A whole new world
Posted on
January 01, 2016 by
Chris Cairns
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01 01 16 11:47
A whole new world | Speymouth
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Wings Over ScotlandA tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
Ha! We’ll not be filled again, hopefully. The times they are a changing.
Bloody predictive text. Fooled! We’ll not be fooled again!
Nail head hit once again.
Happy new year, Bliadhna mhath ur.
Aye y’ll be filled full of foolishness.
Happy New Year to all!
We now have a bigger dog!!!!!
Should be “Transparent” instead of “Impartial”
as we can see right through them..
@blackhack
We may but there is a lot of folk who can’t. We need them to read Wings or look at Cairnstoons.
Have another happy year of cartooning, Chris, and thanks for all you’ve done.
Ha,ha… though rat or gimp might have been better,surely.
Awful shysters. First day of great British 2016, BBC vote SLab Scotland radio spend morning, SNP bad, YES bad, UKOK.
Does anyone else get the feeling of a wind of change?
I’m starting to feel there will be a change in the media this year from which there will be no turning back, or indeed looking back, we ARE winning!
Still no reports in the MSM of the Thatcher revelations. Not a peep. Another cover up, courtesy of Downing Street.
The Tories still at it. 75% take of the Oil sector, banned wind turbines, no CCS for coal and wasting £Billions on nuclear and exporting the waste. Scotland paying higher tarriffs. More fuel and energy has to be imported putting up the balance of payment deficit and the debt.
Trident/illegal wars, not raising enough in taxes and borrowing more in the rest of the UK. Cutting the NHS and putting up the debt. Scotland still paying more taxes because of the rest of the UK deficit.
Before I put my specs on, I thought that was a poop bag he was carrying!!! The BUM have certainly lobbed plenty of that sort of content around and no doubt there’s plenty more being produced to keep up a constant supply. They still havn’t learned, though, their message is just treated like a bad smell by more and more folks, meanwhile we are like a breath of fresh air!
@jdman
Try Settlers. Rennies are ineffective. Otherwise you’ll just have to go outside for a breath of fresh air like everybody else.
I hope your year gets better
Anybody notice in Camerons new year message his description of IS terrorists is exactly the same as his description of the SNP (Extremists)(Grievance)(Seething)(Hatred)I’ve heard him on many occasions describe the SNP thus
Does this mean he’s going to “Tackle” us
I think in Cameron speak that means bomb
I note that the EBC have been attempting to resolve the origins and meaning of the word ‘Hogmanay’. It actually derives from an ancient North-East custom, whereby the young ladies of the parish were entreated to ‘hug a manny’ on New Year’s Eve, in support of which I have dutifully offered my person as the willing recipient on many occasions.
I am unable to explain why this no longer occurs.
My very best wishes for a happy, exciting and rewarding 2016 to Rev Stu, Chris and all Wings readers and posters. May May be everything we wish for.
I hope to meet many of you at ‘Wings ower Aiberdeen’ on January 30th. Details in Off-Topic.
Is it my imagination or is the blue fading from John Bull’s waistcoat?
Nothing Scotland in the UKOK meeja today as usual, but in case you forget, an English dude tells you you’re British, from space.
https://archive.is/g46Do
Some rags even photoshopped UKOK spaceman’s union jack with a Saltire today. In space, everyone knows you’re British, with a Scotland flag. Geddit.
Is that James Kelly’s finger poking out the derriere to raise a point of order ??
‘Slàinte mhòr agus Bliadhna Mhath Ùr’ :
All the best for 2016 to all contributors, readers & supporters of ‘the media they don’t like to talk about’ (AKA WoS).
All the best Rev Stu
Gordoz
As we all know, bigger isn’t always better 😀
Great New Year toon Chris Bliadnha Mhath Ur sibh fhein agus do teaghladh!
Just been reliably informed that two messages of UKOKness were sent to the Scotland region of UK from space last night.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl6l4–AubE
Not sure if UKOK spaceman also did same for Wales and Northern Ireland, or was it just his Scotland region that got the privilege? Very UKOK weird/normal
@ken500
It’s just the predictable money grab and raid during our seventh age of empire – decline and collapse – the smart ones know it and are bailing money out. It could be argued losing countries from India to NZ was decline and our little referendum (on England’s own fair ground no less) triggered the collapse.
Well…….someone had to do it!
Happy New Year Wingers
Looks pretty mean,neutering would help,at least making reproduction impossible…..as for the dog…;-)
And the flag is upside down. Distress?
Heedtracker
We should refer to Time Peake as ‘England’s man in space’ because there is no science, none, its all PR and summersaults. Outdo the spin at source, all that ‘isn’t it great to be British, we have a man in space’ crap.
And isn’t it funny why a vast majority of these astronauts seem to ex-military guys staring retirement at 40 in the face.
Aye, Dr. Jim.
I noticed that as well.
And I really think they would think seriously of it.
@Capella
I’m sure that was intentional by Chris, but if not serendipity 🙂
http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/geography/unionjack7.html
Generally speaking, the UK’s main newspapers are corrupt, without conscience.
The ‘Spectator’ publishes graphs showing life for the masses in England is wonderful, published on the day huge swathes of England are underwater! How perceptive.
ahundredthidiot says:
1 January, 2016 at 11:57 am
Heedtracker
We should refer to Time Peake as ‘England’s man in space’ because there is no science, none, its all PR and summersaults
It does seem likely that the whole BBC UKOK media in Scotland, are going to UKOK laser beam future Sir Tim at Scotland from space, rancid The Graun style, for the whole of 2016, so we’d better get UKOK used to it and his happy face.
Generally, with space science, it’s a great way to spend US tax dollars. Science goes into space, the money gets invested on Earth. Here in teamGB, we like to blow our taxes on war, Trident, very rich City spivs, Lords, London tax havens for UK.gov ministers, world super rich elite, BBC etc.
The penny may have dropped (see other thread) but not for some.
Coming soon, great moments from our history: Whot? WW1 FGS!
https://archive.is/Eq6hx
Call Kaye:
A wee segment on this terrible programme this morning was about a family divided on the Referendum, some Yes some NO
The Mum was Yes her two sons were NO but then the conversation took a slightly surprising turn as the Mum explained how one of her sons returned from Manchester England where he lived and worked to vote NO
Well that wasn’t supposed to be allowed was it, so how were these emigrants allowed to do this and how many of them were at it and how do you get a polling card for an address you don’t live at when you’re registered elsewhere in another country
The next Referendum must find a way to employ new and tight regulations to stop unentitled persons usurping and perpetrating further frauds on Scotlands voting system
The postal voting scam should be the last time stuff like this this ever happens
Next time we’ll have more people following the Collection Vans also I’m assured by the guys who did this sort of thing (Don’t ask)
‘Media’ used to mean specifically radio and television, that is, terrestrial and satellite. Now it includes newspapers, magazines and periodicals. But not internet social sites. Very confusing.
@Dr Jim,
Good point. I had altercations with a couple of Unionists on the internet who both lived and worked down South. They were going to vote No, and could do so because they had never been officially taken off the register.
Possibly because the householder (their parents)had never removed their names for whatever reason. Nonetheless it gave them the opportunity to vote in the referendum.
Happy New Year to Rev and the Wingers.
Another great toon from oor Chris. On the money again showing how the SNPBad muzzle has been removed to let the establishment backed MSM get stuck in for a full 4 months until the Holyrood elections.
Despite the positive mention on the John Beattie show yesterday, the BBC in Scotland will repeat every smear and innuendo to damage the SNP. The Beeb and MSM knows the tide is flowing against them and it hurts, it really does.
You always hit the latest topic bang square on the head Chris-more power to your pencil!!!
And a Guid New Year to yersel and all Wingers and lurkers,and even all you Unionists havin a wee peek-vote YES next time-you know it makes sense.
Re: ‘In 2016. Let’s have no more crude attempts to control our fair and impartial media’-
Forever grateful that Rev.Stu,Chris and all the behind the scenes helpers and staff who make up Wings ARE becoming the New media -where would we be without you.
Lang may yer lum reek and keep up the good work.
All the very best for 2016.
Greatly appreciated.
Interesting points about people voting in the referendum who really should not have had the vote. It brings up the question re. E.U. in/out referendum.
Will Westminster allow non UK nationals (but who are E.U. residents of the UK) to vote?
If not, does that set a precedent for the next Scottish referendum?
@ call me dave, 12.21
So, no coins for Burns, Robert the Bruce or Macintosh then? Or am I just another whinging Winger?
What do John Bull and a Bulldog produce more or less regularly?
A very happy New Year to Chris Cairns and the other slacker Greg “Movie”, just kiddin Greg 😉
A wonderful New Year to Rev Stu and the whole team of WOS who look for the truth and print the facts.
To all Wingers from near and far whose steadfastness makes Wings the Schiltron for Scotlands future.
To readers and friends of WOS.
To Unionists, Federalists, Unsures and Don’t Knows who are secretly prepared to look beyond their tribal territories.
BUT NOT to those “Proud Scot Buts” who are prepared to sell their Allegiance to Westminster for their pieces of Silver, baubles and titles. May WOS continue to haunt you in 2016.
Dr Jim 12.31pm.
Kay-e no doubt horrified at the Beattie programme yesterday worked hard to restore ‘balance’ BBC style. Ten minutes was enough for me.
As for the Referendum, the SNP were far too complacent re. the regulations, the whole thing leaked like a sieve. I wrote to them a year before the Ref. and asked how they would guard against fraud. The answer I got was that normal council election rules would apply, which gave me no confidence at all about the process.
Next time, the system used will have to be, as you say, much tighter.
Whits he gonae dey , whits he gonae dey hit us wie yon hawnbag.
Great start tae 2016 cartoons Chris & the many more to come Cheers.
Ronnie says:
I hope to meet many of you at ‘Wings ower Aiberdeen’ on January 30th. Details in Off-Topic.
As a fellow aberdonian, I would love to meet up with others on the 30th, but can’t find “off topic” for details, help!
@frogesque
Naw nothing happened in Scotland or Ireland or Wales just the wars
“It’s the war the whole bloody war …we’ve just got to do these things and say our prayers at the end”
No prizes for identifying that by the way!
From c.1124 until 1709 the coinage of Scotland was unique, and minted locally. A wide variety of coins, such as the plack, bodle, bawbee, dollar and ryal were produced over that time.
The mint in Alexander III time was in Kinghorn.
Here’s a list
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mints_of_Scotland
maureen: http://wingsoverscotland.com/off-topic/
@maureen
It’s on this page.
Find ‘Zany Comedy Relief’ header and go down the list to ‘off topic’ click and your in.
I’ll be about the 4th one to answer by this time… 🙂
Oor dug is ginger and bites the erse of project fear. 🙂
@ Bill Hume The rules as to who could vote in the referendum was just one of the mistakes the SNP made. A precedent had already been made with the AV referendum in which only those eligible to vote in a UK GE were allowed to vote.
Another rule should have been a residential rule. Only those who had lived in Scotland for 5/10 years should have been allowed a vote.
@ John H. Two different registration registers One public One Private open to fraud . 240 thousand extra ballot papers Massive fraud.
All Voter registrations should be checked against Council tax registrations.
All manner of things have a post code ie telephone boxes/postboxes/electricity substations, thats how the voting was rigged in Nth Ireland,using these postcodes for voting.
Thanks K1 & Call me dave, found it!
@Ken500 says: 1 January, 2016 at 11:17 am:
” … not raising enough in taxes and borrowing more in the rest of the UK.”
You are not wrong, Ken500, but allow me to save you some typing time in future posts. There are technical terms for the above and for its opposite occurrence.
UK Governments, as a whole, have long run a Fiscal Deficit.
The reasons why are not hard to understand. Scotland has long been a net exporter of Food, fuel and power. While England has long been a net importer of all three and, with the rest of their economies being roughly on a par, it is the English, (as by far the largest per capita part of the UK), the main cause of the UK National Debt increases.
Our own Mr Swinney always balances Scotland’s books and puts a little bit by for emergencies so Scotland has always been in fiscal balance or even in Fiscal Surplus.
In effect we Scots have been subsidising England for a very long time indeed.
Compare and contrast: yesterday’s John Beattie show with the hope of an institutional challenge to the BBC and STV, and their abysmal programming for Scotland’s heritage holiday: Hogmanay.
The pre-Hogmanay ‘comedy’ with ‘comedians’ with little or no grasp of the tradition or meaning, trashing it in the usual BBC cringe manner; a repeat of an old ‘Still Game’, a reasonably funny but predictable ‘Only an Excuse’ and the old Burd with the Ally and Phil show…dull, dull, dull, punctuated with pointless shots of half hearted shuffling by ‘revellers’ on the frozen streets of Edinburgh. With little or no coverage of the main acts like Biffy Clyro.
And as for STV….Elaine C. with her second rate retread of Dorothy Paul’s schtick about the ‘auld days’ through a ‘wimmin’s’ perspective. Having Nicola on doesn’y wash either.
Surely we deserve something better? Or have both of these organisations been so Anglicised and become so entrenched in doing down Scotland that they can’t even bring themselves to acknowledge this unique time…. a time of sentimentality yes, but also of times past remembered and of hope for the future which chimes so strong in the Scottish breast.
With a diaspora as large as Scotland has ,recognition of how ‘Auld Lang Syne’ symbolises that reflection and celebration of the past and of friends and family present and abroad is seared in our DNA.The lines following summon up for me the sense of that:
We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
sin’ auld lang syne.
We Scots are often parodied because of this sentimentality as being maudlin, drunken men and women staring at the thistle. But that is the view of the Imperialist. The Brit/Nat that sees only superficiality and commercial opportunities…not a deep abiding love of country that is international in its appeal.
@Ronnie says: 1 January, 2016 at 11:34 am:
“I am unable to explain why this no longer occurs.”
Ach! Ronnie Laddie, mibbies ye maun need chinge yer eftershave or mibbies yer de-oderant.
DARFC.
The BBC is running three Royal Institution Christmas Lectures about space Tim “nice guy” Peake being the central issue.
It sums up all that is wrong about the Beeb, it approaches it from a dub down prospective and filters it through a Brit filter.
Tim “nice” is a British astronaut and a triumph British Britishness.
Lets explore this, yes he is British, he was trained by ESA and is actually an ESA sponsored astronaut. He is not a product of any British space effort nor is is suit, jacket or training in anyway sourced from Britain. He is ESA and Russian trained. He was sent by a Russian Rocket to the space station having completed training as a Cosmonaut in Space city (russia). He docked with a space station that has no British modules, only Japanese, American, European, Russian and Canadian.
Yet we have three Ra Ra Britain, fluff programs that have at best no connection with reality and at worst are blatant self deception and propaganda. They have to be dumbed down lest the truth becomes apparent.
We have no launchers, no rockets, no pads, no infrastructure, no life support, no ability to train, no space program ,nor any wish to have one.
But what we do have, where Britain really punches above it’s weight is Propaganda.
It is truly sad as Britain has had the ability to develop HOTEL and latterly the Saber engine that would have actually given us a lead in space.
But instead we get Britoganda our one true ability in this changing world.
“Lochside says:” 3.37 pm
You’re kiddin me oan ye musta watched “Hootenannie” wi Jools Holland. BBC2 Scotland.
Oh if ye did tell me aboot it a watched BBC Alba now there was a Ceilidh!!
@lochside – as nodrog says Alba ceilidh was good if you like that kind o’thing (which I do).
Worth catching it on the i-player whilst still in a festive mood.
@Bob Mack says: 1 January, 2016 at 12:49 pm:
” … Nonetheless it gave them the opportunity to vote in the referendum.”
I believe it is only legally to vote in the referendum if they were not also registered to vote in local elections where they actually did live.
Happy New Year Chris and thanks for all the cartoons.
As for the new coins, this is just to smash home that it’s Englands £ and we can’t have it
Lochside: And as for STV….Elaine C. with her second rate retread of Dorothy Paul’s schtick about the ‘auld days’ through a ‘wimmin’s’ perspective. Having Nicola on doesn’y wash either. Surely we deserve something better?
We certainly do. And patronising retro doesn’t do it.
It is not as if we don’t have the talent. We must raise standards, quality, erudition, as well as the Saltire.
ronnie anderson 3.02pm.
Thanks ronnie. I didn’t know that had happened in N.I. The system has to be absolutely watertight next time. First, we have to get a majority in May though.
New Years Resolutions:
1.Destroy Slab at Holyrood elections.
2.Disallow Trident renewal.
3.Abolish HOL.
4.Abolish English Parliament(Westminster).Undemocratic.
5.Have FPTP voting system legally challenged as undemocratic and unfit for purpose.
6. Legally challenge the situation where David Mundell can overule Scotlands elected officials.
7. Legal Challenge to Unionists stealing and defrauding Scotlands Barnett Funds
Was out for a couple of drinks but back in time to watch It’s only an excuse and then flipped over for the BBC Alba ceilidh. Caught the fireworks for 5 minutes and then back to the ceilidh.
All in, a pleasant evening.
@frogesque says: 1 January, 2016 at 2:10 pm:
“So, no coins for Burns, Robert the Bruce or Macintosh then?
Strange they didn’t commemorate some of the great victories that involved Edward II, King of England, deep within his own Kingdom of England. For example the Battle of Old Bylands : –
——————————————————————————————
Happy New Year Stuart …and also happy New Year to all the Wingers!
An interesting cartoon. Yep! I expect the volume from our beloved media will be getting turned up over the next 5 months.
It makes you wonder. Say that they do turn up the volume, but the SNP still make a clean sweep of Holyrood, then I wonder what they will do next? I have no doubts there will be tears of rage and complete frustration at wondering what they have to do to kill the nationalist machine. They must surely be running out of ideas. I suspect the only thing they have left in the armoury is to keep saying ‘No’, and just play the long game in a final hope, that somehow …just somehow …we all get bored and just sod off!
At what point, do the Unionists finally realise, just like with all other parts of the old Empire, that the battle is lost? It never really ended well for them when it came to finally admitting defeat. Hong Kong was probably the best, and even then, they snuck out of the Harbour in the huff, rather than go and at least, sit and have dinner with the Chinese at the state banquet that was held on the Peninsula.
Ah well …Happy New Year everyone! Roll on May!!!
I could suggest another change which could be made to the system for ref2.All the people like myself who live abroad who were led to believe that our country was too small and too poor to make it on its own now should be given the opportunity to vote as this has been a blatent lie.Had i had the knowledge i have now 7 years ago i would still be living in Scotland.The vast mojority of MP’s,Prime Ministers in WM have stolen the futures of many générations of young Scots and probably they would still have been living in Scotland had the truth been known.
Yep conspiracy theorist time again! As per previous posts nothing is gonna convince me we lost that vote fair and square. I think there was widespread abuse of the resident rules plus postal fraud, what about all those thousand upon thousand of orange order/better together marchers from Northern Ireland that were in the capital on the weekend before the vote. I have a flat in the Royal mile and it took three HOURS to pass my windows. Do you honestly think none of them broke the rules? Less than a 200,000 swing. You are naive in the extreme if you think major dodgy business was not occurring. Britannia waives the rules.
happy new year
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fuw6lYVAlaI
Hi Robert Peffers
Strange they didn’t commemorate some of the great victories that involved Edward II, King of England, deep within his own Kingdom of England
LOL …or that of Henry VI and others such as the great men who lost an entire Kingdom such as William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk or Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, when they ‘lost’ English France. After all …they are members of the Establishment, and they did influence English history!
And let’s not get started on Richard III LOL
I have to say I grimaced at the BBC effort last night and kicked myself that I missed the full ceilidh on BBC Alba.
Thankfully I am this minute watching the repeat of the ceilidh from Blair Atholl – absolutely superb.
Just a thought, maybe Jackie Bird has something to do with my displeasure.
Well I avoided the Brit Nat meedjah totally today. I first footed one of the two survivors of St Valery left in my home town. I sang poorly Freedom Come All Yee for him. He appreciated it. Then he launched into a tirade about the local press trying to present some part time Army Major as a Scot who would lead the UKOK charge on the Rio Olympics.
He might be old but he still has some wits. He voted Yes and the No vote almost broke his heart as much as what happened at St Valery. He will probably not live to see the next vote and that breaks my heart!
If you have followed my various longs posts back on the Slightly Tubby Quiz thread relating to the former Secratary of State for Scotland, George Younger letter released in the National Archive document release on the 30th December- you will know that:
1. George Younger explicitly confirmed that “invisible reductions” in the 80’s from the Scottish block grant (with an aggregated effect of £342million of cuts by 1988-89
2. George Younger explicitly confimed that an estimated £100million of Barnett consequentials which should have been added to the Scottish block grant due to overspending by English local authorities were refused each year in 1986-87, 1987-88 and 1988-89.
I won’t go over all the rest of it- I kind of went a bit crazy for a while. Anyway- for anyone interested, that is my first FOI request for a wee bit more information on these 2 matters from the Scotland Office.
The fact that the Younger letter was released to the public suggests that it is not considered sensitive and it is certainly in the public interest to know what has been stolen from us by certainly one but perhaps subsequent Secretary of States for Scotland.
I will let you know once I get a response…
Well done, Tam Jardine, many thanks for your efforts.
That dug might look fierce but it is short, bandy and obese.
It is not a threat unless it farts in your direction, sounds very much like our journalists in Scotland.
Provided we all stick together the media farts will have zero impact. I predict a bitter end, the Yoons will be the bitter ones.
Thanks Chris, have a good one.
Tam Jardine
Thanks for the summary & for doing an FOI request. I’ve spent this afternoon ploughing through the first file & have to say that anyone reading it can only agree that Scotland has been fleeced for many years. The contempt for Scots in those papers is palpable. Well done to you 🙂
I’ll check the 2nd .pdf tomorrow-time permitting & then I intend going back to previous Prime Ministerial releases to see what else has been covered up. I may be gone some time 🙁
Thank you Chris Cairns for another superb and perceptive cartoon.
Aye, the dug’s muzzle’s aff an’ it has been for a while now. So far the bark is worse than the bite, there’s less and less folk listnin’ to its yelpin’ 🙂
Happy New Year to every single Winger, every single fellow lurker (thumbs up emoji).
Brilliant work Tam Jardine. Doffs cap.
Enjoyed looking at the new English coins celebrating British history in England
Or was it British coins celebrating English history in Britain
It’s so confusing
“Having Nicola on doesn’y wash either”.
Strange comment.
Why? I thought that was very comforting indeed and a real bonus.
I’m sure it did us a lot of good.
Many thanks Tam – well done.
@Tam
I posted the link and archive name (PREM 19/1922) on Bella, saying a poster on Wings had unearthed this, didn’t mention you by name as that’s yours to decide to spread or not! Along with that snippet where they say they can’t do more because people would find out they;ve already been stealing from Scotland (to the tune of hundreds of millions).
I’m going to do similar in a few places, probably after Monday when things get back to normal, maybe even venturing into the Guardian for some appropriate article there.
But what occurs to me is that this is the very thing IPPR might want to get their teeth into. I was impressed by them during the Referendum, as their Newcastle base IPPR North had some good papers covering Scotland occasionally. Since August this year there’s an IPPR Scotland based in Edinburgh, a couple of papers that were impressive since then. As far as I can tell they’re left-wing as in progressive, but not tied to Labours apron-strings.
IPPR is Institute for Public Policy Research, but they’re interested in “Regions”, so the fact that not just Scotland, but the North-East (England), Manchester, the South-West and Wales were screwed over according to those pdfs might be of interest to them. I might contact them, or someone else can.
http://www.ippr.org/ and http://www.ippr.org/scotland
thomaspotter2014,
Destroy the BBC first, it is Scotland’s enemy number one.
“New Years Resolutions:
1.Destroy Slab at Holyrood elections.
2.Disallow Trident renewal.
3.Abolish HOL.
4.Abolish English Parliament(Westminster).Undemocratic.
5.Have FPTP voting system legally challenged as undemocratic and unfit for purpose.
6. Legally challenge the situation where David Mundell can overule Scotlands elected officials.
7. Legal Challenge to Unionists stealing and defrauding Scotlands Barnett Funds”
@donnywho
Regarding this nonsensical belief that Tim Peake is the first “official British astronaut”, I completely agree with you.
In fact, I had a debate with some unionists on the subject (along with a debate on the BBC’s lies and misinformation) on another site that is mainly dedicated to the crimes committed by those involved in the game shooting industry.
These people are so blinded by their devotion to the BBC, that they will argue that the BBC is all great, fair and impartial, then all you have to do is place a few facts in front of them, and you have them defeated.
Here if anyone wants a read;
https://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/2015/12/16/golden-eagles-the-sga-and-porky-pies/
Great cartoon again from Chris.
“Cry Tory and let loose the dogs of media war”
Lollysmum
Having scanned through both PDF’s my conclusion is that the Younger letter is the most significant.
The picture it paints of Scotland is bleak:
-peak oil and gas tax revenues flowing to the Treasury
-an exasperated SoS Scotland who has cut his department’s (and thus Scottish public sector spending), in his view more zealously than almost any other minister (and in secret)
-he has achieved a planned significant decrease in growth at a time when the entire UK spending was increasing by 4000 times that of Scotland as a result of these cuts
You kind of understand our position in the pecking order. This was the guy who ran Scotland. This was him ‘fighting our corner’.
It holes the Better Together schtick below the water-line in my view. Because if, as is now clear, Scotland’s budget was being secretly reduced year after year after year through ‘invisible reductions’ and Barnett consequentials- the whole cornerstone of the ‘subsidy junkie’ narrative – being refused year after year by the SoS during the strongest 2 years of our economic contribution to the UK I don’t want to hang about to see what Westminster does to us in the bad times.
I think I would rather have Willie Rennie in charge of Scotland than the government of our next door neighbours.
Thepnr
Happy New Year to you mate… we will get there in the end.
In a sense it brings the office of the SoS Scotland into disrepute. Lets see if we can put a little meat on the bones.
Wishing all my friend’s on W O S a very Happy New Year.
Lang may yer lum reek.
yesindyref2
Nothing would make me happier if some prominent journalist or commentator was to pick this up and run with it, or others on our side take this on- so spread as far as you like. The IPPR sounds like a good idea.
Its not about me- Mungo just spoke on wheel of life. I just use my own name on Wings because I don’t want to hide. I have just emailed Mr Mundell’s office asking him for details of this grand larceny and I had to give him my address so I am kind of exposed anyway.
Ridiculous thing is: we have all these well paid, intelligent, professional journalists in Scotland but not one of them will investigate it because it doesn’t fit their political agenda.
Sorry to be thick. It says “SNP Bad” on that thing in his hand, but what is that thing?
yesindyref2 says:
” but what is that thing?”
A muzzle.
Hello Hood
Happy New Year to you, been missing for a while, glad to see you back.
yesindyref2
It’s a dog muzzle
Thanks Thepnr,
Always here, just don’t post much, prefer reading 🙂
Happy New Year to you as well as all Wingers.
Outstanding work Tam.
Will weave it into letters to the local newspapers.
@Hood, @Lollysmum
Duh! I blame it on the weather, errr, or something.
@Tam
Yes, it’s all in the cause. The problem for us is this as it says: “…would be likely to intensify public and expert scrutiny of the non-formula reductions”.
It’s the expert scrutiny is the problem, it would have to be fully compared with published accounts for the whole period, and perhaps even a case of “follow the money” to see how valid they were, and exactly how the money was stolen / misappropriated / not taken as consequentials. It would be a tricky and time-consuming project I think. Though the letters themselves are dynamite enough.
It’s also possible it’s not an SNP / SG type of thing as they would be accused of “blaming Westminster”, even though rightly.
Hood says:
1 January, 2016 at 8:10 pm
yesindyref2 says:
” but what is that thing?”
A muzzle.
I need to get glasses, I thought it was a grenade
lol!
@maureen
I thought it was a grenade too and I’ve got glasses LOL.
yesindyref2
The thing is that George Younger, in his desperation to prove that Scotland had already been subject to far more than her fair share of cuts, provides details of the invisible cuts conceded to the treasury for 3 years, he gives an accumulated figure for those cuts over a period of time and even does us the service of telling us that the entire cuts regime imposed on the block grant was virtually 10 times larger than the relative population change cited by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury was using to justify further cuts.
Though I will admit that a comparison with published figures would be extremely useful. Not sure where to start- the 1985 PES maybe if such a document exists.
gerry parker
Thanks Gerry- spread it far and wide.
@ jdman says at 11:17 am ”Does anyone else get the feeling of a wind of change? I’m starting to feel there will be a change in the media this year from which there will be no turning back, or indeed looking back, we ARE winning!”
I do jdman. I feel that ‘wind of change’ too. Westminster thought that we’d hop back into our boxes post-Referendum and when that didn’t happen the corrupt unionist media reckoned that they could undermine SNP credibility and Independence support. They haven’t but rather diminished their own position.
As already pointed out to them it’s time to get ‘smart’ (or go down the stank). High time they cut out the biased reporting because there are too many people out there, such as on here, well versed in propaganda techniques and on the ‘political ball’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques
Ready and waiting to expose their out and out lies, omissions and exaggerations at every turn, day in day out ….. forevermore ….. as we are not going to go away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVwvRpiLjBM
@Tam
Problem is that you’ve got work tomorrow, I’ll be working later today or tomorrow, and we have jobs / businesses to tend to likely neglected through the Referendum and even after, so we’ve limited time. As have others.
I’m wondering if there’s scope for a full-time qualified economist / financials researcher or small team, to be employed, perhaps jointly by the pro-indy sites, through crowd-funding? Or do any of these thinktanks take commissions?
@Petra / @jdman
Barely possible the Herald is starting to mend its ways, needs keeping an eye on.
OT – well, what isn’t, though perhaps not. From the Herald:
“ LABOUR, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats are piling pressure on George Osborne to rethink his plan to cut almost £10 million in public funds given to opposition parties to help them run their Westminster offices.
The Chancellor announced the 19 per cent cut in Short Money in documents released following his Autumn Statement; it was not in the Commons speech itself.
It means over the five-year parliament, Labour could lose more than £6 million, the SNP around £1m and the Lib Dems some £500,000. Short Money is calculated on the number of seats and votes won. ”
The Herald, like just about all the press and Reuters itself, ran most of 2015 with an anti-SNP agenda, but also an anti-Corbyn one. Well, the SNP are here to stay, and so by the looks of it is Corbyn – if he can get a full handle on being the Labour Leader, rather than a rebel back-bencher. 2016 looks to be very interesting.
Thepnr says:
1 January, 2016 at 8:47 pm
@maureen
I thought it was a grenade too and I’ve got glasses LOL.
Great minds eh, lol!
@maureen / Thepnr
Yes I thought it was a grenade (which didn’t make too much sense) until I clicked the cartoon full screen.
yesindyref2 says:
1 January, 2016 at 9:20 pm
@maureen / Thepnr
Yes I thought it was a grenade (which didn’t make too much sense) until I clicked the cartoon full screen.
Didn’t even occur to me to do that!
@maureen
There used to be a poster who explained the cartoon within the first dozen postings or so, and I have to admit I found that quite useful 🙂 Doesn’t seem to happen these days, no idea who it was – Major Bloodnok perhaps?
Major Bloodnok is before my time. Had to google the name to be able to reference it!
Tam,
I was thinking last night about people to make aware of these papers. Just a short outline and links for the papers.
Pete Wishart is chair of the Westminster Scottish Affairs Committee.
The Cuthberts, they have a contact link on their website of papers http://www.cuthbert1.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/.
Business for Scotland have access to professional number crunchers.
The National.
Our own MPs and MSPs.
I would do it but you are the one who has done all the work so it would be better from you. Just cut ‘n’ paste some of your comments outlining the contents.
@ Tam Jardine Sorry Tam ,when I said to you to keep digging, I thought it was a couple of letters . I,ve shared it on Scot 2 scot .
Aye the ‘Short money’ that was not mentioned in the budget, a bit like the carbon capture competition cancellation in Peterhead.
Designed to thwart the SNP and Scotland most likely.
https://archive.is/SEIfh
PS:
I first thought that it was a hand grenade but my partner decided after looking at the cartoon in full size that it was a dog muzzle and I had to agree.
It seemed to make the most sense in the round.
Ah thought it was Jackie Baillie’s G-string.
I bought a Daily Record today.
There, I’ve said it.
There was no National and anyway I wanted to pick a couple of horses out at the racing at Musselburgh.
Anyway
Read the rest of it. Clegg at his best (or worst).
But it had a look back over the past year. Pretty inclusive in fact
But I felt there was something missing.
I got it. The General Election! Not a mention. Not a fecking word.
Fred says:
1 January, 2016 at 9:53 pm
Ah thought it was Jackie Baillie’s G-string.
Now there’s an image to put you off your dinner!
@ Dr Jim says at 12:31 pm ….. ”The Mum was Yes her two sons were NO but then the conversation took a slightly surprising turn as the Mum explained how one of her sons returned from Manchester England where he lived and worked to vote NO.
Well that wasn’t supposed to be allowed was it, so how were these emigrants allowed to do this and how many of them were at it and how do you get a polling card for an address you don’t live at when you’re registered elsewhere in another country.
The next Referendum must find a way to employ new and tight regulations to stop unentitled persons usurping and perpetrating further frauds on Scotlands voting system.”
Spot on Dr Jim (et al). Who votes in a local or general election, for whoever, every 4/5 years or so doesn’t greatly concern me but when it comes to an Independence Referendum that we waited for over 300 years for, I DO care.
It just beggars belief that some wee twerp from, say, Essex studying at St Andrews could vote (over 48,000 international students from over 185 countries), migrant workers (many planning to return to their homeland), people from around the planet fortunate enough to own a holiday home here, people renting a property for a couple of months and so it goes on. And of course I’ve got a real issue with around 400,000 rUK relocators (including Service personnel) being allowed to vote when 800,000 ‘relocated’ Scots couldn’t nor could Scottish servicemen / women ‘relocated’ abroad. The word discrimination comes to mind as does the word (downright) stupidity.
In other words people (many of them) who have no real interest in Scotland or the Scots deciding whether we’ll be Independent or not. Deciding whether we should remain shackled to Westminster. Deciding how many of our children should continue to live in abject poverty.
If we don’t get our act together next time round in relation to who is permitted to vote, the fraudulent postal vote and carrying out exit polls and so on we’ll lose again.
People on here rack their brains trying to figure out how to ‘convert’ the NO voters when many of them, NO voters, NO longer even live here, that is if they ever did.
@Fred
Tsk! Tsk! 🙂 … Naw I’m not going there.
@Dave McEwan Hill
I admitted to buying an under the counter Express as The National was no published. Err!
I got it for the X-word as well as Calvin and Hobes who are great.
SNP x 2 is best.
@Petra
My guess is that of those 800,000 Scots living in England, around 700,000 would have voted NO because they want things to stay the same as they were 20 years ago.
Bliadhna Mhath Ur dhuibh uile.
‘I bought a Daily Record today’
At first I could not believe what I was reading but then I realised, very clever, I forgot the Daily Record can be used for other purposes.
@Petra (10.05) –
Hear hear.
The whole ‘was-there-rigging-or-not’ became a toxic subject, even right here, with regulars at one another’s necks over it in periodic bursts – it was damaging, and continues to cause ill feeling every time it’s raised.
We’re in the 21st century FFS, it must be possible to create a foolproof system.
Like other Wingers, I did a stint as observer at the indyref count, and haven’t ever really got over the disappointment, but one thing’s for sure – it there was any jiggery-pokery going on then it wasn’t done by the ordinary punters who did the box-emptying and counting.
Referendum 2.
The use of postal votes should be limited to those who cannot make it to polling stations due to disability. No other reason.
Where large groups, such as Nursing home patients, request postal votes, these should be signed off by two witnesses to avoid the exploitation of vulnerable people.
I do not really believe there was large scale voting fraud but the preponderance of No votes in the number of postal votes raises a few eyebrows.
Anyone seen the bbc news 24 paper review the other evening. Classic .
Two English based Scots reviewing the Scottish edition of….. The Daily Telegraph!, we were told several times it was a Scottish Edition …. So it must be Scottish….. See you next year.
The BBc love affair with all things sanitised through London.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06tv0wv/the-papers-30122015
BBC News 24 reviewing the news. The Scottish Edition of the Telegraph!,,
No other news was harmed in the making of this programme
Petra at 10.05
I heard of a home in this area who got votes for family members most of whom had not lived here for over twenty years. Councils were completely inundated with requests to be put on the register and I doubt very much if appropriate checking was done.
OT
I’ve been cutting down my portfolio of domain names, no time to do anything with many of them and they’re wasted.
Due to expire in a few days time, there’s a .com and a .co.uk pair that would suit a Scottish blog, and I’d prefer it to go to a good home rather than being snapped up by some domain seller. It’s a good name, had it 15 years. Also a .net due to expire same time, also had for 15 years.
Anyone interested I’ll set up a gmail address and we can arrange the transfer – I’m not selling them all you’d need is to pay for the re-registration. Indy supporters only!
They are good names, I’d say the pair is a very good name.
Hamish100 says:
“The BBc love affair with all things sanitised through London.”
‘Sanitised’ is probably actually the way they see it.
From our standpoint other words might be more appropriate …. polluted, corrupted, distorted, twisted, etc … it will all be the death of their Union in the end! Not the effect they intended.
Hi Ian Brotherhood
You typed,
“Like other Wingers, I did a stint as observer at the indyref count, and haven’t ever really got over the disappointment, but one thing’s for sure – it there was any jiggery-pokery going on then it wasn’t done by the ordinary punters who did the box-emptying and counting.”
Yeah, I concur. I was at the Angus Count and what went on IN THE HALL appeared to be kosher – like the reviewing of the spoilt papers and so on. The counting officer seemed to go out of his way to be fair to both sides.
Any shenanigans took place WELL BEFORE the count.
@Fireproofjim
I have a postal vote because I could be way up in the north of Scotland or on an island, even down in England, unable to get to the polling station, had it for years. Others could be away abroad on business, but still, like me, living in Scotland. That’s the reason for postal votes, and it’s valid. Others could be in hospital, pregnant, long-term sick, or even know they could be unavailable like on callout or erratic shifts.
ronnie anderson
Acht Ronnie- its quite interesting (well, some of it is).
Seems like what George Younger gave up was the consequentials on Local Authority overspends. There was massive pressure on all departments to keep spending down. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, John MacGregor’s position was – Scotland gets consequentials on planned spending and not actual spending.
Or rather why should one department (in this case the Department of the Environment) overspend by £750 million in one year and that trigger another department (the Scottish Office) to receive the formula share (£90million).
But if the overspend was endemic and the planned budget set artificially low (as Malcolm Rifkind contends) then isn’t that simply a way of proportionally increasing English spending to the detriment of the other ‘territories’.
It is interesting the tone of the various official documents- ignoring David Willetts (as I am no sure why that punk’s contribution has been included in the National Archive) all the letters from the 2 SoS for Scotland are exasperated, angry, defensive, irritated, offended, and written with a kind of disbelief.
John MacGregor, Chief Secretary of the Treasury comes across like a cross between a bond villain, an old fashioned bank manager and a headmaster.
Anyway… will see what falls out of it.
Dave McEwan Hill and others.
It seems to me that the British State didn’t need to do too much to rig the Ref. Some NO voters did it for themselves. The system was wide open to abuse. After gaining a majority in May (which might be more difficult than some of us think), the top priority should be to work out rules for IndyRef2 which will make it as secure as possible.
One year minimum residency would help a lot, eliminating holiday home owners and other casual visitors.
Re voter registration. I heard of some of our supporters who lived in exile coming home to vote. But I would share general concerns about the accuracy of the voter rolls.
I noticed the Bruegel characters being wheeled in on indyref polling day – at times aided by No supporters – to vote. I did not see them on the general election day. I found that particularly interesting. I heard anecdotes of Labour supporters staying home because their grandchildren were furious that they voted no. That is something we need to build on. Independence is about a better future, not dwelling on an imperial past. If they are against us perhaps they should abstain.
This whole thing is spilled milk. We have to look to the next vote now. It is clear to anyone that we were lied to. It is clear to very many people that the BUMS are nothing but propaganda mouthpieces. I have been astonished that even unpoliticised people now disbelieve press reports. They have lost one of their cards by being found out.
We need to smarten up the offer and dig in for the long game.
We will get it next time.
And a happy new year to all.
The electoral register should now be cross referenced with those with an S on their tax code.
No doubt someone will point out any flaw in that but it seems to me an excellent response to those tempted to domicile outwith Scotland to avoid paying taxes to a Scottish Government.
To coin a phrase ; no representation without taxation.
Hamish100@11.31
The only word connected with London based “news”papers, is sanitation not sanitised.
Twitter has reversed its ban of Politwoops, the public archive of online statements deleted by politicians.
For those who do twitter.
Yesindyref2
I understand that people could be away on business etc and a postal vote would be helpful in these circumstances, but with a year’s notice surely most fit and healthy people can plan ahead to try and be at home for an hour on the one day that decides your country’s future.
Ref Postal Votes
A friend of mine told me he did a postal vote many years ago ,as they were off on hols.
He tells me the authorities send out the postal vote stuff automatically now.
I often wonder if this explains the high percentage of Postal voters?
I also know of several , very able & mobile , pensioners who are postal voters.
I’ll maybe discretely ask them , why next time I meet them.
@WP
It doesn’t work that way in business, especially if you’re away a few days at a time. Business happens – when it happens.
Same goes for those who have no choice but to work away. That’s their livelihood, their rent or mortgage back home, food on the table for their family and so on. Storms, floods, accidents don’t say “oh, it’s election day, we’d better not happen today”.
Postal votes are there for a reason, so we – WE – can exercise our democratic right to vote on our futures.
@WP
I think I missed voting in the 2003 Holyrood elections, being away on a week trip. In 2007 I had a postal vote, voted for Kenneth Gibson SNP. He got in by just 48 votes over the Labour Allan Wilson. The SNP had just one seat more than Labour for their minority government, which led to a majority government, which enabled the Referendum itself.
Without my vote and 48 others like mine, there would have been no SNP government, probably no referendum.
Every vote counts. Even my postal vote.
Mothballs and steel balls…were hoping for the best!
https://archive.is/u7MeH
PS:
My cousin in Sheffield signed up for this just before Christmas.
He thought the sun shone out of NIC cleggs…well not now!
https://archive.is/CRgDG
Many NO voters have moved on since the 19th September 2014 …. down south, to N Ireland or abroad. Some short term residents allowed to vote if registered as living here before the 2nd September 2014. Some didn’t even live here at all. Voted from the South of England, Canada, the US, the Caymans or Pakistan because they have a holiday home / s here.
There has been a dispute about vote rigging but all I can say is that I know for a fact that in Renfrewshire ALL postal votes were opened and counted 10 days (and on) before the Referendum. Was this the norm right across Scotland?
I was told by Royal Mail workers and at my local post office that all postal votes were separated from the regular mail and sent to England for scanning. Scanning or scamming?
There’s clear evidence (from research) that postal votes are open to fraud on a grand scale.
And it doesn’t really matter what you see in a counting house .. all may seem to be above board … it’s the final figure that counts … the figures that are fed into ONE computer in EACH Council area. They are open to being tampered with.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4aKOhbbK9E
Some of this may be of interest too.
http://joequinn.net/2014/09/28/scottish-referendum-rigged-mi5s-phony-postal-votes-and-ballot-boxes/
@Petra
Rubbish. And the youtube link is from FLORIDA.
Ummm, Florida is in the USA …
By the way, there is only one sorting office in Springburn, Glasgow, for the whole of the West of Scotland and some of ths islands. What happens to all posted mail is it gets taken from post boxes and post offices, in a big red van, off to Springburn – I’ve managed to catch the postie at the post office a few times just before he sets off for Glasgow, the mail gets put in a sack, sealed and he shoves it in his van. No sorting. Apart from Glasgow there’s Edinburgh and Aberdeen. I think Kilmarnock shut down a few years ago as well.
Your local Royal Mail office will be a delivery office, not a sorting office. Local ones shut down years ago, even before the sorting ventres were brought in.
Every single wacko conspiracy theory gets blown apart by the simplest of facts and reality, facts which aren’t hard to find out.
yesindyref2
Thanks for the lesson on how business works. After running my own for 35 years I think I know “business happens, as and when”. You obviously trust the postal vote 100% and that’s fine. Like many others, I have my reservations and will treat the next referendum voting day like I do a family holiday, graduation, wedding etc. I will set time away from my business to vote at the polling station.
@WP
Lucky you, I’m genuinely envious that I couldn’t afford to set aside one whole week’s business at a busy time of year (e.g. May) when I make my money, permanently losing regular customers to competitors I daresay. You might be able to plan your business around your voting day, I can’t. Many others are in the same boat.
As for postal votes no, it’s not completely secure. There’s small scale fraud totally acknowledged by the voting people, maybe even a couple of thousand votes, they work to cut it down.
I tend to think it unllikely that 3 sorting offices with hundreds of workers and CCTV could all be compromised, or that 32 delivery offices for the 32 unitary authorities could all be compromised – or even a significant number of them. Postal votes are addressed to the council offices, and locked into safes on their arrival.
Thanks Chris!
Brilliant cartooning again! So close to the bone, almost disturbing. Well, the truth behind it certainly is.
That poor creature looks like he is suffering from way too much in-breeding, to the detriment of his health. It shouldn’t be allowed, it’s just cruel.
And as for that poor dog.
Tam Jardine,
Brilliant work.
30 years ago wasn’t that long ago for some us and so relevent today.
Bet THEY are wishing these disclosures could have been kept hidden for much longer, and without diligent sleuths like you Tam, this could have slipped by un-noted. WELL DONE!
Wings is a growing and formidable force, bringing together talents from so many different disciplines. I am in awe of you all.
This is going to be a cracking year!
Heh, its amazing what goes on when no one is having their attention drawn to it. Costs and benefits of EU membership, select committee rooms.
A familiar name from the referendum giving the committee a serious heads up. One Graham Avery, senior adviser, European Policy Centre. Basically giving the committee a run down on the global effects of the UK leaving the EU in terms of current cross Atlantic relationships, foreign policy, the UKs usefulness, influence and standing with current allies etc.
Eyebrows raised when Mr Avery suggested that the phone calls from Washington would begin to dry up somewhat. 😀 LOL
Hah! Gethins SNP contribution goes right to the heart of it. If England pulls out would they be reliant on Dublin and Edinburgh (in event of our voting to remain), for continued EU influence? Oh that got a response from the committee more than Mr Avery who saw the cheeky humour of the question from the off.
Excellent. 🙂
Hi,Have a got the wrong end of the stick?Do George Youngers letters indicate that we should have been getting more Barnett formula money than we were getting due to the treasury secretly not allocating it.
Well, I’ve reviewed all the comments and have concluded that the mysery object is in fact John Bull’s posing pouch that he’s just discovered someone’s stitched an SNP hand grenade into the lining (plenty of room).
@ian says: 2 January, 2016 at 9:02 am:
“Hi,Have a got the wrong end of the stick?Do George Youngers letters indicate that we should have been getting more Barnett formula money than we were getting due to the treasury secretly not allocating it.”
You are not wrong, Ian. That is exactly what George Younger’s letters, not just indicate, they confirm it.
Some of us old hands have been claiming that for many years.
The GERS Figures, (Government Expenditure & Revenue, Scotland),were exposed as a scam by Niall Aslan, (a Scottish Forensic Accountant), in 2005,
An HTML article, “The Great Obfuscation”, can be found here:-
http://www.siol-nan-gaidheal.org/obfuscation.htm
And a PDF version here:-
http://www.siol-nan-gaidheal.org/download/The_Great_Obfuscation.pdf
We were aware of the Westminster scam but there was on way of confirming it as the papers were not released. There is nothing new in all this and the scams have been going on since the Treaty of Union was signed.
The Rev Stu has an archived example here :-
http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-historical-debt/
Now ask yourself the question that after 309 years the Scottish media has still not raised the people’s awareness but has instead colluded with the establishment to suppress the knowledge.
They still continue to do so. Can you imagine any other country in the World with a media that is so anti-their own customers and country?
Of course the BBC is fair and unbiased. These latest papers released prove it. Nothing to see here, move along.
http://www.thenational.scot/politics/anger-at-bbc-bias-as-meetings-between-david-cameron-and-nick-robinson-meetings-are-revealed.10086
yesindyref2 at 7.02
Postal vote applications are registered on receipt on council computers
I think the balance of our ambition should be to ensure we get a significant majority of the votes on list
Ghillie
Thanks- there is more in the December 2014 release including the treasury’s plan to effectively neutralise Barnett consequentials back in 1985.
Needs some more work but read a VERY interesting letter from John McGregor on this topic last night.
Will write it up over the weekend when I get a chance. If MI5 don’t get to me first
Great cartoon Chris, as usual.
With subsequent comments, perhaps we should remember that people fudging their way into getting a vote might have been motivated to vote YES as much as they were motivated to voting NO. I am in no doubt there would be folks on both sides driven to get involved, and perhaps that should be welcomed as a better option than the apathy and indifference of those who didn’t vote.
As for rigging the vote? Where do you start? Postal voting? The Electoral Commission? Foreign observers (or lack thereof)? Purdah? Our Scottish Government must NEVER be so niaive in future.
It also concerns me a little that it’s on the pro-independence agenda to smash Labour at the next elections… You might laugh, but think about it. Back in WW2, there were many Russians, then Germans in their turn, who hated their respective dictatorships but were compelled into fighting for them because they had no other choice. When the Allies demanded Germany’s unconditional surrender, it left no option for many German anti-nazis besides fighting on to defend Hitler’s reich to the very last. In Russia, many of those taking up arms hated and feared both the Stalinist dictatorship as much as the Hitler dictatorship, but left with no other choice, they chose to support the dictator who spoke Russian.
Rather than threatening what remains of Scottish Labour with the eradication stick, it might be a healthier agenda for both sides to nurture an avenue for Scotland’s pro independence Labour and even lesser spotted Tory voters to engage constructively with a pro-independence strategy.
It boils down to what you want. Outright victory with absolute dominion over the vanquished, or the same effective victory but with the war ended much sooner and minus unnecessary casualties?
Be clear, I am no apologist for Labour or the Tories, but there is more at stake here than merely seeking their outright humiliation. We have a country to establish, and then we can talk about politics.
I have no such sympathy for the Unionist media. In the same WW2 analogy, Lord Hawhaw was tried and hung for doing less. These treacherous propagandists are the scum of the earth. Let there be nothing for the BBC in a modern and free Scotland.
donnywho @4.00pm 1st Jan . The next thing this UK government will be buying from abroad are the planes for the Carriers and RAF. The order is for around 127 airframes. The cost for one of the carriers contingent will be twice the cost of the vessel. This will be a very bad day for the UK’s ability to develop and build future fighters. A marinised version of the Typhoon could have been developed. Every penny spent would have been in this country, with tax being accrued from the workers wages. Then there’s the scrapping of The Nimrod fleet behind screens by JCB’s ordered by Dr. Fox. Meaning that an order for maritime patrol aircraft would have to be placed with a U.S.A manufacturer before long.
The Tories are demonstrating a plan for the future of this country, it’s for a low skilled, low wage economy, that purchases expensive weapon systems from America. ……plus Nuclear power stations from China.
I wonder how many Wingers realise there was no such person as, “John Bull?
Just for giggles and yoonery loonery.
Labour Name, opinion. Why we should mothball the new Queen’s ferry crossing, or something to that effect.
Written by a freelance, graduate in engineering from Napier no less. Supposedly so far out of his tree he can’t get an Engineering job and has to rely on the journalistic equivalent of singinging for his supper.
It’s absolute bollocks!
@Breeks 10:06am
Not sure about your WWII analogy. If the allies had not imposed “unconditional surrender” we could well have had another re-run of the bungled Versailles Treaty leading to WWIII.
Anyway, it seems Dugdale has said that Labour members will be free to vote for independence, if they so wish, in Ref2. If she holds to that then we could see a genuine mix of Labour party members/supporters coming together with other pro-indy supporters to win it for independence. Remember we had Labour for Independence during the referendum; Dugdale’s promise, if held, could bolster that kind of organization considerably. I strongly believe that independence would best the best outcome for the future of the Labour party in Scotland – indeed for all parties in Scotland.
Should be Labour Hame ^
Yesindyref2-You do realise this is the British government you are talking about? If they could find a way to rig the vote they would have no doubt about that. Why the huge anomaly in the percentage winning margin with postals and physical voting? I’m not buying the older demographic pish either.
@ Breeks
There could be an argument for what you say about smashing the opposition or not, as you proposed but, the Tories have been done over yet still remain as committed to the same Yoon policies and will always be
Regarding Scottish Labour, well that doesn’t really exist does it, they are and will always be dependent on the British party and part of it unless they were to financially extricate themselves which they can’t afford to do and probably wouldn’t want to anyway
So we’re left with the original question of wiping out Yoon parties or not, my answer to that I’m afraid is YES wipe them out, to give them any hope allows the Yoons the chance of a comeback and if we allow that we’re right back where we were in the first place
Dan Huil at 10.59
I have no doubt that a very significant section of the Labour Party in Scotland is not opposed to independence. Many of them however are opposed to the SNP which has come along and stolen their power.
It is the vested personal interest in the survival of the Labour machine that keeps them where they are and,to be kind, loyalty to a movement and to friends in it. This is why the SNP very sensibly does not indulge in personal abuse of political opponents or causes.
The SNP and the wider independence movement requires converts not enemies and a friendly welcome must always be the best way forward.
It is interesting to note that recent polls have suggested that in committed support independence is supported by about 50% of the population and the status quo by about 33%.
This is a reversal of pre referendum positions
Nice ‘toon, Chris. Sums our ‘media’ up perfectly.
O/T
Countries/nations have Patron Saints. Who is the Patron Saint of Great Britain / United Kingdom?
Just asking, like.
I think that the next two years are the most important in Scotland’s recent history. We have the chance to pull all of the unionist’s teeth once and for all.
If we can re-elect a majority SNP government this year and wrest control of all the councils next, then we will be able to gain independence within the life of the 2016 parliament.
We can take nothing for granted but it is certain that we have a good chance of achieving the councils and the parliament.
In reference to the election systems i believe that if we have control both nationally and locally then we can push through systems that will ensure a fairer, more robust, system for elections.
I personally feel that a simpler way to control and remove doubt from the system is to devolve the count back to the polling stations as that removes an area of manipulation… transport. More it allows you to be directly involved in your own ward and it’s oversight, seamlessly throughout the poll and the count.
Simple things like all boxes being the same and all seals being registered and checked would help.
Also we wont have councils threatening staff nor councils sending out letters threatening voters. Councils will allow leafleting and meetings on council property, by all parties not just refusing the Yesers.
We could make postal votes more robust as well and spend time updating the vote registrar.
Paranoid or not these are good things to do as we know the system is not perfect and is open to abuse.
That said wait for the screams of horror from the Unionists as we make it harder to manipulate the system.
One party state, vote rigging, etc.
Joemcg at 11.14
Exactly, Joe.
The bottom line is that the biggest ever and most detailed and most professionally supervised canvas ever done in Scotland was done by the YES campaign. This of course included a canvas of full range of postal voters and old folk.
The announced result bore no resemblance to the canvassed return.
There is of course no suggestion whatsover that there was any jiggery pokery at polling stations or counts.
The British establishment is much cleverer than that.
Oh for goodness sake “proud cyber Nat” St. George or is it the Dragon that’s GBs Saint.
Thank you Chris. Good old John Bull (the establishment) leading on the BNP troops (the dug). The smelly wee package in JBs hand is the massive power used to punch above JBs weight.
Regarding the next Referendum vote, this may sound OTT.
Minimum of at least 10 years official Scottish residency,
No second home vote,
No buy to let owners getting extra voting papers.
No nationals who have addresses in Scotland but choose to live abroad for tax purposes, and fanny back to Scotland now and again. (I know a few of these)
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
We have an American friend who has lived in Scotland for about 30 years, always worked and paid her taxes, she was not allowed to vote in the referendum, what pissed me off at the vote was at least 6 friends who were English nationals who voted no then moved back down south.
The whole matter of Independence is too important and we have to get a proper mandate, or it will be treated yet again as form of x factor.
Thanks for the response to my question Robert.All i can say is when is this systematic pillaging of our country going to end.Hopefully some of our fellow wingers are looking into the full implications of what has been going on.
I believe Dave McEwan Hill linked the results of extensive research into postal voting in Argyll on here. The evidence was damning in that it pointed to unprecedented postal voting numbers unrivalled at any time or anywhere in British electoral history.
That evidence itself should have been enough to trigger a Scottish government investigation into the postal vote pantomime…..800,000 postal votes out of 4.2 million registered, yet only 3.6 million voted, but all the postal votes were sent in (please prove me wrong on this , if you know better)…therefore 22% of all votes in before the big day…No wonder wee Ruthie Tank Commander and John McTernan knew the game was in the bag before the rest of us did.
Again, I realise that the SNP want to play by the rules and keep the heat out of the strategy going forward, but are there not other civil groups that can still either call for investigation or run a full analysis of the votes?
I know the answer is probably no…but as Petra and others have stated we must tighten up all aspects of voting in the next REF and ensure that residential qualification must be in terms of years not months. Incidentally, I agree that the majority of the 800, 000 Scots in England would have voted against Independence. The reasons for this are too various to go into here, but anecdotally, the ones I’ve met are brainwashed and have become assimilated into little England mentality, with obviously some noble exceptions!
Postal votes:
I was offshore during Indyref1. Determined to be counted I applied for a postal vote. After reading about postal vote fraud I tried to cancel the postal vote and revert to voting in person for GE15. They sent me a postal vote again.
Cartoon:
Excellent as usual.
John Bull is holding a bag of shit. The usual product of the “impartial” media.
What was the earliest time for postal voting? Seems to me it should only be available in the last week. Too much can change in the last month of a campaign.
I agree with you” Lochside”as much as i and my family would like to vote in favour of independence(i live in France) it would be too great a risk to give the vote to Scots living in England.My brother has lived in England(London area)for much of his life and has that”the economy is on the up down here”.I inform him the reason for that is that the rest of the UK subsidises London but you can tell by the silence that he does’nt believe me.They are so far removed and disinterested there is little point in falling out over it.
Onwards at 12.15
Many postal vote applications and in fact postal votes were in the computer systems of councils for up to two months. They were entirely accessible to the “establishment” over that period.
Many people posted voted before the critical final stages of the campaign and may well have changed their votes so I would certainly support a rule of the votes posted only in the final few days for several obvious reasons.
I see no mention of Exit Polls on Referendem votes ? WHY.
@Dave McEwan Hill
Dave, the postal vote packages weren’t even sent out until the 26 Aug 2014, just over 3 weeks before the referendum. That date and day was all over the media.
For what happens to the postal votes when received:
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/141988/Part-D-Absent-voting-SLG.pdf
The votes when removed from the outer envelope are ticked off on the postal voters list and put into a postal vote ballot box, but the votes themselves are not counted until Ref day. That’s illegal, a criminal offence. Individual votes are not recorded at all – voting is private and confidential.
@ronnie anderson
Cost was supposedly the reason. There needs to be face to face at every polling station for that. But Salmond said afterwards he regretted not having an exit poll.
Unless there has been a drastic restructuring, Scotland’s mail is sorted at G=Glasgow etc’, PA=Paisley,Renfrewshire,Argyle & Islands etc, EH=Edinburgh & Borders, KA/ML=Wishaw,Lanarkshire/Ayrshire, KY=Kirkcaldy/Fife, DD=Dundee/Angus, AB=Aberdeen etc, PH=Perth,part Inverness-shire etc, IV=Inverness & county, Ross, Sutherland, incl KW=Caithness & North Isles. Dumfries & Galloway is sorted at Carlisle
The lack of exit polls was particularly ‘odd’, and Ruth Davdison ‘did’ give the game away. I’ve read the report from the Dunoon Yes people and so have many others, it simply doesn’t add up…literally, figuratively…
I hear what you say yesindyref2, but I can’t bring myself to dismiss the exhaustive canvassing results that show a completely different outcome was expected in these regions.
The number of postal ballots was staggering for our population size…
Stranger still, was the day itself, something was ‘up’ there was a mutedness that began to seep into the day as it progressed: I was on Byres road late morning of the 18th and there were great big Yes banners just where the Grosvenor and Oran Mor are…it was vibrant, it ‘felt’ exciting. A few hours later, by mid afternoon, all the banners were gone. It’s never left me, a strange feeling that something had altered?
Why were the banners removed by midday on the 18th, you would expect they’d stay up till the outcome was known, it was as if they had been ‘ordered’ to be taken down. It was at that moment of seeing those banners removed that I started to feel that we had lost. Like a real ‘gut’ feeling, and then, just after the polling stations closed, it was within a half hour that we ‘knew’ we had indeed lost?
I’m Not convinced at all that our referendum wasn’t ‘fixed’.
There does need to be an investigation. Not because I had a ‘feeling’ but because some serious research has shown massive incongruity between canvassing returns from people who were immersed in this, and those postal votes.
***gets fireproof suit, puts on…awaits flames***
Yes, it’s the Hilton now, but I was brought up in Maryhill, QMD end, it will always be the Grosvenor to me 🙂
@Fred
There are just the three Inward mail sorting offices in Scotland, Springburn in Glasgow, Edinburgh (Sighthill from memory) and Aberdeen. Plus as you say, Carlisle in England. Over the years there has indeed been quite drastic restructuring, with the latest closures just a couple of years ago.
There are several Delivery offices, that’s where they sort the mail out into walks – I don’t think that’s done at the Inward mail sorting offices, unless perhaps for business mail pre-sorted into walks (yes, that’s done, it’s cheaper to send).
The media in its uninformed fashion gets confused. For instance there was an outcry about moving Carnoustie “sorting office” to Dundee. What they meant was that the Delivery office was being moved to Dundee.
I believed before the referendum that postal votes should have not been allowed.
If they are to be allowed it should only be for extreme circumstances and not for people who cannot be bothered to go out and vote. It is an easy system which can be manipulated by unscrupulous people to introduce fraud on a scale which can never be quantified.
As long as there are postal votes there will always be doubt. The greater the postal vote, the greater the doubt.
@K1
I was in Dundee around tea-time, drinking with son, and after the polls shut we were at Mennies where a good few of the YES polling station attendees whatever they’re called went for drinks. They were dispirited because the votes weren’t going as hoped. The word had been that Dundee was going to be 75% YES, but the voters coming in were much less so.
In the event Dundee was 57% YES, so the YES checkers were right. They were talking in terms that if Dundee wasn’t as high as expected, it’d be a NO overall, as they knew the expectations for different areas, different regions. I didn’t, so didn’t pay that much attention to them. Even after the Clackmanan result came in I thought it a blip. It wasn’t until the Outer Isles result came in (third result?) I knew it was all over.
But those polling station attendees, YES every one of them, basically knew the result before the count.
@One_Scot
I work around Scotland a lot, particularly in the summer and before. Apart from me being away a week at a time, the hotels, B&Bs, guest houses, hostels, caravans and self-catering are kept going and even filled by workers. There’s:
Water
Electricity
Gas
Rail
Road
Communications
Plumbers
Plasterers
Chippies
Brickies
Landscapers
Inspectors
Sales reps
Surveyors
Coach drivers
Guides
Instructors
Part-time workers
etc. etc etc.
Depending on where it is, say Thurso, Ullapool, Stornoway, Coll, Inverness, but living in Fife, Glasgow, Ayr, Dumfries, it’s impossible for them – us – to get home to vote if we’re away that week.
Then there’s offshore workers, offshore fishermen, ferry crews, even train drivers, also can’t get home that day.
The only alternative to a postal vote is to bring Scotland to a standstill. Or deny us – that’s US – ME for instance – our democratic right to vote. I’d fight anyone that wants to deny me that.
Ah hope we’re aboot in 30 years time Indyref2 when the sealed papers are released and we find out what really went on…
They called Scots ‘subsidy junkies’, made out we are full of gripe and grievance, thinking that we’d been robbed for years by Westminster and called us paranoid and conspiracy theorists for suggesting that level of deceit was at play…
We’ll see…one day…we’ll see.
If they can make ‘invisible’ cuts, they can make anything else they want to do ‘invisible’ too.
That’s my last word on the subject on Wings. 😉
@K1
Canvassing isn’t exhaustive, though; at least not across a while country. I canvassed streets where every single response was Yes, which was very encouraging until I reflected that they constituted about 25% of the addresses in those streets. Everyone else was out.
There wasn’t time/people to go back and fill in all the gaps. There will be places where coverage was good, others where it was almost non-existent (I’ve only ever been canvassed once in more than 40 years as a voter in several different constituencies).
@ yesindyref2 says at 4:12 am ”Petra. Rubbish. And the youtube link is from FLORIDA. Ummm, Florida is in the USA …”
Ummm, I know that Florida is in the USA yesindyref2, but what’s Florida got to do with this? It could have been filmed in Timbuktu for all I care. The ‘place’ name has nothing to do with the key issue. Key issue being the video highlights that computer software, with the capacity to alter electoral voting figures (at the touch of a button), had been designed at least 15 years ago. Futhermore it is impossible to detect: the only way to ascertain electoral fraud is to carry out exit polls and that didn’t happen in Scotland, as far as I know. Additionally I’m not saying that this happened at all but if I was sitting on Westminsters (scupper Scottish Independence as it’s a threat to the State) Committee it’s something I would have, at least, considered.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4aKOhbbK9E
@ yesindyref2 says at 4:53 am ”By the way, there is only one sorting office in Springburn, Glasgow, for the whole of the West of Scotland and some of ths islands. What happens to all posted mail is it gets taken from post boxes and post offices, in a big red van, off to Springburn – I’ve managed to catch the postie at the post office a few times just before he sets off for Glasgow, the mail gets put in a sack, sealed and he shoves it in his van. No sorting ….. Your local Royal Mail office will be a delivery office, not a sorting office …. Every single wacko conspiracy theory gets blown apart by the simplest of facts and reality, facts which aren’t hard to find out.”
Yeah I know how the postal system works. I know that the postman collects and delivers but doesn’t sort. I pointed out that I was informed by my postman (and manager of local main Post Office) that all postal votes were separated from regular mail (had a distinguishing tag), presumably at sorting offices, and sent to England for scanning before they were returned to the relevant departments in Scotland. That’s the simple fact and reality as I know it as per information given to me by postal workers.
@ yesindyref2 says at 7:02 am ….. ”As for postal votes no, it’s not completely secure. There’s small scale fraud totally acknowledged by the voting people, maybe even a couple of thousand votes, they work to cut it down.”
Your view in relation to the level of fraud being carried out is not in line with research findings and / or experts opinions such as Richard Mawbrey QC who presides over Electoral fraud. He has identified at least 14 ways in which postal voting fraud can be carried out and says it’s ”on an industrial scale in the UK ….. that will make election rigging a possibility and indeed in some areas a probability of it being carried out.”
And in relation to voting at polling stations the Electoral Commission is advocating that all voters should be required to show proof of identity …. has called for a further tightening of the rules in an attempt to stamp out ballot-rigging and restore trust in the electoral system.”
@ yesindyref2 says at 10:23 pm ”My guess is that of those 800,000 Scots living in England, around 700,000 would have voted NO because they want things to stay the same as they were 20 years ago.”
I’ve found that all of my friends / relatives in England would have voted yes however no matter the case it would have been too costly, unwieldy and left us open to even more electoral fraud, imo. On the other-hand to eliminate the discriminatory factor the same rule should have applied to rUK relocators residing in Scotland or at the very least a residential time limit should have been placed on all migrants.
@ yesindyref2 says at 2:39 pm …. ”The votes when removed from the outer envelope are ticked off on the postal voters list and put into a postal vote ballot box, but the votes themselves are not counted until Ref day. That’s illegal, a criminal offence. Individual votes are not recorded at all – voting is private and confidential.”
That’s not what happened in Renfrewshire. I spoke to someone at the Council who was in charge of postal vote counting and was told that they started opening ALL postal votes on the 8th September: reason being that they had nearly 30,000 votes to deal with (normally 4,000) and couldn’t cover the numbers on the night.
Too many unanswered questions, imo, such as how did Ruth Davidson (and McTernan) know the outcome of the Referendum before we did? What was the outcome of the Ruth Davidson investigation? Anybody know?
@Petra
1. The UK isn’t the USA, there is no electronic voting, it’s paper and piles (bundles). We’ve all seen it in TV.
2. The manager of your Post Office isn’t employed by the Royal Mail, he/she is employed by Post Office Counters Ltd, a totally different company even before privatisation. If he/she is your postman as well, then that’s the first I’ve heard of it, and I know maybe about 40 Post Offices in rural Scotland and small towns, they all have a postman / woman who does not do the Post Office. Many of the small ones have a small office in the back of the shop with its own door, where the postman sorts mail for delivery, or picks up the mail in a sealed sack to take on elesewhere. He/she is either winding you up, or has successfully been wound up themselves. I know many of these, and a good few were YES voters, unlikely to take part in any conspiracy to return a NO vote. Make that about 50 Post Offices I know, includng my local one which was YES. Better make it 60.
3. Yes there’s some fraud, the Royal Mail themselves are asked to keep their eyes open for some of it, for instance a stack of postal votes delivered to one address.
4. My experiences going down to England twice a year or more, were different. Also having met Scots up from England, with their attitudes firmly stuck back from when they moved down there. Not much definitieve evidence apart from this “The ballot, which was held during Corby’s annual Highland Gathering, saw 576 votes cast with 162 backing Scots independence and 414 rejecting it.”
5. What I said was correct, the votes aren’t counted until polling day. But they are opened at various times before polling day, with 3 or 4 days notice to observers, the reference numbers are checked, the signature and date of birth are checked, and the ballots thenselves (still folded) then put in a different box. By law all centres must have two separate boxes, one for the unopened ones, the other for the verified ones, and they must be kept in a secure place. Any unverified ballots are then queried with the sender. But the votes themselves are not checked, though they can sometimes be accidentally seen. The second box is then opened on ballot day, and the votes counted – not before.
Re Postal Votes
As I am a school janitor I always vote by post as I can be working from 7am until 10pm and often later than that .
As many schools are used as polling stations and janitors often stay well away from the school , postal voting is sometimes the only way they can cast their votes .
‘I’d fight anyone that wants to deny me that.’
A bit extreme, but whatever floats your boat.
@One_Scot
People have died for universal suffrage. The right to vote. Particularly the female vote.
With your idea that the postal vote should only be given in “extreme” circumstances, that denies the vote to many that don’t have 9-5 jobs in or near their home town or village. That’s a lot of Scots, including those who have to find work in Germany, Holland, England even.
That’s the reverse of univeral suffrage, and the beginning of the end of democracy as we know it.
Or something like that.
Point taken. I suppose I will just have to accept we have a broken voting system.
1. Did you watch the video yesindyref2? This isn’t about ‘electronic voting’. It’s about people in the US, where I lived for a time, voting like you and I at polling stations and through postal (mail) votes. You don’t seem to have any idea of the capacity of the ‘rigging’ software. After all votes are in (polling stations and postal) a button is pressed to enable someone to alter the final overall count. Exit polls are mentioned on the video. How on earth can you carry out exit polls with electronic voting?
2. Informed by my postman and then later the manager of the main Post Office. You’ll no doubt know better than them in relation to what’s going on with the mail.
3. Postal vote fraud ”on an Industrial scale … making ”Election Rigging” a possibility or a probability” doesn’t really equate to ”a stack of postal votes being delivered to one address”.
4. I’m not interested in affording Scots outwith Scotland the vote. For one it would probably leave us open to even more fraudulent voting. I’m concerned about the discriminatory factor i.e. Scots living in England not being allowed to vote whilst English people living in Scotland were: Considered to be illegal.
5. ”What I said was correct, the votes aren’t counted until polling day.” What you said is correct? Are you trying to tell me that you know what went on in every one of 32 Local Authority counting centres?
I spoke directly to a Counting Officer and can assure you that all postal votes in my area were opened from the 8th on and counted. Counted over 10 days because they couldn’t deal with counting an additional 30,000 postal votes on the night, so he said. Maybe he was ”winding me up too, or had successfully been wound up himself.”
@Petra
This is getting embarrarssing. I suggest you read this:
http://wingsoverscotland.com/our-man-on-the-scene/
Just to add, I believe Wings had official monitoring agents at every single one of the 32 counting venues.
My last post re. this subject.
I read it over a year ago Indyref2 and there’s NOTHING in the article that pertains to anything I’ve posted on here other than being told that postal votes in my area had been counted well before 10pm on the 18th September. And as an example I’ve not uttered one word about what went on in the local authority counting stations after 10pm on the 18th September. I know of a number of people who actually attended the count and didn’t witness anything untoward go on at all.
@ Petra
I watched postal votes being verified. The ballot papers were “counted” into bundles of 50 and secured with elastic bands, then put in a ballot box.
It is possible that that is what your informant meant by “the votes were counted”.
The ones I saw were only tipped out of the ballot box and separated into Yes and No on the night of the count. I saw the bundles with their elastic bands come out of the box. I saw them being recounted to make sure there were 50. I saw them then being separated on the basis of the vote cast; each bundle had a mixture of Yes and No. So they would have to have been sorted, then mixed up again in exact 50s, or left mingled but recorded; either of these is time-consuming, not something a council would do if, as you say, they were pressed for time due to the large number of postal votes.
P.S.
If they had been sent to England, some each day of course as they arrived at the sorting offices/wherever, and removed from their envelopes for scanning, how did they get back into the signed envelope (which was then checked for signature and date of birth and which had a serial number which was checked against the number on the ballot paper) and then into the council’s reply-paid outer envelope? All in time to be processed (with witnesses that the envelopes were both sealed) over several days and then enumerated at the count?
I understand that the Establishment is devious to put it mildly, but believing it was rigged allows people to avoid addressing reasons for a real loss. I think that’s a mistake; we should behave as if it wasn’t rigged and make sure the margin is big enough next time to make any pochling unambiguous and obvious.
@crazycat
Surely you remember the MI5 advert for 500 temporary staff? Must be good at steaming envelopes, bring own kettle.
Sorry, not taking the proverbial, it’s just my sense of humour – or what passes for it.
Having said that, I would still always place,’My children growing up in an Independent Scotland’, above ‘Maintaining a corrupt voting system’, every day of the week, and some.
Very good political coverage in to-day’s Sunday Herald.
Nicola’s New Year pledges for May’s elections plus revelations about Labour Lib Dem executive under the Scottish 15 year release of cabinet papers.
Meanwhile Daily Express front page reveals BBC rip off cutting £50 millions from Scotland but hadn’t time to read full story.