Wings Over Scotland

As we’re writing this, our YouTube channel remains dead. We’re still trying to navigate through YouTube’s awful maze of robotic guards to reach a human being, and while at least two newspapers – The National and the Scotsman – have asked the BBC for a comment, none has been forthcoming.

The mainstream media’s attacks on this site in the last couple of years have included getting our Twitter account shut down in 2016, getting me arrested, having all of Wings’ electronic equipment confiscated by the police and now killing our YouTube channel full of crucial documentary evidence, most of which isn’t available anywhere else. (On top of an endless catalogue of smear stories and hatchet jobs, of course.)

Now, we’re not planning on going anywhere, but in the face of such a concerted and increasingly sinister assault aimed at silencing us, we also can’t make any guarantees that Wings itself will continue to survive. WordPress may prove as fragile in the face of malice as Twitter and YouTube have.

So in case we fall victim to another unexpected technical/censorship catastrophe, or suddenly commit “suicide”, you might want to strengthen the rest of the team.

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I hope you’ll forgive a personal indulgence here, folks.

Especially alert readers may recall that just before the independence referendum in 2014 I came home and attended a number of events, including being smuggled into a huge, fascinating and enlightening Muslim Friends Of Labour meeting at the Marriot Hotel in Glasgow just a few days ahead of the vote.

The man who managed to somehow get a solitary white guy into a room of 1000 Asian people was my friend Irshad Malik (known to all simply as Malik). At the time Malik was running a convenience store in Bathgate (in addition to an office job elsewhere), where my parents live and have known him for many years.

He’s a committed Yesser, a tireless worker and gave The Wee Blue Book out in the shop (one of very few places in Bathgate which sold The National from day 1).

I mention this now because he’s in a spot of bother, and I owe him one.

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So, yeah, this happened:

The new crowdfunding platform we used this year is a curious and arcane beast, and as a result the honest truth is that we’re still not quite 100% certain what the precise final total (including “offsite” donations and a few that squeezed in after the technical deadline) is. But as best as we can make out, including everything, it’s this:

£153,215

And, y’know, good heavens.

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With 14 hours to go:

Like, wow, readers 🙂

…is all you have to put up with before we stop nagging you for cash again for another year. The 2018 Wings fundraiser ends tomorrow morning, so this is your last chance to put a little of your money where our mouth is.

(Fundraiser page here, or click here to donate directly.)
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The current total stands at a phenomenal £128,600 – already the second-highest ever by a five-figure margin, and just £11,447 short of the all-time record.

So one last time, we’re going to remind you:

– the average Wings reader gives the BBC £72 a year, and Wings just 43p.

– the Unionist “grassroots” organisations who we also have to fight are funded by Lords, Dukes, Earls, Countesses, Sirs and billionaires.

– we use your money to produce stuff that actually makes a difference, rather than just lecturing an internet audience that already agrees with us.

– we’re the only pro-indy site the Unionist/media establishment fears enough to constantly attack, smear and try to silence.

If any of that is worth anything to you, now’s the time to show it, folks.

We’re at the halfway point of our 2018 fundraiser, and the all-sources total so far is a thumpingly impressive £103,266 in just two weeks. But while that’s a tremendous sum, it’s sobering too.

Firstly because with an average monthly readership of  nearly 304,000 people it comes to an average contribution of slightly under 30p per reader. As with most crowdfunded ventures, fewer than 1% of the site’s users have actually backed it financially so far.

And secondly because for perspective, the average Scottish adult – independence supporters included – sends the BBC about £72 a year. (£323m from 4.5m adults.)

While obviously a minority of folk do boycott the licence fee, that still means that the average Wings reader gives the BBC 240 times as much money every year as they give Wings to fight it.

And as well as its own output, which is hugely financially incentivised in favour of the Union, the BBC is now using your money to directly fund Scottish newspapers hostile to independence by paying them to hire more reporters.

(It’ll then also massively amplify those hostile voices by featuring them on multiple daily “papers review” shows from which online media with readerships many times bigger are arbitrarily excluded, enabling the anti-independence outlets to dictate the political news agenda every day without having to sell a single copy.)

So, y’know, it’s a tough job.

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And fire it into the heart of the Union.

(Fundraiser page here, or click here to donate directly.)

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2 days remaining. Running total (all sources) at 9am, Thu 5 April: £127,400.

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Just a quick one-week-on update: thanks to your incredible support, our fundraiser for legal action now stands at a phenomenal £14,683 including all sources. We’re well beyond the initial target of £5000, but since even a modestly-eminent QC costs slightly over £8 a minute, every extra penny helps.

Click pic to go to the Indiegogo fundraiser page, or click here to use PayPal.

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The Yes movement, like almost all movements, is plagued with a small but incredibly loud faction of intolerant, destructive extremists. Alert readers will have noticed that this site has again been the victim of them this week, but we’re not alone. They’ve also gone after two print publications – The National and iScot – over their “transgressions” against the beliefs of these self-appointed arbiters of what people are allowed to think.

What those two outlets and Wings have in common is achievement.

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Click pic to go to the Indiegogo fundraiser page, or click here to use PayPal.
All-sources total as of 9am, Tuesday 25 July: £11,640.

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Actually, mighty King Leonidas is understating here. It was 311% in the end.

Wings Over Scotland 2017 fundraiser total: £140,047.

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1 day remaining. Total at noon, April 2: £132,072 (Since last update: £975)
(Including non-Indiegogo donations via PayPal, bank transfer etc.)