[SCOT goes POP!] Astroturfing for Humza: he's supposed to have been "finding his feet" and "growing in sureness-of-touch" for longer than you might realise

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Astroturfing for Humza: he's supposed to have been "finding his feet" and "growing in sureness-of-touch" for longer than you might realise

When I switched pre-moderation off in the comments section of this blog a few weeks ago, my biggest concern about the decision was that it would allow comments from two very persistent trolls to become visible for the first time.  It may seem bizarre, but even though I wasn't publishing their comments and they therefore only had an audience of one (me), they weren't deterred and just carried on submitting comments regardless - and in the case of one of them, he continued doing so multiple times every day.

If you've been reading the comments section regularly, you'll probably have spotted the two individuals I'm talking about very easily.  One is a unionist troll who is naive enough to think he can drain the morale of independence supporters by constantly repeating lines like "time to forget this independence nonsense, it isn't happening".  He's almost certainly an Englishman who has spent very little time in Scotland, because his only reference point for this country appears to be "Nessie", which he mentions in around 20-30% of his comments.

But the second troll could not be more different.  He/she is a diehard SNP leadership loyalist whose sole mission appears to be to convince us that Humza Yousaf is "improving".  You'll have seen the stock lines that he/she has trotted out in recent weeks - Humza is "growing into the role", he is gaining "sureness of touch", and "we can all agree" on this.  Robin McAlpine mentioned in an article a few days ago that Yousaf's people are currently briefing that their man is "growing into his role" - and the use of those exact same words is a pretty obvious giveaway that our resident troll is astroturfing for Team Humza, perhaps on their direct instructions.

What you probably don't realise, though, is that it hasn't just been the last few weeks.  Before I switched pre-moderation off, exactly the same person had been regularly submitting comments with either the same or very similar stock lines, all the way back to last spring when Yousaf was narrowly elected leader.  I very rarely let those comments through, but I still have a record of them via email.  Here is a very small selection - 

30th April 2023: "It can. Humza has grown in sureness of touch."

26th May 2023: "Humza definitely finding his feet now. Excellent FMQs yesterday!"

24th June 2023: "Humza handled that heckler with stature and sureness-of-touch."

25th June 2023: "Humza was applauded to the rooftop yesterday and was excellent on Sky news this morning. He is growing in stature, standing and in sureness-of-touch."

17th October 2023: "Good speech by Humza - growing in stature and in sureness-of-touch"

17th October 2023: "Thought his speech was brilliant. He is growing in stature and sureness of touch."

18th October 2023: "Too negative on Humza. He made a great speech at conference and has steadied the ship."

So if this is an organised astroturfing operation by Team Humza, it was devised in the very earliest days of his leadership and has been ongoing ever since.  Question: if he was "finding his feet" in May last year, surely he would have well and truly found them by now?  If he was "growing in stature" in June last year, surely he would have attained his full height by now?

Source: Astroturfing for Humza: he's supposed to have been "finding his feet" and "growing in sureness-of-touch" for longer than you might realise