Sep 10, 08:30
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Man, must be 35 years since I last opened some embassies. Happy days. But glad I stopped.” Sep 10, 08:14
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Duncan MacTrump says; Currency: That was the question that sunk Big Eck. Great guy, treated very badly by very nasty…” Sep 10, 02:36
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Does Scotland have any legal right (As the law now stands) to open embassies?” Sep 10, 01:47
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Metal detector? Find anything interesting?” Sep 10, 01:25
James Che on Anything But That: “I personally think that John Swinney and Andy Burnham have a lot in common in how they run Countries.” Sep 10, 00:55
James Che on Anything But That: “As the Devolved governance parliament in Scotland from Westminster parliaments “Scotland Act,” The Westminster parliament has every right to launch…” Sep 10, 00:47
James Che on Anything But That: “I see the Telegraph is suggesting that Andy Burnham is running the parliament similar as a boy Scout leval.” Sep 10, 00:37
James Che on Anything But That: “In a attempt to give you more meat on the bone, I will have to refer you to the Westminster…” Sep 10, 00:32
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Naw, Alf. In as much as neoliberalism has an agreed definition at all, its meaning has nothing to do with…” Sep 9, 23:16
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “You are dribbling your Buckfast.” Sep 9, 23:07
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “I respect that James. But it is too high brow, technical, academia land. We plebs need meat on the bones” Sep 9, 23:05
Alf Baird on Anything But That: ““the basic point of neoliberalism” and of course liberal imperialism and its colonial procedures. A colonized people suffer from territorial…” Sep 9, 21:38
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Every time someone asks Andy Burnham a question he does this amazing goldfish out of water impersonation.” Sep 9, 19:59
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Out of all the Shires in Scotland Aberdeen seems to produce an altogether unique form of stupidity and arrogance. Lowest…” Sep 9, 19:53
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “I hope people aren’t being distracted by a smirking bald guy and a whole lot of gas. Who would fall…” Sep 9, 19:46
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Wow! Looks like some big, bad, English basturts really are gonna do it. But this time I don’t think they’re…” Sep 9, 18:59
Captain Caveman on Anything But That: “Given the gas was unburned, the CO2/greenhouse gas impact would have been horrendous. Roughly the same as driving an average…” Sep 9, 16:58
agentx on Anything But That: ““John Swinney nightmare as Westminster launches probe into Peter Murrell’s crimes and Lord Advocate’s role in Cabinet” For details read…” Sep 9, 16:39
sam on Anything But That: “sez the UK parlyment England which has about 90 % of UK surface water has problems, to put it mildly,…” Sep 9, 16:37
Captain Caveman on Anything But That: “OK we’re talking methane, not propane, therefore a lower calorific value and all that jazz, but fuck me, 700kg of…” Sep 9, 16:37
agentx on Anything But That: ““Stephen Flynn says he was unaware of ferry gas escape” ——————————————————- No surprise there then!” Sep 9, 15:57
agentx on Anything But That: “The Math Breakdown:Methane Volume: \(700 \text{ kg} \div 0.657 \text{ kg/m³} = \mathbf{1,065.4 \text{ m³}}\) Average UK 4-Bedroom House: A…” Sep 9, 15:54
