A failure of briefing
Angus Robertson won’t enjoy watching today’s Sunday Politics Scotland again:
But neither should Andrew Neil, because Andrew Neil was lying.
Robertson should certainly have known the answer to Neil’s question. Readers of this site have known it for some time, and it’s fairly shocking that the SNP’s leader at Westminster wasn’t on top of such a basic fact.
But that’s no excuse for Neil telling an outright lie. He asks about real-terms cuts to the Scottish budget “in the past five or six years”, before going on to assert that there have been none. But we know the real answer to his question with precision, because it’s listed exactly that way in the official figures – it’s 10%.
We don’t have to just take the Scottish Government’s word for that. The independent thinktank Fiscal Affairs Scotland concurs with their analysis:
We’re interested to know where Neil’s figures come from. It’s not at all clear why he chose 2008-09 as his starting point, when the financial crisis had just happened, Labour were still in power and austerity hadn’t kicked in. But it seems unlikely that the budget would have been dramatically lower then than in 2010-11, which is the only way Neil’s claim would make sense.
(Also, fiscally speaking, 2008-09 is seven years ago, not “five or six”.)
In any event, it’s deeply disingenuous and misleading of him not to note that since the Tories came to power the Holyrood budget HAS been cut in real terms every single year, and has now dropped in total by a very substantial 10%, giving the Scottish Government over £3 billion a year less to spend now than it had in 2010-11.
We’ve asked the BBC man for clarification. We’re not holding our breath.
Robertson really should have had those figures to hand.
Knowing more than him is the ONLY way to deal with Neil.
Another pile of pish delivered by the untrustworthy BBC and fully exposed by Wings Over Scotland. The BBC must be exposed to all and its dubious credibility smashed beyond all repair.
The BBC is Scotland’s public enemy No1 and the print media in Scotland is only hanging on by the skin of its teeth due to people buying into their lies and humans being creatures of habit.
Destroy the unionist media in Scotland and we’re halfway there!
Looks like Angus was ‘off guard’, is it the case that the upper echelons of the SNP think that they are dealing with ‘reasonable’ people in the media? That they genuinely can’t see what is going on regarding the obvious ‘script’ that journos like ANeil ask their ‘leading’ questions from?
It’s a trap. The SNP should always be ‘on’. They have to be to counter this obvious but subtle knifing that is always on display, especially from the LondonBBC metrocommentariat, of which Neil is an established hiheid ego.
The conference atmosphere is like a ‘bubble’, but they cannot forget in the wider context…that we ain’t there yet…so no relaxing Angus, ambushes always await the unwary.
Lest we forget; the SNP represent ‘enemies of the State’.
The BBC will always represent the State; even if it has to resort to lies and falsehoods.
Fact
At FM questions the PM knows what the question is before hand, that’s why he can flick through his papers in front of him with the answers. Know one could possibly remember all the answers. My point is this, Andrew Neil, has all the relevant information at hand. The Scottish Government should forbid anyone from taken part in there game. Boycott all BBC
Interviews, especially with Andrew Neil…… don’t give them them the time of day. End.
Angus was clearly caught cold but of course someone quoting inaccurate figures can be a curve ball.
In retrospect it does nothing for Neil’s credibility. It looks like a deliberate lie to cause confusion.
Thanks for this article, and I think it shows perfectly the importance of the wider Indy movement, as when someone has an off-day, there are others like Wings to step in and take up the argument. When you’re under a constant onslaught from the media, that’s vital.
Nicola Sturgeon was talking about her expectation from activists on the ground to more or less start regrouping now, and I don’t think that’s only applicable to the SNP. I wasn’t active in Indyref1, but after lurking here for a good while I will be taking the plunge next week and trying to get active in a local organisation.
Normally a safe pair of hands, but definitely a slip on his part. Off day at mill for sure.
As for Mr Neil though?
That’s a howler.
Thanks for these figures Rev. My heart sank when Angus Robertson was asked the question.
No one should go onto A Neil,s show without knowing that you will be hijacked. A hard lesson for Angus!
However these figures help me to bat off the inevitable remarks from my Lab/Dem/Tory street.
Neil is a front man for the British state.
It is about time the hi ” heid yins” in the snp recognise that the BBC will shaft them at all opportunity. Even during the YES campaign the ordinary supporters were being told not to go too hard on the news media we needed them. Apart from 1 notable exception and blogs like this we were undermined consistently.
NS call your guys in, read the riot act and sort out what they are doing. For what it is worth
1. Don’t do interviews unprepared
2. Weed out cronyism in the party. Look around.
3. Insist on being interviewed last not first.
4. The MSM brigade are not your friends they will never will be.
5. Attack them not try and defend their lies
I happened to be present at the recording at the AECC. Before and after the interview, Angus was clearly very annoyed about something (probably because the studio kept him and Shona Robison standing for about 5-10 minutes before Neil got to him, while David Torrance only had to stand a couple of minutes. “Unbiased” BBC, ladies & gents). He didn’t seem happy with the interview, and I don’t blame him.
Of course, what I *really* wanted to do was leap into frame and shout “10% ya bam” into the camera, but I didn’t want to be the latest SNP thug to terrorise the poor BBC. Maybe I should have. Apparently I was seen wandering around in the background of the Freeman/Torrance bit.
Neil has form with this, either twisting facts to suit an agenda, or outright making things up. It puts people off their guard, because they don’t immediately know how to react. Remember Bill O’Reilly’s infamous “tide goes in, tide goes out, you can’t explain that” interview with David Silverman, and Silverman could only gape in disbelief at his stupidity? Neil is pulling the exact same thing: present a completely stupid lie with the conviction that you’re telling the truth, and act all affronted and indignant when challenged – but because he’s an “honest” journalist and not a “lying” politician, the intention is to make it look like the politician is lying and not him.
He did the exact same thing to Stewart Hosie yesterday, he did it to John Swinney a while back, and he’ll continue doing it over the course of this campaign. We really need to be on our toes, and not act too surprised when he presents a complete lie like this.
Brillo Pad continuing where he left off on friday with his disgraceful interview with Stewart Hosie.
I think that both Stewart Hosie and Angus Robertson were subjected to a shocking display of arrogant, patronising blatant ill-mannered lying and both showed admirable restraint.
I have no objection to in depth forensic political interviews subject to the interviewing being carried out honestly However, Neil’s barefaced political prejudices seldom fail to surface whoever he is interviewing of whatever party.
The BBC purports to be politically unbiased but given Neil’s history and business activity outside his BBC work it is difficult to see how it can be justified for him to be employed by our national broadscaster as their leading political commentator on nearly every day of the week and twice on thursdays.
In a previous life he took the Murdoch shilling to edit The Sunday Times where he took what had been a wonderful paper under Harold Evans, dumbed it down and turned it into a raving mouthpiece for Thatcherism and all its attendant evils.
Having fallen out with Murdoch he then attached himself to those universally adored and respected paragons of journalistic and general business integrity the loathesome Barclay Brothers.
When Thomson Org. sold The Scotsman to the Barclays Brillo was inserted at the helm where he initialised the destruction of the then much respected Scotsman subsequently compeleted when it in turn was sold to Johnston Press.
Greater glory came under the Barclays and he is now Chairman of their media vehicle Press Holdings.
In that capacity I have mentioned in another comment that he is the ultimate boss of The Spectator
and its editor Fraser Nelson (he of the weirdly strangulated artificial accent) who produced last week’s atrocious pack of lies written by our pal The Nutty Professor.
Of course, we should not forget that Press Holdings includes The Telegraph which means that Brillo is also the ultimate boss of that raving fanatic Alan Cochrane.
Surely, given his history there must be plenty of mud that can be dredged up on Brillo to Provide Rev Stu with a hard hitting hatchet job article which could with a bit of luck set in motion the bursting of Brillo’s massive balloon of arroagance, rudeness and lying.
@Hamish
“5. Attack them not try and defend their lies”
I agree personally, I thought Stewart Hosie came over stronger for challenging Andrew Neil on his approach when he was interviewed on Daily Politics. The flip-side though is you got people quoting him to make him sound like he was whinging.
Already made 3 complaints to the BBC in the last 3 days, 2 of which about Andrew Neil, but I’m feeling another coming on… 🙂
Is it true that the UK parties do not expose their upper echelons to Neil?
What if Angus Robertson had stated that the budget was cut by 10% Andrew Neil would just have re-read from whatever document he is holding.
Angus Robertson had no documents or time to prepare an answer.
Apart from Wings will any journalist question the figures put forward by Andrew Neil?
Andrew Neil is being paid by the taxpayer yet we don’t get a chance vote him out of office.
Andrew Neil can say anything he likes.
PMQs:
Angus Robertson – Question for the Prime Minister:
A well known presenter during a recent BBC broadcast included some statistics which may have misled many of the public, so perhaps the Prime Minsiter would confirm the correct figures, namely that over the last 5/6 years the Scottish Budget has been cut in real terms by 10%?
Neil put the knife into Hosie a few days ago in much the same manner. This site provides excellent analysis after the event, proving the lies of the establishment, but really then it’s too late. The guy who throws the first punch is generally the winner, and Neil know that only too well.
Personally, I would say no to interviews and when asked why, would cite the lies of Neil and others.
Oh dear, Andrew Neil lying again. He was caught at it last week when he claimed that the Scottish NHS hadn’t met any waiting time targets and again on twitter when he claimed the target is 98% when, in fact, it is 95%.
“The target is 98%. Missed. Please don’t try to out do me on facts.” he pompously declared on Twitter.
So the Rev out did him on facts, LOL. What a fanny.
If your not prepared don’t do interviews.
Spectacular BBC liar in action once again. Robertson knows there are 55 SNP MP’s behind him and it’s a meritocracy, hopefully!
Surely what Andrew Neil says is only a problem if people believe him.
The polls would suggest that the BritNat propaganda is not working and it could be their too obvious, too OTT SNP bad smear campaign is backfiring.
If I heard that correctly Neil said:” The budget was 35 billion in 2008 and in 2015 it was 35 billion”. So in other words this is an obvious real terms cut. Unless he thinks inflation doesn’t exist, and we all survive decade to decade on the same salary. 2008 was 7 years ago surely to break even the year to year increase must match or better inflation. I don’t think economics is his strong point. Wonder if BBC pay him the same salary as 7 years ago.
Sorry I dont agree that they were caught off guard.They should have known. I include Mr Hosie in that regard as well as Angus Robertson.
How often in the past have misleading figures or statistics been used by Mr Neil to ensnare the unwary?
On Friday Neil used the stats from one hospital to question the whole of Scotlands NHS. Its newest hospital who are still ironing out the technical glitches.
The SNP have been fighting on the very fact that the UK government are cutting our budget.Surely they must know by how much??
Most readers on this site could tell them,and that is a concern.
They need to “up their game “somewhat.
James Caithness says:
18 October, 2015 at 1:45 pm
If your not prepared don’t do interviews.
Ruby says:
How could Angus Robertson have prepared for this interview? Andrew Neil had the advantage because he knew the question, he had a ‘document’to prove he was right, and had plenty of time to prepare his question.
Angus Robertson could not win in this situation even if he knew the answer was 10% because unlike Neil he didn’t have documents to back up his answer.
Personally I think Andrew Neil’s dodgy tactics are very obvious but then I’ve seen the light all thanks to Wings.
When faced with this kind of situation rather than be unsettled because you don’t have the numbers to hand, or be questioned on something you weren’t told you would be, there is the media’s own last resort
Placing chosen finger to ear piece you lean your head to one side with a puzzled expression and say: I, I, I’m sorry I,I’m not getting that, can you say it again, thus gaining the time needed to reply to a question the interviewer didn’t ask
Or you could just say, in the Scottish vernacular: “That’s mince and you know it if you’re going to lie get a better one” Finger back in ear puzzled expression da da da da
I have to get on Twitter, if only to witness Rev.taking down pompous twats.
I feel for Angus, he very rarely messes up, and perhaps he was preoccupied.
Thanks, Brillo, for another feckin lie about Scotland, cos we really don’t have enough of those circulating.
We have no idea what Angus Robertson was actually hearing. Was it what Neil led us to believe,or was it something else.
We are asked to place our trust in the BBC technicians on this matter, and to put it frankly, that went a while back.
The BBC is pouring massive resources in to their anti SNP agenda. They have people and digital resources working round the clock digging away at this. The SNP needs to get street wise and get down and dirty, this has gone on now far to long.
I am sick fed up watching people like Robertson and Hosie being turned over by this lying bastard. It is a re run of the Salmond v Robertson saga, the BBC are going to even up the score they have a huge axe to grind and they will lie and lie and lie and not one thing will be done to stop them. There is far to much at stake for the BBC. Not the least being the loss of Scottish revenues.
Neil has found a chink in the SNPs armour and he wiil work away at it liike the parasite he is.
It is what we all predicted and knew was coming. Come on SNP get your fingers out and attack these bastards with more vigour.
Stop being so fucking nice and polite, fight them. Fire with fire.
Rev Stu. You have the knowledge and the means and the support to start a You Tube broadcasting channel. It would not be a problem to crowd fund it. It would be another great way to expose these lying bastards.
Good point starlaw!
Neil knew that Robertson didn’t have the answer. That’s why he had the document to hand. It was a fit-up.
Andra Neil went to Pisley Grammar School. When I worked in Paisley it was always said: “The Old Grammarians think they run Paisley, but, in actual fact it’s the Camphill “mafia” that runs the town”.
So, he has always had an expectation of being one of the ruling class. he thinks he can spout shite and it will be believed.
Not putting anyone up to be interviewed by him might work; but he is such an arrogant twat he would spin it to imply the SNP were scared.
Better to preface every answer with: “Ah, so you’re misinterpreting statistics, (or even) – you tell us then Andrew, but, you do have previous form in telling lies when asking questions which involve statistics”.
Puncture that air of arrogant righteousness, and he will become a blustering self-important, quivering tub of lard. He is a bully and bullies must be confronted.
Bob Mack wrote:
“I don’t agree that they were caught off guard.They should have known. I include Mr Hosie in that regard as well as Angus Robertson.”
I agree with you Bob, 100%.
If a political blogger can produce these facts at the drop of a hat, you would expect the high heid yins of the SNP to know their stuff off by heart. I don’t think we would have seen Wee Eck or Nicola being caught off guard in such a manner.
But when all is said and done i think everyone, sooner or later, will have a bad day at the office, just ask Dippy Dug, she’s still looking for her good day and Wee Willy Stinky has long since given up while Ruthy has resorted to playing with overinflated phallic symbols.
Big Jock very good point. I do believe having a written transcript of what is said on radio & TV is helpful. Things said on radio & TV can be easily missed because it all happens so quickly.
I might have to get back to doing some transcribing. I’ve got this piece of software now called ‘Transcriptions’ which slows down the rate of the audio.
It’s a lot of fun getting Professor Pish to s p e a k v e r y s l o w l y.
Did you know that Professor Pish criticised the opposition in Holyrood and feels there is a need for him to be elected to sort out the opposition. Ruth should watch her back!
Agreed – the SNP need to tackle this stuff head on.
First the leading figures need to get their act together and ensure that they are as well appraised with the facts as Stu and other online sites.
Then they need to challenge calmly but forcefully every lie and deception thrown at them there and then.
He should have known, no doubt! Was he given prior notice of different questions? Still! He needs to know this.
What about a pirate radio station on a ship? That would appeal to folk, they’d tune into that. I remember the excitement of listening to Stuart Hendry on Radio Scotland back in the day! Would that be possible these days?
Lies and lying toads could be exposed in between Rolling Stones records.
Great idea henbroon.
I would certainly get behind a crowdfunder to get something like this up and running.
Its time for Wings tv to take the fight to the BBC(Broadcasting Bullshit Consistently).
‘Puncture that air of arrogant righteousness, and he will become a blustering self-important, quivering tub of lard.’
As far as I can tell, he already is a blustering,self-important tub of lard (wi a loo brush on his head).
Andrew Neil?,
Ach, send in Jeane Freeman.
Rev, can I make a suggestion? Why don’t you publish the top twenty (say) facts that a M.P./M.S.P. should know. Once you have published that, you can bet your bottom dollar they are the questions that will never be asked again by the media.
I totally agree however, Angus should have known this particular fact.
A failure of briefing ? NO!
A Failure of equal treatment – YES!
When are the SNP going to stop pussy footing about with the Brit Nat Brainwashing Corp? They know that the BBC is going to try and stitch them up every time, especially the Tory quizzers like Neil.
I am not going to berate Angus Robertson for not knowing exact figures going back 7 years. In political terms that is like the equivalent of medieval history.
Well whatever the SNP is far too tame in its dealings with the rabidly anti Scottish Brit Nat Press and Media.
It’s no good grinching about this. Ligger is right on SNP attacking austerity UKOK.gov, so SNP have to be completely on it statistically. If this happens again…
It wouldn’t have mattered what Angus Robertson had said Andrew Neil would just have continued to claim THERE HAS BEEN NO CUTS and repeat
‘But I looked at the figures which clearly you haven’t done from your own Scottish Government Budget these are the official figures of the Scottish Government in 2008-9 this is in real terms comparing like with like you had an overall budget of £35 billion pounds in real terms this year. Next year you will have an overall budget of just over £35 billion in real terms there has been no cuts did you know that’
What we now is a media that will question Andrew Neil assertion that THERE HAS BEEN NO CUTS TO THE SCOTTISH BUDGET
I was at the Women’s Conference this morning when Shona Robinson was called out unexpectedly to do an interview. Probably Andrew Neil’s.
She could have refused as she was busy.
Maybe the SNP minders should say to AN, “If you want an interview, make an appointment and submit your questions in advance.”
Ooops typo in earlier post. Should be:
What we need is a media that will question Andrew Neil’s assertion that THERE HAS BEEN NO CUTS TO THE SCOTTISH BUDGET
If Andrew Neil is keeping all the Scottish journalists in a job then I doubt they will be asking questions.
The more I listen to this interview the more I think ‘starlaw’ might have a point about dodgy editing.
The BBC lead story right now on their Scotland page is quoting SNP ‘sources’ suggesting a ridiculous 60% poll target.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-34565619
“The figure is a “trigger point”, but will not be publicly acknowledged, sources told the BBC’s John Pienaar.”
“Six months of polls won’t be enough,” said a senior SNP figure, involved in the discussions.
I doubt there is anyone in the SNP so idiotic as to set official targets, disclose them to the BBC, and perhaps delay a second indyref indefinitely.
Chances are that independence support will never see 60% in the polls, outside a referendum campaign.
The phenomenon of Status Quo Bias naturally leads to people settling for the current set-up, when there isn’t focus on a change.
We all saw how independence support increased dramatically during the referendum campaign rising from 30% to 45%, with polls reaching a majority before pulling back due to the last minute vows. A starting point of 51% would likely result in a win next time, especially if the timing is right.
The SNP needs to be ready to strike fast when opportunity arises, such as a Corbyn defeat in 2020, or getting dragged out of Europe.
I don’t trust the BBC one second on this.
But if there actually is anyone in the SNP advocating this, they have pretty much settled in for a cushy job for life.. much the same as their Labour predecessors.
Just saw that intro for the rugby,they just canny forget that indyref,must have scarred them somehow. Looks like they don’t have any Scottish presenters either. Would love to hear all the superlatives used if we win this match v Australia.
Re Brillopad
Threw him, Gerald Warner, Michael Forsyth, and a pack of other insolent Thatcherite young pups out of my parental home in the ‘
70’s for their assumed droit de seigneur pig-ignorance as they lied through their collective teeth to excuse their appalling behaviour.
Not surprised to note that Brillopad of the wifebeater style semmit (see Private Eye pics passim) remains true to form: Quite the dissembling, wannabe chib-man for a sub-Fascist Union, still.
The BBC says: Un named senior sources in the SNP have told them 60% is the figure they are looking for to mount Indy Ref2
Then they add no one in the SNP will acknowledge this, however Prof Poultice says this is the figure they should be aiming for
Is this a sign of how Fukcing bad the Media is getting now
or even how sweary I’m getting at the ridiculous behaviour of the BBC
As if in anybodys mind an SNP minister any member or indeed any official would tell the BBC anything off the record boggles the imagination
They even cite Poultice to try and make it credible
So there you have it NO voters make sure you don’t vote for the SNP they’ll trick you into Independence
What a shower of Bastirts (I’m swearing again)
@Ruby.
I know your heart is in the right place Ruby.
Andrew Neil is indeed a liar and deceiver.
There is the more fundemental issue that the SNP have for years been telling us that they are budgeting to balance the Scottish economy with less and less money.We know that is
true.
They are now professional politicians and should be thoroughly prepared for anything.
Can you imagine going to see a heart surgeon and he tells you he will give you a diagnosis and explain your operation once he has read up on it on the internet.
Being professional puts an added onus on the incumbent. Someone on here brilliantly suggested that our MP’S are armed with a regularly updated fact sheet on all the main aspects of government services like health,finance,justice.
Surely someone at SNP central could manage that ?
We are being scanned by professional liars and we must be able to counteract without being baled out by the brilliant “wings”
Wish you were a candidate Rev.
I agree with a few of the posters who remind all here this current media are not and by the looks of it will never give the SNP a even break. In that respect being caught off guard on live TV by a biased interrogatior is not just a bad day at the office it’s a bloody car crash, most people on here could have made a better fist of combating this attack , I mean surely Andrew Neil’s previous style might just might have prepared an experienced politician, he should ask Jean Freeman for tips, she absolutely wiped the floor with Neil during the Indy ref , All SNP MPs or Msps must get to grips with handling a mostly hostile media. Because it’s going to continue this is not a isolated occurrence.
If he had done the homework,the presenter would have been able to be challenged on it,but when dealing with britnat lundin media,you have to expect this stuff.
I was at the fringe event on Friday event. Involving the BBC and it was clear that everyone in the audience were fully aware of the BBC’s antics regarding the SNP, the referendum and the disregard of Scotland that is given by the London-centric BBC.
Roll on an independent Scottish TV channel and a Scottish six o’clock news with no interference from London.
awizgonny says:
Yes. I think this was very very odd. Even the pigeons on the roofs know the Scottish budget has been cut in real terms over the last five years!
So why did Andrew Neil brass neck it with such a blatant piece of nonsense?
He must have had information that somehow this would thrown Angus Robertson.
Mind you, it is reminiscent if Jeane Freeman’s run in with Neil last year. He made similar baseless statements followed by a question and she eloquently shot down the statements rendering the questions irrelevant. Then went on to make good points herself.
Neil is a very dodgy character – he will stope as low as he believes necessary to score a pro-Union point.
Onward: “Chances are that independence support will never see 60% in the polls, outside a referendum campaign… if there actually is anyone in the SNP advocating this, they have pretty much settled in for a cushy job for life.. much the same as their Labour predecessors.”
Brilliant. Perfect. Spot on.
This is the sort of attitude we need. Stick your cult of the personality and party loyalty.
What worries me most, Onward, is the assumption that the surge of pro-independence support will still be there in 5 or 10 years. I suspect there’s a lot of people on here who are too young to remember how dead Scottish politics was for decades before all this kicked off…
The interest and enthusiasm we have in the country right now is, historically speaking, extremely rare and precious. It’s actually unprecedented — i.e. never, ever, transpired before. Anyone who takes that for granted or makes any assumptions about how long it will last, irrespective of all else, is an irresponsible scoundrel.
My only hope is that the SNP also intend to do everything within their power to agitate and generate bad feeling up here vis a vis Westminster. That’s something that looks easy to me.
10 Years a Slave won’t work.
As for Angus, he failed big time here. Salmond or Sturgeon would never have been caught out like that.
We’re interested to know where Neil’s figures come from
Perhaps here:
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/budget/track-the-budget/stacked-group-bars-2015/stackedbar.html#
Colin Rippey says:
18 October, 2015 at 4:22 pm
We’re interested to know where Neil’s figures come from
Perhaps here.
And your UKOK Scotland’s too small, stupid, poor point today is Kevarage?
AngusMan says:
18 October, 2015 at 4:12 pm
I was at the fringe event on Friday event. Involving the BBC and it was clear that everyone in the audience were fully aware of the BBC’s antics regarding the SNP, the referendum and the disregard of Scotland that is given by the London-centric BBC.
Roll on an independent Scottish TV channel and a Scottish six o’clock news with no interference from London.
———
We will never get a real BBC Scotland TV channel, unless the Scottish government chip in and contribute directly towards it, similar to BBC Alba.
Too much of the existing licence fee money goes towards the ‘network’ budget, leaving BBC Scotland with a pittance for local production. The BBC top brass won’t give that up easily.
Personally, I think the Scottish Government should supplement the licence fee. Getting it established is the hard thing. Once it exists, there will be pressure for more internal funding, and for broadcasting devolution.
Now that we will be getting income tax and vat share, investing in the Scottish creative economy is money that will partly stay in Scotland anyway – and a few good shows could boost our profile internationally.
So they continue to dampen down Scotland’s opportunities.
https://archive.is/hKxXd
How does this digital currency work? Could we not use that to fund our own broadcasting platform in Scotland?
Whilst one can know a lot about something it is rare for anyone to know a lot about a lot of things in detail. This undoubtedly applies to senior politicians as well as academics. But whilst I have not heard any of the interviews noted above what stands out to me in the quotes from Andrew Neil are the words I have highlighted.
‘But I looked at the figures which clearly you haven’t done from your own Scottish Government Budget these are the official figures of the Scottish Government in 2008-9 this is in REAL TERMS comparing like with like you had an overall budget of £35 billion pounds in REAL TERMS terms this year. Next year you will have an overall budget of just over £35 billion in REAL TERMS there has been no cuts did you know that’
The highlighted phrase REAL TERMS is sufficient to throw anyone, even someone who is familiar with the gist of the economic case, if you are a reasonable persona and make a reasonable assumption that you are being presented with accurate data. Whilst ‘What the hell do you mean by REAL TERMS?’ should have been the automatic reply, hoping one might obtain clarification on whether a base line figure was in use, because there is no meaning to the phrase REAL TERMS unless it is meaningfully defined.
Most people would assume (erroneously) it referred to something tangible or measurable. As this was not the case, and the statement is heavily loaded to appear accurate, one is left assuming the worst, thinking it refers to accurate and comparable figures, which in this case clearly did not exist (the continual reference to £35 billion is just a red herring, cited to give credence to Neil’s intentionally dodgy and misleading statement).
Despite this I would have expected any senior politician to have been able to argue their case but without knowing the precise nature of what was heard by Robertson and others over earphones (as seems to have been the case) and having a copy of Neil’s notes then it seems unjust to simply blame them if the interviews failed to match ones expectations. I would think very few people could match Jeane Freeman’s performance when she showed Neil up for what he his.
Personally I agree with those Wings commentators who state that until the BBC can produce interviewers who can deal with contentious issues in a fair and unbiased manner they should state publicly they will have no truck with BBC programmes that operate in a biased manner. They have the evidence, state it publicly and see how the BBC responds.
How many people need to tell the SNP to get the kid gloves and slippers off? Will they ever?
Sorry I forget to say in my last post that Mr Neil speaks out of his waste expulsion pipe.
The money I would have spent paying the TV Tax this year has gone to various pro Indy crowd funding projects. I will do the same next year and ad infinitum until we are free of London Rule.
The money I would have spent paying the Sky or BT TV subscription has also gone the same way into Indy Projects.
Maybe nobody in our neck of the woods watches that particular show, or possibly they are now inured to the lies spouted by the B.B.C.
Whatever, if the canvass returns this afternoon are anything to go by, it aint working, the propoganda that is. So keep going folks, we’re winning.
Proof if you needed any that this country is going to hell, and we are doing it on the world stage.
This on the same day as Fallon is warmongering to bomb Syria.
————————————————————-
‘UNITED Nations officials have arrived in Scotland to investigate allegations that Westminster welfare reforms have led to “grave or systematic violations” of disabled people’s human rights.
The Sunday Herald revealed in August that the Special Rapporteur and members of UN’s Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) were due to visit the UK to probe the complaints and take evidence from individuals and campaign groups, including in Scotland.’
When someone asserts an outright lie it is often unexpected and difficult to respond to, although it was the BBC so I guess everyone should have been expecting it.
Interesting article on Bella Caledonia on Tony Blair’s part in Iraq war.
Colin Powell saying Blair was pushing for the war 12 months before the vote in Parliament. Contradicting the stated stance that he was against it.
No wonder they can’t get Chilcott published.
The SNP should vet the questions before they give an interview. Other political parties do. The Tories (Gov) always get a safe interview because they are holding the BBC purse strings. Andrew Neil is a Tory loved Margaret Thatcher and runs Scotland down at every opportunity. Neil endorsed the myth that Scotland was subsidised when Thatcher was secretly and illegally taking all the Oil revenues. He tells blatant lies and kids on he is a statistician, using some distorted figures.
Labour raised £600Billion in tax and borrowed £120Billion = £720Billion
The Tories are raising £466Billion and borrowing and spending £90Billion = £556Bilion.
Scotland raises £54Billion and gets £50Billion? back. Pro rata the rest of the rest of the UK raises £39Billion. (borrows £90Billion more)
Scotland’s revenues have fallen along with the fall in tax revenues in the rest of the UK. The basis of the Barnett Formula drags Scotland down. If Scotland raised and borrowed it’s own revenues Scotland would be better off.
Angus should not have been caught out like that, but we all have bad days and after Neil’s interview with Hosie during the week, The Politics Show is clearly set for tripping up SNP politicos with disingenuous attacks. I watched this and was intrigued that Scottish politics immediately following Neil were unable to interview Stuart Hosie as planned from Dundee owing to “technical difficulties”! Perhaps SNP advisors had picked up quickly Neil’s disinformation and Hosie was well prepared to counter this nonsense especially after the insulting line of questioning he was subject to earlier in the week. Devolution of BBC Scotland can’t come soon enough!
Scotland is getting £28Billion back + £16Billion? (UK Gov pensions/benefits) = £44Billion. If Scotland is still raising £54Billion in tax. That’s a difference of £10Billion.
Gutted,but really well done The Scots there. Fantastic performance.
Pravda GB is Scotland’s enemy number one.
The SNP should really launch a major attack on it and boycott it.
Nick Robinson, Andrew Marr, Andrew Neil – there is plenty of recorded video evidence of how biased liars they are.
So two big decisions go against Scotland and they don’t go upstairs for review for the last penalty; coming on the heels of a blatant attempt by an English official to ban two Scottish players from the tournament I believe that rugby is now a laughing stock. A connection with the political situation within the British Isles is very obvious in my opinion.
Scotland 34, Australia 32, Joubert 3 playing for Australia.
So in the end the Wuggah team got done by a bad call by the ref. Now the 80 minute patriots – the Brit Nats that populate the SRU can just begin to feel how I felt on the 19th Sept last year. The difference is after that rugby result well it is just a game, the Referendum was for higher stakes and I haven’t got over it yet.
fantastic effort by Scottish Rugby team
The ref blew the whistle and sprinted off the pitch and up the tunnel. Hilarious.
We need to get our own SCOTTISH BROADCASTER!
Having a politically hostile neighbour, managing and pushing their propaganda into Scotland on a daily basis and charging us for the priveledge. WHO SAYS WERE NAW STUPID?
English Broadcasting Corp. not wanted here.
IMHN As for Brillo, impartiality doesn’t come into it just look at his employment history.
Andrew Neil is interested only in the prophile of Andrew Neil. He is an arrogant man, with an exceedingly high opinion of himself, in every regard. He believes he is a highly professional, forensic, investigative, interviewer. I recall an interview he conducted with Jean Freeman when she demolished his aggression and showed him for the pillock he is. But there is one thing that really drives him. It’s not his affection for Scotland. It’s his pending night hood from a greatfull Westminster Establishment.He knew full well what he was doing. Painting the SNP bad.
When are we going to stop this behaviour of bowing down before the likes of A Neil et al say what you know they are liars tell them to face the cameras/public when uttering these lies,face the public and tell them that they are being lied to.
Re the BBC’s invented 60% rule – “The BBC understands….. ” simply means “we’re lying through our teeth again”, hoping that it will become believed.
The 40% rule was rightly seen as a stitch-up, this new rule is a BBC invention – it is in no manifesto, not even the oppositions’ various ones. The BBC has no electoral mandate nor legitimate political platform to initiate such a policy.
The SNP should bluntly tell them to STFU!
Well done to the boys – fantastic game and we dared to dream!
Sorry, but as much as I detest Brillo and the BBC, Angus Robertson was caught out on a basic question. One that he should be able to trot out in his sleep.
Brillo was right in one way…if you’re the party of anti-austerity, you should have your numbers ready..and be able to refute his lying. Even if Angus had accepted Neil’s figures as correct, i.e. £35 billion in 2008 and the same this year, it’s obviously a significant cut because of inflation alone.
How as a politician do you prepare for an infinite number of possible questions? Well you can’t but you can prepare for the finite number of obvious ones.
The real problem arises when even for the obvious you don’t have a satisfactory answer in your arsenal.
What is your plan B?
Couldn’t be answered, here and now the SNP must have a group looking at all the things that went wrong for the first referendum. They need to be very clear about everything regarding Independence, their spokespeople also need to be able to answer these curve ball questions thrown by the likes of Neil.
Even better would be the ability to throw a curve ball of your own when asked a particular question.
A good start might be answering every question that is actually a statement with “well, that’s not actually true, the facts are….”
You need though to be armed with the facts. Reading Wings should be compulsory for all SNP MP’s and MSP’s 🙂
Ref was less than great in that last two minutes but hugely proud of Scotland’s effort. We certainly put to rest the notion that we were there only to make up the numbers.
A bad slip by Angus leapt on by the Englified Scot who is no stranger to incorrect detail.I don’t think Angus will let himself be caught out by this man again.Once bitten twice shy.
Lochside says:
Neil’s figures as correct, i.e. £35 billion in 2008 and the same this year, it’s obviously a significant cut because of inflation alone.
Ruby replies:
I was wondering about that but then I did a search to find out what ‘in real terms’ meant
“In real terms” means the change in a financial number after correcting for the effect of inflation
Quite literally the ref won the game!
I am sick of the refereeing of Scottish games,if you were paranoid then you would see outside influences.
I am becoming more paranoid by the match.
Listen to the way Brillo’s question was framed ( not shown above) and bear in mind that Angus was working out of an earpiece. He smelt a trap and was wary , and , if Mr Whippy’s graph above is genuine , then we can see why.
Why is it that our spokespeople are always one down by having to speak to the studio from afar ? The disadvantage this creates is huge.
Craig Joubert – what’s Afrikaans for “fukwit”?
Ruby,
““In real terms” means the change in a financial number after correcting for the effect of inflation”
What about Scotland’s revenues in “real terms” during the same period?
Have they remained the same?
To make any sense, money Scotland got back each year has to be compared with the money Scotland sent to the Westminster sewer each year.
I would cut Angus a bit of slack. It was the end of a buzzing four day conference and everyone was feeling “jiggered” (Mhairi Black’s word). It isn’t possible to hold every conceivable answer to every conceivable question in your head 24/7. Maybe he could have batted it away. Maybe not.
Brillo is an attack dog. He’s bound to land a bite sometimes. Nothing of real value is lost.
I think the SNP have a few problems to resolve here.
The first is a need for strong and astute leadership at Westminster. They do not have that, in Angus Robertson. Someone needs to take him aside and give him acute media training – the sort of training most people have before going in front of Andrew Neil or other interviewers. Failing which, the SNP should look carefully at who is spokesman at Westminster.
Secondly, the SNP’s ‘hatred’ of the BBC in Scotland, and the BBC in Westminster, comes across as a desire to control the media. Be careful – it panders to those who accuse the SNP of being a ‘one party state’.
Lastly, ‘Wings’ may seem to present perfectly logical arguments – from the perspective of the blog’s own readers. However, in an argument with Neil, Neil will be the winner, because Wings is presented to a general readership and viewership as an untrustworthy and biased blog representing the views of just one particularly untrustworthy person. It’s therefore easy for Neil or others to dismiss what the Rev says.
Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m in favour of independence and the SNP. I’m sure, Rev Stu, you’re aware from your position in the S of England, how easy it is for the press and TV to misrepresent Scotland, never mind the SNP. They’re writing for a population generally ignorant of Scottish attitudes. I am aware, having worked half my life in southern England before retiring back to Scotland. What to do?
Poor performance from Robertson, no excuse. The 10% drop in real terms is a very basic figure, all he needed to do was state that and repeat it ad nauseam. I think the SNP politicians are too desperate to get on TV, they should rememebr they are the third biggest party in the UK and the media can’t ignore them, so they can do it on their terms, much like the Tories and Labour do.
@Dr Jim
“Senior SNP figures” unnamed (60%). It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s deliberate. The SNP aren’t bound by that, they’re unnamed, but it will reassure NO voters they can vote SNP without an immediate referendum, and that’s what it’s all about. The useless Scotland Act is still likely to be THE trigger, and that affects the devo-maxers as much as pro-indy voters.
There’s a similar tone from reports of the Conference, the SNP are doing a juggling act, keeping Indy supporters onside, but making sure as they can, they get an overall majority next May.
@Taranaich
If Robertson and Robison were kept haning around in an attempt to unsettle them, they should have just left after 5 minutes waiting.
What’s Neil going to say “We were going to interview Roberstson and Robison but they left the building?”
Translate as “We kept them hanging around deliberately to try to make them feel unimportant but it didn’t work they dingied us”.
Due to Keizia Dugdale’s faltering performances of late, Craig Joubert is being touted as next Scottish Labour Leader..
@Giving Goose 6.02pm – Agreed. Given this tournament was held in England, they were never going to allow Scotland to reach the final four if Ingerland themselves weren’t there. They couldn’t face that.
What we saw today was a disgrace, but actually I wonder if the mask slipped there, momentarily, allowing us all to see the lengths they’ll go to. It was pretty blatant throughout the second half.
Bob Mack says:
18 October, 2015 at 3:45 pm
@Ruby.
I know your heart is in the right place Ruby.
Andrew Neil is indeed a liar and deceiver.
There is the more fundemental issue that the SNP have for years been telling us that they are budgeting to balance the Scottish economy with less and less money.We know that is
true.
They are now professional politicians and should be thoroughly prepared for anything.
Can you imagine going to see a heart surgeon and he tells you he will give you a diagnosis and explain your operation once he has read up on it on the internet.
Ruby Replies:
Does that mean you think my brain might not be?
Why should politicians be prepared for Andrew Neil? Why not just tell him to **** off?
What is so special about Andrew Neil?
I have never thought about seeing a heart surgeon do you think I should go and check if my heart is in the right place.
@gillie: “Craig Joubert – what’s Afrikaans for “fukwit”?”
“Ladbrokes”. He’d have just had time to get there before they closed.
I didn’t say that.
Angus is a good man, but his performance today was disappointing.
SNP Try to deal with the truth at every occasion, but that isn’t how UK politics work.
Easy for me in hindsight to say, but if you are not aware of the actual figures and hear spurious ones, it might be a future policy to say that the figures you have are complete nonsense.
If you have found anything relating to that rubbish, its either old, distorted or simply a typo error.
My thought was that Neil should get in touch with his pals at Tory HQ and advise them that although they and Labour have been
cutting Scotland’s budget every year, and acknowledge this, you seem to suggest that the last 2 UK governments, the Scottish Government, and the Scottish people are all wrong?
We can cancel the austerity cuts, Neil says nothing happened.
Neil claims on his web site to have Scot-Gov link to his stats?
Complaint about lying Neil emailed off to BBC Complaints (where it’ll ping into their junk file before being deleted) and standard rebuttal will be received, saying, with all the sincerity of Hughie Green ‘We’d like to thank you really. really so much but we are jus wunnnerful’.
David MacGille-Mhuire says:
18 October, 2015 at 3:28 pm
Re Brillo Pad
I’d like to defend Andrew on this one.
You cannot glue a Brillo Pad to your Head and you can’t die one.
He uses Blue Tack and the Pad is a badly rusted deep brown.
Did you ever see him dare to walk near a magnet?
I’m waiting for someone to make a statement on when they’re going to help the poverty stricken depraved areas. Now we have the powers, why don’t you help us ? Never mind Angus Robertsons performance. If you can’t help us now, it’s going to be a right mess in the unlikely event of independence.
The chart that Rev shows adds up to 10.4%, or have I forgotten how to count?
gillie says:
Craig Joubert – what’s Afrikaans for “fukwit”?
“yer check is in the post, roo roo mucker”
Andrew Neil is even more economically illiterate than the Rev thinks
average UK inflation has been 2% over this period http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/inflation-cpi
Thus £1000 now was worth £891 in 2010 in ‘real terms’ http://www.whatsthecost.com/cpi.aspx
Thus a NOMINAL reduction of 10% in budget per the Revs post over this period is equivalent to a reduction of over well over 20% in REAL TERMS
Anyone want to work out the exact figure based on these links?
OK – maybe I’m dense, but I’m guessing the piece of paper Neil is waving about is a copy of the SG figures pointed to by C. Rippey above. It certainly looks from that as though the SG budget in 2009/10 was £35B and will be that in 2015/16 (in real terms). Someone tell me what I’m missing.
Also, comparing the total DEL figures in Table 1.01 above to the SG budgets in these years there is a difference of around £5B each year, why is this.
Ta.
@Cuilean
It’s more satisfactory by phone, and you sometimes get nice people who are genuinely interested
Never underestimate the power of legitimate complaint
Hi Davy!
You’re back again. I though you had given up on Wings due to the people posting here being mentally ill.
The Scotsman has been really good to you UniTrolls over the years why are you all behaving like rodents and deserting her in her time of need!
‘The Scotsman’ will sink without your UniTroll clicks!
PS What kind of help is it you need Davy?
I really want to know when the SGov is going to help the depraved areas.
@Paula Rose 7.45pm
One day they’ll do bus tours there (after Independence)
I refute any £35 billion figure given out by UK OK but if true, not only will inflation been a factor but we have a higher proportion of people who are elderly and who need care and or medical treatment.
Over that last 7 years we have seen very substantial increases
on the number of immigrants who need homes, schools and welfare on top of medical support.
Everybody happy with that lot requires increased funding to stand still? other than Mr Scotland Nil-Neil.
Good ideas with the Unbiased Radio Station but do we need a boat to transmit? Are there many community stations such as long established Sunny Govan Radio in Glasgow across the country?
The people at Govan are ordinary working class people who volunteer to produce a community service.
Could stations like this offer a service by pointing out issues
that have been corrupted by their counterparts?
I don’t want them to lie and cheat like the rest, but just offer the reality. in the same manner. as the Rev does over here.
Who could approach them to discuss this?
Could they get a Scot-Gov Grant for their important community work & services?
The Manipulative State Media have no vested interest in offering a considered perspective on Scotland’s progress towards independence (which they must know is inevitable).On the other hand they have a vested interest in keeping the electorate perpetually misinformed by subverting the debates that should be aired for everyone’s benefit. They clearly see themselves as the guardians of privileged information but seem to be unaware that actually many individuals are now accessing and sharing the same information and are really rather better at interpreting it because their end goal is the truth.
Aristotle wrote in Nicomachean Ethics ‘We deliberate not about ends, but what promotes the ends’. The short term goals that Scotland is pursuing now are those that will serve the long term goal i.e. indyref2.The story is expansive whilst those trailing behind in the MSM are displaying echolalia -it’s very tedious listening to it but they will eventually become mute and incapable of expressing anything. And at that point we can get on with the journey of independence from the standpoint of uninterrupted reason.
neil. self serving chancer and liars do not go down well in Scotland.as a scot I would not say to neil, haste ye back.
@Ruby
Hi Ruby, well I run out of money at the fitba yesterday, got a wee bit tipsy after a good game. So I thought I’d just pop by and find out when you will put up taxes and so essentially give more to me in benefit. I mean with all the powers an aw that being at the full control of the SNP, I just wanted to hurry things a long.
Paula Rose says:
18 October, 2015 at 7:45 pm
I really want to know when the SGov is going to help the depraved areas.
Ruby replies: Seriously do you think the SG should be looking into the deviant sexual practices of Westmister politicians and getting them help?
@Paula Rose
I think it is reasonable to assume that our own small minority of home grown Tories don’t share they same recreational interests as the Bullingdon Brigade! Scotland’s depraved areas don’t present quite the same health and safety concerns.
Del,
Any relation to El Del?
What to do?
Just shoot the messenger.
I know from personal experience that in politics you are always rushing to the next job, and often don’t get the time to prepare as you would want and that people at Robinsons level need good people to give them time out for practice.
Robinson needs to give the ‘back-room boys’ a severe kicking, as they should be taking in each MP and MSP and giving them a regular 1+ hour a month grilling and practice on key statistics and messages.
Robinson didn’t have the resources to see this done in the last Westmonster Pariament, but the apparachnicks in the SNP should have no budgetary issues with providing proper support and training for their front line people.
And while I am on ths subject, (in the unlikely event they are reading this) they also need to attend to the physical health and well being of people like Robinson and Salmond who have been burning at both ends for many years to get the party this far.
The well-funded apparachnicks need to give them a full physical review , including diet, excercise and mental well-being as no human being can take this level of pressure for this long without some damage.
I always remember what Salmond looked like towards the latter end of the referendum. He was clearly bone tired and in poor condition, but could still smile and deal with idiots like Nick Robinson in the most devastating manner. I so admired him.
It’s not easy to deal with a hostile interview with a microphone in your ear, a time-delay and a studio at the other end of the Island.
We must remember that they need back-up and support to maintain this level of performance in the face of such odious behavior from the BBC and other Corporate Media
I’m still really struggling to see where it says we’re getting £35bn next year? The spreadsheet above seems to be saying £30bn total DEL and £28bn Total Fiscal DEL. So where is Andrew Neil getting his information that the Scottish budget is £35bn next year?
I’ve looked online on the SG website and can’t find anything.
Please be nice to Davy he makes me giggle every time.
That must be the worst referee I have ever witnessed at international level. There were four or five major decisions which were badly called, particularly the sending off and the ‘non’ penalty awarded at the end.
However, there was an earlier incident where Australia had a ‘try’ disallowed. It was only the intervention of a third party which forced Joubert to change his decision. I was screaming ‘Knock on’ at the TV screen, but the ref allowed play to continue. I thought perhaps he had been unsighted, but the replay showed that he had a perfectly clear view.
Makes me wonder if he sprinted off the pitch to an awaiting car, provided by H.M Govrnment. It wouldn’t do for us too wee too poor too stupid to progress to a world cup semi final, would it?
Or am I suffering from acute paranoia?
Unfortunately, the best team lost. However, I think the All Blacks will take any of the other semi finalists to the cleaners. They look streets ahead.
Regarding Andrew Neil, as others have mentioned, it’s time the SNP took the gloves off. If they are going to take part in these Britnat shows, they either set the agenda, or refuse to appear.
Likewise with Indyref2. We set the agenda. It is our referendum. We should be safe to proceed after the local elections in 2017, once we have removed the unionists from all positions of authority. That is the only way we can be sure that the vote will not be tampered with.
I would also suggest a term of residency (eg:5 years) be applied. That will help to ensure that those voting actually have a stake in the country’s future. As for postal ballots, these should be restricted to people who cannot attend a polling station because of a disability or incapacity, or those working elsewhere who intend to return to Scotland in the near future.
However. we must still be on our guard. Despite everything that Westminster has done and will do to undermine the democratic process there are still many who believe Indy ref was above board. As someone who has worked indirectly with our nation’s security services, all I can say is FFS people, let’s not get shafted a second time.
So now the BBC man’s responded, will you update this post Stu?
Rock you are not seriously asking me a question about economic terms & budgets? I had to Google ‘in real terms’ I hadn’t a clue what it meant. I’m kinda aware that there is a difference between Westminster cuts and cuts to the Scottish budget but I know lots of highly educated people who haven’t a clue of the differences. They are just not that into politics. I do believe the Unionist Propagandistas Andrew Neil will have a hard job selling the notion that ‘THERE HAVE BEEN NO CUTS IN SCOTLAND’
When we have had headlines like the following.
OSBORNE’S BUDGET DROPS A “BILLION POUND BOMBSHELL” OF CUTS ON SCOTLAND
ALMOST £1 billion of welfare cuts imposed by George Osborne in last week’s budget will fall on Scotland, according to new figures from the House of Commons library.
SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT FACES £177M SPENDING CUT
The Scottish government will face a £176.8m cut in public spending this year as a result of a savings plan announced by the UK Chancellor.
George Osborne said departmental budgets would fall by £3bn in 2015/16.
However, Scotland’s Finance Secretary John Swinney said that the cut was an “unexpected and unwarranted” imposition of further austerity.
Mr Osborne made the announcement ahead of his emergency budget which will take place on 8 July.’
@ClanDonald
I’ve looked online on the SG website and can’t find anything.
Try this
http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2014/10/2706/6
Anybody with half a brain would know Osbourne,s been cutting departmental budgets since he took office, does anyone seriously believe he’s avoided cutting the Scottish block grant while all others have been paired to the bone,
Just how stupid does Niel think Scots are?
Next thing Neil will be saying is that Osborne has made no cuts at all.
Neil is clearly off his trolley.
@Paula Rose
Och yes doll. Davy always makes the burdz laugh. You would have a great time wae us, hootin and roarin. SNP are full of oddballs by the looks of it. All conferance chat, propaganda and NO ACTION.
‘be nice to Davy,he makes me giggle every time’
Well,he makes me want to rattle his baws 😉
Hey, let’s console ourselves tonight with the knowledge that the Hastings brothers will be pleased that Scotland didn’t get above themselves this afternoon.
Result.
” Bittie Glakit says:
18 October, 2015 at 2:31 pm
What about a pirate radio station on a ship? That would appeal to folk, they’d tune into that. I remember the excitement of listening to Stuart Hendry on Radio Scotland back in the day! Would that be possible these days?
Lies and lying toads could be exposed in between Rolling Stones records.”
Ah if only we COULD do that Bittie Glakit. Those of us who loved the Pirate Stations from ships couldn’t understand why Governments, both Labour And Tory, went out of their way to close them down. After all they were only playing music from a boat! Harmless enough surely?
Of course we now know that if the pirate radio ships had wanted to also start broadcasting the truth about Government corruption, the economy, Westminster child predators etc it would have been hard to stop them. It’s interesting that, in the light of what we now know, that it was Mrs Thatcher who sneaked in draconian new legislation as part of the 1990 Broadcasting Act.
This allowed the ships to be boarded and all staff arrested. Prior to this legislation boarding a ship anchored outside British territorial waters was illegal. In fact it was an act of Piracy under international law.
Not that little things like international law bother our Westminster politician much.
There are now dozens of land based pirate radio stations all over London. They play terrible (to my ears) music, rather than being speech based. There are now so many of them that it seems the regulator isn’t able to enforce the law and stop them, If raided they just start up again from another site a few days later.
I wouldn’t advocate breaking the law. So especially in this day and age we MUST find more ways to get the truth out to the (now less than? 50%) who still trust the BBC.
During the Reff. I found the Wee Blue Book, really helpful. I can think of a number of people I knew then who were originally “NOs”
However, thanks to the WBB, when they could see for themselves that they were being lied to on a daily basis they began the journey to YES.
There were 2 common reactions in all of those folk.
A genuine anger at the BBC for betraying their trust, and a determination to get at the truth from then on. (I think we all feel a bit foolish when we find out we’ve been “duped”.)
Its a wonderful feeling when you witness that change in someone. The hard work was done by the Rev Stu. All we needed to do was ensure that the information got out there.
We need to start working toward a 60% YES vote now. Its still an uphill struggle with the whole British state against us but we will get there. The tide is turning.
Yeah, basically speaking Andrew Neil is cheating in q not unsurprisngly disgusting fashion by using one set of figures, the TME (Total Managed Expenditure) not the DEL. DEL comprises most of the budget but not all of it.
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefingsAndFactsheets/S4/SB_11-74.pdf
page 6 (and 7) “The budget is also composed of locally financed expenditure (non-domestic rates) and the variable rate of income tax should the Scottish Parliament opt to utilise its power in this regard. Scotland’s share of European Structural Funding is also allocated through the assigned budget from Westminster.”
And there’s also the Annually Managed Expenditure (AME).
I think it’s time the SNP insisted on knowing what figures they are going to be questioned on, so they can obtain the correct figures before doing any interview. If that reasonable request is refused then don’t do the interview. Why do the SNP continually offer up their teeth for a kicking by the BBC? It’s baffling.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/18/the-guardian-view-on-the-snp-conference-a-tactical-approach-for-a-volatile-era
Rancid explain what’s coming the way of YES voters for next 7 months or as they call YES voters, “the zealots.”
@dakk
Sorry dakk but I’m not into blokes rattlin my baws. Paula Rose and Ruby can though.
Steady there Davy,
thin ice mlad.
Davy says:
Sorry dakk but I’m not into blokes rattlin my baws.
aye, davy prefers the depraved pig fucking Westminster child molesters
suits you davy
Can’t ever rely on commenters like Neil being entirely fair – and he does put the boot into to most politicians IMO. Going into that situation without your ducks in order is very poor.
I’ll argue govt deficit v gift surplus with anyone and I’m a no one, MPs should have affair idea of the country’s income.
@yesindyref2
Andrew Neil is cheating because he’s not using “the figures you want him to use”.
Are these figures cheating too:
http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2014/10/2706/6
This story today isn’t about which set of figures, it’s about Angus Robertson not being able to counter the challenge by pointing out the real terms fall in DEL. But he is an MP not an MSP, John Swinney would have known the figures and how to counter the argument.
Davy
‘sorry dakk,but I’m not into blokes rattlin my baws’
How do you know I’m a bloke ?I’ve never disclosed my gender on this site.
Shit,so you really are 77th bde,I’ll no sleep the night noo 🙂
Oh yes, thanks to Colin Rippey for providing the link to the “Scottish Government Budget” chart, the tool is well put together, but as often with ScotGov or Parliament publications, it’s not well described as to what it means. If that was what Andrew Neil used, he can be excused for getting it wrong as he’s economically illiterate, and shouldn’t be let out alone with Danny Alexander’s calculator.
You’ve got to delve down with search and trying this and that to get what you want, and sadly this was very true during the Referendum campaign. No easy way to get to figures to show where the Unionists were talking twaddle. And by the time you’d got it together the moment was past.
I agree that Salmond & Co were looking ragged towards the end of the Ref, but next time it needs simple at a glance tables, properly titled and described and linked where neccessary to detail. And yes, all SNP MPs should be briefed on where to find such a 5 or 6 page summary of Scotland’s financial siutation, at a glance, for 6, 8 or 10 years.
This is the age of the Internet, but Government has a long way to go yet.
Colin Rippey says:
18 October, 2015 at 9:11 pm
@yesindyref2
Come on Kevarage you’re better than this. Rise above it all like the UKOK fiscal god you truly and explain why there’s been no cut in Scotland’s spend for the last 7 years is it, according to the Ligger?
@Colin Rippey
You’re about 90% correct, the only thing you got wrong is “using the figures I want him to use”. No, Neil used TME rather than DEL. Swinney talks DEL, and yes, Robertson should have know this and yes, Swinney definitely would have.
Neil set a deceitful trap and caught Robertson in it. Or, Neil doesn’t have a clue. Your choice!
We are run by bean counters, its like being back at school being told how to think and answer questions in the “right way” to get to jump through the next hoop. Have faith in your own judgment and live the way you think is right. The political game is just for people with big egos and fast mouths telling you what they want you to do, free yourselves, no one else will do it for you. Driving home this evening, foolishly turned on the car radio on auto tune (about 6.30pm) and heard John Beattie saying we all hated the Irish, did he really say that.
@Colin Rippley, That’s a totally apples and pears comparison, though isn’t it. When you compare the DEL next year with 2008/9 it’s a substantial real-terms decrease, isn’t it.
The equivalent figure in 2008-9 to the one you’re showing in real terms would now be over£39bn,
Does anyone remember a ‘game’ which involved trying to skelp your opponent’s knuckles with a pack of cards?
Not sure if I’m having some sort of hallucination/waking dream/false-memory thing, but I’m sure it was real, and the name of it is on the tip of my proverbial…
This isn’t really O/T – I’m wondering if we might be allowed to do it to trolls.
@yesindyref2
You’re about 90% correct, the only thing you got wrong is “using the figures I want him to use”. No, Neil used TME rather than DEL. Swinney talks DEL
So you wanted Andrew Neil to use DEL instead of TME. Isn’t that what I just said?
Why do you not want to include the following AME figures (being genuine here, they’re from a Scottish Government website link I posted earlier, figures in £millions)
Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth
£3,882.3
Local Government
£2,799.5
Are these figures “spent” by someone other than Holyrood?
I’m curious to know what these figures are supposed to represent, maybe this is some sort of accounting trick.
@dakk
You can joke about 77. I’ve had the polis round more than a few times checking up. All very vague.
@shrodingercat
I never knew scumtic had an office in westminster. Big Jock Knew.
@ Ian Brotherhood 9.44pm Dependent on witch area you come from Ian ,but my area it wiz Ohh ya bass again an again lol.
Actually, Rippley,, I’ve just re-calculated the 2008 equivalent figure to your one using accurate inflation rates and it works out in real terms at £40.9bn in 2008/9. This is compared to the figures you are citing for next year’s budget of £37.5 so a drop of over 8% on those particular numbers you chose to use.
Slightly less than the 10% drop in the DEL numbers, but a massive, real-terms budget cut nonetheless.
@ianbrotherhood
It’s called SNIPE. High red gets a twister where you pull a chunk out of your knuckle with your nails. Highest black gets a rap from the pack. You need lager.
@Davy –
SNIPE!
That must be the one. I had it in my heid as involving snakes or suchlike, but that’s close enough…
Cheers!
Who, in the name of the wee man, and/or all that’s holy, devised such madness?
Timing is everything!
If football matches lasted 89 minutes, we, Scotland. would have beaten Poland at football, if Rugby matches lasted 79 minutes, we would be in the World Cup Semi-Finals, if the referendum had taken place the day before the Daily Redcoat scammed the gullible with the Vow, we would all be free and Independent.
I’m sure we all find it sickening that not only are the people of Scotland suffering cuts due to Tory austerity, but the media, BBC and trolls like Colin Rippley use false information to kid on to us that it isn’t happening.
It’s bad enough when the BBC do it but when citizens of Scotland, who are probably going to suffer from these cuts too, come on here and lie to us that it isn’t happening, I really don’t understand it. Why defend a system that is going out of it’s way to shaft you?
The British establishment wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire, Rippley. Stop doing their dirty work for them.
All this will have no effect on anything.
Many of the the people of Scotland have set off on a journey of faith and all this chuntering about on this and that and this figure and that figure has no effect whatsoever.
The bottom line is that figures drawn together by our enemies are now assumed to be biased and untrue.
They are dishonestly drawn from a Scottish economy trapped in a bust UK economy and any suggestion we want to be independent to do things the same way is absurd.
We shouldn’t even engage in these conversations
Ian Brotherhood,
it was Scabby Queen that we called it.
I was always told that if you don’t know the answer to something, you can reply by saying, “I can’t confirm those figures you are quoting me right now but if you give me chapter and verse, I would be very happy to look at these figures and get back to you straight away”. In other words, show me your evidence and sources and the basis of your argument and I will be better able to answer your question. It’s hard being put on the spot and I agree that MP’s MSPs could do with more media training so as to out-fox the trappers. During one of my very rare media experiences (trying to guess a song in 10 seconds on the Peter Powell’s “Record Race” on BBC Radio 1) – I too couldn’t answer the question and froze in the proverbial headlights. To think that I missed out in an Adam and the Ants single.
Davy and Ian
‘Snipes’ right enough.For serious sado/masochists only,not the fake smacking/whipping types.My knuckles were shredded the way we played it.
Would imagine Paula Rose is a fan.
@ClanDonald
They’re not my figures, they’re the Scottish Government’s figures.
And it appears to be the case that the way the figures are “compared” over a period of years is to start from the present and work backwards using GDP Deflator percentages (why this is considered more accurate than starting from the past and working forward using inflation percentages is not something I can explain).
Colin Rippey at 10.19
Who cares?
@Dave McEwan Hill
We shouldn’t even engage in these conversations
Of course not, heaven forbid the reality distortion field is penetrated.
No one takes any notice of this stuff anyway, it only plays out amongst the tiny amount of people on here and twitter.
How sweet! Davy is a wee maschist – honey this is going to be such fun – are you okay with a gag?
Rippley: yes I know they’re the government figures, but you have chosen to use particular figures selectively to make a dishonest point. It’s a bit like saying your household spending this year is more than last year but you didn’t include your mortgage payments last year.
I have therefore called them “your figures’. Is that too subtle for you?
I have recalculated going backwards to 2008 using actual UK historical inflation figures, The real time difference is 9% less in 2016 than we had in 2008. (£30.1bn next year v £33.1bn in 2008/9).
Andrew Neil is still talking crap.
I have a question for Colin Rippey aka KevAverage.
What are you trying to achieve by posting on Wings?
Colin Rippey
Fancy a game of ‘Snipes’ Colin ?
It’s more fun than point scoring over government statistics I can assure you.
Unless you’re playing a card sharp of course.You wouldn’t play with a loaded deck like Westminster and Whitehall now,would you ?
No one takes any notice of this stuff anyway, it only plays out amongst the tiny amount of people on here and twitter.
Bit of a generalisation there Kevarage. If you’re right its down to the complete lack of education in how states are financed and I wonder why that is. Voters kept in the UKOK dark, shock.
As Nicola said, SNP is not perfect and that includes Angus Robertson. I don’t really think that our MPs and MSPs can be briefed on (or remember) absolutely everything, and there is no way of knowing what weird and wonderful concoction of figures Neil Findlay may dream up.
As far as I am concerned, this is just more proof that the BBC are a bunch of liars in the pay of the Tories – not that we needed it.
@Ruby
I read and post on this website to have my own views challenged, if all you ever did was to read and post on sites that supported your own views you’d never learn anything.
This website has published some excellent articles that have exposed all sort of ridiculous political tactics used by parties and journalists alike (today’s article included).
Colin Rippey KevAverage:
Did you not like my question? Ach never mind here’s an easier one:
Why when George Osborne has been making cuts all over the place in order to reduce the deficit was the Scottish Government excempt from any of these cuts?
Ruby says:
18 October, 2015 at 10:41 pm
I have a question for Colin Rippey aka KevAverage.
What are you trying to achieve by posting on Wings
keverage is a UKOK zealot and he cant get over the fact they won last year. Counter intuitive as the current unionist mindset is, Keverage’s decided that because of the oil price drop mostly, Scotland’s deficit and its share of the UKOK national debt would mean bigger austerity in independent Scotland than toryboy England, so be quiet and let the big posh boys in London run Scotland for you.
If oil was at even average barrell prices of say $80, would Kevarga be freaking out like he does? yes but we’d still be run by 600 English MP’s tomorrow morning.
Unionists like Kevarage never mention growth, presumably because they think Scotland is incapable of economic growth without being controlled by 600 English MP’s but check out our neighbours. Its a revelation.
Oops another typo exempt
There were cuts absolutely everywhere except to the Scottish Budget and MPs wages.
Why were the Scottish Government exempt from any cuts?
Why were the Scottish Government exempt from any cuts?
They’re not. Like England they choose what to cut. Student fees are a good example.
English students fees are the highest in Europe by approx 10,000 euro a year, excluding everything else, but England votes tory.
http://www.studyineurope.eu/tuition-fees
And English tuition fees are only going up. Why Scotland does not offer free tution fees to English students is entirely down to the deduction UK.gov makes from the block grant, if that makes sense.
Clear choice, Keverage style toryboy world or not.
I’m having a real problem with a lace pattern.
Here you go, Angus–sorted:
http://tinyurl.com/nezwdx5
I had a great dream the other night where a handful of bolshie pro-Yes farmers turned up at Pacific Quay with their muck spreaders.
Sadly, it was only a dream, but you can guess how it went… 😉
heedtracker:
My question about the Scottish Government being exempt from any budget cuts was directed at Colin Rippey Kev Farage but he seems to have scrapered.
Proud Cybernat: Well done. Excellent video.
Could someone please provide a link to footage (not just audio – I was listening to it on the fucking radio, thanks all the same) of that ref running off the park?
A’body’s talking about it, but many of us have yet to see any images.
Thank you very kindly.
Paula Rose, black or scarlet?
Paula Rose
‘I’m having a real problem with a lace pattern’
Are you making a nice pair of knickers for 77 boy Davy ?
Hypothetical: Paula Rose vs Troll(s) at ‘snipes’.
Any takers/odds?
Up-For-Grabs/At-Stake: Bare-knuckles/Bare-baws/General Cred
(Winner gets to choose next musical interlude on O/T.)
Hoo!-hoo!-hoo!
Let’s admit to it, Angus Robertson and to a lesser extent, Stewart Hosie have left a lot to be desired in some of their TV appearances during last week. Words like complacency and laziness come to mind.
@David Smith –
The ‘Yes’ farmers ended up covered in shite, right?
Cynical? Moi?
🙁
@Colin Rippey
I have no idea why you decided to put in figures for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth, or Local Government as AME. From the document I provided a link to:
“The main AME items in the Scottish budget are student loans
and NHS and teachers’ pensions. AME accounts for approximately 15% of TME in 2011-12.”
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefingsAndFactsheets/S4/SB_11-74.pdf
and once again, it’s nothing to do with what I want for figures to quote, the figures Neil used were TME rather than DEL. Swinney talks DEL. DEL is where the 10% cut in real terms is, as confirmed by this article and which is confirmed by Fiscal Affairs Scotland. Neil used TME. He might as well have quoted the times of trains from London to Edinburgh.
@Jimmy
I very much doubt that either Angus Robertson or Stewart Hosie are in any way complacent or lazy.
Andrew Neil has a whole team of researchers looking for the questions that will hopefully trip up his “guests”. He also has the advantage of not just knowing the questions but also all possible answers in advance.
There is no way any politician can be that well prepared that they can answer every question off the cuff with accurate facts and figures.
As pointed out earlier though by another poster when ambushed like that there is absolutely nothing wrong in stating “These are not figures I would recognise, I’ll get back to you on that one”.
Either that or just tell the interviewer to fuck off.
Sorry, missed off the end bit about AME “The Barnett Formula does not apply to spending in AME.” So the AME thing would be:
“The main AME items in the Scottish budget are student loans
and NHS and teachers’ pensions. AME accounts for approximately 15% of TME in 2011-12. The Barnett Formula does not apply to spending in AME.”
That’s as in AME is part of TME but not of DEL.
It’s all a load of old consolidated funds to me 🙂
@Paula Rose 10.39
The Tramadols kicked in now. Yaaassss.
Naw. Don’t like all that freaky stuff. Too many scars as it is. My heart, ripped out by satans daughter. No gags for Davy thank’s.
Weary of reading about Unionist thugs telling Scotland it’s a poor copy of England? Try reading something else:
My (belated – been working hard physically!) weekend piece: https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/sicario-a-review/
OT
Quite amusing by the way, had a quick look at WOS twitter feed and it seems Rev is getting stick from Fraser Whyte, as is some SNP MP:
“Fraser Whyte Retweeted Philippa Whitford MP
SNP MP here mistaken on two counts:
1. Scotland pays £0 for Crossrail
2. It is in Barnett
https://whytepaper.wordpress.com/2015/09/13/meme-busting-wings-over-scotland-infrastructure-spending/“
Without even getting into Barnett Fraser Whyte is wrong on at least point 1. There is only one UK TME, it pays for expenditure for the whole UK, as well as “devolved” expenditure for England. That’s the WHOLE POINT of Barnett, Fraser!
Scotland contributes to the whole UK Revenues from which the UK TME is paid as well as the UK’s budget deficit made up by borrowing. Strike 1.
Quick look at his paper and he uses the UK population share for Scotland (8.3%) as our contribution to the revenues. Well strike me down with a feather, he hasn’t checked the HMRC disaggregated revenue charts to see what percentage Scotland actually did contribute to the UK revenues.
I suggest that if he is going to write a paper to “disprove” someone else’s work he 1) understands his subject and 2) get his figures right.
I didn’t check any more, it was a very quick look, I’m busy. But he might want to look at NIP and “partially funded by the private sector” again.
Hope this works, radio commentary of Scot/Aus match.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qwSBNACeWc&feature=youtu.be
Davy is now under my wing.
Thepnr says:
19 October, 2015 at 12:21 am
..
There is no way any politician can be that well prepared that they can answer every question off the cuff with accurate facts and figures.
As pointed out earlier though by another poster when ambushed like that there is absolutely nothing wrong in stating “These are not figures I would recognise, I’ll get back to you on that one”.
——
This is the type of interview that Alex Salmond was good at. It would be good to see him having more prominence again.
Even without the specific figures, it’s pretty obvious to everyone that after the credit crunch and recession and half way through Tory austerity cuts, the Scottish block grant wasn’t going to be magically protected.
@Paula Rose
I think Davy’s OK. A bit strange, but then aren’t we all?
@Paula Rose
Tal Bachman – “She’s so high”
I enjoy watching Andrew Neil grilling politicians, have watched him monster tories, labour and even that poor lady who was the leader of the greens.He comes over as combative and ruthless but with the the ability to put you on the spot.If I was doing an interview with him I would be expecting an ambush, he isn’t paid to be nice to politicians,his USP is that he can be a bit of a bastard,why should he treat Angus any differently?
Apparently McWhirter’s latest SH piece is printed but not online, it’s here:
https://iainmacwhirter.wordpress.com/2015/10/18/sturgeon-trust-me-im-a-social-democrat-not-a-flags-and-anthems-nationalist/
“How sweet! Davy is a wee maschist – honey this is going to be such fun – are you okay with a gag?”
Well?
cumon then,
whats the…hmpfhmpfmmmphhh. 🙁
________________________________________________________
Ruby says
“Why when George Osborne has been making cuts all over the place in order to reduce the deficit was the Scottish Government excempt from any of these cuts?”
Is it because he wuvs us weally?
________________________________________________________
Paula Rose says
“Davy is now under my wing.”
May the lord have mercy on your soul Davy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9YL0yHohts
_________________________________________________________
Davy says
@Paula Rose
“Tal Bachman – “She’s so high”
Hmm good choice
I would have said more like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCuMWrfXG4E
ye ken?
The performance of Angus Robertson as the leader of the Scottish Nationalist Group at Westminster has been less than impressive. He is a nice chap but perhaps his talents would be better shown in some other role. I have been favourably disposed to a few of the women MP’s and it might be taking up that option would better benefit the cause.
Needed to address JK Rowlings long statement in support of better together in the referendum. I expect she will provide more money to the cause next time
http://caltonjock.com/2015/10/19/jk-rowling-staunch-labour-party-and-better-together-champion-a-1million-contribution-to-the-cause-and-a-long-statement-issued-to-the-unionist-press-justifying-her-decision-anticipating-the-nex/
Boris: The performance of Angus Robertson as the leader of the Scottish Nationalist Group at Westminster has been less than impressive.
He’s the man who told us we should love NATO. I’m still looking for a reason.
Neil is a one trick pony.
Tooled up with a computer screen aide memoir his modus operandi is simply to hector and spew out bilge.
Politicians should recognise what this ass hole is all about and have off pat rhetoric to attack Neil with when he starts his nonsense. Show him up for the hostile prick that he is.
In fact show the BBC up for the excrement that it is and in this regard I remember Messrs Salmond, Galloway and McGuiness giving Paxman short shrift when he started his nonsense.
As for Angus Robertson he is usually a very polished performer. So who cares about one inconsequential two minute interview with this establishment prick.
Angus next time he flings figures at you that are irrelevant just ask him if that is the cost of his wig,or maybe his BBC salary ,or as others suggest tell him to go forth and multiply
Though i have to say getting caught out by this apology of an interviewer isnt something new to politicians of all persuasions ,he is just an egotistical old fart who derives in pleasure from making elected officials as uncomfortable as he can.
Why he is even still on TV beggars belief his show is terrible.
I see the Rev made the Huffington Post for telling JK Rowling to fuck off. Nice one!
http://tinyurl.com/nd67kzz
Just a comment on the rugby, really felt sorry for team that tried it’s heart out. It was a brilliant`game, and WE WIZ ROBBED!!!
Ref was out of order and should be questioned over his strange decision to give a penalty rather than a scrum in the final minutes of the game, which he must have known was likely to have a direct effect the outcome.
Just why, I ask……..
Brillo Heid Neil is, and always has been, an embarrassing twat.
JKRowling on the 11th June 2014 said ….
“Whatever the outcome of the referendum on 18th September, it will be a historic moment for Scotland. I just hope with all my heart that we never have cause to look back and feel that we made a historically bad mistake.”
I trust she now looks back and sees just how bloody awful a mistake was made!
@yesindyref2
Quite amusing by the way, had a quick look at WOS twitter feed and it seems Rev is getting stick from Fraser Whyte, as is some SNP MP:
“Fraser Whyte Retweeted Philippa Whitford MP
SNP MP here mistaken on two counts:
1. Scotland pays £0 for Crossrail
2. It is in Barnett
https://whytepaper.wordpress.com/2015/09/13/meme-busting-wings-over-scotland-infrastructure-spending/“
Looks like this website has a comment stream where you could debate the points directly with the author.
But it’s easier to comment here I guess?
ps He’s also got an article on whisky duty too, I’m sure your painstaking research on (what was it again) “bottling” will come in handy 😉
I saw the first four minutes of the last five minutes of the Scotland Australia rugby match. It was very obvious that one of the commentators wanted Scotland to lose.
Most of the time they don’t let us watch Scottish international games, but on the rare occasion that they do, they want us to get beat.
‘Better Together’, I don’t think so.
Anyone who voted for this does not have Scotland’s best interests at heart.
SNP/SNP May 2016.
Why shouldn’t Scotland get what it raises in taxes. £54Billion.
£466 is raised in taxes in the UK. The rest of the UK (pro rata) raises £39Billion and borrows and spends £90Billion more. Gives Scotland their £9Billion debt.
Scotland would be £10Billion better off. Cutting Trident/illegal wars, tax evasion, a land tax for foreign non Doms, a tax on ‘loss leading’ drink etc. .
It could borrow £5Billion. = £15Billion better off.
What about the £220Billion equivalent of Oil revenues Westminster secretly and illegally took. Thatcher and the McCrone Report. The mismanagement of the Oil sector. Still being tax at 55% despite the fall in Oil prices. Thousands of jobs are being lost.
It’s funny, but until I started to read the Revs Twitter feed, I did not realise how mentaly deranged unionist rangers fans were, or the fact that these people even existed.
The thought of standing shoulder to shoulder with these people does not bear thinking about.
# whytepaper – ‘link can’t be found’.
Looks like this website has a comment stream where you could debate the points directly with the author.
But it’s easier to comment here I guess?
Difference is Keverage, people want to talk about how we can break free of the red and blue tories that caused so much debt, unemployment and inequality. Its probably not surprising that all you britnat unionists want to do is use debt to attack Scotland’s democratic future.
Dont you ever stop Kevarage!
PS, Kevarage, did you know that Norway has zero teenage unemployment? teamGB stats on this alone are horrific and have been since snatcher Thatcher popped up. Funny that.
I don’t watch sport, don’t care about sport, and think rugby in particular is rubbish. Actually, with the exception of Andy Murray and one or two others, it seems the more success a Scottish sports-person has, the more ‘better together’ he or she becomes. I suppose they know what side their bread is buttered on eh…
Anyway, great tweet to JK Rowling, Rev.
I owe Rowling a huge debt of gratitude though. When my daughter reached the age of 6, I thought I would wean her off Peppa Pig and introduce her to the Harry Potter stuff. She totally rejected it, just wasn’t interested, and intimated that she thought it was boring crap. I don’t think I’ve ever been so proud as a parent, so thanks for that JK Rowling.
If Robertson (and Shona Robison) were indeed kept waiting for 10 mins before their interview, this is an acknowledged technique used by middle management wonks to stamp their superiority on the interviewee, Something I’ve found the top guys never do because a) they’re wasting their own time too, and b) they are secure enough not to need to play tricks.
This confirms Neil has reached his ultimate level…lackey for someone with real power over him like the Barking Bros.
Memo to Angus and Shona: Next time wait no more than 90 seconds, then you’re out of there – you’ve more important things to do. It’ll only happen once – the BBC don’t like empty airtime.
yesindyref2 @ 4.28am
Mr McWhirter’s article is in the on-line edition of the Herald. It is in the Politics section rather than the Opinion section where his articles usually appear.
Quite why anyone from the SNP still bothers to accommodate the BBC in any capacity remains a mystery to me.
It’s the last place where they are likely to get their message across & no matter what they say, the BBC just edits out/alters what they don’t want the audience to hear/see anyway.
Andrew Neil’s exercise in making guests look incompetent is a common tactic of his, but used with particular zeal when the guest represents the current Scottish government.
But if one does choose to put one’s self up for a tar & feathering, one should at least be well briefed, otherwise they should tell Britain’s State Propaganda channel to fkuc off.
She totally rejected it, just wasn’t interested, and intimated that she thought it was boring crap
Rowling’s a plagiarist of the lowest order, although at 6 your daughter probably saw that too.
A tory like Rowling will say it all paid off with more money than she can ever spend so big deal but even so. Having stacks of cash means we must listen and obey super rich chancers like Rowling, in britnat world.
Given I have earned my living from writing about sport for the past 40+ years, may I be allowed a comment here regarding our Rugby World Cup defeat.
OK, Craig Joubert didn’t have his best game, and one or two of his decisions went against us. However, while he had no need to consult the TMO as regards the final decision to give Australia their match-winning penalty – under the circumstances, he perhaps should have sought clarity, and the TMO perhaps ought to have intervened.
The penalty decision was probably correct, however, he missed the two knock-ons, one by us, one by Australia, in the lead-up.
That said, whoever called the long line-out for us boobed. Close-range line-out, near your own line – you NEVER throw long, that’s a golden rule. Throw to your best line-out man, and secure the ball.
The call was poor, the combination of throw/jump/support was also wrong. If we hadn’t messed-up, the Australians would not have got their match-winning penalty.
Our kick reception has been poor all tournament, it also landed us back on the defensive on Sunday and partially led to our defeat.
Jock Stein always said: try as far as possible to take the referee out of the equation, don’t give him the chance to make a poor decision against you. We didn’t do this and it certainly cost us.
Yes, we lost a match we might have won, but, we have come out of the World Cup in a stronger position and a better place than the other five countries in the Six Nations.
And, just think how much the Murray brothers winning the Davis Cup for Great Britain will annoy the little Englanders. There is always something to look forward to.
Paula Rose says:
19 October, 2015 at 12:42 am
Davy is now under my wing.
Ruby replies:
I predict Paula Rose is going to have Davy voting SNP x 2 in 2016.
Davy is quite sweet really I’m going to continue being nice to him my gut feeling is he wants be an SNP/Independence supporter but he is just find the transistion difficult.
Mr Graham, have you been talking to my Husband about the BBC, he has been saying this about the SNP and the BBC since the Referendum. He has waited patiently for someone to simply unclip their microphone and just walk off. He thinks as you do that the BBC should not be given the opportunity to use the SNP at all. Give RT or Al Jazeera all of the interviews but stay away from all of our “homegrown” stations, Sky is no better, and as for STV been a joke station for years.
I know the new approach is softly softly catchee monkey
But I don’t want to catch them, I want them out of my country
And, just think how much the Murray brothers winning the Davis Cup for Great Britain will annoy the little Englanders. There is always something to look forward to.
The miserable gits banned bagpipes. So that’s why.
Colin Rippey-KevAverage have you been reading the story about the MOD cleaners being sacked for campaigning for a living wage?
The interesting thing about this story is that the MOD cleaners are employed by an agency. These agencies normally charge quite a lot over the hourly rate.
It would be interesting to find out what the MOD are paying per hour to the agency for these cleaners.
The cleaners are all going to be claiming benefits with the result that the taxpayer has to pay for these benefits and on top of that has to pay the agency’s service charge.
My experience of doing temporary work for an agency was that I was getting paid £6.50 per hour and the agency was charging the employer £9.50 per hour.
Colin Rippey-KevAverage you got any further info on these agencies? Do you employ any agency workers at your Pet Planet?
heedtracker – Aye, the miserable English bar stewards did indeed ban the bagpipes.
However, the pipes were heard inside the stadium at every Scotland game, even on Sunday at Twickers. Banning the pipes is simply another challenge to be overcome by the Tartan Army.
I still recall Ted Croker, the then FA secretary, trying to ban Scottish fans from Wembley in the 1970s. Came the day of the match, there was a huge Tartan Army banner inside the ground: “Mr Croker – we’re still here”. He never tried to ban the TA again.
Socrates, what do you think about the theory that Sport is for thick people? If you take say Scottish football, Pat Nevin is referred to as the thinking man’s footballer because he has two O levels… One of them in Home Economics.
Anyway, cheering on the thick guys of the world sorta grates with me. In Glasgow a lot of people encourage their kids to try and make a career in football; about one in 4 trillion makes it and ends up a sub for Brentford or something.
These Rugby guys are generally toffs but I suppose you get thick toffs too and they need to do something; faced with the choice of sport or politics, who can blame them for choosing to run around half naked chasing balls and shouting a lot… come to think of it, they pretty much do that in politics too.
The importance attached to sport in the world generally is a measure of how screwed up the world is. Of all the important things we could focus on….
Socrates MacSporran says:
19 October, 2015 at 9:48 am
Given I have earned my living from writing about sport for the past 40+ years, may I be allowed a comment here regarding our Rugby World Cup defeat.
Ruby replies:
If you must but you could you please start your post with the following
THIS POST IS ABOUT SPORT
so that I can give it a miss.
Re BBC I’m 100% in favour of everyone telling the BBC to F*** Off.
I told the BBC to F*** Off over three years ago.
The importance attached to sport in the world generally is a measure of how screwed up the world is. Of all the important things we could focus on….
But human beings love sport not just to watch but to stay healthy and strong. Yesterday will do great things for rugby drawing people to play. Scottish sports genius Andy Murray brings people to the tennis court.
Well hopefully.
London 2012 cost a mega fortune but there’s been no increase in much athletic take up but then it wasn’t much to do with sport and all about UKOK propaganda. A coincidence Im sure
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30003439
Think about what’s going out there.
Not just yesterday but a guy from Dunblane is the world No.2 tennis player, in probably the greatest era of tennis ever seen.
Ruby – anything to keep a lady happy.
THIS IS (SORT OF) ABOUT SPORT
The lady in my life HATES sport, she totally fails to see why I get so worked-up about it. However, emerging from the shower on Sunday, she sat down to watch the last ten minutes of Sunday’s game, and ended up in tears, in a worse emotional state than I was.
Just occasionally, as when Scotland is conjouring-up yet another way snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, it gets through to even the least-likely people.
Mind you, on reflection, losing that game wasn’t, in the long-run, as bad as losing the Referendum.
@Cadogan Enright
Agreed. I used to be a scientist and we are expected to give talks and take questions afterwards and know our facts and figures. We all walk around with our heads full of specialist knowledge. I do not see why professional senior politicians should not be the same. These people are immersed in such things constantly, they are supposed to be Scotland specialists yet they do not appear to be.
Heads up for anyone interested, the Scottish Affairs Committee at WM will be taking evidence from BBC staff, amongst other broadcasters, starting this afternoon at 1.30.
Helena Brown,
If the pointlessness of appearing on the BBC weren’t so obviously, I think your husband and I would be telepathic.
I think the SNP is still petrified of those voters who think the BBC is something worth keeping.
But many of those same voters are quite happy to pay for Sky or indeed any other pay per view experience: cinema, theatre, sports, etc.
The BBC is a bloated £5 billion media institution that is a reflection of the government to which it panders to maintain the license fee & political favour. So when the government in Westminster becomes wholly corrupt, we should not be surprised that the BBC exhibits the same values; self serving, greedy, narcissistic, jingoistic, inefficient, criminal etc.
I stopped funding it years ago. Life is so much more interesting/rewarding when one doesn’t spend hours glued in front of a screen being spoon fed British propaganda.
“I enjoy watching Andrew Neil grilling politicians, have watched him monster tories, labour and even that poor lady who was the leader of the greens.He comes over as combative and ruthless but with the the ability to put you on the spot.If I was doing an interview with him I would be expecting an ambush, he isn’t paid to be nice to politicians,his USP is that he can be a bit of a bastard,why should he treat Angus any differently?”
He shouldn’t, of course. But he should have his facts right, and Robertson should be better prepared. It was a poor show from both.
“It’s no good grinching about this. Ligger is right on SNP attacking austerity UKOK.gov, so SNP have to be completely on it statistically. If this happens again…”
Agreed, which is why I said Robertson wouldn’t enjoy watching it back.
2008/9 The Oil revenues halve. From £12Billion to £6Billion.
If Scotland is getting £35Billion, then and now. It shows how the Scottish economy has stagnated under Westminster.
@Graham Harris Graham,
I agree with you fully there. I think the SNP should boycott the BBC as much as possible.
It seems to working with Scotland 2015 which has turned into a boring SLab echo chamber with the same Labour MSPs and SLAB friendly journalists turning up every week.
Less and less Scots trust the BBC and less and less people watch it – especialy the political programs so they will wither away. But they will not die as they will always be supported by BBC London and the Establishment.
As for Angus Robertson, he just had an off day. Normally, he is a very safe pair of hands and very up on his brief. I think he has done well in Westminster and I am fine with him as leader. He also has a lot of very good new talent sitting on the benches behind him.
All of them need to be wary when on the BBC as they will edit, cut and distort everything they say – just like the 60% polling rules which they seem to have invented from nowhere as an anti-SNP spoiler at the end of conference.
A very handy rule when the polling companies like to apply weighting to the figures – which always appears to drop the Indy vote down. I wonder if Kelner at YouGov would ever produce a 60% polling result for Yes – I doubt it. He would apply another Kelner correction!
@Ruby 10:06am
Even with the agency being paid 50% more than the cleaners receive, that’s still a saving for the client.
In general, there’s a staff cost rule-of-thumb that the real price to the company of their own employees is about 1.8 times their salary. That takes into account pensions, accommodation, uniforms and so on. I’m pretty sure that agency staff won’t have those “benefits” and probably have to supply their own uniforms too.
It also reduces any company’s ability to flexibly alter staff costs (i.e. hire & fire) with impunity. Not saying that’s right, just what happens.
Angra Mainyu:
No, I do not agree that sport is for thick people. I know some very-intelligent sportsmen and women.
Pat Nevin was a student at what is now Glasgow Caledonian University, back when it was a mere college. He is anything but thick.
However, football clubs do prefer their players, as far as possible, to be as we say here in Ayrshire: As thick as shite in the neck of a bottle; this makes it easier for the directors to use and abuse them.
Rugby players, by and large, are cleverer than footballers. The demands of professional rugby means we no longer have practicing doctors, lawyers, accountants and other professionals playing for Scotland, but, one or two of the squad do have degrees, or are working towards gaining degrees.
Geoff Cross, for instance, was in our 2015 Six Nations squad, and he is a qualified doctor. Against that, Gavin Hastings, who has a Cambridge degree, definitely meets that above-mentioned Ayrshire expression.
Sport, however, is, even at professional level, an outlet for excess energy. It is not that important.
Socrates MacSporran 9:48 am
THIS IS (SORT OF) ABOUT SPORT
As an avid sports fan, with rugby being a particular interest, I am gutted at how this World Cup has worked out. Most distressingly, showing the gap between Northern and Southern Hemisphere rugby.
I am absolutely gutted for the Scottish rugby team and how the match ended. Losing is bad enough, losing when you were a minute away from winning is much worse. Congratulations to the Scots though for an outstanding performance – which is more than can be said for the England team in any of their games sadly.
Come on Argentina!
And, just think how much the Murray brothers winning the Davis Cup for Great Britain will annoy the little Englanders. There is always something to look forward to.
Socrates 9.48
That’s about right.Australia,too,made their share of dreadful errors which contributed to an entertaining and exciting match with a nail biting finish.The Scottish players will be deeply disappointed at not closing that match out.a poor decision was made at that line out.I reckon they knew what they should do,but did something else in the heat of the moment.Psycology.Anyway,after a succession of dreadful 6 nations campaigns we had a very good World Cup.So that’s a big step forward.
sensibledave says:
19 October, 2015 at 11:00 am
Socrates MacSporran 9:48 am
THIS IS (SORT OF) ABOUT SPORT
As an avid sports fan, with rugby being a particular interest, I am gutted at how this World Cup has worked out. Most distressingly, showing the gap between English and Southern Hemisphere rugby.
Fixed that for you sensible. You may now thank me.
@sensible dave
Thanks for that on the rugby. I know nothing about sport, nor watch, but had one little Englander gloating at Scotland’s defeat on my news feed.
I’m sure this is in response to my political posts on fracking and how the Tories are working towards poorhouses.
Hoss Mackintosh says:
19 October, 2015 at 10:49 am
As for Angus Robertson, he just had an off day.
Indeed, even a safe pair of hands like AR can drop the ball on occasion. Get fooled once, okay, but not twice! Hopefully lessons will be learned. Andrew Neil is an ambush predator and he will score quite a few points if the interviewee is not fully prepared and flexible enough to react quickly. As others have mentioned, Jeane Freeman gave a class lesson in how to deal effectively with a Neil attack during the IndyRef campaign. I agree that the SNP have to up their game, since this type of questioning is likely to increase between now and next May.
No disrespect intended, but there are several SNP spokespersons/ politicians that I would not let near Andrew Neil in front of the cameras. There are others, including Angus Robertson, that can and must handle it better.
If the way the UK state media operates against Scotland, attacking Independence supporters and protecting violent and abusive unionists does not make people realise we need to be Independent. I don’t know what will.
By the distortion of fact that Rev Stu highlights, Andrew Neil is reminding us that, Paisley buddy though he may have been born, his love of BBC’s gold, and Murdoch’s before it, is more precious to him than ensuring fair play in Scottish matters.
The First Minister said what she said and has done before, but what she didn’t, and can’t say is that the folk who use Twitter to make their political points are fully aware they’re insulting one another, that’s why they do it
Twitter is not a forum for discussion, it’s a few word comment backwards and forwards from both sides
So when The First Minister says not to abuse each other for disagreeing surely that would have to apply to a conversation and not the snap chat language of Twitter
I think from our side nobody should be taking this personally you can’t stop folk mouthing off it’s human nature, I understand what Nicola Sturgeon’s up to here but there are folk in the argument who are positioned for life and can’t be persuaded to shift their stance and those have to be lived with whether we like it or not
There is consolation from our side though, as far as I am aware no Independence supporters have ever beaten up defenceless people or fire bombed any buildings or had their officials in court for beating up the elderly or been arrested for making an attempt on the former First Ministers Life and on and on….
I’m a big fan Nicola but let’s get a little perspective on the “real world” as Johann Lamentable might say
BTW Tell me about one, just one Unionist OO walk or Rally that has passed as peacefully as an Independence Rally
Socrates MacSporran says:
19 October, 2015 at 9:48 am
The penalty decision was probably correct, however, he missed the two knock-ons, one by us, one by Australia, in the lead-up.
That said, whoever called the long line-out for us boobed. Close-range line-out, near your own line – you NEVER throw long, that’s a golden rule. Throw to your best line-out man, and secure the ball.
I fully agree. No point in greetin about the penalty decision. That awful line-out cost Scotland the game.
Very Off Topic
I have come across an elderly lady from Skye who is in a nursing home near Sheffield. She has no-one to speak Gaelic to.
If you can help by being able to speak to her via Skype or know anyone who does who lives in that area – please leave me a message in Off-topic.
Glad Paula Rose has taken Davy under her wing, given his heart was ripped out by Satan’s daughter.
No offense intended Davy, but that description brings to mind Theresa May.
Hope your heart heals, Davy.
heedtracker at 11:11 am
“….. showing the gap between English and Southern Hemisphere rugby. Fixed that for you sensible. You may now thank me.”
… no, I was quite happy with the way I worded it ta. No Northern Hemisphere teams are in the semis. Perhaps with the exception of the Welsh, the rest of the home nations got well beaten by Southern Hemisphere teams during the tournament. In fact, none of the home nations beat any of the 4 top southern hemisphere teams at any point.
I am happy to take you on any subject Heedy – but I don’t think there is much mileage in this one. I can agree that the Scots and the Welsh had better tournaments than the English and the Irish – but that is about all that can be said.
Ha ha – the Royal Birthday with North Korea reporting:
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2015/10/15/kim-jong-lizzie/
John Beattie on twitter just said, refs don’t give us the same respect as the ‘big’ teams.
That is because of the ‘too wee. too poor, too stupid’ argument that JB seems to have swallowed.
Scotland shouldn’t consider itself to be a ‘wee’ team but hopefully attitudes are changing
sensibledave says:
19 October, 2015 at 11:44 am
heedtracker at 11:11 am
Sensible, English rugby fails to make it past the qualifier, England pop. 56 million.
Scotland, 5.3 million.
Wales, 3.1 million.
Worry sensible, worry very very much.
And lets not go down the English tennis road, sensible.
Can you imagine how proud you would feel today about Scotland’s rugby performance had Scotland been a real country.
JK Rowling has the cheek to say she was in tears after the Rugby result.
Pity she wasn’t in tears after the no vote ,when her and her like. Stole the dreams and aspirations of us ,in favour of continued Tory rule!
She is happy as long as Scotland is just a game and not a nation!
Well, that was an interesting rammy on Twitter last night.
I think the gist of it was: “Scotland is a nation. I just don’t think it should be one of those nations where the people are allowed to control their own affairs.”
“Geoff Cross, for instance, was in our 2015 Six Nations squad, and he is a qualified doctor. Against that, Gavin Hastings, who has a Cambridge degree, definitely meets that above-mentioned Ayrshire expression.”
Iain Dowie has a degree in physics. Stuart Armstrong is practising law. Mo Malpas has a geography degree, I think. Mixu has an economics degree.
Individual examples are available in both. Just as individual examples of abject idiocy are available in both.
If we go down the “average” rugby player v “average” football player, in terms of intelligence, then you need to add context – what level of the game, in which country.
Rugby Union is in England and Scotland primarily a middle class pursuit. Football is primarily a working class game. Therefore in terms of education it makes sense that rugby union players will have a higher level of education.
But being educated doesn’t mean someone is smarter than the other. Gavin Hastings, for instance, often displays rank stupidity.
Are Australian rugby union players better educated than Scottish footballers? Or Irish rugby union players?
And if, of course, we apply the likelihood that being a professional rugby player isn’t as financially rewarding as football, then it makes sense that rugby players put more into other areas.
There’s a lot of snobbery/inverse snobbery between rugby (league and union infighting as well) and football. It’s pointless. They’re sports.
“My sport’s better than yours. My sport’s players are fairer/smarter/better educated/more respectful than yours.”
Pointless.
To be fair to Angus he has been extremely busy at Westminster and Holyrood spending isn’t his brief. Mind simply on other things. Neil of course quite deliberately honed in on matters beyond Angus’ remit.
Big Jock says:
19 October, 2015 at 12:09 pm
JK Rowling has the cheek to say she was in tears after the Rugby result.
Rowling loves Scotland, as it is right now. She detests Scotland as a nation state. We’re like children really, or pets. As long as we are controlled by England, we are loved by some.
@Karmanaut
Indeed. The hypocrisy of those who ‘support’ Scottish sports teams, but try everything in their power to thwart TeamScotland, the nation …. is totally disgraceful.
An independent Scotland could use sport as a focus for wider health and wellbeing. We could make true national heroes and role models of our sports men and women, especially amateur, at every international level. We could involve as many of us as possible to actually participate in physical activities.
There could be no greater team building than to build the renewed TeamScotland!
We could be at the Olympics as a nation among nations where simply turning up and taking part under our own flag would be amazing.
NO voters denied this nation so much, sport and many things beyond. How dare they be two hour patriots only when it suits them.
Heedtracker@09:20
Teenage unemployment in Norway is 1.7%
Under 29 yrs of age is 4.3%
heedtracker 12:00 pm
Haha. As stated previously Heedy, Wales and Scotland did better than England and Ireland. If you insist on trying to make an issue out it though, it is head to heads that ultimately decide who has the better team – and when was it that Scotland last beat England at rugby or football?
If it makes you happy, I am happy to concede, in tennis, that Scotland has one better singles player than England. However, on any stage that matters, he’s British anyway! Check out “Tennis Scotland” page on Facebook – you’ll love it (#BackTheBrits)!
One_Scot says:
19 October, 2015 at 12:03 pm
Can you imagine how proud you would feel today about Scotland’s rugby performance had Scotland been a real country.
————
I would feel far prouder if Scotland was a real country every day of the week, than in a single sports match.
It’s like seeing Gavin Hastings whining on the TV about the referee. Sure, it would have been nice to have a few moments of international glory playing in the semi-finals, or finals.
But at the end of the day, its just a rugby game.
The likes of him and JK Rowling campaigned to restrict Scotland’s profile on the international stage every other day of the week.
Effectively they are content with regionhood for Scotland, and to delegate our future to our neighbour.
Check out “Tennis Scotland” page on Facebook – you’ll love it (#BackTheBrits)!
Only results matter in sport sensible. Good to see you so upbeat though. You lot ProjectFeared BBC style the life out of Scotland running its own affairs last year and now you sneer and jeer over Scotland’s world No.2 tennis star Andy Murray.
Tis a very weird union of UKOKness sensible.
Wonder how long this farce can on?
Karmanaut says:
19 October, 2015 at 12:14 pm
Well, that was an interesting rammy on Twitter last night.
I think the gist of it was: “Scotland is a nation. I just don’t think it should be one of those nations where the people are allowed to control their own affairs.”
———-
Yeah, it all comes down to your definition of the word nation.
For the likes of JK Rowling, Scotland is a ‘nation’ in culture only. Sure, she is entitled to be patriotic in that limited sense.
But politically, she wants Scotland restricted as a small region of a UK. With only 8.3% of the population, and limited devolution, that’s the reality of the situation.
Her aspiration for Scotland is to effectively delegate our future to others, usually resulting in Tory governments.
When you don’t have any belief in the people of Scotland to govern themselves better, then proclaiming how patriotic you are just seems rather pathetic.
@Stoker says: 18 October, 2015 at 12:40 pm:
“Destroy the unionist media in Scotland and we’re halfway there!”.
Why bother, Stoker? The Unionist media in Scotland are doing a very fine job of destroying themselves. ever interrupt your enemy when they ae making errors.
galamcennalath says:
19 October, 2015 at 12:28 pm
Indeed. The hypocrisy of those who ‘support’ Scottish sports teams, but try everything in their power to thwart TeamScotland, the nation …. is totally disgraceful.
“Team Scotland” sounds brilliant. You may have just given us a great name for YES to campaign under for IndyRef 2. 🙂
For the odd poster who thinks that the penalty against Scotland was ” probably right!. Watching BBC news early morning the did a slow breakdown of the “incident”, which showed, and the BBC commentator agreed, was a wrong call.
He said the slow down proved, and it was shown, that the ball came off a yellow jersey.
So there should have been NO penalty. Apparently the Rugby Board are to investigate the actions of the referee.
However, knowing the BBC, unless someone has it taped,will it disappear….. They have form……
I saw the Stewart Hosie interview and was raging, glag I never saw this one. Andrew Neil has form for this, he is usually armed with a clipboard full of figures. From the off you can’t win, as unless you know exactly the source of his figures then to claim not to recognise them leads to accusations that you do not know your stuff.
The SNP are going to have to learn to stop engaging with the BBC in stat-trap situations.
@ Socrates MacSporran, too long a name for a start! “Rugby players are cleverer than footballers,” is just bollox. It might just seem like that because rugby in Scotland is very much still an elitist middle-class business which draws on a very small proportion of the population. So Torquil the doctor, son of Torquil the doctor, is unlikely to turn out for the Morton, eh no!
Onwards says:
19 October, 2015 at 12:32 pm
Effectively they are content with regionhood for Scotland, and to delegate our future to our neighbour.
Yep, the Brit Nats sure love to support Scotland as a club team or a “British” team. They even dress up as tartan clowns and cry for Scotland in the same way you would cry for a sick pet dog or if your favourite horse came last.
Some of us have a little more self-respect.
Wonder how long this farce can GO on?
Sorry sensible.
Anyhoo, you seem like a nice guy at heart and I am quite happy to live in Scotland as your neighbour, I just no longer want my country to be run by 600 English MP’s, 800 Lords and Ladies, staggeringly corrupt BBC, ferocious far right press barons, super rich chancers like Rowling etc.
England will be just fine standing on its own twa feet again sensibledave.
heedtracker 12:36 pm
“You lot ProjectFeared BBC style the life out of Scotland running its own affairs last year”
…. Sorry Heedy – nothing to do with me! Unless I’m guilty purely because I am English.
“…. and now you sneer and jeer over Scotland’s world No.2 tennis star Andy Murray.
“sneer and jeer” – you’ve got the wrong man Heedy – no sneering or jeering from me.
Lighten up Heedy, we were talking about rugby – not everything is to do with Scottish Independence.
Theresa May a Neo Nazi on the telly telling us about how she’s going to stamp out Neo Nazis and Extremists and hate preachers
I’d pay to see a woman stamp herself out on the telly (or a man)
Don’t want to be sexist, all abuse must be (totally inclusive)
@HandandShrimp says: 18 October, 2015 at 1:12 pm:
” … In retrospect it does nothing for Neil’s credibility. It looks like a deliberate lie to cause confusion.”
Neil is a inveterate serial fibber and a thorough disgrace as a Scot. Remember this is the &***&^, (insert own swearie term of choice), who asked Salmond the question, “And have you sought the advice of your own Scottish Government Law Officers”, and then deliberately dishonestly allowed the Unionists to claim Salmond said he had EU legal advice. An honest human being would have corrected the mistake.
I rate Neil roughly 5 places lower than Nick Robinson bare foot. (The only reason for Robinson being ranked higher is that Robinson has the excuse of being a non-Scot). The man, (for want of a better term), has no credibility and hasn’t had any for a considerable time.
Jim Thomson: Cheers for info on agency staff.
It all seems a bit dodgy.
Socrates MacSporran says:
19 October, 2015 at 10:27 am
Ruby – anything to keep a lady happy.
THIS IS (SORT OF) ABOUT SPORT
Ruby Replies: Good boy!
@ Les Wilson
I thought the yellow card to Maitland was equally as wrong as the late penalty to Australia,their was no way from the TMO that you could say Maitland `deliberately`knocked the ball on.
Scotland lost a Try and Conversion during Maitland`s 10 minute sin bin.
Two wrong decisions by `Southern Hemisphere` referee that cost us 10 points.
There can’t be many people who would spend a million pounds to spread the message that some people are too poor and too stupid to govern themselves.
Can you imagine living in Scotland in 50 years time never knowing how terrible it felt living in a ‘country’ under the control of the British state and UK media.
THIS IS NOT ABOUT SPORT
I’m quite happy to spend time being nice to Davie as I don’t think it would be that difficult to get him to vote SNP x 2 in 2016 and for him to become a YES convert.
With ‘Sensible Dave’ on the other hand being that he lives in England and doesn’t have a vote in the Scottish election trying to convince him of anything is a bit of a waste of time.
Lighten up Heedy, we were talking about rugby – not everything is to do with Scottish Independence.
It kind of does sensible and it always will be, even after this strange union is over and a normal relationship between our two countries finally comes about.
Because as you know full well sensible, this union thingee is dysfunctioning faster than the England team did against, who was it again sensible, Wales?
3 million non nation state of Wales v 56 million English, and all that rule Britannia hubris.
Look sensibledave, far right torygraph wraps Scotland and Wales around itself in a giant union jack comfort blanket of England’s sporting failure, just like you!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/rugby-world-cup/11939696/Rugby-World-Cup-2015-Southern-hemisphere-brains-have-thoroughly-eclipsed-northern-brawn.html
This my UKOK funny that of the day.
Daily Politics today on EU ref
5 party badges on the big screen
Labour, Tories, libdem, Ukip and Greens
Never underestimate the power of denial
THIS IS NOT ABOUT SPORT IT’S ABOUT sensibledave
Sensible Dave posts as Tony123 on the Scotsman? Yes/No?
Who is sensibledave/Tony123?
How can we find out? How did Ian Murray find out who Paco McSheepie was?
I’m off again,
We’re being bombarded with China again growth, wealth, infrastructure,economy, nuclear, important, USA, build more and bigger stuff,while at the same time rip out Scotlands renewable energy sector in order to restrict growth in all of the above
Still, Scotlands poor will be able to gaze in wonder at what can be achieved at their expense
Let’s be civil to the NO voters in this, It’ll be your Arses too and it’s coming really quick now
OFF TOPIC DON’T WORRY JUST GIVE POST A HEADLINE IN BOLD
Dr Jim says:
19 October, 2015 at 1:23 pm
I’m off again,
Ruby Replies:
Do you mean you are off topic? I think there are always loads of different topics being discussed here which I think is fair enough but I would like to see all post having a headline in bold indicating what the post is about then everyone can select the topic they are interested in.
Your post about killing off the renewables industry is very interesting.
Asklair yes we hate the Irish,1 because they represent/or appear to represent Cahtholicism in these northern parts,2 because we are jelous of them they had the bottle to stand up and be counted,they were never conquered and in spite of everything flung at them they stand proud.
O/T we will remember the UK threat that Nato would perhaps not allow Scotland in (should we want to)
Well seems they are actually very keen on new members.
They are now willing to allow Montenegro who has a population of 650,000.
“Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “If NATO invites a new member to join even though Montenegro’s size and military capacity is not enormous, it’s still an important signal that NATO remains open to enlargement.”
Another BT threat debunked.
@Ruby 1.36pm
You’re going to laugh but I don’t know how to do “bold”
What do you do? I’m really serious
Re Scott Finlayson
The decisions from the referee and the antics of Mr Christopher Quinlan, QC, earlier, in trying to get 2 Scots players banned from the tournament, are connected.
Quinlan sent out a message from the Rugby Elite/Management that read, “Scotland must not progress.”
The South African referee interpreted the message as was intended and applied his decisions for maximum effect.
Scot Finlayson says:
Agreed Scot!
On-topic, I had a look at Andrew Neil’s twitter feed and he mentioned TME and DEL so he knew which one he was talking about. But it’s DEL that has had the 10% cuts, so either he doesn’t know what TME and DEL mean, or he does and was being deceitful to ambush Robertson. All Robertson had to say was:
“Andrew, you’re talking about TME, but the DEL shows a 10% cut in real terms since 2010-11.” Job done, 5 seconds flat.
@Colin Rippey
I give my time for free to the cause of Independence, why on earth should I give it for free to someone who opposes Independence?
Ruby
“How did Ian Murray find out who Paco McSheepie was?”
When he registered with the newspaper, he may have used his own email address the other way is keeping a record of the IP address!
So when he was asked if it was him, he couldnt deny it. Never did get the funny name thing!
@Dr Jim
You use greater than and less than signs.
‘Less than’ followed by b, followed by ‘greater than’ to turn on.
‘Less than’ followed by ‘slash’ b, followed by ‘greater than’ to turn off.
As well as b, you can use
i
strike
blockquote
Formatting & The Count of Montenegro by Alexandre Dumbass
Dr Jim says:
19 October, 2015 at 1:48 pm
@Ruby 1.36pm
You’re going to laugh but I don’t know how to do “bold”
What do you do? I’m really serious
Ruby Replies:
To bold you require to encase the text with two html tags. These tags don’t show up in the post hence the reason why it’s a bit tricky to explain how to bold as the html tags will disappear if I try to show you them. See Comment above post box to see how to do first html tag without * the end tag is To do italic you would do the same but instead of the b you put an i. Do for opening tag type text then do for end tag. Got it?
Iain Gray The Count of Montenegro
Everytime I hear any mention of Montenegro I think of Iain Gray and the joke about him getting a copy of ‘The Count of Montenegro by Alexandre Dumbass for Chistmas.
OT – Rugby
@One_Scot
One of the commentators was Australian, so I think he can be forgiven for being partisan!
@sensibledave
The commentators showed and reshowed the slow motion of that knock-on and “offside”, and were adamant it came off Phipps, and it seems to me England generally was behind Scotland – I looked at some of the sport reports from the London-based media. From the Guardian for instance:
“Subsequent examination of television replays indicated that the ball had been touched by Australia’s Nick Phipps before it reached Welsh, sparking anger in the BBC Radio 5 Live commentary box, where the former Scotland captain Gavin Hastings labelled the South African official a “disgrace” for not consulting the television match official and running from the field at the end.”
and
“The Scots had reckoned without Foley – and Joubert – stealing their thunder.”
Joubert’s name will live in rugby’s hall of infamy for a long long time.
HTML TAGS DISAPPEAR
Dr Jim: I’ll try again. Read the Comment above posting box.
Do you see where it says HTML tags like etc? These are the opening tags which you would put in front of the text that you want to be bold or italic. At the end of the text you require to put what is called a closing bag it’s the same as the opening tag except that you require to put a forward slash before the letter.
You will notice that the whole of my paragraph about Iain Gray is in bold and that is because I forgot to put the closing tag after Montenegro.
Is that better? I look forward to seeing your headlines in bold.
The Paisley grammar boy is a unionist schill. the only thing he has done is…Bart simpson?
DID I CONFUSE DR JIM
This might help:
http://tinyurl.com/ow58p47
Sorry about typo in earlier post it’s a closing tag not a closing bag.
Ruby
Or if you wanted to anoy you could also hack the account http://www.twitter-hack.net
To put text in bold, surround it with the bold tag;
e.g. This when written;
<b>this would be in in bold</b>
displays as;
this would be in in bold
Socrates Macsporran
You mention Gavin Hastings and his degree from Cambridge. Long time ago, but I seem to remember that this was a rather dodgy award–connected to his decision to play for rugby for Cambridge and not for the number of Highers he gained at George Watson’s.
Someone might correct me.
OT – rugby – again
http://www.news.com.au/sport/rugby/world-reacts-to-australias-nail-biting-victory-over-scotland/story-fndpt9s1-1227573735290
In another article rating the squad, with the top players getting 8 our of 10, the Aussie media gave Joubert 9 and “man of the match”.
The Aussie commentators were also livid with the Maitland yellow card, so they’ve been fair enough – good luck to them.
THIS IS ABOUT CONFUSING RUGBY WITH RUBY
yesindyref2 says:
19 October, 2015 at 2:12 pm
OT – Rugby
Ruby replies:
You caught me!
I LIKE TALKING ABOUT HTML
Anagach how do you do different fonts
I tried the font face tag but nothing happened.
I need to know more about the paragraph breaks as I’m not too keen on getting a hammering.
I know about the p tag. Do I require to use it?
Did we miss this the other day? I did.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/10/probe-uk-deadly-disability-cuts-151012100921075.html
“The UK has become the first country in the world to be placed under investigation by the United Nations for violating the human rights of people with disabilities amid fears that thousands may have died as a consequence of controversial welfare reforms and austerity-driven cuts to benefits and care budgets.”
@Ruby
https://codex.wordpress.org/Posts
Near the bottom “Visual Versus Text Editor” gives what I think is a list of the html tags that wordpress – the software running this blog – supports.
This is about sport
Senair – There is indeed a belief that the “Land Economy” degree which big Gav got from Cambridge was a fly means of getting some thick rugby players into the University.
But, to be fair to Gav, he also has a qualification (HND I think) from what is now the University of the West of Scotland. So, he might have a couple of functioning brain cells more than, shall we say Scott Brown or Kris Boyd.
As regards yesterday. We have all, myself included, had our say about the Rugby World Cup quarter-final. As that great rugby icon Willie John McBride said back in South Africa in 1974, as some of his players wanted to waste Sunday drinking time watching a re-run of the match they had won 24-hours previously: “That’s history, let’s move-on to the next challenge”.
In Scotland’s case, in rugby, the Six Nations, in football, Word Cup 2018 and, most-importantly – Indyref2.
I used to have people to do stuff, now I have to learn all over again now that I don’t have people to do stuff, and I’m surrounded by people that can do stuff
If I could’ve done bold there it would have come in handy
Poverty’s shit (like age)
And there was me thinking that you just hit the keyboard harder
like this
😉
I never knew about the wee forward slash part before the letter when closing the tag at the end. So I gave up over a year ago trying to use the italics and bold…ergo my constant use of single inverted commas for ’emphasis’.
So Ruby, thanks!
I’m italically grateful
Grand 🙂
David MacGille-Mhuire writes of a ‘sub-Fascist Union’. It’s not the Union that’s sub-fascist. The increasingly corporatist state is the inevitable result of capitalism in absolute decline. All it can do now is force on us economic decline, dependence on the EU, no border controls, war after war, and division at home.
@ Ruby, ye’ve spelt “Count” wrang!
@Dr Jim 3:27pm
bold and italics are easy.
just stick a left chevron (aka “less than” sign) immediately in front of the letter b and follow that immediately with a right chevron (aka “greater than” sign) to enable the bolding of all text that follows it. To disable the bolding, do the same but with /b enclosed in the chevrons.
Same with i enclosed in chevrons for italics, and then disable italics with /i enclosed in chevrons.
Enclosing things in left and right chevrons tells the website that you want to enable or disable a particular feature.
As you type the text, that you want to post as a comment, in the box, you can see the effect of your chevron enclosed commands in the text immediately below it. If it’s not doing what you want or expect, just play around with it until it looks right then click on the green “Submit Comment” button.
If it doesn’t look right, e.g. you have lots of unexpected text bolded, then just delete and start again before you submit the comment.
Hope that makes sense, and helps 🙂
Re The Rugby World Cup:-
Can I suggest :-
a) The SRU offer The Squad plus Vern and the rest of the coaches an immediate Bonus.
b)Produce a new 100% watertight Contract for Vern with a substantial salary increase securing his services until at least the next World Cup.
c) That the Scottish Government hold an All Party Official Reception at Holyrood to show the nation’s appreciation of the performance of the squad and coaching team.
Ruby 1:14 pm
You wrote “Who is sensibledave/Tony123? How can we find out? How did Ian Murray find out who Paco McSheepie was?
I do love it when readers see my comments as so incisive and informative that they think I must be an a pro, or important, or learned, or whatever>
I am Sparticus!
Scotland will never suceed at playing Rugby Union. We should play Rugby Independent.
yesindyref2 2:12 pm
This is about Sport
“Joubert’s name will live in rugby’s hall of infamy for a long long time.
…. You would hope so but it doesn’t seem to happen. Does anybody remember the name of the ref that didn’t see Frank Lampard’s equaliser for England V Germany in South Africa (football).
Socrates Macsporran
Thanks for that! How could I forget “Land Economy”!
@sensibledave
I do love it when readers see my comments as so incisive and informative that they think I must be an a pro, or important, or learned, or whatever>
I am Sparticus!
What a tube.
Hey Sparticus, this is why on this site you are a waste of black letters on a white background. Go and play with your wee short sword elsewhere please.
The DEL (Departmental Expenditure Limit- set by the Scottish government itself) has fallen by 10% in real terms in the past year, yes. TME (Total Managed Expenditure) in Scotland is rising from £35.417 Billion in 2014-15 to £37.443 Billion in 2015-16, a rise of 5.7%. Given that inflation is rock bottom right now there’ll be virtually no difference between the nominal and real difference in expenditure. I’ve attached the Scottish Government’s own budget spreadsheet. http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/…/2015-16_budget…
Thoughts?
A note about the interview: while I could watch the interview online (eyes passim), I noted that there was a “relay” between Neil and Robertson, so I have to wonder if Mr Robertson’s trip-up was a result of failure of communication. I could swear that the person relaying Mr Neil’s questions to Angus was a female voice – certainly not Mr Neil’s distinctive tones – though I’m not sure if it’s just distortion at my end.
A more cynical suggestion could be that the relayer was deliberately mistranslating, or poorly translating, what Neil was saying in order to trip the interviewee up. But since I couldn’t discern exactly what the relay was saying, I can only assume either Mr Neil’s voice was much higher pitched than I thought it would be, or that Mr Robertson was indeed having a bad day.
Had half a mind to do so. I should note also that Mr Robertson seemed to be mostly on his own, so if his team was indeed present, I didn’t see them.
I disagree on your appraisal of Mr Robertson’s leadership, he’s fantastic in his role in the Commons, though I agree something needs to be done in regards to the media, especially the likes of Mr Neil.
The easiest way to diffuse the “one party state” meme is to note that every single one of the SNP’s proposals for Scotland Bill amendments have been defeated by the *actual* governing party of the UK.
Nonetheless, good prompts for discussion, thanks.
@ Sensible Dave
I’m Spartacus!!! Well not really, but at least I know how to spell his name. Otherwise, you have been slightly more sensible than usual. Keep up the steady progress.
@Dr.Jim.
Fear not, you are not alone. I have just spent the last fifteen minutes trying to find the ‘less than key.’ My progression from the abacus to the computer is taking longer than I expected.
By the time I become computer literate, some new invention will probably render my humble machine obsolete. On the other hand, I have an in depth knowledge of basidiomycotal fungi should anyone find that interesting.
sensibledave says:
I am Sparticus!
I’m Brian and so’s my wife 🙂
Thepnr 5.34
Aw, that isn’t very nice.
Would you prefer that somebody writes something and then everyone else just writes “me too” or “hear hear”. How boring. You would end up like Iain such that, when you do venture elsewhere, you end up a paranoid loony because you assume everyone is a bogey man trying to stop Scottish independence.
The less than key is the one with a V on it’s side with the pointy bit to the left – greater than is the other way round, pointy bit to the right.
Sorry no excuses for Angus. As an experienced politician he should have know better
Let the side down
Hi schrodingers cat.
No you’re not – I AM BRIAN!
8=)
____________________________________________
Right… to get BOLD text, you type,
‘left-pointing chevron’B’right-pointing chevron’Blah Blah Blah (your input)’left-pointing chevron’SLASHB’right-pointing chevron’. Obviously without the apostrophes.
On a Mac, the left-pointing chevron is SHIFT-COMMA. The right-pointing chevron is SHIFT-PERIOD.
I think they’re the same on windoze.
For italics, substitute I for B.
For a PARAGRAPH BREAK, hit the ‘return/enter’ key twice.
Does that help?
Topic: Paragraph breaks & all that stuff
Brian Doonthetoon says:
For a PARAGRAPH BREAK, hit the ‘return/enter’ key twice.
Ruby replies:
Is that all. testing
Topic: On topic & Socrates MacSporran is a star and a pro
Taranaich says:
A more cynical suggestion could be that the relayer was deliberately mistranslating, or poorly translating,
Ruby replies :
I could go along with that. It might be interesting to compare & contrast earlier interviews which Angus Robertson has done.
Socrates MacSporran is a star
Socrates MacSporran says:
19 October, 2015 at 3:22 pm
This is about sport
Note the professional lower case headline unlike my amateur shouty upper case.
Topic: Bolding keyboard lay out & all that stuff
More than & less than keys are next to letter M on right. Use upper case
The easier way would be to copy and paste the tags from the Comment for new users above comment box.
The closing tag requires a forward slash /
Copy and paste this / or find forward slash three along from
M and pop it in your closing tag before I or B
Opening tag is just the term used for the bit you put before the text you want to bold etc and closing tag is the bit that comes after the text you want to bold.
Anyone interested in CSS?
CSS means cascading style sheets. It’s fascinating stuff a lot more interesting that rugby & all that sport stuff.
@Valerie and Ruby
I doubt you will get me over to the SNP. I mean it just is about everything opposite to my thinking. Not even Paula Rose and her s and m sessions would convince me … unless.
Here is my first and important requirement
Offensive behaviour at football act shows a law that was rushed through and is not fit for purpose. It is pretty obvious it was constructed to give islam a protecting hand in Scotland as priority and only BTW stop the old firm from having spirit at the match. This law needs to be amended and as quick as you like. Its pathetic to go to prison for chanting at the fitba. We don’t care and neither do they. No one is offended. Why should politics have got into sport.
@Davy
I doubt anyone here would ever expect to persuade you to vote SNP. What’s the point in that? I voted Labour for 35 years and that got me nowhere.
In the GE 2015 I voted SNP for the first time even though I joined the SSP. Have you any idea what the SSP is or what it stands for? Probably not but that to me shouldn’t be surprising.
I can sum it it up though in less than 10 words.
In a rich country no one should be poor!
@ Davy – do you have a religion dear? And if so tell me what it stands for without telling me which it is.
“stop the old firm from having spirit at the match…”
1) the old firm died with Rangers FC
2)” spirit at the match” means singing about genocide and being a racist fruitcake
3) fans of the Phoenix still sing the genocidal songs and act like racist fruitcakes at football matches
4) no sane person cares
@Paula Rose
Maybe God is around but he’s never been around me. My religion stands for some bloke lining his pockets, while pushing his views on you. Playing with your mind. Emotional blackmail by telling you to help by giving him money when the lousy hypocrite has more money than you can shake a stick at. God will provide everything but he needs your money to do it. My religion is not too pleased with other religions but will never really speak out about that. I obey my religion and dislike other religions. I shout at them but not anymore because the polis have the cameras out.
@Thepnr
SSP staturary sickness pay. At least you are not poor.
@Angrz mainyu
1 Nope. Still going strong since 1872
2 never been a racist. I’d sook the sweat from James Tavernier’s bandage, so dont call us racists..
3Been NO sectarian chanting at all this season.
4 Its a way of life.
Davy at 9.30
And about 70% of the electors think the law is a good idea and a start on something that should have been dealt with decades ago.
@Thepnr
I never vote but I’m leaning to UKIP. SSP is sick pay so at least you are not poor.
So Davy you have just described the mind-set of the sort of person that is targeted by Daesh and similar groups including Boko Haran.
@Paula Rose
I don’t understand. You mean they are after me. Well I fear no foe.
@ Davy nodear they won’t be after you personally – but I suspect you have contact with the “christian” version of the same warped mind-set.
@Paula Rose.
Naw. Youve got me wrong doll. I’m not sdl or bnp or nf. I would never chop up people or persecute gay folk. I just shout at the tarriers. They shout back at the H*** have a few beers then off home.
Why should politics have got into sport.
Are you serious? So long as sport is organised on national lines it is inherently political. That is the way it is set up and that seems to be the way most fans like it. If it were not so then something like tennis would not be characterised on national lines at all: since it is not overtly arranged that way but is rather about individuals. Yet it is still discussed in national terms.
Can someone settle something here? I’ve had someone claiming that the good Reverend is lying on this issue. He claims that the figures above are Departmental Spending (DS), not Total Managed Spending (TMS). He claims that TMS has remained constant at £35 Billion, and that the DS which is controlled by the Scottish Government is the one which has reduced, and by that it is the Scottish Government which has reduced the money to its own departments.
This is something I have no real knowledge of, so could someone explain the difference, and what the actual figures are?