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Wings Over Scotland - unionist plant ?


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I used to be a fan of Wings Over Scotland.
As a media monitor Stuart Campbell was excellent. 
However recent WoS blogs over the last 2 monhts have changed my mind....
Why ?

1) Stuart Campbell spent a years worth of donations to site (some 100K+) on legal fee's fighting utterly pointless personal battle with Kezia Dugdale.

2) Clearly hates the SNP.   Argues their current strategy of recruiting remain voters isn't working. 
Yet we are on eve of massive general election and support for independence has never been higher.
Majority of WoS recent blogs have been carefully designed to polarise and split the SNP core vote.
Stuart Campbell seriously claims the SNP leadership no longer actually believe in independence and their approach is wrong. 

3) Suggests he is going to set up a Wings Over Scotland party for next general election.
Again trying to split the vote?   Last thing the SNP need is their vote being split (... like Tories and UKIP).
He clearly hates the SNP so why would I, or any independence supporter, lend him their 2nd vote?

4) Keeps going on about Gender ID as if it is an issue concerning independence.  Clearly pouring fuel on the flames because he believes it could damage the SNP.  I have never seen this issue repeated anywhere else apart from WoS site.

5) Today he argues the SNP should vote for BoJos deal in return for independence referendum.... Scottish voters would (rightly) never forgive the SNP for enabling brexit.
<etc>

FWIW : I have no idea if WoS actually is a unionist plant.  However I am starting to question what the hell he is playing at.
Certainly if you were MI5 and trying to keep UK together then it would be a very smart move.  Makes for interesting conspiracy theory worthy of discussion in the pub.  Ultimately the independence movement is bigger than one man (who is currently acting like a bawbag cult-leader high on the large following his popular blog has).

Thoughts ?

 

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Not a cat in hell's chance he's a unionist plant. Look at his Wee Blue Book last time round.  Many Yes folk reckoned if it had arrived quicker it might've made the difference.

He has gone off the rails a bit though.  We need him back to his best, debunking unionist lies rather than fighting with everybody supposedly on his side,.

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15 minutes ago, daviebee said:

Not a cat in hell's chance he's a unionist plant. Look at his Wee Blue Book last time round.  Many Yes folk reckoned if it had arrived quicker it might've made the difference.

He has gone off the rails a bit though.  We need him back to his best, debunking unionist lies rather than fighting with everybody supposedly on his side,.

I hope you are right : Wee blue book was superb.

Right now he is however doing everything he can to split the SNP vote.
The timing (... just before general election) is terrible and hardly coincidental.
Ever since losing the Dugdale case he seems to have turned his hatred on the SNP.
Apparently someone tweeted best wishes to Kezia in her court case and he has gone in a huff.
As you say - he is gone properly off the rails / off-piste.

I certainly wont be donating to his site based on current from.

Edited by Haggis_trap
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I'm inclined to agree with daviebee

1) Iirc the money was not regular donations but a special crowd funder.  I guess he might have felt there was a genuine legal point to be made and I have some sympathy with him on that point.  Also maybe he felt that an accusation of homophobia would be used as a rod to beat him with by a Unionist media.

2) I can't comment.  I know there are different opinions and some are impatient with a perceived lack of action by the SNP hierarchy.

3) The argument is that candidates would only stand for the list and in probability would increase the number of MSPs supporting independence.

4) The problem with GRA is that a lot of more conservative minded voters and those with concerns about erosion of women rights might not vote SNP on these grounds.  It is an issue that Unionists would undoubtedly weaponise, you can see the Daily Mail headlines now.

5) In all honesty I'm still trying to process this.  I think he feels that BoJo will simply refuse any request for Indy Ref2 and therefore the SNP must wring this concession now or otherwise they'll have no way of getting a referendum.  I can see why he says that but  I'm not sure I agree with his analysis.

Agree with you that he does some excellent analysis of media reporting in particular but have frequented WoS less frequently as too many roasters bickering amongst themselves. 

We need Indy supporters to keep the heid at this time, legitimate questions fair enough but not personal attacks on those who hope and work for the same goals, the prize is bigger than any individual and their ego.

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5 minutes ago, Cove_Sheep said:

I can't decide if the mask has slipped and he's a genuinely Daily Mail type (albeit one that supports independence) or he's trying to ensure his cashflow...

Aye - as a media monitor he was excellent.
Now he is trying to start his own party and become the Nigel Farage of Scottish independence.

I don't believe (or want to believe) he is a yoon-plant.  However he is certainly acting like a total roaster.  Number of hits gone to his head? Certainly doing the independence campaign no favours by stirring up nonsense at every opportunity : at a time when we should all be pulling together before a massive election.
 

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56 minutes ago, Haggis_trap said:

I hope you are right : Wee blue book was superb.

Right now he is however doing everything he can to split the SNP vote.
The timing (... just before general election) is terrible and hardly coincidental.
Ever since losing the Dugdale case he seems to have turned his hatred on the SNP.
Apparently someone tweeted best wishes to Kezia in her court case and he has gone in a huff.
As you say - he is gone properly off the rails / off-piste.

I certainly wont be donating to his site based on current from.

I didn't know that.  TBH I wouldn't blame him for being pissed off at that.  It wouldn't surprise me if there are some within the SNP that are a bit jealous of what he's done with his site, taking it from nothing to being a major platform for the Yes side.

I don't know the guy and have only heard the same about his persona as everyone else but there's no doubt he was a major asset in the run-up to the first referendum.  Hopefully he can get back to the forensic analysis he does best.  He was brilliant at that and often made me wonder why the SNP weren't doing it instead of meekly accepting all the p*sh from the MSM.

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7 minutes ago, daviebee said:

I didn't know that.  TBH I wouldn't blame him for being pissed off at that.  It wouldn't surprise me if there are some within the SNP that are a bit jealous of what he's done with his site, taking it from nothing to being a major platform for the Yes side.

Kezia's other half is an SNP MSP so she's clearly got some friends in that party.

 

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I don't think he's a Unionist plant, but I suspect a growing proportion of his posting followers are. 

I've probably posted plenty enough words on this topic already but will say, whatever you think of his political stance (which he's entirely entitled to), he doesn't seem to fulfil his own ethos:

Where his site says "soaring above Scottish politics" he seems to have descended into the dirty party political fray, acting as if he is his own political party scoring points against rivals.

And he seems far from acting like "There's no limit to what a man can do, or where he can go, if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit." 

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Just my 2p worth but I think a lot is to do with personal animus and goes back to 2014. 

He really doesn't like the Greens and in particular Ross Greer.  I think that's because it's supposed to be Greer who mandated that no Yes Scotland group could have anything to do with him.  I remember some friends who were prominent in one of the larger Yes groups telling me they had to pulp a whole load of leaflets because they had quotes from Wings on them.

I get the impression he feels he didn't get the credit he thinks he deserved and also that he feels let down or betrayed by certain individuals.   He's certainly alluded to both on occasions.  

Funnily enough, a lot of these people are pretty vocal on the other side of the GRA "debate". 

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Wings is getting the Jim Fairlie because he is disagreeing with current SNP dogma. It is how they roll. Smears and ad hominems. (Another huge turn off electorally speaking.)

It is funny I read all these snide comments on here over and over (usually while calling for 'unity') and then I say fuck it and go read his latest blog piece and every single time I come away thinking I don't see a single shred of evidence to back up the smears. From what I can see the guy is very smart and he has balls. I don't agree with a lot of what he says (he also wants a referendum soon without having clear support for YES e.g. 55%-60%) but he argues his points logically and is worth listening to. Which is more than you can say for this hatchet job of a thread. 

 

Edited by thplinth
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I see his latest one is that the SNP should get behind Johnson's deal in return for a section 30 order.  Putting to one side that would go against how Scotland voted in the EU referendum, he's trying to back that up by some bogus Twitter poll which will presumably show that people who were going to vote Yes would still do that regardless.

That's not the point. To *win* a referendum you need to get more people who voted No in 2014 to vote Yes and so using tactics to secure a referendum that makes that more difficult in self defeating.

It really is deranged.  

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58 minutes ago, aaid said:

I see his latest one is that the SNP should get behind Johnson's deal in return for a section 30 order.  Putting to one side that would go against how Scotland voted in the EU referendum, he's trying to back that up by some bogus Twitter poll which will presumably show that people who were going to vote Yes would still do that regardless.

That's not the point. To *win* a referendum you need to get more people who voted No in 2014 to vote Yes and so using tactics to secure a referendum that makes that more difficult in self defeating.

It really is deranged.  

It does make some sense from the point of view that the SNP would be seen to be helping England get what they voted for - champions of democracy and all that.

What he's overlooking is how that'd be perceived up here, especially by a salivating MSM that still bring up 1979 whenever they can.  The SNP should never fall into the trap of siding with a tit like Johnson.

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2 minutes ago, daviebee said:

It does make some sense from the point of view that the SNP would be seen to be helping England get what they voted for - champions of democracy and all that.

Good luck to anyone trying to sell that is all I can say. 

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The choice now is 'no deal BREXIT' or this crappy 'deal BREXIT'. If you block the deal BREXIT which is basically not leaving the EU in anything but name really (May's shitey deal with a couple of tweaks) you will be essentially voting for no deal Brexit. The idea that BREXIT of some kind is not going to happen because the SNP stop it somehow is a fantasy. Taking Bojo the clowns deal BREXIT is about the closest to staying in the EU you can get at this point. i.e. it is staying in without any of the rights and privileges of membership. So why not use it to get what we want at the same time... Or sink it and then get blamed for no deal BREXIT and with fuck all to show for it.

You can tell deal BREXIT is not actually BREXIT at all by Farage's reaction.

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2 hours ago, thplinth said:

Wings is getting the Jim Fairlie because he is disagreeing with current SNP dogma. It is how they roll. Smears and ad hominems. (Another huge turn off electorally speaking.)

It is funny I read all these snide comments on here over and over (usually while calling for 'unity') and then I say fuck it and go read his latest blog piece and every single time I come away thinking I don't see a single shred of evidence to back up the smears. From what I can see the guy is very smart and he has balls. I don't agree with a lot of what he says (he also wants a referendum soon without having clear support for YES e.g. 55%-60%) but he argues his points logically and is worth listening to. Which is more than you can say for this hatchet job of a thread. 

 

Disagree : As a media monitor / critic he was superb.
Now he is acting like Scotlands Farage : threatening to his own party and trying to split the SNP vote.
He should stick as what is good at.  Not a chance in hell I would ever trust him my vote.
That doesn't mean I don't appreciate some of his work.

Edited by Haggis_trap
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23 minutes ago, thplinth said:

The idea that BREXIT of some kind is not going to happen because the SNP stop it somehow is a fantasy.

Which is exactly why the SNP strategy is broadly correct...
We tried out best to stop the brexit shite show : but look what happened.

In 2014 Scotland 55% UK
In 2016 Scotland voted 62% EU.

Scotland cant now remain in both EU and UK.  Eventually the fence sitters will need to make a decision.

Edited by Haggis_trap
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51 minutes ago, aaid said:

Good luck to anyone trying to sell that is all I can say. 

I think he knows fine well the SNP won’t vote (or abstain) with the stories. I can only suspect he is trying to keep the pressure on by highlighting how close we could be to Indyref2 if we chose to use the leverage. He is logically correct in his analysis of this ‘leverage’ but I agree we’d then get crucified by the Unionist msm.

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3 hours ago, thplinth said:

Wings is getting the Jim Fairlie because he is disagreeing with current SNP dogma. It is how they roll. Smears and ad hominems. (Another huge turn off electorally speaking.)

It is funny I read all these snide comments on here over and over (usually while calling for 'unity') and then I say fuck it and go read his latest blog piece and every single time I come away thinking I don't see a single shred of evidence to back up the smears. From what I can see the guy is very smart and he has balls. I don't agree with a lot of what he says (he also wants a referendum soon without having clear support for YES e.g. 55%-60%) but he argues his points logically and is worth listening to. Which is more than you can say for this hatchet job of a thread. 

 

I can tell you don't follow him on (or use?) Twitter.

His blog articles are mostly excellent, like you say. But on twitter he 'lets his hair down' and more of his personality comes out (which is that of a bellend).

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1 hour ago, thplinth said:

The choice now is 'no deal BREXIT' or this crappy 'deal BREXIT'. If you block the deal BREXIT which is basically not leaving the EU in anything but name really (May's shitey deal with a couple of tweaks) you will be essentially voting for no deal Brexit. The idea that BREXIT of some kind is not going to happen because the SNP stop it somehow is a fantasy. Taking Bojo the clowns deal BREXIT is about the closest to staying in the EU you can get at this point. i.e. it is staying in without any of the rights and privileges of membership. So why not use it to get what we want at the same time... Or sink it and then get blamed for no deal BREXIT and with fuck all to show for it.

You can tell deal BREXIT is not actually BREXIT at all by Farage's reaction.

So Farage is the sole arbiter of what Brexit actually means?

 

What the leavers were saying Brexit meant before the referendum was very different to what they said after.

They moved the goalposts, and most of us went along with it - at least in terms of the language used. Remember the terms Hard and Soft Brexit meant leaving the SM & CU, or not? Now those terms Hard and Soft are used to describe leaving with a deal or not. Farage and Co successfully moved the goalposts to the more extreme end of the brexit spectrum.

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