Mark Irvine - Blogger, Campaigner, Organiser

After claiming it was a 'two-horse' race between Reform and the SNP John Swinney's is the one with egg all over his face after the Hamilton by-election. Swinney's list of excuses were predictable and pathetic: 1) We did well 2) I've done well (as SNP leader)  3) Westminster 4) Brexit 5) Infamy, infamy! The SNP leader said: “Katy Loudon fought a superb SNP campaign, and clearly I am disappointed that we did not win tonight. "Labour won by an absolute landslide in this area less than a year ago - we came much closer tonight but the people of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse have made clear that we still have work to do.  "Over the next few days we will take time to consider the result fully. “When I became leader of the SNP last year I made clear my intention to bring the party together and focus more than ever on standing up for the people of Scotland.   "During this campaign we heard a lot of anger about the cost of living - and it is clearer than e...

  Attack ads are a feature of every election especially in by-elections where dirty tricks and dirty tactics abound since  the stakes are always so high. The SNP are as bad as anyone else when it comes to this ugly behaviour, hence John Swinney's baloney claim about Reform on the front page of the Daily Record and the jibe about Labour's candidate being the 'Invisible Man'. But Davy Russell had the last laugh and as the old saying goes - he who laughs last laughs longest.

An interesting statistic to come out of the Hamilton by-election is that the Scottish Greens won only 2.6% of the popular vote and lost their deposit. Whereas Reform came in third with a vote share of 26% - 10 times as much as the Greens and Patrick Harvie who made a lot of noise about Reform not being welcome in Scotland. Wee Pat Harvie's obsession with toilets and self-ID appears to be wearing thin with voters.

So Labour managed to come back from the dead in Hamilton to confound just about everyone - including the SNP, the pundits and the bookies who said it was down to a 'two horse' race. Reform did well, mind you, with 25% of the popular vote, but the big losers on the night were John Swinney and the SNP whose vote share dropped 17 points to 29%.

Great piece in the Scotsman back in February 2025 by Euan McColm who lambasted the pitiful 'leadership' of John Swinney and Anas Sarwar over the nonsense of self-ID and men magically declaring themselves to be women. "Both men swerved to avoid their roles in allowing crank activists to erode the rights of women but, no matter how sharply they jerked their wheels, they couldn’t prevent themselves smashing head-on into the consequences of their foolishness. "The case of nurse Sandie Peggie - whose tribunal claim for discrimination and harassment against NHS Fife and Dr Beth Upton, a trans woman with whom she was obliged to share a changing room at work, will continue in July - has fully focused voters’ minds on the issue of self-ID. It is hugely unpopular, with fewer than a third in favour." https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/sarwar-and-swinney-must-now-accept-the-circle-cannot-be-squared-on-gender-debate-euan-mccolm-5002721

Great photo of John Swinney struggling to explain his simultaneous support for: a) self-ID for men  b) single sex spaces for women Last time I checked onl y a man with two arses can ride two different horses at the same time. 

Today's newspaper front pages highlight a cancer scare - a worrying shortage of radiologists and oncologists in Scotland's NHS!

"The media had all the evidence they needed, but chose to distort, obscure, and deflect because reality was politically inconvenient. They said Khelif was female. They were wrong. They said concerns were bigoted. They were wrong." - ✍️ @SwipeWright https://t.co/jx0QIyqboF — J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 4, 2025 'Tadgergate' would never have happened if people had believed the science and evidence of their own eyes.   "Imane Khelif is male, and this fact was plainly obvious to anyone who hadn’t outsourced their critical thinking to ideological dogma. Had people put truth before ideology from the beginning, this wouldn’t have been a controversy at all."

  Humza Yousaf is always free with his comments and criticisms about how others should behave, but tends to keep his counsel when it comes to what's going on in Muslim countries. Now the Burka is undoubtedly about the coercive control of women - in Afghanistan it goes hand-in-hand with denying women and girls an education, yet there have been no protest marches to stop this wicked, medieval 'war on women'. Whereas in western countries a bikini, or even a mankini, is a matter of personal choice.   

Friendly reminder when you see media report numbers and events quoting this: - “Gaza Ministry of Health” = Hamas - “Gaza health officials” = Hamas - “Gaza authorities” = Hamas - “Gaza officials” = Hamas - “Local authorities” = Hamas - “Health authorities” = Hamas — Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) June 4, 2025 A word to the wise! Why would anyone believe a word Hamas has to say after the terrible atrocities of October 7?   

  Islamists are not interested in living in peace beside their neighbours - their fanatical, medieval religious beliefs are all that count. Video link below to the Boulder firebomber - Mohamed Sabry Soliman. Jihad. It's about jihad. As I explained many times. "Jihad is more beloved to me than my mother, wife and children", the attacker said. https://t.co/P5RQVw5KU2 — John Aziz (@aziz0nomics) June 4, 2025  

My daughter Amy takes a lovely photo - this one looks like a painting and if you look closely in the 3rd window, there's a silhouette Mount Hood (Oregon's highest mountain) against the skyline.    

Give trans staff extra breaks to adjust underwear, NHS trust suggested @Telegraph https://t.co/IANBIcgOwb — Sex Matters (@SexMattersOrg) May 30, 2025 Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous - extra breaks for 'trans staff' in the NHS to adjust their underwear! The 'woke' world has gone completely mad.

Yet more student accommodation in Glasgow city centre - artisan flats no less on St Vincent Street. The city is being slowly ruined by this obsession with ever more luxury student flats which ordinary Glasgwegians can't afford. I watched a bit of BBC Scotland's Debate Night programme and the best question came from a chap who asked why all these luxury student flats can be built yet there's a housing shortage for local people!

Last week after my Album Launch at The Portland Arms was cancelled, I was approached by Cambridge Live to do a story about it so I sent them a statement. Unfortunately they have decided not to run with my story, but I wanted my statement to be seen. So here it is: pic.twitter.com/t3JfOeKf8W — Doozer McDooze (@DoozerMcDooze) June 4, 2025 Doozer McDooze explains what it feels like to be on the receiving end of pathetic bullies in the arts who think it's fine   to gang up and damage the livelihood of anyone who disagrees with them.  Well said Doozer, the arts should be free from this petty minded 'cancel culture' and I hope you're coming up to Scotland soon!   

if only I had a spare house ... pic.twitter.com/AQ008byNPu — Stewart Weir (@sweirz) June 1, 2025 So Roz 'Five Homes' Foyer has invited this on herself. I can't see how the Scottish TUC can be taken seriously while Roz remains at the helm -  Scotland's political establishment is now a complete laughing stock.  

  8 years in prison - what a joke for taking someone's life in such a callous and cowardly way Here's Nathan Otitodilchukwu and two friends throwing a firework through Robert Price's window in Dagenham, east London. Mr Price died in the fire they caused. https://t.co/p4hAx5Tdgg pic.twitter.com/1rQiDsCfYR — CourtNewsUK (@CourtNewsUK) June 3, 2025  

Ten years of the SNP and Holyrood ripping the piss out of the Scottish people has contributed to the rise of Reform: my column in @heraldscotland https://t.co/EJXVF7QCFG — Kevin McKenna (@kmckenna63) June 3, 2025 Kevin McKenna in the Herald pours scorn on John Swinney and his SNP chums who have turned the Scottish Parliament into a laughing stock - a 'Pretendy Parliament' - in recent years.  Everyone who disagrees with the ruling elite is denounced as a fascist or a bigot. "Feminists who, in the course of many decades, had fought for women’s rights, found that they too were branded Fascists and bigots because they opposed biological men gaining access to their private spaces.  "The five Supreme Court judges who have now clarified this position in law are also bigots, according to  Holyrood ’s Deputy Convenor of its Equalities committee, as is the European Human Rights Commission who endorsed the judges’ ruling. She remains in her post."

You have to be fine with him using women's toilets and female changing rooms with your young daughter or you're a bigot. pic.twitter.com/WhGfmsSAlg — Billy Bragg (@Serena_Partrick) June 3, 2025 How is this kind of soft touch suspended sentence taking violence against women and girls seriously? The man involved (Peter Selby) self-IDs as a woman and is a repeat offender who breached a previous order just 9 months after it was imposed.

FULL STORY: https://t.co/PSzjz8cDWk — Glasgow Times (@Glasgow_Times) June 2, 2025 The Glasgow Times reports that local residents around Sauchiehall Street are up in arms over the gap site where the O2 cinema used to stand - the ugly eyesore has lain dormant and half-demolished for months. 

🚨 Colorado Terror Attack During a pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Mohamed Sabry Soliman (45), an Egyptian national, launched a firebomb & flamethrower attack while shouting "Free Palestine" -9 injured, 1 critical -Overstayed US visa FBI: Targeted terrorist attack #Colorado #SB19 pic.twitter.com/gAlwOzeP3G — GlobeUpdate (@Globupdate) June 2, 2025 Yet another terrorist attack on innocent people - this time in Boulder, Colorado. Hamas and their allies are part of an fanatical Islamist hate movement not a peace movement - and ‘from the river to the sea’ is a call for war and the destruction of Israel.