The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland


Distinctions and differences 249

Posted on March 15, 2021 by

We’re bored of this story now but this was too good to ignore:

Sir Humphrey would be proud.

Read the rest of this entry →

The wheels of the bus 227

Posted on March 14, 2021 by

…appear to be about to roll over Leslie Evans.

Which in itself raises some extremely serious questions about the judgement of the First Minister who extended Evans’ contract by two years in January 2020, long after she’d known about the series of disastrous and costly blunders Evans had made in the Salmond investigation.

But that’s not even the real story.

Read the rest of this entry →

On who to believe 138

Posted on March 14, 2021 by

Nine days ago Wings told you this:

And you’ll never guess what’s happened.

Read the rest of this entry →

To the editor of The National 112

Posted on March 14, 2021 by

I’m bemused that The National is now dragging up a nine-day old story for no apparent reason other than to assist the SNP in its determined recent attempts to smear my site.

But I’m extremely disappointed that in doing so it’s chosen to ignore a document I sent to your previous reporter, Emer O’Toole, more than a week ago, proving the accuracy of my leak.

Read the rest of this entry →

A matter of timing 409

Posted on March 13, 2021 by

Writing about the Hate Crime Bill in the Herald today, Kevin McKenna summarises in a sentence a point this website has been making for many months.

Because the real question about the SNP’s sudden demented obsession with focusing the public’s attention on its most unpopular policies right before supposedly the most important election in its history isn’t “Why?”

It’s “Why now?”

Read the rest of this entry →

The writing on the wall 167

Posted on March 13, 2021 by

The own goal 132

Posted on March 12, 2021 by

Last week we warned you to beware of poll questions containing the formulation “Does [X] make you more or less likely to vote in a certain way?”, and this evening Survation have provided us with an example of why.

According to those numbers, the conflict between Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon has caused a staggering 47% of Scots to change their likelihood of voting Yes in an independence referendum. And the bulk of those – 37% – say it’s made them MUCH more or MUCH less likely to vote Yes.

Those numbers break by more than 2 to 1 (23% to 11%) in favour of “much less likely”, which is a margin of change (12 points) bigger than almost any Yes majority that’s ever been recorded in a poll.

In other words, if the poll is to be believed, Nicola Sturgeon’s attempt to neutralise Alex Salmond as a threat to her personal political power has almost definitely turned a Yes vote into a No vote as people have started paying attention to it.

Read the rest of this entry →

On a nod and a wink 175

Posted on March 12, 2021 by

Someone forwarded a Freedom Of Information response to us today. It’s frighteningly illustrative of the kind of Scotland that the SNP are bringing into being.

Read the rest of this entry →

The fluidity of principles 169

Posted on March 12, 2021 by

We’re assuming, naturally, that the First Minister will be duly suspended from the SNP while these shocking allegations are fully investigated, just like Gareth Wardell, Denise Findlay, Neale Hanvey, Mark McDonald, Michelle Thomson, Neil Hay, etc etc etc were.

We’re not, of course. And nor should she be, because “shared a platform with” is the ugly ginger stepchild of fake-outrage cancel culture – lower on the smear scale even than “liked a tweet by” or “linked an article by someone who completely separately had an unfashionable opinion on a completely different subject several years ago”. It’s absolute guff punted only by scumbags.

Nevertheless, the uncomfortable fact is that those are precisely the crimes for which other people WERE suspended and/or ostracised from the party, and we can’t help wishing the SNP’s flagrant hypocrisy about it was just a little bit less obvious and less arrogantly blatant, so that it wasn’t quite so painfully offensive to any decent person, and so that we weren’t having to fight quite so hard to keep believing in independence when we see the grim state of the Scotland that’s taking shape before our eyes.

But hey, we are where we are.

The Wrecking Crew 937

Posted on March 10, 2021 by

We took the day off today because we didn’t trust ourselves to watch the Hate Crime Bill debate without doing something violent. By all accounts it was the smart call.

While the debate overran and will conclude with a vote tomorrow, there’s no suspense about the outcome. With the backing of the snivelling, hateful, misogynist Greens (one female MSP out of six, entirely by choice), the bill will pass and Scotland will become a country where almost anything you say could be a hate crime.

The bill is designed to terrify normal people into silence about almost any subject, as an automatic habit. Even in your own home you won’t be safe from denunciation.

And while an amendment by Adam Tomkins of the Scottish Tories – it has come to the stage, readers, where we’re reduced to needing the Tories to try to save us from the SNP – should help a lot of people escape being convicted, that’s not even the point. Malicious, vexatious complaints will have put them through months of worry and fear, effectively punishing them even though they’re innocent, and most people – especially women – will simply hold their tongue to avoid the trauma.

For the last couple of years this site has been critical of the SNP’s failure to make any sort of progress on independence. But this is far, far worse even than that. Because if they somehow miraculously achieved independence tomorrow, we’d be afraid to live in the Scotland they’re creating.

Our country doesn’t have a SINGLE political party remotely fit for government. Voters in May face a choice between the evil, the stupid, and the evil and stupid. And they can’t even be angry about it, because even the politest anger is now a hate crime.

We wish we had a constructive course of action to suggest to you, folks. But we don’t, because democracy has failed you. There is no way you can vote that will fix the ruins the SNP have made of Scotland. We cannot see a way forward. It is becoming nearly impossible to evade the conclusion that all is lost. Nicola Sturgeon has destroyed it.

The Great Ribbon Terror 628

Posted on March 09, 2021 by

When we suggested yesterday that the SNP was turning into New Labour, we didn’t expect them to go to quite so much trouble to provide us with a timely illustration.

In happier times, almost seven years ago, a united and focused Yes movement had a bit of fun at the expense of Labour MP Ian Murray when he had a huge pearl-clutching fainting fit over someone putting a couple of stickers on his constituency office.

Record-scratch and jump-cut to the 2021 SNP.

Read the rest of this entry →

The House Of Secrets 393

Posted on March 08, 2021 by

We’re sure most alert readers will by now have seen the purported “leak” of the actual results of the SNP’s mystery-shrouded regional list selections. While the figures are highly believable, we haven’t yet been able to obtain any corroboration for them being anything other than a plausible hoax.

The SNP has of course denied them, but they also denied our recent leak from the party’s draft manifesto and we know for sure that that was real. The trouble with lying all the time is that nobody believes you even if you occasionally tell the the truth.

Of course, there would be an easy way to prove the numbers were a fake – release the real ones, which is in any case the most fundamental element of transparency in a democratic election. And whatever they are could hardly be any more embarrassing than the rumours, which have candidates topping the list (and likely to get seats) on a shocking 2.4% of the vote.

Heavens, even Annie Wells managed 8.6%.

But there’s a much more important reason the SNP will never release the real results.

Read the rest of this entry →

  • About

    Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.

    Stats: 6,866 Posts, 1,234,280 Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Tags

  • Recent Comments

    • DaveL on Governing For Beginners: “That’s pathetic! Calm down, throw something out your pram instead.Jan 13, 02:25
    • Cynicus on Governing For Beginners: ““ Get some vitamin D into you Rev..” ========= An ye can tak the boay oot o video gemmes, aiblins…Jan 12, 23:28
    • Heaver on Governing For Beginners: “Get some vitamin D into you Rev..Jan 12, 21:59
    • sam on Governing For Beginners: “Glubb Pasha an aw. Hi, Northy. Cheer up. The dancers from the Bolshy ballet will soon be in town. Serge…Jan 12, 21:56
    • Scot Finlayson on Governing For Beginners: “This year will see the 100,000th killing, by assisted death, in Canada since the regime voted for it in 2016.…Jan 12, 21:43
    • Hatey McHateface on Governing For Beginners: “As of 2025, concerning debt to GDP ratios, four EU countries were in a worse state than the UK. Looking…Jan 12, 21:28
    • Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Looky here, Professor Baird. DaveL wants to discuss classic poetry written in the Scots leid. This is gonna be great!Jan 12, 21:14
    • Hatey McHateface on Governing For Beginners: ““You’ll know all about assisted death at the sharp end” Er, naw, Mastermind Dave. If I was at the assisted…Jan 12, 21:02
    • DaveL on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““Walking the walk is a different matter.” Aye for sure it’s hard yards when you’re goose stepping everywhere.Jan 12, 20:39
    • DaveL on Governing For Beginners: “You’ll know all about assisted death at the sharp end being a Bandera fanboy. It just occurred to me that…Jan 12, 20:32
    • 100%Yes on Governing For Beginners: “Calls for an “immediate” general election are set to be debated by MPs after more than 1 million people signed…Jan 12, 20:09
    • Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Aye, Alf, weel spattit. The extra word wrecked the scansion, and that would have sore aggrieved Grieve. My prediction about…Jan 12, 20:01
    • Northcode on Governing For Beginners: “Sir John Glubb says this about the citizens at the heart of once great empires that are in their death…Jan 12, 19:54
    • 100%Yes on Governing For Beginners: “You can’t even make the SNP membership see sense on Independence never mind anything else. The SNP and its membership…Jan 12, 19:48
    • Hatey McHateface on Governing For Beginners: “Want to bet I’m smart enough to attach a reply to the post I’m replying to? Another £20 says I…Jan 12, 19:47
    • Hatey McHateface on Governing For Beginners: ““check out “THE FATE OF EMPIRES” by Sir John Glubb” Ooo Northy, fit are ye like, eh? Quoting an Inglis…Jan 12, 19:38
    • agentx on Governing For Beginners: “I still have my ZX Spectrum with added full size keyboard, 64K expansion pack and printer. I will have to…Jan 12, 19:33
    • Alf Baird on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Aye, weel spattit, Hatey. Ye shoud mebbe get a wee jobby as a colonial watchdug? Ye hiv tae handit tae…Jan 12, 19:33
    • Laughable on Governing For Beginners: “Want to bet £20 you can spell ‘swallow,’ as in donkey spunk? I bet you can.Jan 12, 19:32
    • Northcode on Governing For Beginners: “Aye, the end of empires is always a bit messy and the sheets on their death beds very often need…Jan 12, 19:05
    • Hatey McHateface on Governing For Beginners: “Want to bet I can spell callow? £20 says I can.Jan 12, 18:23
    • Laughable on Governing For Beginners: “The usual wretched, calow, shallow right-wing drivel from you.Jan 12, 17:41
    • Hatey McHateface on Governing For Beginners: “Could be the explanation is a lot simpler. When so many people are now dependent on sucking at the swollen…Jan 12, 17:32
    • Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “I dunno what edition you’re looking at, Alf. But there’s no “(lose)” in the last line you quote in mine.…Jan 12, 17:10
    • Patsy Millar on Governing For Beginners: “I’d never seen that film and am now in a somewhat traumatised state. I knew Tony Blair was evil and…Jan 12, 16:32
    • sarah on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Good points, James! More and more I see what Cunningham Grahame meant when he said that the problem for regaining…Jan 12, 16:30
    • James Cheyne on Governing For Beginners: “Does or will fear of dying prevent you dying, If that was the decision you allowed someone else to make,…Jan 12, 16:29
    • sarah on Governing For Beginners: “Thank you, Rev – another clear explanation and description of the current state of our existence. Direct democracy would improve…Jan 12, 16:26
    • Alf Baird on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “MacDiarmid was certainly conscious of the reality of colonialism, identity and loss of nationality for Scots under English domination, as…Jan 12, 16:24
    • James Cheyne on Governing For Beginners: “Most of the wealthy believe their are to many people on this planet, however fail to note they are also…Jan 12, 16:06
  • A tall tale



↑ Top