I can't recall which Holyrood election it was - I think by a process of elimination it must have been either 2003 or 2007 - but there was once a Labour Party Election Broadcast that tried to terrify voters about the consequences of the SNP getting into power, and featured doom-laden music and a narrator who a newspaper journalist described as being "on day-release from a crypt".  At the end,...

If you're going to say things like "well said by the PM", I remain extremely puzzled as to why you always run in terror from the question of whether you're a Tory sympathiser.— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) February 1, 2023 EVERY single time I ask this question, you resort to a debating tactic to try to change the subject. It would take two seconds to answer the question. It would be far simpler to...

I was very surprised to learn, judging from the feedback to my post yesterday, that some people seem to have completely misconstrued the point I was making.  Even more bizarrely, one person who clearly did understand the point I was making still felt the need to 'explain' it to me!  I actually don't think there was anything remotely opaque in what I said, but I suspect the confusion is...

Long term readers (and my handful of ever-beloved stalkers) may recall that I got involved in some pretty unpleasant exchanges last July with a number of people on social media who were being willfully obtuse about how a de facto referendum would work.  Whenever I made the point that smaller pro-independence parties had to be very careful not to split the vote in a plebiscite election...

I'm going to return briefly to a point I made in my previous post, namely that however outrageous and indefensible Alister Jack's use of the Section 35 veto was, it nevertheless carries with it a potential side-benefit for the pro-independence movement.  Because the UK government has used its imperial powers to effectively repatriate (or should that be 'depatriate'?) the GRR issue to...

I said to a family member the other day that just about every faction of the independence movement seems to have completely taken leave of its senses, and that it's so mentally exhausting being caught in the middle of it all that perhaps the only answer is to be cryogenically frozen for about four years and hope by the time you wake up that people have finally got a grip of themselves.  The...

He's Ready for Rishi.  Potty for Penny.  Batty for Badenoch.  Rabid for Raab.  Yup, the Scottish political world is still reeling from the former pro-independence blogger Stuart Campbell's shock announcement that he is backing the Tories at the next general election, although the man himself and one or two of his fans seem to be mostly furious with me for bringing the news to...

AS I sit down to attempt to forecast the outcome of the Holyrood election, I'm haunted by the knowledge that almost everyone who engaged in the same exercise just before the 2011 and 2016 elections got it wrong.

AS I sit down to attempt to forecast the outcome of the Holyrood election, I'm haunted by the knowledge that almost everyone who engaged in the same exercise just before the 2011 and 2016 elections got it wrong.

AS I sit down to attempt to forecast the outcome of the Holyrood election, I'm haunted by the knowledge that almost everyone who engaged in the same exercise just before the 2011 and 2016 elections got it wrong.

At least one Wings Over Scotland reader was deeply concerned about the screenshot published on this blog last night showing that Stuart Campbell plans to vote Tory at the next general election.  Several comments have appeared on Wings today suggesting that Campbell has just ensured he will never, ever get a hearing again from independence supporters because his blog will forevermore be...

AS I sit down to attempt to forecast the outcome of the Holyrood election, I'm haunted by the knowledge that almost everyone who engaged in the same exercise just before the 2011 and 2016 elections got it wrong.

I did wonder if the screenshot doing the rounds today on Twitter of Stuart Campbell announcing he will vote Tory at the next general election was a fake or doctored, because it's a month old and I hadn't previously heard anything about it.  But a couple of minutes on Facebook was all it took to verify that it's genuine, and you can see it above with some of the offensive language blanked out...

I said yesterday that it was puzzling that no matter how outrageous the actions of pro-GRR campaigners at rallies that SNP politicians attend, the SNP leadership never seem to feel shamed into explicitly condemning it or properly distancing themselves from it - because, after all, if there were anti-English placards at a pro-indy rally, seventeen days of collective national shame would probably be...

Does it matter that several SNP parliamentarians were today photographed smiling in front of placards calling for women to be murdered, mutilated and cannibalised?  In one sense it shouldn't, because in most circumstances it would be obvious that any politician in a situation of that sort must have found themselves there by accident rather than design - and in any case, the arguments for or...

There are two completely contradictory polls on independence out today - one shows a substantial Yes lead, and the other shows a substantial No lead. The good news is that the poll with the Yes lead has more recent fieldwork dates.  The bad news is that the poll with the No lead comes from a more established firm and some people will perhaps intuitively assume it to be more accurate.Should...

Above is another incredibly revealing tweet, which presumably refers in part to Wings blogger Stuart Campbell's announcement two days ago that he no longer supports independence (or, to use his careful euphemisms, that he "is the least Yes he has ever been" and that his "conscience" would now prevent him from campaigning for independence - and presumably from voting for it).  It's not just Mr...

The above is a genuine tweet posted by Stuart Campbell nine hours ago in response to the question "You Yes Yet?", and let's be honest - it's not easily reconcilable with his supporters' insistent claims over recent months that he is still somehow full-bloodedly working towards independence, albeit by counter-intuitive and seemingly contradictory means.  I would guess I speak on behalf of...

Out of curiosity, I ran a Twitter poll last night to ask whether people supported the UK Government in vetoing a Bill passed by the elected Scottish Parliament.  I wasn't entirely sure what the result would be, because when I've run Twitter polls in the past, it's been clear that my followers are roughly evenly split between sympathies for the SNP and Alba, and of course we know that Alba...

So it's official.  For the first time in the twenty-four year history of devolution, the UK Government will use an obscure power that was generally assumed to be merely theoretical to veto a law passed entirely properly by the elected Scottish Parliament.  Not to challenge it in the courts, but to literally veto it with the flourish of a pen, thus putting Holyrood firmly in its place as...