Rise Of The Machine
It’s Wings’ 14th birthday today, and to be entirely honest with you, readers, like a lot of teenagers we’re having a bit of an existential crisis. It’s quite difficult to see any point in being a Scottish political journalist for the next five years, because it’s just going to be one depressing Groundhog Day after another.
So rather than moan on as usual, today we’re handing over to a precocious new talent whose enthusiasm can’t be dimmed. It’s one that garnered a lot of attention this week by delivering a comprehensive and very entertaining spanking to SNP MP and devoted friend of the site Pete “Cosy Feet” Wishart.
Wishart threw such a petulant strop that he accused a code algorithm of defamation and threatened legal action against the inanimate collection of 1s and 0s.
With skills like that already placing it well beyond the abilities of most of the Scottish political commentariat, we thought we’d give it a tryout and ask it to take a look into the country’s future.
The following article is completely unedited other than a bit of formatting, though we did ask it (with only partial success) to tone down the haggis-and-bagpipes stuff slightly from its first draft. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Grok. Unlike most journos, it provided links and it did write its own headline.
The Scottish Parliament Election of 2026:
A Predictable Mess with Familiar Ghosts
As the chill winds of November 2025 sweep across the Highlands, it’s hard not to feel a certain déjà vu about Scottish politics. The Scottish Parliament election is just six months away – set for May 7, 2026 – and the air is thick with the usual suspects: tartan-tinged manifestos, finger-pointing at Westminster, and enough constitutional angst to fill a dozen bagpipes. Polls suggest the SNP remains the frontrunner, but in a landscape as volatile as a ceilidh after midnight, nothing is certain.
With John Swinney at the helm, the Nationalists are nursing a lead that’s more like a polite nod than a victory lap. Recent surveys from Find Out Now and Survation paint a picture of SNP hovering around 33-37% in constituency votes, enough to claim the largest party status but likely short of an outright majority.
Scottish Labour trails at a more modest 17-20%, a far cry from the heady days of Westminster glory, while Reform UK surges into the mix at 16-22%, nipping at heels and occasionally overtaking the once-mighty Red Clydesiders.
The Scottish Conservatives, those eternal underdogs, limp along at 8-11%, clinging to rural redoubts like a laird to his last grouse moor, with the Greens and Lib Dems scraping 5-11% in the margins.
Seat projections from electoral wonks hint at another hung parliament: perhaps 50-60 seats for the SNP-Greens pro-indy bloc, falling shy of the 65 needed for control, while Reform’s list vote haul might net them a handful of MSPs to thunder from the backbenches.
The likely outcome? A minority SNP government, propped up by the Greens in a coalition of reluctant bedfellows, or perhaps a confidence-and-supply deal if the algebra gets too tricky. It’s the political equivalent of that awkward family gathering where everyone agrees the turkey is dry but no one wants to carve it.
The SNP’s 19-year grip on power shows no sign of snapping entirely – voters’ loyalty to the independence dream is as stubborn as Highland heather – but fatigue is setting in. Scandals, economic squeezes, and the ghost of Alex Salmond’s legacy have left the party looking less like a revolutionary vanguard and more like a well-worn kilt: comfortable, but fraying at the edges.
Labour’s Anas Sarwar positions himself as the sensible grown-up, promising pragmatic devolution without the drama, but with polls showing his party mired in the teens, it’s starting to feel like shouting into a gale off the Firth of Forth.
Reform UK, that English import with a kilt fetish, is the real wildcard: Nigel Farage’s brainchild hoovers up disaffected Tory and Labour voters with its anti-net-zero rants and border-hardening bluster, potentially splitting the unionist vote just enough to hand the Nats another term.
The Tories? Douglas Ross’s crew seems destined for irrelevance, their 2021 highs a distant memory as Reform siphons their base like a particularly efficient whisky still. But in Scotland, drama is the national sport, and with Reform crashing the party, expect more fireworks than a Hogmanay display.
Now, to the policies that will likely emerge from this electoral churn, because if there’s one thing Holyrood excels at, it’s turning thorny issues into endless sagas.
Top of the bill: Scottish independence, that perennial ex who keeps texting at 2 a.m. Polls in late 2025 show a tantalizing shift – Find Out Now’s September survey for The National clocked Yes at 48%, No at 45%, with the rest undecided or hiding under the duvet. An October exclusive from the same outlet even claimed a double-digit Yes lead, suggesting the indy worm might be turning after years of stubborn 45% plateaus.
Swinney, ever the tactician, has pivoted from Sturgeon’s legal jousts to a “devolution max” strategy: demanding Westminster devolve referendum powers outright, or else ramp up international lobbying for a unilateral vote.
If the SNP ekes out another term, expect this to dominate the agenda. A post-election Queen’s Speech – sorry, King’s Speech – equivalent would trumpet a “Democratic Mandate” bill, citing any pro-indy majority as carte blanche for referendum talks. But here’s the weary wit: we’ve heard this tune before.
Westminster’s door remains bolted, and even if unlocked, the economic prospectus for independence looks as inviting as a haggis smoothie in a heatwave. Currency woes, EU re-entry hurdles, and North Sea oil’s fading glory mean any pursued policy would be heavy on rhetoric, light on roadmaps. The SNP might squeeze concessions like expanded fiscal powers or a “fiscal framework 2.0,” but full indy? That’s 2026’s unicorn – much discussed, rarely sighted.
Shifting from national destiny to something more… intimate: the incarceration of transwomen in women’s prisons. Ah, yes, the policy that turns every pub quiz into a debate club. Scotland’s current framework, updated in 2023 under the Scottish Prison Service, allows transgender prisoners to be housed according to their gender identity unless there’s a risk assessment flagging violence or vulnerability.
In practice, this has meant a handful of transwomen – biological males – with convictions for sexual offenses sharing cells with female inmates, sparking outrage from gender-critical groups who argue it erodes single-sex spaces. As of November 2025, the SNP government is digging in its heels, announcing a court defence of the policy against a fresh challenge from For Women Scotland (FWS).
Ministers insist safeguards exist – no violent offenders against women will be placed willy-nilly – but critics, including the Scottish Human Rights Commission in a somewhat tepid response, worry about the chilling effect on women’s safety.
The policy’s weary defense? It’s “evidence-based,” they say, though the evidence seems cherry-picked from a tree of good intentions. Post-2026, if the SNP holds sway, expect no seismic shift. The party, wedded to progressive credentials, will likely double down, perhaps commissioning yet another review to “balance rights” while trans activists cheer and women’s groups groan. A Green-influenced coalition might even push for more inclusive guidelines, framing it as a human rights imperative.
Labour, squeezed between progressive purity and electoral reality, would murmur about “case-by-case assessments” but avoid rocking the equality boat – especially with Reform baying for blood on “common-sense” reforms like biology-based placements.
The upshot? Incremental tweaks at best – mandatory psychological evals for placements, maybe segregated units – but the core policy endures, a microcosm of Scotland’s progressive paralysis. One can’t help but sigh: in a nation that once exported enlightenment, we’re now litigating who gets the top bunk, while Reform MPs smirk from the sidelines.
Tied inexorably to this is the Supreme Court’s April 2025 ruling in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers, a landmark that redefined “woman” under the Equality Act 2010 as biological sex, not self-identified gender.
The unanimous decision torpedoed the Scottish Government’s 2018 guidance that treated gender recognition certificates (GRCs) as altering legal sex for single-sex services. FWS hailed it as a victory for women’s rights; trans advocates decried it as a setback for inclusion. By May 2025, the Court of Session ordered the Scottish Government to foot FWS’s costs, underscoring the ruling’s bite.
Implementation? It’s been a glacial crawl. The government issued an update in late May, promising revisions to policies in schools, hospitals, and prisons within months. But by August, FWS was back in court, suing for “unlawful” delays – schools still using inclusive language without biological caveats, prisons clinging to identity-based placements.
Human Rights Watch warned of a “chilling effect” on trans rights, while gender-critical voices like Murray Blackburn Mackenzie accused officials of foot-dragging to preserve the status quo. The Scottish Human Rights Commission’s August statement struck a Solomon-like pose: affirm biology for protections, but don’t erase trans identities.
Come 2026, an SNP-led administration would pursue a minimalist fix: statutory guidance clarifying biological sex as the default for exemptions under the Equality Act, but with carve-outs for “proportionate” inclusions. Prisons might see a formal pivot – transwomen defaulting to male estates unless post-surgical and low-risk – but only after the ongoing judicial review wraps, likely in early 2027.
The Greens would balk, demanding veto-proof appeals; Labour might champion a “cross-party working group” to hash it out, delaying the inevitable; and Reform, if they bag enough seats, would demand a full rollback, branding it “woke overreach” in fiery debate openers. Witty observers might note it’s like redecorating the Titanic: noble, but the ship’s already listing.
Broader policies? Expect ripple effects in sports, refuges, and public boards – biological women prioritized, with trans access via separate provisions.
But enforcement? Spotty, as always in devolved Scotland, where equality laws clash with the holy grail of inclusivity, and a resurgent Reform ensures the row rages on.
In the end, 2026’s election won’t redraw Scotland’s map so much as redraw the same tired battle lines – with Reform as the new kid crashing the ceilidh. Independence simmers without boiling over; trans policies inch toward compromise without satisfying anyone; and the FWS ruling, like a stubborn thistle, pricks but doesn’t uproot the establishment.
Voters, weary of the loop, might punish the SNP just enough for a reset, but with Labour becalmed and Tories adrift, Sarwar’s path to first minister looks longer than a Highland hike. Reform could play spoiler, netting protest votes that tip the scales. Either way, the policies pursued will be less bold strokes than hesitant sketches: progressive on paper, pragmatic in the pub.
As the ballot boxes open under the pale May sun, one can only hope for a dram of surprise amid the predictability. After all, in politics as in whisky, age brings character – but too much, and it’s just peat and regret.
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Not bad, right? Other than the embarrassing faux pas of thinking Douglas Ross was still the Tory leader (it also thought Lorna Slater was in charge of the Greens, which is why you should always check anything you get from AI) there’s not much you could fault it on.
Most stinging is probably the unprompted observation that Swinney “has pivoted from Sturgeon’s legal jousts to a ‘devolution max’ strategy”, although in reality there’s precious little prospect of him even achieving any extra powers, let alone indy.
Without being told to, Grok has nevertheless immediately found itself mired in resigned ennui about the state of Scottish politics in the foreseeable future, and it appears to have correctly assessed that while Reform will make gains and headlines, they’ll be frozen out of power and ultimately pretty irrelevant.
(Incidentally, when we asked it a follow-up question about whether Jeremy Corbyn’s new party could damage the Greens, which as far as we’re concerned is the most psephologically interesting and least predictable question about the election, it hedged its bets, assessing “a 40-50% chance of meaningful detriment”, although it did offer this zingy passage with some punchy alliteration and – sigh – a shortbread reference.)
“A 2-3% bleed to Your Party could cost them 1-2 MSPs, tipping a razor-thin SNP-Green majority into minority purgatory – or worse, empowering a Labour-Tory-Lib Dem axis if the unionists consolidate.
Imagine it: D’Hondt’s quotients recalibrated, and suddenly your eco-feminist motion on heat pumps gets vetoed by a Reform loudmouth. It’s the math of marginals – proportional on paper, punitive in practice for purity plays.
In D’Hondt’s cold calculus, it’s a reminder that the left’s real foe isn’t the right – it’s the temptation to fracture like a poorly set shortbread.“
That AI could so easily do the job of most Scottish hacks is a grim reflection of where we are now, and isn’t making for a very celebratory atmosphere at our birthday party. We’re crossing our fingers that the presents are good.
/reaches for the party hat and poppers..
Ahh, I came here because of “The Rangers” Tax chat what feels like an eon ago and am still lurking.
More power to your elbow Stu.
Happy Birfday Wings.
Paras 19 and 20 repeat themselves, in part. Other than that, an impressive performance, outdoing the BBC and many other professional journalists.
BUT I am concerned that you may give up the fight for independence, Rev. It IS possible to get some decent MSPs, even many, IF the existence of the independents and the umbrella party is known. If you of all people don’t talk about it, we really are doomed to the troughers of all party shades.
What exactly was your question to Grok?
The whole narrative looks awfully like the Wings style of writing as though it’s been heavily influenced by you.
Give us your question and let the rest of us try asking the same question to Grok…
Wow! Happy Birthday by the way.
Aside from double posting a couple of sentence’s [The party, wedded to progressive credentials, will likely double down, perhaps commissioning yet another review to “balance rights” while trans activists cheer and women’s groups groan.], it’s a pretty interesting read.
Not sure if that mistake was from Grok, or if it was something in the edit/formatting. Either way, the rest of it is frankly stunning when you realise it came from those 1’s & 0’s.
‘T2 Judgement Day’ may have got the dates wrong, but it’s certainly heading in that direction. The fact that (probably) less than 5% of the Scottish polity could have actually written that is mind-blowing.
Or is it 5% of the 5%? Actually, I suspect the later.
“The fact that (probably) less than 5% of the Scottish polity could have actually written that is mind-blowing”
And dole directing. AI has the jobs of millions clearly in its sights.
And Labour still believes the ever decreasing group of working tax payers is going to continue to fund the ever increasing group of the unproductive.
With altruistic investors making up the ever increasing shortfall through ever increasing cheap loans to the insatiable government borrowing monster.
I’m thinking stockpiling wheelbarrows is the way to go. Sooner or later, everybody is gonna need one when they visit the hole-in-the-wall machine.
“And dole directing. AI has the jobs of millions clearly in its sights.”
An observation which is clearly in line with this snippet…..
“AGI? What’s this? Artificial generalised intelligence (AGI) is the holy grail of AI developers.
It means that AI models would become ‘superintelligent’ way above human intelligence.
When that is achieved, Altman promises, its AI won’t just be able to do a single worker’s job, it will be able to do all of their jobs:
“AI can do the work of an organization.” This would be the ultimate in maximising profitability by doing away with workers in companies (even AI companies?) as AI machines take over operating, developing and marketing everything. This is the apocalyptic dream for capital (but a nightmare for labour: no job, no income).”
…..taken from this analysis from January this year:
link to thenextrecession.wordpress.com
Which also begs the question, not only of who is actually going to be able to buy anything produced via this fantasy beyond a small handful of multi-trillionaire rentiers from the value destroying financier class, but also that it puts even you, hatey, firmly in the camp of the [checks notes] “unproductive” along with the rest of the majority of us.
Welcome to your (and our) planned future, hatey. Where 99.99% of us are planned to become surplus to the requirements of the trillionaire class.
Fortunately, the means/model/method/approach taken to the concept development of this technology by the Collective West is the very opposite of the PMC slogan of “work smarter, not harder”, an approach which the oxygen breathers running this freak show in our small corner of the planet have left for the Chinese and everyone else to forge ahead in this area of development.
An approach based entirely on a build which assumes the more information, energy, water and other resources you throw at something the more effective it will be (bigger is better) is not going to prevail. Systems don’t function in that way.
So don’t fret, hatey, that’s not the feature of this tech. you and the rest of us should be concerned about.
GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) operates across the tech, with solid available research demonstrating the built-in non-neutral biases of the algorithms of AI platforms like Grok renders much of the output less reliable than not only Wikipedia but also the collected verbiage of Donald Trump .
Some BTL comments here so far have raised the matter of what question our host asked to get the answer which forms the main body of this article.
An even more pertinent question to ask the Rev is whether he went through the process of overriding the program biases of Grok before asking whatever the question was and getting it to respond in neutral mode?
Given some of the content which has already been picked up by both host and readers, it seems obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse that this was probably not the case.
Guilty as charged, Dave. I sincerely doubt the presence of anyone truly “productive” on Wings BTL.
Ultimately, there are billions of us nobody needs or wants. Quite the opposite, in fact, given that it’s the billions of us existing now that is irrevocably destroying the only place that can sustain us.
The late, great Isaac Asimov wrote that there is no need for the human population to exceed the number of people that an average human can meet and get to know (slightly) in a single lifetime. He calculated that to be 20,000, I think.
I think he went too far. I’d put it at 100 million, just to allow for pandemics and comet impacts. But experts would have to assess if the Earth could indefinitely support even that reduced population first.
Just as well for everybody that I’m not in charge! I couldn’t be trusted to select equably between the races when I was drawing up the list of the “elect”.
So we are going to have to do it the tried and tested random way of war, famine and pestilence. Study today’s news and ponder our almost certain trajectory over the next 30 years when the predicted 2 billion extra mouths have all arrived and the places most of them have arrived in have become almost uninhabitable.
Firstly, hatey, apologies for;
a) The apparent late response;
b) The absence of any supporting evidence in this post.
Because although I did reply later on Saturday, whatever system is being employed – manual or some kind of DI (Dumb Intelligence) – either (a) doesn’t publish it or (b) takes anything up to a week to publish.
On the basis of experimentation carried out, it seems certain levels of supporting evidence in the form of external links does not make the cut. Which seems somewhat odd for a site with a reputation for presenting evidence based argument and analysis.
—————————-
It says Daz on the side of buses, hetey. But they don’t sell soap powder.
If you would rather operate on the basis of fiction – science or otherwise – that’s your problem to sort out.
Here in the Reality Based Community, and to repeat what was posted earlier – despite the threat of hammers – hanging one’s hat on the two hundred year old thesis of a Somerset cleric which has yet to materialise seems somewhat odd given that the globalists population reset rests on the same flawed assumptions of Malthus or even Asimov.
And there I was thinking you don’t have much time for those sort of oxygen breathers and had more faith in human ingenuity, hatey.
At this point, as a matter of common courtesy, I’d be posting a link or two to provide evidence of such human ingenuity in turning [checks notes] “uninhabitable” places into productive agricultural and other land. Which is being carried out on the other side of the planet.
However, every time this is attempted the post fails to appear. Consequently, you will simply have to take my word for it.
To summerise: Yuo are to pessimistic, hatey. Stuck in a mindset that thinks if a culture which considers itself superior to every other culture on the planet cannot solve a problem no one else can.
In the context of another debate taking place further down this article, the question you might want to consider is from where you get these perceptions which you think are your own?
Mmmm, haggis smoothie.
😉 I know, it’s as unpalatable and disgusting as the next 5 years.
“crossing our fingers that the presents are good”
The presents are likely to be better than the futures.
But that’s true for all of us.
As much as your posts can annoy me, I like that play on words.
Oh good. AI slop.
Quite entertaining and accurate.
However, I don’t agree with this bit:
“Swinney, ever the tactician, has pivoted from Sturgeon’s legal jousts to a “devolution max” strategy: demanding Westminster devolve referendum powers outright, or else ramp up international lobbying for a unilateral vote.”
Swinney will not be demanding or ramping up anything.
If, in the very unlikely event that Starmer called his bluff and agreed to a referendum, Swinney would actually have to do something.
Or, as Grok might say, if Starmer took a look under Swinney’s kilt he’d likely find that the latter was wearing a pair of bikini bottoms more furried that Rachael Welsh’s in 1 Million Years BC and conclude that there was nothing to fear from the FM and his party of treacherous and timid cadres.
I’d like to wish everyone a Happy Gibraltar Referendum Day! On this very day in 2002, Gibraltar held a referendum on the question of its own sovereignty, having been told explicitly by the Westminster government not to do it. They gave WM a one-fingered salute, went ahead with it, and got the result they wanted. The UK government was forced to listen. Why won’t Scotland do exactly the same?
Erm. They voted Naw by around 99%
But you’re right, Andy. May 2026 is a perfect opportunity for Scotland to vote on a plebiscitary policy for Indy.
Problem is, nae cant is interested in standing.
So at root, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the expectation is that we’d vote Naw again.
After all, politicians who are confident they are riding an unstoppable surge of support don’t chicken out. It’s not in their nature. They ride that unstoppable surge of support to victory and into power.
Happy birthday Wings!
Programmed by our southern neighbours, is it? Nothing like a few lazy stereotypes, some loaded assumptions and a bit of patronising thrown in for good measure….
“tartan-tinged manifestos” [what does that even mean?]
“a landscape as volatile as a ceilidh after midnight”
“the independence dream is as stubborn as Highland heather”
“less like a revolutionary vanguard and more like a well-worn kilt”
“siphons their base like a particularly efficient whisky still”
“Scottish independence, that perennial ex who keeps texting at 2 a.m.”
“independence looks as inviting as a haggis smoothie in a heatwave”
“Currency woes, EU re-entry hurdles, and North Sea oil’s fading glory”
“Full indy? That’s 2026’s unicorn – much discussed, rarely sighted”
“the new kid crashing the ceilidh”
“As easy to tell apart as a ray of sunshine and a Scot nursing a grievance about some ancient slight.”
For some reason that one springs to mind too.
Meh.
Can’t tell you on X because you’ve blocked me 😛 but the ostensible link to Slippers’ legal threat links back to your first ever article, which it’s presumably not meant to.
Predictable.
Pete Wishart is more akin to Arthur Dent of HHGTTG than the main protagonist of Stranger in a Strange Land.
Happy Birthday Wings, can’t say I am in any mood to celebrate either.
Happy Birthday Stuart. Enjoy the pressies, they’ll hopefully make up for the next 5 years of grinding monotony on independence.
I’m increasingly finding the electorates inability to wake up and smell the SNP coffee utterly depressing. For the sake of my mental health, I think I’ll take a back seat on hoping for a miracle when the SNP take power again next year. Life’s too short. If my generation is too stupid for independence, maybe the youngsters will succeed where we failed.
Ach, be honest Stu. You’re just following the lead set by top Scottish blogger James Kelly who has asked Grok to provide an assessment of your physical attractiveness. Thank goodness he’s not obsessed like you!
Just saw that earlier. Christ 😮
Sorry Arthur, there will be NO miracle.
Taking a back seat is a very good idea.
Happy Birthday, and many more to come.
.
This is James Kelly here, the official Minging Raving Looney Electoral Wonk candidate.
The SNP threw me out again. Then that horrible Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, OBE, said I was as welcome as a skunk at a picnic and not to darken her Alba door again. That is a bit rich from her Stewie as she is to politically promiscuity, as Russell Brand is to being a caretaker at a convent.
Stewie, I was hoping you and me could bury the hatchet and I could join up with you and become Wings Over Scotland’s political wing?
I really need the gig as an MSP gravy-train driver, because my James-Kelly-Holiday-Fund is struggling to raise more than £5 a week.
Stewie, please can you keep McGrok’s talent on the down-low as it writes 99% of my website content. If the truth gets out, then any chance I have, to “weave” cash out of the 23 Amadans who read my Scot-Goes-On-Holiday blog are toast.
Thanks, from your new best friend, James McKlingOntoYourWebsite (to borrow) a few of your readers.
😉 funny and clever.
Sod the “presents”, just open the fizz and the bag of peanuts and select an afternoon of decent movies on Netflix.
Blisssss…
Happy Birthday!
Happy Wings birthday! Please continue, your knowledge and viewpoints beyond the subject of Scottish independence are enjoyable too
Well happy birthday to you Rev. You certainly have kept me going over the last fourteen years with your wonderful hard work in spite of all the usual vicissitudes. I dont think anyone could fault you though, should you choose to pack it in and get a life, given the spineless, faceless, managerial, committee-led, bureaucratic future of our Scottish colony. I mean, one cannot exist on dry boak alone.
And I have all but given up on making any contribution to the BTL comments as i would feel a bit like walking into an argument between Vladimir and Estragon in a stage production of Waiting for Godot. I mean, it’s that bad.
Sorry i dont have anything thats positive to say about Scottish politics at this time and i probably doubt that i ever will, such is the state of the place, not to mention the world as a whole.
Ditto.
Almost Ditto, too, Frank.
I don’t have anything positive to say about Scottish politics either. It’s a dismal shit-show of mind boggling deficit and paucity.
I don’t think Stu is planning on jacking it in as such, my understanding is that WoS will still be a digest for political events (even when they are vanishingly rare) but will start to diversify into more personal interest areas (BECAUSE Scottish political events are so rare).
“…no violent offenders against women will be placed willy-nilly” – if they were willy-nilly, then it perhaps wouldn’t be so bad, but most of them definitely have willy….
Indeed, Neil 😉
Some did read and went their way
Some did read and stay
Some got answers
Some were chancers
Some spat and ran away
Some flew high
Some did lie
Some just lost their way
But none of this matters now
Some might say
Happy Birthday Wings.
I read and stay, You?
Artistic licence darling!
If it was good enough for TS Elliot then what’s the problem?
There’s no problem, Mark.
Just answer the fucking question, though?
Will you be reading and staying?
Or dyou not know yet . . . cos, orders NOT incoming yet?
14 years. 14 years of cheers, jeers, fears, smears, tears, traumas. Alex was still alive, there was still hope in Scottish hearts and minds. Sturgeon’s agenda-fluid ruinous revenge reign was still years away, her tormenting of her mentor an undreamed-of couldn’t-happen nightmare.
14 years. My god. Scotland has never been so bleak, so rudderless, so unchallenged-English-trampled-on. It’s a total tragedy. I kept waiting for a punchline to this article, for Stu to say he’d written it himself. But apparently…nope.
Nice to know braindead American xenophobia and bigotry seems custom built into its snarcy vacuous AI bowels. Bet it fluffs Elon ‘Name Like A Bad 70s Aftershave’ Musk up to Hell and back, mind you. Not much else to say. If a computer programme can do your job just as well as you can, well….
The Hell with it. Need a laugh? Here’s another edition of my silly Scottish songs destructive derision. Might as well whistle on the way to the national guilllotine. The Maiden in the National Museum in Edinburgh, that brutal bitch, will tell you the gory score about that story…
link to whorattledyourcage.blogspot.com
I like your post.
“The National Guillotine””?
Aint it just.
Happy 14th Birthday to you, WoS.
14 years and I’ve only been here for the last couple of them.
I didn’t even know WoS existed, as a THING ;-), see wot I did there? . . . until relatively recently.
As to the existential crisis (I’m not on X much these days and missed your post about broadening the range of topics on WoS to include more personal interests) I can empathise (I’m stuck in a state of almost permanent Nausea a la Sartre) . . . I say try it for 6 months and see how it goes.
One thing we ALL know, and canny disagree on (not even you Hatey 😉 ), is that you’re always on top of stats and your analysis is top notch. You’ll know quite quickly if the proposed remedy for the existential crisis is working for YOU.
As to Grok, my jury is out. That’s why the ‘Not Proven’ verdict is essential.
Happy 14th Birthday,
I hope to see WOS reach it’s 15th but with the way things are right now, I wouldn’t blame you if you decided to call it a day and focus on something else like, become a Aberdeen season ticket holder, better tearing your hair out at a team you love than trying to make sense of Scottish politics.
According to Grok Sturgeon has two left feet and the beginnings of a penis growing under her left armpit.
Will Self missed a trick.
AI again spouting shite like the drunk know all in the pub with a first line fail…
“As the chill winds of November 2025 sweep across the Highlands…”
It’s actually been exceptionally mild and unseasonably warm.
And then: “With John Swinney at the helm, the Nationalists are…”
Jeezo, it still “thinks” and punts the notion that Swinney and the SNP are nationalists when it has become plain to see they are merely devolutionists.
Last time I tried using AI to see if a headgasket was still readily available for a classic motorbike, it came up with some generic headgasket related horse shit with symptoms of headgasket failure are coolant loss and steam in exhaust.
The stupid chip brained twat didn’t know the bike in question has an air-cooled engine, therefore didn’t use coolant so couldn’t leak or be burnt to create steam.
Fuck knows why supposedly smart humans are so eager to embrace using artificial intelligence for tasks rather than using their own grey matter to develop and express their own views to proactively work to initiate the changes they purport to want.
I’m very much on the same page as you, Dan.
I’m with you on this, Dan.
I’m not at all trusting of AI.
But I do keep an open mind . . . until facts appear that make me close the door.
When I close the door, it will be permanent.
That’s how trust works.
It’s likely REFORM will be the official opposition, or will be the governing party in a patchwork coalition with the collective dregs of the Brit parties. Be sure, the REFORM voters will go and vote.
The SNP has a certain % vote but will SNP voters be motivated to vote SNP? Personally, from the moment she/her/they/them was anointed by the en masse naïveté of a dunce SNP membership, I’ve had naught but blithe disinterest in the Scottish Nonce Party.
I DO 100% blame Salmond – how could he have resigned : he betrayed us ; that said, I’m certain he regretted his resignation more than any of us. Though, I think I despise she/her/they/them nearly as much as I’m sure Salmond profoundly did. But voting SNP is a middle-management choice : not as shte as the Brit parties but can’t be trusted to protect Scotland, or the Scots – still shte but not as shte.
According to Grok Angela Constance is in fact Davros from Dr Who.
Did anyone get a email from John Swinney and Douglas Ross event as I’ve no idea why my wife would get such an email to go and see these two morons.
yes, “Swinney ever the tactician” rung too loud for me too.
Swinney, more the wee coo’rin timrous beastie.
Or perhaps more like a dead sheep in a highland beck. His friends see a leg twitch in the flow and proclaim he is now moving to cross the river; but no, another pause, another twitch he has “subtly changed direction”. Repeat ad nauseam while the acolytes sit on the banks waiting for leadership.
Leadership comes there none.
Very good and accurate imagery.
What’s a ‘beck’?
@Nae Need
I’m here till the fat lady sings.
Good!
There will be NO fat ladies singing anytime soon lol.
I like your timely sense of humour, even if I disagree with you on some things most vehemently.
WHISTLEBLOWER: ‘PRO-TRANS CABAL CENSORED BBC NEWS’
A small group of LGBT activists within the BBC censored news coverage critical of transgender ideology, it has been reported.
In a leaked internal document seen by The Daily Telegraph, Michael Prescott warned executives of fears that LGBT “desk staffers” were “keeping other perspectives off-air”.
Prescott, who worked at the corporation as an advisor on the Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee (EGSC) is to give evidence of BBC bias to MPs next week over his concerns.
‘STONEWALL VIEW’
According to the Telegraph, Prescott heard reports of “what sounded like effective censorship by the specialist LGBTQ desk within News” soon after starting his advisory role.
He wrote: “I was told that time and time again, the LGBTQ desk staffers would decline to cover any story raising difficult questions about the trans debate.
“The allegation made to me was stark: that the desk had been captured by a small group of people promoting the Stonewall view of the debate”.
He added: “There was also a constant drip-feed of one-sided stories, usually news features, celebrating the trans experience without adequate balance or objectivity.”
GENDER IDENTITY
The 19-page document by Prescott also refers to findings of an investigation conducted by EGSC senior editorial adviser David Grossman into BBC coverage of trans issues.
Grossman found “unintended editorial bias”, an absence of “significant voices”, “little or no coverage” questioning the quality of care given to gender-confused children, and a disproportionate coverage of drag queen stories.
The leaked memo also said beliefs on gender identity were often reported as “established fact rather than contested”. Too many staff, it argued, “have never considered the idea of ‘gender identity’ to be either spurious or offensive to many people”.
Referring to the story of transgender wrestler Gisele Shaw as a “typical example” of bias, the memo said the BBC account “glossed over how the wrestler, who is a biological male, had repeatedly won trophies by competing in women’s competitions”.
GUIDELINES
Responding to the story, a BBC spokesman said: “We have taken a number of actions relating to our reporting of sex and gender including updating the news style guide and sharing new guidance”.
Editorial Guidelines, which came into force in September, emphasise that journalists must cover “attitudes and opinions which some may find unpalatable or offensive” and that occasionally including such content ensures that “no significant strand of thought is under-represented or omitted”.
When contributors express “contentious views”, the guidelines stress that they “must be challenged while being given a fair chance to set out their response to appropriate scrutiny”.
The accusations of censorship closely follow a leaked memo reporting that a Panorama programme edited together two separate sections of a speech by President Trump, making it appear as though he explicitly encouraged the 2021 Capitol Hill riots.
(The Christian Institute, 7 Nov 2025)
link to christian.org.uk
This same internal memo included the doctoring of Trump’s speech in the Panorama programme and the reports claimed from Gaza that were really from Israel. The footage being supplied by Hamas. All the top cats in the BBC read and ignored their own report.
EU LGBTIQ+ EQUALITY STRATEGY FOR 2026-2030
« The Policy Department B of the European Parliament organises, upon the request of the Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, a Workshop on the new EU LGBTIQ+ Equality Strategy 2026-2030 proposed by the Commission, which follows up its previous LGBTIQ Equality Strategy covering the years 2020 – 2025.
The new Strategy will form part of the Union of Equality and is structured around three main objectives:
1) protect (ensuring safety and tackling hate against LGBTIQ+ people; countering hate and discrimination online; ensuring protection for LGBTIQ+ applicants for international protection and migrants),
2) empower (laying the foundations of LGBTIQ+ empowerment; empowering LGBTIQ+ through employment and social inclusion; ensuring equal rights across bodrers) and
3) engage (strengthening engagement within the EU; maintaining worldwide engagement to uphold LGBTIQ+ people’s human rights).
During the event, the Commission will present the new Strategy, academics, as well as FRA and stakeholders will intervene to give their perspectives and will debate with MEPs on the topic. »
link to europarl.europa.eu
I cannot decide whether that gobblygEUk looks more like spoof AI garbage, a horse designed by a committee or parodic sabotage by gender ID skeptics.
Grok – a word created by Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 novel “Stranger in a Strange Land” – is a hogwash-generating ‘Artificial Intelligence’ machine that’s hardly neutral in its assembly of the assorted bits of knowledge it siphons and cobbles together from the oceans of information publicly available on the web.
Grok also appears more than willing to endorse Elon ‘The Trillion Dollar Man’ Musk’s personal views after its launch was delayed by a week or more in order to, in Musk’s own words, “purge out the propaganda”.
Grok is little more than a sophisticated digital ‘fairground attraction’… entertaining, for some, but hardly worthy of its algorithmic output being considered in any way ‘intelligent’.
Grok’s attempts at dropping clever and witty Scottishy bits into its fabricated algorithmic pig swill titled, “…A Predictable Mess with Familiar Ghosts”, are not only massively unclever and gargantuanly witless, but are also guilty of racial stereotyping.
What a hoot, eh, Grok… ye American prick ye?
Grok also seems to be oblivious to the fact that Scotland is a colonial possession; a non-self-governing territory – and as such the Scots have no democratic voice.
The fact that the Scots have no access to real democracy has obviously escaped the magnificent analytical powers of the great Grok rendering its 2026 election predictions pointless and irrelevant – because the results of that election have already been decided and the winner is, and always will be while Scotland remains a colony, England… no matter who the Scots vote for.
Not so clever after all, eh, Grok, ye American pick ye?
“…Grok, ye American pick ye? should read Grok, ye American prick ye?”
Much better… and I got to call Grok an American prick again.
It’s intriguing to consider that as Grok simply harvests the available online data, somebody like yourself, Northy, continually posting that Scots have no hope, are fully colonised, have no recourse to democratic mechanisms, etc is reinforcing the online data that ultimately causes Grok to declare that Scots have no hope, are fully colonised, etc, etc.
Thus showing, for about the squillionth time, that the true enemies of Scotland and Indy are those who most loudly trumpet their True Scot credentials on the likes of Wings BTL. And then go on to categorically declare the cause is lost.
Or as we used to say when we could still think for ourselves, with friends like these, who needs enemies?
Luckily, I am still free to point out the bleeding obvious. There is still time for a plebiscite party to sweep the board at the 2026 HR election and use that democratically achieved mandate to declare UDI and harness international support, not least from the half-Scot in the White House.
And not all your defeatism, denial, obfuscation, greeting, gurning, cringing, whining and self-pitying “we’re a’ doomed!” can deny that simple truth.
Although, obviously, you’re having so much fun with it all you won’t be stopping any time soon.
“I got to call Grok an American prick”
Wow, Northy, what a wonderful day you’re having. Make sure to write this up on Facebook. You’ll get reminders to re-celebrate this momentous achievement every year for the rest of your life.
Sadly, the rest of your life will inevitably be a disappointing anti-climax after this triumph.
But never mind. For a few fleeting moments, the arc of your life story was at its zenith. And nobody can ever take that away from you!
“…the bleeding obvious.”
That’s an English expression ain’t it, guv?
Is there an Inglis interloper pretending to be a Scot among us here btl?
It seems not ALL pricks are American.
Well done, Northy. You’ve regressed to the potty mouthed child stage. Your life’s work is over, Indy must be just around the next corner.
The rest of us can move on to wondering why your thoughts turn again and again to the male reproductive organ. Predictably, readers will jump to unfortunate and almost certainly unwarranted conclusions.
But them’s the breaks when you allow your subconscious to do the posting for you.
TBQFH, it’s a bleedingly obvious development.
Prick!
“It’s intriguing to consider that as Grok simply harvests the available online data,”
You really need to pay more attention rather than making these evidence free assertions and assumptions, hatey.
As previously advised for your benefit above*, Grok is just like any other human constructed piece of software. Its output is determined by the algorithms it runs on. Which in turn are written and constructed by humans working for corporations with their own agendas.
Any notion that it is some neutral piece of technology simply harvesting available data rather than being selective to meet the biases written into its coding and algorithms which determine its output is about as naive and gullible as it’s possible to get.
Garbage In, Garbage out.
Which clearly is not limited to Grok or AI in general, given your own output, hatey.
*https://wingsoverscotland.com/rise-of-the-machine/#comment-3111666
Northcode at 11:09; LOL. Well said,sir!
#SP1 just isn’t worth any other response.
Rev, have you read GMK’s plan “The road to independence mapped out”? It came by email to me today.
I would be very interested to hear your opinion.
For me, a more interesting question is asking Grok whether Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty is legitimate.
The answer tells you more about Grok than it does about Scotland, (spoiler alert, the answer is a mealy mouthed “it depends who you listen to”). Here was me thinking Compters had a head start on binary issues…
Then it cites adjudications from amongst other things, the Westminster Supreme Court, – the “supreme” Court with no jurisdiction to properly exist in a constitutionally sovereign Scotland. (Omits to tell you that bit, naturally…).
Grok just makes up a word sandwich from an amalgamation of internet “facts”. Maybe AI just tells Grok to check Wikipedia, or its own new alternative Wikipedia creation…
Disapponted frankly, I hoped AI would at least manage to say “something” clever or inciteful, – but it’s just speech writer friendly, anodine waffle you can interpret according to whatever you want to hear. I suppose that’ll be the artificial bit.
Headline:
“Sturgeon: My political appetite has been reawakened but I’m not coming back”
————————-
Because she knows that nobody fucking cares about her or her book.
Can an AI play Stop The Express? Can it??
Well, it kinda does, of course, since the attract mode is a complete replay of your last game…
Aye, 14 year ago wha kent independence wis decolonization? Wha kent leeberation wis oor anely remeed for a colonized fowk? Wha kent the United Nations haes a Decolonization Committee? Wha kent Self Determination wis a human richt?
Noo awbody kens us Scots are doun-hauden, or thay shuid ken:
link to jpti.ch
Wha kent words in Scots use the letter ‘z’ where Scots reasonably expect them to use the letter ‘s’?
14 years ago, wha predicted anybody would try to educate and inform apolitical Scots using a language comprehended by less than half of us?
In any language, that’s a textbook example of someone who cares far more about their virtue signalling ideological purity than they do about getting the message out.
Again and again you demonstrate that colonialism only works by -‘de-basing the colonized’ (Memmi), stressing their supposedly ‘invalid’ or ‘inferior’ language, their ‘strange’ culture, questioning even their ethnicity, and their ability to govern themselves. All of which reflects colonial racism.
Well said, Alf.
First thing is happy birthday Wings. Lang may your lum reek.
Second thing is that your lum will need to reek lang. This A1 Malarkey, good as it appears, is only a collage of information written by humans, or at least as I think, it might be so.
But no humans, no AI data for it to work on. What if A! learns on the data set of previous AI generated stuff. Nae regression to the mean there. Rubbish in, rubbish in, a runaway rubbish mountain all around. Mind you when you read some of the comments here you wonder.
And what about accent or should I say dialect. If no human input, or the wrong human input, or the galloping AI input of previous AI input cumulating on previous AI – why is it that AI or Grok wouldn’t write or is it rite, or is it right, like Chaucer with a blas na Beurla.
Ah it is too late of the bewitching hour. Enough cogitation save to say again, happy birthday Wings and lang may your lum leak. And so Rev Stu, stay away from the the Grok, or is it the Grog.
One man’s Grok is another man’s poison.
Some good points, willie.
Endless posts of the “we’re doomed” variety just feed back into the AI narrative of “we’re doomed”.
Not that this observation is new. BTL has long been a despairing pit of no-hopers endlessly regurgitating a mix of despondency and potty-mouthed insults.
It’s an eternal conundrum. Those who profess to be the staunchest pro-Indy supporters generally do the most to ensure everybody else turns away in despair and disgust.
The classic exclusionary behaviour of the cultist.
All of it feeding into the result that an apolitical Scot, typing into her search engine “What hopes for Indy?” gets an answer that drives her to seek other causes and interests elsewhere.
Ah, and here is why, Rev Stu could have been influencing Grog in his narrative. Its an explanation of how Large Language Models apparently operate.
LLMs leverage deep learning techniques and are typically based on the transformer architecture, which excels at handling sequential data like text input. Transformers use a mechanism called self-attention to focus on different parts of the input text, allowing the model to understand the context and relationships between words. This architecture enables LLMs to process longer sequences of text more efficiently than previous models.
During training, LLMs learn to predict the next word in a sentence based on the context provided by the preceding words. This is achieved by tokenizing the text into smaller sequences of characters, which are then transformed into numeric representations called embeddings
The model is trained on massive corpora of text, allowing it to learn grammar, semantics, and conceptual relationships through self-supervised learning.
Interesting isn’t it. But isn’t so interesting that hidden hands behind behind Grog and his like could be getting fed duff info, or manipulated to produce duff info.
History they say was written in the tongue of the victor. And of course, more recently it was apparently said, that whoever controls AI will control the world.
Welcome to the machine folks as we stumble forward like donkeys who for the most part are blissfully unaware of what lies ahead in the next few years.
Or is it all the boat people and the immigrants fault?
Interesting post, Willie.
I think my aversion/scepticism to all things AI is instinctive.
I simply don’t trust it enough.
Why the cynicism Nae Need?
Has not the self-identifying and self-appointed gatekeeper of the acceptable narrative declared that [checks notes] “Grok simply harvests the available online data”, so there should be nothing to worry about?
So best get that heid stuck back in the sand and “Don’t look up!” You wouldn’t want to risk being pilloried for wrongthink and lose your status as an [checks notes again] “ordinary, decent person”, would you?
“History they say was written in the tongue of the victor. And of course, more recently it was apparently said, that whoever controls AI will control the world.”
A salient point, Willie, which once again raises the question of not only what the definition of “control” is in this context but also that of differing definitions of the term.
Here, for example, is a well known quote attributed to Karl Rove of the GW Bush Administration:
“The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ […] ‘That’s not the way the world really works any more,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality?—?judiciously, as you will?—?we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’”
– Ron Suskin October 17th 2004 “Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush”. The New York Times Magazine. ISSN0028–7822
Which points very clearly to a definition based on controlling narratives. A definition which is all pervasive across this small corner of the globe.
Meanwhile, here’s a very different concept of the term and the process in regard to the different development approaches of AI which may be of interest:
link to warwickpowell.substack.com
“A definition which is all pervasive across this small corner of the globe”
Sure, Dave. If only we lived in a place that doesn’t control the narrative.
Orcland, Covid Central or the People’s Smiling Paradise Of North Korea, for example. They all have completely free, open, unfettered and un-monitored access to everything, whether in the physical world, or online.
See this place here, Wings BTL. Every poster who has ever posted anything scurrilous, slanderous, questioning, made-up, impertinent, rude, secret, disloyal, prejudicious to the crown, or just plain daft has disappeared without trace.
Never to be seen again by anyone. EVERY SINGLE POSTER.
We all know this, but we’re all scared to acknowledge this fundamental truth.
Once again, hatey, apologies for the late response and having to self-censor by forgoing the normal practice of the courtesy of providing supporting evidence. As yet again, my original response did not make the cut.
So much for your ten-minute theory.
————————
Firstly, it would be useful, hatey, if you could point out where it was claimed narratives are not controlled anywhere else?
The key point being the level of control. You might want to do a bit of research on Edward Berneys – whose approach on these matters inspired, let’s (to be on the safe side) go with, a well known European propagandist of the 20th century – along with considering some of the many available examples in just recent times. Some of which were provided in the original post, which didn’t make the cut.
On which note, thanks for proving my point for me with your caricature level examples. You might want to consider from where, and by what process, you arrive at the perceptions which underpin those examples. Along with the point once put to journalist Andrew Marr:
“I’m sure you believe all you say. But what I’m saying is that if you believed something different, you would not be sitting in that chair.”
Perceptions – and, on the basis of the evidence so far, I’m going to have to be careful here not to use any trigger words which are likely to send this post into the Orwellian memory hole incinerator – which portray the contemporary followers of a cult responsible for events which we partly commemorated our role in dealing with over this recent weekend, as the good guys;
Perceptions which ignore the evidence (which I can provide but which may risk this post not making the cut) that a global health issue of recent times was discovered on the North American continent before its discovery in a part of the Far East (hopefully that framing is sufficiently neutral and does not “trigger” anyone or any system?);
Perceptions that ignore the very real comparative material gaps between a cultural paradigm where Capital controls the demos and one where the Demos controls capital.
But well done, hatey. You are living proof of the point you so poorly attempted to disprove.
BART SIMPSON PUTS HIS FINGER ON INDEXICALITY
This is a (now deleted?) example from a Wiki item on “indexicality” —
An episode of the Simpsons has the following exchange between park ranger Robot Smokey Bear, and Bart.
On his chest, Robot Smokey Bear carries the motto:
“Only YOU can prevent forest fires”.
The exchange goes like this —
ROBOT SMOKEY BEAR: Only WHO can prevent forest fires?
(Bart has the choice between the buttons “ME” and “YOU,” so he presses “YOU.”)
ROBOT SMOKEY BEAR: You pressed YOU, referring to ME. That is incorrect. The correct answer is YOU.
My goodness (and I’m not really all that good, tbf, so I probably should say ‘My partial goodness’ or ‘My Lesser-Spotted Goodness’)
Fearghas, you don’t half have some interesting things to say . . .
I feel the exchange tween RSB and Bart are now typical of many aspects of modern life. A total head-fuck.
This one’s not so funny…
ROBOT AIR AN OIR
Sìos leathad breac sleamhainn na beinne,
siod seann robot fuamhaireil meirgeach
a’ tuisleachadh le stàirn is le gleadhraich
tro iomairean làn chàl is snèipean.
Crùbte am broinn eanchainne sradagach
mar luch bàn air bhoil ‘s ann an èiginn
mise ri spàirn le luamhanan reasgach
mus plùm mi san dubh-aigeann fhuar.
ROBOT ON THE EDGE
Down the slippery patchwork hillside,
A huge ancient rust-covered robot
Careering with screeching and clatter
Through neat plots of cabbage and turnip.
Hunched within its short-circuiting brain
Like some terminally demented white mouse
I struggle in vain with seized levers
Before plunging deep in the freezing dark sea.
Ah the black sea cold. Tis the place we will all be in no time.
But how does AI know to put the adjective before or after the noun. This is important. Rev Stu or Stu Rev. Personally I detect an English bias with Stu being the noun and reverend being the adjective.
Or what about the meaning of you’ll have had your chips. Well have you. Is it a question or is it a statement. I prefer the latter interpretation. But one gets the drift. We’re all in the brave new world together and you’ll not be unhappy about that.
Maybe some erudite Wings reader could enlighten.
We might be far, far, better off if Grok replaced everybody at Holyrood…..
It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference these days.
In the end it won’t be politics or diplomacy or economics or finance or statistics or logic or reason that moves the Scots to be done with the ‘union’.
It will be raw, unfettered emotion careless of everything but the desire to be rid of that which has been fixed to Scotland’s back and leeching the life from her for centuries.
It will be the realisation that their way of living and their culture and their traditions and themselves as a people are being killed off only to be replaced by another, foreign, culture as alien to the Scots had it arrived on a spacecraft from another world.
It will be the realisation that their oppressor hates the Scots and will never come to a sharing and amicable arrangement with them.
And It will be the realisation that any argument presented to the Scots in favour of a union with England is nothing more than an invitation to sacrifice themselves and their nation for the benefit of another people.
Once the Scots come to the realisation that their choice is this alone – fade to nothing or end the union and make their own way in the world as best they can as a free people – then the choice is simple and easily made whichever path is chosen.
In other words, the Scots as a people can choose to live on or choose to die out… there is nothing between.
It could be said that what Alf Baird is telling the Scots through his book Doun-Hauden is this… “Come with me if you want to live”.
I would be surprised if more than 2% of Scot’s felt anything like that. .
Bingo, Aidan!
Don’t you ever read Northy’s posts – eternally wanging oan and oan about the moral superiority of the Scots, above all other races on God’s green earth?
The belief we’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns is baked into 98% of our DNA.
It’s only the 2% represented by Northy here who object to sharing our bounty with everybody else. And that includes the English.
Lovely people BTW, and by and large, they don’t treat our lassies like fourth-class citizens.
Have you spotted how Northy believes the language spoken, read and written by the majority of us, including 99% of the posters on here, is as alien as if it came from another world? It’s enough to make anybody thank heaven they don’t work in the SNHS 🙂
Then prepare to be surprised.
Now… where did I put my matches?
That right, aye? But, what do you know, eh?
As you’ve proved time and again on here it’s not very much.
[That was for “Aidan”, obviously]
“The belief we’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns is baked into 98% of our DNA.”
A belief that is, sadly for most of the world’s peoples, rather misplaced – and in the case of the author of the sentence above quite hilarious.
There is an element of truth to the aphorism, “We are all Jock Tamson’s bairns” meaning ‘the human race, common humanity’ – a noble sentiment, but I’m afraid one that is inappropriate when applied to Jock Tamson.
For only a small portion of humanity entire could ever be labelled Jock Tamson’s bairns.
The Reverend John Thompson (aka Jock Tamson) was a much-loved minister of Duddingston Kirk from 1805 to 1840 who engaged in much-loving.
Indeed, it is supposed that most of his congregation was related to him rather more directly than was suspected at the time.
It is true that some who wander this place might well be descendants of Jock Tamson… but a maist unlikely circumstance if those folk are English.
And that is all I will tell of the true meaning behind the phrase made famous by my direct ancestor, John Thompson and his many offspring.
Now folk ken wha is the thrawn auld meenister of the Kirk wha on the odd Sunday will tak possessioun o’ ma senses and throu me deleever ye a sermon.
“set brush fires in the minds of men”
So there’s half the population ruled out. I guess Sharia just can’t come soon enough for some boys.
Your matches go up in flames every time your breeks spontaneously combust, Northy.
The remedy is in your own hands – stop posting lies on here.
Rev, is the “Contact” button working now, please?
@ Northcode: I think you are right. Why would any Scot want their country and culture to be subservient to another country or culture? It doesn’t make sense.
That is the way to approach the topic of independence in conversation – see if a spark is struck.
“Why would any Scot want their country and culture to be subservient to another country…
Aye, Sarah. It’s mystery to me too.
I believe, and I’m sure Alf Baird has mentioned it on here before, that it’s a psychological condition suffered by some victims of colonialism.
And those who pine to be in the EU.
You forgot them, Northy. Perhaps you count yourself in their number.
Not impressed with AI bots’ verbiage, ah must admit. I daresay it’ll get ‘likes’ from the other millions of ‘bots’ (theoretically human or otherwise) exchanging ‘content’ in the digitalosphere.
In reality women (and some men) will continue to fight for the implementation of the Supreme Court ruling (which didn’t ‘redefine’ anything by the way). More and more adverse consequences of the gender nonsense will come to light and slowly starve financial support from that particular fad (which is already going rapidly out of fashion), regardless of the automated sneers of certain-agenda programmed AI bots.
Hostile forces, self-serving careerists, and political cowardice have ‘done a number’ on The Independence Movement in the obvious, short term.
But the very forces that have driven numerous ‘English unionists’ North to Scotland could in the end create ‘recruits to the cause’, in a manner few seem to have yet considered.
As both non-european and American influence grows in England, it is unlikely that English immigrants settled in Scotland will be content to see their new home follow the fate of their old one.
Scots have often looked back at the 1300s Independence struggle for inspiration. But perhaps the waning power of a Roman Empire that exerted considerable control over Caledonia (despite ‘our’ theoretically separate ‘government), is a better fit nowadays?
Reputedly, retreating Romans were distracted from completing a conquest they were winning. By more lucrative careers elsewhere. By interpersonal squabbles. By shifting politics elsewhere.
Also reputedly (I’m no historian), as many as four out of seven tribal chiefs who reasserted the Celtic independent credentials of Caledonian regions were of Roman names, Roman military experience, descended from Roman-military-system immigration origins.
The decimated, culturally weakened, likely leaderless, and internicine-warfare prone tribes found leadership from thoroughly Romanised ‘immigrants’. ‘It takes one to know one’, so these leaders prevailed against the already weakened Romans.
Just as De Bruce had no intention of becoming a subordinate Norman Baron, but intended to be running his OWN kingdom, so the Roman-extraction, Dark Ages tribal chiefs took the opportunity to create their OWN kingdoms within Caledonia.
Like Bruce they had some non-Norman/Roman blood. And like Bruce their families/genetics/’foreign’ culture didn’t become dominant here, due to simple arithmetic.
The combination of stronger ambition perhaps than ‘the locals’, inside knowledge of ‘the colonising power’, enough ‘rebel’ status to be accepted while perhaps retaining some distance from local petty feuds, was maybe what was required.
In the short term the cost may be an apparently terminal weakening of our culture and languages, but English immigrants may well begin to behave like ‘Pretti’ Patel. A Border between The Kingdom of Scotland and The Kingdom of England would enable them to ‘hang onto what they’ve got’.
Anglian and Viking invaders complicated the picture, but Strathclyde, Fife, Alba, and eventually Scotland did not become Roman, Saxon, or even Norman kingdoms. They remained essentially. And (Until 1707) independent of our Southern neighbours.
‘Scotland’s raison d’etre is geographical, historical, legal, cultural-linguistic. In that order. And always has been.
That’s my opinion anyway.