Wings Over Scotland

On the very fabric of the Scottish Parliament – specifically its Canongate Wall, across the road from a building curiously called “Watergate” – are inscribed 26 quotes, carved into stone hewn from every corner of the country, about the sort of Scotland that the building and those working inside it are supposed to stand for and aspire to.

One of them, from the celebrated author Sir Walter Scott, reads thus:

“When we had a king, and a chancellor, and parliament-men o’ our ain, we could aye peeble them wi’ stanes when they werena gude bairns – But naebody’s nails can reach the length o’ Lunnon.”

It’s a phrase that’s hard to interpret as anything but a paean to stern accountability. Should our representatives, it says, fail to live up to the standards that we expect and demand of them, they should be pelted with stones.

Now, we must assume – for this is the 21st century, and public stoning is a barbaric act limited to but a few of the UK’s allies – that said stones were intended by the architects to be understood as metaphorical ones, presumably in the form of harsh criticism.

It’s alarming, then, that so many of the people currently trying to get elected to that Parliament apparently instead believe that any criticism of them should be a crime.

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With selections ongoing and an election approaching, there’s an opportunity to reflect on how SNP M/SPs are elected and their role in those offices.

As the party’s grown the numbers in elected office have increased, but some aspects remain constant: it’s the party that puts you in and it’s independence that’s the cause.

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Just when you thought it was over:

Suddenly there’s a weasel in the works.

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The Scottish political arena is a funny place at the moment. Never before in modern history has there been so much dangerous hypocrisy, particularly on social media.

And what’s equally dangerous is that right now this hypocrisy is being doubled by a notion that independence of thought is a dangerous quality in a political movement that seeks to gain independence for a nation.

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We couldn’t see any other outcome than this as soon as the decision was passed to the SPCB, because the Unionist parties have the majority of votes on it.

So it looks as though the Scottish Government’s desperate stalling is finally at an end, and two months after it was supposed to have happened we’re all about to have a very interesting day indeed. We can’t wait.

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While we wait for this story to unfold:

Let’s catch up on a few things. Scottish politics is moving very fast at the moment, and if you don’t stop and look around you might miss stuff.

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I first joined this union in roughly 1992. On the very few occasions that I’ve sought its assistance it’s been worse than useless, but I’ve retained membership for most of the period because I believe in the principle of trade unions.

However, there are limits, and they’ve just been breached.

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The following article by Conor Matchett appears in today’s Scotsman:

It’s a pretty standard anti-Wings smear piece, except for this bit:

which is simply a flat-out lie. We can’t speak for Kenny MacAskill, but we do know for sure that Wings has NOT been contacted for comment by Mr Matchett.

We have an easily-accessible contact form and our details are known to the Scotsman from the last time we had to sue them for lying about us, but we have received no communication of any form from any representative of the newspaper in connection to this story. (We’ve checked our email Spam and Junk folders.)

We’d happily have provided a quote if we HAD been asked, to give the lazy hatchet job (perhaps “Matchett job”) at least a minimal veneer of balance and fairness as a boost to the badly-ailing paper’s “trusted, fact-checked journalism”. Since we’re banned from Twitter, perhaps someone could pass that on to Mr Matchett.

In the meantime, Wings readers should look forward to some more posts from SNP politicians, which we’ll be publishing later today.

It would be improper not to note that in addition to this:

…Darren McGarvey has contacted me directly by email this evening with what I take to be a sincere apology, which I’ve accepted as such.

(It was a private communication and won’t be reproduced here.)

I have no problem at all with people disliking me and saying so – I’m hardly a shrinking violet – but I can’t abide hypocrisy, which is what the massive pile-on from friends of Neil Mackay yesterday amounted to, and while I couldn’t give the slightest toss about the opinions of the people involved, even one person doing the decent thing over what was said deserves to be acknowledged. While I’m sure that we’ll continue to disagree profoundly and strongly on many or most things, what’s right is right.

You give these BBC types a bit of money and fame and oh dear.

Not sure what the poor horse did, mind you.

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Yeah, that sounds about right.

(Thanks to an alert reader for that one.)