A crisis of democracy
In the recent US election, the Democrats made a huge play out of the notion that the very concept of democracy itself was at risk if Donald Trump won.
And yet his eventual victory was unquestionably democratic. Not only did Trump win under the electoral college system by a huge 312-226 margin, and secure control of both the Senate and the House Of Representatives, he also beat Kamala Harris in the popular vote, by 50% to 48%. By every possible count and measure, Trump was the legitimate winner and has a clear mandate to govern for the next four years.
Over in the UK, however, things aren’t quite so neat and tidy.
Despite a landslide majority of 239, Keir Starmer’s victory last July was already the weakest and most democratically unbalanced in recorded British history. Labour’s seat count almost doubled – from 211 to 411 – even though their vote share only increased by a microscopic 1.6% from Jeremy Corbyn’s 2019 annihilation and their actual real-numbers vote went DOWN by half a million.
No UK government has ever earned a majority (let alone such a crushingly vast one) on the votes of a smaller percentage of the electorate than the 33.7% won by Starmer. Even the Harold Wilson minority government of February 1974 – a national byword for lame-duck administrations which was 17 seats short, couldn’t get over the line even with the support of the 3rd-placed Liberals, and duly collapsed less than eight months later – managed to get 37.2% of the vote.
But even from that super-low starting point, Starmer proceeded to lose popularity at a staggering rate. Just six months after his election, he’d managed to somehow shed fully a quarter of his party’s support, dropping to a ruinous 26%.
Having started out with more or less a clean zero slate in July, by this month the new government’s approval rating was a mindboggling minus 47 – almost identical to the minus 50 recorded by Rishi Sunak’s administration six months before the election.
If you drill down into the figures it’s even worse.
On the full figures, just 18% of the electorate supports the governing party, compared to 25% who don’t know or won’t vote at all. If you add together the support of every party that’s ever been part of a UK government for the last 170 years – Lab, Con and Lib, and variants thereof – it still comes to a paltry 43%. Which is to say, a sizeable majority of the country now either supports nobody at all, or a party that’s NEVER been in government.
Wings first noted this phenomenon back in 2015. It continues to be true, and to grow. A record 20 million people didn’t vote last July, which for the first time is more than voted for Labour and the Tories combined.
But even at the previous peak of None-Of-The-Above-Mania in 2001, the three main parties commanded a massive 91% of the votes cast (compared to just 69% last year), and a majority – 54% – of the total electorate including those who didn’t vote.
A country where the government is opposed by four out of every five voters, yet will rule effectively unchallenged for the next four and a half years, is a truly parlous state for any democracy, and certainly not one which grants anyone in Britain the right to criticise America for the state of its politics.
On current trends, Labour’s jawdroppingly shambolic performance (enacted by most of the same hapless careerists who were rejected comprehensively by voters in 2010 and 2015) looks set to lead to a once-a-century realignment at Westminster.
Kemi Badenoch initially somewhat steadied the Tory ship, even clawing it back to 27% in November when it had appeared to be in freefall off a cliff, but the calamitous damage of the May-Johnson-Truss-Sunak era holed the party too far below the waterline to be properly repairable, and they’ve slipped back to the point where Reform are poised to supplant them as the main party of the right. If they continue to plunder Tory support AND pick up a smaller but significant number of votes from Labour, they’ll win the next election at a canter.
That’s not through any strategic or operational genius on Reform’s part. Nigel Farage’s men – and they are nearly all men – are still a pretty hapless bunch of shouty pub bores. But the British public was already on its last stretched and threadbare nerve with mainstream politicians, and Starmer’s catastrophic opening volley of cannonballs fired into his own deck as Labour stumbles from one scandal to another looks like it might have been the final straw.
Because voters are now helpless hostages for almost a full Parliamentary term, and since pretty much everyone in the Cabinet is a demonstrable imbecile, the chances of things getting any better between now and 2029 are minuscule. That’s only going to make people angrier and angrier, and history has shown since time immemorial that angry people with votes are a recipe for disaster.
Winston Churchill once said that democracy was the worst form of government, except for all the other kinds that have been tried. And that may be true, but there are also good and bad forms of democracy, and the UK’s First Past The Post system has always been a deeply flawed one, exacerbated by the fact that the only people able to change it are those who benefit the most from those flaws.
Deprived of any meaningful way to bring about genuine change, frustrated voters have throughout time resorted in desperation to extreme measures, using democracy as their only tool. And rarely can the patience of voters in a democracy have been tested as sorely as British voters’ has been in the last 20 years or so.
Labour, the Tories, the Lib Dems and now Labour again have all been given their turn, and all have failed grotesquely (as have Labour and the SNP in Scotland). Keir Starmer shows absolutely no sign of having grasped that his election was voters granting the establishment one very reluctant last chance. That he’s making such a wretched pig’s dinner of it may have consequences that last for generations.
“The government you elect is the government you deserve”.
Thomas Jefferson
The problem with that statement, in relation to the UK, is that the majority of the country doesn’t elect the government.
The problem is that, in relation to the UK, the majority voted to keep FPTP in 2011.
Currently, only the Tories are opposed to PR, but I wouldn’t hold your breath for Sir Kid Starver to do anything about it now he’s got the keys to No.10.
Considering Keir Starmer’s obvious contempt for democracy, I think he’s looking for a way to avoid a general election. No democrat he.
What was on offer in 2011 was just an even worse form of FPTP.
“They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind”
Just nine days ago, James Kelly, the sage of Scot Goes Pop declared RefUK dead in the water after Elon Musk denounced Nigel Farage as a lily livered, globalist stooge.
In three of four, UK wide, Westminster voting intention polls conducted with their field work entirely in this year, RefUK are ahead of the Tories. In the one full scale, Westminster voting intention poll conducted this year in Scotland, RefUK lead the Tories 15% to 13%.
Kelly is a dunce, Musk’s falling out with Farage centres around the latter’s refusal to embrace Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. The faction of the right that Farage stands to loose by distancing himself from Yaxley-Lennon has a ceiling of 10% maximum. The portion of the middle class that Farage could woo by taking this stance massively outweighs any potential loss.
Kelly is back in the SNP and is back to urging anyone who’ll listen to “cast both votes SNP”. What an imbecile. The improved prospects for the SNP at Westminster and Holyrood are entirely down to the distribution of support amongst other parties (particularly the surge in RefUK). The SNP remain 15 to 20% below current support for independence, with little indication that this will change any time soon.
RefUK can hoover up the votes of the disenchanted, the disenfranchised, and the pure scunnered in Scotland almost as effectively as they have demonstrated they can do in England & Wales. That would include former SNP voters.
Mm. The current polling makes voting SNP 1&2, remarkably, even more cretinous than it was last time. With the Unionist vote so split, the SNP will win a lot of constituencies, but with their regional vote at barely 30%, those constituencies will slash the regional vote down to 3-4%, which gets you zip on the list. Pretty much every SNP list vote will be wasted.
Back To The Future: I have rejoined the SNP:
“…in case anyone else is thinking it’s time to work for change inside the SNP rather than outside it, please make sure you’re doing it for your own reasons and have thought carefully about the pros and cons. On your own head be it!..
…in many respects I’m probably politically closer to Yousaf than to Forbes. But Yousaf was just the wrong man, at the wrong time… I feel a lot more at ease with the SNP under the Swinney/Forbes leadership, and if it was just a question of who would make the best government, this current team would be a no-brainer…
I’m just relieved to have a political home once again, and we’ll see how it goes.”:
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.com
link to archive.ph
#POPgoesSCOT
The athenians would not have recognised our “democracy”. People have absorbed the truth that we live in an oligarchy which runs a uni-party, which is bought and paid for. All the major policies are the same :
neoliberal economics (aka looting and class war)
neocon foreign policy (aka endless war and militarism)
DEI social policy (aka perversion as a lifestyle, plus national self hatred, mass immigration, abortion, feminism, trannyism, paedophilia)
the punch and judy pantomime played out for the media, is now played out – question time, newsnight. They are all as bad as each other.
But the big con is the “populists” – who talk a good game, then do an about face as soon as they get in.
In the UK – “reform” – which is a gang of little englanders and hedge fund managers who idolise Singapore.
In the US – trump – the new york slumlord who will “drain the swamp”, despite being a swamp creature himself.
– these pied pipers are part of the con too, they are the “long” variant of it.
Imagine a party which was centre-left economically and “socially conservative”; it should clean up at the polls, but these parties never seen to emerge.
Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht – Vernunft und Gerechtigkeit fit your description. They’ve never troubled double figures in the 12 months since they were launched. Doubtless the German MSM and the extremely powerful Permanent State have it in for them. I’m not convinced by the notion of having a political party carry the name of its leader on its masthead. At least RefUK pretend that they’re not a one-man-band.
I had heard of that woman – an oldstyle marxist with a PhD, but I didn’t know what to make of her.
There are other “interesting” characters around, in France, Alain Soral, who proposes a grand alliance between islam and catholicism based around conservative social values. Strange guy, he had been a communist, national front member, and framed his critique of feminism from his youth as a pickup artist. Last time I heard he got jailed for calling a fat lesbian a “fat lesbian”.
for wingers who don’t know the name
link to archive.ph
that’s all I read on her
Corbyn, if not absolutely sabotaged by the Labour right of Durr Starmer, would have had a massive historical “centre-left” victory that reflected a large proportion of the UK’s wishes for their government.
Al-Jazz has a brilliant documentary called “The Lobby” which records this treachery in real life recordings from the culprits.
Many tens of thousands of civilians who are now dead on a small strip of their own country in the eastern mediterranean would still be alive, and the world would probably be less close to war, if the UK had anything remotely resembling a functioning democracy.
re. Corbyn
“Keir Starmer became leader, at the request of I***el lobby group the Board of Deputies of British Jews.The files show that another Labour right-winger who secretly reported Massey was former lawmaker Ivor Caplin would later become chair of pro-I***el group the Jewish Labour Movement – which has close ties to the I***eli embassy in London.”:
link to wingsoverscotland.com
I think that something is happening in England that is not (yet) happening in Scotland or the other parts of the UK. However, because England is so much greater in population than the rest of us put together, we will, inevitably, be pulled under in the wake of whatever is coming.
Although it has been a long time coming, and exacerbated by the Covid lockdown, the economy has been tanking for at least the past 40-50 years. Thatcher’s policies of privatisation as the panacea was doomed to failure from day one.
In reality, the UK economy had been in dire straits since the end of WW II, but massive spending and restructuring gave it a huge boost. In order to do so, the governments had to set up a social consensus with the people, which, had they not done so, would have led to revolution post war. Trying to keep up with the Jones (the Americans) and repay loans might have fatally wounded the economy.
The late 1950s into the 60s and early 70s were far better times than working-class people had ever seen before, but, as usually happens with those who are given power, the unions miscalculated and over-egged the pudding. Had they used their power wisely, Thatcher would never have happened, and, of course, she came to power determined to destroy them.
What is bringing England to the edge – and could well lead to the complete breakdown of the UK (and our independence) – is the application of ‘wokery’ to every aspect of life when, again, judicial use could lead to better things, but over-egging is leading to a massive rage and disconnect in English society. So few have actually understood the very real threat that ‘wokery’ poses to democratic societies – even half-democratic ones like ours.
The grooming gang stuff is the part of the iceberg we can see, but unlimited immigration, both legal and illegal, has led to a shortage of already-scarce resources, quite the opposite of that which immigration was meant to cure. No good our tut-tutting because we have not known the scale England has (imagine a million coming to Scotland overnight); and the whole ‘trans’ issue has split ordinary people from the authorities, both local and national, businesses introducing illegal restrictions on Stonewall’s say-so; and a profound lack of jobs that people can live on, are leading to fissures in society that will not be healed, I think, without massive disruption to the political status quo.
The Americans gave more money to France and Germany under The Sherman plan. When Atlee went begging for loans, Uncle Sam gave high interest rate loans .The worst winter in British history seen untold death and suffering by the British people.
Indeed, Mark, but I suspect that was deliberate because they wanted Britain’s status as a global leader. It became very obvious early on in the war that America was looking to push Britain out of the way and take over pole position.
The US waged relentless financial warfare against the UK in WW2 – the objective to bury the british empire, to setup their own.
The british had to hand over everything to get these war loans/lend lease (radar, merlin engine, jet engine, code breaking, the computer); they expected the debts to be torn up at the end of the war, having won, and to return to business. The yanks screwed them – said “you still owe us money”, then kicked them off the manhattan project, a humiliation. I don’t think the loans were finally paid off until the late 1990s.
Bretton Woods was a stitch up too. Keynes was there, it was not setup to create a viable world economic system, but to allow america to dictate terms.
The book “super imperialism” by micheal hudson has all the details.
Yes and no.
I’d rather say that under the Marshall Plan (of which Britain received the Lion’s share) the monies were a grant – not fundamentally repayable.
The US also wanted the UK at the heart of the fledgling European ‘Union’ and driving it (ECSC) not for America to do it herself. Britain of course was having none of it and would ‘Trade with our Commonwealth” instead (sound familiar?)
The US had to give up on us being at the heart of European reconstruction and reposition its political and material focus on Germany (where it remains)
Britain, having spunked its Marshall Plan grant up against the wall attempting to re-militarise and rebuild its ‘Empire Strength’ (and not benefitting from ECSC trade) had to go cap in hand again to the USA and ask for a massive ‘Loan’ which we duly received.
It is this loan which we were repaying until recently our so called ‘War Debt’
Was the materiel Britain was buying to attempt to rebuild its military, just useless obsolete junk the US was wanting shot of? Look! there’s a squirrell!
The reason no one else was repaying their ‘War Debt’ (the rotters) was because they didn’t have one, they didn’t have a Loan, they were working with their grant monies. They demilitarised (saving £££££) and punted all their dosh into rebuilding, trade and industry.
As a point of interest Germany actually repaid her Marshall Plan Grant Money, and Germany’s established ‘Grant Fund’ or ‘KfW still operates today, it was invested not spunked.
Were people happy Germany was eventually included in the Marshall Plan?,No, not at all, but the US wasn’t daft – Europe had to be rebuilt, America wasn’t going to do it for them and Britain had declared zero interest in it – the US had little option but to help Germany, and whether they liked it, or not or knew it, the rest of Europe needed Germany off her knees.
Of course, all the above is all very simplified, and I didn’t mention the intricacies of Lend-Lease, and it wasn’t just bags of wonga handed over; rather the ERP was a type of credit-cum-buyback system (ie the countries purchased everything they needed for reconstruction from US companies and it was paid from the grant program allocated to them (ERP European Recovery Program) which did include small ‘loans’ to a degree but was more, or less just the US paying herself for goods ordered by Europe, and Europe pretending to pay for it with her own currencies – markets were kidded-on, confidence rose among the people, economies stabilised and grew, and countries bootstrapped themselves into standing on their own two feet.
Job done. Did it benefit America in the long run? Yeah, sure it did, of course, but I’d I’d say more American imperialism by accident, rather than design – unless you want to argue America engineered WW2 in the first place – they certainly wove a silk purse from a sows ear and why not – what was the alternative really?
For the purposes of oversimplification, all the above is close enough for jazz – we pissed our opportunity away, mainland Europe didn’t. We needed bailed out a second time, mainland Europe didn’t. We clung desperately to our ‘Sovereignty’ and hated any notion of integration with Europe – politically, or economically – mainland Europe wasn’t bothered about us at all and carried on regardless. Britain eventually had to crawl back into by then the EC, because being outwith it was not economically viable… history repeats.
North Sea Oil and Gas was one of our last, bailouts from bankruptcy – then it was ‘sell everything not nailed down’ then ‘everything that’s nailed down’
Like Germany investing her ERP funds, Norway invested, North Sea funds – we spunked it up a wall again.
Britain has never managed to stand on its own two feet and has always relied on plunder, or being bailed out – because we have always been run by swivel eyed, chinless, congenital idiots.
Yes there was an impressive industrial revolution, but what fueled it? Money, and where did that money come from? Plunder.
Take a look around, what’s left? When all that can be flogged is all finally gone – then what will the chinless wonders do, how will they get bailed out? “The 51st State” was always a sardonic phrase, but if the shoe fits.
.
Can’t find a reference to that on a search engine.
Is this actually a reference to the Marshal Plan? – figures here:
link to statista.com
Which shows Britain receiving the largest amount.
Look further.
Nope. Not even Wikipedia has a page on “The Sherman Plan”
link to en.wikipedia.org
The search engine lists the 1787 Roger Sherman Connecticut Compromise:
link to jud.ct.gov
…and similar links.
Sherman’s march to the sea;
link to georgiaencyclopedia.org
and umpteen similar links on Sherman and the US Civil War.
and even the Sherman tank
link to nationalww2museum.org
For page, after page, after page, after page, after page, after page.
But a Sherman Plan relating to post WW2 US funding, aid, loans etc?
Nil. Nada. Zilch. Now’t. SFA.
Perhaps it’s gone the way of the G word and a D-notice has been put on it?
Marshal Plan?
George Marshall Secretary of State
blackmail is also a bigger part of politics than people like to think
and in the US, epstein island the latest example
will wragg
“video exists of 3 males urinating on him”
I reckon such little spreadsheets exist for holyrood, and given they are all benders/rug munchers, pretty fruity
– maybe this is why they put holyrood quite close to calton hill
The worry over here about the USA (among the saner commentators) is not that there wasn’t a free and fair election this time around, but whether there will be one in four years’ time.
Give me a break.
Same tired “argument” trotted out by the Dems over the last year.
e.g. If Trumpy-boy is indeed Hilter then don’t you think he would have done a Kristallnacht first time round?
Do keep up. 🙂 Find a better debating point rather than regurgitating received opinion…
Don’t you think he had a v
….very incompetent attampt?
Oh please. The Presidency defines America, but the office, and the person are just a figurehead for the government. Trump not matter what deranged ideas are sloshing around in that orange head is not going to be the person that disrupts what the Presidency stands for. Nobody in America would tolerate it. He’d be assassinated several microseconds after he took that decision. With Vance taking the reins once Trump finishes his second term and with the Democrats in disarray and torn by infighting the Republicans are looking forward to being in power for at least the next twelve years. Nothing will be allowed to disrupt that.
America is a Republic, not a Democracy. There is enough checks and balances to stop that from happening.
Even if Trump did try to attempt that, as Stuart point out he wouldn’t live to see a second term.
Looks like American politics are going to mirror ours for the next four years where instead of the opposition continually harping on here Tories bad, it will be Trump bad.
There should be enough checks and balances in the US system. That isn’t the case these days.
The Republican Party has a majority in both houses of Congress. Most of those Republicans are in thrall to the Orange Fuckwit. They’ll do whatever he wants, no matter what. So that’s one of the main checks on the Executive which has been removed.
The other fundamental check is the Constitution and the Legislature. Which is overseen by the Supreme Court. Trumpy-Wumpy has stuffed the Supreme Court with numpties. Those appointments were approved by the Trump-controlled Congress during his previous term. These sock puppets will decide in favour of Trump whenever he breaks the law or does anything that’s unconstitutional.
On top of that, the President picks the heads of government departments and federal agencies. They’ll support the Orange Fuckwit too.
That summarises the threat. There is further threat from oligarchs undermining the ‘4th estate’, either buying formerly reputable titles or through ‘social media’.
That is based on the assumption that all of these appointees and members of both houses are totally loyal to Trump and not to their own best interests of being re-elected when he’s gone.
There is a derogatory term used by Trump supporters for certain members of the Republican party who serve in houses called RINO’s, Republican In Name Only.
Trump is only going to serve for a term and none of his progency and even Vance has the charisma or presence of Trump.
If Trump messes up or does what many fear he will do, the RINO’s will turn on him to save their own skins?
Of course I could be completely wrong but given how chaotic his first term was and even before he is actually made President, there is dissent with for example the H-1B1 visas, is his presidency going to much better than this first?
Only time will tell but Trump is a business president and running a government is a lot different from running a private sector company where Trump has all the control.
Will he have the political savvy and above all, leave his ego enough at the door when he is President to survive this term?
As I said, even if is able to go down that route, there is no enough nuts over there with enough guns to go for him. That’s another check and balance he is well aware of.
No worries, here (yawn)…
#HappyScotlandForever
I think that the major reason for the “non Voters” is just the fact that there’s really little choice between candidates and parties.
Conservatives were evicted due to their policies.
Labour are just a conservative light.
Lib Dems are a joke.
Greens don’t know whether to wear trousers or a skirt.
Reform want to invade Poland.
And the less said about the SNP the better.
When you have choices that are no real choices then you’ll never vote.
“Reform want to invade Poland.”
Eh ?
Says who ?
I think they were all caricatures. Did you not think that?
Metaphorically speaking…
Thanks Rev, pulled all the facts together which the MSM doesn’t understand or (more likely) do not want to admit.
They are definitely different in terms of the policies and the attitudes that they have, their ‘clients’ who they want to look after, but where they are similar is that you need to hold your nose to vote for any of them.
‘videogames’? What game is this?
Oh ffs. A while back I pulled in a bunch of posts from my personal website, thinking to make them a subsite here and save me forking out for two loads of webhosting. Still working on that, but somewhere along the way something weird happened and now every time I try to put anything in the “UK politics” category it auto-selects about 20 other categories that I then have to manually untick, and this time I missed one. Doh!
“On the full figures, just 18% of the electorate supports the governing party…”
It seems reasonable to assume that figure refers to the percentage based on the number of the populace in Britain eligible to vote.
Given the number of eligible voters who did not record a vote at the last GE (either by not actually voting or spoiling their ballot paper) resulted in only around 20% or so of the eligible to vote populace actually voting for the current second eleven/former ‘loyal’ opposition governing party, a 2% or so fall in support will doubtless be spun as some sort of result by what passes for the present Government?
If Farage pledged to introduce PR and dissolve parliament for a new election within one year of becoming PM, I’d vote for him, loathsome as he is.
And he just might, since in the long term it would likely ensure lots more Reform MPs.
That would be a winning move and would seal Farage’s legacy. Any Reform government would likely be a shambles but getting in and getting out quick with a fundamental change to the way the UK works would like make him a candidate for a sainthood.
A promise from that amoral grifter Farage is even less reliable than one from the SNP or the Labour Party’s North British branch office.
Yes, and as Rev Stu mentioned earlier, much depends on the design of the P.R. system used, it can put even more power into the hands of corrupt Political Parties.
How does one find the Rev’s suggestions for voting systems!
The left cheek of the British Establishment’s Government is making the right cheek look like the adult in the room, what with wedge issues like Self ID/Trans idiocy, and a complete refusal to address decent taxpayers genuine concerns over illegal immigration, among other things…. almost as if it was planned that way.
Sad to see the SNP follow in the same footsteps.
The Fraud (2025): Exclusive:
Humza Yousaf challenges Elon Musk to debate: ‘Name the day, name the hour’:
link to thenational.scot
link to archive.ph
#TheHumzaChallenge
BBC: Who is Humza Yousaf? The rise and fall of a former first minister:
“Humza Yousaf’s decision to leave the Scottish Parliament in 2026 brings to an end a political career that both broke the mould and ended in failure…
When Sturgeon announced in February 2023 that she was standing down as first minister, Yousaf was seen as the candidate who would continue her work….
Just days after he was sworn in, police searched the home of Sturgeon and her husband Peter Murrell, as well as the SNP’s headquarters…
Mr Murrell was later re-arrested and charged in connection with the embezzlement of funds from the SNP.”:
link to bbc.co.uk
link to archive.ph
Operation Branchform latest (2025): Police ‘fed up’ of being blamed for length of SNP finance probe:
“The Crown Office has been challenged to make a decision on how to proceed with Operation Branchform as fed up police officers say they are being blamed for the length of the probe.”:
link to scottishdailyexpress.co.uk
link to archive.ph
#ThePoliceScotlandChallenge
@COPFS
COPFS
@COPFS: reposted:
“Disrupting serious organised crime is a priority for @ScotGov and partners on the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce…”:
link to x.com
It is exceptionally tragic for the WHOLE of the uk when the only appeal ANY of these parties or politicians can make to the electorate is “VOTE FOR US BECAUSE WE ARE LESS SHITE THAN THE OTHER PARTIES”
BUT the snp cannot even do that because believe it or not they are “MORE SHITE THAN MOST IF NOT ALL OF THE OTHER PARTIES”
UNFORTUNATELY it leaves independence supporters with nowhere to go , ALBA is just snp v2 where everything has to be conducted within WM establishment rules of acceptability and conformity , there is no rebelliousness, no ignoring the rules , it is all gentrified opposition, and TBQH to me it just stinks of the same middle class self serving social climbers that permeated the snp
ISP have not made the traction with the electorate Collette Walker seems like a very nice person and very genuine but she is no aggressive bare knuckle fighter which I believe is needed against the might of the establishment
The snp bully and ignore Scots every day carrying out their reviled policies and gross incompetence against the overwhelming opposition of the electorate , BUT every one of them are absolute craven cowards when it comes to confronting the engerlish establishment, what independence needs is a leader who is not AFRAID to be outspoken and agressive to those who are against freeing Scotland from the clutches of a bullying corrupt thieving neighbour who only has contempt for their existance
Humza …..! Ha ha ha :-)))
44 comments and nobody’s mentioned you-know-where yet. Maybe the message is finally getting through.
I hear Govan is lovely at this time of year…
Surely the SNP have not done that much damage?
Otherwise, we’ed have seen the official D-notice.
Chatham House: The importance of democracy: Why is democracy important to the world and how does it help maintain a just and free society?
“Democracy has played a vital role in the story of civilization, helping transform the world from power structures of monarchy, empire, and conquest into popular rule, self-determination, and peaceful co-existence…. Democracy then vanished”:
link to chathamhouse.org
#Vanished
If you say so Chatham House. Hilarious
It’s the message that counts.
Scotland doesn’t get the message, huh ?
I don’t believe you…
“Message:
1. a communication, usually brief, from one person or group to another.
2. an implicit meaning or moral, as in a work of art.
3. a formal communiqué.
4. an inspired communication of a prophet or religious leader.
5. a mission; errand
6. (plural) Scottish shopping going for the messages.
7. See get the message”:
link to collinsdictionary.com
#DemocracyMatters
Must be my imagination here, but It feels as though I’m talking to myself sometimes, lol
Labour won 35.3% of the vote in Scotland = 37 seats.
SNP won 30% of the vote in Scotland = 9 seats.
Those are the figures I am interested in.
What’s the difference? 46 seats to pro-Devolution parties and Scotland gets shafted in any event.
The nu-SNP achieved the square root of bugger all with 56 out of 59 MPs after 2015… Didn’t stop Brexit, didn’t secure IndyRef2, didn’t keep Scotland in the Single Market, etc. etc.
Why they’ve even got 9 beats the shit out of me, but either way they’re as much use as tits on a bull.
Can’t but help think what friendship the Donald John is saving up for the hapless Sir Keir Starmer who actively tried to stop Trump by supporting the democrats.
Talk about a bad move. Big balls Starmer certainly picked a big enemy to poke.
And ditto for the slimy First Minister Swinney. He’s been poking President elect Donald John too. Trump I’m sure will save some special favours for the gormless Swinney too.
Starmer and Swinney – the humpitty doo dah twins without a shadow of a doubt their fun is only about to begin.
There is something in common between Starmer and Trump.
“the government is opposed by four out of every five voters” isn’t really true though. Plenty of people who voted tactically for LD or Green in a given constituency (and even Tory in SNP marginals) are broadly fine with a Labour government.
This is why the comparison with Trump is flawed – if we all had to reluctantly vote in a two horse race here, Starmer would have done a lot better than 50% in July.
I have just watched and posted the lower of two videos at the link below. It is archive footage of the short speech to supporters given by René Lévesque after the Québec referendum defeat in 1980.
He refers to the “scandalously immoral federal campaign” (“cette campagne scandaleusement immoral du fédéral lui même”) which had prevailed. And at the end he says “keep it in memory but also keep hope” (“je vous dis garder en le souvenir mais garder l’espoir aussi”).
Lévesque was of course dealing with Pierre Trudeau, father of Justin Trudeau (referred to in the upper video interview yesterday with 91 year old Jean Chrétien, Liberal Party Prime Minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003).
Lévesque is speaking Québec French. Whether or not the message is lucid to us, I urge at least watching the opening of the footage to witness the unforgettably supportive eight minute solid ovation Lévesque gets before he manages to speak. Would that Scotland’s hero Alex Salmond after our own narrow 2014 defeat had been accorded and enjoyed such movingly resounding acclaim.
Le 20 mai 1980, discours de René Lévesque après la défaite du Oui au référendum québécois
BBC (2025): MSP pay to rise by 3.2% to almost £75,000:
“The total cost of MSP salaries and associated taxes is expected to rise by £645,000 to almost £15.3m, including an extra £200,000…
The £2,311 pay rise, to apply from 1 April, follows hikes of 6.7% last year, 1.5% the year before and 3.4% in 2022-23…
Ministers are entitled to extra money…
Currently, a Scottish government minister is entitled to £99,516 but under the voluntary pay freeze receives the 2008/9 level of £81,449.”:
link to archive.ph
#MSPayHike
£90 billion a year in interest payments for UK £3 trillion debt,
most of the debt was from Brown and UK banks crashing the world economy and then bailing out the bankers.
A lot of the interest goes to the bankers that were bailed out in the first place and who caused the crash.