Another week, another majestic SNP lead in YouGov's Scottish subsample

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With less than two months of the year left to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

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The Alba Party angrily denies allegations it has illegally nominated by-election candidates - but does the denial raise more questions than answers?

As you may have seen on The National's website, the Alba Party is belatedly now a McEleny-free zone.  A whole six months after his expulsion from the party, Chris McEleny has been forcibly removed as Alba's Nominating Officer, and the Electoral Commission website confirms he has been replaced by his former deputy as General Secretary, Corri Wilson. It's something of a surprise that the Electoral Commission have agreed to remove him against his will, because a literal reading of their rules suggested that it was near-impossible for that to happen unless he died, was incapacitated, or kidnapped by a lost Amazonian tribe - but perhaps they decided a man remaining an officer of a party he had been long since expelled from pushed the boundaries of absurdity a touch too far.

(Incidentally, a few days before McEleny was ousted as GenSec at the start of the year, Wilson posted a video of herself on Facebook gloating in coded language about what was about to happen, so it's reasonable to see her as the Macro to McEleny's Sejanus.  The ominous news for Wilson and the wider Corri Nostra is that, as fans of I, Claudius know, Macro eventually met exactly the same grisly fate as the man he toppled.)

In the National piece, McEleny repeats the allegation that was made to me in an anonymous email on Friday - ie. he says that Alba's local by-election candidates this year were illegitimately nominated, because none of them had his authorisation as Nominating Officer.  An Alba spokesperson is quoted hotly denying that any illegality has occurred - 

"There is no truth in the suggestion that the Alba Party has acted improperly or illegally when nominating candidates for local by-elections.  In every case, the electoral requirements have been valid and in order as evidenced by the acceptance of multiple returning officers."

An anonymous commenter on this blog has made the following observation about that - 

"The Alba statement might get them in hot bother as it shows they’re incompetent or lying. Returning officers accept forms at face value. If the form has been signed saying authority has been granted the RO doesn’t take any other action. The breaking of the law will be that surely McEleny didn’t sign the forms or grant authority to do so, so either Corri Nostra is in trouble for pretending to candidates they had authority or the candidates themselves will be thrown under the bus."

I wouldn't be totally surprised if that comment was left by the same person who anonymously contacted me by email on Friday, and I also wouldn't be totally surprised if that person is...well, I'm sure you can join the dots for yourselves.  Just to reiterate my disclaimer from Friday, I have no legal expertise, so I have no idea whose interpretation of the law is correct.  I'm just providing you with the quotes for information.

(UPDATE, 1.15am:  I've been emailed again by the anonymous source, who says that the public statements from Alba do not match what is being told in private to senior members of the party.)

Meanwhile, the bigger picture is that Alba, which has already been reduced to fringe party status without parliamentary representation, is heading for an unmitigated catastrophe in next year's Holyrood election.  The most recent poll (from YouGov) has them on just 1% of the list vote - even less than they received in 2021.

 

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With less than two months of the year left to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

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Why the Believe in Scotland plan to win independence could be a GAME-CHANGER

When I first heard in vague terms what was in the new Believe in Scotland plan to win independence, I was sceptical, and I expected to be even more sceptical once I had read it in full - but I was wrong. I now think it's an important document that could make a vital contribution towards Scotland becoming independent in the relatively near future. Find out why in the video below.

 

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With less than two months of the year left to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.

Are Labour quite sure there are no downsides to going all in on being the party of radiation?

 

A response to Alba man Jim Cassidy's rather cowardly personal attack

This is a blogpost I've been meaning to write for a little while, and as my previous post contained yet more allegations about sleaze in the Alba Party, this may be as good a moment as any to do it.  Incidentally, a couple of people have asked me whether the anonymous source who made the allegations about Corri Wilson might possibly be Chris McEleny himself.  I certainly can't rule that possibility out, although it's only one possibility out of several.  All I know is that the same source has contacted me in the past with information that proved beyond doubt that they have inside knowledge about what goes on in Alba leadership circles.

It's ironic that the Wee Alba Book co-author Stuart "Stew" Campbell is so obsessed with Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, because the little "shrine" he's set up to me on his blog is in many ways his own equivalent to the Two Minutes Hate (albeit it goes on for far longer than two minutes).  There are dozens of comments from Wings readers in the BTL section of the shrine, most of them berating me, and yet it's blindingly obvious that 90% of the commenters either don't have a sodding clue who I am or have only the dimmest idea of who I am.  They've just instantly decided to hate a bloke they know nothing about because the Pied Piper of Bath has instructed them to, which ironically lends considerable support to one of the key points I've made about the cult-like nature of Wings as it's moved towards a pro-Farage and de facto anti-independence stance.  However, there is one comment right at the bottom of the shrine which is different from the others, because it criticises me for having done "absolutely bugger all in his own area to build up the [Alba] party at local level" before I fell victim to the McEleny Purges and was ejected from the party on trumped-up charges.

That's a weirdly specific criticism that wouldn't make much sense unless that person had some kind of knowledge of me at local level.  There was something about his turn of phrase that seemed familiar, so I did a Google search for his moniker, and sure enough it was exactly who I suspected: Jim Cassidy, who if memory serves me right was the Convener of Alba's North Lanarkshire branch in the early days of the party, and who later on was the branch Secretary.  (Strictly speaking the terminology should be "LACU" rather than "branch", but let's move on from incomprehensible Alba-speak.)

I have to say I regard Jim Cassidy's personal attack as rather cowardly for two reasons.  Firstly, he obviously hoped to keep the attack just about generalised enough that I and others wouldn't twig who it was coming from, ie. he very noticeably didn't say "I was a party officer in North Lanarkshire for X number of years and I watched James Kelly do bugger all", etc, etc.  And secondly, if Jim had any concerns about me, he had umpteen opportunities prior to my expulsion to raise those concerns with me directly, but he did not do so.  I was at several branch meetings with him, and not even once did he give any indication that he had any problem with me.  What he did often do, however, was moan generically about "people".  He would frequently criticise people for standing for the Alba NEC but not for branch office positions, ie. according to him they wanted "the national glory" but didn't want to do the bread-and-butter work at branch level.

That is basically the criticism he is now directing at me specifically, but there's just one little snag here, Jim - I did put myself forward repeatedly for local positions in the North Lanarkshire branch, and you ought to know that because you were in the room at the time.  Indeed, at the time of my expulsion I was technically the Organiser of the North Lanarkshire branch, although I was prevented from carrying out any of the actual functions of that role by the branch Convener Josh Robertson, who was also the leadership-appointed Convener of Alba's Disciplinary Committee, and who I strongly suspect had already been tipped the wink that action against me was in the pipeline and that he would be instructed to expel me from the party before the year was out.  Come to think of it, Jim, within minutes of my election as Organiser, I distinctly remember watching you in conversation with Josh, as thick as thieves, deciding that Josh was going to use party software to do something or other that should really have been part of the role of the Organiser, but Josh was going to do it himself, just because, and only afterwards would he give me access to the software, which of course he never did and presumably never had any intention of doing.

That was my second attempt to get involved locally.  The first attempt was a year or two earlier at what might laughably be called the branch's AGM, and which if memory serves me right was only attended by four people, one of whom was Corri Wilson, who of course isn't from North Lanarkshire but had been sent by HQ to try to revive the branch.  I was the only person that night to put themselves forward as Convener.  Josh Robertson declined because of work/academic commitments (he must have had a change of heart later on, perhaps because of his parliamentary ambitions).  I'm not 100% sure whether Jim Cassidy was one of the four people who turned up, but I think he was, actually, and I think he declined because of work commitments too.  So for a few minutes a strange consensus emerged between myself, Josh Robertson and Corri Wilson that I would be allowed to become Convener (this was long before I clashed with Wilson's daughter Shannon Donoghue so she had no particular grudge against me at the time).  But then they had a change of heart when I pointed out that I was still taking precautions because of Covid, and that if people wanted in-person branch meetings, there would either have to be a hybrid element or I would have to delegate the chairing of the meetings.  Corri Wilson was a bit of a zealot for in-person-only meetings, so the narrative instantly changed from "if James is the only person who can be bothered to put himself forward, nobody can argue with that, he must be allowed to become Convener" to "you know what, maybe we should organise another meeting and see if we can get more candidates to put themselves forward".

I am quite content, Jim, that I did all I reasonably could to get involved locally and that I was prevented from doing so, even if you seem to have had a convenient memory lapse about it.  I'd also just note that if you think that I somehow had the power to "build up Alba locally" despite never actually being put in charge of anything, and that I failed to use that power, then I don't know what that must say about your own failings, because you actually *were* branch Convener for a period of time and later branch Secretary, and yet by your own admission Alba essentially doesn't really exist at a local level in North Lanarkshire.  Where did *you* go so badly wrong, Jim?

I can certainly identify one issue for you.  At one of the early meetings I attended when you were still the Convener, you informed us that "everyone should be out knocking on doors regularly for us as long as they are able-bodied".  If I was someone who had never previously been a member of a political party, I would have found that attitude extremely off-putting and I might well have never gone back again.  People do not join political parties to be subjected to military-style discipline.  They might well be happy to help out once they feel at home, but that requires encouragement and friendliness.  In the first instance, it requires a focus on the rights that people have as members and not on their supposed "duties".

When I was one of the four people elected in January 2024 to review the Alba constitution (a fateful turn of events that had a lot to do with my eventual expulsion), one particular focus for me was precisely on the local rights of party members, including those who may not attend branch meetings because of work or family commitments, but who I suggested could still be engaged and allowed their democratic rights to (for example) choose the branch's two National Council representatives via an online vote.  That provoked blind fury from the likes of Daniel Jack (who thought online voting would be "far too expensive") and Chris Cullen and Shannon Donoghue, who essentially regarded local branches as the fiefdoms of the elite, and who felt that people who didn't turn up to branch meetings certainly hadn't "earned" a right to any say.  I suspect Jim Cassidy's attitude would have been much the same.  Has it ever occurred to you, Jim, that you might actually be part of the problem here?

My view was that Alba as a new party had a golden chance to start with a clean slate and use modern technology to build something better and more participative and more engaging - thus ultimately leading to a more active membership.  Instead, they somehow ended up with a more backwards, more authoritarian and more elitist set-up than the older parties - and yes, if you pointed that out or (heaven forbid) actually tried to do something to change it, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh and the Corri Nostra ensured you were expelled.  It really was that simple.

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With less than two months of the year left to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.

Alba Sleaze Update: Party insider makes explosive allegation that every single Alba local by-election candidate since McEleny's downfall has been nominated illegitimately

In my earlier post about the Buckhaven, Methil and Wemyss Villages by-election, I suggested that the fact that Alba were even able to put forward a candidate at all must mean that Chris McEleny hasn't yet rescinded Corri Wilson's authorisation to nominate Alba candidates.  When I first heard from a well-informed source a few months ago that McEleny was refusing to resign as Alba's officially registered Nominating Officer, in spite of his expulsion from the party, it was explained to me that the only reason why Alba had been able to carry on putting forward candidates in local by-elections was that McEleny had sent the Electoral Commission some sort of letter or form of authorisation before his expulsion allowing Corri Wilson (and perhaps others) to nominate Alba candidates on his behalf.  However, as sole Nominating Officer he had the power to rescind that authorisation at any time he chose - hence the massive problem for Alba.

A couple of hours ago I received an email from another source.  It alleges that Corri Wilson has in fact not had authorisation to nominate candidates, and therefore that all Alba local by-election candidates since McEleny's downfall, including the one yesterday, have been nominated illegitimately.  This is the text of the email - 

"Corri was not authorised to be deputy nomination officer. Corri was advising candidates to sign the nomination forms themselves telling them they had authority to do so. 

Therefore every by election Alba have stood in this year has been by committing the criminal offence of fraudulently submitting nomination papers claiming to have authority they did not have. Whether each candidate would be liable for the criminal offence or Corri would be for lying to them (just like she wrongly told or lied to the NEC that there wasn’t going to be an employment tribunal as it was time barred) by telling them they had authority would be another matter."

I know for sure the email was sent by a genuine insider, because it was the same person who sent me the first hard screenshot evidence that Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh had instructed McEleny to target me for "the treatment", triggering my horrendous months-long experience last year.  However, I obviously cannot vouch for whether the source is interpreting Corri Wilson's actions correctly, or indeed is interpreting the law correctly.

All I'll say is that absolutely nothing would surprise me about Alba or about Corri Wilson at this stage.

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With less than two months of the year left to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

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SNP stroll to big landslide win in Fife by-election

It's the middle of the night as I post this, but I'll just briefly give you the by-election result, because it's a second impressive win for the SNP in as many weeks.  I'll also try to make a video about the result at some point, but that might have to wait 24 hours or so.

Buckhaven, Methil and Wemyss Villages by-election result (6th November 2025):

SNP 42.6% (-4.9)
Reform UK 28.9% (n/a)
Labour 20.8% (-19.5)
Liberal Democrats 2.6% (+0.4)
Alba 2.2% (+0.9)
Conservatives 1.7% (-4.8)
Sovereignty 1.2% (n/a)

What leaps out at first glance is the following - 

* On a uniform swing, the result is consistent with the SNP having a mammoth nationwide lead over Labour of around 26 percentage points - although of course Labour would no longer be in second place anyway due to the surge for Reform, who appear to have scored their best ever result in Scotland.

* Alba are on their customary 2% of the vote and are clearly going nowhere.  We've seen this type of result enough times by now to know what the propaganda line from Alba HQ will be, ie. "we've increased our vote, we've beaten the Tories", but it doesn't really matter a damn if you occasionally get the better of a larger party on a localised basis - all that matters is whether you are polling strongly enough to win at least one list seat somewhere, and Alba clearly aren't and never have been.

* However, the fact that Alba were able to run a candidate at all in this by-election is of some significance, because it means Chris McEleny has not yet rescinded the letter of authorisation (or email of authorisation, or whatever it was) that he sent to the Electoral Commission at some point before he was expelled from the party in order to allow Corri Wilson to deputise for him as the party's Nominating Officer.  The million dollar question is whether he has insisted on remaining as Nominating Officer since his expulsion (and remember the Alba leadership have no power to sack him) because he intends to withdraw Wilson's authorisation between now and the Holyrood election, thus blocking Alba from running any list candidates, or whether he's just sort of trolling his former party by making them sweat and leaving them to guess what his big plan is.

* In a sense this by-election was also a rare test for the Barcelona-headquartered Liberate Scotland alliance, aka "Greater Prism".  Although there was no candidate running on the Liberate Scotland label, the far-right component of the alliance (Sovereignty) stood under their own name.  However they performed even more poorly than Alba and took just 1% of the vote.

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With less than two months of the year left to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

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Stuart Campbell, the restraining order, and the "visibly distressed horse": here are the facts as we know them so far

Below you'll find today's *three* tweets about me (heaven only knows how many it is this week so far) from the man who famously "doesn't stalk me" and "barely even mentions me".  Yup, you've guessed it, it's the controversial far-right blogger known as "Stew".  You can probably hazard an educated guess as to what lies behind the adult content filter on the first tweet - it mixes his two favourite pastimes of a) attempting to mock my physical appearance, and b) bullying people with gender dysphoria round the clock.

Still, at least he's tidied the house up a bit.

— Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) November 6, 2025

Any idea what his cringy "Stu, make mine a double" shtick at the end of each video is about?

— Aru_Tokoro_Ni (@AruTokoroNi2001) November 6, 2025

I imagine it's a reference to "both votes SNP".

— Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) November 6, 2025

Oh well worked out, Stew.  They don't call you an "investigative journalist" for nothing.  Actually, on second thoughts...

Now, I do feel it's incumbent on me at this point to furnish you with a little reminder of what Stew himself looks like, just to give us a sort of baseline reading with which we can judge the immense blessings of nature which have clearly emboldened him to spend so much of his life mocking the physical appearance of others...

Ooooooh-kaaaaaaaay.  Crikey.  

Actually, when it became clear a few weeks ago that his stalking was morphing more and more into outright insults about what I look like, I did take the precaution of asking Grok to provide me with a little essay assessing Stew's own attractiveness, with predictably hilarious results.  I wasn't planning to publish it, I was just going to keep it in reserve as a sort of "nuclear deterrent".  But this just goes to show the basic problem with all "deterrents", and it's something that David Lammy should take heed of  - they don't actually deter anyone, you kind of always end up using them, and just look at the carnage that ensues.

Grok, does Stuart Campbell of Wings Over Scotland conform to standard norms of male hyper-attractiveness?

Answer: No, Stuart Campbell, the Scottish blogger and former video game journalist behind Wings Over Scotland, does not conform to standard norms of male hyper-attractiveness.

Understanding "Male Hyper-Attractiveness"

Standard norms of male hyper-attractiveness (often rated 8–10/10 on common attractiveness scales) are defined by a combination of cultural, evolutionary, and societal factors, drawing from psychological research and beauty ideals. Key traits include:

Facial features: High symmetry, strong jawline, high cheekbones, clear skin, and balanced proportions (e.g., golden ratio approximations in face structure).

Body composition: V-shaped torso (broad shoulders, narrow waist with a waist-to-shoulder ratio around 0.6–0.7), muscular build (low body fat ~10–15%, visible definition without excess bulk), and average-to-tall height (ideally 6'0"–6'3" or 183–190 cm).

Other factors: Youthful vitality (typically apparent age under 40), groomed appearance, and an aura of confidence or status. These ideals are heteronormative and Western-influenced but appear cross-culturally in studies (e.g., preferences for symmetry and fitness signaling health/fertility).

These traits are rare—fewer than 2.5% of men meet the "optimum" for even individual features like shoulder-to-waist ratio, per evolutionary psychology research. Examples include celebrities like Chris Hemsworth or Henry Cavill, who embody near-perfect harmony.

Assessment of Stuart Campbell

Based on publicly available photos (e.g., his X profile avatar and historical images from his Amiga Power era), Campbell, now 58, does not align with these norms:

Facial features: Angular but asymmetrical structure, with prominent brows and a receding hairline; lacks the chiselled symmetry or high cheekbones of hyper-attractive ideals.

Body composition: Appears average build (not muscular or V-shaped), around 5'10"–6'0" (estimated from photos), with no evident low-body-fat definition.

Overall: His look is unremarkable and aged—more akin to a standard 3–4/10 on attractiveness scales. Early 1990s photos show a youthful, edgy style (e.g., mohawk hairstyle), but even then, it veered punk/nerdy rather than classically handsome.

Attractiveness is subjective and influenced by personality (Campbell's cockiness might boost appeal for some), but against objective hyper-attractive benchmarks, he falls short. If you're referencing a specific photo or context, more details could refine this.

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About the title of this blogpost: as you may be aware, a few months ago Stew set up a little shrine to me in the sidebar of his blog, and it's been there ever since.  If you click on it, you'll find what purports to be an exhaustive and constantly updated list of the titles of all the blogposts I have ever written in which he is mentioned at some point.  

There is now, let's face of it, hours of fun to be had probing how far the titles can go before he mysteriously 'forgets' to include one, or feels obliged to add an unintentionally amusing 'explanatory note'.  Let's see how he gets on with this one.

YouGov latest: another swing to Yes on the independence question, and the SNP on course to win big

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With less than two months of the year left to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.

BOMBSHELL Scottish poll rocks Westminster: firmly No-friendly pollster YouGov shows the No lead has been reduced to a barely-there three points, while the SNP and Greens are on course for a PRO-INDEPENDENCE MAJORITY at next year's Holyrood election

It's 2.20am as I sit down to write this, so probably not the ideal time to embark on making a video (you wouldn't believe how long even the shortest of videos take to make, once you take into account the preparation, the editing and the processing), but I must nevertheless bring to your attention the information that Calum Findlay revealed in the comments section of the previous post.  The Scottish Election Study has published its latest Scottish Opinion Monitor (SCOOP) poll.  These polls are basically just regular YouGov polls but with two thrilling twists - the media don't seem to report them very much, and the data tables don't bother to mention what the results are with undecided voters excluded.

The most significant results are on the independence question.  YouGov has in recent years reverted to its former status as a very firmly No-friendly pollster, and that remains the case in this poll because there is a No lead at a time when other polling firms are showing substantial Yes majorities.  However in a sense it corroborates the trend shown by those other firms because it shows a third successive reduction in the No lead (as far as YouGov polls are concerned, I mean) and leaves No with a mere three-point advantage, which is much lower than YouGov typically show.  As Calum points out, the fact that No even remain in the lead at all should be interpreted with caution because it's been partly caused by YouGov's reweighting of their raw data based on how people say they voted in the 2014 independence referendum - a practice that the UK's gold standard pollster Ipsos states is unwise because of the high risk of distortions caused by false recall.  

Should Scotland be an independent country? (YouGov, 10th-20th October 2025)

Yes 40% (-)

No 43% (-1)

If Don't Knows were stripped out, that would probably work out as Yes 48%, No 52%, which would be unchanged on the last YouGov poll due to rounding effects.

I've taken Calum's estimates of the Holyrood voting intention numbers with Don't Knows excluded and pumped them into a seats predictor, and they come out as: SNP 59, Reform UK 22, Labour 16, Greens 12, Liberal Democrats 10, Conservatives 10.  That's a very comfortable majority for pro-independence parties once the SNP and Greens are combined, but the SNP on their own are six seats short of a majority.  The lack of a single-party majority wouldn't be any sort of problem if the normal rules of democratic self-determination applied, but unfortunately the SNP have just self-imposed a new version of the 40% rule - a decision that we may all have cause to regret in six months' time.  But of course, as with every poll, this is just a snapshot and not a prediction of the final result.

And although this isn't a video, please feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel anyway, because I'm trying to get to 1000 subscribers as soon as possible!