there's a famous canoeist there's a famous gynecologist of all sorts people so by becoming reverends to come on the only one of the let's dispense with the food of the universe press you impassively thing a good rev of the only thing we've got quite enough on with them as. the wings are with scott would get started well yeah i mean you see after the after the the s.n.p. majority in 2011 it was all be said was going to be a referendum yeah i remember them and. i've been in independence guy all my life my dad used to work for billy wolfe the former leader of the s.n.p. in bathgate guys want to make a contribution obviously i couldn't go knocking on doors and stuff so i thought to somebody could knock on the doors and buff well yeah it was interesting to say there's not not all of votes to be won there though unfortunately so yeah so i decided to do it online and i tried very brief i looked for other scottish politics websites and there weren't really any very good ones i briefly wrote for one that

was run by a variety of people from the various parties but i wrote one article for them and i made a sort of joke in one of the comments and was immediately ostracized and they saw and i thought don't go on i'm going to do this myself or annoying so yeah i just thought it up wings as a it was just a little originally just a short digest of things that were in the scottish new fly wings that was scotland in kenya but in the middle of the symbolism behind some people said the symbolism of the wings this year the name just sort of almost happened by accident i'd always written my very 1st website when i was a videogame writer was called world of steer and ever since then i've had blogs that were that w. or x. as the initials of there were various apparently stations over the most recent one night it was wings over seal and which you may know is the little kind of independent nation just off the off the coast of britain by itself an old world war

2 for it's always fly. fascinating place so when i came to write the politics blog it just kind of seemed an obvious progression from wings over c. one wings were scotland and what do you consciously pursue your blog was to. rebalance media in the sense that the written play scotland some people do the television as well was pretty womanly biased against scottish independence so what was your explain to some of the unionist press as well as pervading the the online information that independence supporters needed yeah i mean it's still is a ridiculous state of affairs where you have a political viewpoint held by roughly half of the country represented by essentially exactly at that time nor media told there were no newspapers in favor of independence in 2011 when we started but yeah the thing that really drove it was

when i started to take more of an interest in scottish politics which was initially in 2007 and really in 2011. i was watching these things being or in the newspapers things on the telly that i knew for a fact weren't true and i'm watching and i'm waiting for the journalists on the presenters to go hang on that's not true and it never happened and i couldn't understand why these these obvious false hudes weren't being challenged and it became obvious that yeah i was going to have to do it myself i mean the 1st most obvious one is the the myth that labor can win a u.k. election without scotland and it's just not true it's never been true it's there have been almost no points in history where labor needed scottish m.p.'s to have a majority so this whole thing that scotland becoming independent would somehow be tree the rest of the u.k. and condemn it to tory governments forever there is no the tiniest grain of truth

in it and i couldn't believe that this thing was just being repeated over and over on state broadcasters on national television and all the papers you say is always described. as controversial. sometimes a lot worse than i i'm used to people point to the use of language but at least bad language which i'm trusting of as i can see is not only the state itself it's all you're right yeah we don't know where it's on the little firstly how do you defend firstly the use of a flag and that we as a distraction from the serious message are on the site i almost always find it comical when ridiculous scottish people pretend to be offended by it but swearing who is the most famous the most celebrated the most beloved scottish cultural export of all time it's billy connolly a man who not only isn't ashamed of swearing a man who has turned swearing into an art form and who makes

a very strong case case for doing it or most probably are. the biggest current cultural. certainly entertainment world figure is frankie boyle who is it is very much the same we we celebrate fictional characters like malcolm tucker written by the the wonderful armando iannucci who is the most magnificent creative sweeter and in the history of you're not right if you're going to point your revenue. having read reviews i don't believe that but that we should practice going to. apartheid so-called swearwords but not in a special sealed section at the back of the dictionary with a warning this is not to be used they're just words they're words which have a purpose and they use and if you want to express a certain view if you're. protech say particularly angry about government policy that is going to cause by these means of people to die like the most recent welfare

reforms which are beyond any reasonable doubt caused thousands or tens of thousands of people to die an early death how can you express i knew or an adequate and sufficient level of anger about that without using these what was also these words for let's go on to the lesson and the. clear sight that something which quite extraordinary when you look back on it you published a book so i would say it's extraordinary because the fight. a very successful web site a very popular political blog and they decided to issue a boot a written form of a $50.00 what we have a we blew up the we was it was kind of was basically always the goal from from the very early on what i realized is that you're going to have a hard time actually winning anyone over with a pro independence website because before the read ever read your arguments they've

got to come they've got to want to come to your website and read it and that people tend not to do that kind of thing if they are opposed to your if there aren't a lot people just aren't interested in it so why i realized very early on was that i was going to have to produce something that we could get physically in people's hands people who would come to a pro independence website people who wouldn't want to read stuff by me and also partly because of the stuff that you say about being vilified by the meanest press they are you know they were the enemy they weren't going to give us a fair shot so we had to put something directly into people's hands that we could target and just give the normal man and woman in the street our argument the best way we queued so the website has always. only ever really been a tool for the production of that we believe i believe the fed did let me live you know the argument modern politics like the likes of teals and. in the referendum and 2016 we should keep you know the message is short and simple as possible when

they say they will bust. totally the opposite direction you know how many pages many will issue yeah and wonder 72 pages. between us and some other people over 300000 physical copies there were about 800000 copies diamond loaded on people's i pods and leave it all over the earth for you we firmly encourage people to do it every really cute people some people print home some people print giant variations it was translated in gallic there were all your books over it we absolutely encourage people to get any possible way we could to as many people as lee possibly could so that at least hundreds of thousands of. political books will do the least do you think that had an impact. well in the start of the world spring of 24 we didn't really start getting the print ones in people's hands until the start of september and what i got told by people over and

over again in unsolicited e-mails and letters and all kinds of stuff is that we really genuinely changed people's minds they were saying i gave this to my my mom she was never ever going to vote yes and then 2 days later she was like knocking doors with me. there was and i know seems to that's what people tell me emil you know i wasn't there it wasn't i didn't i had no part in the distribution my mind my kind of right lindsey bruce put together just an unbelievable distribution network where we go to every corner of scotland from selkirk to store in a way in the barrick when absolutely everywhere and but the fact that that feat was never recognized anywhere really is something i've still got to be in my bonnet about about the fact that nobody but wasn't considered newsworthy by the mainstream media. it's ludicrous.

what do you do before you came here where did you work before you came here when you live well. in many us states capital punishment is still practiced convicted prisoners can spend years waiting for execution but most of the time the victims' families they are very much in favor the death penalty there are some people because of what they did have given up the right to live among us some even proven innocent of 2 years on death row and how many more exonerations is it going to take before we as a society realize that this is not working and we actually do something about. little.

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slave. looked. very well continue watching us until last. it's hard to take something from somebody if you know have something replacing. i'll be going to this interview today i had all these markets open then they take me. there you know. there is a north korea. so how can i tell you stop selling drugs if we'll hire some to put the money in it back. then just me all the way the life has almost been basically mccullers peaceful force or. do you guys know what sickened me security

positions i didn't see that day were jacked me again. you see people get other cars and i'll see you coming in the herd and this seems like the hurry up and run into the house like they don't want to they don't want to talk to your get your mail or anything like that. like i'm upset i can't do anything. but just try renaming. the magnets and some give me. welcome back alex is interviewing top 10 political blogger stuart campbell of wings

over scotland we took up the story with the website originally designed to help they guess cause in the 2014 referendum making the decision to keep on blogging in the aftermath of the result. no the referendum's had famously you predicted the result of the estimated the support 45 percent so the referendum was held. to a skull and had been formulated for the cause of progress in the pen this level in the us will so. yes get beaten. to a scottish continues why i hadn't really considered if we were going to continue afterwards. it wasn't until i think it was the day after when everyone was was absolutely and broke and everybody was in pieces and dying and all those loyalist orange thugs appeared in george square and i think that galvanized the us movement

more than that i think any amount of sort of talking to ourselves about picking ourselves up and getting back in the fight could have been i think i think that huge number of people just when we are not going to be beaten by the people and there was a massive growing saw from wings we've seen can't stop night got to carry on doing this we are we are still in this fight. this has not been put to bed and yet i've been up there was just no kind of option but the but to keep going to the site has carried on the go and from success the success in terms of this one how many dedicated readers as in the term the use of the do you get any reader if you leak. about everything unique rebuild our old home week but no i mean it was i mean it fluctuates it's been you know mundane from it peaked around almost a 1000000 in the couple of months we got to the referendum but our average over the over the periods about a quarter of a 1000000 unique readers every month which from a country of $4000000.00 adults is

a phenomenal reach it's the time i still can't quite believe i begin to go on no imagination than ever when i'm looking back over the many many postings as a one year luke but you'll see that i should have said that wasn't i. i didn't get it right. your mistake shouldn't know of immediately spring from and the 11 of the 1st ones that we got a lot of criticism for was one about the. deceased tory m.p. alex johnson and he issued a horrible attack on a christian call and we're. the lottery winners and s. and p. dollars and i yeah i called him a quite unpleasant means and the article is the only time we've kind of ever really been rude on the website rather than on twitter account which i regard as a sort of separate entity i don't really ring correct to such and i think it was absolutely fair comment and i don't particularly feel bad about the language either because for the reasons i said earlier on the subject of the

a common case it doesn't deal famously one case you brought together for defamation is accepted by the. judge that. you had been defeated because you're not total fool that but nonetheless she won the case on the globe is a fair comment it was a da thing to do for you controversial blogger someone who least. pretty strong on the fence of towns to take a politician to task for me my argued doing something similar to you i won't or would firmly disagree that something somewhere i mean if you don't bill had written an article saying she thought i was a horrible human being on i would be perfectly entitled to hold up any and i have no beef with that if you again you'll know better than i do that how much abuse you get if you're involved in politics i get called awful things 100 times a day but there is a there's a difference not only morally but in law between being unpleasant about someone and

defaming them by saying things that are factually untrue so i want to clearly have it established and have have it in writing as it were. but i am not a homophobe that i wasn't tweeting homophobic things and that people cannot save them some people see the association with with controversial logos and controversial language actually harms the. purpose cause you're only allowed to think of billy sympathy with the bit can you see what people are driving or do you think it's just part of the tactics of politics certainly is that it's certainly an attempt to divide and rule but mean we've always been incredibly clear on wings that we have no connection to the s.n.p. are never been in the s.n.p. or never voted for the s.n.p. we have nothing to do with the s.n.p. so tell me i don't see how it can. damage the s.n.p. nicholas origin is not responsible for me and i've never suggested it should be i

mean if anyone responsible for me it's probably will you any because i've always been a lib dems war. and this is a revolution you're making him now let's. start with because it is all a damn tory marginal i came down here when chris patten was the m.p. when i arrived here and the election i ever voted in we kicked him out and bath has been. with the exception of the 2015 election tory go in but then we take him back and 2017 so you are basically saying is that if any political party reputation is at risk from the the more flawed it style the political will scotland then the liberal democrats salute. on their hands you know you want to make a contribution to their for there and then you saw a continuing hope because of the closeness of the result and because of the desire of people to continue the argument but you've got yourself as

a practitioner making a contribution or are you a commentator whose principal purpose is to debunk unionism and the unionist press obviously both of those are primary. we do see myself as a participant i'm you know wings makes no pretense of being a neutral observer in the independence campaign we are pro independence website so our zapruder bears website there for you most of the view on the election the independence campaign should well i mean i've said on wings for for some time that the s.n.p. probably the scottish government ever you want to put it should probably have been more proactive in the last few years i personally would very much of liked to have seen a court challenge with regard to whether we need a section there in order or not all the referendum because there is a great deal of all there and load legal opinion on both sides of the argument has in norway been the edinburgh agreement which you signed as you know did not start issue it kind of moved it to one side and said we will we are having

a referendum no and there's a wish based on what you believe the mood is in scotland based on the saudi and westminster again it's a little of both i mean it's very much the mood that i detect in the grassroots movement from people who talk to me every day most people have understood that the scottish government's policy has to sort of essentially sit back and wait for breaks it unfold one way or another but the people i think are increasingly unhappy that more active steps haven't been taken to prepare ourselves for when that becomes but surely the s.n.p. leadership's points are a very fair one that. the don't how often the gift for section 30. local started was ruled out an official method and. catalonian style

initiative. up the options. the leadership powerfully can act as if we just have to buy time when we for something else to happen well this is the problem in if you if you rule all of those options and the u.k. government just keep seeing no it's not the time forever. you've got nowhere there's nowhere else to go just it will never happen and we all grew old and die before we ever have a 2nd independence referendum so there are only 2 i've been used that i can see one of them being and an arrangement with perhaps a labor government that doesn't have a majority and would be prepared to concede a referendum in exchange for support or we go the legal route i don't think the strategy or just asking over and over again until the until the cave of the canucks of their hearts is ever going to get anywhere so one way or another you determine that the game should be a food once again in scotland another referendum another test so can we anticipate another. oh you certainly can yeah i mean that's again that's still the whole point

of going to wings over scotland is to get to a referendum and have another go another we believe we can people's hands that we will be printing this time so 4 to 5 times as many as we did the last time because i think it's very powerful to give people facts that's the thing that we do when we're going above anything else you don't have to take our word for anything we admit up front that we are biased that we are pro independent but every claim that we make every fact that we are sorry we give you a source we give you the link we say here's here are the facts you go and look at them don't take our word for it decide for yourself whether we're telling you the truth or not have you thought of. success and post-independence would be back to scotland would you give up political controversy enter mainstream politics what we got in mind for campbell my future yeah i always said i would move home if we if we go independence i move home permanently and i'm torn from day to day about whether

that would be to form a new political party or to go and live in a cave with no internet for the rest of my life going to be taking over for a while the rainiest convinced liberal democrat voted well i think somebody needs to. have a i can assure you of a political career if i can present you with the the i'll examine clean for the period in the show no you know the drill it was not even given by a few people to get your hands of the good scotch and only school and he did well thank you very much alex pledge of shit. let us drill for a 2nd on the extent of the achievement of the 3 blogs we have covered thus far and the c.d.'s from bass is centered in scottish and northern irish politics wins over scotland slug route 2 and the craig mundie block have generated huge interest to soar into the u.k. top 10 these 3 are very different in style and content. norms fired in white providing devastating critique of u.k.

international policy sugru too has become the key source of impartial information on the politics of the province while wings might scathing demolitions of the poor union mainstream media and scotland should be said that this does not endear wings of a scotland site to those on the receiving end of the seating and alice's and some particularly in the hierarchy of the national movement also fine doing social media presence far too hot to handle sure campbell does point talent that the wings over scotland blog should be the guardian as a distinct entity from the wings to share count but some do not accept this distinction and i get that it is kind to productive of course political blogs not the same thing as political parties as liberal voters cheer can go by only points i don't want wings of a skull into stunned beyond argument as attract a dedicated readership of energized and politically aware tetons while the production of the 3 blue book how did to months ago public affect on the politics

of the scottish independence referendum of 2014 a real impact transcending the verified virtual world of the online politically campaigners the new edition promised exclusively on this show will be eagerly awaited by the guest movement in scotland under guard to the some degree of trepidation by the progeny and campaigners. next week return from fixing the online politics of today to feature film of the past i guess mcfadden 1st shot to stardom in 1905 with his portrayal of the scottish cattle king robert the bruce and the multi oscar winning brief part now with an expensive for mockery under his belt he's back at the edinburgh international film festival and i flew over the proofs to pick up the broadsword once again this is not a sequel but tells a new story thanks can so join us next week to find out whether this news though will have the

same dramatic impact until then from alex in a cell phone although the shoe is good bye for now thank. you. thank you i thank you. we had one man 3540 years old. it was destroyed in the water. some 30 fisherman later and it's not. understood.

that he's going to move ahead. and i thought my feet will stop when and what the machine. i believe that this is one of the therapy is to. tama. absurd really harsh things that happen in life. that's geysers financial survival bill they say money the bellatrix. clutch it easy this is a central plank support dying a poem is going to call them right now it's a stop to that. democracies do not deport human rights defenders over there peaceful expression democracies do not rule over millions of people for another people you know for

decades on there is a larger context here and that context starts with the fact that israel has been occupying palestinians for 52 years and that occupation itself has deteriorated the most basic ideas of what a legitimate democratic government looks like inside of israel. this was the obama team was. i. was.

trump isn't ruling out an as strike against iran following a u.s. drone being shown in the strait of hormuz that further escalation comes up make said last ditch effort to save the iran nuclear deal. more than 1000000 questions sent in in a q. and a last thing over was president vladimir putin ahead from the russian public at the annual direct line to martha's session covered a raft of domestic and international challenges facing russia and its people. and the u.k. government suspends new arms sales to saudi arabia after the course of the.