A Case Study In Delusion
Kevin McKenna has a piece in today’s Herald asking the question that is now the core issue for the Scottish independence movement.
The short version of the answer is usually attributed to Mark Twain: “It is far easier to fool someone than to convince them that they’ve been fooled”. But that does nothing to explain the fool’s mindset to us, or help devise a way to get them to accept it.
To some degree that’s because – as we saw so starkly in the “NO DEBATE!” tactics of the gender ideologly cult – part of the problem is that the built-in defence mechanism of the fooled is something George Orwell described in “1984”:
“CRIMESTOP means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction.
CRIMESTOP, in short, means protective stupidity. But stupidity is not enough. On the contrary, orthodoxy in the full sense demands a control over one’s own mental processes as complete as that of a contortionist over his body.”
What that means in practice is that the fooled never reflect on their own behaviour, far less enter into a meaningful discussion of it. In Orwell’s dystopian Oceania, that was to save them from torture and death at the hands of the Thought Police. More often nowadays, it’s simply to avoid humiliation on social media.
Either way, it’s vanishingly rare to hear someone elaborate on why they’re choosing to remain fooled. Which is why we’re so lucky today.
A pro-Palestine blogger who also sometimes comments on Scottish independence posted a piece yesterday declaring John Swinney’s conference win on indy policy as a disaster ensuring the defeat of independence for at least the next five years.
They’d previously said that Swinney’s policy meant “putting the independence cause into a much weaker state than it’s been for decades” and was something that “we must avoid”, and they re-emphasised that view yesterday.
They point out that it flatly flies in the face of the SNP’s supposed mission to unify the wider independence movement and work together to achieve the common goal, when it fact it actively disregards and sets fire to any pro-indy vote that isn’t cast for the SNP.
And, y’know, we agree with every word of that. Mainly because we’ve been saying it for years already, ever since we first put forward the “de-facto referendum” plan exactly half a decade ago today.
So logically you’d expect that the blogger would belatedly arrive at the same rational assessment that we did – that the SNP no longer has any genuine interest in achieving independence, and is now the biggest single roadblock to it, because all it’s actually interested in is shoring up its own power in the devolved government at Holyrood.
And indeed, he briefly and vaguely flirts with the idea that Swinney’s policy is basically a deliberate attempt at throwing the game (which it is):
But like when Tommy Sheppard pretended to sympathise with the rebel amendments at the weekend before launching a nonsensical all-out attack on them, it’s all a con. Because this is the conclusion our hero then actually delivers:
Of course! The SNP have put independence in the worst position it’s been in for decades and are deliberately and needlessly adopting a strategy which has failed hopelessly for the last 10 years and is doomed to certain failure for at least the next five years, therefore vote SNP for independence! It’s all so obvious!
(A minimum of) 15 wasted years is waved away as a “blip” best solved by rewarding the SNP with another half-decade in office.
This is exactly what Orwell meant by “a control over one’s own mental processes as complete as that of a contortionist over his body”. And the book’s next lines are telling:
“Oceanic society rests ultimately on the belief that Big Brother is omnipotent and that the Party is infallible. But since in reality Big Brother is not omnipotent and the party is not infallible, there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts.
The keyword here is BLACKWHITE. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this.”
The blogger’s article is BLACKWHITE in black and white. Having rejected the SNP once, joined and been active in a rival indy party, been kicked out of that and gone crawling back to the SNP, obviously admitting he’d made a terrible mistake by rejoining a supposed indy party that just set back the cause of independence by decades would be too big an embarrassment to bear.
So instead he twists the situation into another reason to vote SNP, casually dismissing five more about-to-be-wasted years as a mere trifle and assuming – entirely without evidence or reasoning – that the lessons that weren’t learned in the last decade would be learned this time. Or as he puts it:
Perhaps the biggest of the many flaws in that assumption is the one that the 2031 election will see the same circumstances prevail as next year’s, ie that the SNP will still be in theoretical touching distance of an overall majority and the electorate will give them a second (third, fourth, fifth) bite at the cherry.
Does it? All it means is that they’d revert to a pro-indy majority being the requirement to demand a second referendum rather than an SNP-only one, and we don’t know if you’ve noticed but we’ve had one of the former every single day since 2014, up to and including today, and it doesn’t seem to be winning us independence.
But good heavens above, readers.
The bigger issue with that analysis is that the only reason the SNP is set to win this election is the utter implosion of Keir Starmer’s government at Westminster, which has cost Scottish Labour more than half of their support in a year.
(Swinney’s “revival” of the SNP has seen them collect just two of the 17 points that Scottish Labour have shed since last September, most of the rest going to Reform.)
Whatever UK and Scottish politics looks like in 2031, it seems a safe bet to say it’ll be nothing like it is now.
There has to be a UK general election no later than 2029, and right now Reform are looking set to win it in a canter. If that happens, it’s distinctly possible that they’ll have continued to strengthen in Scotland at the expense of the other Unionist parties, and that the total fragmentation of the anti-independence vote that’s currently serving the SNP so well will be a thing of the past.
Meanwhile, it seems as certain as can be that the SNP’s stupefying incompetence in domestic governance – or at an absolute minimum, the public’s perception of it as such – will only have worsened. Hundreds of years of political experience is leaving the party next May (albeit mostly proven useless), and is set to be replaced entirely from its awful wing of woke careerist drone children without a single day’s knowledge of the real world between them.
(Perhaps most terrifyingly in the form of Gravy Bus Barbie, who wants to “bring a bit of fun” to politics to combat the rise of Nigel Farage. Her selection proves either that the SNP holds its voters in such complete contempt that it thinks she’ll do, or that they really don’t have anyone better. We’re not sure which is worse.)
The SNP’s popularity over the last few years has tanked (its combined Holyrood vote has plunged from 48% to 29% since September 2021 and 60% of its members have quit), and the party’s only been travelling in one direction for some time, as these shots of this year’s conference and one from recent happier days demonstrate. (We’ll let you guess which is which.)
Very few governments start to improve in their 20th year in power.
But perhaps starker is this graph. Sadly, not much of that purple line is Alba.
So the astonishing arrogance of the assertion that the indy movement can afford to just toss away five years and assume the electorate will be willing to grant it a majority in 2031 is a quite incredible level of deliberate blindness to reality.
(Doubly so if the Greens do, as they might, end up losing a significant chunk of support to Jeremy Corbyn’s fledgling new party.)
The real reason our blogger pal is so reluctant to face reality, though, only shows up in the very last sentence.
“Don’t listen to the siren voices of the Stews of this world who are trying to convince you that somehow the way to win independence is by first destroying it with a vote for the far-right British nationalist party Reform UK.”
[weary sigh]
This site has never advocated voting for Reform, although it’d still be slightly more likely to result in independence than voting for the SNP, in all sorts of ways.
But what’s certainly true is that the SNP needs to be destroyed and replaced with a pro-independence party that isn’t hopelessly corrupted in every possible meaning of that word.
Unfortunately such a party does not currently exist – Alba has reduced itself with infighting to a shambolic irrelevance which there’s no credible hope of retrieving, as much as we respect its leader, and with the best will in the world the other indy micro-parties were never anything but.
What, then, have we learned from our case study? Well, perhaps not much that we didn’t know already. We’ve watched with our own eyes as our blogging friend has first echoed Einstein’s famous line about the definition of insanity being doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, but then enacted it himself by urging people to… do the thing that hasn’t worked for the last 11 years, namely voting for the current travesty of an SNP, and hoping that it somehow works out differently this time.
But it won’t, folks, and that graph with the purple and yellow lines shows that we don’t have the luxury of just dismissing the next five years and starting again in 2031. For once we’re in total agreement with the Ingsoc blogger about at least one thing: that whatever happens next May we’re getting nowhere on independence for the next five years, so it doesn’t much matter who forms the government – red haddies, yellow haddies, blue haddies, they’re all going to do pretty much the same.
(If someone told you that five years of Unionist rule would focus minds and deliver the shock to the system that it needed to actually make independence happen, would you pay that price, if the alternative was keeping the hapless SNP in power but not getting a single step closer to independence and having to wait another five years to even get started? That’s not a rhetorical question, please actually tell us.)
We know that “Get rid of this thing and then replace it with, um, SOMETHING” isn’t the easiest sell in the world, but it’s where we are. We didn’t choose this situation and we warned people until we were blue in the face, but it happened and nature will not fill a vacuum until that vacuum exists. So our first job is to create it, and then spend the next five years doing whatever we can to build something to put in it. Reform are well on the way to replacing the Tories as the main party of the right in UK politics – they prove it can be done, and pretty quickly.
In any event, it’s better to start down a long road now than in 2031, so there’s only one way forward from here. Whoever you do vote for, or whether you just spoil your ballot or even stay at home this time: No Votes SNP.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
@Stu – you don’t give any positive advice as to how people should vote, but logically shouldn’t it be whoever is 2nd to the SNP wherever you live? Apart from wherever Sally Donald is standing, in which case vote for her to be the only remaining SNP MSP.
“you don’t give any positive advice as to how people should vote, but logically shouldn’t it be whoever is 2nd to the SNP wherever you live?”
You could make that argument, but who came 2nd in 2021 is currently no guarantee of who’s the main challenger now and there isn’t usually much in the way of local polling. TBH I suspect I’d be spoiling my constituency ballot if I lived in Scotland but it’s hard to say. I’d certainly vote for someone like Fergus Ewing if he was in my constituency.
Sure – I get it’s much more difficult compared to south of the border, but I still think it’s possible to have a pretty good guess. A vote for the 2nd contender is double the impact of a spoiled ballot after all, and compared to spoiling the ballots it’s nothing lost if people get it wrong.
Vote Liberate Scotland candidates where standing or IFS candidates
Very sobering fare, Stu. And to quote Kevin McKenna, ‘if these are the best people you’ve got after 25 years of limited self-government, then what was the point of it all?
“And to quote Kevin McKenna, ‘if these are the best people you’ve got after 25 years of limited self-government, then what was the point of it all?”
The partial answer to that is that talented politicians want to gravitate to where the REAL power is (Westminster) rather than a glorified county council like Holyrood, but looking at the calibre of the Scottish MPs (all parties) in London, that argument has very limited force.
What real power for supposedly independence seeking MP’s? Apart from leading the London life and maybe getting more contacts for post MP lucrative positions I don’t see any power. Maybe they’re preparing for comedy stand up (but then you’re supposed to get people to laugh with you not at you).
Indeed, Rev, and, if they really wanted to change things up here, they would not toe the line down there. How is the Holyrood parliament ever going to be anything other than a playpen for those without the ambition to even try to release their country, waiting patiently to be fed the ordure emanating from the leadership in order to regurgitate it into the open maws of their constituents?
We (the Scots) are about to descend into a hell of even greater magnitude and levels, and worse punishments than Dante could ever have dreamt of – and it will be all of our own making because we will not listen (the majority) but will go on to vote in another horde of water-treaders and troughers and bears of little brain, while our energy and other resources are filched and squandered.
Neither Farage nor Corbyn needs us or even wants us hanging in there. They are all about England. Rightly so. There will be no ’empire revival’ and, if Scotland really, really, really wants to leave the Union, we are going to have to tell them loud and clear by voting for independence and not taking no for an answer. Voting SNP will not cut this particular mustard.
Aye Rev, and what happened when we voted 56 out of 59 MPs down to Westminster.
Thatcher used to say that if Scots wanted independence then all they needed to do was elect a majority of SNP MPs. Didn’t quite work out like that.
And now of course the Scottish Parliament does not have the power to hold a referendum on independence whilst Westminster says there will be no referendum there either.
Rev, it seems that Scots can gravitate any way they want till the cows come home because to use your words they can just f@ck off.
Anyway, with the super surveillance that’s coming in I think it will become absolutely clear, at least to those who can think, just where we all actually are.
But yes, Swinney and the crew are just a bunch of troughers who would sell out their grannies.
I think the answer for me is who do I vote for to get rid of the SNP and the greens?
It a sad state of affairs that I now don’t really care who wins as long it is neither of them.
As far as I am concerned the SP has been a massive failure and I would now prefer it gone rather than throw more good money and effort after bad.
In answer to your question I would take any result that gave the indy movement reason to have any hope at all. The current snp forming a government does not tick this box even remotely.
Its a lengthy and interesting analysis Rev but we really don’t need Orwell to tell us about the decolonization process (he disnae onywey) or where us Scots are in that sense; for there is plenty of postcolonial theory to tell us precisely where we are now.
Which is why the independence/liberation movement via Liberation Scotland and Salvo are already knocking on the UN door rather than wasting time knocking on our oppressor’s door, far less depending on a national party elite that has long since been co-opted by colonialism:
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
The whole UN thing is a monumental waste of time and effort. Even if the UN supported the rantings of a few deluded souls and said OK there would still need to be some sort of referendum to show that the population as a whole supported independence.
Thats the bit everybody keeps missing, just because a few crackpots say something is true doesn’t mean it is.
t some point a majority of the population are going to have to demonstrate that is what they want.
Rob, I am sorry that you seem to have misunderstood the UN campaign by Salvo.
It has been explained multiple times that the UN approach is one part of gaining independence – the part that means that the next democratic vote will be carried out without interference by the UK. The essential second part is to hold the democratic vote.
“without interference by the UK”
Surely you mean without interference. Period.
Or are you thinking the pro-Indy side will be given carte blanc by the UN, while the pro-Union side will be told by the UN to keep its nose out.
Ah hae ma doots.
Be careful what you wish for, sarah.
@Hatey – DO NOT ask questions or make comments. It doesn’t need to make sense, the point is to sign this weeks’ petition, donate some money and then shut up. Don’t you know about New Caledonia, which was designated as a NSGT in 1986 and is now (not) independent. That shows how effective the plan is. Only the pro-Indy side will be allowed to campaign, the No side will be interned on Gruinard Island until the campaign is over.
You obviously do not know Scottish history. 1707 Treaty never put into practice, 2708 Scotland made a colony of England, 4.5 million Scots pushed out, starvation. Liberation Scotland has proven beyond doubt we are a colony.
The chance of the UN forcing the UK government to accede to Scottish independence is equal to the square root of f**k all.
Wheesht, Neil.
Let them believe in Santa Claus.
The SNP has been give routes to achieve Independence by legal means and have chosen to ignore them. For ten years people have been patient waiting for the SNP to put a plan forward, its never happened all we have got is more excuses of why anything other than a SNP only majority plus a section 30 order (The Gold Standard) is the only route, to be honest I fed up with the SNP and the party using Independence as a means of obtaining money and denying Scotland right to leave and blaming Westminster for it.
I will not be voting SNP and I’m going to vote for what ever party can beat the SNP even if its a unionist party for me the SNP is Scotland’s jailer not the PM or Westminster and the party needs to be destroyed for Scotland’s sake.
The snp is a Unionist party.
I don’t see what’s wrong with voting for an independence party, no matter how small rather than a Unionist party that will actively work against Scotland’s interests, I’m pretty sure they’ll appreciate the support.
It would be logical for the smaller parties to work hand in glove with each other, though.
“It would be logical for the smaller parties to work hand in glove with each other”
Yes, and this is already happening with the ‘Liberate Scotland’ alliance offering a common message and objective – to declare independence.
link to facebook.com
Next years election isn’t about Independence how can it be when the SNP has stopped it in its tracks.
Like I said, the only party stopping Scotland cause is the SNP so if next year isn’t about Independence then its about something different for different people and like I said its more important to stop the SNP winning and if that means voting for a party who can oust the SNP and it happens to be a Unionist party I’ll be happy with that, but if I have an option to vote for a Indy party who can achieve the same affect even better.
I rather vote against the SNP than not vote at all, so that would be two votes down for the SNP because prior 2026 the party could count on my vote now they can’t count on any.
If truth be told the SNP plan for Independence might just send a lot of SNP MSP to the Job-center in 2026 here where I’d love to help in that regard.
@Breastplate – the problem with voting for one of the independents is that they are vanishingly unlikely to get a seat or even to come close, but by voting for a unionist party you might help to deprive the SNP of a seat.
There’s nothing wrong in voting for an independence party candidate or an independent candidate who supports independence, Breastplate. Especially, as Alf says, they have the stated objective of declaring independence and are running under the Liberate Scotland umbrella.
In fact, for supporters of Scottish independence there is no real alternative.
Alf, I understand that some independence parties are working together, it was more a side swipe at those who aren’t.
Aiden, that’s the same old argument I had to deal with for 30 years of voting SNP when they were an independence party. I don’t not regret voting for the SNP in the 80s, 90s and 00s. People would quite often tell me it was a wasted vote.
With hindsight, I can honestly say that every vote that wasn’t cast in support of independence was a wasted vote. Every single one.
That is my considered opinion, you are of course, free to disagree.
Just to be clear… the SNP is NOT an independence supporting party (it lies), so whatever independence-loving folk do in the 2026 election they should absolutely NOT – under any circumstance whatsoever, at any time now or in the future, in any way, shape or form anywhere ever – vote for the SNP.
And in case folk haven’t quite understood what I’m saying here I’ll restate my message.
DO NOT VOTE FOR THE SNP EVER AGAIN… EVER!
Sure – but that was a fundamentally different paradigm, at all those points the SNP were winning seats in parliament. It would be an incredibly Herculean effort to even get one of the Liberate candidates elected anywhere and it’s extremely unlikely that one loss to an eccentric independent candidate would do much to change the SNP. In contrast, a well designed strategic boycott of the SNP in areas where they are weakest could inflict major casualties without having to sway huge numbers of voters (as you saw in the last general election with Labour, who managed a huge defeat of the Tories on a modest vote share). A decisive loss at Holyrood in 2026 could make a very significant difference in the SNP’s approach to governance and independence.
Rev, surely the answer is to aggregate the independence vote? Which means you and we should inform people about the umbrella grouping of Liberate Scotland. And it would help if you personally encouraged the Alba Party to come under the umbrella.
If the existence of Liberate Scotland isn’t publicised then it definitely won’t work. But if the news was diligently reported and discussed for 7 months then it obviously has a much better chance.
The Liberate Scotland parties and candidates are dedicated to restoring Scotland’s independence and are concerned to improve the wellbeing of Scotland in every respect. Their candidates are principled and live in the real world – they aren’t spads or other party employees. There are over 20 candidates already.
For example, Eva Comrie stands under the umbrella as an Independent4Independence – readers will know that Eva is a legal aid lawyer with personal experience of poverty as a child and disability.
Colette Walker is one of the Independence for Scotland Party [ISP] candidates – the ISP is under the umbrella.
The Sovereignty Party, led by David McHutchon, has also joined the umbrella.
The d’Hondt system makes it imperative that 2 different independence parties/groups stand for constituencies and the regional list, as you have been explaining for years, Rev. The message MUST go out that every pro-independence voter must vote for 2 different entities.
It’s good news that the Sovereignty Party, led by David McHutchon has joined the umbrella. Hopefully he can bring along the 300ish voters he managed to secure last time. That will put a big dent in the 1.1m votes that the SNP secured on the list vote in 2021.
I hear what you’re saying, Sarah, and would love to share your optimism. It’s a very tight deadline (7 months) in which to attempt a huge amount. I think Liberate Scotland meeting the 2031 deadline is more realistic and achievable.
And I do feel the sense of urgency, but I agree with Stu when he says “spend the next five years doing whatever we can to build something to put in it”.
There’s a part of me that can’t quite believe (brain just goes ‘can’t compute, can’t compute’) that Scotland is NOT a self governing territory. It simply makes no sense to me, when self-governance is the norm for the vast majority of countries. I sometimes feel like I’m living in a country that exists in a parallel universe to other countries. A parallel universe where the usual rules don’t apply.
Nae Need, we have the “party” available NOW. It just needs the loud voices to tell people about it. Why wait? An umbrella party is a Win-Win for any party or candidate – their own manifestos remain in place, they get their own party supporters’ votes PLUS the voters of their fellow umbrella candidates’ parties.
I am convinced of the benefits of an umbrella group. I would like to hear from the Rev, and anyone else, why he doesn’t appear to see all the benefits that I do [and Dave Thompson did when he set up Action for Independence in 2020 and tried to get Alex on board then].
@ Nae Need you quote SC
““spend the next five years doing whatever we can to build something to put in it”.
So Mr Campbell and Nae Need where are those building blocks and who is going to supply or front them
SC has been asked numerous times to front a political party or even stand as a candidate for a political party but just rubber ears those asks
The Famous Alex Salmond introduced a NEW political party aptly named ALBA , years later it still does NOT resonate with the electorate
The yoonionists on here like to denigrate and deride the attempts by REAL independence fighters to push forward indy in any way they can , their comments are visible on every post
It would be nice to sit back and wait for some charismatic Robert De Bruce to form a new political party fully funded and overwhelmed with activists and a membership in the hundreds of thousands , but I don’t think Mr Campbells 5 years of organisation will produce that
The denigration and derision only sabotages and undermines those stalwarts who at least are making an attempt to grow and unite the movement and recover from the tre@ chery of the FAKE independence parties
The hour is 3:30am and Twat has set his alarm so that we all might wake up to one of his usual barely literate tirades.
Let’s be real for a minute. If Liberate Scotland want any chance of making an impact in the HR elections next year, then they need excellent communicators to be out in the national media getting interviewed and involved in debates every single day. They need leaflets going through every letterbox, and they need to be producing professional social media posts and videos continuously which highlight important issues, get shared widely and most importantly drive the news cycle. Look at what Zack Polanski is doing at the moment for the Green’s in England, for example, and that’s coming from an established party with a known brand and a much less challenging objective. If you seriously think that getting a fluffing article for this site or any other pro-independence blog is a substitute for that hard work, they you’re delusional, and for that matter of Liberate can’t or won’t do that hard work then why should others who have spent a lot of time and effort building their own platforms turn them over to campaign for a group that will likely be out-polled by the communist party.
If you see the mild questions and challenges you get from a pro-independence site as “sabotage”, then how on earth do you think you’ll get on fighting MSP’s and parties to take their careers away for a cause they are passionately opposed to? Do you think they’ll lay out the red carpet or do you think the gloves might come off? The strategy of refusing to answer any questions from anyone or engage with anyone who isn’t totally bought in isn’t one with a long track record of success in politics anywhere, and it won’t work here either.
Sarah I agree with every word you have written ,sure I agree with SC that the snp must be destroyed , but his reluctance to feature anything about Liberation.Scot , SALVO , SSRG , or Liberate Scotland is worrying, YET he is happy to post items from Kenny MacAskill , Neale Hanvey and ALBA , I am well aware that it is his blog and it is his decision on what to post and who he supports but I find it strange that he ignores well known ex snp activists and officers who are PROVEN independence FIGHTERS and are dedicated to the independence cause
So dedicated that they have thrown caution to the wind and devised a strategy in concert with REAL independence FIGHTERS to UNITE and attempt to break the stranglehold that the snp has on the independence cause , is this not what REAL independence supporters want , REAL independence FIGHTERS holding the snp’s feet to the fire and FORCING the argument in HR
He talks about setting up a new party over the next 5 years why is he ignoring and sidelining one that already exists , why is he not engaging and helping independence fighters who hold him in great regard and who support and quote his posts extensively , we were all distraught when we saw the extent of the betrayal of the poisoned dwarf and the desolate future independence faced , then Alex Salmond returned with a new party in an attempt to save independence , unfortunately Alex’s supermajority idea and plans were deliberately sabotaged by the poisoned dwarf and her cult , the ALBA party have never made great inroads to the electorate despite/because Alex was leading it , as you know Alex was loved and hated in equal measure but even since his passing ALBA’S voting figures have been derisory , why would Kenny MacAskill beg the snp for unity when the same Kenny MacAskill is aware of Swinneys involvement in Alex Salmond’s downfall , I believe MacAskill served under swinney the first time he was FM surely he must know how duplicitous and untrustworthy swinney is
I keep hoping that the Rev has a plan of action that he is keeping until the right moment, and that it won’t be too late. In the meantime, of course I think it would be helpful if he gave a platform to the other efforts going on, unless he thinks they are seriously flawed. The Rev is very intelligent and may have seen something that we haven’t…
As for Kenny asking for Swinney’s co-operation. Well, so did Alex – the cause is greater than the individual, after all, and the cause would do better if the SNP co-operated. However, we know they won’t, in a month of Sundays.
“…the SNP needs to be destroyed…”
Aye. Utterly destroyed… its egregore dragged through Scotland’s sodden streets on some dreich and murky day on its way to the capital where it is to be hung, drawn and quartered, and then quartered again, in full public view; the remains of its spilt carcass stamped into the dust by the boots of the Scots it betrayit; its heart cut from its crushed chest and driven through with a wooden stake; its dismembered parts piled high and burnt crisp on a bonfire while guid Scots children dance around it chanting rhymes and singing songs of derision; its wretched ashes took far oot tae sea and sunk deep where Nuckelavee will keep them safe fae ever rising agin and keep them hid tae frae the sight o’ the unwary; its identifying marks and symbols erased from every public space baith virtual and material and barred from view in Scotland for aw eternity.
Only one mention of the SNP need remain – a memorial to the ghost of that SNP that was stolen from the Scots (like everything else that was once theirs) and to commemorate its loyal founders and attendants who raised upon a time a great hope for Scotland’s liberty before Scotland’s bane crushed that hope by twisting it tae its ain image.
Looks like you have a plan, Northcode.
Are you going to work on to flesh it out further? Or are you going to hang fire until May 2026 to see if we Scots vote the SNP back into government for another 5 years?
Haha, rhetorical question!
Deception is fraud. Ring fenced £600K, NS I have a plan, JS I have a plan, there seems to be a theme running thro’ this !
It took 18 years of collaboration and the death of Redmond to finish the Irish equivalent of the SNP and witness Sinn Fein step up to the plate. Before anyone accuses me of being conflict-happy, I am not advocating war with the rUK and a civil war. I am advocating getting shot of the useless SNP whose leadership is too risk-averse to achieve anything substantial. Sinn Fein was a political movement in its infancy, not a party.
Farage is not ‘far right’; he is right-wing. Above all, he is an English nationalist. England, as a whole is starting to turn to the right after years of leftist nihilism, and, like it or lump it, it is union trolled immigration, and the lies surrounding it, both illegal and legal, that has led to this situation. Everywhere now, you see England flags instead of the Union Jack. It is a good sign in the sense that England is becoming more nationalistic, although it could be a bad thing for the rest of us on these islands. However, that fear has to be tempered by the realization that right-wing governments are more sympathetic, generally-speaking, to Scottish independence than ever the left is because the left is securely embedded in ‘bigger is better’ and in joining political unions of all kinds.
Put to the test, the right would bend, ideologically, long before the left would on the question of Scottish/Welsh/NI independence. Although we do have the ‘woke right’, it is a pale shadow of the ‘woke left’. Authoritarianism seems to be split equally, but I do think the left just has the edge here. Most ‘stupid’ people – i.e. those who ‘feel’ themselves into decision without the merest modicum of self-awareness and critical thinking are invariably on the left and, if not invariably, then reliably, female, in the main, although I’m not letting males off the hook either.
It is so often a goodly number of daft bints who swathe themselves in the keffiya and scream, “genocide” or who wear the rainbow colours of the ‘trans’ lobby, forgetting that we still have to subtract the Hamas casualties from the overall casualties and we still cannot change men into women and vice versa. It has to be pointed out to said daft bints that both these causes are based in removal of female rights and, often, hellbent on removing female rights as a core ‘value’. ‘Suicidal empathy’ is a very real and massive problem in the West for both sexes, but some women seem to take to it like pigs to s**t: go on. make me a martyr; nail me to a cross; and take all my sisters as well!
Good point, caller.
So, where is the £600,000, John?
Spent it, did ye’s?
Crooks.
Six hunner thousand quid?
That’s criminal.
“would you pay that price”
To answer your question, in short, yes, I would.
Sometimes counter-intuitive (or what appear to be counter-intuitive) moves are exactly what is needed.
Sometimes things have to get an awful lot worse before they can get better. I think this is one of those ‘sometimes’.
Sigh..
That McKenna piece – and your article on it – and our reaction to it – is just so much same-old, same-old.
That McKenna piece, your article, our reaction, all of this has advanced our cause not one teensy zilch in 10 years.
Isn’t it time we started concentrating on bringing the positives to Scots, educating them on the very encouraging happenings in Geneva*, and announcing this new strategy as a triumphant ‘This is what we should be concentrating on’ approach? The british will hate us for this.
*Shh.. it’s not to be openly mentioned, you-know, that thing by Sara Salyers, Prof Baird, Craig Murray et al?..
I’m with the UN/Colony approach – or we could read McKenna, Campbell, et al and moan for the next 50 years?
Don’t block me, Stu, I’m a fan.
It’s ISP, I4I in constituency or no vote if they don’t have a candidate against Swinney.
Definitely Alba in the list vote next year.
All independendistas should consider doing similar.
I’m going to have to set up a ‘swear box’ in my house.
It’ll be a close run thing to either running out of expletives or running out of money every time I hear “essenpee” mentioned.
Except if the word “bankrupt” appears either side of it!
Indy for Scotland!
SNP Out!
Unless some outstanding individual pops up in the near future I think I’ll be voting Labour on FPTP and Alba on the list.
I’m not sure a clear out of the top members of the SNP would be good enough to save it now. There is no sign of real talent actively working in the party. It needs to be erased.
Richard Walmesley Blair was an Opium Agent in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service, overseeing the production and storage of opium for sale to China.
His son Eric Arthur Blair was born in British India and raised there for a year before his mother took him to England where he would grow up to write novels under the pen name George Orwell.
His early days as a budding writer when still at Eton were marred with some disappointment when one of his masters scribbled a note in the margins of his 1984 (initially entitled, ‘Empires! What are they and how do I build one of my own?’) draft manuscript which read “a load of tedious, fantastical and unbelievable shite!! Could never happen in a zillion years – except, perhaps, in Scotland and then who would care?”
However, Blair persevered and with a little help from the entire English establishment managed to get his rather tedious novel published; initially as an imperial instruction manual for training his fellow Eton students, who were also raised to empire, before they were sent off to Burma or India or the like to ‘manage’ things.
Now you know where Tony Blair’s family made their money… they were runners and purveyors of highly addictive and dangerous drugs to the Chinese in exchange for tea leaves.
Everything I’ve written here is the absolute truth… well, almost everything.
I think Alba has potential but it will be a long hard road. It has two realistic type of voters it could potentially win over but none will be won over easy.
The 1st type is the the folk that began voting SNP after 2014 and still vote them out of habit and those still voting snp and have done all their life. The habit voters don’t usually change until something dramatic happens or until enough scandal has occurred as what happened with scottish labour who dominated scottish politics for over a decade.
The 2nd type of voters are those who don’t usually vote but briefly voted snp post 2014 until Sturgeon sickened them. They are particularly hard to win over but probably door knocking activists is the most likely way to win them and Alba has plenty of people still doing that.
Both of those options are slow roads though that require perseverance and patience. Probably the Liberation route is the best route for the here and now folk.
Liberation as in the UN or Liberate Scotland as in the umbrella grouping standing for Holyrood? I support both but for clarification, readers need to know the difference!
Before the election in 2026 the SNP need to be systematically exposed for they have done and at least equally importantly, not done since 2015. All the lies and hollow words and backstabbing. There’s a lot to get out there. Maybe a version of the WBB (a wee yellow book seems appropriate)?
Who’d have thought in 2014 that in 2025 a suggestion to produce a book on a decade of SNP deceit would make perfect sense, but voters eyes need to be wide open on that day.
As a wee aside I notice wee Katie Forbes in her speech at the conference was STEALING the well worn attempts put forward previously by Labour , Tories , Lib dumbs in the past , that of “We need MORE immigration” she is trying to garner votes for the Scum Nonce Party from any new immigrant pleased and beholden to the snp for increasing the number of immigrants to Scotland
Is WEE Katy aware that we currently have a housing CRISIS where we can’t house the people already here , is WEE Katy aware that our SNHS is also in CRISIS with waiting times and delays increasing , is WEE Katy aware that our social services are also in CRISIS , is WEE Katy aware that our kids are in CRISIS suffering massively from poverty and deprivation
And funnily enough these crises have all come about due to the grossly incompetent governance of the snp over the last 11 years
Can I ask WEE Katy where the F are you going to put these NEW SCOTS and how is the current workforce going to be asked to pay for their UPKEEP
twathater @ 18.17.
Oh, I wouldn’t ask her that, TW, or you’l maybe find out why she’s well known as “Shouty Katie” … and that’s on a good day.
It may well be that a number of dubious senior ‘nationalists’ who have effectively delayed independence whilst keenly implementing colonial policies (e.g. ‘freeports’, anti human rights laws, etc) will be appointed to lucrative positions facilitated by our colonial maisters, but this may only become apparent after May 2026.
What’s your beef with “anti human rights laws”, Alf?
The only hope Scotland has of stopping the flood of inwards migration is by stamping down hard on those gullible Scottish eejits who like to virtue-signal that somebody who has just set foot in Scotland has exactly the same rights as somebody who can trace their settled ancestry back for generations.
The right of self-determination, social and political rights, indigenous people rights, etc, all currently being denied by Swinney’s colonial administration, and Westminster.
Scotland needs more immigration like a cancer patient needs more tumours.
Glasgow council asked all Glasgow Housing associations to set aside 67% of available housing to immigrants. Not people seeking refuge to whom we have responsibilities, or emergency housing. We are talking about punters here by their own volition to live and work who can rent or buy like anyone else. Post culturalist, plastic California is firmly in charge and the nihilistic wankers are trying to destroy all that they do not believe in.
Alternatively the SNP are putting forward the view the only time we had a referendum is when they got a majority.
If they get a majority the Scottish people want a referendum
If they don’t, the Scottish people don’t want a referendum
We’re wanting to break the UK here. The least we can do if we want another vote is vote for a party that wants it in by majority.
Other parties are welcome to put forward a claim to the alternative.
Ross, the SNP could win all of the Holyrood seats in 2026, there is no way on haven and earth the English PM will grant Scotland a referendum they aren’t going to make themselves poor and Swinney knows this.
@ Ross
If the NuSNP were serious about wanting a referendum… and a NuSNP majority being the prerequisite to that… then they are needlessly making it harder to meet that condition because even Ruth Davidson stated:-
“You don’t get a referendum for free, you have to earn it. So if the Greens and the SNP – and the SSP or any of the other parties who’ve declared an interest in independence – get over the line and can make a coalition, make a majority, get the votes in the Parliament, then they’ll vote through a referendum, and that’s what democracy’s all about… it’s perfectly simple”
link to wingsoverscotland.com
And of course, recent electoral history tells us the NuSNP have zero interest in working with any of the newly formed pro-indy parties or initiatives that have manifested due to the NuSNP’s insane focus on implementing vote losing policies and further selling our country out.
Party before country, that’s the NuSNP for you.
Another good article, but what do we envisage being the most likely scenario in 2026 and 2031? I think it’s obvious Reform will win a lot of HR seats next year, running on an ‘anti-establishment’ ticket, with votes bleeding from the Tories and, to a lesser extent, Labour. Beyond that though, is their natural ceiling much more than the 25% or so the Tories achieved under Kim Jong Davidson?
Beyond 2026, sure the polls suggest Farage is in with a shout of winning WM 2029, but a lot can happen between now and then. When push comes to shove, Farage has made a lucrative living as a grifter, sniping from the sidelines about what he’s AGAINST. In the midst of a GE campaign, he’ll have to navigate uncharted territory for him and outline what he’s actually FOR, in the event he were to win power. Is a hung parliament therefore not more likely than a Reform government?
Going into HR 2031, reference my previous point about their ceiling and I can’t see Reform being much more than a glorified DUP, a hardline Thatcherite party galvanising hardline Unionist votes. Where that leaves the independence vote is anyone’s guess at this stage, but I think we need a swing akin to 1918 Ireland, where the toothless devolutionist Irish Parliamentary Party were all but wiped out by Sinn Fein. If it’s not going to be Alba, then can another one feasibly mobilise for 2031?
The two most important things next year, 1 chuck the SNP out of power and 2 we have to seriously consider if Holyrood is a viable option to Independence, for me its the stumbling block.
If you haven’t got an Indy party in your region to vote for, I can’t state how important it is to vote for any other party apart from the SNP. Staying at home and not voting is BAD because if you put your vote to another party part from the SNP it means the SNP has to get two additional vote to make up the numbers, so staying at home and not casting your vote is BAD.
The SNP has destroyed Indy lets not reward these ("Tractor" - Ed)s with another 5yrs of wages and bonuses.
Speaking of delusional, here’s a review of the new Irvine Welsh book and biodoc.
link to whorattledyourcage.blogspot.com
Don’t you just hate it when a Scots boy sells vast numbers of books, gets his books made into profitable films, and (the most unforgivable sin of all) ends up with millions in the bank?
Oh aye. Tears at the very peanuts in ma shite. Laughing oot loud here.
Of course the SNP conned voters!
What’s particularly sad about the SNP cons is that the conning was not done by some slick salesman, not by some gifted con artist, but by mediocrities such as Humza, Sturgeon and Swinney.
If a plurality of voters can be conned by the likes of them, what does that say about the intelligence of the average “Indy” voter?
A pro-Palestine blogger who also sometimes comments on Scottish independence posted a piece yesterday
Has he said THANK YOU to President Trump for bringing peace to Gaza? Hud a wee look on his blog and couldn’t find it. Mibbe it’s in the post.
There has to be a UK general election no later than 2029, and right now Reform are looking set to win it in a canter. If that happens, it’s distinctly possible that they’ll have continued to strengthen in Scotland at the expense of the other Unionist parties, and that the total fragmentation of the anti-independence vote that’s currently serving the SNP so well will be a thing of the past.
Aye, the Tories are finished. Thank God. But Reform are going to take votes off the SNP too. Because as it turns out, Scottish people don’t want to be replaced by asylum seekers, refugees or migrants. Scottish people don’t want grooming gangs to be allowed to keep coming here to rape our children. Scottish people don’t want anything to do with a party that gives sex change hormones and binders to our daughters. These things are more important than referendums.
If we had a Scottish Trump (I know the Donald is a son of Scotland but you know what I mean) he would win at a canter. Wouldn’t even be close. It’s all there for the taking when your opposition is baldy wee Swinney (a guy who would somehow manage to lose a game of noughts and crosses against himself) and Mohammed Sarwar’s racist nepo baby.
Does Scotland still produce men? I looked at the Scottish Parliament and couldn’t see any. May coward shame disdain their names.
Well written but I have to confess I never liked his books. The first Trainspotting was great due to Danny Boyle and a talented cast with a well curated soundtrack. But how many depressing stories of filth and depravity do we need? We’ve already got Nicola Sturgeon’s autobiography.
It always seemed to me as somebody who grew up in a scheme that his appeal was to the middle class poverty tourists you mention and the literary equivalent of shock images on the internet. Never liked shock images either.
He’s no Alasdair Gray, that’s for sure.
Have you noticed we live in Unthank now?
From frontispiece of LANARK, an extract from Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’:
VLADIMIR: Suppose we repented.
ESTRAGON: Repented what?
VLADIMIR: Oh . . . (he reflects) We wouldn’t have to go into the details.
______________
Du Frontispice de LANARK, un extrait de ‘En Attendant Godot’ de Beckett :
VLADIMIR: Et si on repentait ?
ESTRAGON: De quoi ?
VLADIMIR: Eh bien . . . (Il cherche) On n’aurait pas besoin d’entrer dans les détails.
Mangetout, Fergus. Mangetout.
« TOBIAS SMOLLETT (1721-71) was the first major Scottish novelist, a sharp, quirky, funny satirist, relishing the details of the lives of the underprivileged as much as IRVINE WELSH in ‘Trainspotting’ (1993).[…] If Smollett was Scotland’s first novelist, or at least first major novelist, he was also perhaps the last writer for whom the vision of an independent Scotland was an actuality, slipping out of memory and almost beyond imagining. From Scott to Stevenson the idea would be unrealistic and unrealisable, a dream of the unreclaimable past. Byron’s commitment to national liberation was pledged to Greece, not Scotland…But Smollett knew Scotland as the British Empire was only beginning its rule and had some measure of what that Empire was to overwhelm and attempt to destroy. »
(Alan Riach, ‘SCOTTISH LITERATURE: An Introduction’, Luath Press, 2022, p267).
“Then think of Florence, Paris, London, New York. Nobody visiting them for the first time is a stranger because he’s already visited them in paintings, novels, history books and films.”-Alasdair Gray
===========
Glasgow could have been added to that list in the film of Gray’s POOR THINGS. But no. The novel’s Glasgow base was translated on screen to ….wait for it… London!
Oh, the irony.
Not read Lanark in many years. One I definitely need to revisit, but always get distracted or sidetracked somehow.
From LANARK by Alasdair Gray, Chap 22:
One morning Thaw and McAlpin went into the Cowcaddens, a poor district behind the ridge where the art school stood. […]
“Glasgow is a magnificent city,” said McAlpin. “Why do we hardly ever notice that?”
“Because nobody imagines living here,” said Thaw.
McAlpin lit a cigarette and said, “If you want to explain that I’ll certainly listen.”
“Then think of Florence, Paris, London, New York. Nobody visiting them for the first time is a stranger because he’s already visited them in paintings, novels, history books and films. But if a city hasn’t been used by an artist not even the inhabitants live there imaginatively. What is Glasgow to most of us? A house, the place we work, a football park or golf course, some pubs and connecting streets. That’s all. No, I’m wrong, there’s also the cinema and library. And when our imagination needs exercise we use these to visit London, Paris, Rome under the Caesars, the American West at the turn of the century, anywhere but here and now. […] Of course our industries still keep nearly half of Scotland living round here. They let us exist. But who, nowadays, is glad just to exist?”
“I am. At the moment,” said McAlpin, watching the sunlight move among rooftops.
“So am I,” said Thaw, wondering what had happened to his argument.
After a moment McAlpin said, “So you paint to give Glasgow a more imaginative life.”
“No. That’s my excuse. I paint because I feel cheap and purposeless when I don’t.”
“I envy your purpose.”
One other thing, Red. The first Trainspotting book was great due to the incredible writing in the actual book itself. Which had nothing to do with Boyle’s tedious Britpop-wank film, which I personally hated. The film of The Acid House is far better, to me, far closer to the source material. Trainspotting was a mid-90s moment because of the film, certainly, but the book is fucking stunning.
SARTRE attends SNP conference:
« Maintenant, je savais: les choses sont entières ce qu’elles paraissent – et derrière elles… il n’y a rien. »
(« Now I knew: things are precisely what they appear to be – and behind them… there is nothing.) »
— Jean-Paul Sartre (La Nausée)
Pseudo-intellectual and faux-writer Sturgeon will be wanking over that Sartre text, eh? The biggest insult of that nutcase’s reign of wannabe-yank ethno-mino-empower-terror was her thinking she’s intelligent, and a ‘writer’. THAT is the arena she should have applied her ‘impostor syndrome’ prognosis to – or, more probably, in both arenas. A real waste of fucking space.
Yet she was wildly popular with a majority of Scots for years – probably still is. If she hadn’t stuck her neck out so far over the trans woowoo, she would probably still be ruling us all and the SNP would be even more likely to be coasting towards another 5 years in power, starting in May 2026.
During the Covid years, when we proudly free and independent Scots cowered in oor hoosies in case we caught a dose of flu, she came onto our TV’s every night in her role as Scotland’s Mammie to re-assure us she was watching over us all.
If Sturgeon is the mirror, consider what it is she’s reflecting.
To change the dial a little here’s a pearl I came across this evening when I went to my local Wetherspoons for a health kick zero alcohol Guinness.
On approaching the bar there was a sign that said due to recent government legislation changes hot chocolate and mocha were now excluded from the free refill offer.
Intrigued as to why refills of hot chocolate and mocha were being banished I asked the barmaid and she said that I think its something to do with sugar.
Not quite satisfied I then asked the manager who openly explained that it was indeed of sugar and that it was English legislation that was being applied to Scotland. Other outlets like the big coffee chains were he said following suit.
Can you buy a second hot chocolate if you like. Yes of course you can, as many as you like as we give you a sachet that you add hot water too.
And what of all of the other coffee refills. What if I want to add ten sugars to every refill I might decide to drink. Well, he said that’s your choice!
So there you are English laws, applied in Scotland. It’s wild.
And me, drinking my one pint of zero alcohol Guinness with around half the calories too of ordinary Guinness, maybe I could ask some of the readers here, who may be on the low alcohol health kick, to ask themselves why, and especially with Sturgeon’s minimum alcohol unit pricing, zero alcohol beers generally are more costly than their alcoholic counterparts.
Not exactly an encouragement to cut one’s alcohol intake. Or am I missing something?
Anyway, back to the useless SNP. Just thought that this might have been a small diversion.
“zero alcohol beers generally are more costly than their alcoholic counterparts”
Alcohol is a preservative.
Zero alcohol drinks have a shorter shelf life.
So wastage is higher and the resultant losses have to be made up by charging higher prices.
More fake facts pulled out of the ether on the spur of the moment from the Faker In Chief.
The extra cost is because of the extra steps needed to produce it. See item #4 in link to escarpmentlabs.com
Hey Stuart, you’re right!
I’ve looked at the facts again. Turns out alcohol is a preservative in every country in the world apart from Scotland.
It’s a preservative in aircraft and in spacecraft too. I’m trying to determine if it ceases to be so when the aircraft or spacecraft are over Scotland, but so far I’ve not found any info.
Can you help?
I think even if the SNP won 67 seats. They would walk away when WM said no. They won’t win a majority of course. But my point is that not voting SNP, won’t have any bearing on independence. Nor will voting SNP.
So you could just sit at home guilt free, and not voting. I didn’t vote in the last election. Alba weren’t standing. I am still in Alba out of respect for Alex’s memory. However I just haven’t got round to cancelling it.
We have no credible independence party now. There is a political vacum. The SNP are a unionist party with a small u. Our choice is now between 3 mainstream parties , all equally incompetent. But all we are voting for is who runs the parish council. The SNP have just killed independence.
The only way we get independence. Is England voting to go it alone.
Big Jock, have you seen my comments at 3.08 and 7.01 yesterday? I am talking there about the Liberate Scotland umbrella party that is standing in the Holyrood 2026 election. I think you could happily vote for any of those candidates and know you were getting bonny fechters who are in it for outcomes, not incomes.
I’m starting to think the problem is that even people notionally in favour of indy aren’t particularly excercised about it happening anytime soon. Perhaps the electorate just isn’t that into it?
Sacrilege! Destroy the apostate! The Gods of Indy demand the ultimate sacrifice! Let the holy altar run red with the blood of the denier!
Derek, you are correct that people in general aren’t focused on independence, it’s not happening soon.
Let’s not forget though that self determination for Scotland is the most logical solution for our country because no other country will or can prioritise all our wants and needs.
People, in general, are sheep. We are easily manipuled by what we hear and see and hence our actions are somewhat, controlled.
Very few people have their own opinion, it is more often than not, gifted to them by the MSM and those who control it.
Few people have the time or inclination to research the very words that they spout forth.
There becomes an emotional attachment to the opinions they have which becomes faith based and initial to logic.
The idea that another country will prioritise our every need is farcical to the extreme, yet here we are, having to listen to the arguments of people who have been lobotomised politically, incapable of applying logic to the simple question of whether Scotland should run our own affairs or allow another country, who don’t give a fuck about us to do it.
Unfortunately, we seem to have more than our fair share of simpletons in our country.
Initial = inimical.
Predictive text needs a boot up the arse occasionally.
“The idea that another country will prioritise our every need is farcical”
Is that you saying EU membership is farcical then?
As a number of EU member countries have long known, their every need is not prioritised by Brussels. The idea that Scotland will be a special case is farcical.
John Main,
I don’t have a problem with collaboration for mutual benefit.
If it’s detrimental to us, there’s no reason to comply.
If we’re bound by some formal agreement to comply, then it’s time to break that agreement.
Does that not sound sensible?
no case to answer
link to archive.ph
freedom of speech
here it fucking comes
link to archive.ph
– I said this yesterday and I am not telepathic; might try the horses
– so this “cretin” has laid out his plan for you; do you still want to vote for him. This is just more city scamming, its not about “good jobs”, not in the north, not even in the south. How much more financialisation does this country need? He is now talking – what is the plan – er “tax cuts” so we can all “get into crypto”?? Farage would have us award him credentials as a businessman, but he was actually a fund manager, i.e. a speculator, he placed bets with other peoples money, never risking his own. Here is an idea, the new chancellor takes the entire next years budget, goes to a casino and puts it all on red … either the entire country is bankrupt or “this time next year … we could all be millionaires”; its a 50% chance of a big win … with farage you have 0% chance of any “win”. Imagine every budget in the country being doubled, and if not, we can always grow potatoes in barrels and gather rainwater, until next year. If you have turned the economy into one big casino why not go all the way?
But here is what we do to recoup our losses; next year we bet the entire budget, plus we borrow as much again “from the markets”, then we go to the casino and make the same bet again, doubled.
This is the martingale strategy and can never lose.
And if it does, the govt can always bail itself out, because it’s the govt.
I don’t think all this shit is what adam smith had in mind, those years ago; he wanted productive capitalism, fair pricing and no more “rentiers” – these days you get none of that.
And now sinister forces are going to put in charge, essentially a “spiv” with very narrow horizons, a very limited intellect and the worst characteristics of his race/people.
– when your predicament is that : YOU ARE SHACKLED TO A LUNATIC – the only thing that matters is the unshackling, whatever comes after – is irrelevant. It is all trivial by comparison and can always be fixed.
It wouldn’t surprise me if reform issues its own crypto-coin. Nige-Coin. Tice-ethereum. NFT reform-tokens.
“The govt can always bail itself out, because it’s the govt”
I see. So those tales you read about those unfortunate countries whose financial mismanagement ended up with people taking their week’s wages home in wheelbarrows are just fake news.
Thanks for clearing that up, Confused.
BTW, have you told Reeves? She could spare us all the tax rises coming to us soon. She could just tell Starmer to bale us all out.
I notice ‘oor leader’ is aff tae Zambia whaur mebbe the eegit will discover they became independent after electing a nationalist majority! Tho a widna haud ma braith.
He’s got a darn cheek, off on a freebie. What on earth use is he going to be there and what will he learn? None and nothing.
The latest polls show an SNP return of 60 MSPs. I didn’t realise how flaky that polling is until today. Extended family are SNP. Had a meal today with them. I am the blacksheep for leaving in 2015. They are looking for someone else to vote for but can’t think of anyone else to vote for. Flaky to say the least. The Absolutism of the SNP will cost them MSPs. Scottish Labour can’t come up with an integrated Industrial Strategy. The also rans have their own problems. Perhaps the bet of the day is the lowest voting return of all time since devolution started.
I left the SNP in 2021, after 30 years unbroken membership.I know loads of people who continually criticise the SNP. Yet they remain members ,and frown at the thought of not voting SNP.
I have to tread carefully around them. They are fragile wee souls. It’s not that they can’t see they are being conned. Deep down they know it. But like Patrick McGoohan in the Prisinor. He only escapes in his head, and wakes up in the same room everyday.
“A pro-Palestine blogger who also sometimes comments on Scottish independence posted a piece yesterday declaring John Swinney’s conference win on indy policy as a disaster ensuring the defeat of independence for at least the next five years.”
Can’t understand it.
How can someone so right on one issue be so wrong on another?
I’m not sure many Scots, even those familiar with this place, truly comprehend the reality of their people’s oppression or the existential crisis they face.
I’m not sure many Scots comprehend that an open prison has been built around their people and around their nation while they slept, generation upon generation; that they have been gagged and silenced despite being surrounded with what, on the surface, at least, appears to be the democratic tools and paraphernalia of a free society.
I’m not sure many Scots comprehend these things because the evidence would suggest otherwise.
The Scots still seem to believe in the contradiction that they are a free people whilst at the same time are a people fighting for their liberty and independence – this is not paradox… it is delusion.
It is delusion founded on illusion. Illusion created by the English state to sedate the Scots and to maintain the fiction they are the self-determining self-governing free people of a free nation.
A free people whose freeedom is dependent on the will, whim and favour of their captor.
The Scots are free alright… free to wander their open prison; free to pretend they are a democracy; free to shout and scream and stamp their feet and demand they be listened to by those who hold them captive; free to believe in the fantasy of their freedom and to spend their days dreaming that one day they might actually be free.
That is pretty much the case. Most that inhabit this land still appear to be Scottish mushrooms… They may think they are fun
giguys and gals, but that is generally a feeling based on the illusionary paradigm and constraints that they exist within.And that’s a paradigm highly controlled by the narratives projected by the tools of corporate powers and their puppet politicians.
Broadcasting is sadly still a power reserved to London Rule and plays a major role in steering the mindset of Scottish society.
The few alternative information sources (such as this site) are run by individuals or small organisations with limited resources and time, and an outlook restricted by their own views of the world and what is important to them.
Stu supposedly wants change for the better, yet has consistently stated there is nothing going on in Scottish politics. (That fits in nicely with Ellis waiting for black swan events whilst spending his time shooting black signets).
That is extremely unhelpful to and unsupportive of the various matters and initiatives that are actually going on.
Stu wants the NuSNP destroyed for what they have done to the movement, like many other supporters of returning Scotland to full self-governance do.
But if he doesn’t put some effort into helping produce or promote something viable to fill the vacuum, then all that will be achieved is unionists like Reform continuing to fill the vacuum and take power and Scots will endure more of the same grief for longer.
Now that’s maybe fine for someone insulated from the worst of what is happening in Scotland and comfortably off enough to whether the storm, but far less so for folk struggling to get by raising families, or trying to keep businesses running here to prevent job losses.
Still whinging and cringing for Scotland, Northy?
Quite right. Stick to what you do best.
We Scots are free, alright.
Free to grow a collective pair. Free for a couple of hundred of us to stand for election on a plebiscite for Indy platform. Free to clear our calendars for May 2026.
We’re all free to vote for our patriotic heroes, every single one of us if we so choose.
If every single patriotic hero ends up an MSP and/or an MP, they’re free to declare UDI and break up the UK with the blessing of the majority of us Scots. I flatly refuse to believe they’re going to fall out high windows, succumb to Novichok, or simply “disappear”.
You’re free to continue to pathetically wring your hands from the sidelines.
We’re all free to believe you’re so full of shit your eyes must have turned brown.
Alert readers are free to conclude there is no sight more certain to turn the undecided away from Indy than that of a “doughty keyboard warrior for Indy” cringing and whinging that he can’t get his own way just by stamping his feet, day after day after day.
For fucks sake, grow up, open your eyes and look at the world. Nobody outside of this silo believes posting endless, whiny shite on here is “fighting for … liberty and independence”.
FFS WOW hatey MacFuckwit’s irony meter has just had a meltdown
You posted “Alert readers are free to conclude there is no sight more certain to turn the undecided away from Indy than that of a “doughty keyboard warrior for Indy” cringing and whinging that he can’t get his own way just by stamping his feet, day after day after day.
For fucks sake, grow up, open your eyes and look at the world. Nobody outside of this silo believes posting endless, whiny shite on here is “fighting for … liberty and independence”.
So what you’re saying hatey is that you are gonna stop posting yir worthless cringing and whinging whiny shite on this blog
Hi Suart,
Thankyou for all of your research and efforts at making the soul destroying, bereft wasterland ofScottish politics INTERESTING.
As for your stalker, James Kelly, I see his efforts to parasitically leach readership from your Wings Over Scotland site continues with his current psycho-ego post on his Tw@t account (“Stew mentioned me again, yipee”).
Either Polis Scotland should have James Kelly locked up as he just obsesses about you Stuart. Even the creepy “Stew”pet name he is trying to get his 8 readers to recognise is a sign of bunny boileritis.
Trading Standards should also be visiting James Kelly about his impotent fundraiser. That seems to be modelled on the “ringfenced” SNP £600,000 business model. James Kelly’s pathetic attempts to badger his audience of 8 readers into DONATING money for OPINION POLLS, when Kelly then goes and spends that money in an ultra vires way immediately on HOLIDAYS is surely worthy of Kelly joining those SNP bosses who are paid-off members of the ARRESTED-SNP-MEMBERS’ CLUB?
The diddy James Kelly has negative credibility and is surely the Sideshow-Bob cartoon element of Scottish blogging. He doesn’t deserve even a footnote.
But there is something morbidly hilarious about this unkempt, weirdo blogging from his clarty, midden of a bedroom. Seriously, who uploads videos onto Youtube with a broken book case and dirt stained objects behind him? The most telling is the cheap picture of the RMS Titanic hingin’ on the mingin’ wall behind Kelly’s bald napper.
James, I know you will read this as you are clearly obsessed with Stuart Campbell, so PLEASE can your next fundraiser be to send you to a deserted island with no internet access, via a one-way ticket.
I would definitely donate £100 to James Kelly if it meant never having to see his mufugly face girning at me with that stupid grin from his dirty, dishevelled bedroom.
Thank goodness Kelly has not yet descended to the legendary “blogger-in-their-underwear-from-their-bedroom” brigade.
The thought of that makes me shudder.
Stuart, please can you continue with your quality analysis from your forensic research and leave SIDESHOW-JIMMY-RIDDLE to his bunny boiling bedroom broadcasts.
James Kelly is a master of cognitive dissonance. Indeed if you looked it up in the dictionary. He would be given as a classic example.
He left the SNP because they were conning him on independence. Joined Alba, didn’t get his way so fell out with them. Then rejoined the SNP. Who are actually a worse version of when he left.
The guy has been through a full cycle 80 degree brainwash. He also still wants both votes SNP. A tactic which has allowed numerous unionist losers like Murder Fraser to be elected time and time again.
Yet he portrays himself as a guru sephologist. He couldn’t read the tea leaves in the dregs of a cup.