Wings Over Scotland

Presented without comment.

Readers will be aware that Wings has been experiencing some enormous amounts of traffic this year, and it’s not only among the general public. Someone just forwarded us a reply they got today to an FOI request, and it reveals the site’s popularity – well, maybe that’s not exactly the right word – in Scotland’s corridors of power.

The last time someone asked that question (last October) the figure for Scottish Government computers accessing Wings over a six-month period was just under 1100, so the latest numbers represent an increase of almost 30%.

(It should be noted that the two periods overlap, so the true like-for-like increase is probably considerably more. Unfortunately the two requesters didn’t ask about the same sites so we don’t have direct comparisons, but we’re sure Craig Murray will be pleased with the #2 slot even though his site is currently closed because the Scottish Government, in the shape of the Lord Advocate, is trying to put him in jail for it.)

So a big special wave tonight to all our readers in the Scottish Government. We’re sure it’s nice to know of at least one place that’ll tell you the truth about what’s going on.

Nicola Sturgeon’s progressive New SNP, for people who celebrate punitive rape.

Do give them both your votes, won’t you? #BeKind.

Let’s break this down, shall we?

Won’t take long.

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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.

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Yesterday’s evidence session at the Fabiani inquiry had several standout moments, but by a narrow margin this was our favourite.

And just in case you were wondering, yes, that IS Scotland’s top prosecutor, the Lord Advocate, chief of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, James Wolffe QC, repeatedly refusing to tell an MSP whether or not it’s a criminal offence in Scotland to refuse to comply with a court-ordered search warrant.

So next time you’ve ramraided a load of iPads and the polis come knocking on your door asking if they can have a nosy around your attic for them, just tell them they can’t come in because it’s a matter of your motivations.

Let us know how that works out for you.

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Well, obviously you.

Any more?

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We’d been wondering why our traffic was so crazy high that we’d already smashed last month’s four-year record to bits with a full week of February still to go.

And then we found out.

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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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You can’t ask for more from a day than making this sleazy wee sexual pervert weep.

But be assured we’ll keep reaching for the prize time and again, folks.

Oh, and never, ever forget this true fact – Wings Over Scotland wouldn’t exist at all if it wasn’t for James Mackenzie. We hope he’s in tears about that forever.

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We suppose this is a sort of compliment, in at least two senses.

The second of them, of course, being the sheer surprise of some people at discovering that not everyone is as cynical and devious as they evidently are themselves.

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