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The dreams of the walking dead

Posted on January 05, 2017 by

There’s no sign of Scottish Labour’s great voyage to the bottom of the polls hitting the sea-bed yet. Currently sitting at around 15% – a startling 10 points down on the abysmal performance that saw the party lose 40 of 41 Westminster MPs in 2015 – the North Britain Branch Office is now haemorrhaging voters to the Tories almost as fast as it previously lost them to the SNP.

With the constitution looking set to dominate Scottish politics for the forseeable future (and certainly until the Brexit process is concluded, if and when that ever happens), Labour in Scotland finds itself unenviably located in the middle of a grisly medieval execution, being torn apart as its limbs are wrenched from their sockets by the horses of the SNP on one side and the Ruth Davidson No Surrender Party on the other.

horsecution

Even after Kezia Dugdale abandoned her previously-equivocal position in a panic and threw her lot in once and for all with the UK, however much it protests Labour will simply never be seen as a party of such staunch Unionism as the Tories.

No matter how many times the regional sub-department of UK Labour tries to rehash and reheat the worn-out promise of “more powers”, “Home Rule”, “federalism”, “devo super ultra megamax extreme” or whatever meaningless undefined term it’s using this week, it’ll be seen as a cowardly betrayal by one side and a hollow lie by the other, and as views polarise Labour’s hopeless middle-of-the-roading will see it steamrollered like the Lib Dems were at the last UK election.

And the prospect seems to have driven Scottish Labour quite mad.

Earlier this week, the left-wing Fabian Society thinktank issued a paper concluding that Labour had no hope of forming a UK government again unless it accepted the prospect of a “progressive alliance” with the likes of the SNP and Lib Dems.

fabian

Former Labour MP (and former Fabians executive chair) Eric Joyce has analysed the paper expertly and insightfully already, alongside former Scottish Fabians convenor Martin Brown, so we won’t dwell on the report itself here. But the reaction of Scottish Labour has been a strange mixture of flat-out denial and complete derangement.

Kezia Dugdale and her assassin-in-waiting Anas Sarwar both unsurprisingly put out some standard boilerplate about how such a thing could never happen because the SNP were bad, etc etc.

sarwarhame

But more revealing were comments from some prominent party activists. First up was Scottish Executive Committee candidate and BBC phone-in regular Scott Arthur from Edinburgh, writing in the Herald (click to enlarge):

arthuragenda

The high point of the fantastical ramble was probably this paragraph:

arthuragenda2

Given that polls consistently show little appetite for a second referendum at this point in time (including from this site), it’s rather curious that such an event wouldn’t have INCREASED support for Labour.

But Arthur concludes that the party’s problem is the stupid electorate not paying enough attention, that “the 2016 manifesto was a huge step in the right direction” – referring to the policy proposals which saw Labour finish third in a Scottish election for the first time in history – and that the way forward is “convincing everyone that social justice is in their interest”, as if other parties campaign AGAINST social justice.

(Arthur’s rosy assessment of the last manifesto, incidentally, isn’t shared by Scottish Labour’s current communications director, former Daily Mail hack Alan Roden.)

image

Arthur’s article didn’t actually mention the Fabians report or the concept of allying with the SNP, but was responding to it anyway by projecting a Labour UK majority (at some unspecified point in the distant future) as the only solution, rejecting the Nats as being determined to “destroy public services and hold back a generation to reach their hollow ideological goal”.

(Intriguingly, the rage against any sort of alliance with “nationalists” takes place, as it has long done, against a backdrop of Labour already having an electoral pact with the Northern Irish SDLP, which pursues the removal of the province from the UK and the reunification of an independent Ireland under the banner of “progressive nationalism”, which Scottish Labour hotly insist is an oxymoron.)

But better still was to follow in the form of a letter to the same newspaper today from Arthur’s fellow Scottish Labour activist Peter Russell. You can read it in its entirety here, but the jaw-dropping paragraphs below are the key section.

pedro

In case you’re not quite sure that you read that properly, we’ll summarise it for you:

“Scottish Labour will magnanimously allow the SNP to put Labour into government, so long as it abandons all policies of its own, stands on a Labour manifesto and gives up on its commitment to independence, because otherwise it’s not fair for MPs from Scotland to play any part in a UK government because English voters can’t throw them out.”

Let’s just remind ourselves of the context of that generous offer: Labour is currently a catastrophically distant second in England, in third place (and rapidly heading towards fourth) in Scotland, and completely non-existent in Northern Ireland.

The only part of Britain where it wields any power at all at government level is Wales, which regularly records the worst statistics in education, health and policing anywhere in the UK. For example, even after improvements last year only 82% of Welsh A&E patients were seen within four hours, compared to almost 96% in Scotland.

walesworst

walescrime1

walesae

(Labour only clings to power in Wales due to a divided opposition – in 2016 it got less than 35% of the vote in the Assembly election, with Plaid Cymru on 21%. Labour’s total vote was only 7,433 higher than the combined vote of the Tories and UKIP, who split the right wing by contesting constituency seats for the first time. Only a single Lib Dem abstention prevented Plaid’s Leanne Wood from becoming the First Minister in place of Labour’s Carwyn Jones.)

Yet despite Labour’s parlous and embarrassing state UK-wide, Scottish Labour still sees fit to issue extraordinary public demands as a price for the other parties being allowed to help it limp into 10 Downing Street. (Indeed, what Russell is essentially calling for is the SNP to simply become Scottish Labour, replacing the useless current incumbents wholesale and merging itself into the Labour brand.)

It’s difficult to imagine how disastrous an electoral apocalypse Scottish Labour would have to suffer in order to disabuse itself of its incredible sense of entitlement. The 2011 Holyrood SNP landslide didn’t do it. The total Westminster annihilation of 2015 didn’t do it. Being reduced to third place in Scotland behind the Tories in 2016 didn’t do it, and polling 10 points behind them (and 30 behind the SNP, with whom they more or less tied in 2012) for this year’s council elections doesn’t seem to be doing it.

Still the battered remnants strut around issuing orders to voters and other parties alike, commanding vast imaginary divisions like Hitler in the Berlin bunker in 1945 and making Joey Barton’s brief spell at “Rangers” look like an exhibition of humility.

Or perhaps there’s a more accurate analogy to be found in the shape of a famous (if mythical) figure from British culture who also rejected an alliance from a position of spectacular weakness then wailed in impotent fury at some “yellow bastards”.

On one level we can only salute their indefatigability. But (King) Arthur’s bewildered sigh of “You’re a loony” is the view increasingly held by the people of Scotland, and a merciful coup de grace would at this point surely be the only humane deliverance.

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  1. 05 01 17 17:56

    The dreams of the walking dead | speymouth
    Ignored

323 to “The dreams of the walking dead”

  1. Ruglonian
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s actually fast becoming a pitiful display.

    I feel for the folk that have fond recollections of Labour’s ‘glory days’ as their current behaviour head towards complete self-destruction.

    Personally, having always viewed their arrogance and complacency with disgust, I’ll just continue to point and laugh (like Nelson from The Simpsons)

  2. Greg
    Ignored
    says:

    Maybe they should try reading Wings Stu(?) Are we aware if they know of its existence?

  3. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Can only think that this outpouring of grief is the swan song of Labours North British branch.

  4. Peter
    Ignored
    says:

    What concerns me is that many council results in May will produce a doomsday scenario where , despite collapsing their vote , labour may well be the ‘kingmakers’ .
    Taking my own council (east renfrewshire) as the example , ten councillors are required for a majority . Under STV with multi member wards , it is extremely likely that SNP and Tory will get 6 or 7 each as their best case scenario.
    Were labour to collapse to a mere 3 or 4 this puts them in a position to play us against the Tories for maximum gain. So even when they lose , they win.
    Personally , I do not favour coalitions with Labour , why we would wish to get into power with the party of the vow , the party who killed a million innocents in Iraq is beyond my understanding .

  5. Conan the Librarian™
    Ignored
    says:

    The inhabitants of Iona are perplexed by the humming noise coming from John Smith’s grave.

  6. One_Scot
    Ignored
    says:

    The irony of it is that for ‘Scottish’ Labour to be resurrected they need Scotland to be Independent, but I believe they would rather die than have that outcome.

  7. James
    Ignored
    says:

    If Scottish Labour was an animal you would take pity on the poor thing and have it put down!!

  8. handclapping
    Ignored
    says:

    Yeah but … what are the MSM going to do if Labour press releases are irrelevant? What will Beeb Scotland do when all its editors have no guidance? What party of social justice will then be available for millionaires with their children in private schools?

    However the rest of Scotland without BLiS will be as happy as a lamb in Spring and never a thought of mint sauce

  9. bobajock
    Ignored
    says:

    Something tells me that when something is this badly injured it needs to be put down. As noted, in 2015 – it was. Then in 2016, well, it was.

    Lets just jump up and down on its carcass in May. See if the bleating stops, if the moaning subsides and Kezia & Co (the Scottish part of Labour) simply join the Tories.

  10. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    After almost lierally gorging myself to a truly wonderful death, on black bun over new year, I come back to find that Labour is still indulging in such fantasies as listed above.

    The proverbial coffee has still not been sniffed- certainly not in the Scottish Labour branch office.

    I do find it utterly bizarre, the way in which Labour in Scotland still clings onto the unionist sinking ship, in deluded belief of some great miracle whereby the SNP suddenly nosedive into massive defeat. Everybody and their granny in Scotland knows that isn’t about to happen, yet Labour carries on as before, as though it’s 2001.

    Labour is literally dying in Scotland, yet they seem just stupidly unwilling to grasp how much Scotland’s politics have changed. Labour is a party without a purpose in Scotland. They brand themselves as unionists, yet any devout unionist knows to vote Tory to be sure.

    So, here, now, in 2017, just what do Labour in Scotland stand for? The only answer I can reasonably come up with is ‘sweet b*gger all’.

  11. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    “It’s difficult to imagine how disastrous an electoral apocalypse Scottish Labour would have to suffer in order to disabuse itself of its incredible sense of entitlement.”

    It will only happen when Scotland’s enemy number 1, the BBC, abandons it completely in favour of the Tories.

  12. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    One_Scot at 435pm

    Quote “The irony of it is that for ‘Scottish’ Labour to be resurrected they need Scotland to be Independent, but I believe they would rather die than have that outcome.”

    That is it. That really is it in a nutshell, but their London managers simply will not allow that to happen. So, Labour carry on in their decline, imagining ‘better days’, when they used to actually have some relevance in Scotland.

  13. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    Seems Prof. Curtice agrees with you too Rev. Recent article on the BBC Scotland website says SLab now 12 points down in local gov by-elections on where they were polling in 2012 . He thinks SLab are going to lose very heavily indeed. Conservatives could outpoll them.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-38518557

  14. ScottishPsyche
    Ignored
    says:

    What will it take to get through to what is left of Labour in Scotland?

    They have destroyed their party. They have driven the electorate away. They are clinging on to an ideology which they call progressive but in reality it is nothing of the sort. They are stagnating, lost in a time of past glory and bewildered that the country has moved on. Labour in England and Wales is fed up with them and many blame them outright for the demise of Labour in the UK.

    Every statement they make is ludicrous and peevish. They rage at everyone and see hate everywhere be it anti-Englishness, anti- Semitism or just plain anti-Labour. I cannot even feel sorry for them, I just wish they would take their toxic political games and go away.

    They are a blight on Scotland and stop us moving on as a country.

  15. The Man in the Jar
    Ignored
    says:

    The knights who say “Nee” have a better chance of getting elected than that lot.

  16. Ali
    Ignored
    says:

    When you take a serious issue such as consent and try to force it into a political stick to beat an innocent enemy you have lost not only common sense but all dignity and sense of shame. They grow more hideous by the day. This Labour party stands only for itself, as it has in Scotland for as long as I can remember

  17. clan rossy
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour

    just like a fart in the wind
    never to be smelled and heard again
    good riddance to the lot of them

  18. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    North Britain Labour’s fundamental problem is that the SNP and the Greens do “social justice” and “progressive politics” better than Labour ever have, or could. They lost their niche in steps as the SNP at successive elections proved more capable.

    They lost much before the constitutional question domined politics in Scotland. Once the constitution did become THE issue, Labour siding with the Tories lost another chunk of support. Now, they will never out-Unionist the Tories on that issue, so they are losing even more there.

    There isn’t much left to lose!

    Labour have had umpteen opportunities to keep their niche in Scotland, and each time they took the wrong decisions and are paying the ultimate price. They are where they are because they keep doing what they do! And Kezia keeps them on the narrow path straight to oblivion. They deserve oblivion.

  19. handclapping
    Ignored
    says:

    And talking of BLiS hitting the sea-bed, how long did the Titanic take to get there? Are we the little fishes tossed in the eddies and turbulence of its passing? When will divers come to marvel at its magnificent hulk (and its barnacles)?

    If we can make Kez as relevant as Willie in 2017, it will be a good year

  20. Hoss Mackintosh
    Ignored
    says:

    Lol!

    “Kezia Dugdale and her assassin-in-waiting Anas Sarwar…”

    My money is on Sarwar – labour voters will do anything for a free curry!

    http://www.thenational.scot/news/14900515.Tensions_grow_after_Sarwar_s_lavish_dinner_as_candidates_vie_for_Labour_list/

  21. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    SLab are astonishingly tin eared. My guess is that BritLab are going to let them die a natural death in May then relaunch Labour as a British Party with some socialist policies.
    All that macho blustering is just, well, blustering.

    The Blairites will be furious but what else can Corbyn do? When faced with the dunces in SLab he can only wait and let the electorate take their revenge.

    p.s. I do wish you hadn’t illustrated this post with such a gruesome picture!

  22. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    Why is anyone even talking about SLabour anymore? Seriously?

  23. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘The torso tribe’

  24. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    Why is anyone even talking about SLabour anymore? Seriously?

    Because they have 15% too many votes in the polls. Stu is trying to place a bet that they will be down to 10% by May. Although even that is a bit too high.

  25. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    See, you’ve got me visualising Kezia with her arms and legs being lopped off now with a TV stuck on her head whining in that Moodievision voice and Ruthie hiding behind a tree whispering to Murdo Fraser “told you she’d do anything I ordered her to do” while Anas Sarwar is twirling his fake moustache and clutching Ruthies leg whispering “do you want me to finish her off my Empress”

  26. Iain
    Ignored
    says:

    Kezia Dugdale’s “assassin-in-waiting Anas Sarwar” – a thought to pigeonhole for the future. Perhaps Friday 5th May will be future enough?

  27. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s mistake after mistake for Labour in Scotland. In 2013 they branded “Labour for Independence” as an SNP front. These people were all Labour members who wanted to broaden the discussion on Independence within the Labour Party.

    I doubt any of these people are still members of Labour, then they get rid of Johann Lamont and replace her with a right wing Blairite with a fondness for Irn Bru to placate supporters and members. That worked well with him out on his arse after losing 40 seats out of 41 in 2015.

    Into the breach steps Kezia, a “leader” who flip flops on the Independence issue more often than a model on the catwalk changes her clothes. Those remaining as members in the Scottish Branch office don’t want to replace Kezia though. She’s “doing a great job” Aye Right nobody else will take it.

    I don’t know who’s pulling her strings but somebody is, looks like it’s somebody leading them to oblivion, obviously an SNP plant like Labour for Independence?

    I don’t think these people have repect for themselves never mind the electorate. Few will mourn their loss.
    S

  28. Dan Huil
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour in Scotland still have their friends ensconced in the bbc.

  29. velofello
    Ignored
    says:

    “The older I get the better I was at sport”, SLAB are in residual memory of the heady days of Gordon Brown, Robin Cook etc. It’s over SLAB. Those of us old enough to remember know better your claimed performance, and the young aren’t listening to you. You were and are a sham.

    And the BBC are promoting the “career” of Tomkins, he comes in a distant third at the Holyrood elections, 14,500 votes behind, 14% of the vote. His leader Ruthie, has to lie low for a while – “Brexit No, Brexit Yes, shake it all about” – consequentials, and so tactically Tomkins is pressed into service to carry the banner to fortress BBC Pacific.

    As Peter states above a major concern of the voting systems imposed upon us, whereby persons substantially rejected at the polls find themselves a cumfty seat due to D’hondt maths at Hollyrood, and STV maths at council elections. First Past the Post isn’t satisfactory either. There is work to be done on a democratic voting system that properly represents the electorate’s wishes.

  30. Vestas
    Ignored
    says:

    As long as BBC Shortbread exists, so will SLAB.

  31. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    The Tories are benefitting, but by being the single issue Ruth Davidson No Surrender Party and pretending they are THE Conservatives.

    Article 50 and perhaps some indications of just how big a shite storm Ruth’s party have brought down upon us will be evident by the council election. She cannot sidestep who and what she is forever.

    I think gains made by the Tories are unstable. Where will these voters go? Abstain perhaps.

  32. Jack Collatin
    Ignored
    says:

    As I observe elsewhere, BBC Scotland headline with Kezia Dugdale’s Federalism, true blue Unionist, UK Yes, EU Non, nonsense at lunchtime. Andrew Kerr looked like a right tube attempting to front this piece of madness emanating from this seriously flawed woman, leader of the tattered remnants of the Branch Office.
    She openly defied Corbyn, she’s pro Trident although Scottish Conference voted against it, she ‘campaigned’ for Remain, but now is a committed proponent of Arch Right Wing True Blue Imperialist Tory Hard, Red White and Blue, Brexit, and wants her fellow Scots to sit on our hands,let it all happen, with the promise of a constitutional convention in a few years time to arrive at her answer, a Federal UK; that would be the claptrap which England, that’s 85% of her precious UK electorate, rejected.
    She is a walking embarrassment, and it showed on Kerr’s face.
    Their membership up here numbers in the thousands, even with the Corbyn bounce. They have no leader, their only MP has been ostracised by the Corbyn mafia, and the UK Party has foisted an English MP on Scotland as Shadow SoS.
    Mundell Davidson Fraser Carlaw and Two Jobs Tomkins and their Dim But Nice LisTory Boys should be peas in a barrel for any Left Wing Party.
    Not Dugdale, Baillie, Lamont, Gray, Kelly, Rawley, Findlay, Mara, and Co.
    They can hardly attack the Blue Tories and their destruction of Social Democracy.
    They are the Devil’s spawn of Blair and Brown’s New Labour neo conservatives, and therefore cannot lay a glove on Tories of another hue. The Blue Tories, the Red Tories; it makes no difference. Preserving the corrupt crumbling Union trumps everything else, not least the wellbeing of the citizens of Scotland.
    As for staff at BBC Scotland and the Dead Tree Scrolls. You are fast becoming an irreversible laughing stock for propping these idiots up.

  33. Graf Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    Everyone is (rightly) piling in to the front person of Kez who is being led around like a bull with a nose-ring. She’s nice but oh so gullible.

    Even if you made her suddenly disappear in a cloud of smoke, you’d still get the horrific view of those standing behind her.
    The Ballie, Gray, Kelly (spit), Sarwar, Findley…. etc. As big a crew of losers and rejects as ever walked the Earth.

    That’s all they’ve got, regurgitated vomit.

    In May – SNP/SNP/SNP/SNP.

    NEVER put a X beside any non-indy person. If they don’t have a X (vote) it can’t be counted to them. The less votes they receive the less chance they have in the later stages of the count. Amen.

  34. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Re. Dr Scott Arthur and his perception of what progressive policy requires. He appears ignorant of basic concepts, such as the integral link between human rights and social justice. Or that it is highly unlikely that development will ever be brought under the rule-of-law in medievalist Britain (and the nepotism and corruption that flows from Monarchy, Palaces of Westminster and the Corporation of the City of London).

    “The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.” (Article 1.1, Declaration on the Right to Development)

    “The human right to development also implies the full realization of the right of peoples to self-determination, which includes, subject to the relevant provisions of both International Covenants on Human Rights, the exercise of their inalienable right to full sovereignty over all their natural wealth and resources.” (Article 1.2)

    http://www.un.org/en/events/righttodevelopment/pdf/rtd_at_a_glance.pdf

    @Dr Scott Arthur
    It helps if you understand something before attempting to persuade others of your opinion. Ken fit eh mean?

  35. cynacalHighlander
    Ignored
    says:

    The Labour branch in Scotland.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMZlr5Gf9yY

  36. jimnarlene
    Ignored
    says:

    “Labour” will just put up one candidate, in every ward, come the local elections; the name of that candidate, the BBC.

  37. Clapper57
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh FFS Labour…………is there no end to this shit that is being shoveled onto the shit that has been shoveled onto the shit that has been shoveled onto the shit that has been shoveled onto the shit that has been shoveled onto the shit….No?……Thought not……oh shit !!!!

  38. Blair Paterson
    Ignored
    says:

    Anyone who votes for any of the unionist parties in Scoland will be voting to lose all the things,that the S.N.P. Has done to improve the lives of the working people in Scotland free student fees free prescriptions care for the elderly etc., and above all a compassion to help and keep doing things to help the people of Scotland a thing the so called people’s party was founded on but never ever delivered they became Lords Ladies andDames etc.,some would say the highest of the high I would say the lowest of the low aye the truth hurts ?

  39. Rev. Stuart Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    “Why is anyone even talking about SLabour anymore? Seriously?”

    WE DID A POLL.

  40. ronnie anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    That Peter Russell has hud ah rush of blood tae the heid, thats whit happens when yer stawnin oan yer heid. Scott Arthur no worth ah comment

  41. ronnie anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Robert Peffers was the Queen mothers estate not inherited by prince charles

  42. ronnie anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    The BLIS will be thinking that somebody’s practicing the black arts (Ju Ju) against them an sticking pins in, its no me btw , pass me ah assagie.

  43. MJT
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve read all the links and the Alex Arthur Herald article twice through and I had to re-read certain paragraphs a few times more just to make sure he’s saying what I think he’s saying.

    He writes:
    “Seven months after our defeat the support we lost to the Nationalists is beginning to wake up the SNP’s indifference to social justice…”

    I mean has he put cameras in folks alarm clocks or something? How does he know folks are waking up to the SNP’s indifference to Social Justice? Where’s the evidence?

    He also writes:
    “It’s also clear to me that Labour’s recovery shouldn’t be about right versus left, or rich versus poor. It must be about convincing everyone that social justice is in their interest”

    Aye, so what about the 184 Labour MPs who didnae vote against the Tory’s 2015 Welfare Bill that cut welfare spending by £12 Billion?

    If I was running BBC Scotland I’d have Scott Arthur in the studio and I’d put him through his paces. The whole article is utter pish.

    I woke up this morning and realized I was the best looking gadgie in Glasgow. Didnae even look in the mirror. When Fonzie jumped the shark at least it was in the good name of entertainment.

  44. bugsbunny
    Ignored
    says:

    John McKay last year Oil Price Down SNP BAD. Just now Oil Prices UP SNP BAD.

    You can’t f**king win.

    P.S. Folks die in Hospital SNP BAD. FFS.

  45. mike d
    Ignored
    says:

    0/t just on our local meridian news.a woman is describing how her terminally ill mother lay in an ambulance for hours outside portsmouth’s queen alexandria hospital on new years day . she described the a@e as in meltdown. I wonder if it was nicola sturgeons fault?

  46. Truth
    Ignored
    says:

    All empires come to an end.

    The arrogant, entitled, and aloof ones usually quicker than others. Labour of course mix that with compete incompetence and an inability to see themselves as others see them.

    I don’t she’d a tear for them. I have never voted for them since I was first able to vote well over 20 years ago.

    I’m only glad that others can see now what I saw then.

  47. Giving Goose
    Ignored
    says:

    Rev et al

    We continue to need to see articles on Labour.

    Because it’s a looking glass into the Unionist mindset.

  48. James Caithness
    Ignored
    says:

    Scott Arthur claims in his ”ADENDA article” that labour has revamped the NHS and built schools on an industrial scale (or words to that affect).

    The NHS Hospital and Schools built on PFI contracts are going to cost us 000’s of billions in repayments, and the schools are falling down. How long before Hospitals will degrade?

    I bet noone at the BBC or the Unionist media will ask that of Scott Arthur.

  49. donald anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour always was despicable, even in its “Glory Days”. They were always poor sub rate Tories and lumpen numpties.

  50. Phil
    Ignored
    says:

    How much longer will the unions continue to pour funds into Scottish Labour with next to no return on their investment?

  51. Andy smith
    Ignored
    says:

    Graf midgehunter,
    Agree with all you say,apart from stating that kezia is ‘nice’.
    Anyone putting their own career before the interests of the people of this nation is anything but!

  52. bugsbunny
    Ignored
    says:

    Ronnie Anderson,

    If you mean the Castle of Mey near Thurso, then I’m pretty sure Prince Charles inherited that from his Grandmother? He visits it for a couple of days every August.

  53. Walter Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    They will only exist in the dreams of their followers soon. The trouble is this; After recently watching the film about BBC bias,did I realise how intermingled, intertwined and even intermarried Labour party apparatchiks, members, msp’s, mp’s & officials are to employees of the BBC in Scotland. So, even after they die as a political force they’ll be kept “relevant” by their friends and relations at the corporation.

  54. MJT
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T

    Someone just popped a link on twitter to last nights Newsnight piece on sanctions. A short video on the streets of Accrington, followed by a short debate with Ken Loach and Matthew Oakley, director of WPI economics.

    It’s 19 mins long and hard to watch for lots of reasons. Utterly depressing. Oakley states that the vast majority of people are in favour of sanctions. Are they? He also sort of half sidesteps half defends the assertion by Loach that people who work in Job Centres are given targets.

    I just can’t allow myself to think that the people of Scotland want this, or wish this on their fellow human beings.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Yw8v_hLWE&feature=youtu.be&a

  55. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour…?!?

    Seriously, what are they useful for? What is the point of them?

    We want poowwwer because…

    They’ve betrayed everything and everyone they ever stood for. They’ve jumped into bed beside the conservatives time and again when the choice between state and people came to the fore and don’t get me started on the carnage they’ve unleashed on Scotland because of their actions throughout the indyref campaign and beyond.

    As for their claim to be socialists? Uh huh! And their excuse for dealing with tories to freeze out possible SNP council wins is what precisely? What socialist worth the name would willingly plot with Conservatives against any kind of social democrats? Scratch that. What kind of socialist would plot with a Conservative at all?

    The answer to that is pretty much all you need to know about Labour in Scotland.

  56. Craig
    Ignored
    says:

    Graf Midgehunter,

    Just so nonobody gets confused, well not be voting with an X. I think it’s a preference vote in May and we should mark the Indy candidate(s) with a number, in your preferred order and no number next to unionists.

    If we wish to maximise our Indy councillors we may wish to vote in tandem with someone of similar mind and alternate the vertical direction of numbering your choice(s). Most folk vote on the ballot paper top to bottom and skews the vote share if multiple Indy candidates are standing.

    The leftover transferable votes from the first winning candidate are available to a candidate from the same party but are reduced. Any avoidance of lost votes to a transfer may come in handy at the latter stages.

    Not a big fan of tactical voting, but needs must sometimes, it’s going to be a tight race here.

    Oh, and labour, boo.

  57. JLT
    Ignored
    says:

    When I read the BBC’s article about Kezia’s new ‘fantasy’ (for surely …that is what it is! Fantasy! If you think about it, Scottish Independence is far, far more likely to happen than a federalised UK) …I just shook my head in disbelief. This woman is utterly clueless in history, politics or even spelling the word ‘strategy’.

    Federalism was never an English concept; it was a Scottish one, and still is. I’ve heard no English MP banging the table demanding Federalism …it only comes from Scottish Labour. The closest we’ve got to it from a senior Labour politician was from Gordon Brown himself in the final days of the 2014 Referendum. And just like Labour in the past when it came to things like ‘Home Rule’ …the moment Labour gained power, the promises (and like Brown himself on the morning for the 2014 result) …all disappeared into the ether.

    Simply put, Scottish Labour are bricking it. It’s now been a decade since they were last in power, and in that time, a generation of kids have come of age that only know Alex and Nicola. They won’t remember McConnell, McLeish or Dewar. In fact, ask them quietly what they know of Scottish Labour, and they’ll probably just shrug their shoulders in bafflement.

    As to Sarwar. If he succeeds Kezia, then that is just a new world of woe and pain for SLAB as 50% of the nation absolutely detest this weasely lying toe-rag. Kezia is tolerated (just). Sarwar will never be. What is left of the Scottish Labour support will walk in droves.

    As Stuart says, they’ve learned nothing from 2007, 2011, 2014, 2015 and 2016. In the modern era, they are the most stupidest party that ever existed. Led by one idiot after another, the rest follow in their wake never learning. You would have thought that by now …someone, somewhere in the party …should have had an epiphany where SLAB would be reborn in an independent Scotland. But nope. They stick to traditional concepts of the 1920’s and 1930’s, while backing their other party members who sit in Westminster, and who for many of them down there, are millionaires, titled lords or ruthless businessmen wondering how to twist the knife even further into middle and working class families. They just CANNOT see the irony!

    Scottish Labour …more like Scottish Joke …but, the only problem is …no-one’s laughing.

  58. Sue Varley
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dr Jim

    Brilliant imagery. Wondering if the slacker Moodie is reading?

  59. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Is Anas Sarwar even stupider than Kezia Dugdale
    SO STAYING IN HOSPITAL KILLED THEM?
    It would be hard to describe how absolutely appalled I am by the latest behaviour of Scottish Labour. Is there no depths to which it will not sink? And does it actually believe that it is talking to a nation of idiots. They are shouting that over the last eighteen months apparently very month an average of about 38 very ill people who were waiting for discharged from our hospitals died before they were discharged . I sure that the same or worse was the case in the previous eighteen months. And the eighteen months before that and so on. Sadly the Labour Party are trying to make some political capital out of this. Apart from conflating the bed blocking situation with the case of terminally ill people there is a much more serious issue here. Does Anas Sarwar and the Labour Party understand what they are saying? They are actually suggesting that these people would have survived had they been discharged from hospital.
    Can I repeat that? They are suggesting that very ill people died because they still were in hospital. That being in our hospitals contributed to their deaths. What an insult to our hard working hospitals. And what an insult to our intelligence. Is it any wonder that Tories are flying ahead of Labour in Scotland?

  60. ScottieDog
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour is clinically dead. It only has a pulse thanks to the Scottish media.

  61. Willie John
    Ignored
    says:

    My fear is that in May when we wake up after the local elections we find that Labour has indeed lost control of many councils, but that those elected are the same individuals who have simply rebranded themselves as ‘Independents’.

    No change then, nowt to see here.

  62. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Great read. Columnist Dr NO! is a crackpot but that’s not uncommon in the ivory tower that is wacademia. He was especially tawdry monstering the baby boxes via Scots.gov. Not a peep out of Dr No! or any yoon culture in Scotland, when England did it in October too,

    http://www.itv.com/news/central/2016-10-20/baby-boxes-to-be-handed-out-to-new-parents-in-the-midlands/

    Scott Arthur ?@DrScottThinks Jan 3
    Scotland on the Baby Box:
    5% – It’s an SNP idea, so is perfect.
    5% – It’s an SNP idea, so is crap
    90% – Great idea, but what’s the aim?

  63. Brian MacLeod
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s not the SNP hating them that should bother Labour.

    It’s all us ex Labour voters they need to worry about hating them. And yes , we support independence – just like Labour used to.

    The Labour Party forgot they were here to serve us, not their own corporate brand.

  64. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    BLiS are taking orders from the likes of Foulkes and the other Blairite rejects in the HoL for the promise of similar titles and baubles.

    There can be no other reason for this continued pish about Union & Federalism.

    The BLiS ex MPs/MSPs getting £300 a day, subsidised food and booze will be run out of the HoL by the English Lords the day after Independence.

    They know it.

    I also believe that when the UK ceases to exist these BLiS liggers along with all the other Unionist Scots who say they are British (because they confuse it as a nationality rather than a geographical term) and who refuse to consider themselves Scots will mentally find themselves Stateless and wont be able to cope with this situation (think Batshit Jill)

  65. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    bugsbunny @ 6.41 & Ronnie Anderson
    Re The Castle of Mey and/or Glamis Castle
    Real question is where did the queen mother get them from in the first place?

  66. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Its no just SLAB. I heard Margaret Becket on the radio two or three weeks back, when asked what socialism was said, I kid you not, ‘The greatest good for the greatest number.” the Utilitarian doctrine.

    JSM spinning in his grave.

    (Somebody haud CammyB back).

  67. brewsed
    Ignored
    says:

    On Twitter, Alan Ferrier posted a link to a blog by the departed Ian Bell on http://prosperoinc.blogspot.co.uk/ The final paragraph reads…

    “We can live without a Labour Party. I’m not sure we can live without the beliefs that first brought Labour to birth. When that party remembers as much, our politics will be respectable again. But I won’t hold my breath. The important thing about those old, departed folk is that they didn’t think for half a minute they were being radical. They believed they were being human.”

    ’nuff said.

  68. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    The last part of the ITV baby box report in England is very moving, especially considering the monstering the idea in Scotland has taken from SLab twerps, like Dr NO!

    “Young mum-to-be Katie Webb lost her baby daughter in March this year aged only 17 days.

    She recalled:“I’ve gone back over the day before and absolutely nothing stood out. She watched me tidying the room, and had a good feed before I changed her nappy and we had a cuddle. I put her down to sleep and sang her a nursery rhyme. I had looked for nursery rhymes online so I could sing to her. She snuggled down and went to sleep. I remember waking up and thinking it was unusual she hadn’t woken me, then when I looked at her and touched her I knew something was badly wrong. The rest of it is very hazy. I can’t describe what happened then.

    All I know is I lost my baby girl, and I want her back. My birthday was in August, and I remember thinking, there is nothing in the world I want for my birthday, all I want is to have her warm in my arms.

    “The Baby Box is very, very close to my heart. I am expecting my baby son in March next year, so anything that will help me keep him safe is good.”
    Last updated Thu 20 Oct 2016

  69. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Dr NO! hopeless at satire too, shock. We are probably doomed under tory reign. It really doesnt get much worse for Scotland than this, unless JC gets back in, the Lab leader Dr NO!, Kez etc loath anyway.

    Scott Arthur Retweeted
    Scott Arthur ?@DrScottThinks 7h7 hours ago
    Scott Arthur Retweeted Pete Wishart
    Marooned? We’re doomed I tell you! #ProjectFear ;-)Scott Arthur added,

    Pete Wishart @PeteWishart
    @struthseeker72 I’m worried about Brexit because it will leave my nation marooned & isolated on this island governed by right wing Tories

  70. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick McGregor
    I’m counting to ten Chic but it does indicate a utilitarian and possibly even a Malthusian perspective. I wonder if she is CoE? 🙂

  71. Hoss Mackintosh
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T

    Some more trouble at the Scotsman.

    Another high heid yin leaves the sinking ship just before their bicentenary.

    https://archive.is/8NEY1

    Will 200 years be their last?

  72. Alan Crerar
    Ignored
    says:

    First when Labour haemorrhaged votes to the SNP, we got the socialists angry at their party for making no progress towards a more caring society, we got the anti-war protesters, we got the no-privatisationers, we got the no-nukes and no-frackers. In other words the ones with a social conscience capable of thinking things through.
    Now, the Labour Unionists are deserting the party for the Tories – but what are the Tories getting? I am acquainted with some of my local Conservative Party organisers, and while I wouldn’t call them particularly empathic, they (old money) still retain a vestige of noblese oblige. The new intake of Labour bovver boys and Orange Order thugs will not sit well at that table!

  73. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick McGregor
    It is also how communist morals justify communism’s disregard for human rights, unless they support the communist ideology. Is Margaret Becket an English Christian Bolshevik. 🙂

  74. robertknight
    Ignored
    says:

    The Scottish Dead Parrot Party…

    1 MP
    2 MEPs
    3 Constituency MSPs
    20 Regional List MSPs
    396 Councillors
    18,824 Members

    The lot of them couldn’t fill Easter Road Stadium.

    What is Scottish Labour for exactly? Oh yes, reminding the rest of us why we vote SNP.

  75. Graf Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t think I’ll ever really understand what CameronB Brodie says. 🙁

    Now it’s Maltoo er.. Mailthuf uhm.. Malatuf.. (heavy sigh!)

  76. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Graf Midgehunter
    That makes two of us Graf. 😉

  77. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    robertknight at 8.33

    The Labour Party in Scotland has nothing like 18,824 members. My wife who has been a member of the SNP since the mid sixties was counted as a Labour member and was allowed to vote in their internal elections because of her trade union membership. That figure of 18,824 members includes trade union members and social club members. Three years ago Gerry Hasson worked out from membership receipts that their actual membership was about 6,000 and it will be lower now.

  78. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    Dave McEwan Hill says:

    5 January, 2017 at 7:41 pm

    Is Anas Sarwar even stupider than Kezia Dugdale?

    Yes, by a long shot.

    And that is precisely why he will be the next Scottish Branch Manager. Just when you thought things could not get anyone worse for Labour. Along comes Anas Sarwar.

    More popcorn ordered. 🙂

  79. Graeme Doig
    Ignored
    says:

    No conviction, no integrity, no leadership, no talent. The only thing labour is any good at is having absolutely nothing to offer Scotland.

    Am I the only one surprised there has been little in the way of notable ship jumping yet.

  80. bugsbunny
    Ignored
    says:

    RobertKnight,

    Who is the 3rd constituency Labour MSP? Ian Grey for East Lothian, Jackie Baillie for Dumbarton. Who is the third?

  81. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T
    The next time anyone criticises the A&E figures for our NHS Scotland just let them know that 650 people had to wait over 12 hours to be treated in N Ireland’s A&E over the Christmas period.
    That means only 67.5% were seen within the 4 hour target.
    Of course, we know it’s Nicola’s fault really! The article was just too polite to say so.

    On a lighter note I have it on excellent authority that earlier this week (i.e. 2nd or 3rd Jan 2017) the front page of the Daily Express informed its readers that they could read everything that was lined up for them ‘ In their stars, for 2016 ‘ Ooops!

    Just in case they’d forgotten, I suppose!

  82. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour have a problem. They know they have a problem but none of the possible answers appeals to them. They are essentially stuck in a loop and are profoundly frustrated hence we get all the insults. The electorate are dupes, the SNP are a cult, the SNP are incompetent etc. etc.

    I can’t see an easy solution for them. It isn’t specifically Kezia either. Any leader would be dealing with the same issues and fighting on all fronts including within the PLP.

    That said I think Ruth has a problem with the whole Brexit and anti-EU crowd within the Tories. She has not been so chirpy since she has been pulled in two directions by her own lot.

  83. Beor
    Ignored
    says:

    The dismal situation of Labour at the start of the 21st century puts me very much in mind of the fate of the Radicals in Scotland at the end of the 19th.

    The overwhelming dominance of the “Tories” in Scotland in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries can be ascribed to a tiny electorate and a policy of outsourcing of Scotland’s governance by the Tory Whigs to Dundas and his ilk who had free reign to run the country as effectively a personal fiefdom.

    I say Tory Whigs because by the mid eighteenth century the historical royalist and Jacobite Tories no longer existed anywhere in the UK and the label “Tory” was applied as an insult by Foxite Whigs to the Pitt/Lord North faction who were close to the court.

    The introduction of the Scottish equivalent of the Great Reform Bill in 1832 led to an expansion of the electorate by around thirteenfold (compared to an expansion of around sixty percent in England and Wales). This spelled the end of “Tory” dominance in Scotland and an almost total full-spectrum dominance of the Whigs and Radicals.

    This situation continued until 1886 and Liberal schism over Home Rule in Ireland. Perhaps oddly the majority of the Radicals within the Liberal Party opposed Irish Home Rule and threw in their lot with the landowning Whigs to form the Liberal Unionists. That the landowning Whigs were anti Home Rule is unsurprising given their extensive possessions in Ireland. However the Radical commitment to Unionism would ultimately prove to be their demise being subsumed into the Tory party, in England and Wales in 1912 and in Scotland in 1965 (having died an ideological death well before).

    The upshot was however a curious beast that included historical aristocratic Whigs from the countryside allied to the urban Radicals personified by firebrands such as Joseph Chamberlain in Birmingham but also in many urban centres such as Glasgow and the Central Belt in Scotland. This was a mismatch that, gave life to a political opposition in Scotland and in many elections there were only two candidates in Scottish seats; a Liberal and a Liberal Unionist.

    Having made a pact with the devil over Unionism the influence of the Scottish Radicals declined inexorably over the decades until nary a scrap was left by the time the Scottish Unionist Party committed suicide in 1965.

    The analogy of course is far from perfect but it should serve as a signal warning to Labour in Scotland about hitching their wagon to the cause of Unionism – Unionism will inevitably become the most important policy, the rest will fade and ultimately there will be no difference between Labour in Scotland and the Tories neither in rhetoric nor substance. The process is already well in progress – and Labour will not survive to the end of it.

  84. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @ronnie anderson says: 5 January, 2017 at 5:43 pm:

    “@ Robert Peffers was the Queen mothers estate not inherited by prince Charles”

    You may be right, Ronnie. However, as per how these things seem to work the Late Queen Mother was a Bowes-Lyon and this is a cut & Paste from her biography :-

    “The Queen Mother Elizabeth was born Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon on August 4, 1900. She was the ninth child and fourth daughter of Claude Bowes-Lyon, Lord Glamis, and his wife, Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck.”

    So the Bowes-Lyon heir would be the first born son and the main family estate, in Scotland, would be Glamis Castle.
    As the ninth child, and a daughter, she would have been well down the line as heir to the estate.

    I’m not sure if the Castle of May is Crown Estate or private estate and the Bowes-Lyons had estates in Hertfordshire in England and probably other estates as well.

  85. Cadogan Enright
    Ignored
    says:

    Graf Midgehunter says:5 January, 2017 at 5:30 pm

    Its 1, 2, 3 this time not X in the local elections

    IMO. (And have been in many such elections) The correct way for Yessers to vote is to continue voting for the Yes person of their choice both SNP and Green or even the odd Labour pro yes councillor at 4 or 5 AND keep on voting all the way down the list making sure the most odious of the Tammany Hall candidates are 10 or 11 or what ever number is the end of the list if there were 11 candidates in that multi-seat area.

    The correct way for SNP voters to vote (assuming the local party branch has correctly computed the quota) is to follow the direction on who should be 1, 2, or 3 in their part of the electoral area to ensure no one SNP candidate massively exceeds the quota and wastes votes thus making a trailing SNP candidate Fail to get in and thus let in a red/yellow/blue tory in. THEN SNP voters should continue as above with Green or whatever putting the local Tammany Hall nasty right at the bottom of the list as above

    Never stop voting at 2 or 3 or 4 – keep going as it is surprising the difference it can make at the end of the transfers for the last seat

  86. Roughian
    Ignored
    says:

    I wonder if the “true blue” unionist would vote Labour if Anas Sarwar was their leader? Just remember George Square on the 19/9/2014.

  87. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    “The electorate are dupes, the SNP are a cult, the SNP are incompetent etc. etc.”

    Its more fundamental than that though. Just as filthy rich tories know exactly who to vote for, the rest of us can also see why. New Labour showed everyone what they really are and its not for any real change in the UK, ever.

    Sweden’s state pension is now over £27k a year. UK’s dropped under £7k. Mind how Gordon Brown terrorised Scots pensioners 2014, that they’d lose their pension, if they voted Yes.

  88. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @ronnie anderson says: 5 January, 2017 at 5:43 pm:

    “@ Robert Peffers was the Queen mothers estate not inherited by prince Charles”

    Ah! It started to come back to me, Ronnie. That the late Queen Mother bought the Castle of Mey. I did a quick Google and sure enough she had. :-

    “In 1952, HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother saw what was then known as Barrogill Castle while staying with Commander and Lady Doris Vyner at the House of the Northern Gate on Dunnet Head, a short distance to the west.

    Despite its poor condition, Her Majesty purchased the castle that year and set about renovating and restoring both the castle and its gardens and parklands, which extended to about 30 acres. She also restored the castle’s original name, changing Barrogill Castle back to The Castle of Mey.

    So it is not part of the Crown Estates but is private property. So it depends on who the Late Queen Mother left it to in her will. As it was not a heritable property, (which would go with the title), it depends upon who the late Queen mother left it to. In any case, even if it went to her daughter the present Queen, Charles is her heir.

  89. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Giving Goose says: 5 January, 2017 at 6:27 pm:

    “We continue to need to see articles on Labour.
    Because it’s a looking glass into the Unionist mindset.”

    Whit! Ye mean Labour hae a mind-set?

    Wha kent?

    Onywey! No a muckle bonnie sicht ava, leukin back at ye frae oot the seein gless.

  90. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    Heedtracker

    Yes the politics of the last 20 years have left a complicated trail for Labour and many are unhappy with them for a great many reasons. The thing is though the activists still seem to blaming the electorate or the SNP or anything but their own track record. The sense of frustrated entitlement and “the electorate will come to their senses” still runs strong.

  91. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Everytime you look at SLab,

    Duncan Hothersall ?@dhothersall 7h7 hours ago
    Great news from @tonyblairoffice.

    Tony Blair Office ?@tonyblairoffice Jan 4
    Latest financial statements published today show TB gifted nearly £9.3m to his new not for profit organisation:

    Mirror, “Tony Blair is to pump almost £10million into his new not-for-profit company which will fight extremist politics around the world.”

    Why him and Brown are not in the Hague war crimes court says a fuck of lot more about how the UK works than donating £10m to yourself.
    Why not give it to refugees from the middle east that they helped destroy, then give themselves up to the Hague courts.

  92. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Liz g says: 5 January, 2017 at 7:57 pm:

    “Re The Castle of Mey and/or Glamis Castle
    Real question is where did the queen mother get them from in the first place?”

    Glamis was her birthplace and her families Scottish Estate. It goes with the title of her father. As she was the ninth child and probably did not inherit the title I’ve no idea how, or if she actually ever owned it.

    She bought a very run down Mey in 1952 and set about getting it renovated.

    Glamis may be Crown Estate, but I do not know if it is. If it is crown estate then, under Scots law, the people of Scotland own it.

    Westminster took the Scottish Crown Estates Trust away from Edinburgh in the early 1800s and absorbed them along with the English/Welsh/Irish Crown estates but I believe that could only legally be for administration purposes and they would revert back to Scotland on independence. Yet another reason for Westminster to cling onto Scotland.

  93. ian m
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour too wee, too poor and too stupit.
    Labour do not have the DNA to rule

    Just a wee bit of paraphrasing

    Those Billboards could maybe start reminding the public about all the nice things that Westminster has done to/for Scotland since the great love in

  94. Tackety Beets
    Ignored
    says:

    Long day at work today so only speed read above.

    I appreciate DMH & other touched on it earlier. Sorry if duplication.

    However I feel it deserves repeating.

    I have food whilst listening to Miss-Reporting Scotland. For those who canna watch it includes these statements.

    Sally M “Nearly 700 patients died in hospital while awaiting discharge”

    Shortly later we move to a report from Revelled Anderson ( I generally held him in “fair” regard ’til now)as he states:

    “In a 19 month period almost 700 hundred patients died in hospital , altho’ judged FIT enough to be discharged”
    he then goes on to quote figures about areas etc like 25% were in Grampian etc etc

    I played it back after typing and those were the words used.

  95. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Ah, here it is, 4th January (Scotsman):

    A consultation on how the Crown Estate should be run north of the border is a “genuine opportunity to change the fabric of Scottish society”, Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham has said.

    Hence the reason probably for the Orkney consultation due Feb 8th on more self-determination – or at least a part of it.

  96. Graf Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Cadogan Enright

    Yes you’re right with 1 2 3 etc., I was a bit sloppy and generalised too much. Sorry.

    Otherwise I think we’re both thinking the same:

    “NEVER put a X (1 2 3..!) beside any non-indy person

    What I was clumsily trying to say was, there are two ways to win.

    1 Get as many votes as possible so as to dominate the counting stages and win.

    2 Deny your opponents getting so many votes that they can’t bridge the gap and so lose.

    Too many people still think that they are duty bound to use up all of their allowable preferences so that when they’ve voted for their favourites, e.g. 1. SNP 2. Green, they continue with e.g. 3. Libdem 4. Lab. 5. Con.

    Afer 1 and 2 they should just stop so that the “Indies” get counted but the others are denied a vote that might otherwise have tipped the balance.

    Hope I’ve explained it better..! 🙂

  97. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Re. BLiS___d providing an insight into Yoonism and how it is simply the electorate who are wrong.

    We are blessed with a rich literature about cults and how they operate. For example, an important contribution in 2000 by Dennis Tourish and Tim Wohlforth entitled On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left, states that political cults prey on dysfunctional political systems and ‘inject the venom of hatred into the injured body of political discourse’…..

    http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2016/09/24/the-cult-paradox/

  98. Gary45%
    Ignored
    says:

    As said before on previous posts, the Labour party had the chance to go into coalition with the SNP in the 2015 election.
    It is obvious the English nationals did not want the Scots in any form of coalition government ruling them. (Hence we got the Tories.)
    Typical Red Tory bleating, mismanagement, misgoverning, total inability to do anything resembling sense, that sort of sums up the Labour party.
    As for the Tories getting votes from Labour in Scotland, hell mend the lot of them if they go down that road, I will have NO sympathy for anyone in Scotland who buys into Ruthie Jong Un’s lies and believes the rest of her lying incapable party, when the sh*t hits the fan and they are living on the streets,I will happily step over them.

  99. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Cadogan Enright

    Sorry my friend but can’t disagree, if you want any possibility of electing one in May 2017 then by all means give them a vote after your second, third choice whatever.

    However do not give them a sniff of a vote if your aim is to keep the Unionists out of your local council. Only vote for Independence supporting parties that is your goal.

    The Unionists can’t rely on getting in the back door if you don’t give them ANY of your votes then they have nothing extra to count against an Indy party. I will only vote for pro-indy candidates who are not members of Labour, Tories or Lib Dems. Nor Independents who masquerade as something else but are really red, blue or yellow Tories.

    Before the election, if you care enough then you will be able to work out which candidates you should give a vote to. At least that is how I see it.

    So NEVER vote for a Unionist. Feel free to differ.

  100. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Tongue tied again, can’t agree not can’t disagree.

  101. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    HandandShrimp says:
    5 January, 2017 at 10:18 pm
    Heedtracker

    They’re still BBC Scotland though. That’s got to be a massive boost for the old style SLab right to reign over Scots politics. England’s told JC bad, well worse than bad by BBC. Scotland’s told Dugdale’s FM in waiting by BBC. Talk about mixed messages.

    They must know that though, sitting round their executive planner desks in Pacific Quay, conference calling Broadcasting House, working out their daily Sturgeon monstering, in their £5k Hugo Boss suits.

  102. Phronesis
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘I say to the doubters, judge us after ten years in office. For one of the fruits of that success will be that Britain has become a more equal society. However, we will achieved that result by many different routes, not just the redistribution of cash from rich to poor, which others choose as their own limited egalitarianism’ Peter Mandelson Labour’s Next Steps; Tackling Social Exclusion, Speech to the Fabian Society, 1997- quoted from Dorling ‘Unequal Health’

    Of course the next steps didn’t quite take UKOK on that direction of travel. Under New Labour and beyond we have been propelled towards widening inequalities and Scotland continues to be a democratic irrelevance. By failing to intervene in unregulated financial markets, funding illegal wars, raiding pension pots, privatising state assets, depleting the social housing stock, undermining the NHS, colluding in squandering the wealth created from a vast natural resource,regressive taxation and legalising tax evasion over many decades, high unemployment and negative job creation UKOK has effectively laid the foundation for the segregation of health, wealth and income on which the current WM regime will build their isolationist empire for the 1%.

    The only thing that’s more distasteful than having no aspiration for Scotland is perpetually campaigning against those who do.

  103. crazycat
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s James Kelly’s advice for the council elections:

    http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/why-its-important-to-give-your-lower.html

    I couldn’t bring myself to vote for any unionist candidates, but I think he presents his views quite well.

  104. crazycat
    Ignored
    says:

    @ bugsbunny at 9.22

    The third SLab constituency MSP is Daniel Johnson in Edinburgh Southern.

  105. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Graf Midgehunter
    That’s certainly safe, but as long as people have put SNP and Green 1,2, 3, (4) and then any other pro-Indy candidates, further preferences aren’t even looked at until all those top preferences have been either elected or eliminated.

    So it means people could use the 5th preference to take their pick of the others, not all of whom might be anti-Indy but might be more community minded. I know of one in a neighbouring ward who’s an Independent, no idea which way she voted in the Ref, but votes for local issues and not with any party. I don’t always agree with her, but she has principles.

    It’s all down to local knowledge of the ward, not even just the council. Though it’s better to have a non-partisan councillor in the council than a rabidly anti-SNP and anti-Independence councillor. who will use their position to get publicity against both the SNP and Indy.

    I think it will be very rare the SNP will run more than two candidates in say a 4 seat ward. Only if their reliable support is well more than 50%.

  106. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @crazycat

    James Kelly I think says it better than I could, however like you I will not be voting for any Unionist. I will put a vote against an Independent if I’m certain he would support the SNP in forming a council and in my ward that is the case.

    So in my case my vote is likely to be SNP/SNP/Ind/Grn STOP.

  107. Ealasaid
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh Joy! I see from Dr Scott Arthur’s piece that he is standing in my constituency and I will have the pleasure of voting down both the Tories and himself. I will get to the polling station to do that if I have to get there on my hands and knees.

    I don’t give much for his chances as we already have the SNP MP, MSP and I think councillor. The tories will have more chance than he has. But I enjoy seeing the saltire and yes stickers on the windows as I get the bus through the area. I thought there were less on one house than before, but then realised that I had the wrong house and the stickers were spreading down the street. 🙂

  108. Cadogan Enright
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Graf Midgehunter 10.42 and Thepnr 10.54

    I think if you so a bit more research as to how STV voting systems work in multi seat constituencies you will see that I am right.

    It is important that

    1. SNP voters ‘spread’ their preferences according to a well worked out plan for each electoral area to make sure they always get 2 or 3 or more elected in each electoral area TNEN continue for other YESSERS

    2. It is important that all other Yessers continue after their no 1 to the SNP and vote them all in turn according to the SNP plan for that part of the area (IE 2, 3 and 4 – rather that 1,2 and 3)

    3. It is important that both the above groups continue voting down the list – as you could bring in a lame duck instead of the Labour Council leader or top Tory hitman who should always be at the bottom.

    With a bit of luck the Rev will do figures for us before may on the best way of doing it

    Compare the discipline of SF to the SDLP in ‘balancing’ first preferences in my home town of Derry – which meant they were avle to bring in more candidates with fewer votes – being careful to ensure that noone excessively exceeded the quota and wasted votes http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/nlgds.htm

  109. Still Positive.
    Ignored
    says:

    Re Council Elections.

    I asked at our last SNP meeting for an ‘idiot’s guide’ to voting in the forthcoming elections.

    However, it may not happen on Monday (our next meeting) as the election agent for all SNP candidates had a bereavement. His brother died just before New Year.

    Someone else, however, may explain it all. If so, I will keep you posted.

  110. scav
    Ignored
    says:

    “We cannot expect people in other parts of the UK to accept a Scotland-only party in government because they can’t vote them out. But decades of rule over Scotland by a party the Scottish people have consistently rejected but can’t vote out because they mostly have MPs in England? Totally fine.

    Independence as a means to solve both problems? Absolutely unthinkable.”

  111. Graf Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Cardogan Enright

    If the SNP could plan and coordinate such a way forward or at least give enough schooling to their organisers at the ward level to do such planning and succeed, then why not.

    Coordination and planning would need to be spot-on across the whole country because these local elections are critical for the the next Indyref-2.

    @ yesindyref2

    ” I know of one in a neighbouring ward who’s an Independent, no idea which way she voted in the Ref, but votes for local issues and not with any party. I don’t always agree with her, but she has principles.”

    That’s fair enough, she’d be in your ward as the first “neutral/enemy” on your list after the “Goodies”. But then stop – no Unionists.
    Deny them a vote. 😉

  112. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Absolutely no Unionist votes if you want an SNP council with support from smaller pro-indy parties.

    An easy explanation, 50% of ex labour supporters who now support Yes go SNP/SNP/Lab due to the still existing soft spot for Lab.

    The other 50% of ex labour supporters who now support Yes go SNP/SNP/Grn in the hope of winning a majority of council support for the SNP.

    So let’s say SNP won the first two seats on then ward, then their third vote going to Labour would likely win then the third seat against the Greens.

    So who do you want to run your councils? Use your votes wisely and in my view that means giving none at all to Unionists else you’ll likely get the Unionist that you voted for when you could have had a pro-indy candidate that would have helped you form a council instead.

  113. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    It would be useful if all candidates were asked where they stood on the independence issue and this info could be used to encourage a big turnout of Yessers to beat them.

    If the main theme is to remove unionists from our councils this gives us an extra spur not only in Labour/Tory areas but in A&B for instance which is polluted by “independents”, mostly Tories in disguise, who are playing a full part in a Tory/LibDem/independent coalition administration

  114. Brian McHugh
    Ignored
    says:

    “We are the Knights who say Icky-Icky-Icky-Ptang-Zoop-Boing!”

    Labour press release 6th Jan 2017.

  115. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @crazycat
    Great and timely article by James Kelly. I hope Wings does the same, and all the other pro-indy blogs.

    This election there’s no need for turf wars or deceit, or even dangerous and futile “strategy”.

    But there can be unionist candidates are more moderate, like when it comes to flying the saltire, it’s local knowledge that would decide that.

  116. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    One last point re earlier post, lets say in a 4 seat ward you just vote SNP/SNP and success! Both are elected after the first two counts.

    Then by default, you must also have two Councillors who are not SNP elected in your ward. Do you want any of these two Councillors to be of the red/blue/yellow Tory variety?

    That’s simply how it works and why it will be difficult for SNP to win a majority of councils this year without support from elsewhere. We need as much pro-indy support as we can get to keep the Unionist from running your council.

    Use your votes wisely, only you will know what’s best in your ward.

  117. Lenny Hartley
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T don’t know if this posted before but Bbc caught lying again

    http://www.thecanary.co/2017/01/05/bbcs-laura-kuenssberg-gets-scolded-misrepresenting-corbyn-bbc/

  118. Still Positive.
    Ignored
    says:

    I know my SNP branch have monitored counts in every ward in West Dunbartonshire because one of my sons was involved in it at the Holyrood elections in May.

    That will be the basis of their strategy in May. And I expect that will happen all over the country.

    They have also being doing this for years – it is not a new thing.

    Labour, meanwhile, still think they are entitled to a vote without doing anything to achieve it.

  119. Clootie
    Ignored
    says:

    The Labour Party was destroyed by Labour MPs.
    A Party founded by men of great principle who campaigned for fairness (…and home rule) was reduced to an electoral machine to serve the elite who held position.

    The hard work and earned respect of early leaders was turned into a brand product to be used by those who put self above the electorate. They put on slick suits. They learned to spin and issue sound bites. They put winning elections as their primary mission.

    …when the lustre started to wear from the “”trademark name – Labour” they displayed the final fatal stage off arrogance – they took Labour voters support for granted and became pseudo Tories to chase votes in the middle England seats.

    Today’s Labour Party compared to the original is akin to triggers brush in Only Fools and Horses.

    Good people are trying to save Labour but when the professional politicians have more in common with Tories than the party members the fat lady has just cleared her throat…and Jackie Baillie is well suited to deliver the song as a representative of the modern RED Tories.

  120. Still Positive.
    Ignored
    says:

    Also my son mentioned this evening that the SNP seemed to be invited to speak at many schools in the area, whereas when he was at school he never had an MP come to speak to them.

    I reminded him that the Labour MP did not feel the need to speak to pupils as he was ‘guaranteed’ re-election.

    I also went to a meeting with my MP in August, bringing us up-to-date with his work where he said he had had meetings with businesses who had never had any contact with an MP before. I find that quite shocking from a former Labour ‘stronghold’. I’m sure it is the same story throughout Scotland.

  121. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    Rev wrote:

    “Yet despite Labour’s parlous and embarrassing state UK-wide, Scottish Labour still sees fit to issue extraordinary public demands as a price for the other parties being allowed to help it limp into 10 Downing Street.”

    I truly am struggling to come up with something fresh that hasn’t been said about Slabber previously. Nope! I just can’t get any further than obnoxiously arrogant red Tory turncoats!

    Why oh why do we have a voting system that rewards failure?

    Massive sigh….night troops!

  122. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    CameronB

    The best description for Utilitatrianism as a base for political ideology IMO is social conservatism or perhaps one nation conservatism.

    Of course, we all, of whatever political hue, may come upon a situation where stark, unavoidable, choices of an ethical nature are involved where utilitarian accountancy is probably the right thing to use. It is certainly the easiest to justify numerically and therefore the default for most politicos answerable in some way to public opinion, of whatever hue.

    And of course, situation ethics, does have a strong following in the Christian church (NT rather than OT brigade).

    However, general economic policy, i.e. wealth creation and distribution, is less akin to a ‘situation’ and more akin to policy based on a perception of human rights. Yes, I think economic entitlement should be ultimately classified as human right.

    Perhaps if I could have a stab at defining the the four essential paradigms in that regard.

    Feudalism/neoliberalism = ‘Greatest good for the fewest number’

    Socially responsible/One Nation Conservatism = ‘Greatest Good for the greatest number’.

    Socialism = ‘Sufficient good for all’.

    Communism = ‘Equal good for all.’

  123. crazycat
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Thepnr

    In my ward (which is subject to boundary changes – I don’t know how widespread these are but a lot of people could find that assumptions based on 2012 results don’t work, even after factoring in SLab’s collapse since then) 2012 yielded 2 SNP, 2 Lab – an SNP gain from Lab.

    So Lab will have had 3 candidates. I don’t remember if there were any others (a Tory maybe); I stopped after 2 because I didn’t want any of the others, though I knew 2 of them had to get in. It may be different this time, although I’ve not heard that there will any Greens.

    There’s a by-election in a couple of weeks in another ward – if Lab win that they will become the largest party and may try to take over the council for a few months.

  124. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @crazycat

    Yes, that’s why each ward is different, in mine we have an Independent who was an SNP elected Councillor and part of the SNP administration but resigned over a disagreement which was a local issue over schools in his ward.

    I don’t have a problem with giving him a vote, he is SNP in all but name. I’d rather have him than his Tory opponent. I think nearer the time I’d be happy to post a guide on my own ward. Maybe that is something we could think of? Local guidance as to what each of those standing for might represent.

    Could be educational as well as entertaining 🙂

  125. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @scav says: 5 January, 2017 at 11:41 pm:

    ” … But decades of rule over Scotland by a party the Scottish people have consistently rejected but can’t vote out because they mostly have MPs in England? Totally fine.”

    I’m in my 80s now and started my apprenticeship in Rosyth Dockyard in 1952. The yard was mainly filled with Englanders than and the management was 100% Englanders imported to Scotland when they reopened the Dockyard for the War years.

    Rosyth and the bottom end of Dunfermline are still often known locally as, “Little England”. Then the navy service personnel were also mainly all English.

    So I have worked over 50 years among mainly Englanders. and I’ve been an SNP supporter from around 1946 so you can bet I had lots of political debate with Englanders and without doubt, since at least devolution, the most insistent claim by Englanders in general is, “Why hasn’t England got her own parliament”.

    Now I always had ready answers for them. Usually starting with, “So what the hell do you imagine Westminster is”?

    It usually goes something like this:-

    Englander: – “But Westminster is the United Kingdom Parliament, Isn’t it?”

    Me: “NO”.

    Them: “Well where is the English Parliament then”?

    Me: “In Westminster of course”

    Them: “No it isn’t. We don’t have a parliament.”

    Me: “Then I suppose the Welsh run England from Cardiff then.”

    Them, (indignantly), “The Taffies couldn’t run a piss up in a brewery.”

    Me: “Oh Well! It must be the Irish then for the Scots don’t run England”

    By this time the doubts are beginning to creep it that I’m taking the Michael. (and they are correct).

    Them: “Well Westminster is the UK Parliament and the Scots have another one in Edinburgh to do the Scottish stuff”.

    Me: “Aye! Right – Like what? Just about everything is reserved to Westminster and there are only 60 odd Scottish MPs and over 600 English MPs”. Now tell me what legal system does Westminster legislate under?

    Them: (Now usually a bit more confused), “UK Law”.

    Me: “There is no such thing as a UK legal system they legislate for England using the English legal system and then tag a wee bit on the end for Scotland where Scottish law is different.”

    Then I go on as I know I’ve got them.

    “Not only that but Westminster funds only England as the UK. Except for in London and other southern things that Westminster claims are National Assets. Like The National Galleries, National Opera, National Museums and, (wee pregnant pause), The New London Sewerage System, The London Cross-Rail, Transport for London and The Chunnel and the Greenwich Observatory and the – Shall I go on?

    Get the picture, Scav?

    Like far too many Scots the buggers haven’t got a clue to the truth. If they still do not get it then it is time to point out that the United Kingdom is legally a bipartite KINGDOM and is not a country but Westminster is treating itself as the Parliament of England, has split up the UK as Four countries and is really the Parliament of England lording it over everyone else.

    So England is thus devolving English powers to the three other countries while actually being the parliament they though England did not have.

    They really cannot refute that because – when explained in detail, it actually is the true facts.

    By the way – I’ve had the same arguments with more than a few unionists elected to everything from the local councils to Brussels and including, “The Broon Clunking Fist”.

  126. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick McGregor
    Splitting hairs here but I’m pretty sure communists aim for “sufficient good”, as well, and not for all ‘classes’ either. The ‘bourgeoisie’ would be ‘evolved’ out of existence through adherence to Marxist doctrine. In other words, no intellectuals, artists or wealth creators unless ideologically defensible.

    I wasn’t being 100% serious about Ms. Becket either, though there is a commonalities between communism and British nationalism, IMHO. For example, the disregard for human right, unless they support the ideology.

    When all class distinctions are erased, however, the Marxist moral view necessarily must change again because promoting class struggle will no longer be the immediate moral necessity. We say “immediate” because the dialectic is an eternal process that entails a continuing thesis/antithesis struggle. The ever-changing nature of history will dictate a new moral view for Marxists. When Marxists say there is no system of morality that fits all times, they include the future in their philosophy, realizing that history will change our perceptions of life again after our present aims are attained. Something can be morally right only in its context in history. Today the morally right action is the one necessary to attain the victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie.

    The new classless society will determine the new morality, just as this evolution toward a classless society is dictating today’s morality. For Marxists, morality is conduct that is in harmony with history as it flows in the direction of a classless society and beyond.

    http://www.allaboutworldview.org/marxist-ethics.htm

    I agree with Capella and David Harvey, that elements of the Communist Manifesto remain relevant today. Only as a strand of understanding though, as one colour of thread doesn’t make a tapestry. Ironically, our expanding understanding of evolutionary processes and environmental psychology, kind of invalidates the Marxist outlook, IMHO.

  127. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t hate the Labour party, in fact I quite often forget that’s what they’re supposed to represent
    I scoff and jeer and laugh a lot at the antics and gibberings and jabberings of Kezia Dudgale (yes I did spell that right) but I always see her more as a childlike entertainment source rather than a grown up person, although her voice does reach parts of my eardrums that Carlsberg through a tube could never manage

    No. I see the Scottish branch of Labour now as the Christmas panto, but the cheap one like the Glasgow Pavilion one with tatty costumes and old jokes badly delivered but in their minds they’re Francie and Josie, Chick Murray and Lex McLean

    What they do share with these former lumineries of Scottish comedy is

    They’re aw deid!.. Although they’re actually missed!

    Satire, ye cannae whack it!

  128. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry for the use of the wrong tenses. I forgot I had changed my mind half way through and effective proof-reading has never been one of my strengths.

  129. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I also forgot the most recognisable characteristic of communism. It is “positivist” in nature, hence it’s rejection of metaphysics and “cultural values”, frankly. Ironically, Max Weber is considered one of the founders of anti-positivism and the evolution of Critical Social Theory. It’s a funny old world.

    http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/michaelrosen/files/the_marxist_critique_of_morality_and_the_theory_of_ideology.pdf

  130. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Happy Little Women’s Christmas!

    I hope the guys will be doing all the housework today …

  131. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Having finally had time to read the article, there’s another nail in the coffin for Labour, the re-emergence of Lab for Indy:

    http://www.thenational.scot/news/15005816.Labour_for_Independence_returns_to_launch_major_recruitment_drive_with_Yes2_backing/

    Co-incidental or perhaps inspired by this article?

    I do feel sorry for genuine Labour members / voters who are also Unionists. There’s a very decent one posts in the Herald, and a couple of others are OK people too. But Labour in Scotland have had plenty of chances to reform, get it right – get a brain. What are they playing at?

  132. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    Anent Castle of Mey and Glamis Castle.

    Castle of Mey is owned by a Trust, but Charles has arranged that he and Camilla can have private use of it for a period every year – thereby continuing the royal connection.

    Glamis Castle is owned by the Strathmore family and the 19th Earl of Strathmore, who only inherited last year, continues to live there.

  133. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @Yesindyref2

    ‘What are they playing at?’

    Near as I can tell… ‘politics’. 🙂

    Or rather politics they way they think it should be.

    Folk have moved on whilst Labour remains stuck in the rut and practises of decades past.

  134. Giving Goose
    Ignored
    says:

    I see on the BBC news site that various bodies are getting hot under the collar about education in Scotland.

    It looks like councils are worried about jobs for the (Unionist) boys and girls being threatened.

    Reform Scotland also muscle in with their tuppence worth of criticism.

    Tom Harris and Siobhan Mathers are on the board of Reform Scotland. Both Tories. That’s all you need to know!

  135. starlaw
    Ignored
    says:

    there is an estate north of Dundee which the Queen Mother left to Charles but I can’t remember its name just now. Any body from Dundee know ?

  136. starlaw
    Ignored
    says:

    Birkhill or Birkhall I believe it is.

  137. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Birkhall is a large house on Balmoral estate. Castle of May is run by a charitable Trust. Open from May till September. One of the Trustees is Ken Bruce. (BBC?). It can be hired for £50K a week end. Queen mother died in £3Million debt. The Queen paid it off.

  138. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/why-its-important-to-give-your-lower.html

    The Scotsman and Labour’s Anas Sarwar totally misunderstand and misrepresent
    http://archive.is/3OPeb

    http://www.fruitnet.com/fpj/article/170980/eu-crucial-for-scottish-organics

    U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May sent her two most senior aides on a secret trip to the U.S
    http://archive.is/ZcZ3f

  139. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    What happens next? Key Brexit milestones expected from now until 2019 deadline
    http://archive.is/sy032

    Oil prices fall on big build in U.S. gasoline, distillate stocks
    http://archive.is/ip5nT

    https://jonworth.eu/theres-going-to-be-a-brexit-crunch-or-crisis-of-some-sort-and-maybe-thats-for-the-best/

  140. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Nana:

    Links for breakfast, thank you.Kettle’s on!
    Peace Always xx

  141. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @Nana

    Jon Worth Euro blog worth reading. I don’t think he’s far wrong.

  142. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Transferring ownership these Highland properties to a Trust was a cunning stunt by George V to avoid the threat of future death duties, the Queen Mother’s Castle of Mey will be of the same ilk. I think the Balmoral Estates Trust has half a dozen members, death is not a problem!

    The Queen Mother was English, born in London.

  143. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    I had translated the French article, hoped it would save for here. Hopefully you can use the translate function on the page.

    @Smallaxe
    Good morning. I am soooo late today, lost internet connection. Anyhow better late than never!

    @Macart
    Yes, John Worth article is very good.

  144. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Just listened to Ross the Tory MSP talking shite on Shortbread about Cannabis, so SNP baaaaad all round despite usage being a trivia[ problem in Scotland compared to Alcohol & in any case is a reserved matter for Theresa.

  145. Graf Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    Re. Prince Charles

    What happens when Elis.II dies with regard to the monarchy in Scotland?

    In England Charles succeeds as the heir to the throne and is crowned in Wesminster Cathedral. OK.

    ER II had to travel to Scotland and “Touch” the Scottish Insignia to indicate acceptance of the Scottish crown as Queen of Scots.

    At that time there was no Scottish Parliament only MPs at WM who were all devout kneebenders to Englands whims. So I presume (?) that WM told ER II to nip up to Scotland and show the serfs who’s the boss.

    NOW we have a Scot.Parl. with elected MSPs and a Scot.Gov./SNP working majority who represent the sovereign will of the Scottish people. The people’s Scottish Sovereignity is not and cannot be devolved.

    Before Charles can be “crowned” King of Scots surely he must be first nominated and accepted by the Scot.Parl. who represent the sovereign people?

    Am I wrong here???

    This would be a magnificent chance to show the people what the Treaty of Union and Sovereignity really means.

    (I suppose May will be getting a fitness trainer and loads of health pills for Lizzie in now..!) 😉

  146. Clootie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ken500 08:53am

    “…the Queen paid it off.”

    A slight correction, WE paid it off. The Queen only acted as the middleman.

    It may have passed through her greedy mitts but it was merely funds syphoned from the nation’s wealth.

  147. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    bjsalba says:

    A link:
    http://www.arcofprosperity.org/thats-not-federalism/

    An excellent point made in that article.

    With federalism each ‘state’ has powers devolved to them. In a federal UK all that is devolved to Scotland (and Northern Ireland) would have to be devolved to each English region. There is not a hope in Hell of that.

    Alternatively, England could have a parliament. That won’t solve many of the current constitutional problems because in the federal parliament (presumably at WM) England would continue to dominate.

    A federal UK is impossible, End of.

    Even if it were possible, the new constitution and Act of Union it would need, would almost certainly erode existing Scottish rights and sovereignty. In that respect it is a step backward for me, not forward.

    We need to debunk federalism, it will be the basis of Vow2 in IndyRef2.

  148. Clootie
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Graf midge hunter

    Liz 1 Scotland / Liz 2 England and Wales. It is important we be accurate. People didn’t blow up post boxes for nothing when they disregarded the Union principle once again.
    James 1 and James V1…….Liz 1 and Liz 11
    Two nations

  149. scottieDog
    Ignored
    says:

    Well this gets the blood boiling in the daily hate. Cheerleading ‘British and ‘English’ exports..
    http://archive.is/1sKsh

  150. Martin
    Ignored
    says:

    I need to sew up my split sides now ?. It’s really rather galling to see the arrogance of the Labour types. Fascinating to watch the death rattle of the hopeless party.

    Reality will hit one day. Several years too late I fear

  151. Jack Collatin
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve just read the Daily Raggard’s ‘will say’ Anas Sarwar attack on SNP Policies to be delivered in a speech to a few of the chosen next Monday morning.
    This is the man who is the millionaire son of a millionaire who sends his kids to a private school, shedding crocodile tears over kids from deprived backgrounds not getting a chance, and blaming the SNP Administration because his constituents are living twenty years less than those in nearby affluent areas, therefore the SNP must scrap ‘free’ tuition , ‘free’ care for the elderly and introduce prescription charges?
    They even reprise Lamont’s Something For Nothing New Labour Tosh in the Record piece. How did that work out for her?
    How about sticking 3p on to my Council Tax instead, Anwar?
    Frank the Pieman with his St Trinian’s morals now has the power to raise taxes locally. You want to raise taxes, Branch Officers? Go ahead. What’s that about a May LA Election?
    It’s all gone quiet over there.
    No mention in Sarwar’s inane ramblings about the imminent £2 billion in cuts imposed by Ruth Davidson and her Arch Right Wing Party?
    No mention of the cuts to the NHS by Adam Two Jobs Tomkins?
    No, it’s all the SNP’s fault.
    Divide and conquer, eh?
    The Scottish Labour Branch Office is now officially anti pensioner.
    Let’s blame the pensioners for the Welfare Cuts.

    No free care for the elderly. No free travel on public transport. No Triple Lock on the 6th meanest State Pension in the EU

    I take it that GCC still has an Education Department, and is responsible for Education in my neck of the woods.
    How much are we paying the Director of Education in Glasgow? £200 k per annum? £300k?
    But it’s Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP’s fault.
    It’s not Red Blue and Yellow Tory State engineered poverty and privation attacks on our poorest citizens?
    No, it’s those peaky pensioners and the Nats’ fault.
    Daily Record, be ashamed of yourselves.
    Sarwar is a rejected New Labour carpetbagger. He is a political failure by anybody’s standards. Yet he gets the Front Page Headline in the Daly Rag.
    Time for our MSM to stop making fools of themselves backing this bunch of objectionable freeloaders.
    We are in this state because of a succession of Westminster Parliament’s economic and social policies since 1707.Scotland does not matter. WE are a colony.
    Hot news, DR. The Union end is nigh.
    We are taking back our country, Mr Sarwar.
    You lot had decades to sort out the poverty trap, and not only failed miserably, made the rich richer, unleashed the casino banks upon us,and destroyed social democracy.
    How much are we paying Off Shore Companies in rent for crumbling PFI Schools?
    Here’s a scoop, DR.
    On Monday Jack Collatin ‘will say’ to a sparsely populated dining room:
    ‘Shite, Sarwar.’

  152. Dave Hansell
    Ignored
    says:

    Reading between the lines of those two pieces (the comment from the esteemed Dr standing in Edinburgh and the letter from his colleague) another Python analogy springs to mind from The Life of Brian.

    The problem is two fold. Firstly, the dominent mindset within the Labour Party (not necessarily within the wider movement), clearly on display in these two quoted examples, is the that the Labour Party is THE means to an end rather than A means to an end. Moreover, like most religions, that position is put in terms that the only way to the promised land is through that single set of gatekeepers who have exclusive monopoly rights to the franchise. Which is why in the interlude between the announcement of the election result in 2010 and the forming of the Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition Government the upper controlling echelons of the Labour Party, and the wannabe hangers on further down the hierarchy, would brook no sharing of that franchise. They, and only they, consider themselves the only legitimate saviours of the people.

    A position, it should be said, equal to that of the plethora of self proclaimed ‘left’ parties and groups whom those same political high priest caste within the Labour Party disdain as mere ‘Vanguardists.’

    The second problem is a simplistic binary vision held by too many within the Party. The rhetoric says think outside the box but the consistent behaviour and arguments insist that the one and only way to achieve anything progressive is not only through the one true way, which the high priest caste and their future replacements waiting further down the hierarchy represent, but also everything has to be done by capturing, however temporary, the commanding heights of decision making through Parliament. Anything which smacks as extra Parliamentary is seen not as complementary but as a challenge to the gatekeepers.

    Totally ignoring the historical evidence that a myriad of democratic and progressive examples, from widening the franchise through to female emancipation and trade union rights had to be forced from a reluctant Parliament from outside Parliament. Indeed, without extra Parliamentary activity the Labour Party and the Trades Union movement would not exist. In essence this position is also a Vanguardists one.

    It would seem that the upper echelons of the Party, along with those within it who are one day hoping to be one the high priest caste themselves, have learned nothing from the lesson of the sterling crisis of the early 1930’s, which brought down the second
    Labour Government, neatly captured in Sidney Webbs famous “Nobody told us we could do that” quote, when the new National Government led by Ramsey Mcdonald (no problems there in sharing power with another Party) took us off the Gold Standard.

    The fact that the high priest caste which currently control the upper echelons of the Labour Party take a position which holds a higher value to the votes of Conservative voters rather than progressive voters within the country and which sees participatory democracy as a progressive step too far is revealing. It’s a position which says progress is a historical fact and imperative in every other field of human activity bar one and is why not only is sharing democracy with those outside the Party monopoly considered a mortal sin sharing it with the wider Party membership is also something they would rather die in a ditch and remain out of power for ever to prevent.

  153. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T
    “”The Castle of Mey Trust
    Overview

    Constitution

    The Trust was established by a Deed of Trust executed on 11 June 1996 and is recognised by the Inland Revenue as Scottish charity number SC024983.
    The Trust
    The current Trustees are:

    Ashe Windham CVO (Chairman)
    The Rt. Hon The Viscount Thurso
    Sir Ian Grant CBE DL FRAgS

    The Trust is established for charitable purposes within the United Kingdom and, especially within Scotland, with the following objectives:

    Especially for the benefit of the community.

    The preservation of buildings (whether inhabited or uninhabited) and monuments, particularly within Scotland, of historic importance and / or architectural interest.
    The advancement of the historical and architectural education of the public by effecting opportunities for the access by the public to such buildings or monuments.

    The preservation of the Aberdeen Angus breed of cattle and North Country Cheviot breed of sheep and the education of the public about the origins and genealogical development both past and future of the said breeds.

    The encouragement of educational projects, especially those relating to the study of the historic buildings of Scotland and breeds of sheep and cattle indigenous to the United Kingdom and, in particular, Scotland.

    The foundation and endowment of study groups or other educational media at centres of learning, with particular emphasis on the study of historic buildings in Scotland and breeds of sheep and cattle indigenous to the United Kingdom, particularly Scotland.

    The encouragement of the study and practice of any useful branch of human knowledge by the provision of buildings, equipment or otherwise.

    The provision of financial assistance in any form to charitable organisations concerned with the conservation and restoration of the heritage of Scotland.””

    Prince Charles and his wife rent the Castle for a few days in August each year.

  154. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    Good article in The National by Toni Giugliano on the Scottish approach to BREXIT. He is convener of the SNP’s Edinburgh city association and a member of the SNP’s national executive (Wiki):

    “Let’s be clear about the aim of Scotland’s Place in Europe. It doesn’t change our goal of full EU membership. Party policy has not shifted to a Norway-style EFTA model. Indeed, party policy was confirmed at the SNP conference in October: if EU membership cannot be guaranteed as part of the UK, preparations for a second independence referendum should begin.”

    https://archive.is/bwhPG

  155. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @Jack Collatin

    I’m not entirely certain that Mr Sarwar understands the concept of ‘the brass neck’ or indeed irony. 😉

  156. Jack Collatin
    Ignored
    says:

    PS. Things to do this morning; but a quick goole reveals the following from the Scotsman 2014.
    “According to the eighth “Town Hall Rich List”, put together by campaign group the Taxpayers’ Alliance, Glasgow council pays 32 of its staff more than £100,000, while Edinburgh pays ten employees a six-figure remuneration package. Aberdeen, meanwhile, paid high salaries to six senior civil servants.”
    It was Sarwar whjo was chuntering on about old folk bed blocking and what was Nicoal Sturgeon going to do about it the other week at FMQ.
    Sarwar, what the fuck are we paying these high priced Public Servants for?
    What id Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board executive doing to earn their generous wedges?
    Is it a Unionist plot for Unionist appointed LA and Health Officials to perform badly deliberately thus putting the Health of our nation, the Education of our young, and Elderly Care in jeopardy and blame the SNP for the high priced failure of Managers just for political gain?
    The Scottish Labour Branch Office is against Care for the Elderly, free prescriptions, and will charge £9000 a year University tuition fees if they ever get into power.
    Now that’s the headline, Daily Record.
    I’m off now.

  157. Mungo
    Ignored
    says:

    Hilarious defence of British Labour in Scotland on Labour Hame today ! ?
    http://labourhame.com/sorting-ourselves-out/

  158. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    @Jack Collatin

    Excellent.. first post I read this morning. Can’t help starting from the bottom up before scrolling.

    I see The National has a proper front page this morning.

    PS: Stopped my subscription to the Herald last week since their new fangled site started up. That’s since 2012.

    Gave them a feedback e-mail, cathartic experience. 🙂

  159. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    Scottie Dog @ 9.55am

    I note that in that Mail item on food and drink exports, they refer to: “whiskey”. We could take this to be the production of such production centres as the Bushmills distillery in Northern Ireland, rather than the much-greater production of all these distilleries around Scotland, which, of course, produce Scotch Whisky.

    Or, the more-likely answer, stupidty on the part of the Mail journalist who wrote it, and who clearly doesn’t know the difference.

  160. Mungo
    Ignored
    says:

    Hilarious defence of British Labour in Scotland on Labour Hame this monrning.
    http://labourhame.com/sorting-ourselves-out/

  161. One_Scot
    Ignored
    says:

    Lol, I cannot believe the Twatter Yoons now think that IndyRef2 is off the table. For some reason they can’t seem to understand that with the SNP Independence is never off the table. #BeingPlayedLikeAFiddle.

  162. Marcia
    Ignored
    says:

    Starlaw

    Charleston.

    Good tactic from the First Minister regarding Brexit. Throws it back to May who has to find a soft Brexit which doesn’t seem likely. That is a material change.

  163. Undeadshuan
    Ignored
    says:

    I See the economist call the PM, Theresa Maybe, britains indecisive PM and in article below liken her to the clunking fists time as pm.

    http://archive.is/iR6iS

  164. Flower of Scotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour for Independence are back, supported by YES2!

    Good news.

  165. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Two Hootsmon headlines today …

    Nicola Sturgeon: Indyref2 could be shelved with “soft” Brexit

    Britain faces ‘very hard Brexit’ over lack of negotiation skills

    … put those two together and logically it means ….

    IndyRef2 expected because ‘very hard Brexit’ highly likely

    … the Hootsmon does do logic.

  166. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    Mungo @ 10.42am

    Thanks for that link Mungo, I needed the laugh. I think we should mark the author down, not as a NO on Independence: Labour is clearly in his DNA – he doesn’t (k)now anything.

  167. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Interesting stuff on Mey, Legerwood!

    @ Graf, I think the last head to wear the Stewart crown was that of Charles II, James VII was in Scotland as Duke of York but don’t think he was crowned here? William II asked for the crown to be sent down to London for him & Mary’s coronation but were knocked back by the Parliament. Thereafter it was bricked up in a vault in Edinburgh Castle until re-discovered by Walter Scott & Co.

  168. Graf Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Clootie

    “What happens when Elis.II dies with regard to the monarchy in Scotland?

    ER II had to travel to Scotland and “Touch” the Scottish Insignia to indicate acceptance of the Scottish crown as Queen of Scots.”

    Clootie, I thought I’d made it clear I was writing about two different titles, but apparently not.

    Is she Elisabeth I, Queen of Scots or Elisabeth, Queen of Scots? Do they only start numbering them when a second one turns up??

    Robert Peffers would probably know best.

  169. One_Scot
    Ignored
    says:

    We are now entering what is commonly known as the ‘End Game’.

  170. Stu Mac
    Ignored
    says:

    @heedtracker says:
    5 January, 2017 at 10:56 pm
    ===========================

    I might be belabouring the obvious but the SNP offer the biggest danger to the status quo (strange how that was Prince Charles’ favourite band) up here and the possibility of a proper left wing Labour party is the biggest danger to the status quo down south. So both the SNP and Corbyn must be monstered. If Labour fall further I think the Tories will be the favoured lot on BBC Scotland – it only hasn’t happened yet because it is full of SLab relations and mates. But they will happily support the Tories as they’re hatred of the SNP is so visceral.

  171. scottieDog
    Ignored
    says:

    @David Hansell
    Funnily enough most tories and Blairite labourites still seem to think we are on a gold standard judging by their obsession with government solvency

  172. Peter McCulloch
    Ignored
    says:

    Is anyone really surprised by the attitude and mind set of these Labour numpties here in Scotland?

    They have spent their entire careers putting down Scotland and will continue to support Scotland being Governed from Westminster rather stand up and allow their country to gains it’s freedom from Westminster rule, even if that means the Labour is obliterated electorally

    You can also bet if Scotland had been a tory strong hold these Labour chancers would have joined the Tory party.

  173. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    The problem with the Labour Party is that, long ago, it was taken over by the jobsworths and career politicians. The “Worker’s Party” is now controlled by folk who have never done an honest day’s work in their lives. Sure they have a political career, a highly lucrative career in fact, but real work? Forget it, there are easier ways to make a living. And this is the problem – for a career politician, the salary comes first, followed closely by the perks and trappings. The people they are supposed to represent and put first always come last.

    Most politicians in the SNP appear to be conviction politicians, with independence the ultimate goal. However, there may already be a few career politicians that have infiltrated the party and jumped on the indy bandwagon. They care not for indy but publically support it of course. It’s a chance for glory and career progression. Like their Labour predecessors, their personal well-being comes first. Successful parties always attract them. At the moment there may only be a few, but more will be desperate to jump on the bandwagon. If they ever become a dominant force in the SNP, the party will go the same, sad way as Labour. Be warned.

  174. Tam Jardine
    Ignored
    says:

    Great article Stu

    Re slab’s “progressive” penny on income tax they surely contributed to the absurd position we are now in. In the Devo referendum which gave us the parliament the second question was should the parliament have tax-raising powers (plural).

    What we got as a result of an emphatic yes vote was a weak as piss package of small tax raising bits and bobs that were so poor that they have had to be added to over the following years.

    Indeed Smith graciously re-gave us effectively the power to vary income tax rates (after all, it is inconceivable the basic rate could be varied by more than 3% which we originally were granted.

    They screwed up the original proposition so much. I voted for tax varying powers and the same baws was given by better together and the vow- to vote for something already endorsed by a massive mandate and already delivered on technically but not in principle.

    I just don’t get the slab position on their penny hike- can’t they see Westminster would be giving each other high fives all over the shop if the Scottish Parliament mitigated their budget cuts in this way? If the working population of Scotland are happy to soak up income tax rises while we are still in the UK to protect services why not just cut deeper? We can always just shove another penny on the basic rate?

    It is why devolution is doomed. Why can slab not see this?

  175. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T

    Just had a wee conversation with an oil rig worker there. Industry really starting to pick up again as a result of the recent OPEC deal. They apparently start drilling again when oil price goes between $50-$60 per barrel. It’s been holding steady now at around $55 p/brl. So the drilling is going ahead all over the place. He also said the Clair Ridge field is absolutely mind-bogglingly massive. Scotland floating on oil.

    Didn’t see anything in our oh so impartial colonial media about the recovery of our oil sector. Wonder why?

    Ho-hum….

  176. sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    galamcennalath 10:55 am

    You wrote ” … put those two together and logically it means ….
    IndyRef2 expected because ‘very hard Brexit’ highly likely”

    As discussed in a previous thread, a soft Brexit will not happen so it will be a hard Brexit. Then, a separate deal will be done that stops “free movement” but results in “free trade” (although we may pay a hefty fee to have the “free trade” – but no more than we currently do i.e. £10 Billion)).

    Is that a Hard or soft Brexit?

    IMHO, the financial fall out to the EU of trading with the UK under WTO rules is too potentially damaging to the EU economy.

    Are they really prepared to (or will their electorates let them) put the EU economy into recession in an attempt to “punish” the UK?

    Remember, the pound has already lost around 10% of its value against the Euro making UK exports more competitive and Eu exports less competitive. Can/will, for instance, Angela Merkel add another say, 10%, to the cost of a Mercedes car to its UK customers (in Mercedes’ single biggest export market)?

    The more time passes, the more confident I become that we (the UK) will be fine. Where this leaves the cause for an Independent Scotland, I am not sure?

    Would the Scottish electorate be more, or less inclined, to vote to leave the UK. When would the best time be to have indyref2? Before, or after, Brexit?

  177. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    sensibledave
    Fear , uncertainty and doubt produce deminishing returns, or did you not notice Project Fear 2014, almost resulted in Scotland’s rejection of colonialism?

    According to Hegel, the “master” is a “consciousness” that defines itself only in mutual relation to the slave’s consciousness-a process of mediation and mutual interdependence. “The consciousness for-the-Master is not an independent but a dependent, consciousness,” Hegel explains in Phenomenology of Spirit (61). “Thus he is not certain of existence-for-self as the truth; rather, his truth is the inessential consciousness and the inessential action of the latter [the slave]” (61). In other words, according to Hegel, both master and slave “recognize” their own existence only in relation or “reconciliation” of the other. Among the many implications of the master-slave dialectic, then, is the idea of there being a reciprocity or mutual dependence between master and slave rather than a blanket opposition of dominance to subordination. The slave ironically shares in the master’s power because the master defines himself only in opposition to the slave; that is, the master needs the slave in order to legitimate his comparative privilege.

    French philosopher Franz Fanon, on the other hand, takes issue with the problems Hegel’s master-slave dialectic encounters in its translation into a post-colonial context. In the passage below from Black Skin White Masks (1967), Fanon revises the dialectic to suggest that it underestimates the white master’s dominance over black slaves in Africa and Europe:

    I hope I have shown that here the master differs basically from the master described by Hegel. For Hegel there is reciprocity; here the master laughs at the consciousness of the slave. What he wants from the slave is not recognition but work. (220)

    http://www.postcolonialweb.org/sa/gordimer/july6.html

  178. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    sensibledave says:

    6 January, 2017 at 1:08 pm

    As discussed in a previous thread, a soft Brexit will not happen so it will be a hard Brexit. Then, a separate deal will be done that stops “free movement” but results in “free trade” (although we may pay a hefty fee to have the “free trade” – but no more than we currently do i.e. £10 Billion)).

    So the same costs, but with absolutely no influence whatsoever. Doesn’t sound like an improvement to me.

    Is that a Hard or soft Brexit?

    A lot harder than you are expecting hoping for.

    IMHO, the financial fall out to the EU of trading with the UK under WTO rules is too potentially damaging to the EU economy.

    Bollox. But hey ho, carry on dreaming…

    Are they really prepared to (or will their electorates let them) put the EU economy into recession in an attempt to “punish” the UK?

    Yes, a very big fat YES (they can’t afford not to).

    Remember, the pound has already lost around 10% of its value against the Euro making UK exports more competitive and Eu exports less competitive. Can/will, for instance, Angela Merkel add another say, 10%, to the cost of a Mercedes car to its UK customers (in Mercedes’ single biggest export market)?

    There is no evidence whatsoever that the weak pound has had any benefit on UK exports thus far. The UK industry is in too weak a condition to take advantage – it’s well and truly knackered, thanks to decades of neoliberal, moneterist policies. Geez, even potential tourists are shunning the UK.

    The more time passes, the more confident I become that we (the UK) will be fine. Where this leaves the cause for an Independent Scotland, I am not sure?

    Carry on dreaming…….

    Would the Scottish electorate be more, or less inclined, to vote to leave the UK. When would the best time be to have indyref2? Before, or after, Brexit?

    We will find out soon enough. In the meantime, carry on with the delusions if it helps. You will have to stop indulging one day, when the shit hits the fan. 🙂

  179. Fireproofjim
    Ignored
    says:

    Proud cybernat @ 12.53
    How right you are re oil.
    Just yesterday Bob Dudley, CEO of BP said that North Sea operations were the “Jewel in the Crown” of BPs operations. He also pointed out that crude oil was double the price of a year ago, and said they were excited about their prospects West of Shetland.
    Meanwhile Hurricane Energy has found the biggest oilfield this century on their Lancaster prospect. At least 500 million barrels and some say over a billion.
    Scottish oil has a long, long future.

  180. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Clootie says: 6 January, 2017 at 12:42 am:

    “The Labour Party was destroyed by Labour MPs.
    A Party founded by men of great principle who campaigned for fairness (…and home rule) was reduced to an electoral machine to serve the elite who held position.”

    Well no! Clootie. You see the very first Labour Member of parliament to drop his, “Great Principles”, was none other than the very first Labour Member of Parliament – James Keir Hardie born 15 August 1856 died 26 September 1915.

    He was a Scottish socialist and the first Labour Member of Parliament. Very appropriately he was, literally, a bastard and illiterate, (but he could read and write in shorthand), and was taught this by his mother. He had good excuse, mind you, for he was sole support of his family.

    Starting work as a baker’s delivery boy when aged eight and without any schooling. By the age of 11, he was a coal miner and at 17 his mother had taught him to read and write – in shorthand.

    However, I digress. He first stood as a candidate in Scotland but came bottom of the poll. He then moved south and get elected. In both elections he stood on a manifesto that included Home Rule.

    Yet after Hardie being one of the founder members of the early Labour party the Labour Party’s Branch Office manager in Scotland has just stated, in the public domain, that being part of the United Kingdom is far more important that being part of the European Union/

    Yet the first Labour MP was the first Labour MP to promise home rule for Scotland and thus was the first Labour MP to NOT do anything about it.

    History does not tell lies to people. People tell lies about history to people and Labour has been doing exactly that since the inception of the Labour party.

  181. Artyhetty
    Ignored
    says:

    Re; Fireproof Jim & Proud Cybernat

    Ah, the oil. I was of the opinion that the oil was the driving force behind the unionists no/better together lies during our independence campaign. Having read about how much oil there was in Scottish waters, contrary to what the gravy train drivers and passengers were saying.

    WM started to dismantle the oil industry once they knew that there would be an independence referendum, in fact most likely as soon as the SNP became the party of government. They are not stupid and would, and they will do anything to keep that oil to themselves. Look at what they do to countries rich in oil, who they see as having rogue regimes.

    I had a no voting friend once say, ‘but the oil is dirty anyway’ when referring to Scotland’s oil. Shame they did not see how that oil could have created an oil fund to alleviate the poverty that is endemic in their so called UKOK. I asked them if they thought that ‘dirty’ oil was better in WM, ie england’s hands, than in Scotland’s hands.

    I cringe when I hear about the oil, because our independence will be less likely imo, and because the greedy, troughing gits in WM have squandered Scotland’s oil while keeping the people poor, and telling them they are too poor, too stupid and too wee. The begging bowl is their preferred option, when it comes to Scotland. Utter criminals, these greedy, lying troughers in WM.

  182. The Isolator
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert@2.04

    Bang on the money as per Robert.

    “Yet the first Labour MP was the first Labour MP to promise home rule for Scotland and thus was the first Labour MP to NOT do anything about it.”

    Nothing changes

  183. sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Luigi 1.35

    Whilst, clearly, I did express some personal opinions in my original comment, most were “questions” at the end of a line of logic.

    You have expressed a number of opinions above and, frankly, there is little point in arguing because only time will tell.

    However, in response to some of your points ….

    You wrote “So the same costs, but with absolutely no influence whatsoever. Doesn’t sound like an improvement to me”.

    … I think you miss the point. We would have no influence because we would not be in the club – and not subject to the vast majority of the rules of the club. Why would we want to influence the membership of a club we are no longer in? In that very simplified scenario, we would have everything we want – and we would bin everything we dont want (apparently) – like free movement, European Justice System, Armies, etc. We currently pay a net £10 billion for everything we want – and dont want! getting rid of the “dont wants” is the improvement.

    You wrote “There is no evidence whatsoever that the weak pound has had any benefit on UK exports thus far. The UK industry is in too weak a condition to take advantage – it’s well and truly knackered, thanks to decades of neoliberal, moneterist policies. Geez, even potential tourists are shunning the UK.

    OH dear! You dismiss hundreds of years of learning a basic truth (i.e. a weakened currency makes exporting easier/more competitive). At the same time, you do that thing where you need/want our economy to suffer/fail to hold up your argument.

    I just popped out to get a sandwich and listened to the news on the radio about Economics forecasters having had a mass “Michael Fish” moment. Footsie is at highest levels, economy growing, “confidence” (which we were told would evaporate) appears to be very high across the board and we look like will have had one of the fastest growing economies in the west over the last year.

    That is not say that things like inflation (due to the cost of our imports) wont have an effect and that there wont be bumps in the road – but I am comfortable that we are not facing the economic crash you seem to be forecasting (because you want it?).

    As discussed, as a non-leaver, I think this can work.

  184. Bob MACK
    Ignored
    says:

    Jolly decent of them to let us run behind their bus whilst they sit on the first class seats.

    Yet they still ask the question ” why are we dying off?”. Some people you just cannot help.

  185. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Economy?! Economy?! Nobody cares about the steenkin economy they just pretend to be concerned
    Argument after argument spent on analysing the merits of percentages soft Brexit hard Brexit it’s got sod all to do with Independence and who wants it and who does’nt

    The Independence argument is, for those who want it, self determination and a change of attitudinal direction to a more equal evenly balanced future

    For those who don’t want Independence if the newspapers television and social media are to be believed is soley about hatred bigotry sectarianism and identity

    The faux arguments for and against don’t change any minds worth considering because if folk have’nt made their minds up by now they never will
    Of course we are hindered on both sides of the divide by the non voter we’ve all heard them “I don’t have enough information” “I don’t know who to believe” these are the excuse brigade who will spend more time avoiding a decision than actually just making one

    The NO side are just plain nasty because it’s very much easier to be unpleasant about something than offer solutions this is how the use of fear usually wins

    The Brexit situation has shown clearly that the ecomomy was never the issue and even though it’s sliding down the toilet bowl as we speak the nasties are still defending it claiming their vision of the future is correct and the rest of us are liable to get punched in the face if we dare to disagree

    The First Minister is twisting herself into contortions to satisfy everybody and play for time awaiting Theresa Mays little tribe of serious thinkers to get it’s act together or bugger it all up, whichever comes first, because they were’nt supposed to win the vote and did’nt want to anyway so everybody who understands anything about anything is correct the Tories and May are clueless

    Scotland is pretty evenly split between yes and no and it’s a tough call for the FM to make because if she loses this one it’s over for a very long time, the nasties will make sure of that and Scotland will become a permanent council district of greater England with it’s Union flag stamped on every forehead and the nasties will love it and the rest of us will be expected to lump it

    Because in Tory world no one will represent the losing side they’ll just keep rubbing it in, and we know this because they have’nt stopped since 2014, No Surrender No Compromise

    And that’s the difference between them and us

  186. starlaw
    Ignored
    says:

    If you study what was going on in the UK when Labour were founded it is easy to reach the conclusion that they were set up to offset the communists who were very active at the time.
    Ramsey McDonald the first labour prime minister went on to fill his cabinet with tories in 1931, and was expelled from the Labour Party. The Labour party today seems to be made up of people more suited to the Conservative and Unionist party. A long way removed from Labour values.

  187. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Some background on the forces the brought the British Labour party in to existence. As far as I’m concerned, the ‘party’ has always been a product of and vehicle for “blood and soil” nationalism.

    Ancient Rome and the Town and Country Debate from the 1850s to the 1920s
    http://www2.open.ac.uk/ClassicalStudies/GreekPlays/newvoices/Issue6/Butler_Final.doc

    Revisiting the idea of degeneration in urban Britain, 1830–1900
    http://ubir.bolton.ac.uk/405/1/socsci_journalspr-5.pdf

  188. ronnie anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dr Jim
    Ronnie Anderson Perplexed. Indy ref 2 now a political football. Brexit was a game changer for Independence & should’t be sacrificed on the political alter for a Hard or Soft brexit . Independence is a stand alone issue wither in or out of the EU, would the EU ignore a Independent Scotland as a result of the UK withdrawal . I think not . SNP Scottish Gov & Nicola should stop playing Westminster Politics concentrate solely on whats best for the Scottish Peoples & thats Total Independence from the Westminster Gov. Sending out confusing messages doesn’t help the Indy cause . ( as posted on Scot2.scot 5mins ago )

  189. Bob MACK
    Ignored
    says:

    Economy growing ? Sorry. The footsie is being inflated by investors accumulating on the value of a falling pound. The United Kingdom depends on trade. In order to trade you have to have deals in place or else suffer tariffs on your exported goods.

    Right at this moment nothing has changed. Everything is as it usually is and will remain so until article 50 is triggered. That is when businesses will start to really look at the implications for their immediate future.

    Do not deceive yourself that it would be already evident if the UK was to hit trouble.
    All you have to do is look at the banking crisis where all the Banks kept everything under wraps to the point it could be concealed no longer. That is what business does. Manor Formula 1 this morning is an example.

    Make no mistake, if the United Kingdom does not get trade deals in place the cost to business will increase dramatically in terms of exports and could easily start a chain reaction for small and medium sized businesses who operate on low profit margins.

    This has not yet begun to bite. Big businesses will also be affected inevitably.

    The economy is not as rosy as some would make it out to be.

  190. Dan Huil
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s going to be even harder now since, as the britnat would have it, nearly everyone in England thinks the economy will not be adversely effected by brexit. Westminster arrogance and ignorance isn’t confined to its attitude towards Scotland. The EU negotiators will be under no compunction to make things easy for Westminster. The so-called united kingdom continues on its merry course of disintegration.

  191. Greannach
    Ignored
    says:

    To a rational person the behaviour of the Labour branch seems incomprehensible, but as the Red Baron of Cumnock might say, “Are they doing it deliberately?”.

  192. Iain More
    Ignored
    says:

    The only trouble with the Opinion Polls or maybe just one of the problems with them predicting Doom for the BLiS is that they just increase the Hysteria at the BBC.

    Now if we could just see an end to the BBC then that would be it for the proponents of London Rule.

    I have decided for the state of my metal health and my ribs to avoid any and all Brit Nat Press and Media this year. I think it is the one New Year’s Resolution I will have no trouble keeping.

  193. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Greannach says:

    Labour branch seems incomprehensible …. “Are they doing it deliberately?”

    Maybe they are closet Indy supporters and we are seeing their contribution to The Cause?

    In which case, so far so good, I would say. 🙂

  194. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘and we would bin everything we dont want (apparently) – like free movement’

    Can someone explain what and who are this ‘we’ that ‘don’t want (apparently) – ‘…free movement’?

    Does the person who wrote this speak of the country he resides in that ‘chose’ to Leave the EU?. In Scotland we did not ‘choose’ to bin free movement and we did not ‘choose’ to Leave. We will not be going down the same road as he so happily welcomes, as his country seems hellbent on.

    Ye can go on and on all ye like about us being ‘one nation’ and the ‘UK voted as a whole’. It will make absolutely no difference to the ‘realpolitik’ that will ensue…especially when the UK Parliament loses it’s appeal to overturn the high court ruling that prevents the Royal Perogative being used to trigger A50. They will need legislative consent from the Scottish Parliament, and we will not consent to being dragged out of the EU against our will. Deals will be made, and you can go on yer merry way torturing your poor and blaming immigrants for the greed that your citizens have allowed to run rampant devouring any kind of humanity from a large section of England’s polity toward those they have ‘been told’ to vent their spleen and ire ‘at’ by criminal psychopathic media barons and Etonian pricks.

    Scotland’s England’s loss…we will not grieve the parting of ways, we welcome those from other lands, we value diversity and more importantly we give a fuck about those who live and make their home in our country.

    I do not recognise the UK as a ‘nation’. It is a bipartite Union, whether people like you acknowledge the significance of that or not makes no odds now. Your ignorance and arrogance is anathema to where our true concerns lie and it is not with how much money is in the bank and playing war-games wi others life’s in far off lands for profit. Screwing over the poorest sections of our communities as if they are the cause of the rampant greed that has consumed swathes of England’s populace to the point where ye’s cannae even muster a common decency in language and deed wi others ‘not like’ you.

    Dress it up in ‘economics’ aw ye like, England is self harming and blaming everyone else for the problems of their own making. In Scotland we have decided not to attack others and blame them for economic outcomes wrought by selfish and greedy bastards who walked away from jail unsanctioned by their cronies in Westminster. These politicians who decided to take it out on the population and set about demonising everyone but the those who were responsible, they are the ones your polity should be addressing their frustrations and anger at. But no, you all went along with it. Ye voted for them time and again…and said ‘it’s the economy dear boy’…no it’s not. It’s dehumanising and othering and that EU vote played all those cards to achieve its result.

    It didn’t work in Scotland. It will never work in Scotland. It’s not going to ever work in Scotland. We will use every aspect of the Law to make sure we never find ourselves so bereft of humanity as those in your polity have found themselves.

    I repeat we will not be getting dragged out of the EU by England’s insanity. Under any circumstances. We will have free movement. We will fight the Tories and everything they represent here and there till we achieve the outcomes that suit what is best for all of our citizens residing in Scotland.

  195. dramfineday
    Ignored
    says:

    Iain More @ 3.26

    Hi Iain, I consider my modest donations to Stuart and sundry others, money well spent in my mission to avoid the propagandists, professional liars and supporting yoonatics. Once you break the habit, you’ll feel much better for it.

    Meantime I think we should be starting a kitty for Stuart and similar supporting authors in order that we can, once this battle is over, send them somewhere nice to recover from the daily guff they have had to absorb on our behalf.

    Meantime, stay away from the Revs twitter feed, therein be monsters – oh er!

  196. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Scotsman – Nicola Sturgeon: Indyref2 could be shelved with “soft” Brexit

    Guardian – Sturgeon offers to shelve independence vote in return for soft Brexit

    Independent – Soft Brexit would take second Scottish independence referendum off the table, Nicola Sturgeon says

    Even, The Sydney Morning Herald – Scotland says could put secession on hold if UK avoids ‘hard Brexit’

    The real underlying story is that the SNP must be feeling confident it will be as hard as nails, and there will be no special Scotland deals! 🙂

  197. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    Graf Midgehunter says: 6 January, 2017 at 9:28 am:

    “Before Charles can be “crowned” King of Scots surely he must be first nominated and accepted by the Scot.Parl. who represent the sovereign people?
    Am I wrong here???”

    Now do not quote me on this one, Graf Midgehunter, as I have no research for it and do not have time to do so just now but –

    I had assumed that any, King/Queen of Scots who was rejected and replaced by the sovereign people of Scotland for not being up to the job, (as stated in the Declaration of Arbroat), would be from the royal line of descent.

    That, in itself, raises valid questions. After the 1688 Glorious Revolution in the Kingdom of England when the, (cough!), Revolting English Parliament deposed the King of England but as both kingdoms were still legally independent the, (cough!), Revolting English could not legally depose the monarch they shared as King of Scots.

    Which kicked of what the, (Cough!), Revolting Englanders still refer to as, “The Jacobite Rebellion”. Thus the Scots could not be revolting against the Monarch of England – and so began the Jacobite uprisings.

    However, in the slaughter that ensued the English forced King Billy & Queen Mary upon the sovereign people of Scotland but they were not from the direct line of descent.

    Which raises the two questions. If the Scots take back the sovereignty they were forced to delegated to Westminster by the Treaty of Union, and thus end the United Kingdom, do they, (a), seek their new Monarch from the direct line pre or anti 1688? (b), Do they just ditch the concept of appointing a royal as their protector of the people’s sovereignty and appoint someone, “Well Able”, to do the job and become a Republic with an elected President?

    Now I could suggest a couple of people I would trust whole heatedly as The President of the Kingdom of Scotland. Their respective initials are AS & NS.

    No Prizes for the first person to guess who they might be.

  198. Chess man.
    Ignored
    says:

    Excellent post and quite agree with Dr Jim @2.42!
    Dear FM et al. Best we wait out the next 2 years before announcing an Indy Ref2: to steadily gain more of the “changed my mind from Naw 2 Aye noo” voters. The strategic success of ‘Hold and Wait’ will probably, initially, be reflected in the May council election results. The fallout from two years of shambolic WM Tory reign will definitely be ‘the tipping point’ to impel more of the Scottish electorate to follow suit. In the meantime, from a psychological viewpoint, the SNP group/Greens alliance are best ‘seen’ in Holyrood – especially during FMQs on tv – to be doing a competent job for Scotland’s people by remaining calm, respectful and more confident in confronting the deviant Tory opposition. To call Indy2 sooner, over this years Brexit negotns gone wrong, would be a massive strategic mistake – even if the SNP’s ‘Popular Survey’ reveals say, “A clear 52% for Indy and improving” result.

  199. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert peffers @ 4.22
    Em.. Don’t hold me to it either Robert , but was Queen Mary no King James Grandaughter???
    I know back then it was the male line that counted.
    But now a days if you step back tilt your head and close one eye…Or work for the BBC,you could make an argument for a direct line of decent.
    Even though the girl’s can now inherit law isn’t supposed to be able to be backdated!

  200. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert Peffers

    Yes indeed a royal can of worms there… 🙂

    But who will point the finger at Charlie?

    I posted a while back that he has already hinted to taking the name George if he was to be king. The reason could be to avoid a constitutional mess. But I’m not a historian.

    There was a person now dead and buried in St Peters Rome who was acknowledged by some as Charles III.

    https://www.britroyals.com/stuart.asp?id=charlesedward

  201. ScottieDog
    Ignored
    says:

    @Bob MACK
    Indeed the FTSE has been inflated by the UK government’s programme of QE. The creation of £445 BN by the Bank of England was primarily pumped into financial markets increading the wealth of the top 5% with little or no trickle down effect. Companies have also been engaged directly in share buy-backs in order to boost their stock prices. Firms have cash but there is little demand in the economy as we are all up to our necks – indebted to the rentier class – the bubble thatcher started. The FTSE is simply no barometer of the real economy.

    The UK exports mainly pounds. As we know thatcher and co couldn’t see the merit in a manufacturing base and instead embarked on the utterly ruinous ponzi economy of private credit creation. You take Scotland out of the UK and you take its legs away. The fight will get far more dirty.

  202. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    Just a reminder re Nicola’s soft brexit. This tweet contains the link to the scotgov resource paper on brexit.

    Nicola has to be seen to be doing everything possible [which she promised to do]and she has made it clear for the outset.

    Check out paragraph 186, does anyone really think Westminster will comply with Scotgov demands. Very doubtful so indy2 will be Nicola’s to call and rightly so.

    https://twitter.com/nicolas_veron/status/816658477024215040

    http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0051/00512073.pdf

    Of course the media are running with “independence off the table” wishful thinking

  203. sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    K1 4.11

    You wrote “an someone explain what and who are this ‘we’ that ‘don’t want (apparently) – ‘…free movement’?

    Keep up K1! Unless you have been hiding under a stone for the last 6 months, you should have learned (as I have done) that, apparently, the major issue for many Leave voters was immigration control.

    The “we” is therefore the UK’s collective Leave vote majority (which didn’t include me, or you?). To help further, it doesn’t matter which way you, or I, voted in the UK GE, “we” have a Tory government in Westminster. Does that help clarify my use of the English language.

    (Note to Robert Peffers:

    …. that is not a prompt for you to write a screed on why the English Language doesn’t really exist because it was created in Scotland, and its really Norwegian, and that you have a reference in “History for Dummies” that proves it!)

    Later you wrote: “I repeat we will not be getting dragged out of the EU by England’s insanity. Under any circumstances. We will have free movement. We will fight the Tories and everything they represent here and there till we achieve the outcomes that suit what is best for all of our citizens residing in Scotland.

    How many left here on Wings think that the UK (whoever is in it) will not be leaving the EU?

    IMHO, the only way we wont leave the EU now is if the rules have changed dramatically by the time we would have done – which will only happen as a result of some paradigm shift in Germany and/or France. In any other times you would say that was most unlikely. However’ after the events of 2017, I’m not sure I would gamble too much money on it.

  204. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘Three patients die at Worcestershire hospital amid NHS winter crisis
    One woman reportedly died of heart attack after waiting 35 hours on trolley in corridor at busy Worcestershire Royal hospital’

    quick ! Somebody tell Sarwar or Ruth Davidson so that they can question the FM about why she let this happen.

    I cannot imagine to whom our media appeal – airy spaces ‘twixt their ears maybe.

  205. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Chess man @ 4.35 pm

    I am confident that Nicola Sturgeon will bring us our Independence Referendum at the very best moment.

  206. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Dave doesn’t value universal human rights (apparently).

    sensibledave
    You appear to be a meta-ethical moral relativist. Can I claim my £5 book token?

  207. Lenny Hartley
    Ignored
    says:

    Re royal line of descent. Historically this started with Malcolm Canmore, in Celtic society the King was Elected to the position albeit from a small pool of sub kings, there is nothing to stop us electing whoever we want to be King or Queen. We are sovereign, we can elect a tortoise as King if we so wish. 🙂

    I’ve always been in favour of having an elected sovereign on Independence. Keeps both (royalist and republican) camps semi happy. I would have fresh elections every five years, it would not be a job for life and would make the person who had the honour of being our sovereign on their toes.

    I nominate Mr Alec Salmon as first King in an Indy Scotland..

  208. Les Wilson
    Ignored
    says:

    Another thing we should not lose sight of, as soon as Brexit is signed up, the pound will fall like a stone. Some traders say it will go to parity to the dollar, others say it could go lower than that.

    Make no mistake, this is a big deal, it will effect the purchasing power of everyone in the UK, another broad shoulder issue that is not being looked into. Either that or denial of the real world.

    Which is quite likely if you still need to feel superior to other countries.

  209. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    K1 @ 4.49
    Aye k1… Totally agree with you there,what ever that lot do with their Brexit vote and however they do it!!
    Be it in English words or no ….Were no doing it..

  210. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Lenny Heartley @ 5.01
    I think the same way Lenny and for 2 reasons.

    Firstly… it demonstrates the distinct Soverenty of Scotland and the nature of the power of it.
    Secondly….If the Monarchy is as popular as we are told it is this would prove it to those who doubt that a majority are indeed in favour of it.

    Where I disagree is that …. It, I think, should be an election for the life of the individual, mainly because that is one of the concepts of Monarchy and people should realise the stupidity of such a thing,but, also because it would be easier to go along with the familiar if you thought that you could change your mind in a few year’s!

  211. robertknight
    Ignored
    says:

    Maggie May’s Dog’s Brexit isn’t something >62% of us wanted.

    If England & Wales want to bu66er off and do their own thing, then let them, and hell mend them!

  212. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @K1 (4.11)

    Hear hear!

    (row of ‘applause’ emojis here)

  213. gus1940
    Ignored
    says:

    Reading the on-line London Blats one is deluged with an endless stream of good news ‘stories’ about the state of The UK economy since the EU Referendum.

    Any fools who believe these fairy stories of some sort of Post Brexit Promised Land where all will be sweetness and light with the rest of the Non-EU World battering at the store waving their cheque books in desperation to buy UK manufactured Goods(just what would they be?)are in for a nasty surprise.

  214. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    @ ronnie anderson

    You call it political football, I’ll call it strategy

    We have to win and win well with no doubts, if we don’t win well enough, I submit there’ll be trouble from the English and uncertainty from the money markets and Europe
    The English will attempt to destroy everything the Scottish government tries to do, they did it to the Irish Republic for 20 years and let’s be honest, they dislike Scotland more and they will despise the prospect of us withdrawing a sizeable chunk of their income plus owing us money and or assets

    I’d like Indyref tomorrow on Scotlands terms but we have to collect allies and the English are helping us do that right now by getting everything wrong
    Soon the English will have to come out of defence then we can hit them on the break and it’ll be all over

  215. gus1940
    Ignored
    says:

    I see that The Ruth Davidson Party are to hold their next conference in Glasgow at The Conference Centre.

    Why don’t they go the whole hog and have it at Ibrox with musical accompaniment.

    It will be interesting to see the camera angles used to disguise the attendance.

  216. Glamaig
    Ignored
    says:

    re the monarchy – I would like to see Scotland do something distinctive and unique. Im not a fan of monarchy or anything hereditary but I do like the historical continuity and symbology of our Scottish crown, sword, and sceptre.

    I would like to see the old practice of having a Guardian, if no suitable monarch is available, resurrected. We make that a custom, that we elect a Guardian, basically a President by another name, because nobody is good enough to be a monarch. (Actually I can think of a couple of people who are but they aint royals 🙂 Basically a unique set-up for Scotland, based on our traditions, maintaining our Crown, but functionally a Republic.

  217. robertknight
    Ignored
    says:

    BTW… my Gravatar image can be bought as a 3″ diameter car sticker, if anyone fancies one, or six!

    Go to zazzle.co.uk and insert number, 62, in a circle round sticker into their Search for products window.

    Be sure to order the correct size: Large, 3 inch (sheet of 6) and choose the glossy finish.

  218. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Luigi says: 6 January, 2017 at 12:32 pm:

    “ … If they ever become a dominant force in the SNP, the party will go the same, sad way as Labour. Be warned.”

    No, Luigi, they wont. I’ll tell you why. The SNP are the only really democratic party, at least in Britain, and I know of no others anywhere else.

    The SNP are led from the bottom up and not as other parties who are all led from the top down.

    When the motion was brought to the party conference about whether the SNP should favour joining NATO, or not, the motion had to be debated and not just waved through.

    The reason being that ONLY the membership, (by way of branch delegates at National Conference), can make or change the Party Policy.

    There, before the World’s TV screens, the SNP’s democratic credentials were played out before the World. The reason the original motion had to be debated and voted upon was simple. Every member, Including the then party leader and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, have exactly the same number of votes. One each.

    Furthermore, as the motion had been opposed and amendments made and opposed these all had to be debated and voted upon.

    As Wingers may recall there were elected to office people who jumped ship and continued in office as independents in there elected capacities.

    As all this was going on the cameras frequently focused upon Alex Salmond who sat there like every other party member with his one vote no more powerful than anyone else’s.

    SNP leaders do not dictate party policy to the SNP. Yet at Westminster Blair, on his own say so, took the United Kingdom to war on a lie that many, including myself, had shot to bits long before the war began. There was no evidence that Saddam had WMDs and, in fact, Aerial photos showed that more conventional weapons that were claimed by Blair and Bush to be massed troops were in fact old dumped rusted and useless armoured stuff provided to Saddam by the USA and UK.

    So there you are, if anyone in the SNP hierarchy gets too big for their boots the grass roots members of the party can remove them.

    Just another example of the laws of Scotland being applied to the party. That is the law that has the People of Scotland as sovereign and NOT either the royals or the political bods.

  219. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Nicola’s soft Brexit position. Nothing new. That’s what she has been saying for months.

    Quite clearly this repetition has been timed to pre-empt May’s expected statement.

    Here’s Huff’s take on that …

    Theresa May is preparing to make a major speech on Brexit in which she will reportedly say Britain will pull out of the single market if the European Union fails to make concessions on freedom of movement.

    Nicola has got the world media’s attention. ‘Make is soft, and the Union continues’.

    May then says, ‘it will probably be hard’.

    To quote the fictional Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith, “I love it when a plan comes together!

    http://archive.is/tJBtL

  220. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Well, whaddya know..

    Scotland’s EU ref result = 62% Remain
    Scotland’s Indy ref 1 vote = 45% Yes

    62 minus 45 = 17

    17 it is, 2017 is the year!

    It’s written in the *’s 🙂

  221. Dan Huil
    Ignored
    says:

    @galamcennalath 5:58pm

    I agree completely with your view of today’s announcement [really just a confirmation] by our FM.
    The last thing May and Westminster britnats want to be seen to be doing is giving in to the Scots.
    I have a feeling our friends in Europe will make damn sure it’s a hard brexit.

  222. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Bloody hell, BBC World Service news currently booming out Ruth Davidson and John Curtice across the whole planet. Apparently Ruth and John Curtice think Scots are never going to vote YES, ever ever ever etc.

    Ruth’s sounds a bit hysterical though, and BBC World Service tories also.

    John Curtice explaining to planet Earth, Scots only polling 44% for independence. Fair enough but the good Prof should say that it was half that before Scots referendum 2014, because he is an academic and they do like discipline in academia, they say.

    Dirty game UKOK propaganda, and to be fair he may have mentioned the massive poll jump in 2 years and its got chopped out by beeb creeps. But probably not.

  223. Returnofthemac
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T Just watched STV news. Topics
    1. Crane death
    2. Funding for missing people
    3. Mountain rescue
    4. Milngavie house fire

    BBC news
    1. Independence on hold according to Glenn Campbell “for Two years” who said?
    2 lets interview Buffalo lady to make sure that the first minister looks bad.

  224. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @heedtracker –

    John The Curtice knows PQ better than any set of polls and is on first-name terms with abody, including the cat.

    Funnily enough, even with all his ‘in-depth’ analysis of aw things political in Scotland, I don’t remember the words ‘John Robertson’ ever passing his lips.

    His silence – and that of all other meeja-related academics – over the blatant hounding of a fellow professor by BBC Scotland will hing, millstone-like, around his scrawny neck for whatever remains of his ‘career’.

  225. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    I feel a bit sorry for Davidson. Nicola offers to focus on the best deal for Scotland on Brexit and set aside talk of Indy2 in search of good deal. A somewhat deranged Ruth wants to talk of nothing else and declares victory over the natives or something. Poor Ruth has nothing to say about a good deal for Scotland regarding Brexit. She only has one policy “No Surrender” and if that is not a topic for discussion she is screwed. We all know that May has told her shut up and toe the Brexit means Brexit lie.

    Poor Ruth.

  226. Stu Mac
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert Peffers
    ===================

    Keir Hardie was taught the basics of reading and writing by his parents when quite young – so learned despite lack of schooling – his mother taught him shorthand much later. (Many working class parents then saw education as a way for their children to get out of the hard life the parents suffered). He died in 1915 so never played a part in the first Labour government (1924) which anyway had difficulty getting legislation passed – their one good successful action was starting a program of building council houses.

    Just because we have contempt for current Labour (so poor and untrustworthy) doesn’t mean we can blame Labour of the past for things they couldn’t have done even if they wanted to.

  227. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood says:
    6 January, 2017 at 6:48 pm
    @heedtracker –

    If Prof Curtice had any actual academic or moral core… He’s making loads of money out of Scottish democracy, and that’s what its all about, this union. Get in, get what you can, get the fcuk out.

    It is very odd listening to him and Ruth together battering away at Nic Sturgeon though. Ruth’s pretty polished now, trying to build BBC says SNP bad impetus and rhythm.

    She’s sounds like she’s had massive amounts of media training too. But its maybe why she’s been weak as shit in Holyrood FMQ’s, because they’ve been working on her vote NO, hate Sturgeon rage, in a BBC studio, for the studio, with very tory yoon BBC crews. It is rage too and all of it unquestioned by any BBC gimp, shock.

  228. Dan Huil
    Ignored
    says:

    @Returnofthemac 6:43pm

    The bbc is smarting because of the Misreporting Scotland campaign?

  229. Les Wilson
    Ignored
    says:

    Stu Mac says:

    Perhaps not entirely, but that goes back to when Labour had some morals. I do not see that in them now,even before Blair et al.

    They also colluded to keep the McCrone report buried for 30 years, enabling them to rob Scotland blind. All the false wars and more.

    So no, we cannot blame them for all things going back in history, but we can certainly blame them for recent times, elevated by what they are doing now.

    They are close to the gutter and should now stay there and get their just rewards.

  230. sassenach
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T
    Just dipped my toe into the BBC Scotland website and looked at the comments on Nicola’s morning broadcast report.

    The posters are literally dripping bile about her and the SNP – I suspect the ‘end-game’ is getting near. Deranged doesn’t even come close to describing them!!!

  231. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    England
    For a country that loves us so much they don’t half spend an inordinate amount of time threatening us

    And then there’s these
    If I don’t get what I want, when I want, and how I want it I’ll, You’ll what? ….Vote Tory! Pig sick of these pretendy Indy supporters as bad as the Unionists, grow up!

    Put up with what 10% of what the FM puts up with on a 24 hour a day basis and then moan
    Are there folk out there who think for one nano second the FM’s having some great time full of fun these days
    It’s bad enough putting up with all this English Brexit shit, She has to tolerate being misquoted by the media, lied about by the opposition, denigrated and abused by Twitter nutters mostly from England BTW, she needs her supposed own supporters on her back as well?

    This is the perfect example of why Scotland cannae win a fight and lavishes in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, the country fractures and defeats itself

    We’ve all seen it, read it, or know somebody who says it

    If we don’t stick together like glue and help the wummin out hell mend the lot of us for what’ll happen without her fighting for us, it’s not as if she’s trying for higher office or a Baroness or more money, she only gets out of this the same as us, Freedom! and then even more work after that

    Rant over…Pub!

  232. sassenach
    Ignored
    says:

    What Dr Jim said – and then some!

  233. Dan Huil
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dr Jim 7:42pm

    Stay cool Jim. We’ll win.

    “Freedom an whisky gang the gither”

  234. frogesque
    Ignored
    says:

    Soft Brexit or IndyRef#2, over to you Mrs May!

    I like Nicola’s use of social media to explain her stance. Makes it difficult for the likes of Laura Kuenssberg to do a cut and dice job the way she carved up Corbyn.

    In fact, I would go further, all interviews and programs involving the SNP should be independently recorded in the interest of accuracy.

  235. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    frogesque says:

    I like Nicola’s use of social media to explain her stance. Makes it difficult … to do a cut and dice job

    Excellent point. If all news / press releases were released via Twitter with link well before hand, it makes it difficult to broadcast media to alter it after huge numbers of people already know about it and discuss begun.

    A good tactic to bypass them.

  236. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan Huil says:

    I have a feeling our friends in Europe will make damn sure it’s a hard brexit.

    … and May is going to make it easy for them by trying appease the ultra right xenphobes with insistence on UK controls on people movement. The EU have stated time and time again, open market means open movement. They won’t compromise on this.

    I have a feeling we will all know it will be hard sooner than we expect.

  237. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘… and May is going to make it easy for them by trying appease the ultra right xenphobes sensibledave’s’.

    May as well ‘shorthand’ it from here on in 🙂

  238. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dr Jim – it may be nothing to do with the Scottish psyche. More likely to be agents provocateurs, concern trolls and the 77th Brigade with nothing else to do all day but sow fear and doubt.
    RT article on “the Chindits” here:
    https://on.rt.com/7zhb

    “The Brigade, which the Register says is aimed at opposing hostile social media by “Islamist terrorists, Russian hackers and state-backed fake news and propaganda agencies such as Russia Today (RT) and Iran’s Press TV” was renamed in 2015 to invoke the famous unit – also known as the Chindits – which fought the Japanese in the Far East.

    It is also reportedly used to undermine Britain’s enemies by spreading rumors and falsehoods to destabilize them politically.”

    Keep Calm and Carry On!

  239. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @sensibledave says: 6 January, 2017 at 4:49 pm:

    ” … apparently, the major issue for many Leave voters was immigration control.”

    Oh! Sheesh! Hark at the archetypical Little Englander!

    ” … The “we” is therefore the UK’s collective Leave vote majority”

    Nah! You mean the Little Englander Majority. You seem to have slithered out from under your stone a little too late to know that the majority of the sovereign people of the Kingdom of Scotland voted to stay in the EU. Furthermore, Scotland is a country, as well as a kingdom, while the United Kingdom is legally a bipartite union of kingdoms.

    “To help further, it doesn’t matter which way you, or I, voted in the UK GE, “we” have a Tory government in Westminster”

    Indeed, “WE”, do, Sensibledave. However that is a quite illegal government as it blows apart the legally correct Articles of Union in several way. Not lest by Westminster being the actual Parliament of the Country of England that has now not only illegally split up the legal union of two kingdoms along the lines of four unequal countries and openly claims, and I quote the Westminster commissioned paper quoted by the Scottish Secretary thus :-

    “The Treaty of Union extinguished the Kingdom of Scotland and renamed the Kingdom of England as the United Kingdom”

    Then Westminster illegally emphasised that they were indeed the Parliament of the Country of England as they not only legislate directly for the country of England under English Law, fund only England as The United Kingdom directly while Westminster decides, (by the Barnett Formula), the Block Grants they will grant them and then regulates those grants further by Barnett Consequentials.

    Then to cap their treachery they introduced EVEL that serves to prove they see Westminster as the Parliament of England.

    “Does that help clarify my use of the English language.”

    How could it do so, sensibledave? Your version of that language is, to say the least, rather loosely described as such.

    “(Note to Robert Peffers:
    …. that is not a prompt for you to write a screed on why the English Language doesn’t really exist because it was created in Scotland, and its really Norwegian, and that you have a reference in “History for Dummies” that proves it!)”

    God you are thick – I blame the English education system for that.

    If you have not been under that stone of yours you would have seen my fairly recent comments on the subject of the Scottish Lowlands Language and its equal and parallel path from mainly Germanic roots.

    What is more, if you were a fraction as bright as you imagine yourself to be you would know that the Germanic Languages, both Lowland Scots and English, derive from did indeed stem mainly from the Scandinavian areas.

    The Angles, Jutes Saxons and so on who were invited into south Britain after the Romans left are known as, “The Germanic Tribes”.

    Furthermore the tern, “Normans”, who later replaced them, was derived from the name, “Norsemen”. These Norsemen were invited into that area of the continental mainland, we now call Normandy, around the same time as the Germanic tribes were invited to south Britain. Then we have the Vikings – also from the same Scandinavian area.

    These then are the basis for, “Old English”, and few in modern England can read or understand, never mind speak, Old English.

    So there you go, Dave, Both Lowland Scots and English, (Anglish), do indeed derive from the same area that includes Norway.

    As another Wings commenter sometimes exhorts -, “Put down the Master’s tools”.

    You are well out of your depths on this forum, sensibledave.

    ” .. How many left here on Wings think that the UK (whoever is in it) will not be leaving the EU? “

    Almost all of us, Dave.

    Seems that while you were under your stone you missed the truth that the United Kingdom is undoubtedly, as it describes itself, A United Kingdom. It is not now and never has been a single country. The closest it gets is a unified pair of kingdoms.

    That it is undoubtedly a union of only two kingdoms is the legal fact. However, it contains four distinct countries.

    Thus, if one kingdom of a bipartite union of kingdoms leaves, the union is no more and there can be no more united kingdom. So whatever remains, either in or out, it will not be a united kingdom.

    I have absolutely no doubt that Little England will leave the EU but whetherit leaves as The Kingdom or country of England is anyone’s guess. I very much doubt that all the other three countries of the Kingdom of England, and decidedly not the Kingdom of Scotland, will be going with them.

    “IMHO, the only way we wont leave the EU now is if the rules have changed dramatically by the time we would have done – “

    I’m sorry to be the one to break this to you, Dave, but the rules of the EU will not change but you obviously have no grasp of what they are.

    First of all there are the rules of EU citizenship. All of the United Kingdom’s peoples are also citizens of the EU.

    Now I’ll tell you the EU rules regarding EU Citizenship. There are no rules, regulations or other mechanisms to throw out any EU citizen. The only known way for an EU citizen to leave is by formally requesting to do so or to die while still an EU citizen.

    As has been made very, very clear by all EU official sources, (and the reason why there can be no formal negotiations), the only way for a member state, or even an identifiable area of a member state, to leave the EU is by their own formal way as laid down by EU rules.

    So until that formal request to leave is proffered by Westminster there will be no negotiations.

    Now consider these facts – The United Kingdom is the member state but the United Kingdom is not even a single kingdom but a union of two equally sovereign kingdoms and it certainly contains four distinct countries.

    The EU rules regarding Self Determination are very, very clear and the EU supports self determination of not only countries but even identifiable groups within countries.

    All the EU parliament needs do, without changing a singe EU rule, is acknowledge that the United Kingdom is exactly that. A two partner kingdom and only one of those partner kingdoms wants to leave.

    Then they simple grant Westminster’s request to leave the EU and declare the Kingdom of Scotland, as the existing partner kingdom, the heir to the former UK membership.

    BTW: Don’t even imagine there will be trade deals to accommodate Westminster. Nothing is in such deals for the EU member states.

  240. Still Positive.
    Ignored
    says:

    Well said Robert @ 9.00pm. 🙂

  241. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    K1 @ 4:11:

    I have said before now, I pick my friends well and for good reason.I echo what Brother Ian says and raise it to a standing ovation.Peace Always

  242. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    And now for something completely different. What is almost as interesting as the ruling to come from the UKSC over the UK Gov’s appeal and interventions, is WHEN the top 11 UK judges come to the end of their deliberations, how soon or not.

    One thing that occurs to me is this. Will part of their deliberations include the status of the “UK Supreme Court” itself, inclduing its total jurisdiction? That is, after all, within the Acts and Conventions they’re now having to properly consider in full, which they haven’t had to before even in such as the AXA rulings and others.

  243. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m thinking, by the way, that the UKSC could possibly have to defer to The Court of Session on some aspects, which would set the cat, amongst the pigeons. Miaouw.

  244. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @Yesindyref2

    I suspect the entire nature of the case will have the SC in a bit of a tiz. Their ruling (whatever it may be) could very well define and determine their own remit in the UK. Indeed the fallout of the ruling could potentially lead to the break up of the United Kingdom at an accelerated rate.

    I doubt they’d allow such a situation to occur personally, but stranger things have happened (shrugs). 🙂

  245. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Yesindyref2 @ 9.24
    What I can’t help wondering if the Supreme Court delivered a split judgment….And the Scottish Judge’s and ONLY the Scottish judge’s opinions were for a LCM ect but were out voted by the English judge’s.
    What the ramifications of that would be for the Treaty of the Union,and it’s guaranteed Independence of Scottish law, could set the Court of Session and the Supreme Court in direct opposition,as well as the two Parliament’s!
    Not forgetting the two Monarchs.
    Interesting times indeed

  246. scottieDog
    Ignored
    says:

    Reading some of the utter shite on twitter about an Iscotland’s finances.
    Does no one ever consider pouring over the finances of IEngland using the same rules?

  247. iain
    Ignored
    says:

    Had a wee read at tonight’s topics on wings and it all says that the yoons don’t like it up them!
    So sad, reality hurts.
    Poverty awaits yoondom.
    Can’t argue with economics.
    Scotland can’t subsidize England for ever, they need to stand on their own feet at some point.
    The point has been reached, and is now.

  248. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Graun double EU referendum and Brexit headlines,

    From,

    Sturgeon offers to shelve independence vote in return for soft Brexit
    Scotland’s first minister would take quick referendum off table if UK wins favourable deal with EU and access to single market

    to,

    Fears that UK is heading towards ‘train crash’ Brexit
    New UK ambassador to the EU, Sir Tim Barrow, inherits demoralised and depleted team and faces daunting task

    Imagine if we’d shaken off the gits, 2014.

  249. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Wow, comments (4247) on that Graun Sturgeon’s bottled it thing, none of the very nice about her or Scotland either, shock.

    Why are so many English people afraid of England in charge of England only, is a query heard around various ex colonies.

  250. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Any of the legal Egales on here know if it is possible to do what that English woman did and go to the Court of Session and ask for a judgement on the Treaty’s status (is it now broken) if the Supreme Court messes this up.

    I know that the Politicians are, quite correctly,commited to a referendum on Independence.
    But I am not talking about Political issues, I am taking about leagal one’s.

    Politically the Brexit vote is legitimate but the legal issues around it were open to argument in the courts….But not from Politicians they dare not question the result,as in the government will act on it.
    But a member of the public could and did.

    If the Supreme Court damage that Treaty can’t a member of the public ask the Court to rule if it is now still valid?

    Valid as it currently stands,or would it require to be reworded and /or resigned?

    The point being that an “Independence” vote was always a bit misleading…It is really about keeping the Treaty that gives Westminster the right to make laws for Scotland.

    If they managed to invalidate it in the Supreme Court then the next vote could potentially be about agreeing to the term’s of a new one!
    NOT..By the way a new Act of Union…..But rather a new TREATY of Union..

  251. Dr Ew
    Ignored
    says:

    Poor show, Stu. You seen to be missing the subtle subversive
    satire of Scottish Labour’s situationist ploys. It’s Dadaist humour of the highest calibre. A little more appreciation, please.

  252. Dr Ew
    Ignored
    says:

    Poor show, Stu. You seen to be missing the subtle subversive satire of Scottish Labour’s situationist ploys. It’s Dadaist humour of the highest calibre. A little more appreciation, please.

  253. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Brexit. Who would have ever thought that a Tory Party internal leadership squabble would have got so out of hand? The final outcome could well be the disintegration of the UK.

    Tonight we seen Yoonery en masses excited that Nicola might relent on IndyRef2 if things go soft. And yet all the indications are it will be hard, with the question being ‘how hard?’

    They seem awfully slow to stick the two together and draw the obvious conclusion.

    Popcorn? I like the toffee covered variety myself!

  254. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Even Donaldo’s all new exciting BBC Scotland’s allowed comments under their mad stuff, 2500 of the delights.

    Latest Comment number 2465.

    Posted by Tanker
    Just now

    Scottish Greens sicken and the Separatists make me really unwell. Can we not have a simple pro Scotland Party, with Scotland first and foremost within a UK

    Highest rated

    Comment number 1. Posted by flipmode
    12 hours ago

    No one cares what you think Nicola

    No one.

    Now move on and stop being a sore loser

    Up 578 Down 130

    Lovely.

    Its future Sir Wullie Rennie that sticks out like a sore thumb though.

    “Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie said Ms Sturgeon was “in danger of inflicting considerable and damaging economic uncertainty on Scotland”.
    He said: “Nicola Sturgeon should now rule out another independence referendum to end this damaging uncertainty.”

    You can just hear him.

  255. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    heedtracker says:

    …2500 of the delights.

    It all seems so odd.

    In daily life if you meet someone who is politically active, especially talking about stuff online, they are invariably Yes. The No folks you meet never seem to be the type to spend time online posting nasty remarks, they just want the world to be as it was. They are quiet, disinterested in political detail, they just turn out and vote for what they believe.

    So, who are all these angry agitated people posting 1000s of anti Indy, anti SNP, anti Scotland even, comments?

  256. Big Phil
    Ignored
    says:

    Good question galamcennalath , ive often wondered the same thing.The mind boggles.

  257. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    galamcennalath says:
    6 January, 2017 at 10:42 pm
    heedtracker says:

    …2500 of the delights.

    It all seems so odd.

    Its maybe a combination of bullying and low info politics, UK style. Brexit’s really complicated, it’s fair to say that no one really knows what it means, let alone just how integrated the UK actually is, in the EU.

    Leavers are mad with frustration at not being able to say they got their country back, £350 million a week is not going to Europe, their UK rules the waves again, got the foreigners out, in their place, not telling us what to do and so on.

    So all kinds of everyone UK can easily pile on our lovely tory BBC led meeja’s hate Sturgeon, she’s stealing your Scotland region, campaign.

    At a guess:D

  258. Big Phil
    Ignored
    says:

    Tried to post earlier ,Robert Peffers at 9.00 pm. What a Brilliant post, I smiled all through it.

  259. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Wullie Rennie, “Nicola Sturgeon should now rule out another independence referendum to end this damaging uncertainty.”

    He’s not keeping up, or pretending not to.

    Instead of addressing Nicola it’s Oberunionführer May he needs to focus on. All she has to do is promise Scotland will stay in the single market and IndyRef2 won’t be called over this crisis. Simple. 😉

  260. sassenach
    Ignored
    says:

    galamcennalath says:-

    “who are all these angry agitated people posting 1000s of anti Indy, anti SNP, anti Scotland even, comments?”

    I must say exactly the same thoughts went through my mind, there cannot be THAT many outright nutters inhabiting that news section and feeling such a need to vomit bile at the FM of Scotland.

    Something definitely aint quite right!!

    But, taking a positive view, it must be quite an operation (hopefully costly), yet their general lack of specific knowledge of Scottish matters, only leads to our derision of them.

    They are doing our indy job for us, I believe.

    Being born in England, my heart bleeds for that country when I see the level of vile personal attacks on that BBC site. I’m ashamed for them.

  261. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    galamcennalath says:

    “So, who are all these angry agitated people posting 1000s of anti Indy, anti SNP, anti Scotland even, comments?

    I think that it’s the people who make toffee covered popcorn.Peace Always
    🙂

  262. Big Phil
    Ignored
    says:

    Smallaxe ,
    Your sentiments are,for want of a better word..’sweet’ 🙂

  263. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    I cannot help but wonder, what will become of England after Brexit?

    They send all the Polish plumbers, painters, joiners, plasterers and electricians home – who does the work.

    Ditto, all the other Eastern Europeans are expelled – who picks the fruit and vegetables?

    All the Paddies go home – who builds the infrastructure?

    All the Indians, Pakistanis and Chinese go home – who staffs the NHS and the transport companies – not forgetting the food outlets?

    And, worse of all – we Jocks go home to Independent Scotland – who is left to run England, make the key decisions and, most-importantly, pay for it all?

    They’re doomed, doomed Ah tell ye!!

  264. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Poor 77th Brigade…

    If they ever see active duty they’ll be hampered by an incessant urge to engage the enemy with non-sequiturs, circular reasoning and empty rhetoric, even as they’re being pummelled.

    🙁

  265. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    heedtracker says:

    So all kinds of everyone UK can easily pile on ….

    Yes. I suppose I’m think Yes/No when this Brexit thing is of course UK wide with a lot of angry agitated Leavers. My focus is on Indy for Scotland and I forget there are many more Indy for England folks out there!

    It seems unlikely that many English Remainers will pile in to support Scotland’s position. Conversely it seems highly likely English Leavers will be very angry at our insistence on looking after our own interests.

    I can take the tin foil lined bunnet aff and set aside more conspiratorial thoughts!

  266. Flower of Scotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Great comments tonight! Dr Jim @7.42pm Hope you enjoyed your drink tonight, you deserved it!

    I was in the Lib/Dem pub, but my local, tonight. I’m friends with them all and put up with a lot of joking! But slowly but surely I’m getting there.

    Willie Rennie was born in the village where I live ( Although I am from Portobello) so it’s difficult but I cultivate friendships amongst them all. No one is nasty to me but all know I’m SNP. All the Yes, Wings, Eu , signs in the window are a dead giveaway.

    Things are changing and I’m optimistic! Great post Stu.

  267. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Smallaxe 🙂

    _______________

    Mr Peffers…exquistitely done sir! Gladdens ma heart tae read yer skelps. 🙂 (he’s the laddie in the classroom wha’s a sandwhich short ae a picnic is wee sensislbledave)

  268. Stu Mac
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sassenach
    ==============

    Thing is the online comments sections in the MSM could be good places where exchanges of views and information that could really enhance the news gathering experience. It would only take a reasonable bit of moderation done honestly and diligently to make it happen. Unfortunately most MSM, including supposed “serious” online papers are happy to have flaming, insults and misinformation and even general craziness infect their columns as they think it generates clicks which will convince the advertisers to spend their bucks with them. It’s killing debate – and reasonableness – for anyone who uses them.

  269. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    galamcennalath says:
    6 January, 2017 at 11:16 pm
    heedtracker says:

    So all kinds of everyone UK can easily pile on

    Also but not only, England has a fantastic amount to lose, by losing control of Scotland. Its never said, online, but they’re more than aware of what England, with Wales, will become almost over night. And this is against a nationalist mindset that is extremely convinced of its own self importance.

    There’s probably nothing like this anywhere in the world now, a rich, war like country such as the UK, suddenly halving in geographical size alone.

  270. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Big Phil:

    Thank you, Sometimes I have to be “sweet”, it hides the pain that we all have when we know the truth about what holds back our aspirations for our beautiful Scotland.

    We will prevail eventually until then we should keep a smile on our faces, just to let the barstewards know that they will never grind us down.
    Peace Always my friend

  271. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Ah agree with those speaking of the online presence of so many ‘hateful’ types. Never in all ma years of just reading comments under articles especially Guardian and BBC have ah ever seen such hatred and bile…the Herald can be pretty rotten too these past couple of years.

    The thing is there isn’t a grassroots Leave, there isn’t a grassroots No. Never was, the former there was not time, as it was a relatively quick campaign, the latter as we all know was fuelled by the politicos, activists and bussed in Englanders. So yes, no tin foil hat here…this is clearly orchestrated by ‘other’ forces. No denying since the Leave vote there are some who will voice dissent against Scotland, but we are talking about a clear rise of utter bile…as if to antagonise and provoke more than what could be described as any kind of ‘debating’.

    That’s the real giveaway. It’s the same mantra over and over again, like someone who read the ‘relevant’ article and spews Express/Mail like rhetoric and that is all they have got? It’s like zombies, push a little deeper into their argument and they just react with puss like vomit.

    There is no way this is ‘ordinary’ folk. It’s extreme. Innit funny that none of this vile tweet/social media bile is ever highlighted in the articles produced weekly by the usual suspects in the rags claiming SNP peeps are vile and Wings is a hotbed of ‘hatred’ etc?

    Not strange at all, if they are in the know and it’s some of them themselves who are at it…spanners and authors come tae mind in that regard.

    So, like many I’m no buying it that thousands of folk have become trolls and hateful over the past couple of years. That brigade was set up to create trouble and divisiveness and then claim that ‘we’ are the ones doing it. That’s exactly what’s been happening over the past couple of years. It’s called ‘discrediting’ a movement…

    We’re the only grassroots movement for self determination on these islands, there is no English self determination movement. We’re the ones they are trying to get back in ‘their’ box, and therefore we are making a difference and they know it…the more raging bile we see btl regarding Scotland the more we know we are winning the argument, if we weren’t why would they be so bothered?

  272. crazycat
    Ignored
    says:

    Some time ago, when there were a reasonable number of Have Your Say opportunities on the BBC, and I used to rate comments and sometimes add my own, I became aware that there were posters who contradicted the biographical information about themselves which they had previously included – to make themselves look real, I suppose.

    This happened most frequently at weekends, so I suspected that there was a change of shifts then, and they didn’t tell each other what fake details they had last posted. Or they expected no-one to notice, or they didn’t care, or all three.

    (For instance, a very right-wing self-employed builder mysteriously became a shop steward and member of the Labour Party, and another chap was variously a (not mature) student, an accountant, born/living in several different places at once, and the parent of a child doing GCSEs. I copied them into a file, for a while.)

    Some of the posters were real (me, for instance) but I have no doubt they padded the threads out with fakes and uprated them if they were being ignored.

  273. Big Phil
    Ignored
    says:

    In a way Oor Yes movement is a ‘sleeping giant’ and the more I see and hear from you good people only adds to Oor height.the alarm clock surely must be about to go off, 2014 it only went into snooze mode.

  274. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Stu? Can you not give us an article outlining the type of comments that you are barring from the site and whether there has been an increase of more hateful ones depending on what ‘events’ seemingly provoke this. It would be interesting to see whether Wings is experiencing more ‘bile’ than before the EU result?

    ————————

    Also why don’t more No voters post on Wings and tell us where they are at, some of ye must be reading the comments, surely ye can see for yourselves that this isn’t some ‘weird’ set up wi scary monsters btl? Yer input would be appreciated to get some sort of flavour of were some of you are at after the EU vote?

    Well, that’s ma two begging letters oot the way for the year. 🙂

  275. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    These twerps even misspelled Stugeon. Oh Scotland, why ever did you vote to be reigned over by these creeps?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04nkd8m

    Nicola Stugeon: Soft Brexit takes indyref ‘off table’
    SNP leader and First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, speaks to Good Morning Scotland about her priorities for 2017

    Release date: 6 January 2017
    Duration:
    15 minutes

  276. Big Phil
    Ignored
    says:

    K1,
    Thats a very reasonable request, we do get trolls here but they are few ‘heedtracker is watching’ , this is by far the best site for indy supporters, we should be deluded by the bile of yoons.

  277. Big Phil
    Ignored
    says:

    I would love it if wingers converted a yoon on-line , how good would that be.??

  278. Big Phil
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘deluded’ ffs. ye know wit a mean.

  279. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    People are being left to die in the corridors of A & E Tory England, 55 of their NHS Trusts are in crisis, their Ambulance Service can’t cope, then Tories want to send home the EU migrants that are holding up the understaffed NHS
    services in England, and of course they must endure the next
    round of Austerity Cuts.

    How strange the UK Media are going crazy about Nicola Sturgeon considering a second independence campaign until she works on the possibility of a soft Brexit??????

    Life and Limb of the English plebs mean nothing to the media compared to claiming to subdued the Scots.

    Sky news currently has a Right Wing cabal discussing
    Sturgeon Failure in Education over Murder by neglect in Tory controlled NHS England.

    I absolutely detest these fascists who dress themselves up a neutral reporters and journalists.

    The Three Wise Monkeys seem to be more knowledgeable than the UK Current Affairs out-lets!
    to

  280. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I think I’ve read every comment on this page and I have to say I’ve found myself nodding in agreement, to put it mildly, and shouting, to myself, “Well typed Madam/Sir!”

    A plethora of comments showing insight and intelligence. Well done, Wingers!

  281. davidb
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T

    Would you think the imposition of an import duty on veblen goods like Champagne, Gucci bags and BMW’s will have any impact on the volume of sales in a post Brexit Britain?

  282. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Deluged ah think is what you were going for Big Phil, but yer frustration wis funny and so wis the idea of being ‘deluded by the bile of yoons’ it’s like a line from a wee play:

    “Hark…what ails ye puir fella, whit has brought ye so low?”

    “Acht” says the crazy eyed loon, “Ma heids fair sair wae the onslaught of their pish, ah’ve been deluded by the bile of yoons”

    “Sit awhile then and calm yer heid, ye’ll be needin’ some Wings tae gie ye a wee lift an bring ye back tae yer rightful senses”

    😉

  283. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    Gee thanks BDTT! I’m off up the little wooden stair to Bedfordshire now. But I might check in from time to time to see if anyone is still up and posting. Feels like it’s been a landmark day.

  284. defo
    Ignored
    says:

    Socrates MacSporran says:
    “I cannot help but wonder, what will become of England after Brexit?

    They send all the Polish plumbers, painters, joiners, plasterers and electricians home – who does the work.”

    I’ve been a Joiner & Carpenter for over a third of a century Socrates, and for at least the last 10 years the rates haven’t gone up! I saw it coming, and bailed out into mgmt.
    Supply & demand.
    Same goes for the rest of the trades BTW.
    The quality of work done now is generally pish poor, and those coming though ‘apprentices’, have a very limited repertoire.

    For some, many i’d guess, it’s not all happy fucking clappy.

  285. Big Phil
    Ignored
    says:

    K1,
    Ha Ha Ha, ye geid me a puir riddy there, very well put. Thank you for putting me right , Mer like a Scotsmans Burden. I doth my cap yet again. thank you. 😉

  286. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    K1:

    I know you won’t mind if I echo your begging letter.

    We would very pleased to hear the views of any No voters who read these pages.Tell us your reasons for voting no, let us know what positive reasons you have for voting as you do.I can assure you that if you have genuine worries or doubts, we will listen and debate them reasonably with you all.

    Who knows, you might even get a convert or two, doubtful I know but it would do no harm to converse with us and let us know your thoughts on the things that we speak of.I for one would be very interested in what you have to say on these matters.Peace to All

  287. Big Phil
    Ignored
    says:

    Smallaxe, Ive read most of your comments on here and i think you generalize the people of Scotlands’ kindness. I reckon I could pick you out in a crowd mainly cos you have the biggest heart.
    My New Year resolution is to go to as many meets as I can and i’ll think i’ll find ye . nae bother.

  288. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Big Phil:

    You will find me on O/T 🙂
    Peace Always

  289. ian m
    Ignored
    says:

    Is this Nicola playing chess again ?
    Making a reasonable offer that May can not accept, thereby making Scotland look reasonable and Westminster the bad guys
    This will give Nicola the moral authority to do what is best for Scotland

  290. Steven Roy
    Ignored
    says:

    The SNP cannot be in government because the people of other parts of the UK can’t hold them to account at the ballot box. This from an organisation that calls itself Scottish Labour which should not be in government because people in other parts of UK cannot hold it to account.

    It would be really nice if so called Scottish Labour would once in a while consider the the people of Scotland. He wants the SNP to follow a Labour manifesto because somehow this is appealing to rUK. It completely ignores the fact that the people of Scotland have rejected this in preference to the SNP manifesto. Clearly the views of the people of Scotland is irrelevant to so called Scottish Labour

  291. Vambomarbeleye
    Ignored
    says:

    Much talk on the wireless about Russian interference in the American election. One issue is false news. Is that not what we get every single day. Except it’s not Russia. The enemy is much much closer.

  292. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s distinctly possible, that Trump is not the most level-headed of people.

  293. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    yesindyref2:

    Ya Thaink? 🙂
    Peace Always

  294. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Goodnight all, Peace Always

  295. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Night Smallaxe

  296. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    Y’know, I don’t think the yoon commentariat and their hangers on get it yet. There is no offer to shelve independence or an indyref in exchange for a soft brexit.

    Do you think someone should tell them what’s going on, or will we let it be a surprise? 😉

  297. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    Let it be a surprise. It’ll be more fun. Another day, another catalogue of disasters from the folks who brought you BREXIT!

  298. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @Capella

    Righto then.

    A surprise it is. 🙂

  299. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC helpful articles appearing as Prof Curtice anticipates the strange death of Scottish Labour.

    Q&A: Scotland’s 2017 council elections – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-38518557

  300. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    LOL 😀

    Just had a look on the Wings twitter page. I’m beginning to suspect the Rev would make a helluva poker player. 😀

  301. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Nana: Good Morning

    Thank You, for the lovely early links.Kettle’s on.
    Peace Always xx

  302. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Nana:

    Your spoiling me 🙂
    Peace Always xx

  303. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Nana, see ye got oot the wrang side o the bed this morning? ye’ve got Smallaxe’s shoes oan! 🙂

    Many thanks for the linx!

  304. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    @Fred

    That’s how rumours start Fred, I swear I was at home in my own house all night officer lol

    @Smallaxe

    Fred is jealous he did’nt get extra links for breakfast!

  305. gus1940
    Ignored
    says:

    Yet another in the long line of Scotsman editors of the last 20 years bites the dust.

  306. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Nana:

    Fred’s beelin’ cause ther’s nae Black Puddin 🙂

    @ Fred, you can have a share of my links, my Friend. Peace Always 🙂

  307. Stu Mac
    Ignored
    says:

    @yesindyref2 says:
    7 January, 2017 at 3:44 am
    ================

    It more than possible, indeed very likely. However I’m not sure he’s any more dangerous than Clinton would have been. The papers are full of talk that the Russians were cheering Trump’s election (part of a campaign to de-legitimise him) but even if true why not? Clinton was threatening to go to war with Russia while Trump was saying they ought to be joining with the Russians to destroy ISIS and AlQuaeda.

    Someone posted on another thread here a link to global research about this. Couldn’t find it but here are a few others:
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-foreign-policy-and-the-campaign-to-destabilize-the-trump-presidency/5565825

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-russian-hacking-how-the-leaks-from-clinton-and-the-dnc-happened/5566625

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-fake-news-saga-from-official-policy-to-mainstream-american-discourse-propaganda-in-the-making/5566878

  308. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    @Smallaxe

    Is there a national shortage of black pudding, has the government been informed. Does Nicola know and what has she done about it.

    Will this outrage be covered by the bbc

    Snp fail to act on Black pudding shortage. Torys say the people demand action. Slab say Snp baad.

    ******************

    By the way for the best black pudding anywhere it’s got to be Charles MacLeod butcher Bayhead, Stornoway

    I have not received commission for this advertisement!

  309. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Nana:

    Have you not seen the “Great Black Pudding” conspiracy on O/T?Peace Always

  310. Jack Murphy
    Ignored
    says:

    Nana—-thanks for the links. 🙂

  311. stewartb
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T

    On a day when again we’re aware in Scotland of the shortcomings of the corporate media, it is worth noting that others, in a different context, are calling out “journalistic fraud”. At the link below, Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept rips apart the journalistic integrity of the Guardian.

    https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/the-guardians-summary-of-julian-assanges-interview-went-viral-and-was-completely-false/

  312. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    @Smallaxe

    Just had a wee look. I see Stoker had mentioned Stornoway black pud, good man!

    I’ve not had time to read much on o/t lately what with kitchen duties and other holiday stuff.

    @Jack Murphy

    You are welcome Jack.

  313. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Stu Mac
    I agree, Clinton would have been dangerous, I heard her and warmongers would be considered pacifists in comparison. Choice between the devil and the deep blue sea I guess.



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