Wee Ginger Crowdfunder 2024

It’s that time of the year with the blog that always makes me apprehensive, the annual crowd funder. I am launching it a bit early this year as there is a lot of chatter about an early general election and I don’t want it to fall into the official election campaign period. Although I have a part time writing gig with The National, this blog is my first job, writing it is what got me established, and it is now in its tenth year, the very first post was on 14 October 2013 and it got 35 views in the first couple of days after publication and I was thrilled. It was about Alastair Carmichael. Remember him? He was a thing then, the Scotland Secretary in David Cameron’s Tory-Lib Dem coalition government.

Now the blog has become a fixture in the Scottish political independence landscape, it has about 8500 email subscribers – more than some established newspapers – and has readers in Holyrood and the Scottish Government, and I am loathed by BBC Scotland (So that’s a result.). I no longer keep a close eye on the site statistics, frankly I am not that anal, the fact that each post attracts well over 100 comments on average and I know that the vast majority of readers never comment, together with the occasional private message from influential people, tells me all I need to know.

If everyone who subscribed to this blog paid 25p per month I wouldn’t have to do an annual funder but of course it doesn’t work like that. This blog will alway be free for everyone to read – both those who love it and those who hate it. It will never go behind a paywall or charge a subscription fee.

The last few weeks have been a torrid time for the independence movement and to say that the coming weeks and months are likely to be challenging is something of an understatement. So it is all the more important that someone tries to keep the flame of independence alive, highlights the hypocrisy and deceit of the “we’re not nationalists we’re British” parties with their flag fetish, and articulates the case for independence without getting drawn into attacking pro independence parties for supposedly ‘doing independence wrong’. We have an entire Scottish media ecosystem devoted to attacking the SNP and the Greens, that is their job not mine. My job is to draw attention to uncomfortable truths that the Scottish media prefers to ignore, like the many and varied lies of the Labour party in Scotland or positive developments in the case for independence.

I intend to continue to blog and be a small but irritating thorn in the flesh of the anti-independence parties and to post new pieces as often as my health and disability permit. I order to do that I need your support. This blog represents a substantial chunk of my annual income (which is fully declared for tax, British nationalist trolls) and I depend on it to pay my bills and keep food on the table. Any amount that you can contribute is hugely appreciated. I am hoping to raise £5000 which together with the money I earn from The National and my disability benefit is still less than the annual minimum wage, but enough to keep me going.

Many thanks for all your support, whether that’s in the form of a donation or just dropping me a kind word when I’ve been feeling down and struggling to adapt to post-stroke reality and life as a physically disabled person.wtw

You can donate to my crowdfund page by clicking on the following link

https://www.gofundme.com/f/wee-ginger-crowdfunder-2024

Or you can help to support this blog with a PayPal donation. Please log into Paypal.com and send a payment to the email address [email protected]. 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’d like an alternative method of donating – by cheque or directly into my account, please email me at [email protected] for details

Obviously recent developments will attract a lot of interest and people will want to express their views. However I must remind people that Scotland has very strict laws about contempt of court and you must exercise extreme caution in what you post. Ideally it is best to say nothing. I must also warn you that you are personally responsible for any comments you make.