We couldn’t see any other outcome than this as soon as the decision was passed to the SPCB, because the Unionist parties have the majority of votes on it. So it looks as though the Scottish Government’s desperate stalling is finally at an end, and two months after it was supposed to have happened we’re all about […]

You can’t ask for more from a day than making this creepy wee sexual pervert weep. But be assured we’ll keep reaching for the prize time and again, folks.

Lady Dorrian’s full judgement and reasoning in respect of last week’s hearing involving The Spectator has been published on the Scottish Courts website. It contains nothing that those who listened in on the case by telephone last week didn’t hear for themselves – it’s simply an 11-page summary of what was debated in court and […]

Ulster-born (from the ultra-Loyalist stronghold of Antrim) journalist Neil Mackay, a man who’s been systematically undermining and dividing the Yes movement since at least 2015 while claiming to be part of it, has an opinion piece in the Herald today. In its own way it’s an exemplar of the infiltrator’s craft. Let’s take a look. The […]

Okay, we’re trolling a bit with the title there. But fair’s fair. Because some REALLY shonky, and very clearly co-ordinated, stuff went on this past weekend, but at least the above is the truth. It all kicked off with a really weird tweet from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, inexplicably posted at almost half […]

Colette Walker is leader of the Independence for Scotland Party, and registered blind. “There exists a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; […]

Two weeks ago a Wings scoop caused quite a furore to erupt around the SNP’s ham-fisted and corruptly-motivated attempts to increase BAME and disabled representation at this year’s Holyrood election. We’ve always been opposed to what were until recently known as “quotas”, and prior to that “positive discrimination”, but have now been cunningly rebranded...

So it looks like The Spectator spent a lot of money on a lawyer for nothing today. Because while pretty much every journalist, pundit and legal expert reporting the case agrees that the amendment made to the Section 11 order protecting the anonymity of the complainers in the Alex Salmond case is an important and […]

The Spectator’s application to the High Court for a variation of the anonymity order in HM Advocate vs Alexander Salmond has just finished. It seems to have been agreed by all parties that Lady Dorrian will now amend her order to include the words: “as such complainers in these proceedings” after the part about not […]

After all the dramatic revelations at FMQs yesterday, something else really quite weird happened after everyone had stopped watching. Once more, we’re in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with Jackie Baillie. Stuart Nicolson is a very elusive man. Despite having worked for BBC Scotland, been the political editor of the Scottish Daily Mail and now being the […]

Iain Macwhirter has a good column on the farcical Fabiani inquiry in the Herald today. But one piece of it really jumped out at us. Wait, what? The Crown Office is Scotland’s prosecutor service. It is not an impartial body. It is mired in the conspiracy against Salmond up to its earlobes, selectively prosecuting only […]

Interim Scottish Labour leader Jackie Baillie and Nicola Sturgeon at First Minister's Questions in the Scottish Parliament, 10 February 2021.

First Minister’s Questions was very interesting today. Ruth Davidson had some tricky ones which Nicola Sturgeon simply didn’t even attempt to look like she was answering, and we might come back to one of them in particular a little later on. But Jackie Baillie’s were even more pointed, especially this one: With our trademark scrupulous […]

Interim Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davidson and Nicola Sturgeon and First Minister's Questions, 10 February 2021.

So this was a bit odd. Once again we’ve clipped the entire question and “answer” so you can see nothing’s been taken out of context, but the important bit is from 2m 30s to 2m 53s. Davidson’s question was quite complex but boiled down to why Nicola Sturgeon hadn’t properly recorded details and minutes of […]

The mighty BMX Bandits performing "Fight For Your Right To Party" on BBC2's tragically long-forgotten "fSD", sometime in the mid-1980s. Have temporarily forgotten who the skiffle outfit at the start are.

We suppose this is a sort of compliment, in at least two senses. The second of them, of course, being the sheer surprise of some people at discovering that not everyone is as cynical and devious as they evidently are. We were honestly surprised when The National emailed us out of the blue the other […]

Do ye, aye? Well, yer ontae plums, son. Because this isn’t North Korea and nobody needs your permission to report the news. There are no “claims” about what Andy Wightman did today, just published facts. And if anyone were to contact him, we’re pretty sure that all they’d get would be more woeful, self-pitying whining like this, […]

Posted without comment. 4 FEBRUARY 2021 4 FEBRUARY 2021 9 FEBRUARY 2021