A new beginning
Posted on
January 01, 2014 by
Chris Cairns
The world's most-read Scottish politics website
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About
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
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A tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
2014 out with the auld and in with the new, the year Scotland finally roars.
I’m liking that, a lot… Shared! as far as my computer can see……
Well done that man and all the best for 2014.
Tomorrow, songs
Will flow free again, and new voices
Be borne on the carrying stream.
(Hamish Henderson)
See that wee dog, well it will be a big dog one day, sometime around the middle of September.
Time running out…I like that. Lovely Chris.
I’m no big fan of T.S Eliot
But this sounds apt.
For last years words belong to last years language,and next years words await another voice,and to make an end is to make a beginning.
Little Gidding, by T.S Eliot.
@ Thepnr
That wee dog is a wee lion AKA Hamish who is a bit of a regular here on Wings. You’re right though, he will be big in September when his roar will reverberate around the world!
Don’t worry Hamish, we’ll look after you. Our time is now.
Great feeling being able to look forward to a new beginning, no more of the same auld same auld but a real brand new start in Sept 2014
Nice one Chris!
Some festive referendum fun for folks:
link to tinyurl.com
Wee Hamish will soon learn and by the Summer be well equipped to roar in with a YES result.
PS: It’s started today with four new coins announced: Two with Scottish designs and a WW1 £2.??
link to archive.is
I see BBC Scotlandshire is starting the year with the gloves removed:
link to bbc.scotlandshire.co.uk
Thought I noticed Saltire fireworks during Edinburgh Hogmanay Fireworks last night.
Happy New Year to all at WOS.
Happy New Year to everyone.
Worth a look.
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
Ian Hamilton QC says it as it is, ammo for DK’s to see.
@Boorach
“That wee dog is a wee lion”
Dope, sorry Hamish.
“PS: It’s started today with four new coins announced: Two with Scottish designs and a WW1 £2.??”
link to archive.is
Why is General Melchett on a coin? Is Stephen Fry OK?
Stephen Fry
Just went to Dave for some comic relief as on principle I don’t watch other country’s soccer on my TV when my own country’s soccer is not being covered.
Helpmaboab. Did I not get the last ever episode of Blackadder with the final scene of all the bumbling idiots going over the top to death in a hail of bullets – which pardoxically (as it’s supposed to be a comedy)is about the most moving thing I have ever watched on TV.
A new beginning: Hope Over Fear
Oh dearie me,we’re doomed….all doomed! :P:
It appears that the Daily Mail has it’s fingers on the pulse of the nation, which particular nation that is remains to be seen.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-514118/Berwick-Tweed–Englands-northernmost-town–wants-defect-Scotland.html
I want to say that they are behind the curve with this story but that would be praising them for intelligent investigative journalism. The Daily Mail is so far behind the curve that the curve has actually disappeared!
I’m going to make this my desktop background when I go back to work next week – love it!
This has been put up on the YES West Dunbartonshire Facebook site.
Now we really know what we are up against!
Anyone have any ideas about the legality of this sort of thing being carried out by companies cause it sounds like a definite threat to an individual’s human rights to choose who or what to vote for.
So bloody depressed was talking to a friend tonight who works for a company based in Edinburgh on Christmas eve the boss called all of the employees around 150 of them into the main hall of their business and gave them a speech of around 15 min telling them that they should not vote Yes in 2014 because if they did and Scotland voted to leave the Union that the company they all worked for would pack up its bags and move to England. This even though all of their customers were Scottish. If this is the kind of moral black male that is going to be exerted on ordinary Scotts during this campaign how can they make a decision based on the facts and on good information when their employers are threatening them with the loss of their lively hoods if they vote the wrong way (con)
If our socialist MPs have any moral fibre in them let alone backbone let them stand for Independence in their own country, for their own countrymen and on socialist principals and actions to enhance the lives of their electors. What is the most important object in their lives moral social fairness or REWARD. We don’t see to many poor politicians, and the time spent garnering committee privileges, free bees and expenses can’t leave much time for anything else, except defending and protecting their privileged lifestyle.
What benefits have the vast majority of their electorate received from Westminster in the last 40 years when the standards of Scottish politicians went into decline and haven’t bottomed out yet. The only thing that has improved over those years is their reward from Westminster for covering the Tory (capitalist) plunder, rape, and subjugation of their electors.
These are con artists and tricksters supporting and manipulating the ruination of their own country and people by the capitalist London establishment. They are all in this charade together. THE LONGEST RUNNING CHARADE IN HISTORY.
THEY ARE TERRIFIED THEY HAVE BEEN RUMBLED AND THE GAME IS UP. THEY WILL USE ANYTHING TO PROTECT THEIR PRIVILEGED POSITION. EVEN A BAYONET!
Arbroath 1320
Better Together – OR ELSE (a proud Scot I bet)
Arbroath 1320 is it not illegal to blackmail someone or whatever this company thinks its doing? and name and SHAME what company?
Happy 2014 Rev and everyone, from a lurker! Lying in bed raging about the predictable media shenanigans as this important year progresses, I tried to think up affordable ways to combat their propaganda as widely as possible. I use magnetic ads on the sides of my van for business, and thought of replacing these with new magnets, with messages such as ‘ Why is BBC Scotland lying to us about:’ and a list on a second plate, ‘Scottish NHS, Scottish education, pensions ..’ etc. The magnets cost around £20 or less each and can fit cars also, so if a lot of people used them, this could be a very effective means of rebutting the msm negative messages – obviously there are many more messages which could be used. also, it would be possible to get blank magnets and add any topical rebuttal. And I know that Wings will be the very place to produce plenty good catchy, effective messages. Just throwing this idea in the ring to see what folk think?
I think I would have laughed out loud at that clown of a boss, or at least given a slow handclap.
Arbroath 1320
Cheaper (in every sense of the word) than a Christmas party!
I’m with fairiefromtheearth though, name and shame the shameless b’stards.
@Arbroath can you get the name of the company and ideally the name of the manager who made the speech. Thanks.
@Arbroath 1320:
While discussing 2014 with my grandson who just misses his eligibility to vote age wise but has a good interest in the outcome. He mentioned that one of his school friends had told him that his friends father and mother were voting no as the father was frightened that he would lose his job because of the threat of his company departing Scotland if a yes vote comes in.
Seemingly this company is a huge multi-national property & infrastructure developer which owns one of the largest and busiest shopping centres in East Scotland. I found it hard to believe that a worldwide company would take this stand and I reckon the scare story was spread by an BT activist working there.
Furthermore my grandson also mentioned that his school head teacher and also his modern studies teacher openly stated to his class that they were voting no and gave the old chestnut excuse of the present timing not being right. I believe my grandson’s statements and although not totally surprised I think it is unacceptable for people in these trusted positions to be exerting their influence outside their responsibilities. Meanwhile my son-in-law is writing to these respective teachers requesting clarification.
Ignore the Manager. Voting intentions are private – for a reason – Gerrymandering. It is illegal.
The Manager could be cautioned.
@Arbroath
So, let’s assume every single employee in this firm votes NO but Scotland overwhelmingly votes YES, is this eejit of a boss still going to pack up when none of his employees voted YES? How on earth will he know? Is he going to ‘punish’ his loyal employees just because the rest of the country gave him the wrong answer? This numpty should swap notes with Help Me Rhona aka the Secretary of State for Portsmouth. Name and shame the plankton. Scots will NOT be threatened into voting NO.
@Andy-B
Last years word of the Year was Selfie…. which may be somewhat apt for Unionist MPs true thoughts this year too!
I would agree with others here that the manager in question should be held to account for a such a speech and the company named and shamed. That is the sort of outrageous political blackmail that one normally associates with tin pot dictatorships. FFS! can you imagine the fuss the Bitter ones would make if a Yes supporting boss did that? The BBC would have it as the main headline for a week.
“Thought I noticed Saltire fireworks during Edinburgh Hogmanay Fireworks last night. Happy New Year to all at WOS.”
Maybe one of our agents nicked the lithium? If so sneaking some of it into the U-politician’s tea pre FMQs could produce the first proper debate of the year (or ever?).
Abroath 1320 the story about the company threatening the workers stinks to high heaven. No naming of company, no links. Black ops in action to wind up the Nats. People will have to be more critical in their appraoch to online stories. Always check for source never post unless you are sure of the veracity of the story.. To be honest the story as it stands came from an alleged SSP account totally without links or anything to back up story. Something smells. So let’s be careful out there folks
@Sneddon + others,
The company concerned have been named on FB and Twitter and several folk have contacted them to politely enquire if there’s any truth to the story. If this story is a fabrication then the company have the right to know what has been said and respond accordingly. At the very least they’d be due an apology and the removal of the original FB post and follow up comments. If it is true, then I suspect it’s some arse of manager chucking their weight about, rather than official company policy, in which case they need to deal with the individual concerned.
OT
link to ft.com
All these experts…blah, blah,blah
link to ft.com
Please don’t post direct links to paywalled sites. Use archive.is. I’ve just had to reinstall Firefox from scratch and it’s lost all my logins, so I can’t do it myself for the FT at the moment.
Thepnr, observation , observation, observation, no your auld enough tae hey lernt yer three
OOO.Git ye glesses on Man lol.
Call me dave, Whit day ye git fur a Pair at a Tossing School, ( Hoolet ) , A WIN, the two
Scottish Coins came down Tails,
Quik stop that baba runnin,
Bob Duncan, noo thats no funny, fur us regular visitors at Endescopy, Whit nae pollops.
done twice times, ah ask them tae put channel 4 on tae they finnish, an there ll be a lot mair
in hideing, up their ain erseholes on the 19 th Sept 2014, Endescopy depts gonna be buisy,
LOL.
Three candidates so far today
a. Michael Kelly trolling
b. “Environment” in Scotsman trying to get us to agree that less business flights to Scotland is a “good thing”
c. Provocateur with unsubstantiated “vote no or you are fired”
Meh, I’m paranoid.
@Arbroath – it’s very concerning that teachers who are directly involved with our youngsters can espouse political opinion, which is overstepping their duty of care to these kids. This to me is far more concerning that what a numpty manager says or does not say to his workforce. Mike Russell should have the respective Education Directors in these areas grilled and the teachers involved pilloried and their guts for garters pronto and make it public. I’ve heard of this happening several times from different parts of the country, so more than one education authority is besmirched.
@Barontork.
I’d just be nodding my head saying “Yes boss, you’re right boss”Then when I get into that polling booth with nobody else there, then I’d give it to them.Teachers? Propagandists not worth bothering about. There will be more on the Yes side than on the No side. Given that all the well thought out information is coming from the Yes side I think the young ones should be able to see through the BS.
Young people are impressionable and easily swayed. It’s part of growing up, finding out who you are. Many seem to be have an idealistic outlook where ‘love’, ‘one world’ and ‘togetherness’ is very important to them. The very idea of Scottish independence is, to them, contrary to their idealistic outlook of ‘one world togetherness’. What many of them do not realise or understand though is that Scotland is seeking her independence precisely to be together with the rest of the world. As things stand Scotland is like Cinderella, the only one not allowed entry to the party. But these young people can help Scotland join the rest of the world and I believe come 12 midnight on 18th Septembver, they will do just that–without the pumpkin.
Your wish is my …
link to archive.is
http://archive.is
Thanks everyone who has replied to my post about YES West Dunbartonshire.
I believe the company involved was called Sound Control in the Grassmarket in Edinburgh. Apparently they changed their name to Red Dog Music in 2010.
Just like everyone else who replied to my post all I can say is that I am utterly disgusted!
One thing I am concerned about above everything else is how we approach this matter. The one we should not do is do anything that will identify the whistleblower. I know that we all congratulate whistleblowers but that doesn’t stop them from losing their job or being hounded within the company so anything we do collectively or individually must ensure that nothing can lead back to the whistleblower.
Personally I want to shout this disgusting action from the roof tops but as I say I’m very conscious of the after effects on the whistleblower. I’m just wondering if there is some sort of way we can get this into Holyrood.
I’ll be contacting my M.S.P. about this but unfortunately neither her or I live in the same area as the poor individual who’s had their job threatened. The best I can hope for on this front is that my M.S.P. will pass the details on to the relevant minister. Perhaps we should all do this, raise merry hell with all our M.S.P.’s about this disgusting underhand method of getting people to vote NO by threatening their jobs.
As I sit here thinking about it I think the best way to get this into Holyrood would be for anyone in the West Dunbartonshire are to contact their M.S.P. about this. I think we need this sort of behaviour recorded in the the Holyrood Hansard. If we can get our M.,S.P.’s to ask questions at F.M.Q.’s we might have a chance of “advertising” this behaviour in a way that will reach the population. Let’s face writing to the media will be a complete waste of time.
link to yelp.co.uk
Here is Red Dogs denial about telling staff how to vote in Indy referendum posted 3 hours ago. link to twitter.com, We’ve got to stop falling for baseless rumours it makes us look like fools.
I have just re-visited the YES West Dunbartonshire Facebook page and fouind this:
Ok last night i put up a post about a conversation that i had with someone who’s boss had told their employees to vote no in the forthcoming referendum. However i made a mistake about the name of the company which no longer exists and it has caused distress to the company that now occupies their old premises in Edinburgh. I unreservedly apologise for this mistake and state here and now that Red Dog Music has and had nothing to do with what was in my post. And that the company which i named Sound control was also wrongly named once again i unreservedly apologise and hope that this will put an end to any potential problems that i may have caused to anyone. Con
I do agree with you Sneddon about falling for baseless rumours. I am ashamed that I fell for this last night and have ended up working a lot of people into a lather about something that now appears not to have taken place and for this I am extremely sorry.
As the article came from the YES West Dunbartonshire Facebook site I fell into the trap of assuming they had checked all the relevant information and it was correct. I know that there are rogue sites out there and I am one of those folks who always falls into the trap but in this instance I thought everything was above board, apparently not so.
Again all I can do is humbly apologise for creating a mountain out of a non exisatent mole hill!
http://www.facebook.com/YesWestDunbartonshire?fref=ts
The West Dunbartonshire thing is odd. There isn’t much of anything of great size in the Grassmarket and only a couple of the big hotels would have those sort of staff numbers. However, you do not move hotels to another country (kind of defeats their purpose a tad) so that doesn’t seem desperately likely.
The kind of business that might take that sort of tack would be a financial one, fund investors, insurance or something similar. Then again, in an age of smart phones would any manager be so dumb as to make such a speech?
@ Arbroath
This is a weird one as I have heard similar stories in the past – but it’s always someone who knows someone who has a friend who this happened to.
If anyone hears of any more stories like this its worth following up to get the specifics. If this is happening then we want to know about it.
@ Ivan McKee
I agree that we need to know if this sort of thing is happening and get the information out there. However, my experience with this case has left me a wee bit shell shocked at the moment. The biggest problem I have seen so far is that it is always someone knows someone who knows someone who has had this or that said to them about Scottish independence. I can’t recall ever reading anything by anyone who has actually had any experience first hand.
What we need is for people who have experience first hand of threats to their jobs in the case of a YES win or teachers “influencing” kids in the classroom etc to come out and say exactly what happened. We need to see/read/hear their experiences first hand not second or third hand. Second or third hand information has a tendency to change as it is repeated just like the old Chinese Whispers trick.
Note to self:
“Always check details of allegations before relaying details/addresses to anyone. This will save a lot of red face apologies.” :P:
Wings will be put in a vulnerable position, if people keep on posting insubstantial rumours. Please check out the facts extremely carefully or restrain. : – }