Stew

My devoted stalker from Somerset famously claims to never even mention me on Twitter, or if he does mention me, it's only "twice a year" or so.  Mysterious, then, that he somehow managed to post three tweets about me within just three minutes on Saturday, with yet more thrilling bonus tweets yesterday.  But you've got to cut him some slack here - it was just a squeal of pain because I had pointed out what somebody was bound to point out before too long, ie. that the Hamilton by-election result had just demonstrated with almost embarrassing vividity that Stew's claim that the SNP are guaranteed to win 65 Holyrood constituency seats next year is completely, hopelessly, cretinously wrong, and has thus eviscerated his entire argument for so-called "tactical voting on the list".  

All he had left by that point was a Trumpian denial (albeit an extremely half-hearted Trumpian denial) that he had ever made the claim in the first place, followed by two extremely weak straw men.  Just for the sake of completeness, however, I'll briefly deal with the three tweets one by one.  "This won't take long", to adopt a beloved catchphrase of the Great One himself.

A new record, folks - a *72-word* title (premised entirely on something I've never even remotely come close to saying). pic.twitter.com/azpKlNeXg9

— Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) June 7, 2025

Yes, folks, apparently his 11th May blogpost "The blindness of hatred", in which he stated that the SNP were guaranteed to win 65 constituency seats, and even helpfully provided maps to put beyond doubt which 65 he was referring to (Hamilton was one of them!), was just a figment of our collective imagination.  You know, just like it was a figment of our imagination last autumn when he said that there was "zero chance" of a pro-independence majority at Holyrood next year - a claim that was not exactly consistent with the SNP winning 65 constituency seats.  Or just like it was a figment of our imagination when he said Humza Yousaf had definitely lost the 2023 SNP leadership election ("I'm calling it early" he boasted). 

Well, I don't know about you but I'm convinced.  In the immortal words of the Dugdale defamation judge, "case dismissed!"

Incidentally, Stew's tweet denying that he had ever said what we all saw him say a mere four weeks ago attracted this reply from one of his cult followers: "We have always been at war with Eastasia".  I mean, that's just too perfect to be real.  I don't think you meant that quite the way it came across, my friend, but great point.  Great point.

Poor mad James, 6 June: "HAMILTON SHOULD NOT BE MISTAKEN FOR A BELLWETHER CONSTITUENCY"

Poor mad James, 7 June: "HAMILTON IS TOTALLY A BELLWETHER CONSTITUENCY" pic.twitter.com/17HGaVA91o

— Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) June 7, 2025

For the uninitiated, the electoral meaning of "bellwether" is a locality or region that always or usually votes for the national winner.  Now, it's true that I said on 6th June that Hamilton is not a bellwether constituency, for the obvious reason that it isn't - it's instead a very favourable seat for Labour, one that on a uniform swing they would win even if they were ten, eleven or twelve percentage points behind the SNP nationwide.   Sadly for Stew, I didn't then contradict myself a day later by saying "Hamilton is totally a bellwether constituency", and indeed Stew has helpfully attached a screenshot of the completely different point I actually made.  I pointed out that because Stew had been proved so catastrophically wrong in his prediction that Hamilton was a nailed-on certain SNP hold, his predictions about other similar seats were almost certainly not well-founded either.  To point out that there are many other US states that tend to vote in a similar way to Alabama is a very different thing from saying that Alabama is a "bellwether state".

So silly, Stew.  What a weak effort, even by your standards.  

Poor mad James, 6 June: "The result shows that the polls indicating the SNP sweeping almost every constituency seat are basically accurate."

Poor mad James, 7 June: "The result shows that the SNP may win fewer constituency seats than Labour." pic.twitter.com/KD2R5WP98R

— Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) June 7, 2025

It's true that I pointed out on 7th June that Labour winning more constituency seats than the SNP is one of the wide range of possible outcomes next year.  It's also true that on 6th June I pointed out that the Hamilton result broadly demonstrated that the current polls are accurate.  Sadly for Stew, I did not contradict myself by saying that the polls are correct in showing the SNP "sweeping almost every constituency seat", because the polls show no such thing, and I've been consistently pointing out for weeks that Stew has been lying through his teeth when he tells his readers that the polls do show that.  You might remember that in our "Great Twitter Debate" (which he demanded and then ran away from within about ten minutes), I pressed him repeatedly on his utterly bonkers claim that East Lothian was a guaranteed SNP hold, when in fact the polls clearly show it to be a highly likely Labour gain.  Try as I might, I couldn't get him to admit that his East Lothian "projection" was just plain wrong, or at least to explain how on earth he had arrived at the "projection".  All he did was deflect by saying that it "didn't matter" what the result in East Lothian was, and when that didn't work he resorted to the comfort blanket of a Trumpian denial that he had ever claimed East Lothian would be held by the SNP.

I was right - that didn't take long.

Meanwhile, Stew retweeted a post yesterday which rehashed the endlessly debunked claim that gay people are thrown off rooves in Palestine.  This doesn't exactly assist his repeated protestations that his reason for trying to silence all criticism of Israel's genocide is because of his disdain for "both sides", rather than because he wholeheartedly agrees with all of Netanyahu's propaganda talking points about how Israel is justified in massacring Palestinians because it is a fight against "evil".

pic.twitter.com/Q1yrE7lzK1

— Devil's Advocate (@DevilEsq474) June 7, 2025

Of course the answer to the question "but what if you were gay in Gaza?" is "you would be shot or bombed by the IDF, just like straight and bi people".  Israel are extremely inclusive, even trans-inclusive, in their selections of Palestinians to slaughter.

You may also have heard, incidentally, that Israel have taken Greta Thunberg and her comrades hostage ("free the hostages", "bring them home", "Sweden has every right to defend herself", etc, etc) and intend to take them to Israel and show them a propaganda video of Hamas in action.  But I don't think you should stop there, Bibi, I think it would pack far more of a punch if you also fly out Neil Sinclair and Gordon Millar and get them to do a PowerPoint presentation about The Comment.  

"You see?  Criticising genocide is all very well, but there are reasons.  There is context.  All a bit more complicated than you thought, young lady, so I suggest you go back to your daily life, think only about the things that properly concern you, and let these fine gentlemen get on with doing whatever they see fit to the people of Gaza.  Oh no wait, apparently you're not going to be released because your left nostril is a suspected Hamas command centre.  You have no-one to blame but yourself for what must now be done."