In the last few days, I have made two incredibly mild criticisms of Stuart Campbell. Firstly, I pointed out that the SimilarWeb numbers he relies upon to portray his “closed” website as far more popular than the rest of the pro-indy blogosphere are simply not reliable or credible, and I set out the reasons why. This is something I have a direct stake in, because he explicitly mentioned Scot Goes Pop in the relevant posts and tried to portray this site as having roughly one-tenth of the visitors that Wings attracts – which is unlikely to be true. The only way we’d ever know for sure is if Mr Campbell reveals his own private stats to permit a direct comparison, but in a nutshell there are two issues with the SimilarWeb numbers – a) they seem to count the same visitors multiple times, which will artificially inflate the reported popularity of any site that essentially functions as a chat forum, and b) they’re not real traffic numbers at all, but merely speculative extrapolations from what seems to be an extremely rudimentary ‘panel’ system.
And secondly, I very briefly pointed out on Twitter today that it’s increasingly ludicrous for Mr Campbell to maintain the fiction that his site is “closed” when in fact he’s published no fewer than nine blogposts on it over the eleven days since the start of November. That, frankly, is just fair comment, and was crying out to be said by someone.
But I should have remembered one of the iron laws of Scottish politics: criticisms of Stuart Campbell, no matter how mild or obviously fair, are not permitted. If you make any such criticisms, you will get an avalanche of nasty replies from his fan club, some of which will be downright abusive, but all of which will seek to pathologise the act of disagreeing with Mr Campbell in even the slightest way. There’s a rather scattergun approach to this process of pathologisation – some will say that any criticisms can only ever be motivated by “bitterness” or “jealousy at his success”. Some will say that you’re being “immature” or “childish”. Some will say that you’re “obsessed” and that you need to “chill”. Some will say that you need to stop being “divisive” or “picking fights with a fellow pro-indy blogger”.
Hmmm. Let me try and give these diehard fans of Mr Campbell a long-overdue crash course on the subject of perspective and self-awareness. It comes in the form of a few questions.
* Mr Campbell repeatedly makes bitter and highly personalised attacks on Nicola Sturgeon. When he does that, do you take him to task and tell him that he’s just jealous about the fact that she’s far more successful than he is? (Whatever you may think of Ms Sturgeon, it’s objectively undeniable that she’s more successful – she’s been the elected leader of Scotland for eight years, whereas Mr Campbell has thus far failed to translate his following into a political force capable of meaningfully influencing the direction of this country.) Or do you instead say “YEAH, YOU STICK IT TO HER, STU”? Honest answers only, please.
* Two days ago, Mr Campbell described Pete Wishart as a “traitor” in a Wings headline. Now, I’m no fan of Wishart, who has had me blocked for many years, but nevertheless I do not believe calling him a “traitor” is appropriate or responsible language. So when Mr Campbell did that, did you tell him that he was becoming obsessed and needed to chill? Or did you say “STU CALLED WISHART A TRAITOR – FANTASTIC, WOT A LEGEND”? Honest answers only, please.
* A few months ago, Mr Campbell described a woman as “mercifully deceased” – quite possibly the most repugnant thing he’s ever written on Wings. When he did that, did you warn him that he risked damaging both his own reputation and that of the independence movement? Or did you say “YEAH, PEOPLE LIKE HER ARE BETTER OFF DEAD, GREAT TO SEE STU TELLING IT LIKE IT IS”? Honest answers only, please.
* At the start of 2021, Mr Campbell was so angry at the contents of this blog that he sent me an email out of the blue calling me a “c**t”, and then tried to intimidate me into censoring readers’ comments by getting his solicitor to send me menacing emails at the dead of night. When he did that, did you tell him that he needed to stop being so driven by bitterness and petty revenge, and that it was sad to see him being so divisive and picking needless fights with a fellow pro-indy blogger? Or did you ludicrously try to paint an abusive bully as the victim? Honest answers only, please.
* On 1st November, Mr Campbell published the results of the most pathetically self-indulgent poll question that he’s ever commissioned. (In fact it’s possibly the most pathetic and pointless poll question that anyone at all has ever commissioned.) It served no other purpose than to fuel his neverending feud with Kezia Dugdale, which is only a thing because he can’t get over the fact that she defeated him in court a few years ago, albeit on a technicality. When he did that, did you tell him it was time to stop being so immature and childish, and to grow up and move on? Or did you say “DRAG HER TO COURT AGAIN, STU! HOWEVER MANY TIMES IT TAKES! MAKE WINGS GREAT AGAIN!” Honest answers only, please.
Hopefully the point has been made. And now that Mr Campbell appears to be back blogging full-time, I’m afraid the laughably hypocritical Twitter pile-ons are not going to deter me from critiquing future posts on Wings that are inaccurate or misleading, or that are destructive to the cause of independence. For example, I discovered a few months back that Wings was the original source for the utterly baseless but frequently repeated claim that “support for independence among women has fallen 17% over the last few years”. He has also essentially lied to his readers by saying that overall support for independence has remained totally static for several years – complete with bogus graph. (Yes, I know, those two claims are not even reconcilable with each other.) I can fully understand why Mr Campbell’s disciples want to browbeat me and others into letting his deceitful propaganda pass unchallenged – but that simply isn’t going to happen.
Oh, and please note that the inevitable attempts to leave abusive comments on this blogpost will not succeed – pre-moderation of comments is still switched on.
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