Wings Over Scotland

One month ago, writing a mild political slogan on a wall in Scotland in chalk – which washes off instantly at the first sign of a damp cloth or a small shower of rain – was enough to have uniformed officers of Police Scotland turn up at your door on suspicion of hate crime, conspiracy and breach of the peace.

Of course, that depends wholly on which views you’re expressing.

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We’re assuming, naturally, that the First Minister will be duly suspended from the SNP while these shocking allegations are fully investigated, just like Gareth Wardell, Denise Findlay, Neale Hanvey, Mark McDonald, Michelle Thomson, Neil Hay, etc etc etc were.

We’re not, of course. And nor should she be, because “shared a platform with” is the ugly ginger stepchild of fake-outrage cancel culture – lower on the smear scale even than “liked a tweet by” or “linked an article by someone who completely separately had an unfashionable opinion on a completely different subject several years ago”. It’s absolute guff punted only by scumbags.

Nevertheless, the uncomfortable fact is that those are precisely the crimes for which other people WERE suspended and/or ostracised from the party, and we can’t help wishing the SNP’s flagrant hypocrisy about it was just a little bit less obvious and less arrogantly blatant, so that it wasn’t quite so painfully offensive to any decent person, and so that we weren’t having to fight quite so hard to keep believing in independence when we see the grim state of the Scotland that’s taking shape before our eyes.

But hey, we are where we are.

We almost missed something today because it was hidden behind a bad headline.

One way or another, the current hell of Scottish politics will soon be at an end.

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Something most people don’t know about the infamous Spanish Inquisition is that it was never the Catholic Church that actually executed heretics. Particularly if a prisoner had refused to confess their vile heresy even under torture, the Church instead handed them over to the “mercy” of the state to deliver their end.

So SNP MP Kirsty Blackman (or as we understand some are already calling her, “the Tiny Torquemada“) would have fitted right in with it.

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Some days it’s not even worth trying to get your jaw off the floor.

Yeah, THAT Neil Mackay.

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More great news, right?

Except, sadly, it’s completely untrue.

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Anyone who’s followed the UK political media over the last decade or so with specific reference to Scotland will know that in a very crowded field, the standout poster boy for arrogant, condescending metropolitan cluelessness is the Independent’s chief political commentator John Rentoul.

For reasons which escape us, Rentoul – who was born in India and as far as we know has spent not a single day of his life resident in Scotland – identifies as Scottish. And yet he doesn’t appear to even recognise the concept of Scotland as a political entity, and today he demonstrated that fact in a manner so stark and striking that it’s worth recording for posterity.

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Remember this guy? Go on, give it a minute, it’ll come to you.

He popped up today to chuck in his tuppence-worth about inflammatory language in politics, and how – like everything else bad – it all started with vile cybernats in 2014 (because as you’ll of course remember, it was Yes supporters who never shut up about “surrendering”) and has now sullied even the dignified halls of Westminster.

We wonder how that can have happened.

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(Editor’s note: as a result of this cartoon, Mr Cairns has been sent on mandatory administrative leave of absence to let’s call it a “health spa” for the next two weeks. While he’s receiving let’s call it “therapy”, fill the gap by purchasing the latest volume of his works, which is guaranteed not to contain this one, we can only hope and pray.)
.

Honestly, readers, our job is like shooting fish in a barrel sometimes.

Gosh, whoever would take such a scandalous and unprincipled position?

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We’re being somewhat generous with the numbering here, to be honest, but you’ve got to start the official count somewhere, right?

Alert readers will recall that current Scottish Labour policy is to enshrine in law the right to a free bus pass for all Scots over the age of 60:

This time last year, for example, their transport spokesman Colin Smyth specifically and indignantly condemned any possible suggestion by the dastardly SNP of perhaps increasing the qualifying age from 60 to state pension age (currently 65 and due to rise to 68 and beyond), saying:

“Sadly, the scheme is now under threat with SNP ministers refusing the rule out increasing the age citizens can qualify for a pass in a bid to try and save money. Ordinary people in their 60s should not be paying the price of Tory austerity because the SNP refuse to use the powers of the parliament to fund our services properly.”

A commendably unambiguous and righteous position. Indeed, the North British branch of Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist party announced at this year’s conference that if elected they’d not only keep the threshold at 60, but would extend free bus travel immediately to everyone in Scotland under 25, and then swiftly to everyone of any age.

So we can safely assume that in Wales, where Labour have been in power for all 20 years of the devolved Assembly, all those things will already be happening, because otherwise it’d just be embarrassing.

At the very least, we can be certain that there’s no chance of the qualifying age going up from 60 to state pension age, because we already know that Labour regard that as a scandalous and unthinkable moral outrage.

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Let the bells ring out and rejoice.

Still, at least the Record hasn’t been so completely lacking in self-awareness as to point a finger at others in Scotland and say something like “far too many people who should know better are complicit in the tragedy”.

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