As we’ve repeatedly pointed out, Wings has made NO comments about the “workplace harassment” allegations made against Alex Salmond several years ago. We’ve only commented on the CRIMINAL allegations, and workplace harassment isn’t a crime. (It’s a matter for an employment tribunal, not the police.)
But the real question is WHY Andy Wightman is so doggedly attached to these two complainers that he’s determined to keep digging himself further into a hole of lies. And everyone knows what you tend to find when you start digging holes.
“Hello Stuart. We’ve been contacted by a reader who says he also contacted you about a post on the website in the early hours of Saturday. Referring to Nicola Sturgeon, the poster says “Decapitating this witch would stop the SNP dead in their tracks.”
Our reader, Ian Reid, an SNP activist in the Borders, has been a regular Wings reader but was taken aback by the language. He had hoped you would have deleted the post, but that hasn’t happened.
He has reported it to the police and given a statement to them.
He has also given us these comments on why the Alba Party should condemn this sort of material and cut its ties to the Wings site.
“Alex Salmond and the leaders of the new party need to separate themselves from that, they need to call it out. They seem to be trying to set themselves up as the moral guardians for women’s rights, which I absolutely support. At the same time, we’ve got somebody posting this on a blog that they clearly associate with and clearly use.
On the one hand, they’re talking about gender-proofing their policies, which is great. On the other hand, they’ve got this where a woman is being described as the devil herself, and where there’s a reference to decapitating the witch having a justifiable end.
That needs to be called out. The party needs to come out and say something about it. The best possible outcome would be that they do condemn it. It would be such a powerful message. Separating themselves from that cesspit would be a very politically astute thing for them. As long as they don’t, it’s colluding with it, it’s condoning it.”
This is for a potential story online and in print.
If you didn’t already know that the BBC were going to run a character-assassination hatchet job on Alex Salmond tonight (and another one tomorrow), you could surmise it easily enough from the state of the Scottish media in the last few days.
But it’s today’s Daily Record that dredges the depths of the journalistic sewer with a barrel and then scrapes the very bottom of it for the grubbiest, oiliest sludge it can find.
The BBC’s Reporting Scotland is, in our view, directly responsible for at least 80% of Yes supporters’ belief that the UK’s state broadcaster is biased against independence. Almost all of the worst examples of unbalanced or downright dishonest coverage over the last five years come from the flagship teatime bulletin.
Normally the amateur blogger, unqualified would-be economist and unsuccessful dog-food salesman that BBC Scotland and the Daily Record employ on a regular basis to openly troll Yes voters restricts himself, when attacking this site, to crude abuse or smear and innuendo like the below, tweeted on Holocaust Memorial Day last year:
It’s important to note, firstly, that the version of Sadiq Khan’s speech to the Scottish Labour conference he tweeted on Saturday morning simply flat-out said that Scottish nationalists were the same as racists and sectarian bigots. Its meaning was as clear as crystal to the Daily Record, a newspaper which is hardly hostile to Khan’s party.
“No difference” is a stark and unambiguous phrase. The speech did not contain the hastily-added qualifiers about “in this respect” and “of course I’m not saying the SNP are racist” which suddenly appeared when he read it out onstage that afternoon.
There’s a truly abominable piece of hatemongering in today’s Times. A grotesequely dishonest Nat-bashing smear job based on stupendously misrepresented fragments of quotes, it’s penned by Patrick Harkness, someone who the paper identifies as “a past co-chairman of the RSE [Royal Society of Edinburgh] Young Academy of Scotland”.
For some reason it’s chosen to leave a few lines off his CV.
Readers may be aware that Wings Over Scotland is (fairly remarkably, really) the UK’s second-most-read politics blog, behind the hardcore right-wing “Guido Fawkes”.
Our “competitor” isn’t a site we look at a lot – the comments make the Daily Mail readership seem like enlightened and thoughtful moderates – but last week someone asked us about a smear piece they’d run on SNP MP Corri Wilson, and we only just remembered today to check it out. Our initial findings weren’t well received.
It seems that Mr Fawkes and his minions aren’t too keen on scrutiny themselves.
Since the astonishing election of 56 SNP MPs to the UK Parliament last May, the Unionist media – suddenly deprived of a whole contacts book full of friendly Scottish Labour bench-warmers ready to feed it cosy stories over a boozy expenses lunch in Whitehall – has raked through every bin and gutter in the land looking for anything (however pathetic) that it can try to puff up, distort, and rope into service as “dirt” on each of the Nat members, in an attempt to discredit them and the party.
So let’s just have a little look in here and – YIKES!
The Scottish Daily Mail’s front page lead today is so galactically despicable that it’s easy to overlook another story that it bundles in with the same “SNP BAD” attack.
While excoriating Dr Philippa Whitford for having the sheer shameless gall to help save women’s lives in her holidays, the alleged newspaper also devotes a page-high article to an attack on another Nat MP, George Kerevan, for employing his wife.
Billy Carlin on All Or Nothing: “Actually you might want to watch the Electric Universe guys expose what caused canyon systems etc on Mars, the Earth…” May 7, 23:42
handclapping on All Or Nothing: “Too political, Stu. Ghandi was right, Congress was wrong.” May 7, 22:15
agent x on All Or Nothing: “They are giving enough for the SNP to pretend they are doing things for people in Scotland. Oh It’s Scotland…” May 7, 22:06
James on All Or Nothing: “Yeah, they’re giving a little bit more of our revenues back to us [places cap in hand] “..thank ‘ee guv’nor”.” May 7, 21:41
Yoon Scum on All Or Nothing: “How about No more anonymous voting All votes have to be public and registered So anyone who voted NO can…” May 7, 21:41
James on All Or Nothing: ““…the prevailing view across the U.K. is Scotland is a net recipient of public funding…” Nice try. The view (lie)…” May 7, 21:35
agent x on All Or Nothing: ““(in which the main policy was the re-abolition of peak rail fares just months after the SNP insisted such a…” May 7, 21:04
Hatey McHateface on All Or Nothing: “It’s in the In Tray, x. Trouble is, more urgent stuff keeps getting dropped on top. So it’s now well…” May 7, 21:00
Hatey McHateface on All Or Nothing: “I don’t think you’ve taken that nearly far enough, Jamie. Here’s my idea – you’ll kick yourself for not thinking…” May 7, 20:56
KITTYBEE on All Or Nothing: “Voting for Scottish Independence – ha so you have a use after all!!” May 7, 20:49
Hatey McHateface on All Or Nothing: “I’m of the opinion that if I was to take Rev Stu’s text above, feed it into an AI, and…” May 7, 20:48
Yoon Scum on All Or Nothing: “is it just us English filth that should be banned from voting Or would you include the new Scots who…” May 7, 20:47
Yoon Scum on All Or Nothing: “is it just us English filth that should be banned from voting Or would you include the new Scots who…” May 7, 20:47
Yoon Scum on Let’s Make Jen Safe Again: “I’m told that the only reason the TORY SCUM wanted to leave the Eu was that the EU where going…” May 7, 20:43
Yoon Scum on All Or Nothing: “And he got that by people like me voting for them as they where making a decent job at running…” May 7, 20:41
agent x on All Or Nothing: “The SNP under Salmond achieved a majority at a Scottish PR vote = he got a referendum – get that…” May 7, 20:32
agent x on All Or Nothing: “Hold on – I thought the UN are going to declare that Scotland is independent!” May 7, 20:29
Alastair on All Or Nothing: “The SNP offer no route to independence. As a lifetime indepenanista that’s a tough one to face up to. Not…” May 7, 20:04
Lorn on All Or Nothing: “Yes, I can see how that might well work, Rev, but I am still wary of pre independence referendums. They…” May 7, 19:41
Xaracen on Let’s Make Jen Safe Again: ““And of course immediately rejoining the European UNION” I said nothing about rejoining the EU, but even if we did,…” May 7, 19:39
Aidan on All Or Nothing: “Support for Britain leaving the European Union was high before the referendum. Even though the prevailing view across the U.K.…” May 7, 19:35
Lorn on All Or Nothing: “aLurker: my post would suggest the opposite of defeatism. I don’t care how my non vote would be counted, I…” May 7, 19:30
Yoon Scum on All Or Nothing: “the brit media was screaming for Brexit What media where you watching?” May 7, 19:14
Jamie on All Or Nothing: “It’s a good idea but a lot for Scots to lose and to even it a little, I think it…” May 7, 19:11
James on All Or Nothing: ““There are very very few people who support English independence, and so it’s a guaranteed vote loser, probably on a…” May 7, 18:54
Ian on All Or Nothing: “The SNP have become just a career choice for the useful idiots & minor mediocrities (being generous). Some will continue…” May 7, 18:33
Doug on All Or Nothing: ““So if you still haven’t worked it out, here’s what needs to swiftly become the policy of the independence movement…” May 7, 18:32
Yoon Scum on Let’s Make Jen Safe Again: “And of course immediately rejoining the European UNION But they aren’t English So you’re happy to be in a union…” May 7, 18:18
twathater on Let’s Make Jen Safe Again: “I laugh when fuckwit yoonionists put themselves in the same financial and economic category as (SPIT) Thatcher and her fellow…” May 7, 18:13
