The turnout at the “independence march and rally” yesterday was so abysmally poor that it seems almost unfair to pick on any of the scores of SNP elected representatives who didn’t bother to show up.
But dear old Cosy Feet Pete Wishart had the most chef’s-kiss excuse of all.
The reason he didn’t fancy getting his wee Billy Whizz quiff blown about a chilly Calton Hill was that he had important business “taking on the far right” – who were of course nowhere to be seen – with “half a million” (50,000) of his British besties, a convenient short Tube ride away from his London residence, at a pretty openly anti-Semitic protest called, with a double layer of delicious comedic value… UK Together.
If events in Edinburgh today are anything to go by – when a march and rally announced with great fanfare seven months ago, backed by both the “independence” parties in the Scottish Parliament and featuring the First Minister as main speaker, attracted perhaps 1,500 people at the most to Calton Hill on a bright and sunny day – the independence movement faces an imminent final apocalypse.
So here’s how to prepare yourself for when the SNP win a landslide with 35%, Keir Starmer says “So what?” and then a deathly silence descends for another five years.
Even Kelly Given and Iona Fyfe didn’t show up for this one. That’s how bad it is.
The last faint hope of any remotely positive or at least interesting outcome of May’s election just left the building.
It wasn’t MUCH of a hope, and it’s absolutely no surprise in the wake of the comically shambolic, belief-defyingly inept farce that has been the birth of Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s fringe-of-the fringe party, but all the same its extinguishing means the next two months will be even more of a waste of time than they looked like being.
Frankly, readers, we may as well not bother having an election at all.
The number of parties who got MSPs elected at the last election is… five. (Though in fairness there are now six, Reform having a single MSP after Graham Simpson defected from the Tories. The Lib Dems are even outnumbered by independents, of whom there are seven.)
So Cathy Newman of Channel 4 News got herself a scoop last night.
And to be honest, readers, we were a bit confused. “Gender critical views” are not only lawful things to hold and express, they’re one of a small subset of opinions that are explicitly protected as such in law. And why would a man very occasionally airing some lawful and protected views on social media be a news story? You might as well run “BREAKING: Premiership footballer discovered to enjoy cheese-and-ham toasties”.
Which is handy, because today is also the day of the Gorton and Denton by-election in Manchester (fun fact: a seat we’d very likely have lived in ourselves if not for Osama bin Laden, but that’s another story), and that throws up some interesting parallels.
There is a not particularly funny joke that is sometimes told in legal circles about why a law student failed to finish his coursework – because he had no conviction. With rare exceptions lawyers aren’t renowned for their sense of humour but I can’t help thinking someone, at the highest levels of our justice system, is having a right laugh at my expense and those who have loyally supported me over the past six years.
I’m talking about the Lord Advocate, Dorothy Bain KC – a sitting member of the Scottish Government’s cabinet who was nominated by Nicola Sturgeon to that post in 2021, five months after I was acquitted.
For those unfamiliar with my case, I offer this brief summary. In March 2020 I made a short video on my mobile phone that was two minutes and thirty eight seconds in length. I hadn’t planned to make the video when I went out for a walk in a field near my home. But I was annoyed and wanted to articulate that annoyance, although at the time I recorded it I wasn’t intending for it to go much further.
Later that night, just before turning in, I uploaded it to my YouTube channel on a closed, unlisted link and then posted that link to my Twitter account that, at the time, had a modest 1000 or so followers. I then forgot about it.
Little did I know that short mobile phone video would result in me facing initially a criminal trial, then a five year legal battle in the highest civil court in Scotland and now, most likely, an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
So on the one hand there’s obviously very little point paying attention to the SNP’s regional list candidates for May’s Holyrood election, because as this website has comprehensively demonstrated over recent months, the chances of the SNP having any list MSPs elected are remote.
However, nothing is impossible, so let’s take a look at the B team, which also serves as a guide to the party’s upcoming talent taking its first steps towards the gravy bus.
As the six-year fight for justice for Alex Salmond continues, we thought you might like to see this clip from this morning’s Mike Graham Show, interviewing Paul McManus, the businessman and drummer in Glasgow rock band Gun who’s stepped up to fund the Salmond family’s case against the Scottish Government despite disagreeing with much of what Alex stood for politically.
James Che on The Shortest Day: “Saffron Robe, Regards your comment yesterday, Indeed, Scots were delberately not asked to join the 1707 treaty of union, because…” Aug 30, 09:57
Hatey McHateface on The Shortest Day: “Hope you take the time to visit the Pantheon, CC. It’s an amazing example of architecture and engineering. It’s also…” Aug 30, 09:53
Hatey McHateface on The Shortest Day: “Good post, Bob. Seeing as how it’s a holiday weekend, why not spend the rest of the day fretting about…” Aug 30, 09:47
Hatey McHateface on The Shortest Day: “Loving the way Alf effortlessly equates Scots with Yes voters there. Thus proving what I’ve always said about the true…” Aug 30, 09:41
James Che on The Shortest Day: “There are of course individual names on a old list, with signatures that explicitly name the people that are in…” Aug 30, 09:40
sam on The Shortest Day: “The Keynes Mutiny – “Growth in a time of debt” https://russincheshire.substack.com/p/the-spreadsheet-that-broke-britain?r=lwml0&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web” Aug 30, 09:32
James Che on The Shortest Day: “The Scots remain out with the treaty of union, The devolved government in the Country of Scotland from Westminsters Scotland…” Aug 30, 09:31
robertkknight on The Shortest Day: “A majority of Scots, 53%, voted Yes in 2014. That majority for Yes was overturned as a result of non-Scots…” Aug 30, 09:31
Hatey McHateface on The Shortest Day: “Then there’s the cognitive dissonance you need to master before you willingly hand over your hard earned to buy expensive…” Aug 30, 09:27
J Robertson on The Slowest Dawning: “WFD James is that Whats for dinner or World Federation for the Deaf ?” Aug 30, 09:27
Captain Caveman on The Shortest Day: “What bike is that, Spartan? Back in the day, I used to have an old Honda CD200 Benly. Indestructible thing,…” Aug 30, 09:26
Captain Caveman on The Shortest Day: “More power to your elbow. I have no fewer than 5 vehicles and am currently in Rome, lunch booked. Zero…” Aug 30, 09:16
Hatey McHateface on The Shortest Day: “Excellent point, FC. To refute it, one must seek recourse in second level fantasies. The favourite one being that immediately…” Aug 30, 09:08
James Che on The Shortest Day: “It is Westminsters own devolved government they sent to Scotland that requres permission to leave and has to ask for…” Aug 30, 09:02
Hatey McHateface on The Slowest Dawning: “I guess you need to have experienced the utter tedium of living for a thousand years, while traversing the mind-numbing…” Aug 30, 08:49
Bilbo on The Shortest Day: “People are too dumb to realise that Net Zero is a corporate marketing campaign in order to get people to…” Aug 30, 08:48
James Che on The Shortest Day: “As the 2014 question from Westminster was an illegal piece of fiction to Sovereign Scots not in the treaty of…” Aug 30, 08:48
Hatey McHateface on The Shortest Day: “Wheesht, John! There’s no more appetite for truth tellers on Wings BTL than there is in the parliamentary SNP. Perhaps,…” Aug 30, 08:43
James Che on The Shortest Day: “Obviously Scots do not require a % of votes to leave a treaty of union they were not invited to…” Aug 30, 08:42
James Che on The Shortest Day: “Spartan 117. On your comment yesterday regarding ” but you had a vote in 2014, Here is a logical response.…” Aug 30, 08:31
Hatey McHateface on The Shortest Day: “Blown away by your insight, SR. “No True Scot votes Yes” about sums it up.” Aug 30, 08:31
John McNab on The Shortest Day: “Why shouldn’t John Swinney “lustily belt out” the National Anthem? There’s no clear indication that this chimera of “independence” which…” Aug 30, 05:58
Peter McAvoy on The Shortest Day: “Early last month the USA celebrated the 250th anniversary of independence I don’t recall on any documentaries,books magazines or online…” Aug 30, 02:19
Saffron Robe on The Shortest Day: “That’s a very good point, James. Why should we vote to leave something we never voted for in the first…” Aug 30, 01:26
robertkknight on The Shortest Day: “Once upon a time, the raison d’être of the SNP was to restore Scottish Independence. In my day, this resulted…” Aug 30, 01:04
James on The Slowest Dawning: “Ah, but wha needs Fannny when we’ve got twa redundant “Pricks” like youse?” Aug 30, 00:37
Young Lochinvar on The Shortest Day: “S117 Alf is right. A lot of us felt very angry with the “my heart said.. but my head said”…” Aug 29, 22:38
Effijy on The Shortest Day: “Reform are right wing fascists who like Trump are there to make the rich richer and using corruption at the…” Aug 29, 22:14
sarah on The Shortest Day: “As someone said here the other day “even Homer nods”! Geoff is a founder of the SSRG, I believe, and…” Aug 29, 22:05
Spartan 117 on The Shortest Day: “A good post Dan and, regarding your closing sentence, you’ve only got to read anything on the internet to see…” Aug 29, 21:55
