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.
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “To be fair to BP, if believing there’s only two sexes and that they differ in many fundamentals from the…” Sep 10, 16:43
Aidan on Anything But That: “@James – firstly thank you for engaging rather than just projecting, but secondly what do you mean by sovereignty?” Sep 10, 16:42
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Why don’t you just get an AK47 and a few stun grenades and be done with it. Storm Starbucks.” Sep 10, 16:30
James Che on Anything But That: “Aidan, Surely a supposed created State hundreds of years ago is still relevant to both Scotland and England today.as neither…” Sep 10, 16:26
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “I watched the footage of the 2025 meeting. You only see the back of the heads of the audience. Very…” Sep 10, 16:20
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “You will not get a referendum but what you will get is more government and more civil servants. Burnham is…” Sep 10, 16:11
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “It is even more frightening when the government try’s to change history to fit their ideology.” Sep 10, 15:58
James Che on Anything But That: “North code. Indeed, Prof Black does not go as far as Westminster parliament in 2026 in Stating there is Not…” Sep 10, 15:55
Captain Caveman on Anything But That: ““Labour and the Tories are right wing parties,” was as far as I got.” Sep 10, 15:45
James Che on Anything But That: “The English people are not the enemy of Scots. Nor are the Scots the enemy for England, Think about it,…” Sep 10, 15:36
Breastplate on Anything But That: “Labour and the Tories are right wing parties, so much so that Thatcher took credit for the creation of New…” Sep 10, 15:36
Aidan on Anything But That: “@Northcode – you’re generally right, however Professor Black contends that because Scotland was effectively amalgamated into a greater England, this…” Sep 10, 15:33
Northcode on Anything But That: “I’ve read Black’s legal opinion in detail, and he doesn’t argue that the Union is invalid or that Scotland was…” Sep 10, 15:17
Willie on Anything But That: “Most interesting comment about the legal position of the so called union. Professor Black is absolutely clear on the matter,…” Sep 10, 15:13
James Che on Anything But That: “Spartan 117, All responses are appreciated thank you, And no I do not get paid to post, which is the…” Sep 10, 15:10
Aidan on Anything But That: “Well that’s great news – I appreciate you aren’t able to respond to even the most mild of challenges so…” Sep 10, 14:58
James Che on Anything But That: “Mark Beggan. Also many thanks for your response on my behalf, I had visitors in so was a bit occupied.…” Sep 10, 14:42
James Che on Anything But That: “Sam, I had read the gist of that history, but many thanks for providing more details.much appreciated as all history…” Sep 10, 14:37
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “I see the point. There is a whole generation of young students who are totally brain dead. The foot soldiers…” Sep 10, 14:25
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “We don’t have 20 years. That’s true whether you’re a yoon or a die-hard blood and soil Scottish nationalist. There…” Sep 10, 14:23
sarah on Anything But That: “Most Wings’ readers wish Scotland to be restored as an independent state. To understand the reasoning behind Salvo and the…” Sep 10, 14:20
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “You lack style and class, Mark. As well as smarts. A spacious and comfortable campervan is de rigueur if you…” Sep 10, 14:03
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Of course, most grid connected home systems using solar panels and batteries don’t work in a power cut. If they…” Sep 10, 13:58
Captain Caveman on Anything But That: “Nah. Give it 20 years or so, enough time for the next “crop” of wet-behind-the-ears numpties to buy the lefty…” Sep 10, 13:57
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “(shop around, try the plug in solar, loads of youtube on this), All made in China with slave labour. The…” Sep 10, 13:44
Captain Caveman on Anything But That: “@Spartan It’s all subjective of course, but I generally enjoy Hatey’s posts, often a lone voice of sanity and reason…” Sep 10, 13:34
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Who wants to take a bet that Labour will never be in government again after the general election.” Sep 10, 13:32
