Something is seriously wrong with democracy in Scotland, but the media has told us vastly more about Peter Murrell’s cruet sets than it has about what can only be described as an attempt by the Labour party to steal the Holyrood election. In fact the attempted subversion of the result of the recent election has gone unremarked in a media which for the past few weeks has indulged itself in a hyperbolic orgy of Peter Murrell hysteria which has dominated the headlines to the exclusion of all other Scottish political stories. This hyperbole has provided the anti independence parties and media highly convenient cover for the uncomfortable reality that for the fourth time in a row, Scotland has voted for a Scottish Parliament with a pro-independence majority and yet again has elected a Parliament with a mandate for another independence referendum.
Meanwhile the Labour party is not only determined to block the referendum which Scotland has again voted for, but also to force Holyrood to implement the Labour party’s recently rejected Scottish manifesto. Rather than holding power to account, the media in Scotland is for the most part colluding with the Labour party and the Labour government in Westminster to ensure that Labour’s Scottish manifesto is forced on the country despite the fact that Labour presented this manifesto to the Scottish electorate just a few short weeks ago and promptly went down to the party’s worst defeat in the history of the devolved Scottish parliament.
We have got wearily used to the people of Scotland giving a Holyrood majority to pro-independence parties standing on a manifesto commitment to another independence referendum only for Westminster to Brit-splain away the verdict of the people of Scotland and refuse to concede to what the people have voted for. Faced with this travesty of the democratic process the British media in Scotland habitually shrugs before getting straight back to its favourite SNP bad obsession du jour.
However it seems that this undermining of the result of Scottish elections, which first became prominent in 2021, was merely a proof of concept. Having gotten away with their brazen and shameless referendum theft in 2021, the British nationalist parties are now, aided and abetted by the British media in Scotland, bent on rendering the result of the May 2026 Holyrood election meaningless by ensuring that the rejected Labour manifesto is imposed on Scotland irrespective of the fact that the Labour party standing on this manifesto was resoundingly rejected at the ballot box.
Labour’s Scottish manifesto for 2026 included two prominent commitments, firstly to establish a system of regional mayoralties in Scotland on the model found in England – although Scotland has never had mayors, but rather provosts and lord provosts – and secondly to end the long standing Scottish Government opposition to the development of nuclear power plants in Scotland. Scotland voted on both these proposals this May and rejected them, but now, with the assistance of the government in Westminster, the Labour party seeks to force the Scottish Government to adopt Labour manifesto commitments which were voted down at the ballot box just a few weeks ago. This week, the British Government published a document which purported to identify several sites in Scotland which the Labour party believes are prime candidates for the development of new nuclear power plants. Scotland neither needs nor wants new nuclear power. The purpose of these plants is to supply electricity to the rest of the UK while leaving Scotland to deal with the radioactive waste.
With the imminent coronation of the Blairite Andy Burnham as Prime Minister there has been a renewed focus on Labour’s rejected Holyrood manifesto commitment to establish an elected mayor for the Glasgow city region and to take powers from Holyrood to give to such a mayoralty. Burnham has expressed his wish to impose such a policy as well as to take powers from Holyrood to give to cities like Aberdeen which are affected by the move away from fossil fuel industries. Just as with reporting about Labour’s nuclear plans for Scotland, nowhere in the excited discussion of these ideas in the British media in Scotland is any mention that both these policies were in the Labour manifesto for the recent Scottish election which saw Labour receive its worst electoral drubbing since the establishment of the devolved parliament.
All this runs a coach and horses through the very meaning and purpose of the devolution settlement and it’s the self-proclaimed party of devolution which is doing it. You’d think an attempt to steal an election would be a much bigger story than the embezzlement of party funds (not public money) by a party official, but not in Scotland.
To its eternal shame, the media in Scotland presents this flagrant subversion of the democratic process in Scotland as a “challenge for the SNP” and not as what it really is – the utter contempt that the Labour and Conservative parties have for the outcome of elections in Scotland when the result is not to their liking, and an attempt at electoral theft. We are facing an attempt to render the result of the recent Holyrood election meaningless, but the media is failing in its duty to hold power to account because the media in Scotland only holds Holyrood and the SNP to account, Westminster gets a free pass because the media in Scotland is dominated by British nationalists who are blind to their British nationalism and see the primary role of the British media in Scotland as being to fend off Scottish independence.
It is notable that despite both Labour and the Conservatives having gone down to their worst ever defeats in any Holyrood election, Labour lost almost a quarter of its MSPs and the Tories lost over 60% of theirs, but neither Anas Sarwar nor Russell Findlay has displayed an iota of self-reflection or acknowledgement of the magnitude of their rejection by the people of Scotland. They remain as cocky and arrogant as always, buoyed up by the knowledge that they’ll always be politically bailed out by their Westminster colleagues and given a free pass by the overwhelmingly anti-independence media in Scotland.
With every passing Holyrood election the verdict of the people of Scotland is rendered less and less important as the losing parties turn to their Westminster head offices in order to ensure that they’ll get their own way no matter how poorly they perform at the ballot box. Devolution has ceased to have meaning, Scotland can only get what it votes for, and can only have a media that holds all power to account equally, with independence.
After wrestling for hours with PayPal, I have finally compiled a list of the emails of almost everyone who makes a regular monthly donation to the blog and will soon launch the weekly bonus premium email article for those who make a monthly contribution to the blog. I had hoped to launch this in June but unfortunately it will be delayed for a while. There are a number of people whose emails I am unable to find. Some people donate monthly by Ko-Fi, one makes a monthly donation to last year’s GoFundMe fundraiser, a few people make monthly payments directly by bank transfer. I cannot access the email addresses of any of these people and so cannot add them to the new mailing list. If you are one of these folk, please email me at weegingerbook@yahoo.com and I’ll add you to the mailing list.
_____________________________________
The annual blog fundraiser has reached its initial target but will keep running for a few weeks more. The initial target represented the bare minimum necessary to keep the blog going. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed. There are a number of ways to donate. You can contribute to my fundraiser on GoFundMe, the link is here.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/wee-ginger-dug-annual-fundraiser-2026
By Default GoFundMe has configured the donation page to monthly donations. You can still donate as a one off When you Click donate, on the donate page under the title WeeGinger Fundraiser 2026 you’ll see two buttons, one on the left saying GIVE ONCE and one on the right saying GIVE MONTHLY. This seems to be a new thing with GoFundMe. Click the left GIVE ONCE button so it is highlighted in Green then choose the amount you want to donate or enter it in the box below. If not, you can always make a one off donation by PayPal or Ko-Fi
You can donate via Ko-Fi here:
Or click the following link https://ko-fi.com/weegingerdug
One of the easiest ways to support this blog is with a PayPal donation. Please log into Paypal.com and send a payment to the email address weegingerbook@yahoo.com. Or alternatively click the donate button below. If you don’t have a PayPal account, just select “donate with card” after clicking the button. You can also donate by PayPal by using my PayPal.me link PayPal.Me/weegingerdug
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/weegingerdug
If you would prefer to donate some other way, for example by bank transfer or cheque, please contact me at weegingerbook@yahoo.com for details. Once again, thank you to everyone for your support.
