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.
“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.”
If I was going to form a political party – and you may recall I considered it – it would have been two years ago. If even Alex Salmond can’t get 2% at Holyrood, I think adding another new party to what’s now a pretty crowded ballot paper is a futile gesture.
Ruby says:
26 September, 2021 at 4:44 pm
Quote:-
“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?”
—-
Try 3 square meals a day, fitness and some meaning to their lives.
Something Scotland does not offer to the vast majority of it’s citizens today.
@Ruby 5.27 pm
Agreeing with anything much that J.o.e comes out with is a sign you probably meet the criteria to be denied a vote on the grounds of mental incapacity.
Eejits who come out with the:
“if [X] hadn’t called me a bad word I might have voted for/ supported them, but now I’m going to vote for / support that nice Ghengiz Khan…I mean he can’t be all bad can he…?” should be regarded as the intellectual equivalent of a 20W bulb.
We cam across many yoons like that in #indyref1 insisting they were going to vote Yes until some cybernat was mean to them. Jesus wept….is that where we really are? No wonder we’re further away from independence than we were in 2012 with genuises like you. 🙁
Thank you Stuart for everything you have done over the years.
I know you have had your critics, but we should remember what Scottish politics was like before you started.
The media was allowed to brush away notions of independence as the views of a few minority cranks.
For 10 years you have held their feet to the fire in a way that nobody else has had the guts to do, the change in attitudes as a result have been worth every minute of the effort you put in.
Whatever you decide to do, I wish you well.
You and this blog will be missed.
Andy Ellis says:
26 September, 2021 at 5:49 pm
@Ruby 5.27 pm
Agreeing with anything much that J.o.e comes out with is a sign you probably meet the criteria to be denied a vote on the grounds of mental incapacity.
Reply
Fuck off Andy Pandy!
@ ‘MWS says:
26 September, 2021 at 11:14 am
I ticked ‘support’ but to be honest I’d rather you just kept the money yourself to spend on whatever you like.’
I’m with MWS – what he said.
A million thank yous. Incredible what one person can achieve. And you gave people like me a voice (and a benchmark high standard to aim for) – can’t thank you enough for that.
Sadly it is not our enemies who have scuppered us, but our ain folk – too stupid.
May I also add, thank you for the heads up about the GRA/anti women agenda. Better get that in before saying it gets me arrested.
Very best wishes for you and your future. Take good care of yourself. I won’t forget or underestimate your contribution.
All the best, Stu
When the rest of us have sorted all our shit out, there will be space for you in a manner and time of your choosing. I personally hope you will be the first President of the republic, voted for as our ceremonial leader, like the Irish poet President.
Secondly, we’ll have to organise a testimonial for you, of some sort, to get you started comfortably with the rest of your life. This works for sports star who entertain and provide a shining light for their fans to follow. As per other posters, I believe we owe you that, so we’ll get our collective thinking hats on as to how to organise such a fund raiser. We won’t take no for an answer.
Take good care of yourself in the meantime.
So long, and thanks for all the cheese … and badges, beanies, bottle openers etc
@Rev Stu 5.43 pm
“If I was going to form a political party – and you may recall I considered it – it would have been two years ago. If even Alex Salmond can’t get 2% at Holyrood, I think adding another new party to what’s now a pretty crowded ballot paper is a futile gesture.”
After the SNP experience 2015-18 it did give me pause for thought whether I should join Alba, or wait and see how it panned out. I share your misgivings to an extent: I was heartened by the enthusiasm shown for a Scottish republic, but like you I would like to have seen a quick and decisive slap down of the blood and soil types.
Of course, if that’s the political cul-de-sac the party is headed down, they can do it without me, but there is time to see how they develop yet. Nothing much of substance can be done until the next General Election, whether Holyrood or Westminster.
If the party can’t be stood up, park its tanks on the SNPs front lawn and start registering decent support in the polls, we might as well give up for that “real” generation the yoons keep banging on about. The responsibility for that will lie mostly with the craven SNP membership, but also with clueless Scots voters in general.
@ ‘
holymacmoses says:
26 September, 2021 at 12:53 pm
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.’
I agree with the above – but for goodness sake get the Kezia lawsuit paid off first, or they’ll want another cut.
I’ve read your blog since, I think, 2010. I will miss your insights and acerbity. Fare well, Rev.
Yeah I am the same as Daisy and MWS I tickled the box as well but as far as Iam concerned the Rev deserves to have a well earned piss up or whatever he wants , we haven’t been under constant scrutiny and have all our equipment taken just because we have embarrassed some people who really should be in jail right now , have a ball Rev you earned it .
Just when you thought Labour might just be redeemable Stamer says it’s wrong to say only women have a cervix ,
FFS ! I don’t fit in this world anymore a world that’s changing around about me I can only guess something is being added to the water supply or idiot dust is being sprinkled on the food ,
thank fk I am on the way out and and haven’t just arrived in this fkn horror show it’s probably only older people that realise something is far wrong in the western world , it has been changed and changed slowly so we didn’t notice, bit by bit we are being strangled in some fkn straight jacket .
wee monkey says:
26 September, 2021 at 5:46 pm
Try 3 square meals a day, fitness and some meaning to their lives.
Something Scotland does not offer to the vast majority of it’s citizens today.
Reply
That is very sad!
Has there been any issue with men with a vagina/cervic joining the armed forces?
I’ve enjoyed reading the site over the years. Don’t always agree with some comments or articles, but they do make me think, and if I wanted everyone to sing from the same hymn sheet I’d go to church.
A wide range of views and opinions is essential for a healthy democracy; something many prominent commentators forget. Some of those could also learn what research is.
Next referendum? Unless drastic action is taken, it could be fifteen or twenty years, if ever. Reasons are pretty much covered above.
One thing I will miss is when someone posts something really stupid, and the resulting non-too subtle response from the editor… Democracy in action – everyone gets it at some point 🙂
I stopped posting a long time ago because of pathetic abuse
Keep the cash mr Campbell I donated it to you
Enjoy your life and I hope to see you and cc in some other form / forum
The assassination of Alba was the “coup de grace” for independence and a serious mistake by Alex…..It was obvious which way the wind was blowing and the media turned the saviour of the Old SNP into a monster, especially amongst women, who are turning out to be a very important demographic. Alex should have realised what was happening but his ego ruled his brain.
I don’t know if anyone could have succeeded in putting a bridle on the mare…… the grievance and the battle against nature has been propagated well in Holyrood.
A book would be nice, I’m sure it will be a best seller.
Robert graham, neither do I and am tempted to right a very crude message to Keir Starmer along the lines of “could some c^nt please tell him what a cervix is and where it is found “.
Are there any biologists shouting about this science denial crap?
Robert Graham, Of course we noticed. For twenty years I’ve been arguing against the maniacal changes in society, telling people about the sharp edge of the gay marriage legislation, no one listened or at least became too frightened of being called names to raise any objections.
Well, the Wedge is penetrating further every day, soon the log will splinter wide open and whether or not we achieve Independence will become immaterial.
“For twenty years I’ve been arguing against the maniacal changes in society, telling people about the sharp edge of the gay marriage legislation”
The only reason we have all the trans bullshit is that shamefully, equal marriage didn’t happen a decade sooner.
May I suggest you enter a state of deep hibernation to await a Phoenix like awakening.
Some forms of life can hibernate for 100 million years in the Arctic, which should be enough time for the SNP to work out a strategy.
Haste ye back!
They announced 5000 at the march yesterday which i think they said was the police estimate,
thought it was a a wee bit more but not by much,
plenty dugs and bikers,
nice day out.
“They announced 5000 at the march yesterday which i think they said was the police estimate,”
The police made no official estimate. That number is AUOB’s and as you can see from the picture it’s bollocks.
Rev, I ticked yes, essentially to keep you involved.My life mantras are –
You cannot win if you don’t compete, and – constancy to purpose,meaning don’t quit.
Imagine how pleased Dugdale must be feeling reading this post, and Sturgeon.
I shook your hand at an Edinbugh marchway back, I’d be priviledged to do so again. Why not book a venue in Edinburgh or wherever, for a get together. ticket sales to boost the poll fund?
*sad face*
Even when you know the end is nigh it still comes with sadness.
Same with the Indy movement, we know the end is nigh but the agony will be drawn out for as long as possible to benefit the cabal & it’s hangers on. (Though I still suspect Boris has a cunning plan that involves the end of devolution.)
So the agony continues but now we must suffer thru it without Wings.
No hope of a referendum, next Holyrood election years away, our only hope is to give new SNP a bloody nose at the council elections next year to put the wind up them. But I’ll not hold my breath as the cult is stronger than we think. Electorally Scotland is doomed until the spell of the SNP Indy carrot can be broken.
In the meantime, as a woman, I’m seriously considering leaving the land of my birth until sanity returns. Which may or may not be in my lifetime as I am no spring chicken anymore.
Anyway Stu, thank you for all you have done with Wings, look forward to whatever poll results you put out for us (I do like a good poll) & good luck with your future endeavours.
*still sad face *
I have diasagreed with you on many things over the years.
I have enjoyed your work, especially in those optimistic early years, and happily contributed.
Please keep the site hibernated and able to be resusitated should the opportunity arise, I would happily contribute further for those ends.
All the best for now.
Anagach.
Wings: “ 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.”
It’s the “we” part that complicates things though, isn’t it… the geography or “where” part is, as you’ve outlined, very easy.
Who and what are “we”? How did we become “we”? How does someone else join us and become “we”?
The idea that you instantaneously become Scottish as soon as you cross a line on the map, lines that don’t even exist in reality, is as ridiculous as thinking you can change sex just by filling in a form.
Assuming you don’t think that, and I assume you don’t, then we are right into a discussion about how you do qualify as being Scottish. And such a discussion can only be based on subjective opinion since there is no objective definition.
You might say residency could be used to determine eligibility. Okay, but then you are hard up against the question of how long someone needs to be resident here. One night? One year? I’m not concerned about the answer because I think there’s a better determinant.
Thanks for everything stu. If the polling plan goes ahead it would be good if you and James Kelly could bury the hatchet although that’s obviously up to the 2 of you.
Good luck, I can only imagine how tough running this site must have been on your mental health, you deserve time away from it
Thank you for your work, your strong perspective, and your time. All we have is time. I hope you don’t think yours was wasted here, it changed lives, changed opinions, made a real difference in the face of gigantic institutional opposition.
I wish you well in the future, and hope you enjoy your time away from the dreary muck that has become Scottish politics.
I raise a glass to you, and to all who travelled with you along this road. A long time lurker bids you all good health and long life.
Couldn’t agree more, I’m a “Brandane” (born in Bute)tho’ i’ve only lived there for 6 months of my 77 years, but third generation.
Scots need to have a birth connection.
I say take the money and live the rest of your days happily doing whatever you fancy, open a squirrel sanctuary, buy a sweetie shop or whatever. God knows you`ve earned it. Thanks for all you have done for a cause that now feels lost. It`s a dark day, but I think we all saw it coming. I may be crying, but Wings really did make me do it this time. Much love to the wider wings family & thanks also for their amazing work over the years.
Dear Stu,
I hope this is only an advisory poll – I don’t want you bound to a chore if it means you won’t ever be free and happy.
I voted to accept your idea but see above!
We are in a very sad place because of the SNP “leadership”. You must not be sacrificed in attempting to shift them from office. It requires people in the party to do this work – the essential first step is for one or more members to stand for party leader in time for the Annual Conference which should be taking place in November [but not holding my breath]. The mere fact of someone standing against Sturgeon would encourage resistance to the current gang and their opposition to independence.
Having said that you are entitled to lay down this burden, I note Dominic Berry’s offer at 2.20. And I’m sure posts from you would be welcome on Grouse Beater, Ian Lawson, Barrhead Boy, Craig Murray, and many other sites.
Thank you for telling the truth and opening the eyes of so many people, including myself.
With great admiration,
Sarah Mackenzie
I’m not getting involved in the blood-and-soil argument. It’s moot anyway, because there isn’t going to be a referendum. Kindly take it elsewhere.
Ahhh! quelle surprise (not):
“Labour leadership rule changes pass after last-minute Unison backing” (from the Guardian)
“Labour members tore into rule changes proposed by Keir Starmer to give MPs more sway over leadership elections, but the new rules were carried over the line after the trade union Unison gave its backing at the last minute
The narrow victory on conference floor ended a difficult week for Starmer, in which he was repeatedly forced to water down his proposals, though his allies said he was thrilled with the final result – 53% in his favour – which he has said will draw a line under internal party debates.
The changes will double the threshold of MP nominations needed for candidates to make future leadership ballots, which the left has said will ensure a less diverse shortlist. It will also make it harder for members to deselect MPs”
Is there still any doubt in anybody’s mind the UK is a one party state?
Not in mine.
If the “manchurian candidate” does not manage to implement the script given to them by the powers that be, then along comes a willing helping hand from some unexpected place to give them that much needed push to cross “the line”.
Everywhere you look, everywhere is the same blanket crushing of democracy, time and time again.
What is happening in Labour and what is happening in Sturgeon’s SNP appear to be part of the exact same script: all actions to remove control from the members of the party with the aim to put it on the top. Just like the idea of removing control from a jury to put it in a couple of judges.
It is obvious that it is always easier for the state to “turn” a few greedy stooges at the top than having to turn the opinions of half of the membership.
When the dark state is no longer bothering to even pretend to keep the illusion of democracy alive, it is clear it really feels threatened by the people who form that state.
Beaker.
You have made it clear to a lot of us, or most of us this is the case,
If you only want one way to sing of a hymn sheet,
I understood what stu said about the line on a map, defining a country,
And this should be enough.
But has not been so for long , even if we all closed our eyes and wished it really hard,
It is not how it is viewed by the other country in the treaty of the union.
All the politicians in the devolved Scottish government have never seen it this way, and I mean all of them,
Even the early snp never thought this way,
A line drawn on a map is not like a line drawn in the sand, except that the tide keeps washing it away.
We may all be singing from different hymn sheets but we are all singing one song the same,
independent Scotland,
and we all want rid of the psychos that rule at present, they were not in the election on the manifesto they have since followed, nor did we vote the greens in.
That alone needs to be dealt with,
at the same time as police investigations on corruption.
Neither was changing the definition of women
Nor was voting for pedophiles to get hold of our children through the doors of education.
We must all sing at least two songs from hymn sheets, no matter if some sing out of tune, they are still singing the same song.
SNP out,
Independence for Scotland as a country.
Polling is an excellent idea for the Indy fighting fund! Your polling questions are always good ones.
I was going to suggest you buy yourself an old boat, an ex trawler or something, spend time doing it up, take lots of holidays bobbing about in the Med under the sun, cruise about a bit, get some smuggling ops going – we may need it soon enough. I was having difficulty fitting it under ‘indy’ though,,, you could smuggle in cheap foreign independence leaflets maybe,,, ? It’s weak. But a boat would be a great asset, get phantom power to film you travelling round the world, spreading the word of how great,, um,, Scotland is/would be.
A proper franchise, like what other NORMAL countries have is a great idea – equating it with blood and soil kilts is just kowtowing to British propaganda – and the happy clappy independence movement might be over – but maybe real serious planning and solid reasoning will now take over. Aye the politics will take a while to catch up, but that’s where we are. The SNP are dead, and are of no further interest.
You were right to take Kezia to court whatever the outcome, and it shows the courts in a bad light. I wonder if the ruling was meant as a shot across the bow for us all – plebs know thy place – or it’ll cost ya. Justice for the elites only. I hope Mark Hirst gets his damages, and gets it splattered across the ,,, hmm, news.
So much effort to shut you down, so many supposed Indy people working against the interests of Scotland too. Another rebellion quashed, I guess, might be the thinking. Things could turn around with a few well placed flanking manoeuvres, but we need to wait and see. But yes, the hostile environment is no place for lone high-profile bloggers to have a pleasant working environment. I do wonder if the mere mention of the possibility of you going into politics was the final straw for those already irritated at WoS’s existence – the paranoia runs deep in the state. And it’s all about control.
I’m just have a wee last-gasp ramble.
I wish you, and Chris Cairns, all the best for the future, wherever your paths may lead. Just because the entire focus of your life isn’t going to be about Indy doesn’t seem to mean you will ever give up the belief that it’s the right thing to do – and that’s the main thing.
(Colin Dunn appears to have,,, lost the plot a bit – does anyone know what happened there? His tweets turned truly bizarre to my mind)
Thanks, Rev Stu, for all your typing for Scottish independence, specially the Wee Blue Book.
To paraphrase what I typed on Chris Cairns’ latest page, “Thanks, C?h?r?i?s? Rev Stu, for all you’ve done over the years. Hopefully, we’ll see you back e-v-e-n-t-u-a-l-l-y…
RE: the numbers yesterday. Last Saturday, I joined the Dundee march at the Admiral Duncan statue in front of St Paul’s cathedral. The reason I chose that spot was to see how much the march filled Seagate.
By the time the front of the march reached my location, I reckoned (conservatively) that there were around 1,000 taking part, as Seagate was filled back down to St Peter Street.
At the Edinburgh march, I was around 3/4 the way back from the front. When I looked behind me, the length of marchers was around the same as the crowd in Seagate the week before, ie around 1,000. That would make the total number around 4,000 plus.
Onnyhoo, I’ve always regarded myself as ‘liberal’, having been a teenager in the second half of the 60s, when “Free Love” was the big thing – even although none of it was coming my way.
I’m not bothered about the race, ethnic background, religious belief, gender identity, colour or fitba’ team supported, and so on, when it comes to voting on Scotland’s constitutional future. What I would expect is that those who are residents in Scotland ,should prove that they have been resident here for at least five years.
A resident is not someone with enough kallydosh to own a holiday home in the Highlands, where they spend a month a year.
A resident is not a student with a mummy/daddy home address elsewhere in the UK, who is only here for four years, in temporary accommodation, before setting out for pastures new.
From that, you can see that students who reside more than five years, are likely to take up employment in Scotland (medical students?) and qualify to vote on our constitutional future.
As a ‘liberal’, I don’t regard this as “blood and soil nationalism” or “nativism”. The entitlement to vote has nothing to do with being a ‘native’ of the country.
Not much point in saying this now, but I said at the time that the Dugdale legal action was a bad idea.
Stuart,
Just a quick thanks for your truthful, insightful and, oftentimes, revelationary style of investigative journalism.
Your exposés, particularly regarding unabated malfeasance within Scottish Government are unmatched and i’m left to wonder how many dirty deals will now never be brought to light as a result of you not being there to inform the public.
@Brian Doonthetoon 8:50pm
What vote?. I think the whole point of the Btl comments is there will be no vote on Independence. Unless you know something I don’t. The franchise on voting rights means nothing if there is no vote. The priority is to get rid of Sturgeon nothing else matters. There will be no vote when she is in charge. And she is enjoying the power. Hubris. When Thatcher went some people were out on the street popping Pomagne. I will open a bottle of McAllans when she goes. She hss been a tragedy for Scotland. History will judge her.
This is before I read all the comments.
I found wings in 2014 before the Salmond referendum and have followed it ever since for up to date Indy information.
Unless the establishment have got to you I can’t understand why you are stepping back from the fight. Now is not the time to let Sturgeon win. No Scottish patriot would let a Vichy government dictate how they behaved so to say I am dissapointed at your decision is an understatement.
With you in retirement it looks like freedom from this voluntary union will be heard to achieve
The fight goes on.
Keep the money, you underpaid yourself for years. There’s not going to be a referendum for the foreseeable future and there are dark days ahead for all of us.
Take the fuckin money and use it for yourself, family, friends, loved ones, whatever. Look after yourself while you can, no one else will.
Thank You. God Bless. I wish you intellectual and physical freedom for the rest of your long, prosperous life.
I’d like this place to remain a touchstone for anyone who would use it as such – just in case Mr Wings is wrong, just for once, and Nicola Sturgeon leaves and a referendum for independence is arranged
Hi Tannadice Boy.
ANY vote, that may take place, involving Scotland’s constitutional future.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
@Brian Doonthetoon 9:41pm
I can’t access your link. Your are one of my favourite posters because of the Dundee Connection. I think there will not be a vote and I am inclined to agree with Stu’s analysis, 10 years or so. Sturgeon has poisoned the well to quote Stu. We wouldn’t win it anyway. I can’t defend Sturgeons policies on the street. It’s a nightmare.
Derek says:
26 September, 2021 at 4:49 pm
There was a sort of a daft fundraiser too, wasn’ there? To buy someone some biscuits or something, I forget what.
That money was given personally to Stuart and has nothing to do with Wing’s account. Anyone who gave it – gave it to the man himself. There was NO confusion about what it was for.
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.
As you must know Stuart, I am EXPECTING to be able to buy several copies of more than one book you write.
Your writing is wit personified and I can’t wait to read it.
Bleak and hopeless as the future seems, the atmosphere could change abruptly and dramatically at any time. Actually in the last 18 months some of the most profound changes have taken place in terms of political culture, without comment but not without notice.
After the covid crisis, I defy any of you to find one politician, even in the rancid Tory party, that will argue for privatising the NHS or dismantling the welfare system. Bang goes their plans for a post-Brexit Singapore model.
That little invisible virus done more towards saving the NHS in a few weeks than the Labour Party managed in 40 years.
It’s too early to say what other changes might have taken place in the minds of Scottish people and how those changes might impact on politics, but it’s hard to believe anyone with a couple of brain cells or more could believe the experience of the last 18 months is a great advert for Westminster and the Union.
Despite Nicola’s best efforts at pretending otherwise, everyone knows the overarching strategy on coronavirus was foisted on us and that it has been a disaster.
On top of all that, the Brexit chickens are just starting to come home to roost; the predicted shortages, economic dislocation, inflation, labour shortages, etc., are here and the situation is set to deteriorate. How bad things will get is anyone’s guess…
This is a bad time to be withdrawing from politics.
From the hope, dreams and excitement of the weeks and months before the referendum; to my local count on the night representing Wings there. The initial massive come down from the high to the build-up afterwards again. I was hoping the end of the journey would be independence.
I know the dream shall never die, but I was hoping it would be a reality by now given everything that has been done to Scotland since 2014. The stars couldn’t have aligned any better.
History will not be kind to Sturgeon and her absolutely spineless cabal. I just wish karma would get her skates on and I’m there to see it.
Take care Stu, and hopefully, your laugh will be the last and the longest!
We gave the funds to you Stuart and you have never let us down. Take at least a year salary. I am gutted all round for all of the lost hope. The betrayal I feel from the SNP politicians goes very very DEEP. Like a lot of posters on here, I helped put them there over the years to work for us and to progress the case for independence.
We did not put them there to adore the leader, fear the leader or to want to be the leader. I will never forgive them. Even when NS goes, and even she has to go at some point, the party is dead to me. But we are all still here, just a wee bit quiet for a while.
All the best Stuart. Your contribution has been immense.
I voted for the disposal plan but only for continuity of the Wings brand, I think opinion polls are quickly forgotten and anyway redundant under the current situation.
I helped to distribute an information guide by forwomen.scot during the recent Holyrood election campaign (yes, I am a bloke). Note that Sturgeon cabal were rattled enough to ban protests outside Parliament days after a small demo by feminists. So how about a “Wee Pink Book”, especially in the run up to the GRA vote? I think feminists are the only ones who can defeat she/her.
Hatuey@10.14
“I defy any of you to find one politician, even in the rancid Tory party, that will argue for privatising the NHS”
It’s already happening under your very nose.
The Tories, right now, under COVID are using NHS contracts to divert millions into private American corporations.
£23million to Palantir (an American software company specialising in data analysis, founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and one of the first investors in Facebook) to handle ‘COVID-related data’ of UK residents.
SERCO has won a new contract worth up to £322 million to continue running Covid-19 testing sites for another year.
£22 billion completely wasted on a failed track and trace system(at least £237million to SERCO again) . How many hospitals could that have funded? Straight into the pockets of the privateers.
Under the Tories the NHS has been intentionally starved of funding, and money has been dramatically siphoned away from frontline healthcare to ever-expanding management layers, giving the appearance of a failing service. The lack of corporate media analysis has allowed the idea to take hold that we can’t afford a public service that is under strain from an ageing population, an influx of health tourists, and rising costs of medicines and the ‘pandemic’.
Watch this space, you will shortly be fed the line that in order to ‘save the NHS’ some necessary changes will ‘have’ to happen. Most people, as they have done for the last 18 months will say ‘yes, that makes sense’ – and that’s when you’ll wake up in a world of private health care insurance, scratching your head trying to make sense of exactly how it happened.
Take the money stu better in your pocket than in some polling companies. I’m going to miss you I visit wings a few times a day & have done for many years. Sad that we’ve found ourselves in this position but I’m glad you opened my eyes on so many occasions. Best of luck to you in the future cheers for everything you’ve given the cause.
Ok all caught up with what everyone has to say ( and a sneaky look at the results too ) 🙂
Since it seems to be the overwhelming consensus, and the one the Rev views as the most correct option for the integrity of the fund in these circumstances …. I’ve cast my vote for Yes.
Voted for the polling option, but like others feel that you should use at least some of the money for salary. You have been underpaying yourself
A decent shift. Thanks for keeping us more or less sane for so many years.
aa the best
So much I want to say but so many have already covered it.
Please keep the site available as an archive even if that eventually requires more funding. You know we would come up with it.
The loss of Wings leaves me with a feeling of bereavement as your removal from Twitter felt like the loss of a friendship.
Stay safe and find a way to let us know you are OK.
I know that independence will not now be achieved in my lifetime and I wouldn’t want it under Sturgeon’s regime anyway.
I will remain grateful for your efforts as long as I live and will eventually die cursing with my last breath those who killed the dream.
Stay safe Stu.
I wonder where or what the paid disrupters are going to do now .these people who have been on this site from day one . How sad unemployed eh .I guess most of us have sussed them out long ago .
Fairwell arsewipes I won’t miss scrolling past your tedious pish and the La La Land PayPal contributers won’t have anything to talk about now because that site offers nothing
Stu has left a lasting legacy and contributed more to understanding Scottish politics than all the years pension Pete has wasted in Westminster what’s your legacy Pete ? . Nope I can’t think of one example he is like background music you know its there but you don’t know why .
Well, this is a very similar discussion I had today with a senior politician. Sturgeon has stuffed the party full of acolytes and hangers on to consolidate her power. Useless MSPs such as Karen Adam and the evil Emma Roddick care more about identity politics than independence. Mhairi Hunter, the self appointed matriarch of SNP, is just a wreckers bully who does everything her boss says. Rhiannon Spear is a favourite of Nicola who was recently giving election advice to would be councillors despite her getting overwhelmingly rejected by party members in her vain attempt to get to Holyrood.SNP HQ is full of toxic figures such as Ricky Taylor who just want to carve out there own career.
But no all is lost. The GRA will likely cost Nicola some effective ministers, none who have allegiances to Salmond or Sturgeon, but are omitted to independence but not this utter tosh. This will create a new camp within SNP which Yes voters can get behind.Nicola will be finished by next summer and these previously ousted MSPs will likely be the next leaders. Then watch a clear out of the Spads, a return of power to conference, the interest groups beung booted off the NEC, a reboot of the Yes movement, more work being done on the economy, ministers appointed on the ability to deliver, tougher vetting and a team approach to governing and getting independence. I see a Forbes/Denham combination being the best outcome. Neither agree with the GRA and are not afraid of Nicola. Both would reach across the party and their parliamentary colleague, and both would have a focus on indy and not just about being in the independence industry.
So please come back Stu. You will be missed, however I see major changes ahead which you can support.
BTW, can you get in some polling on the GRA? There is not much out there at the moment.
Robert Graham @12.22
The paid disrupters will be lauded by those who think that they have achieved their goal and they will be awarded gongs in the Queen’s Honours list for services to HM The Q.
They may even be awarded the special Platinum jubilee medal – who knows and who cares!
All the best Stuart – words are inadequate to THANK you for everything that you did in the struggle for Scotland’s freedom.
How different things could have been if we had won a YES vote 7 years ago – but people were ultimately too scared to take that risk.
I’m minded of the wise of James Graham,5th Earl and 1st Marquess of Montrose:
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch,
To gain or lose it all.
I feel that I am losing a family just now but maybe, just maybe, that Phoenix will rise again, shake out those Wings and fly over Scotland one more time. I sincerely hope so.
All the best Stu, and “Haste ye back”.
I hope our paths will cross again.
Keep the money Stu, you’ve more than earned it. I wouldn’t for a second want any of my contributions over the years dissipated on polls or anything similar. I gave the contributions because of the quality of your critical thinking and your writing.
And you were right all along about the post 2014 situation.
Find a way to keep doing in some form what you have done and stay in the picture. You will be needed.
I will miss your clear, incisive writing. Thank you for your hard work and the WBB.
Becuase there is no “independence movement” any more, just an independence industry.
It seems more like kayfabe to me.
Someone just said that the feminists might bring sturgeon down. They might just be right. Posters and leaflets are getting printed and distributed. Women and quite a few men are getting organised. Sign up fir the glinner substack. By the way Graham linehan is well aware of all of the corruption going on in the snp and their culture war on women, free speech and truth. . This could/should be her undoing. link to grahamlinehan.substack.com?
Thank you for all your hard work for Indy and Yes. The work you put in was amazing and appreciated, more than you know. I am gutted your stepping away, but understand why. we wont forget what you did for us. I wish you would use any monies left, take a holiday rest and then get your ass back to us lol. all kidding aside, you held truth to power and you dealt in facts. Very few ppl I have come across in life, have that talent. You will be missed. Take care of yourself
steadfast in all that you do.
Always remember “A Lie has Speed, Truth has Endurance”
You had Endurance and Truth.
take care bye .~
Rev,
might I suggest you take some of the money and get yourself a good long holiday in the sun.
You earned it.
Sorry to see you retiring from the fray. While I reckon the independence idea is daft, and I speak as one who went to Arbroath High School, I can recognise and respect someone who argues for it on a principled basis. Your articles have been cogent and rational, which is perhaps a rare bloom in politics.
However Scots should recall that immediately before Union their navy consisted of a frigate of less than 200 tons, and their shilling was worth an English penny; and a border at Coldstream would hamper your colonisation of England.
I would urge all Scots to avoid a Murrell state. Her decision to wholly drop out of the legal profession in the face of a disciplinary hearing by the Law Society, strongly suggests that she anticipated being struck off for some form of dishonesty. Her appearances before the parliamentary committee were repeatedly disingenuous, and I viewed them as an attorney who has appeared in both criminal and civil cases.
The SNP’s continual jam tomorrow independence promises, are now clearly a distraction from its other many policy failures, in say education or drugs. Without this garment, they are simply a rather ineffective quasi-Labour party with authoritarian ambitions, who want to repeat the Brave Heart mooning of the English. Perhaps they should think carefully about the next part of that battle.
However, good fortune and a happy life to you.
Been a reader since summer 2014 & have learned so much – about Scottish politics & the arguments for independence, but also about how honest, incisive, entertaining commentary is still possible in these cynical MSM days. You’ll be missed, Stu. Take care.
Been a reader since summer 2014 & have learned so much – about Scottish politics & the arguments for independence, but also about how honest, incisive, entertaining commentary is still possible in these cynical MSM days. You’ll be missed, Stu. Take care.
(Apologies if this appears twice, breaking a golden rule…)
So saddened and sorry to see you go. Keep your powder dry for now and hopefully you will find soon that your skills are once again needed to help us become an Independent Scotland – and this time the collective population of Scotland won’t be found wanting. I’m an optimist, obviously.
“The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents the majority of petrol stations in Britain, estimated that between 50 and 90 per cent of them had run dry.”
As Alf Garnet would have said,…. ‘ bloody wonderful innit, just blood wonderful, it’s yer Brexit innit. All these blood foreigners, leaving us, leaving us with empty shelves, empty fuel stations’
Thankfully Queen Nicola saved us up here. Bloody wonderful woman.
“I’m very actively considering writing a book”.
Maybe along the lines of The Manchurian Candidate? Lots of scope for a film script as well. As a title how about ‘MacAlien – In Scotland no one can hear you scream’.
If I may graciously make one last post, I would like to extend my sincere and unreserved thanks to the dedicated duo of Rev. Stuart Campbell & Chris Cairns for giving us Wings Over Scotland.
The people of Scotland (who desire independence or not) need a rude awakening as to our present status and the continual damage being done to Scotland and her people, under the rule of thumb by Sturgeon (Covid FM.)
It’s now time to sober up and for all of us here in Scotland to get busy and on with the job at hand, in pursuing indy (as Ian Brotherhood correctly called it yesterday morning.)
In the end, we need to ‘smoke em out’:
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
All the best to all Wingers, both past, present and…
Free money from Betfair
link to betfair.com
No referendum before 2025 @ 1.78
78% ROI over 2 and 1/2 years is grand unless their is a complete financial collapse before digitalisation of currency.
The UK, or GREAT ‘britin’, as the Tories prefer to call it, is failing. It is now only a matter of weeks before the entire UK infrastructure collapses. Apparently, the army will help drive trucks, the army will help drive ambulances and attend to sick patients, the army will help empty bins, the army will help with social care, the army will help deliver vaccines, the army will…and on it goes.
I mean, seriously, look at what is happening to the corrupt UK BREXIT state.
A bold Scottish leader would right now, step up to the plate, and demand that Scotland be re-admitted to the EU. Seriously, demand it. But of course the pathetic unionist SNP government will do nothing of the kind. The EU want us, the only obstacle is England.
It is as clear as day, that BREXIT is the problem, and no amount of army covering the cracks will hide that fact.
Scotland did not vote to leave the EU, every single Scottish constituency voted against it. In Edinburgh 75% voted against it. If we did not have an utterly useless, spineless First Minister we would still be in the EU, and at the very least the single market and customs union. That can still be done. It takes bold thinking and bold action.
Scotland is right royally f***ed within this failed UK state, this undemocratic, unwanted, enforced union. England is a burden Scotland should no longer be prepared to shoulder. They want brexit let them have it, but Scotland does not.
We must get out of this cursed union with England, and back into the EU, before their is no industry left in Scotland, and no food on the shelves.
So, to ALL Scottish politicians with a backbone I say this, for heavens sake get off your lardy, cossetted, over-paid, laxy a*ses and DO SOMETHING.
Well that’s that. Don’t blame you in the slightest. I note that all of those who ignored your prescient warnings and voted New SNP anyway and still leap to Sturgeon’s defence when the buttons are pressed don’t get that they are the problem. They never will.
As long as Nicola Sturgeon has anything to do with politics, Scotland is effectively finished and independence is a very dangerous idea. If she was ever forced hold a ref and it was won the new country would be what she wanted it to be; the first thing Mrs Shocked and I would do is pack our bags, shut down our businesses, close out banks accounts and leave. I wouldn’t want any part of the authoritarian anti democratic hellhole built round a Sturgeon personality cult that the New SNP wants Scotland to be.
I still hope for the day that Sturgeon is forced to account for her crimes, I’ve spoken to many fellow lawyers about this and none of can understand how she got away with it. Scotland has got the point where we can see criminal offences of perverting the course of justice and perjury played out in front of the entire nation and not a single person in the police or crown office does anything about it and the media shies away from even mentioning it. Now it’s as if none of it ever happened. Why is everyone scared of a failed and incompetent third rate back street solicitor who resigned to avoid being struck off and her fat wee blob of a beard? Is the SNP blackmail book really that thick?
Sturgeon is a loud mouthed bully of fairly limited intelligence, her entire media image is a concocted pile of shite that anyone with half a brain can see through, for example she has the brass neck to pretend she cares about promoting reading when she’s shutting down the libraries and destroying education and not a single person does a competent job of pulling her up on it. I doubt sturgeon would have lasted a couple of years in the Westminster bear pit, if anyone had ever noticed her the media would have got hold of her failed legal career and made sure she was so tainted she would have got nowhere and yet up here she has risen to the top of the bunch of incompetents, half wits and general nobodies we call the Scottish parliament and rules Scotland and it’s legal and justice systems with an iron rod.
Not a single thing in Scotland is going to change until Sturgeon and the rest of the New SNP cabal are wrenched from power and thrown in jail but my prediction is that the New SNP flock will keep on voting for them and keep on blaming everyone else for their own actions. We have seen a quite remarkable example of psychological conditioning in Scotland where people have been coerced into abandoning all independent thought and ability to reason and have lent themselves to the New SNP cult the same way Scientologists and other cults get a hold of their supporters. The New SNP used cult recruiting techniques championed by Stephen Noon, who is now a evangelical Christian, and the damage this has done will likely never be repaired until his victims die off. I certainly can’t see all them coming to their sense as the New SNP has done such an effective job on them.
Anyway, here’s hoping that someone finds a spine and we get an information dump of all the files confirming Nicola Sturgeon’s guilt on a foreign website, in fact that is what you should do with the funds, host a foreign website with all the dirt and evidence you can find on Nicola Sturgeon including all filth she has hidden with her super injunctions. The removal of Nicola Sturgeon is the most important thing anyone can do for Scotland.
a) A Referendum is extremely unlikely.
b) I don’t know if I could vote for Sturgeons vision of Scotland.
The choice is simple now The Union or Sturgeons Wokerati Taliban.
OR move abroad if you can afford it!
Thanks Stu, you tried hard to to keep everyone informed, thank you.
Willie 5.15
It appears that your political and economic analysis is limited to blaming Brexit for everything. Yes the UK has an HGV driver shortage – but what % of the problem is Brexit?
How many HGV drivers left in the Covid Crisis? How many HGV driver tests were cancelled because of Covid and how many HGV drivers retired during the Covid crisis?
Equally importantly why are there HGV driver shortages in Germany and France?
You may seek to use and portray a particular issue to suit your political viewpoint – but then you run the risk of being perceived as an ill-informed zealot?
Ian @ 6:55 am
“I’m very actively considering writing a book”.
“As a title how about ‘MacAlien”
You are not are not far off the mark. A consequence of colonialism, according to Albert Memmi, is that ‘the native becomes an alien in his own land’. Which gives rise to the reality that independence is a matter ‘only for the colonized and has nothing to do with the colonizer’.
Actually further on what you do do with the funds, I’m sure with your computing background and connections and Craig Murray’s wikileaks connections you could find a friendly hacker who would be able to access the New SNP email server. I’m pretty sure some digging there would find a lot of dirt including evidence that would let people see how the New SNP operate and exert control over people. Hack the New SNP email server, the personal email of Sturgeon and whoever else’s hands are in this sorry mess, gather all the filth up with what you’ve already got, some of which I’m sure you’ve held back and then put the whole lot on a foreign website outwith crown office jurisdiction and as with wikileaks sit back and watch as people realise just what’s been going on. Once the evidence is out there even the bent Scottish police and crown office would find it very difficult not to investigate those involved.
Short of this I can’t see what other options there are.
Cringe says:
26 September, 2021 at 10:46 pm
I think feminists are the only ones who can defeat she/her.
Reply
I totally agree although I would say women & their supporters.
Shouting about vaccines & who should vote in a referendum ain’t going to do it.
It would be great if this site while it is still online could focus on the issue of self-id.
I’m not too happy using the term feminist considering she/her claims to be a feminist.
Someone is going to write a book about the events in Scottish politics in the last decade. Might be fact might be fiction.
Stu is ahead of the game because he has done all the research already.
The only thing missing is the ending of the story.
This wouldn’t be a problem for writers of fiction as they could just make it up.
If you were to make up an ending what would it be?
I reckon if anyone wrote a book about Scottish politics in the last decade that didn’t show she/her & co in a good light they would have to go into hiding.
Salman Rushdie knows all about that.
Free speech is dead in Scotland.
Oh dear me Sensible Dave but have I raised a very sore point.
Brexit has turned into an orgy of self flagellation. Empty supermarket shelves and now empty petrol stations. And that’s the visible manifestations. And if I may grimly mock a little more where’s Boris’s big red NHS bus that was going to be bringing back £350m ever single week.
Maybe it’s short of a driver, or the big bad Germans have got it.
Well you do say that the Germans and the French are short of HGV drivers and all ours left because of COVID. Where did they leave to then Dave…….did COVID drive them from our shores.
And maybe you could explain why Bojo and the Brexit band are having a touch of disharmony about considering issuing 5,000 visas or is it 50,000 visas to allow EU drivers to come to the Yookay to help us feed ourselves. Self flagellation, but as Alf Garnet would say …….’ it’s yer bloody foreigners mate, yer bloody foreigners ‘
I believe writers get an advance from their publishers in order to write their book.
I would like the money to be used as an advance to Stu from his readers.
#Keep the money write a book.
Gotta go now but before I go I want to try to get this trending
#Keep the money write a book.
Why has my post vanished Rev Stu. I was responding to Sensible Dave. The site received it because I accidentally pressed send twice and responded with duplicate comment.
Has my post gone missing with the big red NHS Brexit bus that was supposed to be bringing back £350m every week.
Shocked
Am 100% in agreement with your last post.
The good lady and I had long discussions this weekend. Through hard work and circumstances we own 5 properties. I am a native Scot and live here but only 1 of the properties we own is in Scotland. Ideally we want to stay but an independent Scotland, led by the SNP, is a frightening prospect.
We have decided to give it another 6-12 months. If Sturgeon is still calling the shots we are off, for good.
The cult mentality is killing Scotland.
Willie , your post is there – though why you bothered to respond beats me.
Cactus , we will meet again on some march somewhere – big wave to you and to all other Wingers who buoyed me up throughout the referendum and beyond.
I voted support but on reflection you should keep the money. A book would be fab if you felt like it too.
I like the name COIN:-)
Why have things fallen apart?
Because the centre didn’t hold.
SNP SHOULD be about Independence at its core
Sturgeon has turned Salmond’s Independent Force into a branch party of UK. The woman has created a career-centred , self-centred, parochial back yard of Westminster and she thrives on the easy-cash generated from that nucleus.
Sturgeon isn’t simply a book worm, she is Blake’s vision of a sick country
The Sick Thistle
BY WILLIAM BLAKE
O thistle thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
Stu,
I gave the money to you to dispose of as you felt appropriate.
I would prefer you kept it to bolster you against any future hard times.
This battle is not over .We have left the field for now but we wil! fight again. There are things coming down the pipeline which may well signal the end of the Nicola fan club.
On that I can give you certainty!!. No conjecture.
This post really should be dedicated to the Rev
but reading the situation above regarding HGV drivers
I discovered that the DVLA in Swansea have up 40,000
applications in backlog related to HGV drivers.
Newly passed applicants, updates on medical suspensions etc.
Grant Schaps is supposedly responsible for all this but again no media
or opposition parties holding the incompetent Tories to account.
It also rilles me when the Tories get away with what the media accept as a solution.
The country short of 100,000 Drives so they would let 5,000 EU drivers in for a couple of months?
These drivers are in short supply in most EU countries so how many want to come to a country that
made clear we don’t want foreigners here, where there are fewer rest stops for drivers, where the
Service station food is as expensive as it’s inedible.
They will already be in work within the EU if they want to be so will they move further away from their
families and come over to where they have no employment rights and find themselves unemployed before Xmas?
If the 5,000 appear for Boris he will be right up there with Jesus feeding the 5,000 but why would a
slim chance of finding a 20th of the need be considered a solution?
Never hated the U.K. more than now but at least Nicola is happy or has been struck dumb?
I’ve read the comments and I hope Stuart does decide to write a book on the Independence movement and those involved in it no matter how he funds it.
I can’t resist one last swipe at Rhiannon Spears – airhead, snowflake and self-important political ignoramous, but beloved by Nicola Sturgeon. Sums up what the SNP has become.
Again, thanks for all the ammunition you have given us over the years, Stuart.
I cant think of anything to say thats not already been said, but I would ask you give Independence live money from the fund, Kevins been a loyal friend from the beginning.
I hope you’ll remain ready to take up the reins again should some terrible calamity cause Surgeon and her acolytes to end up in jail, you’re too important to the cause to give up ,but I can also understand your reasons.
Stuart Campbell
Investigative Journalist and video game designer
wiki entry first line should read.
This may come as a surprize to many here, but the witch’s popularity has nothing to do with Scotland or Independence. With the exception of the lunatic fringe…football fans and bravehearts the majority of her supporters are in thrall to Identity politics the very thing that most here abhor.
Any one who does not realise the extent that our social and political systems are being contorted need no more proof than the huge over representation of LGbt people in all branches of the media and especially in front line politics.
Anyone who has not absorbed this sad fact is pissing into the wind and don’t realise that Independence by itself will not cure society’s problems, they run much deeper and are beginning to become part of the Scottish psyche.
My remarks regarding the thin end of the wedge stand, until someone proves them to be wrong.
On the book idea, you actually have 3 books to put together, Stu — 4 if you count the Alba one.
The first should be something like Downfall by that guy Phil with a selection of your most impressive blog articles. That would be a good way of archiving a lot of it for posterity.
The second book is the one everybody expects, covering the sorry state of Scotland today, the death of the independence movement at Nicola’s hands, and how we got here.
The third can’t be written now for reasons alluded to above; none of us knows how this all ends. I think you have maybe two years at most to get the first two out before you can start this last one.
I’d pre-order each one today, if I could. Actually, I’d order more than one copy of each and if you need money in advance there’s nothing to stop you facilitating that. I’m sure many of us would queue up just to pre-order in your case.
Basically you’re made and you did it without selling your soul. That isn’t easy these days.
You come out of all this with piles of cash, “cred”, much love, and eternal respect, not least from me and my wee Ma (who is actually your biggest fan).
After reading a few posts I guess the usual suspects are working their notice .
What is it chaps end of the week the month maybe even the end of the year .
Not to worry your employer won’t let you take a break I bet even now preparations are being made to use your useful services elsewhere , I wonder who is going to benefit from your skills next ?
Hatuey – leave Rev Stu alone. He wont set up house with you!
Willie says:
to Senseless Davie
“Well you do say that the Germans and the French are short of HGV drivers and all ours left because of COVID. Where did they leave to then Dave…….did COVID drive them from our shores.
And maybe you could explain why Bojo and the Brexit band are having a touch of disharmony about considering issuing 5,000 visas or is it 50,000 visas to allow EU drivers to come to the Yookay to help us feed ourselves. Self flagellation, but as Alf Garnet would say …….’ it’s yer bloody foreigners mate, yer bloody foreigners”
———————————
The Brexiters, Priti useless Patel, told them all to bugger off. So they did and have now found better jobs in the EU.
Are you so thick S.D. to think they’ll come back for a few months knowing they’ll get chucked out again soon..!
You’re still nowhere near the end of the Brexit fiasco and the UK scuttling around the world trying to squeeze itself into anything and everything that might disguise the huge loss of trade and reputation in the world.
The Indians don’t want you, Mexico says piss off, the Trans-Pacific lot just laugh at you.
A tin of Pilchards has got more brains than the whole of WM together.
Hatuey: An ill-informed arsehole to the end.
Allyson Pollock
2014
Privatisation of the NHS
SEARCH YOUTUBE [SC WON’T LET ME INCLUDE LINK]
“The 1948 Act establishing the NHS gave the Secretary of State for Health the duty to provide universal health care. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 removes this duty and introduces a market. Allyson Pollock describes why we need to worry.”
Hi Stu,
Thanks for all you have done and to the other Wings contributors such as Chris. I hope to meet you one day and get my WBB signed. That’s something to cherish.
I voted Yes to the wee poll above but if you would allow me a wee suggestion:
Could you perhaps donate some money to an organisation that teaches and promotes Gaelic? I know you are not that fussed with it but it badly needs funded to help it grow. There are several and none I would recommend over another, just if you have a few quid to throw in that direction, it could really help.
Thanks for everything.
Iain
Willie 8.57
you wrote loads Willie (mostly a repeat of the initial comment) but you didn’t answer my question.
As I understand it, we are 100,000 drivers short.
1. 40,000 HGV tests were cancelled because of Covid.
2. I believe I read 30,000 drivers have retired in the last 2 years.
3. There are a shortage of HGV drivers in Germany and France.
Don’t get me wrong Willie, I am sure that Brexit has had an impact and I get that you are a Remainer and that you want everything that happens to justify your position. But I trust you haven’t completely lost your ability to think rationally (maybe you have)?
So I ask again, what % of the HGV driver shortage is due to Brexit Willie?
I have been with you & wings from the very early days moved into your site from Newsnet, marched under the wings banner on the Royal Mile, if it had not been for you & the wee blue book Scotland would never have increased to 45% YOU DID THAT, You & Alex Salmond who gave this country the chance to change from a Political Colony to an Independent Republic..
DO write that book, use the money you still have to ensure it will be the best & biggest BLUE BOOK ever. Because Scotland still needs you. You can raise funds for things no political party can. I left the SNP in 2019, after 50+ years, I should have done it in 2015 when it was obvious they had no intention of fighting for INDY, with majorities in BOTH Parliaments, and another first for taking 56 of the 59 MP seats.. That for me was Scotland answering that referendum defeat, I will never believe it was NOT rigged..
What has the SNP ever gained since becoming the 3rd largest party in WM? Nothing, not even an amendment has been accepted. Then to totally put NO work into the 2017, we now know why, SHE/HER did not want to see Alex Salmond returned to WM. she needed him gone, so she could destroy him, when he was no longer involved in Politics. I joined ALBA same day it was announced as a party. I honesty believe our only hope now IS Alex Salmond as leader of ALBA. I do not expect to see Indy in my lifetime now. But I do believe between ALBA & ISP we will succeed. I will miss your input.
But hope you find a more peaceful happy life there in Bath. Take Care. xx
Nail, head, hit Effigy @ 10.02.
We shall certainly miss the Rev Stu. But as he said in his consideration of what to do with the Wings funds were he to give up or was found having mysteriously shot himself repeatedly in the head with a revolver, like the Nationalist Willie McRae was supposed to have done, he like many before him have reason to fear the establishment….. as the current crop of political prosecutions show.
So all hail for what he has done. The establishment hate him, as do the dark deeds brigade, who we should all fear.
Anyone who has not absorbed this sad fact is pissing into the wind and don’t realise that Independence by itself will not cure society’s problems, they run much deeper and are beginning to become part of the Scottish psyche.
Orwell predicted the breakdown of his current society and the inversion of meaning and morality. An intelligent boy and man from a faded colonial background who lived through two great wars could hardly fail to notice the collapse. His earlier time in India and the granting of Independence to India in 1947 with a ‘fractious’ settlement creating two warring factions (rather than nations) must have generated many forebodings of wars to come.
Turmoil is inevitable when a system of world governance is overturned.
For centuries, The BRITISH EMPIRE controlled almost a quarter of the globe. New technology and increased communication were contributors. Diminishment of the influence of the Church of England, Church of Rome and Christianity in general are a huge factor. Orwell wrote lucidly about the inversion of the moral order of things. That inversion was inevitable once members realised just how corrupt, greedy, amoral and cruel the rule of the Empire was and had been. Of course many good things emerged but it was inevitable that there would be a violent reaction to historically appalling behaviour. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The Tory party is ‘pissing into the wind’ if it thinks the UK can avoid retribution.
Sturgeon is small-minded. She is unaware that conditions of rule are such that the individual has to be reconciled within the whole – not vice-versa. Currently she seeks to reconcile a country over which she has scant control , with each individual. That cannot happen – it is yet another attempt to defeat Newton’s Third law
Sturgeonites seem to be unaware of the metaphorical nature of language. They continually conflate scientific meta-language with emotional meta-language and many apparently lack a capacity for clear logical thought. I suspect they’re being led by the nose by certain powerful groups (maybe just one) who perceive population control to be of prime importance in saving the planet and think that obliterating sexual concerns will see the rise of a manufactured master race. That’s just one idea and I give myself the freedom to change at any time should I read something more convincing.
Scotland is as much a victim of centuries of control as any of the other colonies and the fight is now on to create fresh values. First and foremost Scotland needs to be free to forge its own path to the future. Without self-determination we can have no chosen point of destination.
For now I’m left, yet again with William Blake:
“Thou art a man
God is no more
Thy own humanity
Learn to adore”
I got very lazy knowing I could come here and find out what was really going on.
Huge loss and the real canary in the coalmine moment for me regarding the independence movement. Even after 2014 I still had hope but after 7 years of non-stop betrayal I think she has finally killed it off. I think I am done as well. Time to devote the time to pastures new.
What a shift you put in Stuart. I sincerely thank you for it.
You should keep this site as an archive. It is the best diary of the last 10 years (and what went wrong) there is.
Good luck man.
link to m.youtube.com
Not antivax but pro choice
Pixywine now posting about abortion rights!
Iain Donald says
Could you perhaps donate some money to an organisation that teaches and promotes Gaelic?
That made me smile Iain Donald!
#Keep the money write a book
OK then, folks. We all know the problem – it is the SNP leadership and all those in that party who go along with the tyranny and criminality, perhaps don’t even see it despite constituents and fellow members pointing it out.
And the media failing to report the numerous faults – perhaps through understandable fear of injunctions and COPFS [and Willie MacRae treatment].
What to do about the above? Who do we know who could affect the leadership?
1. The quickest action is for an MSP to move to Alba. There were, allegedly, several willing to do so before the May election but Alex said “Hold”.
I don’t know these people but presumably some folk on this site do. Please please get to work and urge them to make the move right now.
2. The other immediate step that can be taken is to identify some one, preferably more than one, who can organise applicants for the leadership in time for this year’s Annual SNP conference in November.
At least one of the applicants must be well-known and well-thought of by the party members in order to have a chance of actually winning. They need to be un-smearable too because the leadership group won’t take kindly to this! Goes without saying that they must be urgent for restoring independence and have decent, honest, democratic, principles.
Again, all on here who know a suitable person to take this forward, please contact them today.
3. The overseas site route: where things can be published without fear. As suggested by Dominic Berry at 4.00p.m. on 26th. Rev, I hope you are mulling over this.
4. Perhaps Bob Mack at 10.00 a.m. knows something we don’t when he says “There are things coming down the pipeline which may well signal the end of the Nicola fan club. On that I can give you certainty! No conjecture.”
Bob Mack, do you know the right people to move on suggested actions 1. and 2.?
All, don’t let an opportunity pass – please do a little thing today to try to shift this millstone from our necks.
G’an yersel Rev Stu. Hope the time will be right to see this site back before a decade but I’m not holding my breath either.
Stu, would like tae say yie gave us wan fucking brilliant ride. I glad ah wiz on it and ah widdie have missed it fir ah the World.
Stay safe, Kid.
Stu, thanks for all your efforts. You have been a tremendous standard bearer. I can see you have kept the door ajar very slightly and with that I look forward to seeing you again, when the time is right. Enjoy what you are doing now.
Holymacmoses.
«Thy own humanity, Learn to adore”
Unfortunately such self worship is at the heart of the matter.
Western man, this a Western phenomenon, having dispensed with the divine, however conceptualized, sets himself up on the altar as cult object. In the process, paradoxically, there is dehumanization not apotheosis.
The Covid cult with its social distancing, masking and exclusive medical rituals is a graphic manifestation. Global man is rootless, alienated and atomized man and that suits those we allow to rule us to perfection.
Freedom matters, however heavy a burden intellectually and physically. In neglecting that we create our own particular hells.
link to unherd.com
Empires are not entirely bad. Dwelling on the bad is easy. Just pull it all down, just burn the books, cancel the gain sayers and rewrite the history. Exactly what some of the ery worst of them did.
Ruby. There’s a plan to create medical Apartheid between the vaxxed and unvaxxed. I would say that was somewhat pressing
So despairing what’s been going on in Scotland. Very sad to see you go – you have been a wee glimmer of truth in these times of ‘right speak’ and ‘right thought’! I wholeheartedly agree with you on delivering some polls with the money left. Thank you for everything you have committed to the independence cause.
Ottomanboi says:
27 September, 2021 at 1:14 pm
Holymacmoses.
«Thy own humanity, Learn to adore”
Unfortunately such self worship is at the heart of the matter.
You don’t read Blake do you:-)
Forgot to say – there’s also a cover of Under My Thumb by Wayne Gibson which fits quite nicely into the Northern Soul world.
I realised from a few comments above, that the one thing we lacked as a group of people whom believed Scotland should be an independent country.
that was never on this blog in any way, as a supporter or in any abvisory capacity volunteered.
Was lawyers, solicitors, or legel advice,
I can understand them wanting to keep their nose free and clean,
Even so was there no legal person in Scotland that believed in Scottish independence, do they not believe that ole Blighty is in serious decline, and we are about to sink with it.
Do they still stay silent of the legal corruption within the snp, for their own sake, rather than their countries sake.
Today I think it still rings true in Scotland that the poor never have lawyers.
I try to imagine how quick we could be rid of witch if we had legal guidance and access to law.
But rich lawyers do do not want countrymen instead they want their finances.
Legal Morality has been pretty much abandoned since law equated to money a long time ago.
If the laws for women’s rights, safety of children, human rights, the right to self determination and sovereignty had ever been questioned and challenged by groups of the Scottish legal profession in Scotland.
If true gender had ever been challenged, the country would not be in chose.
If serious legal challenges were made on our past election mandates and recent election votes as not being representative of what the people did and did not vote for we would be laughing now, and the wicked witch and the evil goblins would be long gone,
This is the true invisibility of Scottish law to represent a people and a country.
Moral free legal advice for the love of ones country and it’s people.
Even the legal profession have followed the old adage.
Scotland sold for english gold.
Chose @Chaos
I’m so sorry you’re going, have been a fan since nearly the start. Your contribution has been immense and you have no idea of the utter joy and relief I experience when at last my mum was converted to yes by the Wee Blue Book, after years of me trying in vain to convince her. She’s still a indy fanatic to this day.
And I’m sorry you’re not staying on here to fight the gender lunacy, I’d hoped one day a Wee Bleurgh Book might have appeared to counter all the crazy arguments.
Any chance you could email those of us who liked to follow you on twitter a link to who you are that week? I’ve lost track now since Hamish got suspended.
Over the years Scottish people have raised amazing amounts of funding for all the different blogs since we first started for Indy ref 1.
But no group of legal profession stepped forward with advice, or guidance. Or stayed the distance,
Which could have aided us as far back as 2014, to challenge David Cameron’s introduction of Evil and the treaty of the union.
It still could claim that England broke the treaty of the union Act during the time period Evel existed.
The poor people have no lawyers and the lawyers have no poor people.
Ottomanboi:
27 September, 2021 at 1:14 pm
I’ll read Kingsnorth’s ‘Real England’ (I see he’s gone religious:-)) and have another look at Simone Weil. I’ve always assumed that her book ‘Waiting for God’ was in some way a starting point for Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ and that both are searching for some sort of symbiotic relationship with nature, man and the greater universe
Thanks for reminding me about Weil.
Charles, I know it doesn’t look like it but I’m actually ignoring you right now. I need to tell you I’m ignoring you because otherwise you’d think I simply didn’t see the stupid things you typed above… I did see them, and they were indeed stupid.
I’d happily explain why they (and you) were stupid if I wasn’t ignoring you. But I am.
You’ll just need to spend your life wondering why you are stupid.
That’s the price you pay.
Your characterisation as blood-and-soil nationalists, of those who point-up the problematic nature of the ludicrously open franchise that would prevail in the unlikely event of Indy-Ref 2, initially mirrored my own view, in many respects. As one not given to the glorification of Messiahs with magic-books, if you haven’t done so already, may I humbly suggest you obtain a copy of the ordinary mortal, Alf Baird’s book: Doun-Haudin. The easy anti-English jibe, amongst many others used by NO, it seems to me, at least, has, therein, been put-to-sleep. That over the last 300 + years we’ve become little more than a colony of England, currently administrated by the SNP, seems hardly worth debating.
Finally, I don’t believe for one moment that anyone’s heard the last of Rev Stuart Campbell — a die-hard, true force-of-nature!
Why do we not challenge the Scottish government on a few of these issues,
We know we would raise the finances,
We know there is enough legal material to instigate many legal challenges over and over,
And we know that there is legal help if we have the contributed finances, especially if we place a legal time limit stipulation of no win no fee, as a reality in small print.
Any good experienced lawyer worth their certificates of qualifications would be able to handle the mess on human rights that NS has made.
People v NS would be the first legal challenge, on mandates.
People v Scottish government on hate crime bill, as it is selectively discriminatory/ being bias to Scottish people only in Britain.
People v Scottish government on parents rights,
People v NS on gender issue and women rights.
I could go on and on.
Lawyer and the legal profession would have a heyday and go down in history.
Maybe we have been going at this the wrong way for to long.
James Che, I am not a lawyer but I don’t think we would get a hearing on People v NS. Any judge should say that’s politics and the correct method is via the ballot box.
As for the others, anyone with a colourable claim could easily make a case and I am sure many on here would be willing to dip into their pockets to help.
By “People v NS” I mean on mandates. The other three are fair game.
I am not sure why my comment at 2:52pm is in moderation. It can’t see anything that is controversial, at least for a human.
Hi Stuart
I like many who tried to help the #SNP deal with the abuse of the party’s constitution and get answers on the missing funds share your frustration. The AUOB has about 5,000 in attendance maybe more. Certainly not the 100,000 of 2 years ago but Covid and SNP Edinburgh Council delaying and refusing the plans for the march didn’t help.
However I don’t agree with you that its all lost. Nicola Sturgeon has set in motion a train wreck. Many of the SNP good people have left the dysfunctional party and are now set to deliver the Alba Party campaign message. The SNP membership didn’t bother to either pay to attend the SNP Spring (September) conference and even fewer bothered to watch it online. So that tells me the SNP membership is waking up to the corruption of the party and things will only get worse for team Nicola and her associates. News that the SNP November (Autumn) conference will also be online says the leadership is afraid of meeting the membership. I agree with you the money is running out and that will cost the SNP elections.
I left the SNP after 7 years of support and campaigning following your work on the missing funds I also researched the accounts and asked questions. The Alba Party is the only party with a true and immediate plan for Scottish independence. I hope many more good SNP members will make the move.
A week is a long time in politics. Lets stay together and end the #Brexit nightmare.
All the best
David Henry (Alba)
Skip_NC says:
27 September, 2021 at 3:01 pm
By “People v NS” I mean on mandates. The other three are fair game.
I am not sure why my comment at 2:52pm is in moderation. It can’t see anything that is controversial, at least for a human.
Reply
The other day I had a post go into moderation because I included an 8 letter word that means
‘someone who came to stay & is something “For symptomatic relief from: acid indigestion, heartburn & flatulence’
Stu, your question might have been rhetorical but really answers the question of why we won’t get Independence. As usual, you are being quite prescient.
.
“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.”
.
Meantime, thanks for everything you have done on this site.
Well, Ruby, I did use the word “haters” Lets see if this gets through moderation.
The guy that was in charge of the White Helmets in Syria, James Le Mesurier, `fell` to his death (2019) from a hotel balcony in Turkey,
this was a still fit highly trained soldier,
`nothing to see here , move along`
who knows what he knew and was he going to tell ?,
it`s a dangerous world out there if you defy/challenge the establishment.
What an absolute shambles Brexit has turned out to be as many folk foresaw it would be, from EU citizens being demonised to fields of veg and fruit left rotting because there’s no one to pick it.
Petrol stations running dry and supermarket shelves bare, and how does the UK Tory government react to this by issuing three months visas to overseas HGV drivers to come to the UK to do our deliveries.
Of course the EU is also short of HGV drivers, so tell me why would EU drivers come to the UK for a three-months contract with horrible conditions and knowing that deep down they are not wanted in the UK, when they can quite easily find adequate employment within the EU where they are wanted.
Grant Shapps is an idiot we are governed by self serving donkey’s who don’t give a monkeys about the publics needs, infact I’d wager that most of them at Westminster are too stupid to know how to govern, and exist within an imaginary Westminster bubble.
In saying this Scotland is in the dire position its in, being dragged along by the self-serving politicians who couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery, because Sturgeon the betrayer of Scots has taken us here, when everyone knows that she should’ve held an indyref post 2016 once we knew we were going to be dragged out of the EU, but no this self-serving Scottish government posing as a Scottish independence party has no intentions of saving Scots from the sheer incompetence of the UK government, instead Sturgeon and her vile clique are hellbent on pushing their own twisted agenda, and its us the Scottish public that will continue to suffer from the consequences of not just Westminster’s machinations but the machinations of Sturgeon’s government at Holyrood.
Sturgeon’s reactions to this Tory governments ineptness, is typical finger pointing to points score, which doesn’t help Scotland’s predicament within this rancid union, Sturgeon SNP is like all the political parties at Holyrood only concerned with enhancing her parties favourability with the Scottish public. She has no intentions of doing anything meaningful about it, we have years of self serving ineptness from Westminster and Holyrood’s current governments to come.
The question must be what kind of state will Scotland be in when we finally get rid of the wretch Sturgeon, or if the Alba party rises enough to make difference.
Who could’ve predicted what a backstabbing treacherous nasty wee b*stard Sturgeon would turn out to be. she’s set Scottish independence back by years, if not decades
Skip.
Fair enough comment, even although she promised if we gave her the mandate she would act upon it. And did not.
However women’s rights and women being regendered to a body with a cervix is demeaning and does not protect women rights, nor does allowing male possibly transgender men into women’s and children spaces without medical transformation evidence protect women and their children. And women being selectively on the lower end of pensions and wages.
How could any person in Scotland say they do not care about the abuse to women in the Scottish governments Transhumanism policies in towards women Scotland.
This is something the majority of Scots people find abhorrent.
This is something that might be an excellent first challenge.
We have funded every other good cause.
This could break the control of the snp.
Nicola Sturgeon must go down in the annals of Scottish history as one of its biggest betrayers, the history books must show this when the dust settles, she’s up there with the likes of John Balliol, Sir John de Menteith, James Graham the First Duke of Montrose and John Campbell the second Duke of Argyll, and many others.
James Che @ 15:22pm:
Ah but there are folk on Twitter ready to argue that a vote for the SNP was just a vote for them to ‘govern as they see fit’, which is as carte blanche an invitation to ‘just make up a load of old shit if you want, I’ll not hold you to it’ as you’re likely to see.
And these people are not uncommon, I’m afraid, and do not appear to understand the concept of holding politicians to account for failing to deliver on their promises. How could they, if they believe that politicians can just ‘govern as they see fit’ with no reference to the wishes of the electorate?
Yet the same people will tell you that the SNP cannot call a referendum or make any other move to campaign for independence because they haven’t got the assent of enough of the electorate to go for it!
What a mess and what contortions folk who are ‘fans’ of a political party will get themselves into to excuse their heroes.
But that’s where we are and will remain until enough of them change their minds on that score; I don’t think there are any shortcuts, sadly.
James Che, I agree with you entirely. The case would have to be well-chosen. Consider the Maya Forstater case. She won the latest round but the fact that anyone could write a judgement that the original tribunal did is cause for worry.
The trick will be finding a good test case that will stand the test of time. I hope we can do that if it becomes necessary.
Republicofscotland says:
27 September, 2021 at 3:15 pm
Who could’ve predicted what a backstabbing treacherous nasty wee b*stard Sturgeon would turn out to be. she’s set Scottish independence back by years, if not decades…
I think she’s done worse than set us back… Independence was there for the taking in 2016. One Constitutional Sovereignty voting for Brexit, while the other Constitutional Sovereignty voted against it, and the Union is immediately in Constitutional crisis. Sturgeon could have tripped over her shoelaces and still have done enough to win Independence.
The only reason she hasn’t been impeached is because the notion of Scotland as a Constitutionally sovereign entity has been undermined for decades, while the fallacy of the Union has been bolstered.
It is my firm conviction that Scotland was sold a pup in 1998 with the appalling spectacle of a sovereign Nation endorsing a Mickey Mouse Devolved Assembly which swears fealty to Westminster yet calls itself Scotland’s Government.
That event was the watershed which marked the beginning of Westminster’s renewed encroachment over Scotland’s Constitutional Rights, and it’s been going on ever since.
Once you’ve spent two of three decades indoctrinating a population, denying it access to history and learning, denying it it’s own news and cultural programming, massaging it’s history to the point it’s rewritten Orwell’s 1984 style, there comes a time when all that indoctrination begins it’s end game… irreversible assimilation.
The end game they’re trying to sell us is that Section 30 of the 1998 Scotland Act gives Westminster the right of Veto over Scotland’s access to democracy and thus Scotland can never be free to enact any Sovereign edict which Westminster doesn’t approve of… ergo it isn’t Scotland who is sovereign, but Westminster.
I’ve been telling you for years people… it’s the concept of Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty which the UK Government is trying to destroy, and by accident or design, that fucking idiot Sturgeon is surrendering Scotland’s rights like the feckless imbecile she is.
No rational supporter of Scottish Independence could be that thick or incompetent, which leaves us staring at her with incredulity, and wondering whether she’s a t(raitor), the UK State has her in it’s pocket, she’s flipped her lid, or she’s just a straight up con-artist.
History is being kind to her for now, because it’s “their” history, not ours, but Sturgeon’s fate is to be reviled as a greater embarrassment to Scotland than the 1707 Parcel o’ Rogues who originally sold Scotland down the river. The truth will out, and when it breaks, I wouldn’t change places with Sturgeon for all gems in Africa.
I’ve been warning you about the Constitution and Sovereignty for a long time now, but now I’m warning you not to give up on ALBA.
“IF” it’s ALBA’s game plan to do to the SNP what the SNP did to Labour, then set out a pedestrian referendum campaign, I think it will be five years, maybe ten, before we’ll see Independence by referendum, because they’ll have to destroy the SNP first. But it’s down to us, the Independence Community to make sure that doesn’t happen. ALBA needs to go for the jugular.
In my opinion, ALBA is hedging it’s bets at the moment. ALBA is donning the mantle of a political party they way the wolf don’s the proverbial sheep’s clothing.
ALBA has to be a political party to get itself onto the political platform to be heard, but I do not believe that ALBA is merely going to be an SNP tribute act. I think Alex Salmond is the most gifted strategist there currently is the UK, and I think Joanna Cherry is another.
I’m a nobody, but if a nobody like me can see grounds for impeaching Sturgeon and bypassing Holyrood altogether, then rest assured, so can Alex Salmond and Joanna Cherry. My route could fail, there’s too much I don’t know, too much I’m not privy to, but the British / Sturgeon Establishment is DESPERATE to silence Alex Salmond and to ostracise Joanna Cherry, because Salmond and Cherry strike terror into the heart of the UK Establishment. That probably tells you all you need to know.
Keep the faith. Trust ALBA.
Ah well, “It’s all over now” as far as WoS is concerned (you have to be pretty old to get that one lol), although I hope the Rev Campbell will continue to fight for indy in another form and ruffle feathers that need ruffled as he has done to devastating effect over the past 10 years.
As for the current SNP leadership who appear to have great vision for woke nonsense and protecting their comfy taxpayer-funded lifestyles, but no vision at all for independence, to vote for them now would be like having “Sympathy for the Devil”. Like the Labour Party of old, they have grown (amazingly quickly) to assume that they have our votes for life. They can do what they like, as long as they throw the occasional indy crumb in our direction. Sorry, Nicola, no can do. Not now, not if the Alba Party can help it. And even if they can’t, still no can do.
I’ll get ma coat, but not before thanking Rev Campbell sincerely for everything, ranging from the great to the awful. That stroke of genius, the WBB, deserves a special mention. The entire package. It’s been a blast. 🙂
Skip_NC says:
27 September, 2021 at 3:13 pm
Well, Ruby, I did use the word “haters” Lets see if this gets through moderation.
Reply
What about a 7 letter word that start with a letter that is also a rude sign that you do with two fingers & is known in Scotland as a jag?
I’m just hoping that word has been added to the banned list. 🙂
I want to change my vote and say
#Keep the money write a book
I say do what you once suggested the SNP should do with their ‘ring fenced funds’ – give it to Yes Scotland.
If you don’t think the folk running Yes Scotland can be trusted with it, hold on to it until there is someone that can.
Or put it into BitCoin. By the time the referendum arrives, you’ll be able to cash it in and fund a Scottish Central Bank.
I was watching the news during the Sturgeon Inquiry, and I can’t say what triggered it, but there was just a sudden instance, something immediately switched in my head to – “It’s over. It’s all over.”
And at first I’ll admit I felt relief. There’s something to be said from the serene peace-of-mind you get from no longer living in denial.
Only one Rolling Stones song came to mind after reading this (seemingly) final chapter from the great Stuart Campbell…
PAINT IT BLACK!
Breeks.
There is common sense in what you write, and all scenarios are not to be dismissed.
However like you I do not know enough behind the scenes to the know full blown future possibilities.
But I remember this much,.
Pile on the pressure from all angles was Mr Murrells txt attitude while trying to manipulate the Scottish police force for his own use.
Personally in my opinion Not being so corrupt to use that txt as that gentleman did in my personal thinking, through trying to manipulate authorities into Being used.
There is one thing his thinking did bring to the fore,
Pile on the pressure from all angles in legal challenges on the snp.
Besides helping women and children and perhaps saving our education system and helping parents to remain parents.
It defines men as men, women as women, the correct higher legal age for children in any form of consent,
It may bring some information out that may be beneficial to other court case and hearings.
How valid will any court case be if women are denoted as not being women in say sex charges in future,
How will the Scottish law courts decide if a woman is a woman or just a body.
How would the jigsaw women have got on if they are not classed as women I wonder?
These issues need challenging in court cases,
Otherwise kiss good bye to the family unit. To mum, dad, auntie, uncle.
Of course
Nicola sturgeon herself cannot go down in modern history as the first female first minister of Scotland
She/ he is the first body with a cervix that is first minister. If we are to follow her categories.
BBC Scotlands website .
Unresolved Questions in the Alex Salmond affair ?
What the headline should have said the attempted jailing of a innocent man foiled by the overwhelming truth stated on oath by the victim Alex Salmond former First Minister.
Anyone sacked NOPE not one person has been held to account not one ,
The final cost to the Taxpayers is ? who knows it’s never been divulged
This fraud and her Inner circle are apparently untouchable and by bribing the nutjob greens a vote of no confidence is highly unlikely, so we have people who should be in the dock charged with criminal offences free to walk about and a First Minister who is protected by the British state her employer and just to make sure this mob asked Patel to instigate a no go Zone round our parliament to further protect this liar and her gang of untouchables .
A guy placed a add in a English provincial newspaper stating injured and deaths due to the plague serum I can’t remember the exact numbers but roughly from memory it’s 1200 deaths and over 1 Million serious events , Swine Flu Vaccine was withdrawn after 20 deaths not 200 , 20 .
ANYONE SEEN ANYTHING ON OUR MEDIA about adverse side effects ? , the very first day this stuff was being injected 40 adverse reactions were recorded ? I guess they have all just disappeared eh Children don’t even register on any scale available as being vulnerable the last I saw of any government stats were 2 in a Million at risk AND ITS ESSENTIAL they are jabbed whoever is pushing this shite are criminally insane and the media are complicit.
Just to say many thanks and all the best to you, Stu.
I hope you’ll have cause to come back and write about all this stuff someday, but I understand that may not happen because of circumstances and events, and no-one but you can decide what you write about and when you do so.
I first became aware of your existence through Digitiser and I particularly cannot listen to Crashland’s debut album, ‘Glued’, without thinking of your columns on there, one of which you began by quoting a lyric from their track ‘Waiting for Someone’. I don’t know what it says about me that I remember that (that I am very sad, perhaps!) but I also remember being ridiculously pleased that someone whose writing I enjoyed and respected also liked what was, quite frankly, not a very popular band in the grand scheme of things.
A friend of mine had been an avid reader of Amiga Power and so I suspect I had read some of your reviews previously but it was your Digi columns that first seeped into my consciousness properly.
Zoom forward some time and I am trying to learn what I can about the independence debate. Whose work should I stumble on but yours and, you know what, what you’ve done here goes a million times further than than your games journalism. Games are great but at the end of the day, they’re not serious, just games.
You informed so many people with what you’ve done here and you did it with wit and incisiveness. That some seem to have uninformed themselves again is a great shame but there’s not a lot can be done till folk are ready to see.
I do, though, agree with the person above who said you have basically amassed here what might amount to evidence for a work on ‘The Rise and Fall of the Scottish independence movement, 2011-2021’ or similar. We can only hope it eventually morphs into a ‘rise, fall, and rise’ story, but we will need to see.
I can also say, hand on heart, that I know someone who (in constitutional beliefs) is not ‘in your natural constituency’ shall we say but who remarked ‘but he can write, that Stu, can’t he?’. In a world where people pretend that everything done by people whose views they don’t share is ‘garbage’, that means something.
Anyway, till I hear what’s next for you, I will go off and do as I have done a couple of times before and view your archive of games articles, which have given me a good laugh at times when it was needed.
Thanks for it all, and the very best to you.
Breeks @4.15pm.
Reasonably well put Breeks, however I don’t want to hark back to before the 2016 Brexit vote, or the creation of our devolved parliament, I want to keep it focused on Sturgeon.
The reason for this is that while the Scottish media and public are blaming the Westminster government for this and that on the consequences of Brexit, most of us via indy blog hosts knew what was coming down the line and that includes Sturgeon, everything that has happened and will happen to Scots from 2016’s Brexit until Sturgeon is booted out office and even beyond is the fault of our treacherous FM.
We should be independent now, we should be deciding whether or not to enter the EU, or EFTA, we should be replacing the unionists within our educational facilities and appointing folk who would teach our kids about our own history, culture and languages. We should be waving good riddance to nukes on our lochs which have polluted them for decades and made Scotland a first strike country because our English neighbours are warmongering exceptionalists in nature.
We should’ve taken control of our vast energy supplies and our seas that surround Scotland by now, floated our currency, created all the governmental departments that we need by now, nationalised the ones that needed nationalising, and made plans on implementing our military forces. We should have by now if Sturgeon wasn’t a dirty Judas, spreading the word around the globe that Scotland is open for business for anyone who wants to trade with us.
The unionist parties at Holyrood would’ve needed to change their treacherous game plan by now and actually put Scots interests at heart before that of a foreign country’s namely England. We’d have all the levers of government that are needed to run a country successfully by now if Sturgeon hadn’t stabbed us in the back, but she did, she sold us all out and damaged the cause to no end, she’ll be remembered in Scotland as the Scottish Benedict Arnold in years to come.
Sturgeon has stunted the growth of Scotland and Scots, she has by her devious treachery nurtured the Scottish cringe factor, kept Scotland a country with a rich history, tied to this union in the form of a colony, for her own personal, and party’s gain, she done untold damage to the indy cause, and her backstabbing treachery should be the focus of our bitterness, not the lack of fuel or food in our shops our the shortage of HGV drivers for Salmond left Sturgeon on 45%, and Brexit more than produced the 6% swing needed to ditch this foul union, but being lower than a snakes belly Sturgeon betrayed us all and Scotland and we must never forgive her for that.
The next decade under this union will be a tough one to stomach in my opinion, and we’ll be helpless to really make a difference, unless something unexpected happens that works in Scottish independence favour.
Suspect that Stuart is a Sinatra fan-not just the music, the ‘fuck you ‘ attitude to authority , the innate sense of prejudice & fairness coupled by a complete inability to comprehend his own prejudices- there’s also the retirement plan to consider.
See you soon-you can’t & won’t keep your trap shut- just like Frank!
As for polling- are you serious?!?
You’re just feeding & perpetuating the current political game.I’m really surprised that’s the best you can come up with.
@ SHOCKED for his interminable posts ridiculing and denigrating ANYONE who voted for Sturgeon irrespective of AS advice to do it as part of a PLAN
TBC I didn’t vote for Sturgeon I spoiled my ballot but I did vote for ALBA , I am incandescent ,furious and outraged as anyone that AS plan didn’t work but the result only demonstrates how totally AMORAL the cult is (forgive the spelling)you are not alone in your anger
You posted previously that you are a lawyer and you refer to conversations you have had with fellow members of the legal profession, other lawyers and such I presume , so let me ask YOU what are you and the rest of YOUR legal professional representatives doing to EXPOSE the RANK AND FETID LIES AND CORRUPTION excreting daily from Sturgeon and the rest of the parasites at HR , Gordon Dangerfield and the guy Fordyce are the only ones I have seen who have spoken openly and publicly about what has been going on
So instead of berating and vilifying persons some of who acted with the best of intentions and the rest of us who have no power , why NOT turn your anger and outrage at your fellow supposed professionals who have sat and are still sitting on their comfy arses while this demented psychopath runs amok and usurps every tenet of the legal system with impunity whilst YOU members of a once renowned legal system DO NOTHING
Corona virus bill 122 emergency legislation.
I suggest you sceptics read what this allows governments to do..
All this is for your own good and wellbeing you understand .
Nothing to worry about just go back to watching soaps and footie it’s better you don’t think about stuff , ah blissful ignorance what’s not to like eh .
From a once decent source of actual news and champion of independence, to a tired old conspiracy theorist.
Wings reminds me of the story of Lennie Bruce.
For once, “Won’t somebody think of the children” is a force for good:
A Week in the War on Women: Monday 20th September – Sunday 26th September GOOD NEWS SUPPLEMENT link to grahamlinehan.substack.com
Sturgeon’s grip is slipping…
I don’t know how Linehan does it. I can only read his Glinner update now and again in order not to be completely overwhelmed by the insanity of it all.
Rev. if you’ve got any spare change to throw in Graham’s direction, then please do.
When it comes to Scotlands Independence, I’m minded of the Green Beret standing at the bar in the wedding scene of the movie Deerhunter.
Fuck it.
Fuck it.
Stu
Keep the money.
I know that money can be put to good use, but TBH the better polling is like to see is accurate local constituency voting during the HR elections to help with the lost vote. (Ha! Should’ve said list, thank you autocorrect for that alternative choice)
Other social issue polling would be generally interesting, but…
Keep it. You drew a minimum wage, and I have no qualms my donation to one particular pot being shifted to another. I’ve got my badges and I’ve got my packet of swizzles.
Go win big at poker.
After the march on Saturday which to be honest felt amateurish and more akin to a student rally than anything else, left me me more disheartened than the day after the referendum.
The speakers and leafleters where just preaching to the choir.
The SNP have sold out and it’s hard to see anyway back.
I hate to say it but it feels like we have lost for a lot of generations unless there is a massive change in Scottish life.
Too many Scots are happy with the way they are treated by London and I can’t understand why.
Marching is redundant now and we really need to step up the propaganda if we are going to get anywhere.
Fuck knows where we go from here.
“BORIS Johnson’s bid to make the issue of independence “disappear” by simply not talking about it is “doomed to fail”, the SNP have said.”
link to archive.is
Its now common knowledge that its not the Tories who are stopping Scotland from holding an indyref and becoming independent. The SNP wants you to think that its Johnson that’s holding Scotland back from reaching its full potential via independence, which is the only way it can.
No its our very own unionist SNP government posing as a Scottish independence party that’s keeping Scotland tied to this union for Sturgeon an her party’s own benefit, sure she’ll throw Scots the odd competent policy a bit of cash here a bit of cash there, whilst the UK treasury strips Scots of million if not billions of pounds every day, even more so now with the price of a barrel of oil and gas for that matter is going through the roof.
Remember the odd bone that Sturgeon throws Scots is countered by the rising costs of living for Scots as part of this God awful union.
@Robert Louis – 7:09 am
“It is now only a matter of weeks before the entire UK infrastructure collapses”
What a pity you did not name the date. I will be passing the bookie’s tomorrow and would happily put £100 on the collapse of the entire UK infrastructure, if only you had told me the day.
“Demand that Scotland be re-admitted to the EU”
Seriously though, Robert, do you read this stuff before you post it?
Have you ever stopped to consider for even one moment that the cause of Scottish Independence is divorced from the question of EU membership?
Have you ever wondered just how much of the decline in support for Scots Indy is brought about by people like you who see Scots Indy as merely an inconvenient stop along the way to assimilation into their beloved EU?
I look forwards to the day when an Independent Scotland is governed by Scots, meeting in Scotland, who are accountable to the people of Scotland, and nobody else. I want to live in a Scotland that is not a country so wee and so poor that it needs benevolent, wise, foreigners to guide its tottering steps and hold it up.
It’s high fucking time you and people like you started to think the same way.
Brain @7.34pm.
Yes Brian, Sturgeon will be dancing on the fireplace at Bute House at the low numbers for the Edinburgh AUOB turn out, her Edinburgh council lackeys did a good job in diminishing the coverage of the march. The SNP don’t want anyone talking about or marching for Scottish emancipation from this odious union unless its them that’s doing the promotion of it and only at specific times such as pre-election times or when Sturgeon isn’t getting her way from Westminster or the SNP’s popularity ratings or polling figures are on the wane.
The indy movement has been subdued by Sturgeon, Police Scotland and the COPFS, and many of them don’t even know it yet, or they are in denial and some will never realise it, even if it jumped up and bit them on the arse, such as those on PayPal Paul’s website aka WGD. They’ll still be saying indy’s just around the corner in 2031 such is their ill founded belief that the SNP will deliver Scottish independence.
THE TRANS CULT THAT ENCOURAGES PEDOPHILLIA ! AND SEXUAL ASSAULTS ON OUR CHILDREN THROUGH THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.
I personally think those that are pushing Transhumanism and transgender on school children and teaching sexual behaviour by terrorising children into extremism gender, is illegal until they are above the age of eighteen
These teachers and those in the education system Could be categorised and diagnosed , as perverting young children in schools into sexual toys by those whom cannot access children for sex by any other method,
Enforced transgender, solicited transgender with confused children through the education system, solicited targeted children like in all the orphanages and Church pedophillia of children, or the access gained by local councils into homes and children abuse.
All parent should be aware of those teachers pushing these agendas as perverted, as pedophillic, perhaps a teacher you know in you’re area that has this kind of suspicions behaviour in the past should be called out if they are pushing this.
How the Scottish government wants to be known to all parents across the world as the paedophilic government, and not expect law suits I do not know,
Withdraw you’re children from schools pushing to turn your children into a nightmare.
If ever there was a hate crime to be held against the Scottish government , this is it.
It will be for distorting and destroying young children’s innocence, and encouraging them to lie to their parents while innocent of what may happen to themselves.
A wee birdie tells me a FOW gathering is in the offing…stay tuned!
😉
Gathering Ian?
A wake seems more apt, sadly.
Make sure there’s a toking area for us non drinking peeps.
🙂
Bored?
Try finding me a fundamental difference between the British Empire project, and Nazi Germany.
Good luck.
Hugh Jarse says:
27 September, 2021 at 8:48 pm
Bored?
Try finding me a fundamental difference between the British Empire project, and Nazi Germany.
Good luck.
—
I’ll have a pop…in simple terms, the promotion of BE only being a force for good globally is the most obvious difference.
If the ‘Nazis’ (not to be confused with ‘Ashkenazi Jews’, obv) hadn’t risen to power, that viewpoint would still be a pile of shite.
A small difference fellow Scott, but yes you’re right.
Maybe in another world, Poland went quietly, and the Greater Germany project is hailed as the savior from Communism, albeit at the cost of personal freedom.
Winner writes up the history.
@Brian,
i thoroughly enjoyed the march on Saturday and will be at the next one,
“The enemies of Scottish Nationalism are not the English, for they were ever a great and generous folk, quick to respond when justice calls. Our real enemies are among us, born without imagination.”
so depressed.
everything stu says is true.
sturgeon and murrell will be despised by all, in time.
the truth will out. not today. not tomorrow but one day.
just as sure as the turning of the earth
Why is it, that we, as a NATION of Scots, are so faird to grasp the nettle of independence. Yeah, it won’t be easy but it will be OUR difficulty.
To paraphrase Dylan, “Where did all the bravehearts go, long time passing.”?
“But we can still rise now, and be the nation again…”
You will be sorely missed Rev. Your ability to forensically dismantle arguments and nonsense with facts, statistics and truth is unparalleled. I’d wager this is why your site is so popular because we just don’t have this anywhere else.
I’m not sure you’ll ever understand the impact you’ve made to your readers and to this generation.
It took a man living outside of Scotland who hasn’t paid himself a wage in the past two years who has been sued, rubbished and laughed at to keep us well informed and passionate about Independence.
I’m sure if your not driving the Karma bus you’ll definitely be a passenger on it!
Enjoy your retirement, you’ve earned it.
Brian doonthetoon.
Aye Brian while the others just wander off like a moth into the night when the light is turned out.
Perhaps some need time to grieve, after the first battle lost,
Keep yer heid doon, go rent a barge on the Avon, write a book, have a word wi a spider, not the black widow variety currently occupying a certain House. Leave the computer games behind – let them go and embrace the inner cyclist that’s in you.
When the time’s right and there’s something new to say I hope to see you down the line in an interview with Afshin Rattansi on RT’s Going Underground. So many good people and interesting voices have passed through there. John Pilger – still ploughing on in his 80s now.
Anyhoo, THANKS for all the information, the education, and the entertainment. You deserve a Royal Charter..
Hi Stu,
I’ll miss your forensic eviseration of the lies and hypocrisy of those who have lied, blocked and delayed the path to independence. You exposed them in all their craven mendacity whilst providing some dark humour along the way.
Thanks for your time, energy and integrity – you’ll be missed and I wish you all the best in whatever your next endeavour proves to be. I think that book – would be an interesting read.
Kia kaha
Hi Stu,
I’ll miss your forensic eviseration of the lies, spin and hypocrisy of those who have lied, blocked and delayed the path to independence. You exposed them in all their craven mendacity whilst providing some dark humour along the way.
Thanks for your time, energy and integrity – you’ll be missed and I wish you all the best in whatever your next endeavour proves to be. I think that book – would be an interesting read.
Kia kaha
Give ’em an inch of compulsory medication (vaccines) and they’ll take a mile (fluoride in tap water) 🙂
link to off-guardian.org
A joint statement from the Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland published on Thursday recommends everyone, everywhere should have fluoride added to their water supply.
It is claimed to reduce dental decay but known to cause worse dental problems at higher concentrations. It is also proven to harm the intellectual development of children on a cumulative basis so there is no safe level. So how is the dosage controlled when you dump it in tap water? I drink 2 pints a day, and use it extensively for cooking. I have a friend who lives on cola and convenience food. I estimate I will ingest 10 – 20 times as much fluoride as him.
Plainly the dosage cannot be controlled. The claim that it is to be done for medicinal benefit is ridiculous. Is there an intention to breed us for stupidity and docility? I can’t think of a more plausible explanation.
Please accompany accusations of “Moon Howler” with an alternative explanation.
Get a grip people.
I don’t feel defeated. Truth be known, I feel angry, like a soldier marching towards a battle, but we’ve reached a crossroads and it seems half of us want to give up and go home.
Go home if you like. Be a defeatist if that’s your thing. But the less you do for Scotland means somebody else having to do more.
I detest Sturgeon and her crooks, but you could drive the lot of them over a cliff in one minibus. The bulk of the SNP aren’t evil, just weak and lacking courage, and a bit too comfy with the money they’re getting in a Nation where standing up for Scotland typically makes you poorer. Change the leadership, and these sheep will mosey on over to say and do wherever they’re told. They’re politicians and Local Authority types for fks sake. Party space fillers for the most part, careers which have risen without a trace to quote Rev Stu. Integrity and diligence aren’t their strong suits at the best of times.
Maybe I’m being gullible to think there’s more integrity in ALBA than the SNP, but ALBA is the brainchild of Alex Salmond, who is one of the shrewdest political strategists of our time, and one of a tiny, tiny, minority of Scots who has the true grit to actually get the job done. Smear him if you must. Believe their lies about him. Go ahead and do the Establishment’s job for them. But understand this… they know the value of Alex Salmond better than you do, but they also know how gullible and easily led you are.
But don’t worry, if it’s all too hard and you don’t fancy the job, I’ll make sure to scribble your name off the list so that when Scotland’s enemies come looking for the last hundred left of us alive, you can stay at home and relax. Eat your shortbread and scratch the Union Jack off the tin… you dangerous rebel!
Ian McLean said it better than I can: “The loss of Wings leaves me with a feeling of bereavement as your removal from Twitter felt like the loss of a friendship.”
Thank you for standing up for women’s rights against the current nonsense. You were the first man I saw do so; we’ll never forget it.
You will be greatly missed. All the best.
Thanks Breeks!
Breeks You’re suckin’ diesel again fella. Terrific post at 2.40am. Well said.
Breeks says:
28 September, 2021 at 2:40 am
Get a grip people.
I don’t feel defeated.
And neither do I. Well said Breeks. The time to give up is when you`re dead, not before. So rally around Alba. Carry on the fight!
And Stu, you will be back. Nothing is more certain, no matter what you`re saying now. Believers and fighters for independence don`t just vanish. Rest a bit and gather your thoughts and ready yourself for the bitter fight to come.
And it will surely be bitter. Bring it on!
“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.”
You can understand why people feel defeated!
Stu’s words are not exactly encouraging.
Breeks @ 2.40 ( Burning the midnight oil again sir ? )
Rousing post replete with your typical passion and articulate cogency .
The * ending * ( we’ll see – * wink * ) of WOS whilst undoubtedly a blow to anyone interested in such now passe concepts as Truth , Honesty , Integrity does NOT signify the end of the struggle .
This is no time for fainthearts , no * country for old ( dejected ) men/women * to lay down their arms and hobble from the field of conflict , defeated . Never…….
“As long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours, that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself”.
If some consider such sentiments anachronistic , meaningless , even embarrassing , too bad . As far as I can see only an appeal to the fighting spirit and sense of justice to right an historic injustice among more Scots will carry the day . If non-Scottish residents wish to join in this struggle they will be welcomed with open arms as brothers and sisters on the long , arduous road to Liberation
“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.”
I’ve got a few here. Drop me a line via the Wings Contact form with your address and I’ll pop one in an envelope, no charge.
link to tinyurl.com
Remember when Boris was booed & left by the backdoor of Bute House?
The AUOB marches are fine, people enjoy them but they don’t take place often enough & they are cumbersome, difficult to organise & Sturgeon ignores them.
Why not have small protests every time Sturgeon goes anywhere? Who knows they might cause her to leave by the backdoor or at least knock a few points off her popularity ratings.
Anything is better than sitting at home shivering in fear praying for change. Remember ‘God helps those who help themselves’
How effective is praying going to be if God is a Unionist?
Stu is a great guy a great writer and I think he should
#Keep the money write a book
but he does tend to be overly pessimistic at times.
Perhaps thats all part of being Scottish?
link to archive.is
“Are we a nation of negative thinkers driven to Calvinistic carping”
I have no fixed opinion either way, but am sorry the site is going. I’m afraid I can’t disagree with your conclusions unfortunately.
“Just a shame the swansong contained a typo which you are usually so meticulous in avoiding…
“Becuase there is no “independence movement” “”
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU MEAN.
@ Ruby at 9:26 am
Re the link
I try to work on the idea of wishing nobody harm, I fail constantly ,I fail because I judge
To the SNP I add I wish them no good.
Karma will come around
Well said breeks. And to the others that realise that the Scotland NS wants for us, is so far into crazy and insane,
That it will destroy our families.our homes and Scotland,
While others have the wealth to move from Scotland if things don’t go according to plan with their independence,
Others cannot, and it will be us that are left to fight on, to make Scotland a better place for everyone,
While others may never have lived here at all, and were keyboard warriors.
It may mean there will be a few hundred left,
But that few hundred has been steady for hundreds of years.
Fight for the right to run their own country from a colonial master.
For only a master has the audacity to say you cannot be free.
There was this period after the Brexit vote, I’d say it lasted until the General Election of 2017, when the BBC and Unionist media generally were on what could only be described as a war footing. It was intense, like Project Fear 2.0, with “SNP Bad” stories pumped put daily and continually.
I remember commenting on it quite optimistically because it indicated in my mind at least that things were moving in the right direction and they were panicking. It felt like 2014 all over again. Does anyone lose remember that phase?
How things have changed. Can you imagine how the Unionist media back then would have attacked Sturgeon over the murky Salmond scandal, banning protests, the missing funds, GRA, failing schools, the state of the hospitals, etc., etc., etc….
Today they mention these things minimally, grudgingly almost, conspicuously reserved. They’ve got to mention them and they do, it’s their job; but they’re doing it on their own “work to rule” terms. The passion and anger is all gone, the tone objective, neutral, and impartial, much like the tone struck when reading out the long list of football scores on a Saturday afternoon.
I had a vague belief that some sort of deal was struck that would explain all this, something along the lines of ‘if your pledge to stick to the section 30 process, in return we will call off the “SNP Bad” dogs…’ and I understand that an arrangement like that could have been reached tacitly.
But that doesn’t explain it. Sturgeon has delivered much more than that. When her Government went to court to against Martin Keatings (in order to oppose the claim that the Scottish people had sovereign rights), she went beyond just attacking the independence movement itself and effectively declared war on the very idea of independence.
Mair o’ this….
m.youtube.com/watch?v=6q6ChvSvm3o
This woman is obviously a related to someone we all know. It wasn’t under a bus but next best thing in the sea world.
Fuck you sea lion- GET OFF MY BOAT. Selfish cow orders a sea lion off her big fecking boat with a motor engine on it and does wan.
link to twitter.com?
You can say blood and soil franchise is a terrible idea but the fact remains 60% of Europeans voted no and 70% of the English voted no.
To not have a brexit type referendum for Indy ref 2 will result in another loss. You can’t fight those numbers. 51% of Scots voted yes meaning we need at least a 5% swing from Scots presuming English and European vote stays static.
With brexit and likely long overdue pay rises for many workers, rejoining the EU may not be as attractive as many think.
I would bet without a fair voting franchise next time, indyref 2 is destined for failure.
It will not come as a surprise but once again I agree with you Breeks , I have NO TIME for any politicians because they ALL LIE but it is unbelievably insulting that anyone could applaud or praise Sturgeon and the SNP for the last 7 years in power, 7 years which has seen the gross incompetence and downright stupidity of supposed intelligent university educated people result in most of our service sectors which people desperately rely on failing them abysmally
Comments like this were totally eviscerated by the then WOS regulars (now paypal pauls readers) who ALWAYS reacted with outrage and anger with ANY suggestion that Nikla was not presiding over nirvana, everything was WM’s fault or the bbc’s fault or the MSM’S fault
Now look at the current situation where Nikla wants a four nation approach , in lockstep with bozo the circus clown all through covid ,the BBC giving more airtime to SNP reps because they KNOW the SNP reps are loath to mention independence ,sturgeon employs the vow pusher, the daily redcoat is first with press releases , the daily redcoat refuse to name the Salmond leaker and so on , yet these deluded fools believe this t(raitor to Scotland will get us independence
I’m really sad after reading the comments but I understand why you need a complete break, hopefully for just a short time while we get rid of the iron thrower and her equally abhorrent husband. Thank you for your forensic journalism which has put Scottish journalism to shame on many occasions.
Writing a book would be a great use of your talents. If you ever need to crowdfund for it, I think you know that a great many of us would contribute. I hope you’ll still write the occasional post and crowdfund to keep the site going. You’re a bright star in a dark sky and you’ll never know just how many folk appreciate you.
“Personally I think it’s disgraceful that Stuart Campbell is getting his cybernat groupies to buy him a coat when he hasn’t paid his chief writer for 2 YEARS and taken over £200k in salary for himself”
That’s how the opposition think, which alert readers are already aware of.
We need more of them, as Banksy might wish.
Scott says:
28 September, 2021 at 8:56 pm
—
Addendum: Rev Stu should really be able to claim copyright of the term ‘alert reader’, for obvious reasons.
“So long and thanks for all the fish” 🙂
Write a book on what needs done before, during and after IndyRef2 in Stuart Campbell’s opinion.
Keep the politics, political parties and politician people out of it and concentrate on what needs done!
Here is the link to the statistics tearing the breakdown of who voted yes. 52% of Scots voted yes.
link to dailyrecord.co.uk
It makes interesting reading.
Sigh, the above ^^^ 4.39pm post direct linking to the unionist paper that published The VOW, which was reckoned to be a factor in swinging the 2014 IndyRef result to a win for No.
But don’t worry about it Jamie, it seems most “Pro-Indy” politicians and activists are happy to do the same.
#FightThePowerByPromotingAndFundingThatSamePower … said no activist actually serious about fighting “The Power”.
Sic a parcel of numpties in a nation… 🙁
Archived link to the DR article.
link to archive.is
“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.”
Your incisiveness will be sorely missed, Stuart. It seems Chris’s last cartoon was particularly apt.
I say keep the money. Treat yourself to a well-deserved holiday and look after your friends and family. Scotland has been enriched by your efforts. G-d bless.
I like the polling organisation plan for Wings, I’ve voted to support it and I’m completely happy for you to use my previous fundraiser donations for it.
If you decide to raise more funds for polling in future, I’ll support that too.
Thanks for everything, Stu.
Ever so sorry Dan, if that is your real name. I have never archived anything and I don’t know how, never realised it was that important to folks. What does the Daily Record get for each click? A penny? Well I sure hope they don’t rush off and buy a bunch of unionist jornous what with all those clicks. I know they are cheap but I don’t think even scoundrel yoon jornous are that cheap.
Nevertheless, I bow before your infinite wisdom, oh mighty Dan and shall use a search engine, learn to archive and try to remember to archive in future. For I am perpetually wounded from your killer semi-paraphrase of Burns. How on earth will I ever continue in my life???
Or, Mr Daniel, you could climb out of your bunker, take a look around once in a while and realise, for sure, the apocalypse has not occurred and maybe presume that not everyone is an undercover shill for the union.
I know, I know, it is hard, what with all the shape shifting reptilians n all but trust me, it will be worth it. Take a big deep breath, everything will be alright.
Despite what you may think, the resistance to the Union does indeed live on. Taking everything into account, I am sure what you actually meant to say was thank you Jamie.
Thank you Jamie for sharing that useful information that enlightens the nation to the fact that actually 52% of Scots voted Yes, a pretty significant fact that has been overlooked for 7 years, don’t you think Dan?
Fun fact, if Scotland had a Brexit type franchise for indyref1 we would be independent right now.
Jeezo, triggered much.
Can ye no stop yer pathetic fucking whining and jist take onboard the content of my post.
Wings has been on the go for almost a decade you’ve clearly not been alert enough to notice that Stu archived the links in his articles. Both to preserve the linked content for posterity, with the added bonus that it denies direct hits that create a cumulative revenue stream for our adversaries.
Plus numerous btl posters also archive links and the reasons for doing so have also been regularly explained.
I told you not to worry about it anyway as a considerable number of the supposedly sharpest “Pro-Indy” minds still haven’t got to grips with the basic idea that restricting the direct exposure and continued influence of unionist pish whilst also denying them a revenue stream might be a sensible approach to take.
Maybe take a look at how Sinn Fein operate.
Clearly you haven’t “done the math” either by considering that sites or individuals with readership or followers in the tens of thousands all direct linking would accrue more than the solitary penny you focus on.
Aye, probably best settle in for another few hundred years of Union if this is brightest and most tactical minds we’ve got on the case…
Just want to say thanks for all your hard work with the site and everything else. My anger has cooled at the way the wee shits in the SNP have torn apart the Yes movement all for the cult of identity politics. Will admit to looking forward to meeting my former allies from the SNP and Yes movement when they come round to get my vote. There again imagine I’m way too Male, Pale and Stale for the purists.
Will raise a couple of glasses of something alcoholic at the week-end to yourself and others that have contributed to the site and wish you well for the future. Think it’s going to be important to look out for yourself and those close to you as it can only get worse as our glorious leader grabs more power for herself and her pals.
Sorry that the constituency built up here at WOS is to be dissipated. It feels like we are to enter some kind of dark ages!
Maybe that is better than when Salmond relinquished leadership of the SNP and left it in the hands of the ("Tractor" - Ed)ous despoilers. Who like Starmer the worm tongue and a few deep cover moles in that party stayed in place until Corbyn stood down. They and Sturgeon have done their duty by the Crown and the Western Fascist Decimate Empire – corrupt the cause, divide the party and dissipate the membership to remove the threat of actual democratic Change, whilst letting the suckers believe they haven’t been suckered. Mark Twain wrote of that self delusion.
However – independence is a great and only cause that matters from which all other sins can and must be atoned and it is now for the next generation to take the blows, they will have their moment.
Especially if they can turn the venom against the Unionist cabals and MSM. There is a great opportunity to get in the face of the Worlds media as they gather to setup their next great con on humanity with their grab of wealth from Climate change and GND’s.
The greens like the kippers of England have been infiltrated and funded across the west to grab the minds of the young, the next generations of foot soldiers.
The future always belongs to the young. They must have a constitution. It must acknowledge that many a Scot were party to the building of that ruinous Empire – first with the East India Company and later as the willing soldiers of that corporate Slave Owners empire under the fake flag of Brittannia and latterly by the many of the modern politicians and crown servants of all shades.
We. The Peoples of that lying cheating robbing murdering bunch who hide behind ‘patriotism’ and ‘religions’ are Many and they are the Few, as are their hardcore Slave Master henchmen and women. They are like the proverbial cornered rats in their shrinking corner of the planet getting dirtier by the day by abandoning any pretence of fair justice, freedom of press and morals.
It is important to know the current opinions of people as any amount of focus group directed marketing has shown how to manipulate and Professor Curtice rules like a capo the polling on behalf of the Crown and the MSM distorts with their doctored questions and analysis.
Just as it is vital to have channels of communication to the People that can by-pass those controlled media. For a dawn to come darkness must first exist. Adios.
60 days completed in Gaol by Craig Murray.
Dan, you made me laugh, don’t be fu*King cheeky to people and expect a happy response alright.
Fu*k all to do with triggering if some c*nt is rude to me I tend to be rude back and in truth I think my reply was exceedingly polite if a bit sarcastic.
Your point is noted as stated. You just need to put the weed down cause your a bit para. Maybe do some meditation ???? and you will be fine. Deep breaths.
Independence will come, if you read the numbers, the union ultimately is being propped up by old rich people in Scotland who will sooner or later die. They won’t be replaced because THEIR birthrate is declining. The working class birth rate is fine and the vast majority of working class voted yes.
The Tories have said once people want a referendum there will be one. I think the deep state know and the Tories know the game is up. Why do you think they dumped the bridge?
If we had indyref 2 now with brexit type franchise Scotland would win but if we had rerun of same rules we would lose because the numbers simply are not there YET!
That will slowly change as those old rich folk who live a very LONG time not your typical Scottish worker who grafts their arse in every day and hits the bevy every weekend minimum then dies a year or two before retirement but we are also good at breeding so the numbers game will tell.
It is dark times and things look bleak but if you really read the polls and think about it carefully there is light at the end of the tunnel but no until those rich c*nts fu*k off to it.
Peace be with you comrades.
Alba Gu snooker loopy!
What’s happening with my comments? Why all 3 awaiting moderation?
@twathater
The sad fact is that there is nothing I and fellow lawyers can do about the situation because we are just normal citizens who have to live under the new SNP yoke like everyone else.
Since before the election I have been saying that unless the New SNP lost the election or at the very least Nicola Sturgeon lost her seat there was very little that could be done. The way things work in Scotland the scot gov have control of the crown office, police and the entire justice system. Unfortunately because of the complete idiots who re-elected Nicola Sturgeon she has control of everything and therefore able to use the mechanisms of the state further her agenda and protect herself. The deck has been rigged, evidence has been destroyed, bribes and threats have been made and Scotland has to suffer.
What doesn’t help of course is that with a few notable exceptions the Scottish media is a weak and broken shell. People in the media are in possession of enough evidence to send Nicola Sturgeon to prison but because of the threats and intimidation of the crown office they are scared to reveal what they know, it must also be said that many in the Scottish media are complicit and are little more than sturgeonite propagandists. A culture of bullying and intimidation against anyone in the media who criticised the SNP perpetrated by nationalists has not helped here. The media must be free and be able to report the facts without fear or favour, Scotland has not been like that for a very long time.
Going forward if the media are not going to step up, the crown office and police are corrupted beyond repair and the UK government for some reason seem reluctant to drag sturgeon before a Westminster inquiry, the only course of action I can see is an information dump on a website in a foreign jurisdiction. The information needs to be put out there and once it is they will not be able to stop the tide.
I would far have preferred for a Nicola sturgeon out of politics to have faced the Scottish justice system named as a normal citizen but unfortunately we are where we are and a lot of people need to face up to the fact that they are responsible for that,
@ Jamie
Re. Indy being an inevitability in time because old rich cunts will die off. Who do you think inherits their wealth and property?
Have the next generation who inherit all this wealth turned into radical socialists happy to disperse their unearned wealth and privilege to those in more need?
Have you heard of primogeniture which effectively sustains the status quo of the elite as the Scottish
GovernmentAdministrators of Devolved Powers seem so reluctant to pursue land reform.There wasn’t much discussion relating to the following post and the stats it contained. Even setting aside the franchise aspect and looking at the figures it does make one ponder how things will play out and should be worthy of consideration.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Interesting points Dan. I would argue that the Tories introduced the 2 child policy/benefit cap because of the ever increasing working class labour voting children being born in England and Scottisg working class kids in Scotland.
From a simple search online I have found that 3.5 billion to 1.5 billion is saved from the two child policy which mostly hits working families.
link to fullfact.org
That is a charity I think so I presume it is OK to post.
My personal calculation is approximately 1.2 billion per year saved from 2 child policy cap.
They introduced this 1 yes to reduce outgoings but no less important 2 to discourage the working class from having children. The working class are still far more likely to have 3 + children and there is a direct correlation between wealth and having less children probably because they are too busy spending their money and having fun to have kids.
This does reduce the Tory vote share the only surprise is that the Labour vote share in England has also collapsed.
I get what you are saying about the inheritance of wealth but more and more rich people are leaving their entire estates to charity in many cases a cat or two inherited millions of pounds because they had no one less.
Yes immigration from the EU and England has reduced the Yes vote and I do believe a brexit franchise is the fair solution but I accept it is unlikely but ofcourse that should not stop us from fighting fir it.
Especially if Scotland in Union what THEIR question asked I would happily trade the Yes for leave if it was a Scots only vote.
So taking it all into account, the continued breeding of the working class, the decline in the wealthy, the reduction in immigration due to brexit I suspect there is actually a boom to Yes ahead.
It is worth noting that many Scots who leave Scotland are people with Doctorates who are Surgeons and Doctors who are highly skilled and can earn far more in Anerica than here. A brain drain Yes and it is a problem but according to statistics probably no voters so the outflow of modern day Scottis migrants I would be willing to bet are actually mostly no voters.
Taking all this into account, if we must repeat indyref 1, time is our friend and not our enemy.
I do fully appreciate the anger and reaction of our learned friend in the comment you posted and it was my initial reaction too.
However with much thought and consideration I realised that there is more to be positive about than is immediately obvious. An immediate referendum I suspect is not ideal but I support Alba’s stance purely for political reasons.
It will do the SNP no harm to be reminded of their duties by the patriot wing of the Yes movement.
I am not defeated. I am angry. My anger directed at the ("Tractor" - Ed)s in the SNP and those so called Scots too gutless to get us out of this unholy Union that will make gender-less British whores of future generations.
Malicious fascist Australia state thug is holding the biologically normal as prisoners.
What will this malicious fascist Scotland do to the biologically normal….
link to bbc.co.uk
gregor says:
12 November, 2021 at 8:10 am
Malicious fascist Australia state thug is holding the biologically normal as prisoners.
Austrians not Australians
Being an optimist I am waiting to see if there is a leadership challenge on the agenda for the SNP conference.
At the very least this would show that the current leader isn’t invulnerable.
I really feel that you have deserved every penny and should make the final decision.
I await a photo of a man in the snow with a ton of bird food , nuts for squirrels, tattie peelings for swans , meat treats for foxes while wearing an extra cosy jacket.
re. Ian, et al
Apologies.
Regardless of my dyslexia, such horrific fascism applies to Australia too.
Well, COP26 is said to be the our last chance if you believe the hysterical language used at the opening speeches. However our armageddon has seemingly now been postponed, as COP27 is on the horizon, to be held in Egypt.
So Sturgeon’s massive fragile ego would have been sated yet again yesterday, as she was presented with the Ray of the Day award, at a side event hosted by Oxfam.
So buoyed by having her ego catered for by the worlds delegates at COP26, our FM, has promised to treble Scotland’s Climate Justice Fund to £36 million pounds.
Nevermind that our nurses are on the verge of going on strike for the first time, or that our binmen who worked through the pandemic, aren’t too chuffed with the offer they’ve had from the SNP ran Glasgow City Council, or that, many libraries and community rooms that the people of Scotland rely on have or are to close.
Sturgeon is so immersed in the COP26, probably because it feeds her endless need for attention, that she’s devoid of awareness that everything else is crumbling around her.
“NICOLA Sturgeon has been hailed as the “true leader” to emerge from COP26″
The last thing we need to see, is Sturgeon put on a pedestal at this COP conference. Alas the world will leave Glasgow thinking that Sturgeon is the bees knees, but that won’t in any way equate to Scotland and independence.
link to archive.md
England v Albania on STV in Scotland.
Moldova v Scotland on SKY, so many of the poorer people in Scotland would not have seen the match.
This absolutely sums up the greatest Union in the world !!
I forgot about the rugby. Scotland beat Tonga then a great win against Australia, but apart from the fans at Murrayfield few Scots could view the game on TV. What is going on?
@Republicofscotland 4:16pm
You like me have to let it go. The last bastion of free speech has gone. A huge loss to the Independence movement. But there it is. We are where we are. We endure and we have done so for 300 hundred years. Sturgeon will get her comeuppance. They all do in the end. Thanks Stu for the journey we didn’t make our destination this time.
“The epically witless Kezia Dugdale”. Bravo, sir, bravo. Sadly, we here in Courier country are burdened with the facility of a column she has been gifted by the eponymous paper, in which her vapid, self-absorbed meanderings are presented to us.
Anyway, cheerio, hope you find something you’ll enjoy in future years, now that the dream is dead.
The dream is not dead, it has just been shushed from speaking out in public,
People hearts are still the same.
It’s lasted for three hundred years, even when they banned Scotland from speaking their native tongue so they could understand what the Scots were talking about,
It will last I suppose until independence for Scotland happens
“Boris Johnson says Glasgow’s COP26 took place in Edinburgh”
Nope! Not a joke, he truly did say that.
__________
Meanwhile, a helpful reminder of the importance of archiving all links, especially to BritNat media outlets &/or their articles. By archiving you not only deprive them of much needed advertising revenue etc etc but you also help maintain a perfect record of what was said when etc etc. Nothing is stronger than cold hard evidence. Here’s a small example of what can happen when you don’t archive articles, the BritNats remove the evidence: link to wingsoverscotland.com
James, if the dream isn’t dead, in your imagination, then it’s certainly on life support.
The “ban” you refer to, I presume you mean on the Gaelic language, imported by Irish colonialists, first began under the arch coloniser and proto-fascist Margaret Canmore at the tail end of the eleventh century. It wasn’t something thought up in the early part of the eighteenth century; that was the continuation of a process.