It's that time of the year again, when I ask readers of this blog to make a contribution, big or small, to keeping this blog running for another year. As we approach the Holyrood elections, I intend to increase the frequency of new posts on the blog from the current two or three per week to three or four. Normally I launch this fundraiser in April or May but this year I am launching it early in order to avoid overlapping with the official campaign period for the Scottish election in May. Writing a new piece means thought and research even before starting to type out the article, all of this takes time, and costs money in the form of subscriptions to newspapers and current affairs magazines.

Writing the Weegingerdug blog is a lot of work. In order to keep going I need to pay my bills and keep food on the table. It is a struggle at times to keep the blog going, the independence movement does not have its challenges to seek, and on a personal level, neither do I. My health is not great and I deal with significant disabilities which make carrying out daily tasks much more difficult, exhausting, and time consuming. Although I also write for The National, I consider this blog my first and main job. My disability has robbed me of the ability to earn a living from the other things I used to do, so I depend on the income from this blog to make ends meet.

The next Scottish elections will be critical. Politically the world is becoming ever more uncertain and dangerous. The far-right is on the march and in the UK this takes the form of a nakedly English nationalist Reform UK which regards Scotland as a historical region of a unitary "British" - read Greater English - nation, which ought to have no greater political importance than Northumbria or Wessex. In order to counter this existential threat it is imperative that Scotland has a Scottish Parliament with a strong pro-independence majority. This blog will continue to argue and campaign for that.

This blog has 8500 email subscribers. If each subscriber paid just £1 per month I wouldn't need to do an annual fundraiser, but of course that is not how these things work. I am committed to keeping this blog open and free to all with no adverts, paywalls, or subscription fees. I need your help in order to do so.