There are two articles on the Spectator website today relating to last night’s breaking story about Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon. One of them readers of this site have seen already, because the Spectator has literally just cut and pasted it in its entirety from Wings (without any attribution or acknowledgement).
It’s the text of Salmond’s submission to the Hamilton inquiry, and we know they copied it from us (rather than having been leaked it independently) because of this paragraph:
As we told readers last night, that redaction was made by us – not by Salmond – as an extra precaution to prevent the possibility of one of the complainers in the criminal trial from being identified. It didn’t appear in Salmond’s actual submission, and so Wings is the only possible source for it being in the Spectator.
Stealing our story lock, stock and barrel without a credit is rather poor form from the magazine, but it’s the other piece we’re more concerned about.
If this site seems to spend most of its time being angry at the SNP these days, that’s because we are. And a large part of that is because there’s very little that hacks us off more than people insulting our intelligence.
Smith’s tweet is just a crassly offensive flat-out lie. This week’s vote is NOT about “EU membership”. The United Kingdom hasn’t been a member of the EU since 31 January. We’ve already left and there’s no going back. The vote is about whether we leave with a sliver of a trade deal slightly reducing the self-inflicted harm, or the total catastrophe of no deal at all, and it’s just crushingly embarrassing for all concerned that Smith thinks so little of his own supporters as to believe he can “frame” it otherwise.
We’ve just received the most extraordinary Freedom Of Information response from the Scottish Government, readers. Trust us, you want to go and make yourselves a strong cup of tea before you read it. Or get this guy to bring you one.
We’re grumpy this morning, readers, because it’s Sunday and we were planning a long lie and then someone told us about this. It’s the First Minister appearing on the Sophy Ridge show on Sky News at around 8.45am and you need to see it.
In news that will come as a shock to absolutely no readers at all, McDougall wasn’t just lying, and wasn’t just wrong about one thing, but was both wrong and lying about pretty much everything he said.
Both of the Yes camp’s “scare stories” which were sneeringly mocked by McDougall during a BBC debate in Inverness actually came true – the Tories DID win the next election, and Johnson DID end up as leader of the party and then as Prime Minister.
(McDougall burst into tears at Scottish Labour HQ on the night of the 2015 election as his party lost 40 of its 41 seats despite his services as Jim Murphy’s speechwriter and adviser, his powers of chortling seemingly having deserted him.)
The Daily Record today carries a piece by Scottish Labour MPs Ian Murray and Martin Whitfield (no, us either) bitterly attacking their leadership over the Euro election results.
The two men complain that Jeremy Corbyn and Richard Leonard won’t listen to them, and insist that the party must “heed the people” if it ever wants to wield power again.
So it’s a bit ironic that they won’t take their own advice.
Wings Over Scotland isn’t the only website dedicated to scrutinising the truthfulness of things claimed by politicians and media pundits. There’s the widely-respected and diligent FullFact.org, there’s Scotland’s own The Ferret, and there’s the BBC’s Reality Check (which frequently takes the more unconventional approach of, er, not making a finding either way about what the reality of things is).
And then there’s Channel 4’s FactCheck, which we’re going to generously assume had a liquid lunch yesterday and was a little under the weather.
Because not only is the conclusion that it reached on the subject of an independent Scotland having to use the Euro utter nonsense that’s been debunked roughly 1000 times in the last six years, it doesn’t even agree with itself.
Michael Glackin of the Sunday Times is the only serious contender to the Scotsman’s demented Brian Wilson as the most poisonously, blindly instinctive hater of anything even passingly connected to the SNP or independence in the Scottish media. His weekly bilious rants in the paper make even Scottish Daily Express hacks wince and say “Blimey, that’s a bit strong”.
But even by those standards, this week’s column is quite something. So let’s take a little look at just how much of an idiot you can make of yourself if you never allow facts to get in the way of your rage.
The extremely sharp and perceptive New Statesman writer Stephen Bush buries some of his political insight in a daily email newsletter (because, we assume, his fax machine doesn’t work, you can’t send telegrams any more and London flats don’t have enough room to keep a lot of messenger pigeons or let you send smoke signals).
And it’s a lot easier just to quote you a chunk of today’s than it is to rewrite the same observations into a new article ourselves.
twathater on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “@ Aiden 7.07pm you and others including Stuart Campbell talk of coordinated action to bring down the snp, in your…” Jan 9, 02:11
Young Lochinvar on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “H McH @ 7.15 I am not adverse to analogies or metaphors, but: 1. The mature tree would have to…” Jan 9, 00:44
Alf Baird on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Postcolonial theory is actually a reflection of what happens during the period of colonialism. It is essentially looking back, after…” Jan 8, 22:16
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “THE TIME MACHINE by H. G. WELLS Beginning of Chapter 4: « In another moment we were standing face to…” Jan 8, 21:49
DaveL on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “I’m still getting a good laugh at your yappy wee sidekick Insider by the way with his “listen son…” “hey…” Jan 8, 21:23
DaveL on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “In a land of a million Hateys and Alf the boss had been bombing and slaughtering them for eight years…” Jan 8, 21:03
DaveL on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Hatey doesn’t believe silence speaks volumes at all. He’s certainly never tried it, It’s likely not in the nazi playbook.…” Jan 8, 20:53
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Naw, Alf, I’m not about to take lessons from the kind of people who would be implacably hostile to me,…” Jan 8, 20:25
Alf Baird on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““Recognised as alien, foreign imports by everybody else in Scotland” That sounds awfu like British Exceptionalism, Hatey. Intellectual excellence is…” Jan 8, 19:53
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Shakespeare, Huxley, Wells. Not one of them penned a single word of Scots in their entire life. Sure you’re OK,…” Jan 8, 19:20
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Depestre and Senghor. Acknowledged as Scots in these tourist shops on the Royal Mile that will run up an over-priced…” Jan 8, 19:14
Aidan on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “@TH you acknowledge the SNP tree has to come down BUT you’re avoiding the kind of coordinated action required to…” Jan 8, 19:07
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Not quite sure what you’re saying there, sam, unless it’s that the descendants of the people who were there hundreds…” Jan 8, 19:02
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Bwuhahahahahaha! Hey! This is fun. Must do more. They do say laughter is the best medicine. “They” being the people…” Jan 8, 18:48
Hatey McHateface on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “The whisky experts talk of the legs of a dram. You must be seeing raised right arms in your whiskey.” Jan 8, 18:24
twathater on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “@ John Main 7.15am REAL independence supporters know that the big tree snp has to be chopped down to ensure…” Jan 8, 18:18
Marie on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “If you are not allowed to own your own thoughts and express your own opinions then you do not live…” Jan 8, 17:51
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “HOME SECRETARY FACES LEGAL ACTION OVER HATE CRIME POLICING Free speech campaigner Harry Miller is seeking a judicial review on…” Jan 8, 17:04
Alf Baird on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““It’s a rotten system and should be called out whenever it happens” Indeed, and many people in Venezuela, Greenland, in…” Jan 8, 16:20
factchecker on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “James Cheyne says: 8 January, 2026 at 12:09 am The biggest offence is calling it Scotland parliament. A fair point.…” Jan 8, 16:18
James on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Maybe it’s a Scottish yin heading for Westminster?” Jan 8, 15:00
sam on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““Search Assist Early Inhabitants of Greenland Initial Settlement The first humans are believed to have arrived in Greenland around 2500…” Jan 8, 14:02
James Barr Gardner on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Why has The National showing a different oil tanker to all the other papers ? The oil tanker in most…” Jan 8, 13:15
Northcode on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: ““The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.” -…” Jan 8, 13:10
DaveL on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “I’m just laughing at you ya cunt. You’d be Hatey eh. Laughing! Anyone else?” Jan 8, 12:50
TURABDIN on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “GREENLAND INDEPENDENCE. from WIKI. «A 2025 poll showed that a majority 84% of Greenlanders would support independence from Denmark, with…” Jan 8, 12:49
Chas on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “I had high hopes for the Alba Party when it was formed. It seems my optimism was misplaced. Would it…” Jan 8, 12:42
willie on Grandpa John’s Nightmare: “Never a truer word spoken by Alf Baird when he says colonialism is force. Just look at the history of…” Jan 8, 12:22
