Just over a hundred years ago, the rights of women in the UK were still entirely decided by men. Women didn’t have the vote (a small minority would be given it in 1918, but most would have another decade to wait), there were no women in Parliament, and women basically had no say in anything that happened.
Record scratch and jump-cut to the present day.
That’s Kirsty Blackman, an SNP MP elected in 2015 who wouldn’t even have been allowed to stand for election a hundred years earlier, and who seems determined to take women’s rights back to that century.
It really is deeply dispiriting the see the level of utter burning contempt in which Nicola Sturgeon holds the independence movement, if this is the sort of ludicrously insulting garbage she thinks it’ll swallow.
The BBC’s coverage of the Scottish election campaign and what has been described as its “virtual blackout” of ALBA will be the subject of special Ofcom election Committee hearing on Friday 23rd April.
We imagine people may wish to read the Alba Party manifesto.
It can be downloaded by clicking the link above. Had we formed our own party it’s pretty much the manifesto we’d have written, and we especially endorse the gorgeous pooch on the front.
The First Minister released a short film this week.
While it has the character of a hostage video, with terrorists just off-camera pointing a gun at the unfortunate victim and forcing them to read out a pre-prepared text, sadly we doubt that was the case. We think this is really what she believes and intends.
We’ve been racking our brains for a few hours now, but we still haven’t been able to think of a single UK citizen of the last 100 years – indeed, probably the last 300 – who has terrified the British establishment more than Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond.
By any conceivable measure Salmond is the most successful Scottish politician of all time. He’s the only one to date to have won a (supposedly impossible) majority in the Scottish Parliament, the only one to have secured an independence referendum, and the man who took Scotland to the brink of regaining its democracy, where – despite the best efforts of his successor – it still just about remains.
He survived a uniformly hostile media for 20 years as SNP leader, then also survived a corrupt and criminal conspiracy within his own former party to have him imprisoned, walking out of court a free and innocent man despite a two-year smear campaign in the press and a police and government operation of unprecedented scale trying to convict him.
(A point that hasn’t been made enough in coverage of the entire fiasco is the amount of police resources which were devoted to the case. Ask the average woman who’s alleged a sexual assault below the level of rape – or indeed an actual rape – if SHE got a team of two dozen dedicated police officers interviewing over 400 people at a cost of millions of pounds to try to firm up HER claim.)
So you’d think that when he formed a brand-new political party, which got numerous elected representatives from the SNP to defect to it, and contested a notionally-crucial Scottish general election, it would sound like a work of absurdist dystopian fiction if one were to suggest the media would exclude it from even participating in televised election debates in a manner more befitting North Korea than a Western democracy.
So-called “puberty blockers” – the class of drugs that were used to “chemically castrate” computing pioneer Alan Turing for being homosexual (a crime in the UK in the 1950s), which is believed to have led to his suicide by cyanide poisoning at the age of 41 are extremely dangerous.
Scotland’s only gender clinic, the Sandyford, had to apologise just a few months ago for having concealed the very serious hazards posed by the drugs. But it has no plans to stop prescribing them to under-16s.
And the Scottish Government refuses to intervene in the matter.
Dr Malcolm Kerr joined the SNP in 1967, has contested local council and Scottish Parliament elections and is currently an activist in Cunninghame North constituency.
I’ve been a member of the SNP for long enough to recall the days when the party was capable of generating killer slogans. “It’s Scotland’s Oil”. “Independence – Nothing Less”. Those were the days!
Nothing describes the SNP’s descent towards being the new New Labour better than its choice of slogans in recent years. “Stronger for Scotland” serves only to flag up just how powerless the party’s large contingent at Westminster is. “Progress” is entirely meaningless.
And fellow activists and members may recall just how depressing it was to attend the most recent in-person spring Conference, when the leadership felt that the slogan “Hope” was going to be inspiring. When you’ve been in power for 14 years you’re supposed to DO things, not just hope for them.
We’re getting to the point where we should soon be Blairite enough to invade Iraq. Fortunately, we lack the means.
Yesterday the SNP released their 2021 election manifesto, and on the divisive subject of gender reform it was as bad as we feared. Yes, there is obfuscation to mask intent, but the intent is crystal clear all the same. Especially if we judge the SNP by their record and all the things they have failed – and continued to fail – to address.
The manifesto commits to reforming the GRA while ensuring that it will not affect the rights or protections women enjoy under the Equality Act.
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Daves, Dave. I’d call them Daves and I’d describe them as Daves. As a True Sovereign Scot, the ladies, as…” Jan 8, 06:50
twathater on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Lochy at last, someone else asking the naysayers and yoonionist Scotland haters who they would vote for in the 2026…” Jan 8, 03:47
Young Lochinvar on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “BB, HMcH and A; Well thank you for your responses. Several vary slightly, but the bottom line appears that we…” Jan 8, 01:38
Cynicus on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “100%Yes says: 7 January, 2026 at 1:33 pm “Cynicus, How can Swinney ask for a section 30 order after the…” Jan 8, 00:32
James Cheyne on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “With the one aim to liberate Scotland via legalities I may add,” Jan 8, 00:24
James Cheyne on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Sarah, It does need calling out, But the whole darn SCAM needs calling out and exposed for what it is…” Jan 8, 00:17
James Cheyne on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “The biggest offence is calling it Scotland parliament. It is anything but a fully functioning parliament of Scotland with all…” Jan 8, 00:09
sarah on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Just because a system is run with a minority vote having a majority of seats doesn’t make it right, nor…” Jan 7, 23:24
sarah on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “@ J Robertson: well done for writing to your MSP and to the Standards Committee. If no-one tells them, they…” Jan 7, 23:03
Neil Mackenzie on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “A Parliament majority is the only majority that matters and it doesn’t matter whether it is won on 30% of…” Jan 7, 22:41
DaveL on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “I see Hatey’s still continuing with nazi terminology to describe and dehumanise a multitude of ethnic groups within a sovereign…” Jan 7, 22:40
100%Yes on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “When you hear, it up to Greenland and Denmark surely its up to the Inuit to decide the colonial masters…” Jan 7, 22:16
Alf Baird on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Scots should know how Venezuelan’s feel about losing control of their oil resource. For over 30 years Anglo-American oil corporations…” Jan 7, 22:07
100%Yes on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Holyrood was the stepping stone to Independence. Now its the vehicle which the SNP uses to stop Independence, with the…” Jan 7, 21:35
100%Yes on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Humans have five primary senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. I have no idea why the wider movement doesn’t…” Jan 7, 21:30
100%Yes on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Scots have got very short memory’s. At the last Westminster election, on the night of the vote, Angus Robertson made…” Jan 7, 20:46
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Orcland is hoaching with oil. They don’t need to import it from Venezuela (unless the Ukie sabotage/destruction campaign has been…” Jan 7, 20:45
agentx on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “It’s amazing how long it has taken for people on here to recognise how useless and crap Holyrood and the…” Jan 7, 20:37
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Thank the Guid Lord ye’re OK, Northy. Those reports that you were last seen, erse painted blue, clad in kilt…” Jan 7, 20:34
100%Yes on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Without a doubt she the cause of everything! Trying saying that to the individuals who read the national you’ll be…” Jan 7, 20:33
Duncan Strachan on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Good stuff Northcode. Best Post of the day. We need to get lives. And that’s the great success of the…” Jan 7, 20:28
Rev. Stuart Campbell on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Aawwww, sadly that group seems to be private.” Jan 7, 20:25
Duncan Strachan on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Good stuff Northcode. Best Post of the day. We need to get lives. And that’s the great success of the…” Jan 7, 20:25
Willie on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Ah who cares about our pretend wee parliament I read this evening that the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force…” Jan 7, 19:57
Aidan on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “That’s exactly right Hatey – the route to independence is much more difficult with a moribund SNP sucking in the…” Jan 7, 19:41
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Every day a School Day. Turns out it has been really quite easy to stop boats, even humongous ones, all…” Jan 7, 19:34
Northcode on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “I woke up this morning with the dim Scottish sunset… shining in. Then I found my nation in a brown…” Jan 7, 19:24
sarah on Off-topic: “I share your worries about the state of the world. The USA is terrifying and so is UK, France, and…” Jan 7, 19:10
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “What the heck, I’ll bite. In each constituency, the Indy aspiring voters need to vote for whichever party (doesn’t matter…” Jan 7, 19:09
Tinto Chiel on Off-topic: “Amen to all that. “It makes you worry for your grandchildren and great grandchildren what a world we leave them.”…” Jan 7, 18:59
