The Curious Fringes
There’s a post on the superwoke poll-analysis account Ballot Box Scotland today bemoaning the lack of interest in the forthcoming Scottish Parliament election from polling companies, and presenting it as some sort of anti-Scottish conspiracy.
The real reason nobody’s very interested, of course, is that as things stand the election is an obvious foregone conclusion in which the party that’s been in power for the previous 19 years will stay in power for another five, and nothing will change.
The only minor intrigue around the election is to be found at the edges and is only of real interest to politics nerds, but since we ARE politics nerds we may as well take a look at it.
We’ve covered some aspects before. While the odds are against it, polling suggests that an SNP majority isn’t completely out of the question, though it would make no meaningful difference to anything – since it would have likely been achieved on well under 40% of the total vote, it would amount to neither a political nor a moral mandate for either independence or a second referendum, and the SNP have squandered multiple far-stronger mandates.
(Indeed, it would indicate serious problems with the supposedly-proportional Scottish electoral system, since it would give them at least 65 seats where a properly-proportional result from their combined constituency-and-list vote share of around 31% would have delivered only 40 seats – a wildly undemocratic over-representation of over 60%. That’s not as bad as the 88% overrepresentation Labour won from the 2024 UK election, but the Westminster electoral system doesn’t claim to be proportional.)
It also remains a possibility that the SNP and Labour could do a deal, which both sides have flown public kites about in the last year or so and might offer the security of a sizeable majority in a way that suited both parties – who have almost no detectable policy differences – equally and was acceptable to their voters, neither of whom prioritise the constitution.
But Labour’s ongoing UK-wide collapse has reduced that likelihood somewhat and even pushed the Lib Dems into the equation as potential junior partners for the SNP, though again making very little difference to anything in policy terms. (Go on, other than the constitution name us a substantial difference between the three of them.)
Conversely, even a “pro-indy” majority isn’t guaranteed. As we’ve been pointing out for some time, the presence of Jeremy Corbyn’s fledgling Your Party, even if (as seems very probable) it wins no seats itself, could still divide the extreme-left vote enough to wipe out the Scottish Greens, leaving the SNP with no potential pro-indy coalition partners should it have failed to reach 65 by itself.
This, again, is an irrelevance anyway, since the SNP have declared that only a single-party majority will count. But it does lead us to the politics-nerd point of interest that we’re going to chat about today. Because here’s something odd.
According to the last two full Holyrood polls we have (we’re using list polling since it’s supposedly the “true” reflection, undistorted by First Past The Post considerations, and will almost certainly be where the vast majority of non-SNP seats will come from), either Reform and the Greens are neck-and-neck, or Nigel Farage’s party is twice as popular as Ross Greer’s. And plainly that does make a difference.
In the latter case the Greens are in danger of annihilation, because no polling so far has included Your Party and if you factor in even a small impact from them, the Greens hover on the edge of the abyss.
In the former case, not only could they survive the challenge from Corbyn’s shambolic team, they could double or treble their current representation in the chamber, putting the SNP under pressure to take a massive lunge back to the hyper-woke far left.
So which is the truth? Unfortunately, earlier polling is no help. The two previous polls – conducted less than two weeks apart – tell the same story: one has a near dead heat (16 to 17 in favour of the Greens), while the other has Reform on over double.
How about the two before that? Those were just five days apart, but once again produce two diametrically opposite results – one with Reform a single point ahead and both parties battling for overall 2nd place, the other with the far-right party on double the vote of the far-left party, with the two in 2nd and 6th place respectively.
Two more? The two polls preceding those were much further apart chronologically (mid-June and early September) but the pattern is the same – either there’s nothing in it or Farage’s men are ahead by 100%.
You can go all the way back to January and find the Greens a point ahead, and then the very next poll (in March) sees them trailing on half Reform’s vote again.
And we may as well fill in the gaps – the three polls in between the ones we’ve featured so far show Reform on either 140% of the Green vote, or 222%, or 177%.
Very little in the way of solid data is available to tell us which of these two very different pictures is the closest to reality. Reform are plainly on the rise across the whole UK, whereas the England-and-Wales Greens are enjoying a large boost in both popularity and membership under the leadership of Zack Polanski but the Scottish version is riven with factional warring and could only get a tenth of its membership to even turn out and vote in the contest for its own new leadership, just a few days before Polanski won south of the border.
(Something the former co-leader amusingly blamed on “email fatigue”.)
To find a “tie-break” we can try looking at Holyrood constituency polling:
That’s much more consistent in showing Reform ahead of the Greens, but even there the gap ranges from as few as three points (in April) to as many as 15 points (in October). The averages over the whole of 2025 are 16.6% for Reform and 7.1% for the Greens, which tends towards the “Reform are twice as popular” model – as does slightly harder data like by-election performances – but it’s far from conclusive.
There are also signs that Reform are starting to actually take some degree of interest in Scotland, which might make a difference – until now their support has been almost entirely passive, crossing the border by osmosis rather than from much in the way of visible effort or expenditure.
But during an actual election campaign, they’ll have the benefits of both novelty and extensive coffers, should they decide to pursue Holyrood seats with any determination. (Something which, like the degree of Your Party’s participation, remains to be established with any confidence.)
As we said back at the start, all of this is of little interest to, or impact on, the average voter. Even if Reform win a lot of seats and become the biggest opposition party – which currently looks distinctly possible – it’s likely they’ll be frozen out of any power at Holyrood.
(Although Scottish Labour, who some recent polls have put in FOURTH place, pre-emptively refusing to work with them increasingly sounds like us rejecting the idea of having a joint bank account with Jeff Bezos.)
And regardless of what the final numbers end up being, we suspect the Greens won’t fare much better – the SNP will be reluctant to team up with them again after how it went the last time, and will have very little reason to, since the Greens can usually be bought off with a couple of minor budget concessions should they ever be needed to save a hapless minister in a vote of confidence.
One unplanned side effect of the mainstream parties’ very public freezing-out of Reform, though, could be to boost the party’s support from people looking to register a protest vote without risking any consequences from Farage’s team actually being in government.
The SNP has in the past enjoyed winning significant numbers of votes from Unionists who believed that they were the best option for governance and didn’t think there was any realistic chance of them delivering independence.
And also, Scots are a thrawn race who don’t like to be bullied – the overwhelming political and media establishment bias against the SNP was almost certainly a factor in their success in the last 20 years, at least while it was being expertly marshalled by Alex Salmond in the same way that Alex Ferguson used West Coast establishment media bias to fire up his all-conquering Aberdeen side in the 1980s.
Nigel Farage has a similarly impressive track record of weaponising underdog status to win trophies, and a time when mainstream parties have never been more universally despised could be fertile ground for him.
So while there’s very little to get excited about in terms of who’s going to WIN next year’s election, there’s a fair amount still in doubt that’s of at least academic interest. Whether it’ll be enough to get polling companies to spend any money on it is another question entirely.
Ah, BBS, who infamously called you “Fash Over Somerset”. He seems a bit of a prick
He did? I missed that one 😀
To fill the time betwixt Xmas and New Year lets play the ‘John Swinney is’ game. Examples…
John Swinney is so wet and shallow he receives fan mail from puddles.
John Swinney is the first patient to survive a charisma bypass operation.
John Swinney is…
John Swinney is the answer to a question that NOBODY, ANYHERE, has EVER asked…..
A useless dick
…the definition of mediocrity.
Stu,
Hello, nice to have you back posting, I hope you and you’re family had a lovely Christmas, and all my best wishes for 2026.
It isn’t THAT nice to have him back posting – but that’s just my opinion and not for any reason in particular.
John Swinney went in for an arsehole transplant…..But the arsehole rejected him.
Betwixt the devil and the deep blue sea.
A vote for a union party like Reform
Or
A vote for a union party like the SNP.
Or
a vote for a union party like Labour,
Or
A vote for a union party like the Green lib dems,
Choices choices, daddy or chips.
Politics is about perception and only this, as Swinney and post Indy SNP is perceived as a Devo masked Yoon party, they fail the so what test. As elections now are emotional then Reform are the only game in town and with apathy the clear winner the Scots will be led by an English Nationalist Government, they are a shoe in.
Not content with polluting my YouTube feed with ubiquitous, targeted advertising featuring Anas Sarwar’s baw heed fizzog, the Royal Mail, postie has just pushed an 8 page, A5 glossy pamphlet for Scottish Labour through my letter box.
The first 5 pages have Sarwar’s glaikit grin staring oot.
The advertising creatives who told Scottish Labour that Sarwar’s face was an asset, were just telling the customer what they wanted to hear.
Mind you, pages 6 & 7 feature the corpulent coupon of Jackie “six chins” Baillie.
Sometimes you’ve just got to work with what you’ve got.
Mind you again, the SNP somehow convinced themselves that pictures of Sally “Gravy bus Barbie” Donald on campaigning literature was something other than boak inducing.
Where’s all the money coming from?
In an age of transactional politics, the Unions have stopped paying because the Labour Party have stopped representing the interests of their members.
As of 4th July last year, Labour in Scotland accrue £1,039,973 pa in Short money.
Perhaps that’s the source of funds for the advertising blitz.
If it is, that begs the question; WTF was the SNP doing with their £1.3 million per annum in British state Short money?
“WTF was the SNP doing with their £1.3 million per annum in British state Short money?”
and WTF happened to the “ring-fenced” £600,000 that the SNP was “looking after” for the All under one Banner marchers ????????
North code 😉
It is interesting to see the levels of self delusion around amongst too many in Scottish politics Stu. As you observed in recent exchanges on X with various SNP die hards however there are still plenty who are hard of thinking enough to advocate voting for them,
The quoted reasons may be various (e.g.: there is no other choice; they’re the only “real” Scottish party; they will deliver a pro-indy majority &/or #indyref2) but the level of delusion and determination not to face up to reality remains constant.
It is much the same in relation to those who insist that telling Reform supporters they are stupid will somehow stop them doing it, when as you point out the evidence is before them that support for Reform in Scotland appears to be in rude health.
I even had one chump arguing with me that the recent local council vote for Reform in Methil, Fife meant nothing because the turnout was low and was attributable to – wait for it – non-Scottish colonisers. Anyone who thinks the area is hoaching with Home Counties second home owners needs the services of Specsavers pronto, or possibly just a good psychiatrist.
Hopefully the only silver lining in the cloud of Reform’s rise in Scotland is that it will give pro-independence voters in Scotland the kick up the arse they appear to need to replace the milquetoast devolutionism of the SNP with a real nationalist party.
I don’t know about you and other alert readers, but I won’t be holding my breath.
As I said before, you’re talking mince!
I.live in the area you clown.
If you do live in the area, which is where I work so also known to me, you can’t possibly think that there are lots of incomers in the area who account for an upsurge in Reform support.
That’s the trouble with nativists and folk who bang on about the dangers of immigration, they can never point to any figures or evidence to back their regressive politics up: it’s never “our” fault it’s always easier to other incomers and out groups than accept the problem lies closer to home.
Rev, now that you are in a good mood what with Aberdeen only losing 1 match in the last 6, may I ask, nay beg, that you try to make a positive difference to the 2026 Holyrood election result?
Looking around, who else can do a better job than you in informing the pro-independence voters of the best candidates to vote for? I can’t see anyone or any other platform.
There will be a body of decent, principled, burning pro-independence candidates standing under the Liberate Scotland umbrella. And individuals e.g. Fergus Ewing, and Alba Party candidates.
It would be best if all these people united under the umbrella grouping or at least agreed an electoral pact.
But what is needed is that the voters are told about the existence of these truly pro-independence candidates. If people don’t know, then there is little chance that the Holyrood election will be of any help in sorting out Scotland’s problems.
Imagine a number of really principled, driven, MSPs – especially a large number – working on every possible route to escaping the “Union”. Then imagine what it will be like with the usual dross and Unionist MSPs.
Please, Rev. Scotland needs you.
Yes Sara, the Liberate Scotland alliance is the only serious option for the independence movement in May’s national election:
“We will use every democratic election as a plebiscite on independence”
link to liberatescot.scot
“Please, Rev. Scotland needs you.”
I fear you might be wasting fingertip skin there, Sarah.
Better following Alf’s suggestion and putting your hopes on Liberate Scotland alliance instead.
Northcode, I am only asking the Rev to increase, if possible, his efforts for the improvement of Holyrood and the chance of independence by publicising all the good candidates and the good initiatives so that we get at least some decent and pro-independence MSPs in 2026.
I understand, Sarah, and I do respect you for the great effort you have made – and the commitment you have shown – in this, Scotland’s ‘fight’ for independence.
However, it isn’t possible to improve Holyrood… Holyrood is entirely the pet of England and cannot be made into a saviour of the Scots.
In fact, after independence I would advocate for the name “Holyrood” to be struck from Scottish public life; retained only in textbooks and historical records to remind future generations of Scots of its duplicity.
I’m afraid Holyrood is now the adversary of the Scots, and all those who serve Holyrood (bar a very few… and they are of no help to the Scots such is their small number) serve England first and foremost.
I don’t believe that WoS helping by “publicising all the good candidates” will make any difference… even if that help were to be proffered.
It is a certainty that the SNP will be returned to ‘power’ as England’s favourite Scottish Government – that cannot be prevented – and the plunder of Scotland won’t miss a beat as England continues to extract Scotland’s wealth with the help of Scotland’s own Government.
Attempting to improve the Scottish Government is pointless and a waste of effort.
Decolonization is the only remedy for Scotland’s dire predicament.
And the Liberate Scotland alliance is the only political vehicle operating in Scotland that can possibly help the Scots in their endeavor for independence.
I wish I had more encouraging words for you, but I don’t… sorry.
Right now we Scots are where we’re at… and that is that.
I agree, Northcode. Holyrood is the conduit through which Westminster controls and manipulates Scotland from within, hidden behind the veneer of self-governance. Devolution is, after all, backward evolution.
“Holyrood is the conduit through which Westminster controls and manipulates Scotland…”
Well put, Saffron Robe.
““Holyrood is the conduit through which Westminster controls and manipulates Scotland…””
Itherwise kent as ‘indirect rule’, i.e. a second layer of colonial oppression, as we see in its mystifying lawmaking and delaying of independence despite elected ‘nationalist’ majorities.
According to another blogger, who shall remain nameless but who appears to hang on your every word, to discuss Reform and it’s prospects, like an adult and without ritually condemning them at the start of every sentence, is tantamount to “endorsing” them.
Totally OT, but does anyone know when Sandie Peggie’s appeal is likely to be heard?
I suspect many potential Green voters don’t actually know that Zack Polanski heads a completely different party (and one that the SGP, absurdly, voted to disassociate from due too its alleged transphobia.)
Yes, that’s very likely the cause of a couple of recent spikes in Scottish Greens polling.
If I wasn’t feeling depressed before I surely am now “ the party that’s been in power for the previous 19 years will stay in power for another five, and nothing will change”
God help us all, I doubt if Scotland will be able to survive another 5years of incompetent, ineffective idiotic, corrupt, virtue signalling student politics from SNP.
Things in fact could be even worse than the previous 19 years because many MSPs are retiring to be replaced by some vacuous, juvenile barely out of nappies, woke as F**k children with zero real life experience outwith our failing education system and apprenticeship in the offices of the existing useless MSPs.
Holyrood is looking more and more like a failed project with every day that passes
Heaven help us!
Exactly, Heather. This is why it is vital that we do all we can to inform people about the candidates who are serious about independence and are capable of intelligent thought about our social and economic problems.
And we also need to explain about the need to vote for different groups on the two ballots.
Well Done Heather McLean!
So much sense from her. I particularly liked: “5 years of incompetent, ineffective, idiotic, corrupt, virtu-signalling, student politics from SNP”.
Who are you? Are you planning to stand somewhere? Do tell!
“…and nothing will change…”
Yeah, waking from a nightmare is always a bit disturbing, if not depressing.
Looks like you’re beginning to wake up, Heather… good luck; it isn’t fun at first, but it does get better as one comes to terms with the reality underpinning Scotland’s predicament.
Nothing will change whoever gets to manage Scotland on behalf of England (except perhaps the Liberate Scotland alliance… and even that’s a maybe).
I think it’s difficult for folk on here to understand that Scotland is wholly owned by England and the Scots have no say at all – no say in anything of importance, anyway.
It’s called colonialism.
If it’s any consolation the Scots are possibly the best treated colonized in history with all sort of little perks… like the pretence of their own government, for instance.
Welcome to “The Colony”.
On the ball as usual but in this parish we have an ISP candidate so I have a vote I can place rather than spoil a ballot with a drawing of a large cock and balls also known as a Swinney , Sarwar etc etc. Holyrood may be past it’s sell bye date but it is all we have for now. With you on the standard of SNP kids/candidates/staffers just out of short trousers and waiting their first shave and that is just the so called women.
“…but it [Holyrood] is all we have for now.”
If by ‘we’ you mean independence supporting Scots then… no, we really don’t.
We don’t have Holyrood because England has Holyrood.
Holyrood cannot help the Scots in any way, shape or form.
Let me see… how can I make the true nature of Holyrood clearer?
Holyrood IS England!
Holyrood is England wearing a disguise.
Holyrood is England dressed up as Scotland.
Holyrood is England pretending to be Scottish.
All the politicians who make up the Scottish Parliament are English; even the Scottish born ones (mostly) are wannabe English.
There is nothing, nothing at all that can come out of Holyrood that will in any way assist the Scots… nothing much beyond baby boxes and ‘free’ prescriptions and such; and the Scots pay through the nose for all that free stuff one way or another, anyway.
However, if there is a candidate running under the Liberate Scotland umbrella one can vote for then go for it… it’s really the only option available to independence supporting Scots next May.
Be prepared to be even more depressed Heather for it appears ALBA members are the new cult , they have moved from being apologists and sycophants for sturgeon (spit) when they were Scum Nonce Party members to now being apologists and sycophants for MacAskill and ALBA
I recently posted on Grousebeater that MacAskill had ignored the hand of friendship and unity offered by Liberate Scotland to ALBA, preferring to beg and prostrate himself at the feet of the FAKE, VILE, woman hating, independence hating troughers the Scum Nonce Party
Grousey got VERY upset at the TRUTH, insisting that MacAskill had NOT ignored Liberate Scotland’s outstretched hand, BUT LS were trying to FORCE ALBA to join them, he ridiculed me and said that MacAskill tirelessly worked towards independence and I didn’t know what I was talking about , I responded that MacAskill had been in senior positions in the snp and SG for decades and YET we are still in this VILE union so his HARD work isn’t WORKING , Wet pishfart rightfully gets ridiculed and laughed at when he BRAGS about being the longest serving snp mp in WM, little realising that he is a FAILED fuckwit he is supposed to get Scotland OUT of the union NOT celebrate longevity
Other ALBA stalwarts are also turning into apologists and sycophants when you point out that ALBA’S plans are the same as the snp’s , Westminster permission for a ref which needs a SECT 30
Of general interest. Hints of current Trump support for putative breakaway of oil-rich province of Alberta from the Canadian confederation. Unlikely in the event, but George Conway’s analysis today covers factors very familiar to Scots, ie questions of pensions and currency (c 8 mins ff), UDI (c 13 mins ff), comparison with Canada’s check-mate of the 1995 Quebec referendum (actually in my opinion the template followed by David Cameron in 2014), unsettling geopolitical framing, and so on. The immediate most obvious contrast with the Scottish situation is that (for just about every reason imaginable) America would of course comprehensively collude with England in keeping Scotland pliantly inert and comatose even if incoherently muttering to itself.
TRUMP ADMIN REACTS TO ALBERTA PUSH IN CANADA
(Conway Media, 29 Dec 2025)
« In today’s update, we take a close look at the latest claims and online buzz suggesting that Trump administration figures are “fully backing” the idea of Alberta leaving Canada. What’s actually been said, what’s rumor, and what’s being amplified for headlines? We separate verified statements from speculation and explain why this story is suddenly trending again.
« We also cover the political context inside Canada, how Alberta’s independence conversation has evolved over time, and what hurdles any real separation effort would face. Finally, we explore why U.S. reactions matter, what Ottawa and provincial leaders might do next, and the key signals to watch in the coming days if this narrative keeps gaining momentum. »
link to youtube.com
`Chinese eunuchs,
serving in the imperial court for millennia,
functioning as harem guards, palace servants,
and political figures,
wielding immense power due to their unique access to the emperor and inner sanctums,
controlling everything from daily affairs to state policy, despite their lowly status ,
becoming essential yet feared figures in Chinese imperial history`
reminds me of Sturgeon/Swinney`s diversity and transcult staffers.
The reality in 2020’s Scotland, and everywhere around the world, is that social media has totally changed society where it is atomised and driven by performative behaviour.
As another poster mentions the party that does the “incompetent, ineffective idiotic, corrupt, virtue signalling student politics” will get themselves pushed up the algorithm rankings so their message becomes viral and get all the social media addicts out to vote for them.
For the rest of us, we just shake our heads in apathy and don’t vote at all.
I have no idea why people are saying it looks grime, its been grime since Sturgeon took on the roll of leader of the SNP.
I met sturgeon in Edinburgh on her grant tour and on stage she made it quite clear when asked about a referendum, we had a referendum and we lost it wouldn’t be fair on the other side if we had another. I left that event and went back to England where I stayed, then in 2015 she stated it was time to make Westminster work for Scotland. Our people haven’t been listening to Sturgeon but instead just carried going along on the idea that the SNP is an Independence party Independence will just happen, well it won’t.
Buying The National will not bring Independence nor will given money to a Indy scrounger or listening to Lesley Riddoch, Gordon Ross or the two Dave’s the only thing that will actually bring Independence is the removal of the SNP from power and government and allowing Reform to win and take control of Holyrood.
Stop thinking Independence is going to happen in 2026 it just isn’t and I’ll tell you something else it isn’t going to happen in 2031 either if we do not act now to remove the SNP and stop this party.
I don’t want to vote for reform but I know the only way Scotland and its people will vote for something is if what they already have is worse and here is were I believe is why we need reform to win next year Holyrood election and to remove the SNP. Here is when Liberate Scotland come in for the 2031 election and if Salvo are successful at the UN it will all happen at the same time.
If you want Independence and you believe that the national and the SNP, Alba or these so called soft Indy supporters who make a living out of Independence what the same as you then your a idiot and your letting your self and your country down.
If you don’t want to vote for reform then I would say don’t vote for the SNP or the greens because if you do you ain’t helping Scotland your securing the Union and in that case you would be as well placing a tick along side the Tories or the Lib-dems.
If anyone has been paying attention over the last year since Starmer took office the national has made its top priority to Owen Jones and to have the national full of articles about the Labour party both the National and the SNP are lining us up to make these to our next government and we shouldn’t allow it to happen, It’s what John and Starmer wants.
“…in the same way that Alex Ferguson used West Coast establishment media bias…”
Neatly done.
According to my digging, there’s only 3 years that the gruesome twosome have failed to win anything. With the League Cup being post- WW2, the first one is 1895 (Hearts and St. Bernards, then 1952 (Hibs, Motherwell, Dundee) and 1955 (Aberdeen, Clyde, Hearts). Order is League, Cup, League Cup.
Why do the SNP still expect others to believe they support independence after the recent act damaging tourism by closing the tourist information centres which no one else except England and Wales has done.
Is the furlough for Alexander Dennis still continuing or is that being delayed or forgotten.
I recently received an email for an English whisky distillery
is this a vision of the future when a big earner and employer for Scotland is closed to prevent competing remember when Scotland brewed many good tasting and quality beers.Anybody old enough to remember the motorcycle industry in England just as Japan was emerging.
.
Hi Stuart,
I see your obsessive stalker, Jimmy-The-Grifter has got stuck at a pathetic £891 on his final, definitely last, no more ever (until April 2026) crowdfunder.
Obviously given his latest creepy stalking of your hoose in Somerset and avalanche of obsession directed to you on Scot-Goes-Phut blot, Jimmy is trying to poach readership numbers from you and this, WoS… the biggest political website in Scotland. This is fact as Jimmy is now boasting of it.
The trouble for Jimmy-The-Grift is that NO ONE is buying what he has to sell.
Perhaps if Jimmy stopped posting selfies of himself on holiday after using earlier crowdfund money, or better still, stopped frightening my grandkids with selfie pictures of his gormless ugly mug and stupid hat on a forum that is accessible publicly, and instead he actually wrote about political opinion polls, he might get a couple of grannie cougars to send him a tenner.
(i). Surely there are laws against crowdfunding for a thing you promise to deliver and end up confessing you spent other peoples’ donated money on your holidays?
(ii). There must be laws about crowdfunding for “opinion poll research” and then some of that money goes to paying to film and record SNP events should be declared under electoral procedural legislation?
This crowdfunding by the Scot-Phut crowd-grifter for his political participation as a member and office bearer in the SNP has the aroma of rodent that haunted Nicola Sturgeon’s house for many years. Jimmy isn’t really that bright is he?
Just like the SNP vanishing and weaving of £600,000, if Jimmy stopped boasting about how his leaching from this WoS site is working (at £891 Jimmy, none of us here are buying the shyte you are selling), then yon Jimmy-The-Grift might see a few more tenners on his tiny piles (of cash).
Yo Jimmy, we all know you lurk here and pleasure yourself at WoS BTL and Stuart’s actual research and factual details, so whilst you are doom-scrolling this site, here is some advice from this “BTL moron at WoS” or whatever noun your 6 regular ad hominem abuse commentators hurl at us…
The fact is, ya haufwit, is that yer Scot-Goes-Phut website is gubbed.
We can all see that your begging routine on crowdfund just ain’t working. Fact.
If yer pals and friends cannae get past £891 for yer latest holiday a.k.a., political gravy train fur Jimmy fundraiser, then yer time is up.
Kelly, away and get a proper job, because you are utter cr@p at your “blogging” career. Ye hiv pi55ed aff John Swinney and burnt yer bridges at Alba so much that you will NEVER get a ticket to ride aboard the free-money political gravy train.
Jimmy-The-Grift, in the words of a very talented Scotsman…
“Gonnae no dae that.”
(iii). I think it was a proper journalist called Stuart Campbell who researched and broke the original SNP bent and woven £600,000 fundraiser scandal.
(iiv). Jimmy, pick an article, any article from this Wings Over Scotland and to use a word Alex Salmond was fond of, these WoS articles are “redolent” with research and facts.
Whereas the utter cr@p you upload on Scot-Goes-Phut website is just not worth anything.
For your dense cranium, James, people are NOT buying what you are selling on your website. It lacks credibility and you’ve gone from being a laughing stock to being a creepy looking Amadan posting pictures of yersel’ gurning, whist on holiday, paid by a previous fundraisers.
When ye shut Scot-Goes-Phut, please don’t let the door skelp yer erse too hard oan yer way oot.
Voting for paper hat parties on a wet sunday to fill a Holyrood parliament that is under Westminster acts and Statues. With matters reserved to England,
There is nothing Scottish regards the Scottish parliament,
The Scottish parliament didn’t even exist to vote for its own creation since Sine Die in 1707.
It is devolved from Westminster the same as other Counties in England,
Changing Scots laws through the back door of a facade.
Were talking The slow creep of a Federation of Britain, not a union,
The Parliament set in Scotland is on the same level as devolved English County Councils,
If we vote for the paper hats to fill that devolved County of Scotland we continue in our own demise as a Country, or a nation.
It akin to agreeing that Scotland as nothing more of importance than a County of England.
Thats what you’re being asked to vote for in reality.
Scotland did not create the Scottish parliament, the reserved matters are not Scotlands,
The acts and Statues were not Scotlands.
The Scotland Acts are not Scotlands,
Those ideas were suggested to Scotland, to be put to Scotland by Westminster, in a restricting question vote,
If it were a genuine Scottish parliament and not a pretend one, England would have no control over Scotland,
So you vote in Scotland to maintain the pretense and fool ourselves we have democracy, all the while
Knowing your being treated as a County of England.
James Cheyne says:
“So you vote in Scotland to maintain the pretence and fool ourselves we have democracy, all the while knowing you’re being treated as a county of England.”
I second that, James, although I would suggest we are being treated far worse than a county of England – we are being treated as a colony. In medicine there is a maxim: futile intervention is worse than no intervention at all. I think that also applies to voting in the current system. In a sense you are enabling it simply by casting a vote, regardless of who you cast that vote for.
Point of order -Reform are not far right if wanting to decide your own rules ,have your own border and to live amongst yer ain folk is far right , the snp are nazis.
“Reform are not far right if wanting to decide your own rules ,have your own border and to live amongst yer ain folk is far right”
Indeed, Gordy. Clearly, the effectiveness of being labelled “far right” by the tofu-quaffing Guardianista, for having perfectly decent, logical, common sense views, are markedly on the wane these days.
Ironically, the inverse is true: the increasingly absurd beliefs of the Left are now seen for what they clearly are; extreme, divisive, nonsensical, baseless, dangerous.
A profound, radical societal and political sea change is afoot in the UK; a rare thing indeed. I’ve not seen people this angry since the late 70s (Brexit – perhaps – excepted, though I doubt even that).
The use of the term far right might be contested – not least by some within Reform who are scared of frightening too many electoral horses – but just because they and some people planning to vote for them who don’t identify as far right reject the label doesn’t mean that it isn’t the right definition.
Even academically the umbrella right wing is often broken down in to a spectrum which encompasses “traditional” conservatives, non-fascist far right and outright fascist parties.
Some would additionally split the far right in to the radical right (which would encompass current figures like Farage, Le Pen, Orban, Trump etc who accept the essence of democracy but oppose fundamental aspects of liberal democracy, particularly the concept of universal rights. The more extreme far right rejects the very essence of democracy, popular sovereignty and majority rule.
Most people here and I think in the UK more broadly would comfortably fit Farage, UKIP and now Reform in to the far-right category, particularly given his past links with other far right groups in Europe and his open admiration for and aping of other far right populist figures.
The playbook isn’t only Reform’s of course, but openly questioning the result of elections, attacks on human rights an the principles of universal rights generally, the use of racist, xenophobic and misogynistic language and the promotion of populism and elite conspiracy theories are ale symptomatic of the kind of party Reform is, and of its underlying values.
Of course voting for Reform as a protest vote to give mainstream parties an electoral bloody nose doesn’t mean you personally agree with all of Reform’s policies or platform. It is however disingenuous for anyone to claim that they don’t really know the general character of the party.
You can’t cherry pick the parts of their platform you agree with and blind yourself to the other parts of it you don’t agree with, then complain when they achieve power and enact policies and parts of their platform you disagree with, or be surprised when they suddenly start curtailing your rights, even if it starts off with relatively innocuous measures.
We’ve seen what Trump is doing in the USA, so there’s really no excuse for anyone who enables the election of Farage or his equivalent or even allows them access via coalition government, and then finds out too late that it was a huge mistake.
@Andy Ellis
Well, Google characterises the term “far right” and its manifestations as follows:
“… Far-right ideologies have historically included reactionary conservatism, fascism, and Nazism, while contemporary manifestations also incorporate neo-fascism, neo-Nazism, supremacism, and various other movements characterized by chauvinism, xenophobia, and theocratic or reactionary beliefs. Far-right terrorism consists of extremist, militant, or insurgent groups that attempt to realise their ideals through political violence rather than using democratic processes.”
I think it’s fair to say that any attempt to characterise Reform (or even the Tories, in many cases) as “far right” on the part of the Metropolitan Left is little short of hysterical; near continuous over-use of the pejorative term has rendered it meaningless in any real sense.
That’s the trouble with so many lefties though? A burning desire to paint others as demons; in so doing, showing themselves in a virtuous light (“virtue signalling”). Sadly for them, though, the converse is often true, as we read almost daily in Stu’s columns here. The phrase “unintended consequences” is writ large among those who, in their juvenile zeal, fail to see more than one move ahead.
In the past, ordinary people have thought it “wrong” to want to secure their borders and the integrity of their country (ironic in your case, Andy, as an avowed Scottish Nationalist), and similarly “wrong” to question an ever burgeoning, unsustainable welfare bill, millions of working age people collecting benefits, women’s safe spaces and all the rest. However, like a dam breaking, the people (rank and file) have woken up, and tactics that previously held sway against an increasingly insane backdrop no longer hold sway. It’s the classic overplayed hand.
I think we will see much political turmoil and change in the coming months, especially in May. Good. It’s needed.
A better term would be hard right. They are the equivalent of a proper hard left socialist party on the left in terms of their relationship to the centre (e.g. Your Party). They would be the most right wing party if elected in my lifetime, easily.
Their immigration policies mirror the old NF/BNP at those parties softer end, their English nationalism, England for the English approach is exclusive of people of different origins – they embody little England’s permanent mild xenophobia with the fringes actively racist.
They do not, at heart, believe in funding public services beyond the very basics (police, army), including the NHS which they would prefer to be at least semi-private / personal insurance-based and thus they want the lowest taxes feasible. They would therefore introduce major cuts to all public services if they could. This would be done under the banner of ‘reducing waste’ (see current Reform run councils).
They are very socially conservative and object to the idea of equal representation of people from different backgrounds, different identities i.e. the awful business of ‘diversity’, because such diverse people are not especially welcome in the first place.
If you think these ‘perfectly decent, logical, common sense views’ then you will love Reform, though whether you would love the results of a Reform government putting them into action is another question.
By coincidence, the National has just published a new poll of Scottish parliamentary voting, 29th December. (So much for the BBS blog.) The poll splits constituency and regional voting:
SNP 34% + 30%
Reform 21% + 21%
Labour 14% + 12%
Greens 9% + 13%
Conservatives 9% + 12%
Libdems 9% + 9%
Alba 2% + 3%
Your Party 0% + 1%
So, no simple majority for independence (SNP + Green + Alba) – 45% or 46%. But that’s without any campaigning. (In a Scottish election.) The Labour collapse leaves the SNP still standing. (Is Branchform over?) The (very) Rev. is right again, there’s no Green surge in Scotland, and it looks like Reform is opening up a lead from the other parties.
Guid mornyng aw… whit clear kirstal sky flemit the nicht theis dey… an sae the reid mornyng rose frae the richt air. An bein a ceevil man an no rowd in naitur lyke ithers aboot theis immaterial space a greet ye wi guid wishes fir the dey aheid an wish ye aw weel.
Northcode…
So sorry to see you’ve apparently suffered a stroke.
Hope you get well soon and best wishes for 2026 !
Your wit astounds me, Insider
Following their recent inaugural conference, Your Party have been offered as a separate entity on the most recent polling for Holyrood. Find Out Now, field work 11 – 19 Dec, population sample 1,000.
Your Party, get zilch percent.
The flouncing off of various prominent characters in the Scottish Greens, to Your Party may actually help the former.
I ken folk who would naturally vote Green, but are utterly scunnered by their policy of enforced affirmation of the clinical delusions of the mentally ill.
Folk who think that their increased Building Insurance resulting from more frequent, and severe mega storms, is a wee bitty mair important than someone’s chuffing pronouns.
The Greens lost a sub-set, of a sub-set, of a sub-set. That could gain votes from the less deranged majority of the electorate.
Perhaps it won’t pay dividends in central Scotland, where Comrade Beaker, and the Byres Road, Gender Taliban hold sway, but it could increase votes in the Highlands & Islands, and Southern Scotland, enough to gain additional MSPs.
The greens wont win votes in the highlands while they oppose the A9 and A82 upgrades and other issues like hammering car ownership costs where there are simply no alternative transport options,
Plus nothing done in Scotland will have any effect on the climate, the problem is elsewhere. This doesn’t mean that no effort should be directed at climate change at all but there has to be a reprioritisation of where it sits in the overall list and it needs to be severely downwards on that list.
For the last 11yrs the SNP has destroyed democracy, Independence, justice system, education, NHS, Police, prison service, woman rights, local authorities, trails by jury, free speech and allowed our industries to be shut down and allowed free ports to take complete ownership of Scotland.
I’m sure that people on here who are better educated than me can add to this list of failures.
The SNP is Scotland Jailer and will be the demise of Scotland and they are perfectly aware of what they are doing and are being assisted by The Nation al and the people who write for it.
There is no one on this planet who can come on this site and state that in the last 11yrs the SNP has done anything for Scotland or its people when in fact the SNP has done more damage to Scotland during Sturgeon and now Swinney term than any other English party or Westminster government and to give these ("Tractor" - Ed)s another 5yrs to govern will bring the END to Scots and our nation.
Since Sturgeon took over from Alex she has been driven by 2 policy to preserve the Union and form closer ties with the Labour party in both England and in Scotland and John Swinney is the same.
Absolutely right 100% Yes, the SNP are out to destroy independence. They have squandered every mandate given to them to push for independence. Policy after policy has ipso facto been against independence and the Pretend Parliament is a vehicle for control.
Democracy is an utter illusion. Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems utterly disregarded as voting shows. And the SNP. well as far as can be seen from polls they are marginally ahead in a system that is now in utter chaos. Just the way the establishment want it. A no good pretend parliament split politically into shards with a Westminster establishment in place to pull the strings. But this was the plan all along. 2014 and the Referendum gave the establishment a fright and they could not be allowed to do it again – ergo Alex Salmond as one example had to be taken out!
But we know that. So who or what do folks vote for. Or do they even bother. Or how do we change the political system and galvanise a movement again. Or do we just take of beatings like a dog, as hapless North American Indians or Australian Aboriginals heading for extinction.
Its a good question and Rev Stu is maybe very much right when he says the SNP will make take the most number of seats in a split parliament to deliver another 5 years of the destruction of Scotland’s people. their culture.
North American Indians got glass beads, lost their country and so will we.
I agree with you totally.
Next year I will be voting for Reform for the sole reason off destroying the greens and stopping the SNP.
The SNP and Greens has destroyed Independence and allowed our Country to be sold to foreign investment company’s.
In 2015 Sturgeon was election on a massive majority with a huge 56 MP’s sent to Westminster and what did she do with that? She saved the Union and destroyed any chances of Independence.
People on here can argue how can you vote for Reform next year and my answer would be, I’ve been voting to destroy my country since Sturgeon was leader, if I had known then what I know now I would have given my vote to an other party and I hate myself for being party to the destruction of my country.
I feel your frustration. It absolutely sickens me that I continued to give the SNP my vote post referendum. Never again
Actually it saddens me to hear people saying they’ll vote for Reform, even if only tactically or as a way to give the powers that be a bloody nose. I couldn’t hold my nose and vote for Reform: even less likely than doing so for the Tories, or the Greens or the SNP.
Similarly it saddened me to find out over the past few years that the independence movement has a streak of regressive nativism running through it, which certainly wasn’t apparent to me before, though I do remember being slightly nonplussed during #indyref1 to be confronted with someone who purported to be a member of the Orange Order but in favour of indy.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised: I mean I knew that there was a fair proportion of independence supporters who were anti-EU, and – as it turned out – many who were fully on board with the genderist TWAW nonsense.
Maybe the collapse of the indy “Big Tent” approach was inevitable, but given the rise of Reform, particularly in Westminster, I’m not sure where it leaves the broader cause of independence. Perhaps it’s analogous to the old saw about being able to choose your friends, but not your family…?
Alf Baird says:
30 December, 2025 at 2:49 pm
“a language the majority don’t understand”
=======
Alf, if you have not read it, I commend to you a book out a few months ago.
The Coloniser, by William Keleher Storey, published by Cambridge University Press, is a political biography with the sub-title, “The Vision of Cecil Rhodes.”
There is no Post -colonial theory in it but much actual colonial practice – and a ruthless, ugly beast it is too.
What I do NOT find there is much to correspond with your (or Fanon’s?) claim that “the colonizer wants and needs to do away with other languages because he has to make the colonized territory ‘as familiar to him as the mother country’”
To chiefs who spoke Pedi, Zulu, Tswana etc, Rhodes bargained via interpreters fluent in these languages. For “familiarity”, he socialised in copycat outposts of London Clubland.
Some of us wish James VI and I (and his successors) had taken a similar position with respect to our Highland chiefs. But oor ain Stuart coloniser required their heirs to be educated out of their Gaelic and in the King’s English of which “Slabberin Jamie” had a less than prefect grasp himself.
Apologies to Mr. Ellis for misplaced posting intended for Prof Baird
I am most likely to vote reform next year despite the bad taste in my mouth. The current politicians have failed us and seem to have forgotten they are supposed to be representing us, not working to their own agendas.
I don’t expect much from reform but what I do want is a protest vote and they are the only realistic option.
Not voting means you do not have any right to an opinion on what sort of government we get as you have disenfranchised yourself.
Since nothing much is happening in this joint the nou… here is some braw Scots to pass this vacant time:
Thaim wha liftit thair vice in that scowthy chaumer – thair wirds coonted fir naethin ther. Thae coud hae cracked a windae alla-volie an goldered thair pyne at thon deevil throu hit fir aw the difference thair cangle wid hae makkit daen the same in thon ither braken place.
That chaumer wis nae place at aw fir Scots… nae place at aw; hits plumys nou loste tae skelet wyng that ance held high the howp o Scottis.
Whin at laist the Scottis forhoued thair hope o bein heard sic wis yon chaumer’s, yon voyd’s, indifferency tae thair Scottis crye.
Aye, it’s a braw leid richt enough… and this is a Scottish website aw aboot the Scots and how they might go aboot regaining their sovereignty through independence is it naw?
More posts in the Scots leid wid be a rare and braw sicht here.
Or perhaps you could take it to your own thread, or off topic? Since a minority of people actually use or have a facility with Scots, I’m not sure spamming BTL comments with a language the majority don’t understand or needs a Scots/English dictionary to follow will go down that well with the powers that be, particularly given his well known views on Gaelic.
“…I’m not sure spamming BTL comments with a language the majority don’t understand…”
Surely this is your area of expertise, Andy Inglis, is it not?
I very often don’t understand much of the dribblings you dribble aboot this place… even though it is, apparently, written in the English tongue.
Oh dear, look at how us children squabble… I didn’t start it, though.
Perhaps you’re right, Ellis, perhaps I should depart this place… I don’t feel particularly welcome here, even as an indigenous Scot who supports Scottish independence on a Scottish independence supporting website.
Perhaps it’s my imagination, perhaps not, but this joint feels more like it belongs to your kind than mine these days – there are so many of you here I fear us indigenous Scots are overwhelmingly outnumbered.
Perhaps it’s time I searched out another place to wander…
“a language the majority don’t understand”
Despite being prevented by our colonial educators from learning Scots, it remains that oor ain braw Scots mither tongue even in its deprived state is a fundamental determinant of our identity.
Speakin Englis, nae maitter hou guid at hit a colonized fowk micht become, is niver iver ‘Scottishness’. English ‘is always his language before it is mine’ (Yeats).
Why? The colonizer wants and needs to do away with other languages because he has to make the colonized territory ‘as familiar to him as the mother country’ in order to maintain ‘the privileged position and status of the colonizer’ (Memmi). (And as we see in the Peggie decision, and others).
Hence Linguistic Imperialism, and linguicide as a colonial procedure, and the death of ‘a peoples’ language occurs when the language is not taught or used. And once their language perishes, so does the people and culture.
Tak yer racism awa!
That’s ye telt aff by Professor Baird nou, Ellis, ye linguicidal maniacque ye.
Witches kin mak folkes tae becom phrenticque or maniacque.
Yer no a witch are ye, Ellis?
@ Northcode 1.03 & 1.43 pm
Surely this is your area of expertise, Andy Inglis, is it not?
Attempting to other a fellow Scot as English because they disagree with your fringe political views is a low tactic more befitting the type of yoons who routinely labelled any supporter of independence a cybernat fanatic and extremist during the 2012-14 campaign. It speaks to the underlying regressive nativism of of those who fetishise being “indigenous” and attempt to exclude those not considered ethnically pure from the demos.
Perhaps you’re right, Ellis, perhaps I should depart this place…
Our gain will be the other place’s loss. Perhaps (pretty please…?) you can take Alf and James Che with you and start up your own blog performed solely in the medium of Scots language and see what traction that gains. We can but hope.
I don’t feel particularly welcome here, even as an indigenous Scot who supports Scottish independence on a Scottish independence supporting website.
You’re not, at least not in the eyes of the majority of civic nationalists who don’t share your extremist blut und boden weltanschauung. (That’s German by the way: doubtless you can look it up. More people in Scotland are probably fluent German speakers than Scots speakers, so it’s probably more accessable than the kale yard Lallands some of you insist on trying to force down people’s throats in here).
Most indigenous Scots who support independence on this website thing your patter is bowfin.
Perhaps it’s my imagination, perhaps not, but this joint feels more like it belongs to your kind than mine these days – there are so many of you here I fear us indigenous Scots are overwhelmingly outnumbered.
It’s not your imagination, it’s just that you’ve finally seen reason. My “kind” are just as indigenous as you Northcode, we’re just not obsessed with ideas of ethnic purity, birth right based rights.
You’re not outnumbered, you just represent a statistically insignificant section of indigenous Scots who have been captured by an unpleasant, politically regressive form of ethnic nationalism and who reject the fanciful “Scotland as colony” and “we wuz robbed by a tsunami of Sassenachs” narratives.
@ Northcode 3.31 pm
That’s ye telt aff by Professor Baird nou, Ellis, ye linguicidal maniacque ye.
The phrase “like being savaged by a dead sheep” springs to mind.
I thank you for your kind sentiments, Mr Ellis.
I look forward to the day, as do you, when we Scots can celebrate our people’s return to sovereign independence when we might put our differences – made more grievous by our common interloper who sets Scot against Scot – behind us, and together, arm in brotherly arm, rebuild our nation so damaged by three hundred years of wild plundering and desperate neglect.
May your days me merry and bright, Mr Ellis; and may all your Christmases… be white.
Seasons greeting to you, Sir… and best wishes for 2026.
It is a minority of Scots who speak Scots. Even so the 2011 Census tells us that 1.5 million Scots identified as Scots speakers and another 267,000 understood it.
It remains an important language as it was once the official language of Scotland and used in literature and government.
Its use declined after 1707 and again after the 1872 Education Act which promoted the use of Inglis.
There are well known examples of the use of Scots in Scottish culture. Not surprising for a language in use since the Middle Ages.
Ye havnae a bad case o the Burns, nor been drunk and lookin at a thistle. Ye havnae seen the Omar Khayyam in Scots.
Scots is important enough to be taught in schools.
@Sam perhaps there is some nuance that I’m missing but “Scots identified as Scots speakers and another 267,000 understood it”. How does one identify as speaking a language they don’t understand?
I should add the “1.5m identified as Scots speakers . . “
“Scots is important enough to be taught in schools.”
Indeed, Sam. I think the Scots leid is a fantastic language and generally much more expressive than English.
And its word count is vast.
Scots is a joy to play around with and I believe Scots children would enjoy learning it as part of Scotland’s education curriculum.
I do understand if folk don’t appreciate the few posts I put up here written entirely in Scots, but that’s what the scroll functionality is for and folk aren’t forced to read it.
I don’t see the harm in commenting in Scots – it was the national language of the indigenous Scots after all… still is in my view, just not used much at the moment – before English was forced upon us as it was on many peoples.
Alf Baird says:
30 December, 2025 at 2:49 pm
“a language the majority don’t understand”
=======
Alf, if you have not read it, I commend to you a book out a few months ago.
The Coloniser, by William Keleher Storey, published by Cambridge University Press, is a political biography with the sub-title, “The Vision of Cecil Rhodes.”
There is no Post -colonial theory in it but much actual colonial practice – and a ruthless, ugly beast it is too.
What I do NOT find there is much to correspond with your (or Fanon’s?) claim that “the colonizer wants and needs to do away with other languages because he has to make the colonized territory ‘as familiar to him as the mother country’”
To chiefs who spoke Pedi, Zulu, Tswana etc, Rhodes bargained via interpreters fluent in these languages. For “familiarity”, he socialised in copycat outposts of London Clubland.
Some of us wish James VI and I (and his successors) had taken a similar position with respect to our Highland chiefs. But oor ain Stuart coloniser required their heirs to be educated out of their Gaelic and in the King’s English of which “Slabberin Jamie” had a less than prefect grasp himself.
“start up your own blog performed solely in the medium of Scots language and see what traction that gains”
Something I’ve been calling for for quite some time too.
But we do have to consider our environmental responsibilities. The power needed for the AI’s to translate the English language original texts into Scots for posting online would be considerable.
Haha, and you believed they were writing in Scots without help? 🙂
@ Northcode
Season’s greetings to you, to yours and even the other usual suspects.
May 2026 bring us closer to our shared view, however different our paths.
“May 2026 bring us closer to our shared view, however different our paths.”
Agreed… a noble sentiment and one fitting for this festive period.
“Not voting means you do not have any right to an opinion on what sort of government we get as you have disenfranchised yourself…”
The Scots are already disenfranchised… voting, unless it’s for a Liberate Scotland candidate, is futile for them.
The Scots have no government of their own… Holyrood is an English institution – an English hammer with which to batter us Scots doun and keep us aw doun-hauden therafter.
The parliamentary election next May is to elect an English parliament in everything but name.
Have had this argument before with friends about voting: is there not always a lesser of evils to choose from no matter what the setup? By not voting you allow the greater possibility of the worst of those evils coming to be.
No matter what your views on Holyrood’s status, it incontrovertibly still has power enough to directly affect the lives of people in Scotland in numerous practical ways, and thus the people sitting in it do matter. After all why is there so much railing against the domestic policies of the SNP on this website and elsewhere if they could enact none of them?
“Scots are a thrawn race who don’t like to be bullied…”
If only that were true and us Scots weren’t quite as happy as we seem tae be just lying doun on the grund gettin’ the shit kicked oot us, eh?
Its time to act before its to late.
The factors to look at is Liberate Scotland has no polling statistics and that’s because they aren’t aloud any MSM coverage, the Alba party has been on the go for 5yrs and is only polling at 1% and 3 % at best. The greens are not an Indy party they even aren’t a party for green policies any more its all LGBT+.
The SNP isn’t a party who represents Scotland or its people any more, in fact like I’ve been saying they are happy for Westminster to rule and rule with cruelty.
The SNP is happy to ask us (Scots) to vote for them at the next Holyrood election, but our democracy will be denied once again because what the SNP was elected will all be forgotten until they bring out the Indy question again at the next election.
If the Alba party or liberate Scotland was polling at 15% or 20% this would give those of us who do intend to vote and have something to vote for but they aren’t.
The destruction of the SNP has to be top priority and like I’ve said the SNP is edging its bets with the Labour party to stay in office. I see no reason in not voting for the only party who I believe is more likely to bring about the destruction of the Union with their policies than any other party and is the only party who is polling at a decent percentage to stand a chance of stopping the SNP.
At the moment Your Party is a unknown entity as there is no polling for them.
While the Tories, Lib-Dems and reform won’t be able to unite to form a government they will unite to STOP the SNP form governing again, this would force another Holyrod election which just might benefiting the cause of Independence, honestly people if we get things right we just might cause the SNP to stop and think what they stand to lose.
It doesn’t seem logical that the SNP should support a continuation of the status quo.
They have had full access to all the relevant information regarding Scottish finances for well over a decade.
If this shows that an independent Scotland would be more wealthy when free of Westminster, then they themselves would expect to be wealthier following independence than currently. The trough will pay better.
So why are they against independence?
Judas betrayed Jesus and was given money for doing it, Judas said I didn’t do it for the money, but he took it anyway.
The SNP is only a party, the problem isn’t the party its the Strugeonites running it. The membership have had 11yrs and three leaders to rid us of the Judas’s within the party and have failed.
The people at the top of the party aren’t even bothered about the SNP or its membership, Scotland or the people their only bothered about one thing and that’s that devolution continues in its present form they don’t even want more powers there happy with the powers that the parliament has.
If the SNP as a party was to collapse the leadership would instantly join the Labour party, that’s who they are and have always been.
The daily Record’s Mr Murray Foote won the referendum in 2014 for the unionist with the vow. It was after the referendum we had another golden opportunity in way of smith’s commission set up by the Tory’s to give Scotland more powers. It was during this commission that the SNP should have demanded full fiscal autonomy which was promised and if they didn’t get it here was a reason to demand a new referendum and they didn’t alarm bells should have started then but they didn’t. After the Smith commission the power that was given was design never to work unless you had full control of your economy and the leadership of the SNP knew this.
“So why are they against independence?”
Postcolonial theory (Fanon) tells us that a dominant national party ‘lacks courage at the decisive moment’, which would be in 2015 and election of 56 SNP MPs out of 59 MPs in Scotland at that time, and shortly before our enforced EU withdrawal.
The national party elite ‘fear the colonizer’s tanks and planes’ or whatever else might be used to hold on to a colony. They suffer from a form of ‘petrifaction’. Unable to move they instead adopt ‘a neutral stance’ on independence and make ‘an accommodation with colonialism’. Subsequent elected nationalist majorities are wasted.
Thereafter the national party ‘depends on slogans’ at elections and ‘takes the movement up a blind alley’. The party elite ‘behaves like a gang’, they ‘feather their nests’ and ‘build up their pensions. They also become ‘an instrument of coercion’ joining with colonial forces to attack any ‘radicals’ who are ‘sickened’ by the lack of progress on independence.
The same process has been played out many times before just as we see the occurring now in Scotland:
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
North Code,
That is the problem, the Scots do not have a parliament,
” The Scotland act ” turned the theory of a union between two Countries of Scotland and England on its head when it set up a devolved governance in Scotland and subdued Scotland into a region of England.
But England has always presumed it had ownership of the treaty since 1707,
The mistake is that it does require two parties to hold a treaty in force, not England and a region.
Or a devolved Country from the treaty,
Colonising the treaty as just a treaty of England with England.
In that belief they, Westminster parliament of England have made many legal mistakes,
The 1800 parliament of England and Ireland parliament of the new Great Britain was one of them.
The Scotland Act, was another serious mistake, when it placed Scotland by its Acts and Statues as a devolved sub-county region of England, and not any longer a Country in a treaty.
Colonising Scotland by colonising the supposed theoretical treaty, and the more that England has taken that position, the easier it becomes for Scotland to recognise the treaty holds no strength for England, but as a theoretical treaty,
To vote, how to vote, or when Scotland chooses to vote under whatever method of election it chooses becomes ever more closer to independence the further England dismisses and dissolves it from the treaty of union,
That Nigal Farage and reform have already stated that they Would not allow Scotland a vote on independence follows the implication he and his private party of Reform they also think only England is in a treaty of union with England, and that with a united kingdom England and Ireland of Great Britain.
The mind of the coloniser. Thinking Englands borders end at the top of Scotland.
“The mind of the coloniser. Thinking England’s borders end at the top of Scotland.”
Aye, James. And some of them think England’s borders still circle hauf the planet… the empire never died for those Farage types.
North Code,
And you know what is Strange about the Colonised mind in Scotland.
It accepts when the Great Britain parliament says no to referendums and section 30s.
The smart mind in Scotland says,
But hold on Scotland never made a treaty of Union with the Great Britain parliament in 1707.
Scotland made the treaty with the parliament of England in 1707.
So it must be the parliament of England saying No.
“The smart mind in Scotland says…”
Aye, James, but the Scots have been fooled across many generations these past three centuries.
The enchantment cast over them by England binds them tight and only a few Scots, as yet, such as you and I and Alf Baird among a few others in this place and those who support Salvo and Liberation.scot and Liberate Scotland have minds clear enough to escape that powerful enchantment and see it for the lie it really is.
It just needs a bit of analyses regards Scotlands actual position,
Scotlands 1707 treaty is with the parliament of England,
Scotland did not make a treaty with the parliament of Great Britain,
The 1707 treaty between Scotland and England states that both parliaments would cease when the Great Britain parliament was created, and came into being.
The Scotland- England parliament ended in 1800.
England parliament and Englands privy Council along with the Bank of England payments went independent to create
The England- Ireland parliament Union…start date 1801/1802.
Which was also the new united kingdom of Great Britain start date.
Scotland, had not made a treaty with Neither United kingdoms the 1st or 2nd one,
Only the parliament of England in a supposed treaty with Scotland that was dissolved in 1800 could have refused or said No to Scotland in the past.
Not The parliament of Great Britain new or old.
So when we vote nowadays in what is claimed to be a region within the Borders of England think what your actually voting for,
To wish away a Country, by stealth,
The national, the writers who write for the RAG the two dave’s, Hailsa, Gordon Ross, Scot goes pop and others like them will all tell you to vote for the SNP with 1 or both votes to get Independence knowing that over the last 11yrs SNP has done fuck all for Scotland its people or the constitutional question when in fact the problems in Scotland is entirely the SNP fault even on the Issue of Independence.
It’s not what these people say its how they say it, here is where you have to pay attention.
The one thing they all come out with is the SNP is the only party who can deliver Independence and here is the con. The SNP doesn’t want Independence and hasn’t since Sturgeon took over from Alex they only want to be ruled by Westminster through Holyrood that isn’t democracy and it certainly isn’t what you voted for and the con is being repeated at every single election by all the same people and organizations and its these same people and organization who are telling you not to vote for Refrom.
I say let Reform bring about armageddon it might be our only hope of saving Scotland from the rest who oppose them.
The fact that the SNP have been the government for some years because a majority voted for them does not mean that this majority wants independence.
At the high water mark of independence at referendum time the voters rejected independence, now there is much less chance of it happening with no half decent FM and no coherent party, particularly not one that sands for the majority of scots aspirations.
SALVO etc are an irrelevance only important to a very few, they will never get a majority or even near it.
The SNP gets in because all the alternatives are worse in the majority of voters eyes, hard to believe I know.
For the hard of thinking talk of “indigenous scots” MI5 involvement, conspiracies rather than sheer incompetence and et al, just turn off most folk, you really need to take off the tin foil hats.
Indepennce as an issue is dead for the moment, what is needed is a mainsteam party that can show competence over a period to demonstrate that the country could be independent.
At the moment I would not trust any of the mainstream parties to stir my coffee, neer mind run a country.
I saw various posts on the old FB live feed today showing Swinney proclaiming in a recent interview that he wants to also stand in 2031. Discerning readers will knowingly nod and say this is his tacit acknowledgement that independence is going absolutely nowhere in the next 5 year term, possibly even in the 5 years after that… yet SNP bots will still insist we “wheesht for Indy” and drink the Kool-Aid (sorry, Irn-Bru) as he delivers more of the same.
In this age of information, many say ignorance is no excuse. I go further and say it is a choice. The information is out there for any who care to look. It’s often there in plain sight, for those paying attention to Swinney and his fellow grifters. If the people of Scotland can’t wake up and see what’s really going on, that the SNP are at best controlled opposition, then sadly the country doesn’t deserve to be independent and those of us in the know will have to accept the fate bestowed upon us by an ignorant majority.
So Swinney and Rev Stu are in agreement then?
I’d place my bets accordingly, although as the bookies also agree, nobody is going to be making a killing.
But do count the positives, Chris. There are some, as a casual scroll through the BTL comments makes quite clear.
British politics is overwhelmingly English, has the party of Scotland even noticed?
Taken the king’s shilling maybe?
‘I pulled into Nazareth just about half past dead.
I just need to find a place where I can lay my head.
Mister can you tell me where a man can find a bed?
He just grinned and shook my hand and ‘No’was all he said.”
CEÒL MÒR: SOME LINGUISTIC, DANCE, AND MUSICAL NOTES
« The Norse language must have died out in Scotland, except in the Northern Isles, by 1400. It was one of the languages spoken by a bi-lingual race, the Gall-Gaels, who lived in the Hebrides, the west of Scotland and in Ireland, in the 11th to 13th centuries. Of mixed Norse-Celtic blood or upbringing, they spoke the languages of both parents, Norse and Gaelic. It has been estimated that there were about 10,000 of them – a political force of some importance.
« The principal clans of the north-west derive from these people, notably the MacLeods themselves. When Iceland was colonised in the 10th century, many of the first settlers were of Hebridean and Irish blood; to this day the blood-groups of the Icelandic people correspond more closely to those of the Hebrideans than to those of the Norwegians.
« The link between Norse and Celtic was strong, but it was broken in 1264 when the Western Islands became part of Scotland, having previously belonged to Norway. The Norse side of the mixed race was not renewed, the Celtic strain took over, and Norse ceased to be spoken. This was obviously a gradual process, but it seems likely that it was completed by about 1400.
« It was not possible for a person who did not speak Norse, or who spoke it poorly, to follow skaldic verse, let alone hand on its traditions to later generations, but these traditions could have survived in musical form after the Norse language died out, if the skalds had already given their structural patterns to the harpers. There is, of course, no direct or clear evidence of this, nor to support the idea that the harpers took their patterns from Norse or Irish poetry, or indeed from anybody.
« If the Italian influence on ceòl mòr [pibroch] was indeed in the 16th century, as is suggested on musical grounds, the hypothesis is also supported by historical fact: any powerful Hebridean family, but especially the MacLeods of Dunvegan, could have had direct contact with Italian musicians in the 16th century.
« Both James IV and James V travelled widely in the Highlands and the Hebrides; James IV sent his natural son Alexander to be educated in Italy. Both James IV and his English wife were skilled in the ‘basse’ dancing of the courts of that period, dancing which was based on the Italian ‘passamezzo’. James visited the western islands several times at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century; he spoke fluent Gaelic and gained some loyalty from his Hebridean subjects. »
– Extracts from ‘The Origins of Ceòl Mòr, a Theory’, by Bridget MacKenzie (The Piping Times, May 1980).
link to bagpipe.news
“Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long-stem rose
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that you love me, baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you’ve been faithful
Ah, give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you’ve been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
And everybody knows that it’s now or never
Everybody knows that it’s me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah, when you’ve done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe’s still picking cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows
And everybody knows that the plague is coming
Everybody knows that it’s moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there’s gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows
And everybody knows that you’re in trouble
Everybody knows what you’ve been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
And to the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it’s coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Oh, everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows”
Never be shamed into avoidance of you’re mother tongue and language,
Many times we have been punished because we did, and banned from the culture and national dress and music of Scotland,
Until now it is thrown back at us as having no language or different dialects of Scotland any more, remmants of that old voice still hang on in the minds of the people even if forced to to mix with the old or modern english language to survive the punishment of using it,
It clings on in pockets of Scotland, so it is sad to hear racist comments against using it and reviving it just as Wales did in the middle of the 20th century,
We do not tell England to stop speaking English, in there own Country, nor did we ever think of re-educating them at School to learn Scots
I was punished at School for speaking Scots,
It is nice to see it being wrote down again. and I under stand most of it when I read it, takes a while, but I get there,
Because my Spouse and his sister used to speak north east Scots at home,
Although not just in poetry or Burns, but every day use, in ordinary conversations.
“used to speak north east Scots at home”
But that’s not the authentic, ‘true’ Scots.
If anybody ever attenpted to belt that out of you, it’s likely because they saw your future as being one of working in Glesga or Embra.
And they would have seen that talking in north east Scots would have curtailed your chances of employment in these cities among ordinary Scots, where somebody hailing from the sticks was labelled a teuchter, gowk, sumph or cuddie.
And still is today.
Tut tut, auld year’s day an oor colonizer aye canna resist dividin an de-basin the native fowk an thair ain braw an unique cultur an langage.
There are dialects of the Scots language throughout Scotland, fae Stranraer an stealt Berwick aw the wey up tae Shetland, just as there are dialects of English throughput England, or dialects of German throughout Germany.
These dialects of a commonly unnerstuid Scots language are what unites the people who hold the same Scottish national identity.
That you an ithers like ye aye seek to divide the Scottish people tells us your objective.
“I was punished at School for speaking Scots, it is nice to see it being wrote down again. and I under stand most of it when I read it.”
Aye, I was belted with the tawse, too, James. And it is nice to see the Scots leid writ doun agin, is it no?
It’s a guid deal o fun writing it doun tae.
And of course you understand a lot of the Scots you hear and read… you’re a Scot and the language of the Scots is in your soul, the gist o its meaning when you read or hear it will generally be clear tae ye.
TURABDIN,
Is it still a kings shilling? Perhaps its turned-into the-faith of all coinage,
The Scots on the outside looked from WGD BTL to WOS BTL, and from WOS BTL to WGD BTL again, but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Eric Blair, eh? What was he like? How could he have predicted it would end like this?
I guess we’ll never know how much he was influenced by the likes of Fanny, Mummy, Jonesy, Caesar, and the rest.
Hatey McHateface says:
31 December, 2025 at 8:40 am
“The Scots on the outside looked from WGD BTL to WOS BTL, and from WOS BTL to WGD BTL again, but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
=======
Are you comparing WGD with Wings of 2012?
The “BTL” (appears 4 times) refers to Below The Line.
Hopefully all is now clear.
I don’t see any chains holding you down, Hatey. A solid 50% of the beef in these comments seems to originate from you.
Leaving 50% as … mince?
Let’s hope so. The alternatives are even worse.
Take the hint, Unionist fuckwit.
Well here we are at last, eh?
The final day of the 25th year of the 21st century… and guid riddance tae it anaw.
A’ll confess 2025 hisnae been aw that kind tae me sae it kin get itsel tae fuck an a’ll be gled tae see the back o the bastard.
Hou an iver, back tae the day and a howp it’s a guid day fir aw youse folk, colonists, colonialists, aye, and true Scots anaw.
Stey sauf the nicht youse wha gae oot an aboot celeberatin the death o yit anither year o oppressive colonialism richt here in bonny Scotland… land of the coloniZed Scots, the wretched o Britain, and the unsung heroes and creators of the modern world.
Oh, here, hearken tae me… awa on a wee anti-colonialism rant an it still no mid-morn yit.
Ma wee mornyng rant aside, hae a guid Hogmany, stey sauf, an a howp 2026 is a braw year fir the lot o youse.
The most wonderful thing about this kind of post from oor verra ain Northie is the crass ignorance it reveals.
The modern Gregorian calendar, on which the determination of today’s date relies, was adopted in much of Europe, including England, prior to 1707.
In Scotland, it was an act of the British parliament, in 1752, that brought Scotland, a kicking and screaming “colony”, into line.
No True Sovereign Scot, ranting and railing about our colonised, subjugated state, and how we are the impotent playthings of foreign, alien, colonialist forces, would ever acknowledge or celebrate New Year on January 1st of the modern calendar.
Anyhoo, in the tradition to which we will all be paying increasing attention in the coming years, it’s 1447 AH. Ramadan occurs Feb 18 to Mar 20 in 2026. Enjoy!
“Prick”.
Your memory is playing you false, James.
It’s:
“Feck”.
“Arse”.
“Drink”.
“Gurls”.
You see, if Father Jack had been uncontrollably shouting “Prick” instead of “Gurls”, people would have naturally assumed …
Oh well, never mind.
Blethers, Hatey. It was James VI of Scotland who reset New Years’ day in Scotland from the 25th of March to 1st of January in 1600. England didn’t follow suit until 1752.
This is why people think that England ratified the Treaty of Uniton in 1706 before Scotland’s parliament did hers, because England’s parliament passed it in March 6 of 1706, which was March 6 1707 in Scotland and most of Europe.
Scotland actually passed its Treaty of Union Act on 16th January 1707, but in England that same day was 16th January 1706, because England’s New Year hadn’t come round yet. The English parliament passed its Act of Union several weeks later on the 6th March 1706, and then had its new Year’s day a couple of weeks afterwards on March 25th 1707.
The 11 day skippage didn’t happen until September 1752.
Ok then; “Unionist Prick Troll”.
Happy Hogmanay to all when it comes.
With the obvious exceptions.
A guid new year to wan and a’ – though I hae ma doots.
Here, whit a braw cauld an frosty stert tae the dey is theis mornyn.
A fine dey tae end the year oan, is it no?.
It fayr lifts the speerits sae it does and maks the glorius works o the Lord oor God a joyfu thing, aye, an a pleisur tae leuk at whin the sun shines upo’ His creation.
A wunner hou mony unsnidie messages o guid will fir the comin year us Scots will be treated tae here the dey fae the colonialists wha romp aboot theis glaidles place.
Interesting new poll in The Independent:
link to independent.co.uk
“A total of 55 per cent of British voters want a new UK/Europe defence alliance – without America – to guard against the threat from Putin, according to the JL Partners poll, while only 11 per cent oppose this plan.”
“…auld year’s day…”
I’ve never heard of the last day of the year being called “auld year’s day”, Alf, or I have and can’t recall having heard it such is my ancientness, but I like it and I’ll be nicking it.
Aw the best tae you and yours fir 2026… a howp it turns oot tae be a grand yin fir ye.
Northcode, guid wishes yersel.
Perhaps you might like this poet?
“Efter SPL filtered throu dizzens o Scots poems publish in 2023, A wis presentit wi 31 poems tae pick five fae. No an easy darg. Bit maist enjoyable. Thir wis a fine selection o wark in aw the dialecks o Scots an aw the preoccupations tae be fun in wir warld. Legacies tae fowk the poet admired or kent, ecological girns aboot hou we’re ruinin wir warld, seasonal depictions which somehou managed tae paint a picter o nature in an original wey, jist as ye thocht awthing possiblehid been awreadie scrievit. Thir wir poems wi weil structured forms, an techniques employed wir skeelie an confident. Thir wis rythms and rhymes baith internal and endline, free verse, figurative langwage galore an rich Scots vocabulaire. It’s great we hae sic variation across the pairts o the kintra an nae homogenised version tae pin awthin doon tae in poetrie. The content o contemporarie Scots is wey past predictable. It micht be aboot the naitural warld bit micht jist as likely be makin sherp observations oan politics, pandemics or philosophy. It’s jist brilliant tae see that the leid is in guid hauns as evidenced bi the reenge o wark bein publish in Scottish literary magazines the day.
Liz Niven”
I hope you remember that Sir Henry Neville wrote Shakespeare’s plays.
Thanks, Sam.
A terrific description by Liz Niven on the power and range of the Scots leid.
Of course I remember that it was Sir Henry Neville who wrote Shakespeare’s plays… you told me yourself, so it must be true.
Hae a guid nicht the nicht, Sam.
Aye, Scots hiv come a lang wey in the lest few year tae better unnerstaund oor doun-hauden colonial condeetion.
An as you say, ance a fowk unnerstaund thair colonial condeetion thars nae wey thay’re gaun tae staund fir it. The split in the vote for independence and vote for SNP demonstrates such a rupture – as mair Scots can noo see the SNP are chancers, as the Rev says.
The shit will smit soon eneuch….
Aye, Alf, and as the poll in the next article shows, a solid 3.6% of Scots believe we will be Independent by 2031.
Care to make a wee wager on how “fowk unnerstaunding thair colonial condeetion” will drive those numbers up over the next 6 years?
Should be a lot of fun! 🙂
@Hatey 3.08 pm
Aye, Alf, and as the poll in the next article shows, a solid 3.6% of Scots believe we will be Independent by 2031.
Wait a minute….! When I Googled the figures the other day for how many people spoke Scots, I’m sure the figure for those who claimed it as their main language was 3.5%.
Still, only 46.6% to go and independence will be a shoo in!
“a solid 3.6% of Scots believe we will be Independent by 2031”
More importantly, polls indicate at least 50%+ of Scots wad vote for leeberation the morra! You may recall Scots are still being deprived of the opportunity to self-determine our preferred form of governance.
As the Rev suggests, these numbers will only increase efter Farage’s English Naitional Pairty gets intae No.10.
‘ST PATRICK’S BREASTPLATE’
(The prayer as recorded is dated on linguistic grounds to the early 8th century.)
« Crist lim. Crist remam.
Crist imm degaid. Crist innum.
Crist isum. Crist uasam.
Crist dessum. Crist tuathum.
« Crist hicride cech duine
rodomscrútadar.
Crist angin cech duine
rodomlabradar.
« Crist irusce cech duine
rodomdecadar.
Crist iclúais cech duine
rodomcluinedar.
« Atomruig indíu
niurt trén togairm Trínóite. »
« Christ be with me, Christ within me…
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity… »
RITA CONNOLLY SINGS ‘THE DEER’S CRY’
(SHAUN DAVEY’S ARRANGEMENT AND DIRECTION) :
link to youtube.com