Moving Out
Alert readers may recall that it’s only three-and-a-bit years since the SNP somehow spent £386,000 of its members’ money fitting out its party HQ at Jackson’s Entry in Edinburgh, a pricey piece of prime real estate just yards from Holyrood, with shiny new furniture while it was sitting empty during COVID.
So it’s a little surprising that they’re suddenly doing a flit now.
We wonder if there might be a downsizing in the offing.
There’s no mistaking that it’s the SNP’s floor (the 3rd) that’s available.
(Click pics to enlarge.)
The SNP website still lists the building as its official address as of now, although some of the pics suggest they might have vacated already. (They could be library shots.)
We have no idea where they are now/are going in the near future, but we doubt it’ll be somewhere ritzier. (Maybe Police Scotland have some slightly-used blue tents available, or will let them move into the campervan.)
We hope members think that £386,000 on fixtures and fittings was well spent, and that at least some of it can be squeezed into the new place.
No non-binary toilets, though? Tsk. No wonder they’re leaving.
I wonder if the branches, let alone the members, have been told?
So that’s where half of the £600,000 went
Mene, mene, tekel upharsim
As you look back and see
The vow publisher in charge
The conspiracy against Salmond
Lloyd come back
Continuity candidate
Missing money
Hate crime shutting down the rev
Culture wars from the top
I pad scandals
And SNP arguing for a seat in the house of lords
It is hard to believe the SNP is not being run by the security services
Incompetent givernment
Ooochaaa.
Looks like an eviction to me.
Well spotted Stu! Green wall with lots of fancy lights and a YES sign – I wonder what’s been faked there? But no dungeon?
All the good gags were done, even as I read it. Moving into campervan? Check Non-Binary toilets? Check
How sad to see the Troughers getting a taste of what it’s like for so many others, and having to economise.
Perhaps they know they’ll be in jail for 7 years, so won’t need it? After all, a lot of people intend to have them charged with hate crimes…
Could our Edinburgh alert readers please check out their local telephone boxes?
So how does that impact on their campaign literature which lists there offices in the P&P ? Surely this isn’t a last minute issue and they’ve forgotten to tell all their candidates who are currently using Jackson’s Entry (ooer madam) as the address to contact them?
Netflix considering making a new series about a complex and lengthy stealth robbery.
McMoney Heist: Auld Reekie
I understand there was a mouse in the premises. The staff were terrified and had to leave. Maybe it was a rat!
Rev, before you go [if you go], what about doing a piece about Indy1st?
Indy1st was launched yesterday with a video that includes Geoff Bush describing the AyeApp – an app to make voter registration easy and which will also analyse voting intentions etc in order to help campaigning strategy for Independents for Independence.
The video is available on Barrhead Boy, Eva Comrie, Leanne Tervit’s twitter.
Indy1st looks to be very worthwhile for helping boost the Yes vote so take a look, everyone – and if you can send them a few quid, even better.
I think the toilets were full and nobody could work out how to flush them.
Better to move.
Fit’s that word on the placard in the first pic?
Starts with a ‘Y’, then maybes an ‘E’, but the rest is obscured.
Anybody ken fit it is, and fit it might mean?
Can somebody check the agent’s blurb? There should be several thousand copies of the “Selected Speeches Of Nicola Sturgeon” included in the lease. £15.99 a pop cover price, but on Amazon for £6.
Surely there is someone on this site who is still a member of this ‘organisation’; I wonder if they have been notified of any actual or prospective change of registered address ? Failing that then correspondence, invoices, reminders of outstanding bills etc-not to mention any writs issued- might just pile up inside the post box.
They can’t have done a ‘midnight flit’, can they ?
Let’s face it, the motor home should be big enough….
After the election they will be able to meet in a phone box.
They used to be based over in McDonald Rd next to Capital Copiers.
Wonder if they kept it for storage, £600K, a Battle Bus, WhatsApp messages, a list of the Salmond Stitch up bitches and a spare pair of slippers for cosy feet Pete.
Did Craig Murray bust his arm? On Judge Nap looking like he is wearing a kaftan as I am guessing as his arm is in a sling. Still in Greece by the look of it.
Shit result for Assange, no surprises there from UK ‘Justice’.
Britain is diabolical.
Has Hale-Bopp come round again ? Maybe Jackson’s entry was blocked n they decided to use Heaven’s Gate ?
Will Gordon Lamb start bleating if that mob turn up at his hoose n start defacing the walls with pronouns n screaming at his shrubs ?
Fck knows , every day’s a nursery day with those wacky snP kids
Karen 7.19pm “But no dungeon?”
Well, the ‘raised access floors with integral floor boxes’ might be the modern day equivalent…
New poll suggest the SNP will only win 18 seats and lose 30, I would presume is this part of the reason why they have moved, if the party loses money from the amount of MPs they have at Westminster by 30 seats then the party is in real trouble and if no one is prepared to donate then the party troubles are even worse then we thought. After all Mike Russle promised to keep us informed regarding the membership numbers, as of yet I haven’t heard anything have you.
Polical gravity and the hubris of political power. Formerly a Labour trait and now an SNP trait. In the past staff serving leaders dumped the contents of a chamber pot on their heads as they left the building. Nicola sneaked out before that could happen. But the story has not ended.
(Trying again with a couple of modifications.)
Looking like the M0scow terr0rist attacks were sponsored by Ukr@ine/USA… shocker.
If the internet knows it… the Ru$$ians surely do.
I don’t really care any more… and actually would prefer if things went supernova. I don’t think anything less will stop the evil.
So if we ‘go’ I would implore Ru$$ia and Chin@ to completely and utterly obliterate the ‘source’ of it. The true source of it.
Where is all the IT equipment too, nearly £500,000 spent over two years but nothing evident on any desks or elsewhere!
Let’s remember folks these people running the SNP aren’t nationalist there not even British their opportunist.
Let’s see if the party holds a spring conference, I think not.
Sturgeon stood in front of us in arena in Glasgow in 2014 and portrayed herself as a president and we allowed her to do it, it took a few years for some of us to realize her was a woman who had no intention what’s so ever of delivering Independence. Then Brexit happened and she started on with the idea of a second referendum on the EU at the time I had left the SNP but was trying desperately to point out to those people who still believed Sturgeon and that she was going to deliver on the promise of Indyref2. I said England has left the EU we need to respect that, what we need is for Sturgeon to honor these mandates she been given and delivery Independence because that’s our route back into the EU, but instead Sturgeon deliberately did a kamikaze on 1 Indyref2 and 2 a new referendum on the EU but instead gave Johnson an election in which he won a supermajority and she didn’t even ask him for anything in return. I was a supporter of the SNP for 33yrs and never in my life would I have expected to her from a leader of the SNP that’s she would be British even when Scotland became Independent. I’m afraid folks what is happening is the people running the SNP are winding the party down for good because after the Westminster election it’ll all be over for the SNP and lets see what new carer Sturgeon is blessed with by the British state.
Mac
The intel seems spot on. They were caught with their phones which had not only all communication but some daft bugger had recorded themselves.
ISIS my arse. They blow themselves up. Not risk being caught fleeing to a war zone with their phones.
The yanks are as dumb as fck.
How the mighty are fallen. Karma is SUCH a b1tch! 🙂
As a former Labour supporter, horrified by the party’s intellectual and moral decline, I still marvel at the way the SNP became corrupt to the core in just a decade.
Ahahahahahaa. This is brilliant. I was just talking about the inevitable decline of the SNP in my last communique… this is the clearest sign yet that they are completely fucked.
Is it possible they are closing down rather than simply moving?
I can’t wait to see their next office. Maybe they’re going to commandeer a phone-box like REM’s sidewinder…
“This here is the place where I will be staying
There isn’t a number, you can call the pay phone
Let it ring a long, long, long, long time
If I don’t pick up, hang up, call back, let it ring some more…”
Sidewinders are snakes, of course.
“Put a candle in the window.
But I feel I’ve got to move.
But I’m going! going! (and we won’t be back)
Long as I can see the light.
Pack my bags and let’s get moving.
Cos the cops are coming soon.
When I’m gone! Gone! Gone!
As long as I can see the light.”
Long as I can see the light.”
Anybody know if the dinner table hate crime bill thing is real? Can we really be reported for something we say at our own dinner table? Mental, if true.
They’ll be downsizing in preparation for going bust.
They’ll move to shed somewhere & back to discussing the colour of shite with tales of how they almost had it all until Sturgeon & the QWERTY+++ group took over.
They can all sit around Nurse Ratchet wondering how they can win their power back.
Moral of the tale. Don’t vote for a QWERTY. Their moment in the spot light has been a monumental disaster & so has the Greens.
They’re both LGBTQWERTYS2 obsessives & it was all they could think about 24/7.
I hope they are obliterated off the political scene all together. Not a single one has achieved anything so I fail to see why eighteen should be spared. They’ll only help Labour pass more of this shit.
The SNP haven’t moved out…
This is how the place looks on any given work day.
Everyone is either at Holyrood or Westminster, with their nose firmly stuck in a trough.
Sweeeee….
@100%Yes 9:15pm
I left the SNP in 2015 after being a member twice. The first time I left was for moving around bringing up a family. The second time in 2015 was a direct consequence of the policies of Nicola Sturgeon. And as far as the HCA goes I am up there for arrest. I have been a critic of policy decisions on multiple forums since 2015. I am worried? No I am not. Plenty of people will take my place.
And support for independence will still be around 50%. Just waiting for a leader or party to utilise it, and advance it, for the benefit of Scotland. Until then thank god England’s right-wingers seem intent on destroying the uk.
Mac asked: Did Craig Murray bust his arm?
He mentioned on Twitter that he tripped & dislocated his shoulder a few days ago. That’s why he wasn’t able to travel back for the Assange appeal announcement.
“No non-binary toilets, though? Tsk. No wonder they’re leaving.”
You have to move to a juridiction where they can’t get their dirty hands on you.
Keep on exposing the bastards and bitches.
When is the lease up for renewal, imagine renting premises when you have a political party that are supposed to be a permanent fixture, that £386,000 spent on shite furniture plus another £600,000 of RINGFENCED other people’s dosh would have got them a permanent gaff, maybe even a wee castle or a mahoosive recreation vehicle
I think the rent like every other thing will be subject to inflation and with the absence of donations maybe they cannae pey thir bills or maybe the other tenants are complaining to the owners of the property that they are embarrassed at the police searches bringing the property into disrepute
The evacuation of what was the SNP headquarters is but a reflection of the death throws of the SNP.
The party has haemoraged members. Membership dues have stalled to a trickle. Charitable donations have ended. All that is left is the MP short money. But with the SNP set to maybe lose 30 of its 48 seats it doesn’t take a Brain of Britain to realise that the party is going under.
This piece about the SNP vacating their rented premises just reinforces what is happening. The SNP are bust!
Ah, things all seemed so bright and happy 16 years ago… https://www.scotsman.com/news/property-crisis-what-crisis-snp-plans-move-to-swish-new-hq-near-holyrood-2510335
They will be moving in with the Greens as soon as Patriarch can get his bike out of his mum’s shed
@Geri says: 26 March, 2024 at 9:16 pm
The intel seems spot on
“Intel” being short for “intelligence”, best you leave it well alone, Geri.
Soz but to have to break it to you, but intelligence is not contagious.
So you must remain dumb as fck.
But dinna greet, ye’ll always have Mac.
@Mac says: 26 March, 2024 at 9:03 pm
(First try – nae modifications.)
The internet tells me they had Biden on speed dial.
And each had a personalised message from Sleepy J, telling them to “Give em Hell, self-id-ing genders!). And a signed, crisp, new, $100 bill “to spend on Big Macs when you get to 404”.
The Russtis can’t publicise this because they can’t acknowledge the existence of trans, or Big Macs, but the internet knows. The internet knows all.
Death to the west, the running dog lackeys of capitalism, the makers of Big Macs, and everybody who refused to acknowledge my special greatness when I told them to. Oh yes, especially them – I want a slowly simmering supernova for those boys.
And those Jew cants who came up with Family Guy – two deaths to each of them.
Naw, five.
The treatment of Assange really is the latest exemplar that the British justice system has fuck all to do with justice. It is so bent it is shocking. They just make it up as they go along.
The judges excluded evidence that the US plotted to assassinate Assange.
They employed Lady Dorrian levels of ‘logic’ to rule that it was moot.
It is incredible really that all this is going on in so called democracies.
The West is morally bankrupt. It is so visible everywhere you look. ‘We’ are going down folks… The signs are all around and they are accumulating. And it can’t be stopped.
I rarely watch football matches nowadays but I decided to watch the Scotland game last night. We were not very good.
There is one obvious problem with the team, that few seem to have noticed-
Manager-WHITE
Goalkeeper-WHITE
Full Backs-WHITE
Central Defenders-WHITE
Midfielders-WHITE
Forwards-WHITE
Our esteemed First Minister, Hamas Useless will surely have spotted this. Expect changes very, very soon.
Is this the first sign of the SNP being aware of the pumping that’s coming in the autumn? I hope it is. At some stage I would like to see that awareness morph into the recognition that the only way the SNP won’t lose humiliatingly is to not stand as the SNP. Wrap it all up now and any of them who remain with a genuine appetite for independence could run for the election under Scotland United.
I know, ever the optimist! Imagine it, a de facto independence election and an end to the SNP in one fell swoop!
@ Mac
Ah, British “justice”, same as it ever was…
2 min clip of a young Bernadette Devlin providing just a small example of the machinations the State get up to.
https://twitter.com/DanielCollins85/status/1303963063276707840
That clip is taken from this 1 hour long vid of Firing Line – The Irish Problem should folk wish to watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFUKV5_EwdA
@Chas says: 27 March, 2024 at 8:18 am
To be brutally frank, it’s only racists like yourself that would notice that.
Wee, cuddly, friendly, oh-so-nice Scots are genetically colour-blind. In fact, as a Sovereign Scot, I am quite unable to confirm your claim.
Colour-blind and gender-blind. Every boy, girl and cat in the team looks the same shade of ScotGov green to me.
But your racist observation raises a disturbing point. Is the Scotland team deploying White Privilege in a dastardly underhand way?
White Privilege is a fantastically powerful magic and it grants advantages in every area of human endeavour. So it must work on the park too.
America Generals, ex military bods, ex policy advisors, senet committees – Of course we commit terrorist acts on foreign soil. We call these “special operations”. How else do we bring about regime change?
404 – of course we commit terrorist acts on Ruskies soil & Ruskie populations in 404, (we’ve a long list dating back to 2014 & beyond) we partake in a bit of ethnic cleansing – PS send us some planes. We’ve fcked all the tanks & sold all the weapons. Addendum – send coke. *Sniff* Where’s our nukes? You said you’d send us just a wee one tae play with ..
Genocide John on the internet – this is absolutely not true. La la la la.. the bbc says Ruskies are in the channel coming tae get us..
So we’re the Iraqis, the Afghans, Syrians. Lebanese & the COVID spreaders..
Well guess whit? They will be now. An attack on Ruskies soil, if the Brits are found to be involved too, is an act of war. Well done warmongers. It’ll no longer be playstation & armchair generals for you..report for duty…
Geri, whoever is behind the terror attack they are as good as dead because the lowlifes they employed are going to sing like canaries.
One reportedly said he was paid to do it. Something like $5,400 equivalent. (It is astonishing to me that someone would be prepared to murder so many innocent people, kids etc, and for such a small amount of money.)
This was a desperate act by desperate people who know they have lost the war and are now looking for a way to provoke and escalate it all in some insane hail mary pass act of terror.
The US state department was obviously in a panic seeing this as they very foolishly issued a denial just 55 minutes after the attack occurred say it definitely was not Ukr@ine and that it was ISI$-K. This shit is not fooling anyone anymore.
The ru$$ians are going to work out exactly who is behind this. And if the roads ultimately lead to Langley I’d say this is going to be very bad…
The Biden regime is a literal horror show. Full of monsters. And it not just there, it is here also, just look at the SNP regime, the hate crime bill, the ghoul above…
Here’s the reason for quitting.
Male & female WCs and a wheelchair accessible WC.
Heresy! Pile up the faggots!
Read «dedicated meeting room» as defecated meeting room.
Stable of Augeas?
Gordon Lamb house a typical example of junk Edinburgh design n build «architecture».
@Mac says: 27 March, 2024 at 8:12 am
The judges excluded evidence that the US plotted to assassinate Assange
Man, tweeted the plot on X did they? Or maybes a half-page ad in the NYT? Don’t tell me, the internet knows all.
The West is morally bankrupt. It is so visible everywhere you look. ‘We’ are going down folks… The signs are all around and they are accumulating. And it can’t be stopped
So we are going down, and the best hope is for our total destruction at the hands of the Orcs and the Covid Spreaders, who are already all the way down at the bottom.
Who says life-denying Scottish Calvinist religious fundamentalism is deid? Tune in to Wings BTL to discover it’s still very much alive. In 2024, FFS!
I’m getting a sense of deja vu, remembering the posts on here in March 2022, claiming that the kids blown to bits by the Orcs were lucky, because they would be spared the unhealthy attentions of the western trans pedos.
Then again, it was RLS who penned “thems as dies will be the lucky ones”.
So maybes it’s a national characteristic, like greetin in your dram, and welding your wallet shut. FFS again.
Maybe they no longer need it because His Majesty is going to put them up at his pleasure.
One can but hope.
The fact we have folk like Johnicide Nuland on here 24/7 spouting their increasingly hysterical bum gravy mainsplaining and lying away ethnic cleansing and genocide is a sign of their weakness.
The Hate Bill is a sign of their weakness.
The persecution of Assange is a sign of their weakness.
Ukr@ine is a sign of their weakness.
And what is being done in Isr@el, more than anything, is a sign of their weakness.
The police raided in April 2023 and it has to be assumed that they took everything. If investigations are still ongoing, then it’s difficult to see how the Party has been functioning for the past year. One assumes that with no equipment then there’s no point in going to the office. At £75,000 per annum that’s a hefty white elephant.
Retrieval of equipment (as you know Mr Wings) can be difficult even when you’re totally innocent , so who knows whether the SNP will ever get their shiny new computers back.
I just realised that in 2021 – 2022 the party spent £247850 and raised £384984
If you go to the site they seem to send enquiries to people inside Holyrood – but I may be wrong here.
To what is the meeting room dedicated? It certainly isn’t independence.
Stu,
Why don’t you contact the agents with a view to letting the place as the new offices for Wings!!!!
I’m sure we can all club together for your train fare.
That way you can see what has been left behind and whether it might go to recouping some of the £385k.
You may find some spares for the camper van in a corner. A spare gearbox, and some nice alloys never go to waste.
Absolute power absolutely corrupts, but only the weak minded.
The narcissistic sociopaths that rose through the ranks, drunk on it, went ballistic.
Narcs are generally more intelligent of the average but are also far more risk prone.
This leads them to underestimate the consequences of their actions, with opportunistic decisions taken on a whim, almost often forced by past wrong choices.
In a now out of control spiral of worsening problems, the true nature of these mentally defectives is evident and undermines their authority.
Panic sets in and they resort to tyrannical power.
The next step is a complete collapse with a substantial reset of the landscape, be it political, social or financial.
There is no other possible outcome. It happened every time a power centre has been overridden by incompetents, malicious and malevolent inadequates.
Start building better NOW.
@Mac says: 27 March, 2024 at 9:13 am
Johnicide Nuland mainsplaining
Hey, credit where due – that’s nae tae bad. Bit fit did ye learn in primary school aboot ca’in people names, rather than engaging wi their arguments? If they telt ye that’s a sign o strength, then they lee’d.
It’s a crap day, but once the weather picks up, you should get oot more.
You’ll feel a lot better.
Failing that, move tae Orc Central, or one of the Covid Spreader’s utopian nirvanas.
Then you’ll feel great. And so will we.
BTW, fit’s being done in Israel? Tell us fit the internet is telling ye. Ah hear the internet kens all!
As an observation aboot “signs o weakness”, ah hear Ben’s jaiket is oan a shoogly peg. Whereas Vlad and Xi are untouchable. Today’s conumdrum for the class:
Some nations retain the mechanisms to recall or replace their leaders, whereas some other nations kill, imprison or exile everybody who so much as looks the wrong way at their leaders.
In the former bloc we have Israel. In the latter bloc we have Orcland, Covid Spreading Central, The Female Genital Mutilators and the North Korean Utopia.
Which blocs are inherently weak because they allow their citizens to replace their leaders when their leaders monumentally feck up?
Which blocs are inherently weak because they have no choice but to let their leaders cling on to despotic power until they die?
Actually, that’s a serious question. I’m kinda starting to think democracy is over-rated. I’m also thinking that any second-rate also-ran mediocrity will shine if all alternative contenders are eliminated.
It worked for Sturgeon.
John Main @ 09.55
Oh dear, it’s finally happened, the dreaded “Braid Scots Computer Virus” has now propogated itself on to the Main PC.
That looks like a nice wee studio – I might have been interested in in myself had it not been within the Edinburgh no-go zone (LEZ)! And that’s good enough reason, in my view, not to want to be there, move out etc. – Something similar is true of central Hazzard County (Glasgow).
One thing puzzles me though (well it does rhetorically at least) – with such a usefully equipped video facility, how come their output is mainly Secondary school/potatocam level crap?
A review of the electoral commission website registration page for the SNP still has it as their registered office – it’s an offence not to notify the commission of change if registered office. Someone should shop them but that could a hate crime I suppose – after April 1st
I feel I’m evolving in some sort of zen-like direction these days, more able and more inclined than ever to see the silver linings in all things…
Even here reading the comments, people that used to irritate seem to serve this higher purpose. Indeed, it is always good to know what the bitter old pricks of the world are thinking.
Likewise, the plight and suffering of Assange tells the world two very important things;
1) western democracies are shams, disguising the true repressive nature of the hedge funds that rule over us.
2) we aren’t all uncaring cowards and cunts.
These are very important because the rest of the world must look at the mayhem and destruction our governments cause in the world and wonder what sort of people we are that allow this.
The Assange case answers that question; frankly there’s not a lot we can do and if we try then there’s a good chance they will set about us.
These are the sort of silver linings we are left to celebrate in a world dominated by slugs and bootlicking cowards.
We “seeya” and definitely wouldn’t want to “be ya”.
Chas @ 8.18.
Your observance raises an interesting point. To be frank its not something that I noticed. It’s not the thing you look out for. But in your parodying of the First Minister Humza Yousaf it is something he most definitely looks out for.
Skin colour as Yousaf’s parliamentary rant showed is what he is about. The me poor Pakistani, poor immigrant, poor discriminated against, is and was, out and out racism. The guy is an out and disgrace unlike the late Bashir Ahmad MSP who was a wonderful individual.
But skin tone, is the SNP’s yardstick for perceived discrimination. Me Pakistani, you Bad, you very bad. But racist intolerant scum, and I use these words carefully, will be gone at the next election.
But good observation Chas, we need to despise the Scottish Team for their failure because after all, to use the words of Mr Yousaf, the team is white, white, white……when it should have been Pakistani, Pakistani, Pakistani.
Or am I missing something?
We’re assuming that they’ll be looking for new premises – but which landlord will risk taking on tenants like our party of government. 10 year lease with a 5-year break clause – don’t think so.
2 + 2 = ???
If the SNP were any other Scottish business, what would any sane person think now?
1. Chartered Accountants refuse to deal with the company.
2. CEO and Public-facing High-heid-yin under police investigation.
3. Business appears to have done a bunk from expensive HQ
Any SANE person would not be spending money on the company website, or supporting them in any subscription manner either. In fact, they’d be running a mile from any connection, regardless of how tenuous it might be.
The really sad thing is that ANYONE still voting for the SNP in 2024 should be sectioned under the mental health act!!! These blind individuals have long been the roadblock on the way to any meaningful Scottish independence. 🙁
@Hatuey 10.58am
Doubtless many who are aware of your MO in here will doubt your novel zen direction, or indeed your claims to see any silver lining in the current political environment. Perhaps it’s just that you’re delusional weltanschauung means you can’t see what a bin fire things have become?
I’m not sure Assange’s fate tells us all that much of note. It’s possible to sympathise at the way he’s been treated and that he’s unjustly being made an example of, but still think he brought a lot of the problems on his own head. I doubt most “ordinary folks” know a whole lot of detail about Assange’s case, and they probably care less. The same can be said of many such individual cases that assume huge importance for a minority of people who are exercised about the issues and principles they insist such cases encapsulate.
I doubt you are really qualified to talk on behalf of the rest of the world and second guess what they think about what sort of people “we” are to allow our governments to behave in the ways they do.
Our governments may be imperfect and often act in terrible ways, but if things were really so monstrously bad here, I doubt many people from the “rest of the world” whose views you are happy to try and second guess, would be risking their lives and large amounts of money to come here.
As others have pointed out, the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” aren’t all pitching up on Uncle Vlad’s doorstep or in President Xi’s Workers Paradise either: they mostly want to go to Europe, North America or Australasia.
It can’t only be be because of the money and economic opportunities can it, even if it’s undoubtedly a big part of it. I doubt the many from South Asia or S.E Asia who go to Saudi Arabia or the Gulf States for work go there to enjoy their open societies, great working conditions and reputation for great workers rights either.
Many of us see you and your ilk too Hatuey, and certainly wouldn’t want to be like you or them either.
Luckily for our societies as a whole, and the protection of our freedoms and democracies, we represent the overwhelming majority. You and your mates aren’t on the right side of history.
The next few years will indeed be instructive: the more policies supported by you and your coterie of moon-howling mates in here are successful, the closer we get to darkness and authoritarianism winning.
The Scottish National party buildings in Edinburgh not the Scottish National party buildings of Clydebank,
Well the two have similar finances that may be questionable, and a building to sell.
A bill going through Westminster 2023/2024.
To Dis- Enstablish the Church of England.
How does that stand with the treaty of union which was based on faith and religion of the hereditary throne of England and the kingdom of Great-Britain?
I thought Westminster had based the treaty of union on hate Crime to-wards papists.
“Anybody know if the dinner table hate crime bill thing is real? Can we really be reported for something we say at our own dinner table? Mental, if true.”
Yes, absolutely you can.
@Tartan Tory 11.44am
The SNP today is a dead party walking. The few self aware individuals left inside the party, those deluded few who simply cannot bring themselves to leave or give it up as a bad job, will only finally admit defeat when the looming electoral tsunami overwhelms them.
Whether they can then rebuild the party from the splintered wreckage remains to be seen. For many of us it would be preferable if the SNP goes the same way as the IPP did in Ireland post 1918: consigned to the dustbin of history where it belongs.
If it does not, the only future it can and should have is as one of a number of pro-independence parties who co-operate in achieving a pro-independence majority in plebiscitary elections. That presupposes of course that the author’s of the SNP’s downfall are identified, held to account and made to understand that they either “get with the programme” and co-operate with the movement, or the GRTF.
No more SNP directing the independence movement, no more using wedge issues to divert attention from their lack of political courage and vision and lack of progress not just on independence but also on improving the everyday lives and finances of Scots.
We need a movement that is capable of advancing the cause of independence by building the foundations of a new state by ensuring that more and more powers are repatriated from Westminster to Holyrood (i.e the presumption should be that everything is on the table except defence and foreign affairs), but also governing better than unionist parties.
The latter was taken as a given for too long, and perhaps too many of us were taken in by the SNP’s apparent competence when compared with the absolute clown show of May, BoJo and Truss in Westminster: but we can’t hide behind that forever.
Andy Ellis @ 11:50 am
“Luckily for our societies as a whole, and the protection of our freedoms and democracies”
Aye, economic plunder of folks resources and institutionalised racism of their culture is clearly something to celebrate? Aint Scots the lucky ones!
Were this just a personal embarrassment for the SNP (and it is certainly that) I could probably watch with a mild grin and warm glow.
However, the untold damage that this Party is now doing to the Independence cause by its shambolic handling of its own affairs and shredding of competency of then Scottish Government makes my blood boil. The whole lot of them need. damn good shake!
@Alf Baird 12.42pm
I suppose that rather depends who the comparitor is Alf? Doubtless our Norwegian cousins might think we are a bunch of craven cowards with no real desire to achieve our own independence, given that when they had the chance in 1905 > 99% voted for independence. I suppose a lot of people in the third world (or is the politically correct term “global south” now?) might consider ordinary Scots pretty lucky.
Historically of course lots of people – including large numbers of Scots both directly and indirectly – have done pretty well out of imperialist projects and exploiting others.
The lucky thing for Scots is that all we have to do to improve things is to put a cross on a piece of paper. That’s not something that can be said of many other parts of the world.
I thought a quick Look at the SNP accounts on the Electoral Commission website would be instructive. Unless there is an issue with my cellphone, it would appear that the balance sheet and part of the auditor’s report have been redacted. I hadn’t noticed that before. No matter, though, because a look at Note 24 to the 2022 accounts would suggest that the lease has ended about a year early. It looks like they were paying about 43,000 per annum and the non-current portion (ie, beyond 31 Dec 2023) was about 61,000. That would take them to about a year from now.
It is easy to jump to conclusions but SNP members might want to ask, with increasing urgency, where their contributions to the party are going.
@willie, the focus is changing from white to white Christian, the real target is being revealed, literally everyone of white, Christian European stock including atheists and agnostics. In the US white nationalist is being replaced with Christian nationalist because some people who use white as a camouflage are being caught up in both the blowback of their own actions and targeted for their own ethnicity. It is already catching on in the UK, the Guardian had a number of anti white, anti Christian articles on the same day last week. Any anti white action of CNN etc will be adopted by the Guardian and BBC etc. On that note some doctors and psychiatrists held a meeting in London recently to discuss the over prescription of puberty blockers etc and were met by a group of trans activists who tried to storm the venue. One of the activists who was shouting through a bullhorn is a person of colour who is a presenter of BBC childrens programs, I doubt if that will be on the BBC.
This targeting of white people and their children is not organic, it has not sprung up in a natural coalition of people of colour rising to positions of power and attacking whites, all of this is being financed by the same people who provide counter intelligence figures of victimhood to hold up against the over representation of people of colour in crime statistics in Western nations. Let us not forget that Humza Yousaf grew up on the mean streets of Newton Mearns.
With regard to being reported on for things said at your own dinner table, I posted this last week incase anyone missed it, scroll down to Personal life and Stasi observation.
https://archive.ph/w1VUr
The party’s over.
Meanwhile, over on planet WGD, where never a bad word is permitted to be said, they are discussing the Labour party in endless detail: Squirrels – the place is just full of them.
and meanwhile on the footie front…on that accusation of racism against herr obergrupenfuhrer and anus, if you listen carefully he doesn’t use the ‘w’ word (it’s these details that count). What he does say is, WYTE, WYTE, WYTE, WYTE to which pipsqueek pipes up WY?
No idea what they’re on about.
@Andy Ellis
“The lucky thing for Scots is that all we have to do to improve things is to put a cross on a piece of paper.”
I doubt if that is all to be done. Bear in mind, if you will, the long term effects of internal colonialism. Plus the present situation under UK govs which seems much like colonialism to me.
Racism and hate crimes against a religious belief system is not new Scots
Nor is ethnicty.
Hate crime to do with freedom of faith, or religious belief has been in the treaty of union for over three hundred years,
The Ethic national identity of Scots people as a racial hate crime can be found in Boris Johnstones enjoyment of republishing a poem calling the Scottish race vermin,
The full British national Anthem is racist towards the nation of ethnic people in Scotland, if correct.
But Humsaf himself has displayed exceptional racism towards the nation of ethic Scots and Scottish people based on his dislike of white skin tone colour in Scotland,
“Hate crime” is his personal and very public opinion statements towards the colour of ones skin in Scotland is televised in his speeches,
He refuses to except that no adult Scot has a “choice” when they were a foetus or as a infant to choose their tone,
And blaming a national ethic group of men and women and their infants in Scotland for Not producing a skin tone colour he would prefer to see in high offices in Scotland is a hate crime towards a large group of nations ethic population,
He Should contain his racism and hatred towards people that had no colour chart to choose from when being born,
He was born to his skin tone colour with as much choice as any other baby being born, None,
So his hatred and racism towards the Colour of Skin of Scottish infants is a hate crime publicly voiced and broadcast.
The same racism as telling Scots to go back to Scotland in Westminster parliament in the House of Commons.
Scotlands people have had public and open displays of Racism towards them and their believes for Centuries,
Does racism display it ugly head in the politics of Britain when the parliament of Westminster refuses the nation of Scots the “Right to Self Determination” ?
Racism, bullying and hatred often rears its head through actions in politics and new imposing laws to a Hate Crime of Colonialism when a larger population can thwart by a majority, the freedoms, and choices of a smaller nations,
To have a first Minister of Scotland like Humsaf, attack Scots for their skin tone colour, plus a Once prime minister of Britain like Boris Johnstone, finding enjoyment in talking of Scots like Vermin,
And The treaty of union and Monarchy being a Hate Crime against the freedom of religious beliefs,
It is perhaps a good idea to make Hate Crime Speech retro- spective. It has the ability to backfire on those that wish to make it a stymie influence on The Scots,
As does calling Scots out as “native moonhowlers” for their personal beliefs.
Hate Crime speech could be turned into a advantages position for Scotland,
To Wee, to poor , to Stupid?
Are they hate Crime Speeches?
Well, that worked.
Ellis seems to think there’s something odd about people in parts of the world we ransacked wishing to come to the west.
It’s not complicated but let me try and put it in terms that a child might understand…
During naval battles it was common for one ship to sink another out in the open sea. Hands up if you can guess where those who found themselves in the water scrambled to for survival?
I guess it’s a disappointment for some to hear that immigrants don’t scramble to the west for our patter. They’re really refugees, of course, at least most of them are, hoping to survive and (God forbid) experience happiness rather than the abject misery we coldly foist upon them.
There are plenty of examples which we are all familiar with; Libya, Iraq, Syria, etc., etc., all countries we destroyed and now originator countries for large numbers of refugees in Western Europe.
As I said, it’s not complicated.
I seem to recall putting an X in a box for one thing, but ended up getting a shit load of things I didn’t want and a pile of ash from all the burnt mandates for the things I did want…
Here’s the plan, brothers. Go through the history of public statements by ScotNaz politicians and note instances of anti-white racism, anti-English racism, and so forth. Draw them to the attention of the Polis and demand that they be arrested and charged.
Remember, it’s no defence in law if the statements pre-date 01/04/2024 or are made at home or abroad. They all count.
Well, I am already starting to see clowns on X unironically saying that tweets they don’t like sound like a hate crime, and looking for places to report them. Oh, this will not be pretty…
Fluffer2 says
“..given that when they [Norway] had the chance in 1905 > 99% voted for independence.”
Who ran the referendum? Any postal votes? Any world-record busting postal vote results? And could they only receive media from the country next door telling then 24/7 “independence baaad”?
@Andy Ellis;
“The lucky thing for Scots is that all we have to do to improve things is to put a cross on a piece of paper. That’s not something that can be said of many other parts of the world.”
The unlucky thing for Scots, however, is that we aren’t allowed the relevant specific piece of paper we want to put that cross on!
Stu,
The Hate Crime and public Order (Scotland) Act 2021.
Territorial Extent, ( Scotland )?
Royal Assent 23rd April 2021.
Commencement 1st April 2024.
Royal Assent of the Monarch was required, which shows predijuce and Racism towards stymie the of freedom speech in one part of Great-Britain ( Scotland ) compared to the other three nation Countries that are the makeup of of Great-Britain.
The SNP fanzine (National) quotes you directly in this thread on the SNP moving out.
“However, the SNP and the letting agents have both confirmed to The National that the party will not be leaving the headquarters.
In a flat denial, a party source told this paper that the SNP had moved into the office in Gordon Lamb House in 2009 and would continue to work from it, with no plans to relocate.
The National was further told that it was standard practice for letting agents to list commercial space ahead of a lease expiring in case new occupants needed to be found.
It is understood that the SNP’s lease expires in two months.
However, it was confirmed by FT Linden that the current tenant (the SNP) has reached a verbal agreement on terms to extend the lease and that will be finalised by solicitors.
On the agents’ website, no rent pricing is given.”
https://archive.is/lA90M
Scotland keeping the lights on in England as per usual. Of course the norm is we produce the power England takes it and sells it back to us at a higher price.
“A PROJECT which will bring enough clean Scottish electricity to England to power around two million homes has been given the go-ahead from Ofgem for a £3.4 billion funding package.
The high voltage power cable – billed as an “electricity superhighway” – will connect Peterhead in Aberdeenshire to Drax in North Yorkshire when it is completed in 2029.”
@Xaracen 2.13pm
There will be nothing stopping you putting your mark on paper at the upcoming UK General Election or the 2026 Holyrood election. I doubt there is now the time or the will for the independence movement to ensure the former is treated as a plebiscite.
However, there has to be at least a change that following (hopefully?) the SNP’s imminent rout at the former, there will be time to ensure the scales fall from enough eyes to make the latter a feasible path to the earliest possible independence.
On the nefarious Hate Crime Laws.
I honestly think this draconian law is unworkable the police and the courts are at breaking point right now without this added workload that will explode as every one and their auntie who gets offended at the drop of a hat will report it to police Scotland most complaints will go no further than being logged.
The Hate Crime Laws are akin to a huge net being thrown into the sea that catches all fish but the aim of those that are throwing the net is just to catch several big fish.
The big fish will be reported for Hate Crimes even if those remarks appear innocuous, nevertheless the remark/s will be massage as to appear as a Hate Crime/s and the big fish will find themselves up in a Scottish court infront of a handpicked judge without a jury (just as Craig Murray found himself) and they will be convicted and given a harsh punishment to shut them up once and for all.
Its as if they’re trying to shut Scotland down, isolate it a bit to further carry out their nasty plans. I checked and England has open TIC’s.
“TOURIST information centres “have a place” in Scotland, Humza Yousaf has said – despite plans to shut every one of them.
The First Minister’s comment came as he defended VisitScotland plans to shut all of the 25 tourist information “iCentres” when quizzed by MSPs on Holyrood’s Convener Committee.”
There are two words, which if used consecutively, bring horror and distaste to a lot of Scots……..no……… it’s not Geri or Johnlm. Yet the same two words, transposed, bring unbridled joy to millions, yet misery to a few. The two words are-
Alcohol Free
Free Alcohol.
The Westminster government really are a vile shower of b*stards, and some Scots want this bunch of scumbags to speak for them.
“THE UK Government is facing the threat of legal action over its decision to pause funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) working in Palestine.
It comes after the UK Government previously announced it was pausing its funding for the agency following claims from Israel that 12 employees were involved in the October 7 attack.
We previously told how UN investigators had yet to receive any evidence from Israel to support the claims at the beginning of March.”
There is NO such evidence to speak of.
James Che @ 1:44 pm
“Does racism display it ugly head in the politics of Britain when the parliament of Westminster refuses the nation of Scots the “Right to Self Determination” ?”
Yes it does, and decolonization has always been the firm ground on which the right to self-determination of ‘a people’ was applied. Which informs us that independence is decolonization.
Further, postcolonial theory describes colonialism as “hateful racism” (Cesaire) while the UN refers to it “a scourge”, i.e. a form of punishment directed at ‘a people’, and calls for it to be ended.
In addition, colonialism also leads to an oppressed people ‘internalizing’ this racism (i.e. they develop a feeling of ‘self-hatred’) which is an added dimension of oppression.
Any colonized people would appear to have a good case that they remain subject to “racism (which) is a consubstantial part of colonialism” (Memmi).
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/08/15/determinants-of-independence-ethnicity/
@sam 1.42pm
I doubt if that is all to be done. Bear in mind, if you will, the long term effects of internal colonialism. Plus the present situation under UK govs which seems much like colonialism to me.
I’m not denying there’s a fuckton of stuff to do after we vote for independence, but the sine qua non for everything after is actually voting for it…..unless the movement goes in a very different direction à la Ireland in the 1920’s which I think few would countenance or want to see come to pass.
Nor would I deny that there are elements of the experience of some (many?) Scots over centuries which are at least neo-colonialist, but there again the same could be said of peoples in may countries which still gained their independence with few if any of our current advantages.
There were also plenty of “willing participants” in the British imperialist project from Scottish elites and general population. The Jacobites remember probably had as many opponents, particularly in the lowlands, as they had friends.
All too many Scots, particularly hard core protestants, happily accepted unionism as long as it perpetuated the dominance of their religion; it seemed to them a small price to pay for the surrendering of their independence. There are still plenty who think that way, even if they are not the dominant force they once were.
Special pleading about being the victims of colonial oppression in the same sense that former colonies in Africa and Asia were just won’t wash either with the majority of Scots, or with those who were on the receiving end of real imperialism.
The Acts of Union were hate crimes.
Its getting worse year on year.
“Sewage spills hit a record high last year with a “disgusting” 21,660 sewage dumps into Scotland’s waterways – or 59 per day – new stats reveal.
Filthy wastewater spewed into Scottish rivers and seas for a staggering 221,002 hours in 2023, Scottish Water data shows – an average of more than 600 hours a day.
Incidents of sewers overflowing into water bodies were up 10 per cent on 2022’s figure of 19,676.
It comes as Scottish Water also admitted yesterday there were more than 5600 extra sewage dumps in 2022 on top of the 14,000 previously reported.
Raw sewage is only meant to be released into the environment during extreme rain so the sewer network can cope – but sewage dumping rates have been climbing for years.”
https://archive.is/ixMih
First time back in a couple of days. Thanks for the heads up, Sarah, giving this another push for you:
“Rev, before you go [if you go], what about doing a piece about Indy1st? Indy1st was launched yesterday with a video that includes Geoff Bush describing the AyeApp – an app to make voter registration easy and which will also analyse voting intentions etc in order to help campaigning strategy for Independents for Independence. The video is available on Barrhead Boy, Eva Comrie, Leanne Tervit’s twitter. Indy1st looks to be very worthwhile for helping boost the Yes vote so take a look, everyone – and if you can send them a few quid, even better.”
Well, i’m away back to my ever growing list of jobs around the house and garden. FFS! Wish i lived in a boat. LOL!
To avoid being charged under Hate Crime, just punch them in the face and get an RPW.
Do I understand this correctly.
@James 2.10pm
Someday more Scots are just going to have to grow a pair and actually take their independence James. No point spending their lives greeting about how a big boy done it and ran away 300 years ago, or how we wuz robbed by furriners, or the MSM, or George Soros, Bill and Melinda Gates, the Illuminati and the Space Lizards.
In 1905 Norwegian women didn’t even get to vote. 99% of Norwegians still had the cojones to tell the Swedes to take a hike, even in the face of threatened invasion.
You and yer muckers are content to blame everyone but those actually responsible: ordinary Scots who lack the courage of their 90 minute Braveheart patriotism after the national team have turned in another performance like last night.
Before you go Rev, i’d really like your view on Holyrood ditching Stonewall
I see the National is running an article saying that it’s standard practice for letting agents to put properties on the market when a lease nears renewal, so a non story.
I worked in Glasgow for years in a leased building and certainly never heard or saw that about the building, only when it came up for sale and set tongues wagging!
Any office rental experts here to shed any light on what IS standard practice?
Young Lochinvar, I am not a rental expert and I live in North Carolina. However, I do rent my office space from a UK company, one of the world’s largest in small office rentals. My contract says that, during the notice period, I must reasonably make the office (the size of a spare bedroom) available for viewing. There is no right to view at any other time.
I have my doubts about the story in the National, linked by RoS. The accounts suggest that the lease has another year to run. So there are three possibilities:
1. The rent is considerably less than $3,610 per month and numerous other items are being leased (this would blow my assumption above, as well as my post earlier).
2. Note 24 to the 2022 accounts is solely or overwhelmingly for premises rent and the National’s source is incorrect in saying that the lease is up for renewal.
3. As point 2 but the 2022 accounts are wildly incorrect.
@Hatuey 1.48pm
you have a rather…..broad….conception of the term “worked” Hats.
What passes for your point only works if the only people coming here were from conflict zones, or were fleeing persecution. Of course many are, but equally many aren’t and are simply economic migrants seeking better prospects, money they can send home to their families, educational opportunities, training, language skills. Many may one day want to return to their homes.
Having a puerile and one dimensional understanding of what the causes of the current situation are doesn’t allow the hard of thinking to declare “it’s all very simple”.
It’s not simple, it’s fiendishly complicated, like most such issues. Of course, if all you have is an intellectual hammer every issue will look like a nail. Even in the cases you list (Libya, Irag and Syria) what would the situation be if there had been zero outside involvement? If for example Gaddaffi had been left to “do his own thing” wouldn’t there have been refugees fleeing the country?
Many of us will remember the international community sitting on it’s hands during the Bosnian War and letting the Serbs ethnically cleanse Bosniaks from their homes and kill thousands in Sarajevo before killing more than 8000 in the course of a few days in Srebrenica. Other examples are also available. Non-intervention also has it’s costs, huh?
Is outside involvement never, ever justified?
Not to try and prevent genocide as in Rwanda or Bosnia for example?
Is the correct interim response always just to leave people to their fates, or is it only wrong if “the West” in involved?
It’s a view I suppose. I’m not sure how much it will resonate with most folk.
@ Stoker: re Indy 1st.
Many thanks, Stoker for re-posting my comment. I was just thinking that it is strange that no-one has commented on the flurry of activity in the grassroots that is happening – Independents for Independence, Indy 1st, Salvo and Liberation, Schemes for Indy.
These are all driven by grassroots Yessers, non-party, and aiming to tackle the indolence/incompetence or worse of the politicians. I would have thought that all Yessers and Wingers would be thrilled to see these happily-co-operating groups getting off the ground. They will have a good chance of success if everyone gets to know about them and give them a hand where possible.
I see Tom Gordon is claiming credit for washing out angus robertson
Ha ha he reads and reports the Rev’s work.
When will he investigate robertsons wife
“hate crime”
– this would have been a cracker to watch from the gallery
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/in-your-area/lanarkshire/man-accused-stirring-up-racial-32304303
rigside has its own goebbels, who knew? Sounds like something out of a mel brooks film.
for you, darren
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-NI4WixVUg
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
@ RoS
Those figures for effluent ending up in our rivers won’t include stuff that isn’t reported.
EG. The sewer pipe issue I have mentioned recently probably got broken in the floods last autumn but only became apparent when the river level dropped about a month ago.
It took Scottish Water 3 weeks to eventually implement the contingency plan I suggested on the day I reported the problem to them. And that was only after me having to escalate the issue by reporting them to SEPA.
The tanker now contracted to be on site 24/7 for weeks to come is taking approximately 2500 gallons of effluent away each day, so by SW doing nothing about the issue for three weeks they have allowed about 50,000 gallons of effluent to be pumped into the wrong watercourse.
As expected SEPA seem very unconcerned about holding SW to account over this. If that had been a private company polluting a watercourse you can bet it would be a different story.
SEPA aren’t even bothering to come out and sample the affected watercourse to check for effluent toxicity or assess the ecological damage it has sustained.
And for the record:
List of Nicola’s failures
Stop Brexit campaign
Case against Salmond
Parliamentary review of Salmond case
Education and Pisa figures
Attainment gap
Asking children about their sexual experience
failing to role out super fast broadband as promised
Drug deaths
COVID and old folks
Infyref2 times 20
Turning a party of 120k into a party of 30k or less
Total lack of fundraising campaign
Growth commission paper
Use sterling not Scottish pound
No mention of independence
Gender recognition
Doesn’t know what a woman is
Approved person
Ferries
£600k missing
No support for AUOB
Failing to call a Scottish convention
Jailed AUOB leader
Jailed Craig Murray
Tried to jail another journalist Mark Hurst
Treatment of Margaret Ferrier,Joanna Cherry, and others
Both votes SNP
Hate speech to shut down those that criticised her
Supreme court case designed to fail
Failing to support king Charles’ oath to uphold the claim of right
Failing to push the claim of right
Bottle return
Defacto ref where Westminster control all the strings
A9 dualling
No movement in the polls in 6 years
Recent polling crash
National energy company
Taking on Dept Work and Pensions payments
Letting London take the stone of destiny back without a word
Failure to disrupt westminster
Giving away the Berwick bank for a song
Supporting Freeport’s without comment about workers rights
National investment bank
National census failure
National care service
Police crime and protest act banning protests they don’t like
Vietnam group being exposed
Somone going to jail
Extreme protected fishing areas
The continuity candidate
Humza got his family out of faza and I don’t blame him but now westminster can control him
Mackay and his Ipad. A false claim should be immediate dismissal.
The hate and public order scotland act delivered – it will be used by the woke lobby to shut down pro indy voices – the snp has introduced a law that will allow unionists to silence wings and anyone else they dont like
Failure to recognize she is a failure
Andy Ellis @ 4:16 pm
“In 1905 …99% of Norwegians still had the cojones to tell the Swedes to take a hike”
Unlike today’s Scots, Norwegians in 1905 hadn’t been subjected to centuries of intensive colonial cultural assimilation procedures; e.g. only learning the English language, a distorted British/English history taught, and biased British media communications, all aimed at influencing and changing their identity. What we know today as Cultural and Linguistic Imperialism.
Or, mass ‘banishment of natives’, i.e. 3-4 million Scots shipped out during 1800s/1900s, and with a couple of million new arrivals, mostly from England according to the census, with around 1 million during the past 20 or so years alone.
A colonised assimilated people are a ‘manufactured people’ (Memmi). The Norwegians of 1905 were rather less a ‘manufactured people’, hence more clear about their national identity and national consciousness.
@Alf 5pm
If anything the Norwegian experience of Danish rule could be argued to exhibit far more in the way of intensive cultural assimilation than the Scottish experience of being part of the UK. Unlike Scotland post 1603 or post 1707, Norway was simply treated as part of the Danish kingdom.
Norway was under Danish rule for 400 years until 1814. It has been argued that the union with Denmark from the 1380’s when Danish politics, language and culture were widely seen as dominant made Norway what was described as a “half-Danish nation”, despite the retention of many Norwegian cultural and political institutions.
When the Danes picked the wrong side in the Napoleonic Wars, the victorious allies simply awarded Norway to Sweden as compensation for taking Finland from Sweden and awarding that to Tsar Alexander. the brief attempt to establish an independent Norwegian kingdom in 1814 under a Danish prince, failed after a short war with the Swedes.
The outcome of the war was that Norway was allowed to keep it’s 1814 constitution, but had to accept a personal union with the Swedish crown. the Swedish-Norwegian union was never a federation, but two separate kingdoms with a common monarch and foreign policy. Both states had their own constitutions, currency, laws, churches and other administrative structures until 1905.
It is at least arguable that the Norwegians were more of an assimilated or manufactured people than the Scots of today given their experience of union with Denmark and then Sweden. 800,000 Norwegians emigrated between 1830-1920, most to the USA but also Canada & Australasia, the second highest proportion of population in Europe.
Many Norwegian rural areas lost 40% of their population between 1875-1905. Poverty was not generally the reason, it was widely regarded as due to over population and lack of opportunity, as during the period economic growth in Norway was pretty strong and living standards relatively high in comparison with the rest of Europe at the time.
The current Norwegian population is 87.8% ethnic Norwegian. 12.2% of the population are of solely immigrant background and 5.7% are of mixed ancestry. It’s not hugely different from Scotland in that respect.
I don’t know any Norwegians who understand why Scots voted No in 2014, but then again nor do I now any who accept we were colonised as an excuse.
The SNP may yet bounce back by rebranding itself. I suggest changing the name to National Scottish Diverse Action Party. My thinking is that this alludes to the People’s Action Party of Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew took Singapore out of a union with Malaysia in 1965. A new name ending in “Action Party” will remind people that independence is possible. But merely calling it the “Scottish Action Party” fails to foreground that Scotland is a nation not a province, while “Scottish National Action Party” lacks today’s strong emphasis on inclusion.
Finally “Scottish National Diverse Action Party” is too close to the tainted SN— branding. But simply swapping the order of Scottish and National creates a name with a very different rhythm, symbolising a fresh start. A rebrand as the National Scottish Diverse Action Party will allow the SNP to reboot without historical baggage.
Dealing with drug policy is not the responsibility of the Scottish government but the UK government.
The cross-party Scottish Affairs Committee in Westminster took evidence and made recommendations in 2019 for areas of policy under UK government control. The Committee thought, like the Scottish government, drug policy should not be a criminal justice matter but one of public health. The UK government ignored the Committee findings.
The evidence given was that drug deaths are increasing in Scotland because: two or more drugs are being used at the same time: drugs are increased in strength: the cohort of users who began using drugs in the 1980s is dying out: there is an increase in blood borne viruses.
Also, poverty, inequality and deprivation are the main risk factors and drivers of drug use. Poverty adds risks of unstable home life, unemployment, homelessness and adverse childhood experiences, ACEs. Adults who experienced 4 or more ACEs are 11 times more likely to have used heroin or crack cocaine.
Other research says that deaths taking place among men aged 15 to 44 in Scotland from drugs, alcohol and suicide (“deaths of despair”) “are seen to stem from unprecedented economic pressures and a breakdown in social support structures” (Allik et al).
Evidence to the Committee from many sources was that the UK government’s “absolute priority” should be to reduce poverty and inequality in order to reduce Scottish problem drug use. Transferring more welfare powers to Scotland was also suggested.
This is not the road the present UK government has chosen in its 10 year strategy, 2021. Researchers (Journal of Public Health) say of the strategy, “..unevidenced and harmful measures to deter drug use by means of punishment continue to be promoted, which will have deleterious impacts on people who use drugs.”
The Scottish government could certainly do more and better (unevidenced policy re residential rehab) while some of the steps taken have been successful (treatment referral waiting times of 3 weeks met in 93% of cases and the introduction of Naloxone).
UK governments have done much to cause problem drug use with the closure of Scotland’s big industries, austerity and welfare sanctions. They then deny effective harm reduction policies – as the Scottish Affairs Committee found.And blame Scottish government.
It is notable that drug deaths in England are now the highest in 30 years (worst in NE) and that people in the most deprived areas in Scotland are almost 16 times more likely to die from drug misuse as people in the least deprived area.
Andy Ellis @ 5:42 pm
“I don’t know any Norwegians who understand why Scots voted No in 2014, but then again nor do I now any who accept we were colonised as an excuse.”
The Norwegians should ken fine aw aboot Scotland’s ongoing longstanding colonization as the Norse joined in the earlier process themselves for several hundred years, from the ninth century.
The effectiveness and extent of Anglo cultural assimilation of Scots is well reflected in the anti-independence vote. Independence ‘is a cultural emotion’ (Fanon) after all.
Shug 4:59pm
Some more to add to yer list..
*Removing internal party democracy.
*Failing to implement direct conference votes & just choosing to ignore them. TWICE. Even ignoring feedback from Growth Report assemblies.
*Failure to provide every household in Scotland her economic plans for Indy.
*Failure to use SIX mandates with a clear instruction to leave.
It’s quite extensive eh? Her book will be a page turner..NOT.
She’ll have an awful job trying tae polish a turd.
Geri
Added
Blah blah blah “I don’t know any Norwegians who understand why Scots voted No in 2014…”
The Scots voted Yes in 2014. Overwhelmingly so.
@James 11.51pm
Frankly only a handful of fringe nutter agree with your nativist bigotry James. Even amongst native born Scots the Yes vote represented a bare majority.
You might get away with telling your partner that something tiny is actually well above average, but everybody else is just going to carry on pointing and laughing at your intellectually low voltage blut und boden racism.
#AskAndy;
You ARE lord Alistair Darling and I claim my five pounds!
Oh, wait, is he deid? Are you Ruth Davidson then?
“National Scottish Diverse Action Party”
ISWYDT
What address has the SNP registered itself with the Electoral Commission?
Just checked the Electoral Commission website today (Sat 30th March). The SNP is still registered at Gordon Lamb House. Naughty.