Under Her Thumb
When the Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts died last month, the first of their songs that popped into my head, for no particular reason, was “Under My Thumb”, a mildly controversial 1966 album track the band never released as a single in the West.
Its most infamous place in history, though, is this.
Until Watts’ death I was only very broadly aware of the events at Altamont Speedway in 1969, a free festival at a racetrack near San Francisco at which four people died in scenes of malevolent chaos and which is widely regarded as the grim headstone of the hippy era.
But on seeing the extraordinary footage above for the first time on the day of Watts’ death – taken from “Gimme Shelter”, notionally the official movie of the show, although the first two-thirds of it are actually a mundane travelogue of the preceding tour dates – I did some proper reading up on it.
And as I did, a horribly familiar feeling started to unfold.
The last few seconds of the clip above show the murder of audience member Meredith Hunter (in the green suit), the culmination of a running fight he’d been having with the Hells Angels who were the only security at the festival, having been paid in beer and having been drinking it all day by the time the Stones took the stage. Hunter pulled a gun and was stabbed and beaten to death by one of the Angels, who was (not entirely unreasonably) acquitted at trial on the grounds of self-defence.
(It’s scarcely believable that the film was released, and can still be bought today, with the footage of Hunter being killed. We live in an age now where TV news won’t even show the bodies of Osama bin Laden or Colonel Gadaffi in case some sensitive soul is triggered, far less having someone sell it as an entertainment product.)
All the footage of Altamont, comprising the last half-hour of the movie, is horrifically riveting. Over 300,000 people turned up to a dustbowl 50 miles from anywhere with 100 portable toilets between them and no other facilities whatsoever, crammed onto a slope leading down to an impossibly rickety pallet stage less than three feet high.
Bad LSD and bad vibes were everywhere. The Grateful Dead, the main instigators of the event, refused to play because things had become so ugly. It’s little short of a miracle that only four people lost their lives.
The Stones, as the main attraction, found themselves in a no-win situation where not performing might have caused a riot. (Though it was a situation significantly of their own making.) From just a couple of songs into their set things had deteriorated badly, with “Sympathy For The Devil” having to be stopped a minute in while Jagger pleads feebly with the crowd to “cool out”.
The stage is a chaotic melee, littered with the band, crew, fans, assorted hangers-on, cameramen, Hells Angels and even a dog just wandering across it at one point, as well as a naked woman clearly the worse for wear clambering over the crowd in the freezing December evening.
(The movie actually makes it look like only a few hundred people were present, because there’s no lighting anywhere in the whole vast arena beyond the first few metres from the stage.)
At this point there’s still a mixture of emotions on display, some people looking increasingly concerned about the developing situation while others are oblivious. But by “Under My Thumb”, a couple of songs later, there are no smiles in the crowd, fans are having acid meltdowns on the stage and the band are wearing numb, haunted looks as the nightmare envelops them, wondering if they’re even going to get out alive.
(Ironically, the version of the song – normally a taut, urgent and quite nasty affair – that they’re playing couldn’t sound more loose-limbed, mellow or carefree. Perhaps it’s an attempt to avoid inflaming the situation any more.)
As “Under My Thumb” draws towards its end, Jagger repeatedly sings “I pray that it’s alright”, a change to the usual lyrics, but his prayer goes unanswered. A matter of seconds after those words Meredith Hunter is drawing his last breaths on Earth, and within half an hour the Stones will be fleeing for their lives into a helicopter jam-packed with frightened people sitting on each other’s laps in their desperation to leave the hellish scene behind.
It’s hard to watch “Gimme Shelter” marking the grisly death of a dream and not think about the independence movement. Or what used to be the independence movement.
Because there is no “independence movement” any more, just an independence industry. It provides a very lucrative living for perhaps a couple of hundred people – SNP MPs, MSPs, party staff and apparatchiks, special advisers, quango heads and favoured civil servants lavishly rewarded for their personal loyalty to Nicola Sturgeon despite track records of incompetence, bungling and impropriety that have cost taxpayers a vast fortune.
(And a couple of tame pet bloggers, too.)
The SNP, and in practice the wider Yes movement, is now firmly under the thumb of Sturgeon and her tiny closed cabal. The members’ influence on the party has been systematically shredded to the point where they’re now a rubber-stamp at best. The National Council to which the leadership used to be accountable has been abolished, the NEC purged of the dissenters elected just months ago (and about to be shrunk by 25% so that ordinary members have even less say compared to tiny special-interest pressure groups), and branches starved of funds.
Policies which have never been put in front of conference for debate have been adopted by leadership diktat. Does anyone recall conference approving the hugely controversial and divisive gender reform that’s been made top priority of the new SNP/Green alliance, for example? (Indeed, the party only got a token consultative vote on that alliance full stop, not a binding one.)
The pivotal Altamont moment for the Yes movement, it must surely be beyond any reasonable argument, was the failed fit-up of Alex Salmond on false charges of sexual harassment. In embarking on a ruinous, uncontrollably-escalating attempt to silence her predecessor, motivated by baseless paranoia, Sturgeon revealed her true self: a weak, power-crazed careerist prepared to throw under the bus anything and anyone that might conceivably ever threaten her grip on the keys to Bute House.
Having overseen a farcically inept and crooked attempt to take him down via internal government processes, in desperation Sturgeon and her loyal lieutenants instigated a criminal trial and ensured that the lurid details of the fake allegations concocted by her close allies were illegally leaked to the despised Daily Record.
(After they duly splashed the lies all over numerous front pages for months, Sturgeon used SNP members’ money to employ the hated architect of “The Vow”, the paper’s then-editor Murray Foote, in a lucrative party head-of-comms post.)
Assailed for two years by the knives and pool cues of the Unionist media and his own party working hand in glove together, Salmond’s eventual complete acquittal on all charges made no difference. An innocent man to whom the SNP owes every last atom of its current power, he finds himself despised and decried by most of its brainwashed membership, who have instead chosen the monstrous, revolting Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater for allies.
If there’s ever another independence referendum – and we see no prospect of one in the next decade at least – Sturgeon and her Green hench[persons] will already have turned Scotland into a grotesque, intolerant, science-denying authoritarian hell where all protest is deemed a hate crime and biological women are third-class citizens forbidden from mentioning the fact of their own sex.
I shudder at the thought of asking anyone to vote for that. So while I originally planned to wait until November to make the final decision about closing this site down, I see no point in delaying it that long. This, in every practical sense, is the final Wings Over Scotland post.
(Whatever happens the site’s hosting is paid up for several more months, and it will continue as an archive in the meantime. It may possibly also be used on occasion to communicate information to supporters of Craig Murray while he’s imprisoned for telling the truth, or for administrative messages, and for now at least, people can keep shouting at each other about vaccines in the comments.)
The question of what to do with the remnants of the Wings Fighting Fund therefore arises. This site’s “Donate” page lists all the money raised by Wings in a variety of crowdfunders since 2013:
Annual fundraiser, June 2019: £171,849 (incl. “offsite” donations)
Annual fundraiser, March 2018: £153,215 (ditto)
Annual fundraiser, March 2017: £140,047 (ditto)
Annual fundraiser, March 2016: £87,171 (ditto)
Annual fundraiser, March 2015: £117,345 (ditto)
Annual fundraiser, March 2014: £110,717 (ditto)
Wee Blue Book, August 2014: £59,661
Annual fundraiser, February 2013: £33,014
Opinion polls (x2), 2013: £11,822
Total: £884,841
(There was also one to print the Wee Black Book, which was done on a cost basis where the outgoings exactly matched the approximately £15,000 raised.)
Over the years there have also been both regular and one-off donations outside of the annual fundraisers, the highest being a few hundred pounds, but frankly counting all of those up wouldn’t be a productive use of anyone’s time even if it was actually possible – our bank doesn’t send paper statements or allow searches beyond seven years (ie almost nothing before the indyref).
How is that £885,000 accounted for? There are six main categories of expenditure. Most of the following figures are estimated to some small degree (for the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph), but they’re pretty close estimates.
COST OF FUNDRAISING: £130,000
Anyone who’s done a public crowdfunder will know that anywhere from 6-10% of the total (the precise amount varies according to a number of factors) goes on commissions to the fundraising platform and the payment providers (eg PayPal and Visa). So at an average of 7% in Wings’ case that would amount to something a little over £62,000.
Then there are the costs of donor perks – badges, mugs, notebooks, umbrellas, hip flasks and so on. Our seven annual fundraisers attracted an average of around 3000 donors a time. The first in 2013 had no physical perks, but the others required just over 17,000 perk packages to be sent out, often with multiple items in them. We have to have the perks made, buy suitable packaging, pay postage and also pay someone at a fair rate (ie not minimum wage) to do the hundreds of hours of work involved.
Even badges cost a few quid to send out by the time you’ve paid for manufacture, envelopes, stamps and labour, and some perks (the 2017 brollies were especially troublesome) cost a fortune to package and post. So a conservative ballpark figure for those six campaigns of £4 per package would be £68,000 and bring the total cost of fundraising up to £130,000.
WAGES/CONTRIBUTORS – £260,000
Over the nearly 10 years Wings has been running I’ve paid myself a total of around £210,000 in salary, which clearly averages to a not-very-lavish £21K a year for an average of 600 articles pa.
On top of this we’ve paid other people for a variety of content – cartoons from Chris Cairns (of which there have been over 370), Greg Moodie/Rose Garnett and Lorna Miller, and we funded a full series of Dateline 2018 from Jack Foster and James Devoy, which is work of a quality that doesn’t come cheaply. (We also assisted various other campaigners with small sums occasionally.)
I’m especially proud to have been able to bring you those Cairnstoons. Watching Chris blossom from a talented newcomer to a superbly accomplished artist during his occasional breaks from golfing trips has been one of the unalloyed joys of Wings, and his sometimes-weekly cartoons were much-needed shafts of light counterbalancing the (necessarily) somewhat darker tone of much of my own prose.
You’ve already read his own farewell piece, and I fervently hope his mighty skills find another outlet. But if his holiday turns out to be a long-term one, well, at least he’s got plenty experience.
Without breaching confidences by disclosing what any individuals were paid, the total spend on external content over the entire history of Wings is approximately £50,000 in addition to my own wages, for a total of £260,000.
KEZIA DUGDALE – £220,000
This is the sore one, of course. Our lawyers only finally concluded negotiations over costs relating to the 2017 defamation court case this month, and we now know that from start to finish the entire affair of being – by the agreement of all four judges involved – grossly and falsely defamed by a malicious imbecile will have cost just shy of £220,000.
This is roughly 10 times the original estimate we were given, and we’d never have gone ahead had we ever imagined costs this high, but there you go. Expensive lesson learned. The case also cost the Labour Party in excess of £100,000 and the Daily Record a five-figure sum in unrecouped costs (there’s a reason you never see a QC at a foodbank), so we didn’t suffer alone.
(It should be noted that that terrifying bill came about despite my own solicitors working for a substantially reduced rate.)
On the upside, it also removed the epically witless Kezia Dugdale from any meaningful influence in Scottish politics. We’re told by reliable sources inside Scottish Labour that the case – along with her humiliating appearance on I’m A Celebrity and pocketing the money that should have gone to charity from it – was one of the two main reasons why the party was not going to permit her a third term at Holyrood, and why she bailed out for a cosy but powerless sinecure at the John Smith Centre.
(Her resignation as Scottish Labour leader in August 2017, they told us, with the party sitting at just 14% in the polls, was a non-negotiable condition imposed by Labour for them funding her defence.)
We fully expect her to be as hopeless at “restoring trust and faith in politics” as she has been at everything else in her life. But while her mates in the cosy Scottish political establishment will ensure she never starves, nothing she ever says or does for the rest of her life will even slightly matter to anyone else.
So, y’know, that money wasn’t totally wasted. And hey, it’s not like it was needed for another indyref campaign anyway.
Ironically, since the case, libellous and slanderous public attacks on “cybernats” by Unionist politicians – one of the things the case explicitly sought to stop – have almost completely ended. In that much we succeeded. Sadly the job of attacking ordinary independence supporters has been enthusiastically taken over by the SNP instead.
Whether it’s Alyn Smith, Angus Robertson and Stewart McDonald lambasting hard-working indy campaigners from the pages of Unionist newspapers, Mhairi Hunter and Rhiannon Spear calling them transphobes and bigots for defending women’s rights, John Nicolson and Pete Wishart relentlessly attacking them on Twitter or the Scottish Government prosecuting and even imprisoning the likes of Manny Singh, Mark Hirst and Craig Murray (and of course Alex Salmond himself), Yes supporters are now far more regularly knifed in the back by their supposed leaders than they ever were in the front by their opponents.
Just today, in fact, there’s another huge, deranged attack piece in the Herald On Sunday by – who else? – McDonald and the paper’s Ulster-born “Yes supporter” Neil Mackay. (The articles turn up as regular as clockwork whenever there’s a major AUOB march.) The ghastly hordes, it seems, must bow to the interests of the SNP or be firmly put in their place lest they embarrass the party in front of its fancy friends.
(We’ve also incurred some other minor legal costs at various points, offset by the award of £6000 from The Scotsman over another defamation.)
INDYREF EXPENDITURE – £78,000
Our regulated indyref campaign spending, as fully (if very slightly belatedly) receipted to the Electoral Commission – mostly comprising the printing of the Wee Blue Book – was just short of £78,000.
POLLS – £120,000
As anybody who’s commissioned one will tell you, the average cost of a typical multi-question poll of 1000 Scottish respondents is around £6000. Wings has conducted 21 such polls, although a couple were shared and therefore cheaper, so our spending on polling over 10 years has been roughly £120,000.
WEB HOSTING – £30,000
Wings is hosted on a dedicated twin-server set-up, which is quite costly but necessary to cope with the huge volume of traffic to the site and the great many malicious attacks which were made on it during the indyref in particular. Our excellent hosts have given us generous discounts but over the 10-year lifetime of the site total costs have still been in excess of £30,000.
TOTAL OUTGOINGS: £838,000.
So we come to the thorny question of what’s to be done with what’s left over.
Years ago my plan if I ever gave up Wings or was found having mysteriously shot myself repeatedly in the head with a revolver was that the Wings Fighting Fund should be distributed to selected other indy campaigners. However, the truth of the matter is now that there’s nobody left I’d be happy giving the money to.
Almost all of the people whose work I considered valuable and effective, like Colin “Zarkwan” Dunn, have either walked away in disgust, thrown in their lot wholeheartedly with the monstrous new SNP to cling onto the side of the gravy train and soak up whatever drips spill over the side, or, like the Dateline team, simply found something else to do with their lives. Even the phenomenal talent of Alan “Phantom Power” McMaster is now largely idle, having posted less than seven minutes of footage in the last year.
I’ve reached a point where there’s simply nobody still properly active in the movement that I’d trust with a large sum of money. Hundreds of thousands of pounds have been swallowed up by various organisations with little or nothing to show for it. Various well-intentioned umbrella groups have simply dissolved into endless committee meetings and factional infighting.
(Something which is also brutally poisoning the Welsh indy movement, incidentally, mainly – of course – at the hands of the transcult.)
Give it all away to foodbanks, then? Even a sizeable sum like the Wings Fighting Fund would be a tiny drop in the ocean of food poverty in Scotland, and also lets both the Westminster and Holyrood governments off the hook.
(And to be honest, my last experience of trying to give money away to worthy causes was such a hellish administrative nightmare that it chills my blood just thinking about doing it again on a larger scale.)
One seemingly-obvious route, of course, would be to donate it for the production of the recently-announced Wee Alba Book, but the legal minefield that that’d blunder into would make your blood run cold. Donating large amounts to political parties is heavily regulated at the best of times, and giving them tens of thousands of pounds that was raised several years ago when Alba didn’t exist would be an impossible nightmare for them and us. They have their own funding plans in place for their book.
(It should also be acknowledged that much of the money will have been donated by SNP supporters, who have now been groomed into such absolute blind hatred of Alba – something remarkably akin in character to Scottish Labour’s burnt-in tribal loathing of the old SNP – that they’d be furious to have their money given to that party in any way, shape or form. And while enraging such people would on one level be amusing and satisfying, ultimately it would make us no better than the SNP blowing the £600,000 “ringfenced” fundraiser money on fancy office furniture.)
So after a great deal of thought, I’ve come up with a proposal.
The first thing Wings ever raised money for was to commission some opinion polls, and there’s still a huge lack of polling in the nation, and especially on anything other than the constitution. So what I’d like to do is effectively turn Wings into a polling organisation, and commission polls on a wide range of topics from time to time until the money runs out.
The plan has numerous upsides. Firstly it keeps the money people donated just about on-purpose – good polling data is vital to understanding the electorate and thereby to campaigning for anything. Secondly it means it’ll run out quite slowly, which means that should there be an unexpected dramatic change in circumstances in the next few years – such as the Murrells being arrested or otherwise ousted from their deathgrip on the SNP, and therefore at least some hope of another indyref – there’d still be a seed fund to get straight back to work with.
(There’d be some associated running costs – Wings would stay online both as an archive and to publish the poll data, which would cost money, and frankly I’d probably also want to take a very modest yearly stipend for the work, having produced Wings for no wages for the last two years.)
So please express your opinions below. If you vote No, please comment on what you’d want done with the money instead and I’ll reflect on those views.
Loading ...And that’s about that, really. We said our goodbyes back in May, and this is very much where we expected to be at this stage.
Last weekend marked seven years since the indyref – the period effectively stipulated as a “generation” in terms of constitutional referenda by the Good Friday Agreement. That the SNP, which held another stage-managed fake online “conference” this month, hasn’t bothered with even a token attempt to highlight this significant fact in a full week, let alone take any action over it, tells you everything about the party’s current attitude towards independence.
It’s very similar to the Labour Party’s attitude to abolishing the House Of Lords – something to be endlessly promised and used as a flag to rally the faithful around, but never actually delivered because it would cost far too many of the party elite their lovely comfortable retirement income – in the SNP’s case, fat House Of Commons pensions rather than £300-a-day Lords attendance payments.
(Meanwhile, among those who are still actively focused on independence an alarming number of people are openly calling for a blood-and-soil voting franchise should another indyref ever happen, a truly terrible idea I want no part of and which I’m very disappointed Alba hasn’t publicly dissociated itself from. A section of the movement appears to be retreating into kilts-and-bagpipes-and-Gaelic cultural nationalism of the type that predated the SNP’s electoral success and gives the average voter the pure heebs every bit as much as Sturgeon’s rainbow-haired sturmjugend do. It’s a sort of comfort blanket for those with no hope of actual victory, much like the last 20 years of the Welsh nationalist movement.)
We know, of course, that independence would also bankrupt the SNP, which is currently wholly dependent on Westminster money to balance its books. Even with that Short Money the party is wildly profligate and has totally inadequate reserves with which to fight a referendum, if one somehow happened despite its best efforts.
So what the party HAS focused on, and largely achieved, is to ruthlessly crush the non-SNP indy movement by constantly attacking and undermining it.
The Hope Over Fear rally in Glasgow a week ago drew less than a couple of hundred people where it used to get thousands. A showpiece “debate” in Edinburgh this week was an impossibly depressing affair, with a glum-faced panel either quacking drivelling platitudes (Mike Small and some awful brainless lassie from the Scottish Greens) or helplessly trying to conjure up any sort of positives (Robin McAlpine and Michelle Thomson) in front of a subdued, two-thirds-empty Queen’s Hall.
The comically irrational police objections to this weekend’s AUOB march in the capital – days after they’d approved dozens of parades of violent Orange bigots on the other side of the country – has at least provided a handy excuse for a turnout that looked like a couple of thousand tops, not the 100,000+ of previous events.
(Please don’t embarrass us by crying COVID as a get-out. 50,000 people gathered on Glasgow Green for TRNSMT two weeks ago, and that was at £155 a ticket. Celtic, “Rangers”, Aberdeen, Hibs, Hearts and Dundee United have all hosted crowds well into five figures since lockdown restrictions were lifted last month. If folk are motivated to go out for something – even watching Aberdeen, ffs – COVID isn’t stopping them.)
And if we’re talking about embarrassing, the state of The National is making us long for the days when there were no pro-indy newspapers.
Coupled to the deliberate effective marginalisation of Alex Salmond and of this site, and the freezing-out of left-wing groups like the Common Weal, the SNP now has the Yes movement exactly where it wants it – dispirited, apathetic and divided, with nowhere to put its faint and battered hopes but a centrist neoliberal party which is safely ensconced at both Westminster and Holyrood with no elections due for years, and is far more interested in consolidating its own power, and the cult of identity politics and Queer Theory, than in independence.
Sturgeon is in complete control, and like Mick Jagger watching everything fall apart from the stage at Altamont, we can only shiver in fear and pray in blind hope that a change will come.
– Rev. Stuart Campbell, 26 September 2021
After the Holiday Boy’s last post, this was expected, but still sair tae bear.
Cheers for everything Stu, even my banning. Fair enough.
Good luck mate.
Defo.
I was in Edinburgh yesterday (with the Yes Bikers) and when we were eventually allowed entry to the park, I looked for the mass rally with a tear in my eye. I reckon there was no more than 1000 people there.
Last night, I spoke to a fellow biker who couldn’t attend, so explained that he didn’t miss much. He went on to tell me that the SNP/Green alliance was the only hope, Sturgeon was excellent and that he believed Salmond was a sex-pest. He went on to suggest that it was people like me who were undermining the cause!!
How are (otherwise rational) people so content to have the wool pulled over their eyes?
We can’t win if we down-tools and walk away, but we’ve only got one life. Sturgeon and her cabal will suck that life out of you, if you let her.
Take care Stu. I don’t want you to go, but can’t blame you for this course of action now.
‘Sturgeon and her Green hench[persons] will already have turned Scotland into a grotesque, intolerant, science-denying authoritarian hell where all protest is deemed a hate crime and biological women are third-class citizens forbidden from mentioning the fact of their own sex.’
And this is happening with ethnic Scots (indeed all Europeans). We are being denied the fact that we exist, while mass migration continues apace with government money going to house, feed and shoe-horn them into jobs while being told we are racist (even potential prosecution and removal of banking services) if we speak up about it
That’s why you might see us doing what you describe as ‘… retreating into kilts-and-bagpipes-and-Gaelic cultural nationalism’
We are not doing it because we are just nasty, bigoted and hate filled. We see what’s happening even if you don’t or won’t.
It’s not just women who are being disenfranchised by our neo-bolshevik puppet government, it’s the Scots themselves while being told not to disenfranchise the people who the government and their handlers are placing over us.
This is exactly the detachment from the actual situation on the ground I was talking about in my comment in the last article.
Thanks for this Stuart, perfectly summed up and a good read as usual.
No doubt there will be ” rejoicing in the streets of Raith ” ie the equally non-existent New SNP Pleadership and it’s pathetically acquiescent wee ginger poodles at this final statement , to which the only adequate response is a heartfelt ” FUCK OFF YA BUNCH A FUCKN FANNIES ”
I expressed my thanks for all you’ve done for the cause and regret you had been driven to your decision in May Stu , no need to repeat it .
All the best in the future mate , you played a blinder and were woefully let-down by a team of bungling , boots-too-big-for-them amateurs and a manager whose sole * skill * is deception .
You’ll prosper and be around to see the eventual downfall of the Sturgeon Clown Parade .
I am saddened beyond words. In 2014, when I was swithering over my vote, I came across the Wee Blue Book by accident. I tried to read as much as possible within the time constraints of job, family, moving house, etc, and there was a lot on offer in those days. I was never a member of the SNP, but in those days I was a member of the Scottish Greens (no longer). The wee Blue Book did it for me. I found it entirely convincing and voted YES.
Since then I have followed this site on a daily basis and also donated as much as possible. I remain horrified at the lengths Nicola Sturgeon has gone to to silence all opposition, which I would simply not have been aware of without the determination of Mr Campbell, first of all, to find them, then to disseminate his findings accurately and with references (absolutely vital as the other parties simply give vent to whatever fake news or smears they have been tasked with).
It is no small feat to accomplish all that and in addition, run a hugely popular website, with all the problems this entails. I could go on, but I feel too sad. Not disheartened, but sad. Mr and Mrs Murrell will be dancing over their breakfast today, as will all their ignorant, science-denying true believers.
You will be greatly missed, and not just as an indomitable independence fighter. Your research, writing and presentation skills make your contributions a pleasure to read (in spite of the earthiness of some of the language used).
Good luck for the future and watch your back – those who have persecuted you NEVER forget (think Craig Murray as well as Alex Salmond). They have succeeded in rewriting history but they should remember the true story of Trotsky’s elbow – their machinations will all come out in time.
Stuart, I voted to support your choice, but I still think you should keep the money, it wasn’t just for campaigns, it was also for you! You’ve paid in blood sweat and tears to bring us the truth, you should have a decent retirement. If you won’t keep the money raised so far, then do one last crowd funder and let the Wings family give you the send off you deserve!
Fabulous idea ella.
Seconded.
I want to read more Stuart Campbell no matter what the subject matter is.
I have ticked support for the ‘Wings Fighting Fund Disposal Plan’ however I would have been more than happy to tick support to finance a plan for further writing by Stuart Campbell even it is articles about bears, swans, squirrels & events in Bath.
Thank you Stuart. All the very best for the future.
‘Sturgeon is in complete control, and like Mick Jagger watching everything fall apart from the stage at Altamont, we can only shiver in fear and pray that a change will come.’
Is this really all we can do? I’m not a great believer in the praying malarky & rather than shiver I would prefer to ‘Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway’
I’m not exactly sure what ‘it’ is but there must be something we can do.
Stu, your going is a very sad day indeed. Your years of forensic examination and debunking of the bullshit from the Unionists was what helped to push the movement forward and helped us educate others who were undecided.
I voted yes for the the distribution of the fund into future polling, as like you, I couldn’t think of any other group deserving of this money. However, you’ve worked without pay for the last two years and that’s just wrong. Any time I donated I expected you to continue to be paid until the day came when the site closed – for whatever reason. So why not pay yourself a suitable sum from the remaining fund. You decide what you think reasonable. My own feeling is that you should have all of it – you have earned it.
Like you, I think there is little or no chance of another Indy Ref and your going is a huge loss, but I fully understand your reasoning.
Is there any way you could put a third option on the distribution of funds poll? Simply add in “Give Stu a retirement bonus”. I think you would be surprised at the amount of support you would receive for this.
All the best.
Just expressing my own opinion, but I think polling is a waste of the money.
Traditionally, when a major benefactor has devoted himself to a cause but either dies or moves on, isn’t the done thing to create a foundation that is dedicated to the cause?
A Wings Foundation could function like an Independence Think Tank, to promote and publish ideas and steer the narrative in the same way Tories use their Think Tanks to seed their own ideas in the mainstream media and enable themselves to quote “independent” sources.
Give ALBA the sounding board where constructive discussion and argument about Scottish Independence is not held hostage by the narrative dictated by the Unionist media.
The answer does not lie in the politics. The route to Scottish Independence is Constitutional, because it is ONLY Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty which empowers the Nation of Scotland to protest meaningfully against it’s unconstitutional subjugation and dispute the colonial encroachment and exploitation of our resources through the fallacy and fraud that is the Treaty of Union.
People like me, and others for whom the penny has dropped, seem cursed like Cassandra, blessed to foresee the future, but cursed that her warnings are never believed. Well, Scotland has a small hardcore of Constitutional Cassandras who understand that Scotland’s emancipation from this cursed Treaty of Union begins and ends with Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty and the lawful status of our Nation. Yet no matter how many times we implore people to open their eyes, people don’t listen.
Democracy, whether that means referendum, plebiscite, polling or election, is just the way the sand lies between the tides. It is fickle and ephemeral. Sovereignty, means owning the beach.
Sovereignty, the Constitutional birthright of EVERY newborn Scot, is permanent and indelible, yet it’s the deceitful Treaty of Union that we revere.
Well this particular Cassandra cannot change his tune, because once you see it, you cannot unsee it. Scotland is entranced and spellbound by a self fulfilling fiction. There are no bars to Scotland’s prison and the cage door is wide open. Scotland stays, because Scotland has been institutionalised too long with it’s mind addled by Unionist dementia.
Scotland is the World’s only sovereign Nation that’s afraid to be sovereign.
Scotland is the Brittany Spears of Nations, talented and pretty, but just too dumb to be trusted with it’s own wealth.
All the best Stuart. Can I still phone you if we get the goods to send Murrell to jail ?
Many commentators predict a coming winter of discontent. Meantime, the COVID bills are arriving, inflation is getting out of control, and interest rates may start to rise.
The end result? Significant financial hardship for many Scots, power outages, declining health prospects, cold and hunger. There is every chance that the Scottish political landscape will be quite different by September 2022. For starters, many Unionists will have to confront the reality that England will be the dead weight that drags Scotland down.
With the greatest of respect Rev Stu, now is not the time to give up.
Who said that a week is a long time in politics? Was it the same woman who said that in politics, everything new is impossible, right up to the moment that it becomes inevitable?
“Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building”.
Thanks for everything Rev. (You sold yourself short on 21k p.a given your level of output).
You’ll be missed…
Ella , thirded !
“All the best Stuart. Can I still phone you if we get the goods to send Murrell to jail ?”
So long as it gets Sturgeon out of Bute House, damn right you can.
As an famous American reporter used to say ” Goodnight and good luck”. I wish you nothing but happiness.
I loathe sturgeon and her woowoo allies. Their demise is coming.
An excellent and desperately sad piece.
The best of luck to you.
The SNP has been absolutely gutted by a combination of corporate lobbyists and the London establishment.
I’m happy you are doing polling and analysis. At least you are still part of the fight back.
I agree with everything you say but I’m not giving in.
I can see a way forward it is a difficult task but I’m going to try to help build ALBA into the Independence Party – it is our only hope.
And I also agree we need to make the non blood and soil franchise clear – a couple of years residency requirement might be a good compromise.
But since I believe we should forget an indyref as a means to gain indy, and instead use parliamentary elections – it is a moot point.
It should never have fallen to this place to do all the nasty excavation work. We can see now that NS is rotten, but who put her there and how is she still in place? Heaven only knows it’s not the power of her personality that’s keeping her there.
So, if we’re lucky enough to have Stu hang around to do his polling analysis, that leaves the rest of us to keep on digging. There’s no way we can challenge these characters effectively if we don’t understand what they’re all about, who’s instructing them, and what their ultimate aim is. If that smacks of ‘conspiracy theory’ then so be it.
Alex Salmond warned us, way back, on Calton Hill, that we were up against ‘powerful forces’. We’ve seen, largely thanks to Stu, glimpses of just how sinister those forces are. But we’re nowhere near the full picture. And unpleasant as it will be, the job of exposing it all has a long way to go.
Stu’s done his bit, and so has Chris, and so have a lot of other folk who eventually got scunnered and had to walk away for their own sanity.
Now, it’s over to us.
I support the idea of a fund for polling if that’s what you think it’s best used for, but I happily paid in to various fundraisers for you to take a wage and to pay holidayboy, as far as I’m concerned it’s your redundancy package that’s left. I well understand why your knocking this on the head but I hope to still hear from you in the future, even just bear patrols .
I have long considered Breeks to be one of this site’s resident stars. He nearly always writes something with which I can agree fully.
I would therefore like to say, in this Greetin Meetin’ of the Wings collective: Breeks You have seldome been more on the ball than above, when you wrote:
Scotland is the World’s only sovereign Nation that’s afraid to be sovereign.
Scotland is the Brittany Spears of Nations, talented and pretty, but just too dumb to be trusted with it’s own wealth.
I’m so sorry it’s come to this. I’ve found your posts invaluable over the years.
I’d love to see some proper polling on attitudes to GRA reform.
If there had been a third option
‘Keep the money for myself to spend on sweeties’ – I would have ticked that you would have deserved every penny.
The darkness at the end of the ‘Summer of Love’ is fascinating as a social study. Altamont and the Manson Family were the end point of what had been seen as a progressive youth movement, characterised by ‘free love’, throwing off the sexual and gender constraints of the last generation, music, drugs, liberation.
In fact, much of it bore the hallmarks of every predatory cult going. Kids (often girls) ran away from home to join what appeared to be a massive party, liberation etc and were met with much older people (usually men, eg Manson), who would tell them their parents weer squares, hated them and wanted them to conform, sold them on the idea that here were the people who loved them for who and what they were. Here was their family, their community, the future – the hip people everyone else wanted to turn square.
Parents desperately worried for troubled children they knew had fallen into drugs and seriously predatory company could do nothing as the kids were brainwashed against them as people who hated them and were trying to take them away from who they really were and their real family and community. The Manson family was obviously the very worst example, but a huge amount of the ‘scene’ around Haight-Ashbury were basically those kind of set ups. They might have started out as great fun, but very quickly attracted the predators and became hell holes of drugs, abuse and misery.
Sound familiar in any way?
I have more to be thankful for than most to Stuart Campbell. I have my own personal fight with Holyrood which should be resolved this week thanks to him and Tannadice Boy and the debt will be re-paid.
I echo what Denise said at 10.20 am.
I think this perfectly sums up Rev’s post.
“Good morning, and in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!”.
Talk about being finally crushed, we knew it was coming Stuart but it doesn’t make it any easier to now that this is the end, well it’s the end for me, I don’t think I will ever get a second chance to vote for independence in my lifetime.
Thank you Stuart for everything you have done since day one, it was a ride and a half, I wish you well for the future.
Live long, live happy and most importantly, live healthy.
Craig
All the best Stewart, and goodbye to all the btl folk , long may yer lum reek!
I’d like to say a huge thank you to you for your relentless investigative journalism over the years. Personally I’ve learnt so much from this site, being the only one that has tackled the spin and lies since 2014…and before.
Thanks for opening my eyes to it all.
You will be greatly missed.
Saddened beyond words. Voted in favour of your polling proposal. Best of luck in whatever is next for you Stu.
Have to confess, having similar doubts myself. Maybe it’s time to go and concentrate on real Green issues? Arguing constantly with TRAs and the SNP faithful is more than dispiriting, they almost make the Unionists seem rational.
Awesome & Depressing in equal measure. Keep the fkng money and go get pissed man! As for us and the fight against the brit state colony monkeys, FS, we have to keep the faith and keep on fighting. Sturgeon truly is in league with the devil and a totally owned creature of the establishment. Her demise will be long celebrated, but it doesn’t look like happening anytime soon unfortunately. Please pop back up when the time is right, meanwhile go spend the money and fck the polls.
It’s yet another sad day but inevitable I believe after the last couple of years. I’m sure with your forensic and journalistic skills you’ll find a suitable platform to make a living and I wish to thank you for all you’ve done for the Indy movement.
I voted to support your choice. But.. I want you to keep the money personally. You have more than earned it. Scotland owes you a great deal. I hope fervently that these charlatans will pay for what they have done to our independence campaign. All the best.
All power to you Mr Campbell.
Sturgeons hapless era will not last forever but agree its a lost cause till shes gone ..
Till more realise she’s a complete waster it really is a mugs game.
Karma will have its day on the Murrells madness
I knew this was coming but god, I feel worse than 19th Sep 2014.
Honestly Stuart, I would take the money and run and get out while you can. The UK is fucked, and it’s clear it’s too late for independence to save us. I don’t even have faith anymore that we will vote yes if we ever do get the chance again.
You don’t owe us anything. Splurge on sweeties, flavoured gin and a night at poker.
Genuinely, thanks for everything. I’ve enjoyed your writing and sarcastic rants over the years, and you will be missed.
@Rev Stu
I think using the remaining funds for polling is a great idea and voted to approve.
As for the rest, I can only echo your sentiments, particularly those relating to the “blood and soilers”. Experience over the past few months has convinced me that it’s futile arguing with the J.o.e’s and Alf Baird’s of this world. They are every bit as entrenched in their nativism as “Sturgeon’s rainbow-haired sturmjugend” are in their woo-woo.
I share disappointment that Alba haven’t firmly disassociated themselves from such idiocy and will try to do my part to counter it inside the party.
Going forward I’d love to see some polling done on the “Scotland as colony” narrative, and on whether folk actually support retaining the 2014 franchise or making changes, and on views about plebiscitary elections being used in place of a referendum.
This is another sad day. What happens over the next few years fills me with a sense of foreboding: it’s a much different place and feeling from the heady days of 2015 when I joined the SNP feeling we were on the verge of something monumental happening. Sadly, what happened was a total bourach.
All the best Stu, and thanks for all you’ve done and achieved. It won’t be forgotten.
The Scottish government has the competence to hold and conduct a referendum whenever they want, its written into the Scotland act. The Section 30 order is only that both sides agree to enact the outcome of the referendum result.
Scotland has an international Treaty with England on the basis of both sides being equal. It’s my clear understanding that a treaty cannot be superseded by an act of parliament, this is because in an act of parliament one side clearly has an advantage over the other side, as England would have the advantage by almost 600 MPs over Scotland 59.
Scotland is a country and if Scotland wasn’t a country then it would be like saying England and wales weren’t country’s either and that would make Britain a full blown country on its own. Why do all our legal experts and politician state the three nations are separate countries and Britain is a state, because this is correct.
There is nothing within the Treaty of union that stated that upon the two nations agreeing this Treaty one country will emerge from it. If it did then what about Wales, Scotland has no treaty with Wales.
If you look over the last 300yrs, Scotland once again has been poorly represented by its Politians. Why does Scotland need to become Independent when it’s already is an Independent country (all be it in a union), all we need to do is to allow the people to have a say on the constitutional question (like a referendum or an election). England’s input isn’t need or sort and we certainly don’t need their consent because we have the Claim of Right. The problem Scotland has is our elected Politians (Nicola Sturgeon) have decided that Westminster is the ruler over the whole of Scotland and Scotland does not have any competence to have a say on any matter unless it’s got Westminster approval. Why would the biggest Pro-Independence parties, the Greens and the New SNP ask the UK government to block protest outside our parliament when only a few years ago our very own Scottish government and MSPs where calling upon us to protest outside Holyrood parliament against the power grab on our parliament. My fellow Scots what has happened from that call by our SG & MSPs to now were we are being told if you protest you’ll be jailed.
As I have stated for a while now, our hardest fight isn’t with our neighbour (England) it’s with our very own parliament and the people we have just elected to it, and whom have proven that they cannot be trust with democracy. The Greens and the New SNP party conferences both parties members decided to set up an energy company, only for their elected MSP to deny democracy and voted it down. This is where our real fight is for our country and I believe these MSPs have no intention of allowing us now or in the future to have any meaningful say on the constitutional question and if they did it would be when it would fail simply because actions speak louder than words.
Yesterday I was watching Independence live when I heard the New SNP MP speaking at the AUOB March in our capital and he made it clear that 60% was the fresh hold for a referendum, by saying this they are doing the oppositions job for them. The new SNP keep telling us Scots to drum up support for independence, and what better way of doing this than an AUOB march through our capital (and other towns and cities), so why do the SNP councils object to these marches to the extent of preventing them go through the city (and town) centres and push them to the outskirts where they will have little or no affect on convincing other members of the general public.
The new SNP have squandered our best opportunity in 300yrs to be an Independent country again (Brexit) and allowed it to slip away.
We have had a consistent over 50% majority that would vote for Independence in the opinion polls for over two years, the New SNP are denying our right to be Independent and there actively rubbing shoulders with the British state and aren’t even bothered about showing us their contempt towards the Yes movement and their desire not to allow us to have a referendum. I ask you who are the New SNP working for because my fellow Scots it isn’t Scotland or its people.
Polls – excellent idea.
Great final article – the most chilling part (for me) –
“ Becuase there is no “independence movement” any more, just an independence industry. It provides a very lucrative living for perhaps a couple of hundred people – SNP MPs, MSPs, party staff and apparatchiks, special advisers, quango heads and favoured civil servants lavishly rewarded”
Can’t believe it’s come to this! You will be missed Stu. Let’s just hope that people wake up to the reality of Sturgeon and the SNP sooner rather than later!
I’m not happy about the plan to keep the blog open so people can shout at one another about vaccines.
Shouting about vaccines isn’t going to get Sturgeon out of Bute House.
Shouting about women’s rights might.
There seems to be a plan to put people into two categories.
1. Those with a vagina
2. Those with a penis
Non trans people will be angry & insulted by this. Who wants to be describes as a fanny or a dick but it won’t lead them to thoughts of suicide.
This however will have a very serious effect on trans people. If ‘dead naming’ a transperson triggers their dysphoria & can lead to suicide then surely reminding them that they have a vagina or a penis will be 100 times worse.
Wearing a rainbow badge means nothing if you are guilty of triggering ‘dysphoria’ with your use of language.
I am referring to transpeople who have gender dysphoria not all the other so called transpeople, the pretend trans who hate women, like cross dressing, listening to women pee, prefer to be in a women’s prison, want to flash their penis in changing rooms and all the other horrors. Most of these so called ‘trans’ love their penis and wouldn’t have a problem being described as a person with a penis.
….ATB to you and yours, and thank you…..
Inevitable but sad, Stu.
I ticked polls but honestly cos I cant think of anything else.
I will still use your website for reference as long as it remains.
I couldn’t face going on the Edinburgh march.
I am up however for fighting for Marion Millar, another injustice on the horizon.
Sturgeon is a destroyer, people have lives to live and don’t pay much attention to detail. But she will eventially be known as a ("Tractor" - Ed)
The song which came to my mind was John Lennon, The dream is over.
I don’t care if the Wisharts of the world are ecstatic, they’re wrong and they know it. It will eat them up inside, like Tony Blair.
Good luck and thanks for all the info.
Desperately sad.
Thank you, Rev. Please let us know where (if) we can continue to read your work on anything other than poisonous NewSNP Scottish politics.
Still hoping that justice catches up with those evading it and that Wings might come out of retirement to celebrate a future triumph of decency over self-serving corruption.
Yes to the polls, but you should have paid yourself more.
Sorry to hear that, but totally understand and support it.
I’m sad to see you give up, you are practically the only reliable source of journalism in Scotland. I suppose it would be silly to ask if you were interested in starting a genuinely Scottish newspaper providing honest political commentary? God knows we need it.
As I have not contributed financially, I do not feel entitled to vote in the poll. But I’m with those who say keep the money. Modest recompense indeed for all the crap that’s been hurled at you over the years. All the best in whatever you do next and many thanks for your brave writing.
I’m happy for you to use the money for polls and such as you see fit but like Jez said above I’d also be more than happy to see it used as your redundancy payment, god knows you’ve earned it. A sad day anyway. All the best Rev, you’ll be missed by those of us who seek the truth however unpalatable.
And I for one refuse to live in Sturgeon and Harvie’s lala land of gender jackboots and pronoun stormtroopers. For women, the fight goes on.
Sad reading but everything you have written is true. Including the Alba embarrassing blood & soil part and I am a member of Alba. I have voted in support of your proposal. Thanks for everything and for any future polling. SNP completely blew it and I can’t bear Sturgeon at all. Thanks for your support for women’s rights as well. Be happy and hopefully we will hear better things from you sometime.
Let’s just devote our time to making Scotland ungovernable for that cunt Sturgeon and her shower of scumbag middle class Neoliberal careerists and nonces.
Fuck them all.
Don’t go!
ella @ 9.07 – great idea. I voted in support Stu, but I’d be more than happy if you held on to the money. Whatever you decide, I wish you a long and fulfilling life and, with a tear I thank you once again for your brilliant work over the years.(If there are any left over copies of the Wee Blue Book, I’d love to buy one as for the life of me I can’t find my original copy). All the best.
Thanks for keeping us informed over the years Stu. You have delivered the truth always whether we liked it or not. You will be sorely missed as there are no other places I know of where we get this truth and that in itself is a huge loss. You gave it your all. You endured horrific abuse along the way but stood above the haters. I offer you my total respect and admiration and wish you all the best. I think the poll idea is brilliant. Can I request you do one around the terrifying anti women agenda that is the GRA. Im sure many many people are unaware of what is going to unfold for women going forward. Good luck Stu. Alba Gu snooker loopy!
Would be good to read some pieces by you on other subjects. All very well doing polls but who is going to report on/analyse the findings?
Fully support your proposal, Stu.
I don’t fall out with that Breeks’ Wings Foundation idea, though. Means there is also still a place to donate to to keep things alive (if suffering a bit from locked in syndrome).
We’ll see how it goes, if the Gods are just you’ll be back…if.
Goodbye and good luck Stu.
I now accept that I am unlikely to see independence during my lifetime.
Goodbye and all the best to all the folk btl.
Andy Ellis says:
Going forward I’d love to see some polling done on the “Scotland as colony” narrative, and on whether folk actually support retaining the 2014 franchise or making changes, and on views about plebiscitary elections being used in place of a referendum.
Reply
Why do you need polling? Are you not able to put forward a good enough argument yourself?
I know you hate the term ‘indigenous Scot’
I asked you yesterday on the other thread what you felt about the term ‘Scots Scot’
Now that I am being described as a ‘person with a vagina’ I felt I would like something to add to my identity.
Being just Scottish (apart from it being shite) means absolutely nothing.
I ticked ‘support’ but to be honest I’d rather you just kept the money yourself to spend on whatever you like. Was expecting this post after Chris’s post yesterday but it’s still like a kick in the stomach. Take care and good luck in whatever you choose to do. You are the most talented Scottish journalist out there. Hope you get a job where you can continue to create merry hell. I’m just clinging on to the hope that things can change very quickly in politics. That’s the only hope I’ve got because at the moment the independence movement is going backwards. All the best Stu. Xxx
Just wanted to add that polls would be fascinating Stuart, but I’d be happy for you to keep the money for yourself. You have more than earned it. All the best to you and yours.
Keep poking the establishment in the eye.
Sad state of affairs.
After many many years of being a SNP member I finally decided I could take no more and resigned.GRA !
I hoped someone with balls would have brought down the Sturrels .
We are finally in a woo- woo state with no viable opposition .
Good luck with the ThinkTank .
Maybe kez would like the gig. ( humour)
revstu
i voted against your proposal, as i think you clearly want to move on with your life.
the enormous effort from you can justify keeping all remaining funds, after all some unscrupulous bloggers have gained a free house, eh
take the money & run, man
all the very best
Thank you Stuart and Chris for years of informative, entertaining, uplifting and, at times, sheer spitting rage content on Wings Over Scotland.
I joined the SNP in 1965 and have supported by money, time and work the cause for Independence. I, like thousands of others have been driven out of the SNP by Nicola Sturgeon. I am now contemplating stepping back from the YES movement because of the spite aimed at Alba by SNP members there, despite the fact that YES is supposed to encompass supporters of all and no political parties.
I hope that the Independence movement is at the nadir of its fortunes and that something will happen to give new life to the movement.
Best wishes to everyone from a sad pensioner. However, we never died of winter yet.
The SNP has proved conclusively there is no such thing as «velvet glove» independence.
No country within the British sphere achieved freedom just by ticking a box.
«Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong»
.
Rev: its your choice, but I’d rather you kept the funds. More information probably has little value at the moment – there are too many people who “know” they are right, and will ignore anything that doesn’t agree with their entrenched views.
Whatever you do, I’m sad to see you go. Three or four blogs I relied on to tell the other side of things have gone under for various reasons recently, and I have that horrible feeling of having a hole in my life. I just hope something will come along and fill in the gaps.
Look after yourself, and try not to seal yourself in any luggage.
Thanks for going above and beyond.
Polling is a good use of the balance of cash.
Go well.
I ticked the polls option, but like others who have posted, whatever’s left, keep it and use it for you, with our good wishes.
Where’s our helicopter?
Sad to see you go. Hopefully you’ll reconsider.
Good luck with whatever you do next and thanks for all your hard work.
Sad to see you go. Have as much fun as you can from now on. (Big resurgence in retro gaming, you could make a mint if you take up making games again).
Remember seeing you on the “Royal” Mile with a swarm of well wishers in the heady days before our bought and paid for media got you in their sights. Scotland falls for divide and conquer yet again. First we boast then we cower.Class act, Stuart Campbell. Go well.
What a sad article, true but very sad, it takes a lot to acknowledge that Indy is dead, buried by Sturgeon. The only hope is that the forthcoming court cases bring her down, in the most humiliating way possible, but I doubt it. As you say, she now controls every aspect of Scottish life.
But well done, and thank you for what you have done over the last decade, ("Tractor" - Ed)s need exposed and the abuse you received must have been difficult to take.
Stay Safe and COYR(it will get better)
I support your proposal, but like others would be fine with you keeping it. Using it to continue to support the independence cause is admirable, but the effort exerted by yourself (and the shit you’ve had to deal with despite your efforts) tells me you owe the independence movement absolutely nothing.
With that said, I feel that no-one spoke to or engaged independence supporters to the level and effectiveness the way you and this site did, and I suspect no-one will get close to doing so again for many, many years. The loss of this resource in the fight will be felt.
All the very best, Stuart. You did good.
Best of luck whatever comes next Stu.
How you haven’t suffered some sort of serious mental breakdown in the last 7 years is beyond me.
Time for us all to move on…
Watching the Altamont documentary when it first came out
I was struck by how clearly it exposed Jagger as the naked emperor
The street-fighting man and devil personified
Was actually a wee wimpy middle-class boy comletely out of his depths when his fantasy bumped up against reality
You fought the good fight, Stu
Especially, in the latter stages, trying to show independence supporters that Sturgeon was just another naked emperor
You earned the right to keep the money
I’m sure its an expensive business drinking original irn-bru while keeping bears at bay down Bath way
It looks like us older ones who are now on our second lethal covid vaccination will have to resort to ouija board questions about whether Scotland is free yet
See you on the other side
Farewell and good luck in the future. I look forward to using the wee alba book.
Keep going in some form pal……you have been a beacon of sense in a sea of stupidity.
Keep Wings in ‘disinterested suspended animation’ and bung up a post every now and then.
The very uncertainty of a Wings panopticon will keep the tractoristas’ arses twitching.
@Andy Ellis
“it’s a much different place and feeling from the heady days of 2015 when I joined the SNP feeling we were on the verge of something monumental happening”
Well, Andy, if or when a grass-roots political movement for Scottish Indy ever puts in the years of graft and sacrifice that will be necessary to build up the support and momentum to be on the cusp of achieving its goal. If that ever happens again, then the next time the queue jumpers, carpet baggers, troughers and entryists approach you all smiles, saying “Great job, boys and girls, but now it’s time to let the professionals take it from here …”, I hope you will all have the sense to say “feck off”.
You made the cardinal error of walking away thinking job done once. Let once be enough.
Of the two choices I picked polls, but a redundancy package sits easy with me.
I don’t see any reason for getting back long spent, well accounted for money given, and held, in good faith.
The march yesterday was very muted and I felt more than a little depressed afterward.
I felt great sympathy with the other marchers, apart from the SWP piggy backers, who seem to be be disillusioned with the slow progress of the GRA reform.
Thank you for everything. You and your site set the bar on fully referenced information that I hold every other source to. It faced facts without hesitation no matter where they led. It brought despair and fury, it also brought much hope and not a little joy. You and those associated have been subject to incredible vitriol, lies, smears and victimisation. That you have weathered that, if not unscathed, at least intact, is testament to your strength. You personally have done more for Independence than anyone else I can think of, such was the reach of this site – it’s information disseminated well beyond its readership so that many, many are unaware of its origins. You taught so many how to find and fact check real info and stats and how to see through the snake words and doublespeak, quickly and confidently. Those who can see what’s happening and cannot tolerate it, understand you stopping. It doesn’t make it easier though. Sorry for long ramble. It was meant to be a simple thank you.
So long and I hope you enjoyed all the fish Stu…
Chris Cairns cartoon showed the searchlight with the Wings logo being covered up.
I didn’t miss the significance of that Mr Campbell.
Thank you for all that you have done, have contributed.
The enemies of independence hated you. And yes you could have been found in your car having shot yourself in the head multiple times. That is what independence movement is fighting against. 2014 ran them close and they are not going to let it happen again.
So again, thank you for all you have done – but in thanks take pleasure that having played your part so fulsomely, the fight will not die. Others will come.
Good truthful information gives one the power to make good decisions. You’ve always been good at giving us good information, it’s no doubt the ultimate reason the establishment, of every hue, hates you.
John 8:32 – And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
I wish you all the best for your future. … And for the future of us all.
Will be sorely missed Stum enjoy the respite. Doubt we’re going to get another Yes vote anytime soon.
Skimming the Mckay/Macdonald bollocks, you’d think at least one of them (possibly the latter with all his travel experience) could spell ‘mañana’.
I voted oppose. I not against polling per say, It can be very powerful. But i wonder if supporting the alba party in some way apart from polls may be a positive move.
Scotland thanks you as do the believers.
@John Main 11.51 am
I don’t think I made an error really John. Perhaps I was taken in, like many others at the time who had never been in a political party before, by what I “thought” the SNP was. How things developed proved that the party wasn’t what many of us assumed it was, or at least that it was hollowed out from within.
I don’t think the responsibility for that – whether for not seeing it, or not being able to stop it or reverse it – can be laid at the feet of the large numbers of “new joiners” post 2015.
Events in the past few years in particular have shown that many members of decades standing have simply given up. It remains to be seen whether the loss of so many activists and long standing members like them will have an impact on the SNPs future success on the doorsteps and / or at the ballot box.
So sad that it has comer to this. Forget the polls, make a clean break, keep the money and use it to fund whatever you do next – Heaven only knows you’ve earned it
All the best Stu I have argued quite a few times with you but in the end every single item you published on this site was true every single one ,
I guess the party will be in full swing on La La Land the PayPal site that produces ? Well fk all apart from the usual sarcasm of what Unionists are doing Aye we know we see it trying to be clever by attaching stupid comments about various unionist MPs And MSPs while missing to total shambles the SNP have become while ignoring the real failures instigated by some of the stupidest people to be elected to office .
Aye dr Jim Hamish and the rest of the muppets have fun and talk shite to each other till you croak because with Sturgeon you will never see the promised land and that’s guaranteed.
I have been following this site , well lost count probably since it started and it is a sad day the life has been drained out of a once vibrant and hopeful yes movement by someone lacking ambition and everything a leader requires in order to make sure the stated goal of a once great party was fulfilled , as soon as she was crowned FM Independence died .
All the best to the many contributors to many to mention and keep trying , all you people who have attempted to waken people up maybe someone listened , who knows .
Heartbroken for us all but you could do no more. Aw ra best Stu! I voted for the polling option, good luck with it. Have a feeling we haven’t heard the last of you x
Stuart, Scotland has changed despite what we all here tried to accomplish. The people, even those over 60 and mainly women, have embraced Identity Politics, appearing not to care about facts or even the mechanics of Independence. They no longer listen and Sturgeon has become “God” in their world. Any crime or malpractice will be excused or ignored.
I am sad about what we have become but even sadder for good people like yourself who have invested a large part of their lives fighting for truth and decency.
I propose that you keep the remaining money and use it to travel and to fund the promotion of your opinions on social media.
Finally thank you for allowing me to contribute here from time to time it has been an honour to converse with so many intelligent and basically good people….Alex Tickell.
Thank you for all your hard work. Happy for you to spend the money as outlined.
Audrey
Sad to see you go, but understand why. It’s a sair fecht right enough when good people have had enough. Scotland is a poisonous place now.
Enjoy whatever you are going to do now, all the very best.
@Ruby 11.13 am
Q: “Why do you need polling? Are you not able to put forward a good enough argument yourself?”
A: What an odd response. Why do we need any polling on ant subject? I’ve been putting my case forward on here for months in the face of a tsunami of bullshit from the usual moon howling suspects, all insisting that they represent the opinion of “real” Scots…but do they? I reckon it’s actually the imaginings of a fervid minority of (as Stu eloquently puts it): “A section of the movement appears to be retreating into kilts-and-bagpipes-and-Gaelic cultural nationalism of the type that predated the SNP’s electoral success and gives the average voter the pure heebs every bit as much as Sturgeon’s rainbow-haired sturmjugend do.”
But without polling evidence how do we point out to these blood and soil types that they ARE a minority apart from polling? I’m all ears if you have another suggestion Ruby.
Q2: “I know you hate the term ‘indigenous Scot’
I asked you yesterday on the other thread what you felt about the term ‘Scots Scot’”
It’s not that I hate the term as such: it’s context dependant Ruby. It can have entirely innocent usages, but that’s NOT what we’re talking about here is it? In this context, as Stu observed above and in earlier discussions, it’s a loaded term.
It has negative and regressive associations targeted at achieving a political aim that (at least to me and it appears some others) is a million miles away from the civic nationalism we want to see as the foundations of a new Scottish republic.
Stu’s absolutely right: it’s the politics of the comfort blanket, from political / ideological toddlers throwing a tantrum that “we wuz robbed” to cover up for the inability of Scots to grow a pair and actually take their independence.
Breeks pos earlier was also right on the money: “Scotland is the Brittany Spears of Nations, talented and pretty, but just too dumb to be trusted with it’s own wealth.”
What a sad day for Scotland.
I quit as an SNP member after the Scottish elections as the party has lost its soul and what it stood for under Nicola.
Also due to many of the policies.
Gender Self ID, women’s rights etc.
It feels like Holyrood is no longer the bright new dawn it was seen as, but now like Westminster a cesspit of self centered, self interested politicians who only think of themselves.
However losing supporters in yourself, Chris and many others is of a bigger loss to the independence movement.
I wish you all the best for the future.
I’d like you to do just one last crowd funder to give you a new start. You’re talented, intelligent, and a great writer, don’t let pride get in the way of accepting this suggestion
One more thing Stuart, IF you are wrong and there is another referendum much sooner than you think, will you come back and help?
Take it easy boss, we have all been (are) there, fed up, fucked and far from home.
Best wishes and all that kincrap.
Roof Tiler
(slater)
.
One wee flaw in yer plan Big Man: the Faculty of Advocates.
There’s a fair few chapters left in this Sturgeon Nasty Party saga before it falls well short of the 1,000 year reign these tinpot political parasites assume will be their length.
That asides, your penultimate article for September 2021 has me and by the looks of it many others lamenting the loss of a great literary talent. One with a moral compass and a forensic IQ that is way above 140.
Stuart, thankyou for that exquisitely written and topical eulogy.
“If only Penfold Murrell had the gift tae see himsel’ and yon £600,000 the way others see him.”
Yet you soar above the rest of politics in bowing out with style and a FULL ACCOUNTING of the numbers.
Stuart, I’ve read that thoughtful prose, rich with integrity and could weep.
However, I have one worry and one plea.
You covered the part of a Frank Sinatra style encore (Sinatra came out of retirement 21 times).
But events dear boy, events.
Stuart, there WILL be happenings in the Sturgeon SNP and at the Clown Office when the very angry officers of the law who are currently gagged, decide enough is enough and arrests are made.
I would wager a fair bet, your patience will be stretched and temptation to write, to comment, to shine daylight upon the stench of Sturgeon politics is gnawing at your soul.
Stuart, here is my plea: PLEASE be more careful than you already are my friend.
Much though I lament this inevitable day of your retirement, I know beyond all doubt, YOU as a person – and as the loudest online political voice in Scotland are at risk. The blindingly obvious precedent is Craig Murray. All he did was turn down an OBE and LVO honour and mildly irritate the abundantly arrogant crooks in Bute House.
Whereas Nicola Sturgeon left an indelible video, currently in the hands of you know who, naming YOU and Wings Over Scotland as her Public Enemy Number One.
As we all know, that poisonous short erse definitely holds a grudge and would see you lodged in the toll booth were it within her grasping grafting gift.
Scotland and Scots are known the world over for our engineers, economists, inventors, lateral thinkers. The reason? We need to be better at problem solving as our geographic sibling next door. Why? Because the big bully down sarf is nine times as large as us.
My point? Retire and I beg you, please STAY RETIRED until Sturgeon, Murrell et al have their criminal grasping fingers off of the levers of power.
You, Stuart Campbell are one of the bravest men I know, and I have been honoured to know several.
Alex Salmond is brave.
So too is Craig Murray.
But right now, we need to avoid the Scottish version of Skripalling. The Wilie McRae syndrome.
We can take a modest dram of comfort knowing for certain that EVERY political despot, no matter how seemingly powerful, eventually loses that power.
Hell hath no fury like a pissed off electorate. Evidence of this can be seen with the 56 SNP MPs who were elected when the Scottish electorate rumbled the 2014 IndyRef Vow and all that jazz was a crock of shite.
My friend, the day inexorably approaches when Sturgeon will be dumped. It will happen fast. Then the time will be strategically safe for honest people to speak out and not worry about Sturgeon’s Scottish 1984 McFSB tovarishch.
Her end?
History will be very, very unkind to Nicola Massey-Ferguson Sturgeon.
She will be a Poundland version of Margaret Thatcher. Already approaching pension age on the near horizon, Sturgeon will shuffle about her Dreghorn Co-op buying a pint of milk and nobody will recognise the toxic piece of grafting detritus.
This is Nicola soon…
link to m.youtube.com
Stuart Campbell, enjoy life, enjoy retirement of sorts, enjoy your other vocational love: writing about computers and the tech industry.
But as the wise and wonderful imprint of Chris Cairn’s political sketch left us with yesterday, please keep an eye for the Wings BatSearchLight.
Keep your Wings Cape handy.
Once Sturgeon’s political “career” is down past the U-bend, the need to rebuild a wiser, smarter IndyRef movement will still be there.
Bon chance mon ami.
Stu
Life in Scotland just keeps getting sadder and more frightening.
I’ve voted for the Polls option but I’d like to see you head up a subscription-based Think Tank, a bit like Common Weal – only with sharp teeth.
May the best of luck accompany you in your future endeavours and a grateful ‘thanks’ for your past ones.
A tearful adieu and who knows….
All we can hope for is the rise of the Alba party beginning with next years council elections. It will of course be a slow process with the Sturgeon loving Britnat media doing all it can to diminish Alba’s presence in Scotland’s political battlefield.
We can only hope that once Alba does make the breakthrough that those within the SNP too afraid to speak out or act due to self preservation (which I abhor, but we’re in a political dogfight for Scotland’s future) defect to the Alba party.
Sturgeon’s really done a number on Scotland and Scottish independence, backstabbing it continuously closing down dissenting voices using the COPFS and the police in the process.
Did Sturgeon betray us because they have plenty of something on her, or did she betray Scots because she’s a power mad individual who needs to be adored by the public because deep inside she knows she a wretched failure of a human being whose cold and shallow, needy and attention seeking, either way she’s damaged the cause, and she can never be forgiven.
And another thing. I wish governments were as frugal and efficient as you have been with the cash. You really don’t know how impressive it is that you can present these figures to us.
Acht well. Maybe a gid we holiday becons for me – maybe a long one. Been thinking of selling up and moving in a while . Not been happy in years. Been doing the hoose up and got valuation the mora. This maybe my chance to get out when prices are high and I can enjoy what years I have left.
Many months or year ago I feared we would never see another ref till 2028-2029 so not far off predictions. The only way out of this is Alba.
If they stand in my area they get my vote. I will never vote for SNP or Greens or any other unionist party which seems where SNP and Greens are headed. Who’d of thot it eh!
Anyhow Rev Stu Campbell.
“For those of us who are about to die! We salute you sir!”
Do whatever wae money- I have plenty tae keep me gon on a few Largers and the vodka.
Ach. That’s a grim post but needed saying.
Polling and analysis is the way to go out with some definitive answers to questions other than ‘how much more hated is AS than NS’ which is all we get from polling elsewhere these days.
Yes, there are sites that will berate the BBC and big up how NS ‘telt’ some muppet Tory in the Holyrood’s Punch and Judy show of triviality. I include the National as one of those sites.
Meanwhile, the SNP and its new generation of over-wrought children will continue to emote over identity and feelings, ignoring anything substantial. I see Scotland’s public life as a big circle of over-promoted people sitting holding hands congratulating themselves on everyone feeling better for an hour while the country burns down.
Well, we have learned a lesson. A lesson in style over substance that will resonate for a generation. It’s enough to put you off voting but as they say if it changed anything they wouldn’t allow it.
I’ll certainly miss you.
Spend the money as you see fit but may I suggest it could fund a book (published outside of the UK) spilling the beans about the Salmond stitch up.
“One more thing Stuart, IF you are wrong and there is another referendum much sooner than you think, will you come back and help?”
Depends. If it happens because Nicola Sturgeon has been booted out of office, then definitely. If it happens under her (which it won’t), I honestly don’t know if I could advocate that Scotland to anyone.
“But i wonder if supporting the alba party in some way apart from polls may be a positive move.”
I address the issues with that in the article.
Sad for you and sad for the Wings btl.
I don’t particularly want the Polls Rev but I do want the * petite reserve , just in case , restart fund * you mentioned to be in place.
I understand the reasoning to be sure, but lining the pockets of the pollsters with the actual fighting fund doesn’t sit well with me.
So what to do ???
My preference would be that you used the money for * A BIG BLUE BOOK * .
A definitive story of Wings, the Blog and its journey, and your overview and analysis of the past decade of the move towards Scotland’s Independence.
If you don’t write about the phenomen that was Wings .
Someone else will ( I’ll wager you can think of a few who would ) and it will probably make them lots of money off your back.
If you use —the fund — to fund —- the advance payment of writing THE definitive Indy book ( including a first run , so that your not dependant on publishers ) of this time , then , the money is in some way still being used to “seed” the Independance ground .
So Im likely ( after I’ve read more of what the Wingers are saying ) to vote no later and suggest a book to you in the comment.
Either way..
For 7 years and 7 days extra Wings after the great disappointment of 2014.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for all that you did and all that you stood up for.
And I wish you all my very best for the future xxx
Sorry Stu, I object to the results of your poll since I find some of your past activities vordering on the criminal. How could you have paid yourself only £21k per year and nothing for the past 2 years??? A talentless hack, like those employed at the Daily Record, The Herald, the Hootsman, etc will be paid more than £21k and wouldn’t come close to being the excellent, proper investigative journalist you are and have been since you started Wings Over Scotland. I don’t know what they pay their journos at the Guardian and the like but I’m guessing it’s at least £40k per year. And then there’s the snouts-in-the-trough SNP MPs and MSPs (with very few exceptions) being paid upwards of £64k and the SPUDs, sorry SPADs, and fake SNP party positions being paid who knows what.
I did write a whole email about how you should’ve been paid £40k per year for the past 10 years, be given redundancy and even a bonus for almost single-handedly getting support for independence up from 20-odd% up to 45%+ with the Wee Blue Book but then realised what is remaining is only £46,841. So now I say keep it all. It won’t make up for being paid a lousy wage for the past 10 years but look at it as the redundancy payment I had intended to propose, along with the aforementioned long overdue bonus for the WBB.
So sad it has come to this, but I suppose inevitable. This has been the only place I can get the truth about what is going on in Scottish politics and I will miss it greatly. I can’t thank you enough, Stu, for everything you have done. I’ll also miss the insightful contributions by some of the folk btl. It is good to know there are like minded people out there. All the best, Stu. I wish you health and happiness and hope one day the searchlight will be switched on again.
Sad for you and sad for the Wings btl. This was the best place to be in the whole indy movement, and has earned its place in history.
All the best Stu x
“Stuart, here is my plea: PLEASE be more careful than you already are my friend.
Much though I lament this inevitable day of your retirement, I know beyond all doubt, YOU as a person – and as the loudest online political voice in Scotland are at risk. The blindingly obvious precedent is Craig Murray. All he did was turn down an OBE and LVO honour and mildly irritate the abundantly arrogant crooks in Bute House.”
I actually got a call from Craig this morning, after he read that shite from McDonald and Mackay in the Herald. We are both very well aware of the danger of being a dissident journalist in Scotland these days. That’s why I’m staying in Bath and why I believe Craig may well leave the country when he gets out of jail (legalities permitting).
Desperately sorry to see you go Stu, over the years (particularly lately) you have shon a light in some very dark places.
Why not a three way split for the funds? Some for polling, some for you personally and some to write articles on whatever topic takes your fancy. Not Independence related.
I for one would love you to turn your laser like focus on the Puberty Blockers scandal. It is child abuse and no 12 year old is mature enough to make the decision to volunteer for a lifetime of chemical dependence or worse still, off to the Trans abattoir to have healthy tissue removed.
To Ruby @ 10.44
I agree
Independence is basically off the agenda until Alba & ISP truly get active.
The only way to get shot of Sturgeon is on an issue by issue basis. The Women’s rights demo on the 2nd Sept. (where we boo’ed at the mention of her name) could only have pissed her off, so more of the same please.
250 supporters at Marion Millar’s initial court hearing, hopefully more at her next appearance on 4th October.
We need to get more traction on the fight against Self ID. If we can stymie Sturgeons Queer Theory ‘agenda’ in any way, it’s a win. The Scottish Schools Guidance is nothing more than grooming as is the TIE sex education – anal sex for 12 year olds? WTF- Do they really need to know this?
Ultimately, coming for the kids may prove to be her undoing.
Sturgeon says women’s concerns are ‘Not Valid’.
Women are getting very,very angry.
All she has to do is read Helen Joyce’s immaculately researched book ‘Trans – When Ideology meets Reality’, and address the issues outlined therein.
(She has been sponsored copy as have 65% of sitting MSP’s in Holyrood)
Will Dorrien’s plans to have Juries removed from sexual assault / rape cases wake up a few more men (out there) to the fact that Sturgeon is one very dangerous woman.
She needs to go.
Can the money be used to help victims of wrongful prosecution – Craig Murray, Marion Millar for example. Or to fund a legal way of disclosing the identity of those who made false allegations against Alex Salmond- perhaps with Gordon Dangerfield?
Stu keep the money for yourself mate. Thanks for all your hard work over the years and I wish you and Chris all the best. It’s all got a bit Pete Tong as they say.
Sad reading this but can’t argue with any of your logic Stuart. As I commented on Twitter yesterday, it’s utterly depressing to see what has become of the independence movement due to Sturgeon.
What that woman has done is unconscionable and I genuinely can’t get my head around why. I’ve commented as to this effect before but she could have gone down in *history* as the leader to take Scotland to independence, instead she chose a few more years of her fat salary. I’m not au fait with the rumour mill around her personal life but maybe the British state do indeed hold some serious leverage over her…?
I’ve voted to support the proposal if for no other reason than it will allow the site to continue for some time. If nothing else happens over the coming years, the body of work that Wings Over Scotland comprises MUST persist as a resource. Seriously, I’d contribute to a yearly crowdfunder just to keep the lights on and pay the server bills with no new content.
Obviously though I would like to see some new content and from a purely selfish POV I want to be able to continue to enjoy your journalism Stuart. Would you consider some kind of alternative format for Wings? Maybe like a monthly round up of notable affairs or some sort of thing? Launch a new website for a different choice of topic? (Just thinking aloud.)
????????Stuart, it’s been a hell of a journey – I hope we can do it again before I die (I’m 45, god it’s depressing stating it in such terms but this is where we are).
THANKS
What Al-Stuart says @12.57 every last word.
Pay yourself a redundancy package. I’d rather you kept the money tbh. You kept us going for nigh on a decade & there isn’t a single organisation or group I would trust to use it wisely. There’s quite a few shysters out there & not all are on the unionist side.
Independence has its share who have made a very nice living out of the cause & still are,they know who they are. Their ego & confidence grows with each passing day & one day it will all come tumbling down.
You have my utmost respect & thanks for all you’ve done.Good luck with whatever you choose to do in the future.
Please go well & stay safe.
I’d ignore the polls because most folk are too thick to think for themselves or live in some fantasy post ‘truth’ world. I’d rather commission a wee brown book specifically aimed at highlighting the half truth, untruths and complete fairy tales the SNP party have fed folk over the years. For if theres any truth in the adage ‘shit or get of the toilet’, then it time for the SNP party to be kicked from power before they do any lasting damage. Most of the current crop of SNP officials are tainted; its too late now to simply say get rid of the Murells and all will be good once again. Given the trajectory of the SNP party and its association with independence, the longer theyre in Edinburgh the less any right thinking individual will vote “Yes”. We desperately need a project fear book wie baws to waken folk up – much like your WBB did a generation ago.
My other suggestion is I think I’d like the money to be used to commission / publish a biography of the wider Yes alliance; interviews from those in on the ground prior to 2014, the bloggers, even the politicians; not just Salmond and Wishart (if you can get him to talk on record), but ISP / AUB etc up to an including an analysis of the recent both votes SNP debacle and its aftermath, afore history is rewritten….and proceeds from the book put into a WOS trust that could be used to help finance projects that “further independence”.
I personally owe you so much Stuart Campbell.
You have saved my sanity on so many occasions
by holding both Westminster and Holyrood to account
when all media forces joined ranks to bury or distort the reality.
I painfully agree with your thoughts above.
We have seen mandate after mandate given,
generous funding, witnessed the Act of the Union being smashed
and a perfect storm of so many incidents that should have delivered independence.but No.
Scotland finds itself being abused by a Party it has never voted for in 70 years.
By a Prime Minister who is a pathological liar, serial adulterer, and a racist who makes clear his hatred of the Scots and yet SNP can’t muster no more than a pathetic and meaningless whimper in any parliament.
We now wait for the next generation of Scots more informed and determined to own their own country and their future.
No one in the current SNP party and no group within it could lay claim to have promoted, shaped and supported Independence more than Stuart Campbell.
Your contribution will be recognised and revered for many generations and accolades will be given,
hopefully not posthumously.
Forever grateful and in your debt Rev!
Absolutely gutted it has come to this.
I get the toll it has taken on you and the risks to your freedom that being anti British establishment entails.
But I really hoped that you would have a spider and try again epiphany like King Robert.
It seems it’s not to be.
Thanks for trying and trying Stu.
Please let’s hope Alex can persuade you to work your magic with him in some way.
Scotland’s hell will be much worse than England’s if it’s left to the snp much longer.
Going to the pub.
Thanks for everything that you have done for the independence movement Stuart. You are tired, exhausted in fact. A long rest will do you good after all you’ve been through. The independence movement still exists though . You believe in independence. I believe in independence , and most people here believe in it and always will. Sturgeon cannot last, and when she goes the clique goes too.
We will still be here, us and many many others, ready to take up the cause again and fight for the Scotland our children deserve. So have your well deserved rest, and remember, they cannot kill an idea.
For me,
now that Alba is up and running – thanks to the heavweight presence of one A Salmond, it is time for him to stand aside. I was actually a bit miffed when he was elected party leader. As much as I admire the man (and I do, immensely) there is no escaping the fact he is actually a turn off for too many people.
If and when someone like Jo Cherry jumps ship to Alba I would immediately hand her the reigns.
Thanks for all your work Rev.
The SNP threw a hundred farmyards of shit at Mr Salmond and under that avalanche, in the eyes of some, part has stuck.
Its shameful but its a sad fact.
Andy Ellis says:
But without polling evidence how do we point out to these blood and soil types that they ARE a minority apart from polling? I’m all ears if you have another suggestion Ruby.
Reply
You seem to be suggesting that a majority is always right and that polls are spot on.
Brexit, IndyRef2014, Tory Gov. etc
I was suggesting you might want to put forward a better argument to convince those you call ‘moon howlers’.
I admit I haven’t been paying too much attention to all the talk about a franchise for a referendum which may or may not take place at some far off date in the future.
The posts of yours that I have read haven’t been very convincing. I’m favouring the Scotland as colony argument.
I have serious doubts about Stu’s views on anything to do with Gaelic as a matter of fact they gave me the pure heebie-jeebies.
‘ideological toddlers throwing a tantrum that “we wuz robbed” to cover up for the inability of Scots to grow a pair and actually take their independence.’
Should Stu not have written the Scottish electorate rather than Scots?
‘It’s not that I hate the term as such: it’s context dependant Ruby. It can have entirely innocent usages, but that’s NOT what we’re talking about here is it?’
As I said I haven’t been paying too much attention to talk of a franchise for a referendum that may never take place so I would appreciate it if you could tell me in simple terms when the term is loaded and when it isn’t?
I would imagine any poll carried out would include people like myself who don’t have all the details and perhaps some who don’t even know what a franchise is.
If I were asked the question in a poll if Scots should decide who should or shouldn’t vote in a IndyRef.
I would tick yes they should. Would that make me a ‘moon howling’ blood & soil nationalist?
A really sad day today. Could say a lot more but it’s all been said much better than I ever could.
I wish you a good and happy life, Stuart, whatever that may be! I went with your Poll option. But like many others, I’d be happy for you to take at least some of the money (take it ALL with my blessing!), have a holiday somewhere nice & just forget about everything but ‘Sundowners’…
Many folks will be very happy this morning at the news the best forensic analyst in the political sphere will no longer be around, calling out their crap. And they think they’ll now get away with it. But Karma works… And I look forward to the day it bites them extremely hard in the ass. They need it; they deserve it.
And hopefully you’ll be around to bite them even harder when it happens! Take care, Stuart.
McHaggis69 says:
26 September, 2021 at 1:45 pm
If and when someone like Jo Cherry jumps ship to Alba I would immediately hand her the reigns.
Reply
Jo Cherry is a turn off for many people too!
Haven’t you been reading the press?
6th attempt:
I’ve given up trying to attain any level of profundity. I will instead revert to profanity.
Aw fuck.
Stick some of that dosh in your pocket – you deserve it.
Should you decide to continue writing please let us know where your words will be appearing.
You are missed already.
… and thank you Stuart. It’s been a gas.
Sad to see you go stu, but it has been wandering that way for a while, and I do not blame you for all the stress you have received over the years,
I also voted to use the site for polls. This is something you have done excellently beforehand,
I remember you’re take on it was, if I remember correctly was not necessarily The poll being taken, but how the question is framed often manipulated by Main Stream pollsters.
This often produced entirely different answers.
I sure most of us are aware that when you asked the direct question without the fluff an twist,……..
We wish you well stu in all you’re endeavours for the future and for the peace of you’re family and friends.
Thank you Stu for all you have done for Scotlands people. WBB, exposing the corruption at the heart of Holyrood & in the minds of the many self-serving politicians.
But most of all, thank you, now and always, for standing up for women. You’re integrity in seeking truth, spotlighting injustice and refusal to back down has earned you a place in scottish history, but for many women fighting to defend our rights, your place in scottish herstory is assured also. You took our fight n shared it so others might see. Thank you so very very much.
I support your idea for the remaining money wrt polls, but ask that you consider giving some to one or all of the groups below. Sole Sisters + Scottish Feminists are relatively new but are made up of women who’ve been fighting this ideology and are taking it to the streets. The last two are FWS and MBM. Any help would be most appreciated and, in the case of SSisters/SF, esp so for materials/leaflets etc.
Finally Stu, the horror & revulsion i feel wrt gender-ideology and in particular its child abusing aims and successes, are only matched by my gratitude and eternal thanks for your integrity, ethical journalism and support for our fight.
Thank you. I hope, wherever you go from here, treats you well and luck finds you often xx
well that’s my lurker career over;
bon voyage boss
so, so sorry the Rev Stu is shutting down Wings.
Like many others, I learnt so much from his writings over the years and am grateful for all he’s done for Scottish Independence.
Scotland stands in a sad place today.
Ireland’s been there and done while under the 1801 Act of Union. Yet ” In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty”
So it will be in Scotland
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
26 September, 2021 at 1:10 pm
“One more thing Stuart, IF you are wrong and there is another referendum much sooner than you think, will you come back and help?”
Depends. If it happens because Nicola Sturgeon has been booted out of office, then definitely. If it happens under her (which it won’t), I honestly don’t know if I could advocate that Scotland to anyone.
I’ll get on the case immediately. Jack boots at the ready. I’ve been waiting far too long for other people to act. Time to pull the finger out. I can write that about a lot of other people too. You’ve carried a heavy burden for an awfully long time. Best, as ever. Hope to see you in a pub in Bath one day when I’m researching down there.
That’s sad.
I hope your polls will chart Scots views on Holyrood and Bute House as Westminster flunkies.
Otherwise we have to hunker down, undermine the roadblocks and prepare to go again. I’ve been doing that since 1962 so I’m used to it but it does get a bit wearying.
Thanks for your efforts.
Stu what about buying a building or piece of land for those who wish to continue the fight to meet and plan things we could call it the rev cambell building
With Hamilton accies displaying the pictures of 600 Belarusian political prisoners in the stadium seating for todays friendly, i do hope someone remembered to give Craig Murray a seat in the home end.
Dear Stewart Campbell,
If it helps, I live in Tokyo. I would be happy to host a website here which can broadcast information under a .jp address which people might not be happy broadcasting under a .com or .uk address from Scotland.
I have no particular talent in internet technology. I happen to me good at writing, reasonably funny and I am careful to show respect to people who disagree with me in good faith. But I also to pour vitriol deliberate lies and cowardly groupthink.
I talked to Dave Lewellyn about this, who could maybe speak on my behalf. The costs of establishing and maintaining a site might be relatively moderate and I wouldn’t ask to be paid any more than that. I have lived here for 13 years, following your, and Murray’s blogs among others with increasing concern. Japanese law is more tolerant in these respects and I would be proud of the opportunity to convene free speech and lively debate.
Many thanks for your rigor so far.
Dominic Berry.
Just reading through the comments and wanted to add my big thank you. I really don’t know what I would have done/believed had you not been there to shine a spotlight on the misinformation in the media.
I am more than disgusted with the reactions of so called journalists MSP’s , MP’s and sundry other devious commentators to your pinpoint accuracy.
May you enjoy whatever else comes your way , ALBA book being a part of that.
I agree with many whatever you use the money for is OK by me and many more – Barbados is rather nice this time of year!
It only remains to say that I will miss you much.
Can anyone confirm.
Books to Craig Murray to be sent via his prison postal address, is that right?
(Someone, sometime mentioned sending to prison library)?
Many Thanks Folks
«Fuck business» exclaimed Johnson.
link to archive.ph
A posteriori, there appears nothing the Brits wont huckster in the bordello of globalist capitalism.
Rule Britannia!
I have voted for the polls option in the faint hope that we will still have a site to go to when the truth about NS comes out. But (and I have contributed to every fundraiser since I first read Wings in 2013) I would be happy for Stu to keep the balance as a fair payment for the tremendous work he has done for the independence cause.
I second “Giesabrek“ at 1.14pm
Spend it on a couple of out-of-work actors to follow Murrell everywhere he goes with placards ‘where’s my 600k?’
But seriously – if the thoughts of a very small scale donor are of any value, then as far as I am concerned, it is your money to do what you want with.
Aww man.. I knew this was coming, but it dusnae make it easier.
I voted for the polling, but if you stuck all the cash in your back pocket and headed for the hills I would not complain one bit. You deserve every penny for the shite that you have had to put up with, let alone the quality and quantity of work you put in.
Take care Stu and enjoy whatever you choose to do with your time now.
I fear the bears need watched.
(Oh, and if you’ve got a spare WoS hat in a cardboard box under the stairs, a donation to the charity of your choice would be forthcoming (I lost mine, it was an unhappy event 🙁 )
Thanks for all your work over the years, incalculable as well as legendary, you can sign-off feeling clean, pure – not many in Bute House able to claim that.
Must quote Salmond in 2014;
.. and tremble, false Whigs, in the midst of your glee,
You have not seen the last of my bonnet and me!”
We’ll be working, always, to rid ourselves of Sturgeon and the Crooks at which point your re-appearance will be most welcome.
See you.
Firstly, just Thank You for the power of work you’ve done over the years.
Secondly, the power of the WBB. The night before Indy ref I was travelling back up from London sporting a Yes badge. The woman behind the counter asked why I was going to vote Yes. She said she’s be voting No as she’d been told her job would go as trains would have to stop at the border.
‘That’s not true. Mind if I gave you something?’
‘Sure’
I went back to me seat, flicked through the WBB, marker a few sections and wrote a message ok the back saying ‘any questions, give me a bell’.
As I walked over the river kelvin the day after the vote feeling a sense of grief my phone pinged.
It was a text from the woman on the train.
Hi, (inset name) from the train here. Just wanted to let you know I voted Yes’.
One conversation, one WBB and a woman who voted Yes feeling that little bit less afraid.
There was the power of the WBB. Smith, McDonald, Wishart et al will never do anything in their careers that matches what you did for Indy.
Once again, thank you.
I support your plan Stu. I particularly like the idea of a seed of wings waiting for Sturgeon to fall, (or stumble). Wings rising like a phoenix – lovely thought.
Future fundraisers? Yes please!
@Nally Anders 2.26
Yes, it is possible to send books to Craig Murray, at the following address:
57095 C Murray
G3/34
H M Prison Edinburgh
33 Stenhouse Road Edinburgh
EH11 3LN
We live in hope.
I never paid anything into wings so the money does not concern me, give whats left to charity
The Stones
……………
The greatest rock band ever, and the two greatest composers of music the world has ever seen, or ever likely to see again
Keith and Mick
Independence or the stones last concert ever, I know which one I would choose
Thanks for everything, Stuart. You’ve been a trusted source of information for so long and I doubt we’ll see the like again. Take care, friend, and be happy in all that you do.
What Callum says…
“I’ve voted to support the proposal if for no other reason than it will allow the site to continue for some time. If nothing else happens over the coming years, the body of work that Wings Over Scotland comprises MUST persist as a resource. Seriously, I’d contribute to a yearly crowdfunder just to keep the lights on and pay the server bills with no new content.”
The content on this site, if placed in a physical archive, is what I, as an archivist, would consider to be a very important ‘Special Collection’. It makes me twitchy that if the site closes down it’ll be lost.
Aside from the content and analysis, I’ve enjoyed your excellent writing and am sad to see you go but I don’t blame you one bit.
All the very best for the future Stu.
When I was younger I really did not understand politics
In the sense that I thought only politicians had the right to decide on how to run a country for the other people in the country,
But I was temporarily living in Wales when the Welsh started burning their properties,
I thought these blood and soil Nationalists were crazy At that time.
They knew I had moved from Scotland to be in Wales. And were quite open to discussing their motives.
They explained that so many people in great numbers had moved from England to Wales pushing the house prices to extortionate prices, that the local Welsh population could not compete with,
This in itself was bad for locals,
But to further exasperate the house prices was the fact that most of the incomers were not living in the houses during the weekdays to save commuting long distances to London and other areas into England. The had rented property closer to their work. Taking up two properties.
The houses were being used only during weekends and holidays,
I witnessed the empty weekday houses, it was like walking in a ghost town.
The Welsh had apparently tried many times through the door and mechanisms of politicians to provide housing for the locals.
When this failed over the years, they had no alternative, they took the matter into their own hands.
And as far as I understand it progressed from the want and need for their voices to be heard, including being able to speak their own language in their own country.
Which had also more or less been banned, very similar to the education of Scottish people.
For the efforts in trying to keep a welsh population from going extinct and giving their family homes the mainstream media branded the blood and soil nationalist.
And the propaganda started.
A few years later I moved back to Scotland ( still not joined to anything political) and found the the Scottish people were in the same circumstances and environment.
So my take on this is blood and soil thinking of wanting you’re own home in you’re own country and being able to speak you’re own language = Bad.
Bad that locals wish to continue as locals,
As I mentioned here before, there is no possible ulterior motive for my thinking that people should not be subdued in their own country other than watching colonialism taking an effect on how native indigenous people are outed from their roots homes and separated from their countrymen when they have no choice but to move away.
I witnessed Welsh people living in the woods with families and tiny children, as they had no homes.
I was born in England.
Sometimes it would nice for others to walk in someone else’s shoes, and not delete what damage is done through the reality of politics.
‘8 ways an independent Scotland could spell U.K. economic disaster’ –
‘While leaving the United Kingdom might hurt Scotland economically at the outset, it will probably end up just fine on its own, thanks in large part to its educated population and vast energy reserves. In fact, it isn’t the Scots who should be worried here—it’s the U.K.’
link to archive.is
Scotland’s independence has always also effectively meant England’s too. That is what we were and still are up against. The entire UK state plus plenty of enemies from within. It’s now like a maze where the exit is almost grown over.
What Callum says…
“I’ve voted to support the proposal if for no other reason than it will allow the site to continue for some time. If nothing else happens over the coming years, the body of work that Wings Over Scotland comprises MUST persist as a resource. Seriously, I’d contribute to a yearly crowdfunder just to keep the lights on and pay the server bills with no new content.”
The content on this site, if placed in a physical archive, is what I, an archivist, would consider to be a very important collection. It makes me twitchy that if the site closes down it’ll be lost.
Aside from the content and analysis, I’ve enjoyed your excellent writing and I’m sad to see you go but I don’t blame you one bit.
All the very best for the future Stu. Thanks for everything. You’ll be missed.
The thing is the security services have the WhatsApp messages and all the other e mails so if Sturgeon even thinks about moving on indy they will leak them and destroy her and any indy result at the same time
Nicola has put herself, intentionally or otherwise in a position where she can’t go for Indy.
From now on we can only watch as she undermines the case for indy with daft desisions as she delivers for her unionist controller
I would prefer it if you continued the fight Stu as, if you go, the SNP ‘establishment’ have won.
Whatever you do with the surplus funds, the same ‘establishment’ will find ways to criticise and try and discredit you. You may as well keep for yourself for all your forensic work done over the years and as some compensation for the hassle that will undoubtedly be coming your way.
The typical SNP supporter now shows all the characteristics of a cult member and it will be nigh on impossible to convince them otherwise.
Good luck for the future whatever you decide to do. As my mother used to say ‘you are a long time deed’!
All the best Stuart, in whatever you do. We will miss you. So sad that all your efforts and those of the Yes movement have come to nothing. It’s not going to happen in my lifetime and so, like you, I’m done with campaigning. I’ll now go and find something more productive to do.
Jeezo, Chris yesterday and now the Rev. Heartbroken.
Thanks for everything that you have done Stuart. You’ve had a helluva heavy shift over the years, and a great deal abuse to put up with.
It’s sad, but at the moment there is all this disruption in what was the YES movement. Seems to have gone to Sturgeon’s plan. You’re right, nothing will improve while she is still in Bute House. Poor old Scotland, I hardly recognise my country these days with all the hate spilled out from the SNP. Who knew that this would happen eh!
I wish you all the very best Stu whatever you decide to do in the future. I’m like some of the others, I think the money should go to you as some sort of redundancy package. After all you have kept the sight going for two years without a wage.
Please take care, it seems to be a bloody dangerouse place out there.
Blood and soil welsh nationalist were the ones fighting back, for the right to have a home in their own country, the right to live in amongst their own families and have the work locally,
Most of this was never achieved as the mainstream media told the propaganda it wished for the rest of Britain and the world to hear.
This is now where we are,
As were the Irish .
The politicians are not listening.
The mainstream media tell a different story from the one on the ground.
And the governments attempt to silence the people.
Stu, at the minimum you should take your salary for the last two years. All workers are worthy of their hire and you certainly have been an exceptional worker for the cause of Scottish Independence. At the maximum spend the lot on soor plooms and dental bills.
Referring back to what our leader says above, I concur that an independent Scotland formed in Sturgeon’s image would be one hell of a prospect and remaining in the Union would be preferable in the short term.
There is of course the distinct possibility that the disease we see in our public services, politics and even our homes will spread to the other nations in the UK. I sincerely think this is the endgame for individual freedom.
We lose the most precious gifts of democracy and freedom of speech, without the economic benefits of the communist system.
It’s always darkest just before dawn, they say. So I hope somewhere out there we (independence supporters)have our very own Frodo & Sam readying themselves to throw the evil ring of power into the abyss ( molten lava etc.) metaphorically speeking of course.
I can’t thankyou enough Stu for everything you’ve done for me and all supporters of Scottish independence over many years.We are all deep in your debt.Wishing you & all those you love
best of health .
Posting appears stalled at 3:06.
Stu, First of all, there aren’t enough thanks in the world for your efforts, but, thank you anyway.
Re: the Wings funds. I have always said that I hoped you would just keep them and do whatever you like because you have more than earned the right to do that. It seems, however, that instead of spending it on yourself, you have other ideas and they are good, so, if it amuses you to continue as stated, excellent.
As long as you are here, so are we.
Wings: “an alarming number of people are openly calling for a blood-and-soil voting franchise should another indyref ever happen…”
I don’t think there’s a very huge or significant gulf between the so-called “blood and soil” nationalists and the “civic nationalists”.
The Gaelic and “mither tung” crap, embarassing as it may be, is no more or less ridiculous than the dread of spectres that hover in the background of other nationalist movements, many of which have been successful.
Everyone who supports Scottish independence has some vague notion of Scottishness that they think is important enough to warrant distinction and important enough to pursue politically. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Nationalism is undoubtedly a double-edged sword. But we are going into a future that looks increasingly volatile and we know, one way or another, we are likely to find ourselves embroiled in some major political battles.
Better to go into that volatile future and those political battles with that nationalist sword than without.
If changing the basis of the franchise helps, then we should change it. If indulging in our shared experiences and cultural commonalities helps engender a sense of unity and purpose, then we should do so without apology.
We don’t need to be entirely rational and we don’t need to be entirely nice. We tried that stuff.
Why is it principles only seem to ever hold us back? Nobody else seems to care about principles. Can anyone show me the principles that guide say Boris or Nicola?
Fuck principles. Principles are for losers.
Margaret E @ 2.40
Thanks for confirming. Much appreciated.
Stuart, thanks for everything.
Best of luck in whatever you plan to do in the future.
Please do not waste your talents, and if you could use some help, you know where to find us.
All the best Stu. Thank you for all your hard work. Best wishes for the future, whatever that holds for you.
@Ruby 1.48 pm
You appear to be another one of these “I’ve never been polled in my life, so polls aren’t relevant” or “polls are usually wrong look at [cite a few wrong polls here]” mob. The point is that if polls are such a crap way of gauging opinion, why do people bother? Why is there a hug industry behind it, and why – despite sometimes getting it wrong – do most “proper” polls turn out to be pretty close to the truth?
I doubt there have been many polls which ask direct questions about the indyref voting franchise, or what the opinion of Scots (resident or “ethnic”) are about who should or should not get a say. As you and others have pointed out, responses can be skewed by the question asked, or how it is phrased, but (and it is a big but!) as those who have actually commissioned polls like Stu Campbell and James Kelly will attest, reputable polling organisations will tend to guide those commissioning polls as how best to word questions, and what kind of things to avoid in phrasing questions, or how to go about asking a series of related questions about a topic. None of this is exactly rocket science.
If you haven’t been paying too much attention to the months of the debate about this issue, don’t expect me to do your homework for you – go back and look! Or better yet do the research yourself.
Go back to Stu’s original posting on the issue and actually address the points he made,because you can rest assured that not a single one of the moon howlers ever has.
In sheer exasperation at how slow on the uptake you and some others are (and since Stu revived the issue above) I will quote Stu’s words from 13th July at length again.
“If you want to deny 20% of the people who live in Scotland the vote in a referendum because they were born somewhere else, we’re not on the same side. If you want their votes, fucking well persuade them. If you can’t, your case is shit.
And stop whining that by saying this I’m trying to “shut down debate”. I have no power and no desire to stop you debating it. You can debate it all you want. I’m not reporting you to Twitter or the police. I’m just not interested.
We debated this in 2011 and we came to the right decision. Nothing has happened that justifies abandoning that principle in my view. You can’t just disenfranchise people because you think they’ll vote the wrong way.
As well as being morally wrong, it’s almost certainly self-defeating. The Scotland you’d be trying to sell people under that franchise is a very different place to the one we were advocating in 2014, and very much for the worse.
That, of course, is true in many ways. If we got a referendum tomorrow I don’t in all honesty know if I could bring myself to campaign in it, because it’d be a *de facto* campaign for Nicola Sturgeon’s vision of a hellish, intolerant, incompetent and corrupt Scotland.
But that’s not a decision I need to lose sleep over, because we’re not getting a referendum tomorrow, or next year, or the year after that, or the year after that.
But I’ve officially lost any urge to even think about it, if even the people opposed to that awful vision just have a different kind of awful vision, of a country where only “ethnic Scots” have a say. Bollocks to that.”
Now go away, read and inwardly digest Stu’s words. If you have a considered rebuttal to his points, let’s hear it. If I’m convinced by your counter arguments I’ll happily admit my error, because no other fucker has managed it so far! Until then, anyone who disagrees with Stu’s enraged words quoted above and in the OP is very definitely NOT on the same side as me, OK?
What we’re witnessing here isn’t unique to Scotland. All over the world, people who put principle before personal gain (like Stu) are vilified, demonised, brought down. Those who betray their friends and countryfolk in favour of their own advancement are protected, promoted, enriched.
Third world countries expect no better but we are surprised to see the same thing happen so openly in the ‘civilised’ west. We shouldn’t be surprised. As the global end-game plays out, the real rulers are dropping the pretense that we are all anything other than serfs.
Hey, it’s the new normal, right?
Remember, “You’ll own nothing and be happy”
“Everyone who supports Scottish independence has some vague notion of Scottishness that they think is important enough to warrant distinction and important enough to pursue politically. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
I don’t. I think we’re a country, marked by a line on a map like every other country, and that fact in and of itself should mean we’re entitled to choose our own governments. No more and no less.
Are lines on maps arbitrary? Perhaps, but they’re how we’ve organised the world for millennia and until such times as we have a one-world government they’re what we’ve got.
Hatuey.
3:30pm
We do not agree on every subject, but I do with you on you’re post.
No matter which angle of debate we come from, there is one continuous theme, we all want Scotland to be independent as a country. And for Scotland to be recognised,
And yes I think it will need that one driving factor from all walks of life and opinions to phase out the leaders who are not leading.
But are looking for political careers and big wages and crazy power.
Before Scotland has been destroyed preferably.
My opinion is probably moot but since Sturgeon being in complete control means no further need for opinion polls, logic dictates you should use the cash & experience to do a Scottish version of the hangover series instead. Drag Mr Cairns along as location manager, etc.
I’m just gutted. I can’t believe it’s come to this.
When I started engaging with Wings there was so much hope and expectation and it felt like it wouldn’t be long before we gained our independence. After Brexit it was inevitable wasn’t it?
I will never forgive Sturgeon and the SNP for what they’ve done. I despise her more than I think I have ever despised anyone.
A couple of years ago someone told me that women’s rights were more important to them than independence and that given a choice they would give up independence. I disagreed as I believed that independence would deliver that and more. Now sadly I have to agree that women’s rights are in such jeopardy that it must be my priority now.
Thank you Stu for everything you have done. Your forensic research and incisive writing have been a joy to experience and I so hope we get to see it again in the future.
“there’d still be a seed fund to get straight back to work with…..Wings would stay online both as an archive and to publish the poll data,”
((((( SOLD! COUNT ME IN! )))))
Andy Ellis says:
Now go away
Reply
Will do Andy Pandy!
Bye!
@Hatuey 3.30pm
“I don’t think there’s a very huge or significant gulf between the so-called “blood and soil” nationalists and the “civic nationalists”.”
I think you’re wrong. I also think the majority of the movement thinks you’re wrong. Time will tell of course. If it is really true that “civic nationalism” and old fashioned “ethnic nationalism” are indistinguishable then presumably there won’t be much of an issue: the movement will certainly lose a section of its support, because folk like me will no longer be happy to support a movement which advances an approach we see as regressive, blood and soil based particularism based on where people were born, not where they live.
“Fuck principles. Principles are for losers.”
If that’s the kind of Scotland you want to campaign for, fine. If you really believe the ends justify the means, then go ahead. I won’t support it though, and I doubt I’ll be alone in withdrawing my support.
If your nationalism is willing to contemplate as its very foundation a regressive, ethnically based, exclusionary vision, it isn’t my kind of nationalism and I’ll have none of it.
Principles are important for some of us you see. Whether it’s a belief that “my” civic nationalism IS better then their ethnic nationalism, or that my defence of women’s rights and opposition to the TRA entryists pushing the deeply misogynistic trans extremism is both morally right and more electorally sound than pushing for self-ID, GRA reform and slavish acceptance of a scientific woo-woo like “TWAW and there is no debate”.
You don’t build a better nation by supping with the devil, however long your spoon.
I binned my SNP membership along with stopping reading wings long ago. I found my way here after seeing a Grousebeater tweet about a final blog post.
The whole ugly implosion of a tight, inspiring Yes movement was a real turn off. From the gender crap to the salmond affair , I’ve got better things to do than immerse myself in that kind of politics, and I don’t care who’s to blame anymore.
It still rankles heavily that we continue as a nation in a gutless spiral down the U.K. toilet, and offcourse I’ll vote Yes again in a heartbeat. It’s just I don’t know if I’ll ever get that chance again and in the meantime I’d like to enjoy life as much as is possible in this shitfest post no country.
A lot of complimentary comments about Stu today and so well deserved. The characteristic I admire the most about Stu is his integrity. Look at his transparent financial working in this article and his intent about the remainder of the funds and compare that approach, to the financial shenanigans of the SNP.
P.S , with regards the remaining funds, I’m torn between a KLF style burning of cash on the steps of Holyrood, gambling it on a horse with readers votes or simply donating it to some poor buggers that need it as I’m sick of polls too
Rev Stuart Campbell, I understand why you are retiring from all this, but I sincerely hope that should Hamish ever re-light the wings signal, that you will return to the front line. Scotland needs you. Our time will come again.
Why have things fallen apart? Why are groups splintering? Simple, a complete and total absence of leadership.
Of course we now have Alex Salmond and ALBA, but they are on a long road, obstructed by Sturgeon and her unionist chums.
Nicola Sturgeon who should by now be the champion of an independent Scotland and defender of our constitutional rights, but has shown herself to be nothing but a London stooge. Playing her part, with faked public ‘spats’ with Boris, whilst ‘deals were done behind the scenes.
I despise Tories, but at least once elected they do what they say they will do. They have no qualms whatsoever of indulging every one of their greedy, greedy slefish ideas, with or without a ‘clear new mandate’. The SNP for the last seven years have done the EXACT opposite of what they were elected for. Lie after Lie after lie.
Nicola Sturgeon has done more damage to Scotland in the last seven years, than the earlier Labour libdem coalition of Joke McConnell. What an utter disgrace she is.
Our only hope, is that events lead to an early general or (even better) Scottish election, so we can be rid of this sturgeon nonsense.
I say this to Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, if you really care about Scotland, if you really care about independence, then go. I am no fan of Oliver Cromwell, but his infamous speech to the corrupt politicians of the rump parliament in 1653, seems most appropriate;
“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place,
which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice.
Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government.
Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.
Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?
Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?
Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?
Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.
Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.
I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.
Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.
In the name of God, go!”
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
26 September, 2021 at 10:07 am
Quote “All the best Stuart. Can I still phone you if we get the goods to send Murrell to jail ?”
So long as it gets Sturgeon out of Bute House, damn right you can.”
How about this?
An elderly woman starved to death while health and social care services were buckling under the strain of coronavirus in the first fatality from lack of food in Scotland for at least 20 years.
Sturgeon “These things happen”
link to twitter.com
Wings
You are our only hope.
If a country is nothing more than just a place separated by a line on the map then how would you go about recruiting soldiers?
Does there not need to be some sort of national pride/Scottishness to be able to convince young men to possibly give up their lives for their country?
Gonna miss you Stu, this post almost made me cry.
Just a shame the swansong contained a typo which you are usually so meticulous in avoiding…
“Becuase there is no “independence movement” “
You know we know we are going to need again one day. ????????
Thanks for sharing your wisdom and insight. It has helped me see many aspects of Scotland that I would have never known, and been poorer in my ignorance. I am forever grateful for what you have done to wake me up, take care and know that you made a difference.
You are a decent cunt, alright, I’ll miss your chat.
I voted for the poll option Stu but I think Liz G’s proposal of a book on the history of WINGS and your fight for independence would be more enlightening and HISTORICAL , we could even use it as a subject in SCHOOL EDUCATION instead of some bunny or frog who is trying to con weans
To the people against the blood and soil narrative especially the women I ask ” would you be so civic minded and against the nasty nationalists if Nicola Sturgeon had opened up the franchise for VOTING on the GRA and HCB to interested parties and vested interest organisations AROUND THE WORLD instead of just asking their opinions” , or would you be OUTRAGED that other people he/she/its were determining YOU and YOUR FEMALE relatives future living conditions (sorry existance)
Surely you couldn’t object to that , surely that is the definition of caring and sharing , surely you wouldn’t want poor confused people to suffer , we could become a beacon to the world where all the sexually confused people could move too, just think we could replace Bangkok’s reputation as having the most ladyboys , and just think of the tourism opportunities , MAYBE Nicola is already thinking ahead to NEW oportunities
Or do you want to be a nasty nativist
Ohhh a bit of sair double dunter there. Only just now looked in on Chris Cairns Saturday ‘toon and todays post..
Ach, I had kinda hoped maybe a hirple to November and a change of heart, but I kinda knew it was all done.
I would have liked to see (hear?) a Stu Campbell podcast launched – a looser format ruminating on everything and onything.
Maybe less work and expense than running Wings and producing intensive articles – less constraining.
Be interesting the caliber of any guests and topics you would undoubtedly muster.
Ach well, just a thought.
Seems a shame to say goodbye, but best of luck and thank you again.
Sincerest thanks for all your hard work over the years Stu, look after yourself and take care.
I know I’m not alone in hoping that your retirement from Scottish political commentary is a temporary one, but this article hits the nail on the head. With Sturgeon at the helm, the indy bus is well and truly parked for a long, long time. Probably for good.
As other more active, and frankly more eloquent readers have pointed out before me, our national sovereignty is the answer to securing independence but very few seem to realise it or want to hear it.
There was a sort of a daft fundraiser too, wasn’ there? To buy someone some biscuits or something, I forget what.
If a country is nothing more than just a place separated by a line on the map how would you account for ‘The Tartan Army’ who travel miles to support the country’s football team?
Derek at 0449am,
You know you might have a point, a crowdfunder to keep Stuart Campbell in the most excellent selection of sweeties, until Sturgeon is in jail. Boxes and boxes of them.
Best wishes for the future & thank you for your hard work.
I have always found your material well researched and useful (even when I’ve had to paraphrase for more sensitive souls).
I am glad that you sound prepared to re-engage when the cabal’s stranglehold is broken.
Events have a way of happening faster than expected; every sinew of the British apparatus is engaged in preserving the SNP roadblock but it is still creaking.
The regime is inherently unstable; the fall will be irreversible & far faster than Labour.
Your analysis will be needed -soon. Have a rest & stand by, it’s gonna be interesting.
I voted against but only because I feel we should, and could, use it more constructively. We should create a modern political party based on direct democracy. You often mentioned policies that were hugely supported by the people (renationalising railways, protect NHS for example) were not offered by any party. Or worse, WERE offered by parties as a means of securing votes right up until they came to power and forgot (Labour and abolishing the HOL springs to mind). We could create a party run by modern tech like Blockchain that allows members to select their position on every policy which would then form the party’s manifesto.
In my mind, I liked the idea of a party called COIN, standing for Coalition of Independents. Note, NOT independence. I forsee this being a means to disrupt the awful political situation across the whole UK, for the benefit of the average person in the UK.
I had a thought about the identity politics and lobbying that so corrupts the political landscape and rather than have recognisable faces in power, every member that pays their membership fee can tick a box to be considered for the position of MP/MSP for their region. Then several can be picked at random (thinking Blockchain smart contact) and the members can then vote for their favoured candidate. The selected representative then has nothing more to do than to vote in accordance with the members stated preferences on all policy matters. Any deviation would see them voted out and replaced.
Something like this could have the framework put in place using the remaining funds. Rather than poll on opinions, we could poll for policy. And create some sort of means for sensible debate and policy discussion.
Although I knew it was coming ,I am so unutterably sad to see you go .What has happened to the Yes movement has been far far worse than ever I had imagined after we lost in 2014.
I doubt Ill see independence in my lifetime now but perhaps Ill see the end of the current snp which would be cheering .
(By the way I was at the AUOB march yesterday and I think the turnout was not bad given the extremely short notice and the shenanigans with the council and police Scotland.)There are still good people in Scotland and I for one will continue supporting Alba .Thankyou Stuart for being a beacon of truth .
“but then realised what is remaining is only £46,841”
It’s more than that because of the other donations and whatnot already mentioned. I don’t have an exact figure atm because there are still some bills to be paid (eg lawyer ones) that I haven’t received yet, so I don’t know how much they’ll be. (And we still technically have the option to contest the last part of the Dugdale bill, although I’m not planning to.)
“I voted for the poll option Stu but I think Liz G’s proposal of a book on the history of WINGS and your fight for independence would be more enlightening and HISTORICAL”
I’m very actively considering writing a book, but that’d be a separate thing. It wasn’t what the money was donated for. Polling still just about fits the purpose.
@Tannadice Boy – I’m nearly there sir….this week should do it. I’ll let you know.
Well, sad but not unexpected. I feel very much the same. Who would have thought the SNP would have turned into a sad bunch of british politicians, eh? But that’s where we are it seems.
I’ll always remember the highs of the Wings fundraisers and watching that counter ramping up at an unbelievable rate and knowing every quid more was hurting the unionists and those that now turn out to be Nicolites. Some folk are very small and some folk are very wee.
Latterly I read some of your posts and thought, naw, he must be wrong, but you weren’t. Sadly.
So I will miss you being around as you’ve almost become part of my family and I hope you won’t disappear altogether as that would be hard to bear.
I voted for the polls, but on reflection I think they are probably a waste of time. Maybe keep enough in hand so that if things were suddenly to change we could do one poll to find out what the country thinks, and another little bit aside as a seed fund should it be required and pay yourself the rest.
Being part of the Wings family has been one of the high points in my life Stuart and I will never be able to thank you enough for that. Some of those Wings friendships will hopefully continue into the future, albeit not the future we had all longed for. I now doubt very much I’ll see Scottish independence in my lifetime. I blame Sturgeon, her so-called husband and her sickly sycophants for that.
As other have said. please keep you head down and stay safe as you will always be a target for those you have properly decried. They are a nasty bunch and the hold grudges.
@Captain Yossarian 5:13pm
All the best I do hope you get rid of the debt. Nobody deserves to be coping with that level of burden. Watching the Ryder Cup now. We need a miracle, a bit like Independence supporters.
Wow! I find I agree with a lot of what J.O.E says.
Perhaps ‘Andy Pandy’ should had made more effort with me and not told me to get lost!
Thank you Stu
“I voted for the polls, but on reflection I think they are probably a waste of time. Maybe keep enough in hand so that if things were suddenly to change we could do one poll to find out what the country thinks”
I’m not in any hurry to spend the money. I don’t think polls right at the moment serve much of a purpose, and certainly not independence polling, because AT BEST we’re years away from a referendum. So I expect to be going pretty slowly.
Thanks, Stuart, for all the work you’ve done for the Great Cause! I wish you well!
Such a sad state of affairs. We should be within touching distance of independence and it feels further away than it did on 19.9.14. Voted in support of your plan. Any chance you could do 6 monthly summaries with some of the left over funding? They would be appreciated by most of your readers. Thank you Wings.
Sad,sad day.Good luck going forward Stu.
The end of an era. I voted for the polling option but would have no problem with you keeping what is left in the fund as a golden goodbye. The comments section has been imploding with no fresh posts to keep minds on track so it is perhaps time it faded away. I used to read just about everything out there but very little now as Bell and Jeggit have me blocked the Dug has gone off the reservation and become a property magnate and Craig Murray is still in jail. There are a few bloggers taking up some of the slack but Stu will be sadly missed. All the best Rev in the future and thanks for the memories as it has been some journey. Take care.