A week ago, readers, I had not the slightest interest in bringing Wings Over Scotland back full-time. I had my Twitter account again and was having fun and I was happy with that. It scratched the itch of being able to engage with politics (and people) without the depressing business of wading in it for work.
Having enjoyed a summer of long sunny walks feeding the swans and refreshing lager shandies in riverside pubs, I was preparing to hunker down over the cold dark winter and finally get some much-delayed writing for the Wings memoir done.
And then I witnessed the quite extraordinary sight of an elected member of Parliament, in the shape of the SNP’s pico-witted ambulant brain vacuum Karen Adam, publicly gloating about having managed to shut down the voice of someone critical of her party.
At the same time, an extremely minor blogger (the word “rival” would be to over-dignify them) re-opened hostilities in his campaign of self-declared “open warfare” against this site, with a rapid succession of posts (just a few of dozens) forming such a demented scattershot tirade that to patiently debunk all of it would have taken until Christmas.
And I’ll be honest, folks, it all pushed my buttons a wee bit. It really shouldn’t have, but it was properly outrageous and I’m occasionally human, so I thought “Sod it, if I’m going to have to put up with all this crap anyway I might as well make it worthwhile”.
So I asked you if Wings should return and you all said yes, which in itself was perhaps predictable enough – you’re here, after all – but then hundreds of you also put your money where your mouths were and absurdly we’re now here.
Not only is that more than twice what I paid myself in Wings’ heyday, amusingly it’s also more than the £5,555.17 a month that Karen Adam gets to thoroughly embarrass the Scottish Parliament on a daily basis. So I’m just here to say a big “thank you” – obviously mostly to you, Wings’ remarkable and astonishing readers, but also to Ms Adam and Mr Kelly, without whom none of this would have happened.
(Despite Kelly’s legitimately hilarious contention that it was all part of a Machiavellian masterplan – I especially loved the bit when me and Elon Musk secretly got together and arranged to reinstate, then re-ban, my Twitter account. Top pals, me and Elon.)
I remain concerned that there’s little of worth to actually say about Scottish politics that hasn’t been said to death. The country’s voters are trapped in between two worthless options – the SNP and the opposition – in a stinking, stagnant pond desperately in need of having a massive rock thrown into it, and I’ll be very surprised if Wednesday’s judgement from the Supreme Court will provide the necessary disruption.
But whatever happens over the next couple of years will at least be doing so under Wings Over Scotland’s gimlet eye again, for as long as you wish it to be so. I am genuinely, truly, humbled and moved at the magnitude of your support, and aim to live up to it. Time to get back to work.
