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’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.
It contains nothing that those who listened in on the case by telephone last week didn’t hear for themselves – it’s simply an 11-page summary of what was debated in court and casts no new light on what Lady Dorrian said at the time.
We’ll be very interested to see whether or not The Spectator – or perhaps more to the point its lawyers, who we must presume had vetted and cleared the initial publication just as Alex Salmond’s lawyers had – now feels able to restore the redacted paragraph that it removed after what it can now be publicly revealed was a threat from the Crown Office (a threat also received by this website).
The magazine’s response today is non-committal on the subject.
While it is this site’s belief that the paragraph in question DOES NOT identify anyone as a complainer – the Crown Office has not communicated which “other evidence” it feels could be combined with the paragraph, which makes no reference whatsoever to the criminal case, to provide identification – the restoration of the missing paragraph would certainly appear to provide circumstantial evidence to that effect, something which would be entirely due to the intervention of the Crown Office.
But overall, the needless delay in publishing this document has merely run down the clock on the inquiry by another week – time that it can ill afford – without providing any real additional clarity.
(We’re a bit puzzled as to why The Spectator’s counsel appears to have given up so easily on the second element of their application, which sought to specifically permit the publication of both Salmond and Geoff Aberdein’s written evidence.)
The fact that the judgement wasn’t released yesterday probably means, at a minimum, no more evidence sessions until next week, as the committee generally only meets on Tuesdays. We hope that doesn’t become a crucial issue, but we fear that the written judgement is sufficiently tepid that the crooked SNP members of the committee, and the spineless Andy Wightman, will use it to justify rejecting Salmond’s evidence and therefore hearing from him in person, rendering the entire undertaking moot anyway.
The SNP have plumbed some real depths recently, but this is a new low.
Although we suppose on one level you could spin it as a positive, namely that disabled people really are just like everyone else – they can be despicable scumbags too.
I started writing this post two weeks ago, incensed at the behaviour of the SNP NEC and their proposals to introduce self-ID for disability. Then they sacked Joanna Cherry from the front bench.
Joanna Cherry is probably one of the few people left in the SNP exec that even knows what Chesterton’s Fence is, and its importance in lawmaking. As a gay woman, she understands on a practical level the issues round equality legislation.
It also means that she’s a particular target for certain groups. Ye shall know a genius by this sign; all the dunces of the world are in confederacy against her.
Two weeks ago a Wings scoop caused quite a furore to erupt around the SNP’s ham-fisted and corruptly-motivated attempts to increase BAME and disabled representation at this year’s Holyrood election.
We’ve always been opposed to what were until recently known as “quotas”, and prior to that “positive discrimination”, but have now been cunningly rebranded as “diversity and inclusion” because that’s a much more difficult thing to say you object to.
It’s easy to make an honourable-sounding case against any form of “discrimination”, because decent and civilised people are taught to automatically think of discrimination as a bad thing, even if you put “positive” in front of it.
So the word “quotas” was adopted to move the concept from a pejorative term to a neutral noun – objecting to “quotas” doesn’t sound intolerant, any more than objecting to (say) “procedures” does. So that’s fine, because you can still discuss it like adults without too much unpleasantness.
But those pushing the agenda got smarter still by changing the name again. If you say you object to “diversity and inclusion”, you sound like a monster and a racist, because diversity and inclusion are plainly good things – no decent person wants to live in a monoculture, or to exclude anybody from society – and so the debate is immediately drowned out by self-righteous tossers screaming “BIGOT!” and “NAZI!” at everyone.
And yet in the context of social policy the three phrases mean the exact same thing. They’re all systems for overriding raw democracy so as to increase the representation of selected groups at the expense of other groups, for one reason or another.
(Sometimes it’s ostensibly just penance for historical wrongs, while at other times it’s supposedly for economic benefits, and so on.)
And while the proponents of those systems will openly argue that the only group being disadvantaged is straight white men so it’s all fine (because nobody likes straight white men and anyone standing up for them can be easily dismissed as a “gammon” for lots of woke points and Twitter likes), it isn’t even remotely close to the truth.
Because in “diversity and inclusion”, some groups are a lot more included than others.
The two main centres of infection for the woke entryist poison currently disfiguring the SNP are Stirling and Aberdeen, where they coalesce around two Westminster MPs – Twitler Youth gauleiter Alyn Smith and the worryingly unhinged Kirsty Blackman.
In recent months Wings has documented numerous attempts by the faction (which is chiefly characterised by its hyper-extremist and fundamentalist version of transgender ideology) to gerrymander and fix the party’s internal election processes to ensure that its disciples – who are enormously unpopular among the grassroots membership and have repeatedly failed to win by playing fair – get selected as candidates.
Young Lochinvar on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “CC @ 11.39 Well hold on there Bald Eagle! “Scotland was doing much of the colonis1NG before and after the…” Jul 26, 00:06
Alf Baird on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Worth repeating the fact that even Westminster has acknowledged that the GDP Per Capita of an independent Scotland would be…” Jul 25, 23:01
Alf Baird on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Thanks for this Sam. I’ve met Mr and Mrs Cuthbert who are a tremendous asset to Scotland with their expert…” Jul 25, 22:15
James on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Dan; on the “money” as always, what the Unionist Wallopers don’t want the Scotch to see: JOHN JAPPY As a…” Jul 25, 22:02
James on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “So. The WALLOPERS have spoken. Take note, Scotch folk; you’ve never had it so good. Scotchland is the richest country…” Jul 25, 21:07
James on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “So. Precious tactics failing, the new 77th tactic is “swamping”? Endless reams of unionist “shite” vomited up ad nauseam by…” Jul 25, 20:53
James on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““Please note: “The Vow” did not break the law.” “Analysts from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre concluded that the fiscal…” Jul 25, 20:43
James on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “I wish someone would get a grip of you, ya AI unionist walloper…Westminster apologist, tosser of the first order…for years…” Jul 25, 20:30
Northcode on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Captain Caveman @3:42 pm Once again you’ve raised several points, so I’ll address them in the same way as before.…” Jul 25, 19:50
sam on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Alf, raising taxes in an independent Scotland.A study by Jim Cuthbert which I have edited to reduce its length “Fiscal…” Jul 25, 19:49
factchecker on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Some good news today. “…a spokesman for the Scottish government said: “Our economy is one of the best performing parts…” Jul 25, 18:41
Spartan 117 on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Few things worse in life than “Socialists” who at the slightest sniff of power dig in and engorge themselves at…” Jul 25, 18:23
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “@Alf Re your wish list at 4:08. Surely the most third-rate economist would understand that the feasibility and profitability of…” Jul 25, 18:11
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Some great comments today. There remains but for Wally W. Walrus to expectorate partly masticated rotting fish guts over it…” Jul 25, 17:50
Young Lochinvar on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “On a cheerier note. Listening to Smooth Radio the hourly newsreader had me smiling, for all the world her rendition…” Jul 25, 16:37
Aidan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““ By definition, it is surely a rhetorical question also, since I am hardly likely to have published work on…” Jul 25, 16:32
Aidan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “@Alf – firstly, that is a description of (in your own terms) how GDP growth could be delivered, it’s not…” Jul 25, 16:29
Alf Baird on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““Scotland’s output would double” Near neighbour high-GDP sovereign states with similar or far lesser resources illustrate that a major increase…” Jul 25, 16:08
Captain Caveman on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““So who do we believe?” 😀 😀 😀 And on that bombshell, time for a Negroni I think. Saluti! 🙂” Jul 25, 16:02
Aidan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Indeed Dan – it’s a case of: – the independently audited figures show one thing; – the (former) head of…” Jul 25, 15:51
Aidan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Indeed Dan – it’s a case of: – the independently audited figures show one thing; – the (former) head of…” Jul 25, 15:51
Captain Caveman on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “@Northy “First, questioning someone’s published work isn’t a demand for credentials; it’s very often a request for clarity about the…” Jul 25, 15:42
Dan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Waiting on new boys CC and AIdan pulling up Stu for posting this “shite” back in the day… https://wingsoverscotland.com/on-our-own-two-feet/” Jul 25, 15:33
Aidan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “@Alf – I’ve published work on a range of subjects, but my work, unlike yours, isn’t written starting with the…” Jul 25, 15:02
Aidan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “@Alf – Scotland’s GDP per capita is around the same as neighbouring countries like Finland and Belgium, and above almost…” Jul 25, 14:49
Aidan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “@Confused – comedy gold from someone who thinks that incorporating a network of companies makes any person or enterprise “tax…” Jul 25, 14:44
Captain Caveman on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““So that’s a big ‘naw’ then, ye’ve nivver published hee-haw aboot onythin.” Heh. Well, I’ve written countless landmark technical reports…” Jul 25, 14:35