All the way to the bottom
An alert reader got in touch with us this evening to tell us that they’d been clearing out an old hard drive and found an interesting web page they’d saved from several years ago. They asked if we’d like to see it.
“Sure”, we said. “Let’s have a look.”
It turned out that they’d had an exchange several years ago with Kezia Dugdale on her old (now deleted) blog, where she tended to be a bit more candid than she is now, and were so startled by an answer she’d given them that they’d felt the need to keep it.
The blog, from just before the 2007 Scottish Parliament election which was won by the SNP, had been something about Dugdale preferring Tory MSPs to SNP ones, and the reader had asked her how far that logic went.
We’ll blow up the key bit for you.
We’re just going to leave it at that, folks.
Wow..!
Mibbes aye, mibbes naw to the BNP as far as Kez is concerned. No thought of just working for the good of Scotland, eh? Might support fascists though. Hmmm…
Don’t think Kezia ever thought that comment would come back to bite her, says it all really
Says it all really, no surprises there then.
It just goes to prove that she has always be an empty vessel, and you know what they say about them. Ah well, she’ll probably be out of a job soon, a chance for the next to hoper to save SLAB not.
She would probably be OK with a vote for the Nazi party if it meant preserving the (Nazi, in that case) union. Or at the very least, she would say “it’s not a simple yes or no answer”. Disgusting.
She really takes the biscuit doesn’t she ??
Anything but essenpee (Bad)
There is the answer to the UK or the EU. UK every time. In fact anyone but the SNP!
Labour are totally lost!
Well Kez, you’ve had a long time to consider the question, what’s your answer?
Even the Communist Party of Britain and Great Britain are on the same NO side as the the Labour party; Lib Dems,Tories, UKIP, BNP, NF, SDL and EDL.
Good Ammo.
Not that any is really needed when it comes to her.
I confess to being surprised. It isn’t a difficult question. On what planet is No to the BNP not the answer?
I despair over the hole Labour fell/jumped into.
This is going to be one weird election.
Don’t see what’s difficult about the question.
British Nationalists like Kezia would have no compunction about voting for the British National Party.
It’s what they are.
Hmm, difficult choice that. Rather admires the “soundness” of the BNP on the Union but doesn’t want to get her hands dirty over that xenophobia thing they do tend to have. Not that her party would ever condescend to collaborate with that kind of unsavoury thing for the sake of saving their electoral skins in the north of England, oh no, no…
Like her party colleague Ian Murray, would probably much rather we all vote Tory than stoop to support that dreadful divisive independence thingy that is distracting more and more ordinary people quite unforgivably.
Told us that Corbyn is “unfit” to be her Great Leader but wants us to vote for their wonderful “surrender-ready” party anyway.
Just what is the (political) point of Kezia Dugdale, exactly?
Not that Rude Gal is any better, just more brazen. Not long ago Brexit was a game only played by liars, now it’s the latest new trend among ambitious Tory self-improvers.
While Wee Willie just wants to both keep his EU/UK cake and eat it. A logical contortion only possible under the exceeding lax truth requirements of Brutish elections.
Meh!
Betty Boop says:
20 April, 2017 at 7:35 pm
“”Mibbes aye, mibbes naw to the BNP as far as Kez is concerned. No thought of just working for the good of Scotland, eh? Might support fascists though. Hmmm…””
……………
I think if you read her complete answer then it gives a quite different picture to the one you have inferred. She does not say she would support fascists.
She would not applaud them getting a seat. She says she would campaign to expose them for what they are: Fascists, racists and homophobes
I hope you have tweeted this to Kezia and her followers with the hope that they will see the error of their ways by voting for kezy. WOW you just cant make this stuff up.
I am actually quite shocked by that.
Right-wing xenophobic britnattery is having an easy time as far as the media goes. And the britnat media never goes far enough it seems.
Boycott all britnat media.
Even in 2007 everyone with half a brain cell knew what to think about the BNP. So obviously when ever they were asked about the BNP their answer would obviously include the words mile, mile, million etc. Funny that oor wee Kez could not even come up with that one simple phrase.
Still things have improved for her since then right?
Oops sorry they have NOT improved for her but they have for US! 😀
Dugdale thinks the BNP are fascists, racists and homophobes but she’d utilize them to save her precious United Kingdom. At what cost. At any cost apparently.
She is just a puppet, like Davidson and Rennie who are also just puppets to their Westminster masters.
Let’s end their careers with a double whammy knockout on May 4th and June 8th.
Corbyn would rather let the tories in again while fighting a useless campaign, than join a progressive alliance with the SNP or stand up to May and demand concessions for them to support a snap election – eg at least for May to participate in TV debates. Is there a word for clueless and spineless? If there is then it should be the labour slogan for the coming election.
Labour = McCrone, 40% pass rate on devolution, moving North Sea boundaries to weaken Scotland’s independence position, repeated refusal to ally with SNP, PFI’s. Scotland has a lot to curse labour for. Good riddance to labour and the pretend SLP.
And there was me thinking Kezia’s mob claimed to stand for the legacy of the International Socialists and Trades Unionists who fought Franco in Spain 1936-39.
Turns out it’s more Mosley’s British Union of Fascists legacy they hold.
GOOD vs EVIL 8th June 2016.
Didn’t know she had a blog back then, I’d have thought she would have been too busy editing articles on wikipedia, commenting on the Scotsman and making sure Geordie Foulkes stayed sober for FM’s question time.
Good grief..
Does she even know what left and right means in politics.
@ Legerwood
She couldn’t figure out an answer about welcoming a vote from the BNP.
Seems Blis have little trouble associating with such organisations, hence one of their Aberdeenshire MPs photographed in 2014, seemingly, happily campaigning alongside the leader of the NF Scotland; not greatly different from BNP in my book. Don’t recall anyone Kez or anyone else in her “party” complaining or exposing such folk.
A lot of it could be down to this..
link to tinyurl.com
I see Kez as some mad Kathy Bates and the SNP is James Caan..
you durty durty birdy…
link to youtube.com
Oh jeez! 😯
In the thraw of the De’il.
Everything else doesn’t matter but to be a humble and loyal servant to the English Empire. Henry VIII clause makes no sense as it predates the Union.
However, if the English Empire believed it subsumed Scotland (bought it), then it is all consistent. So Kezia dips her head to anything “British” which these days is pretty Xenophobic so “Nationalist Party” makes sense too. And it is “national” meaning British, the outcome will always be the same – British is best.
I was watching Labour faces at First Minister,s Questions today and some of them positively exude hatred when Nicola Sturgeon speaks.
They still think that the Scottish Parliament should be theirs. They set it up you see!
Kezia Dugdale is clearly of her debth. But the BNP………..!
link to theguardian.com
And that was TEN years ago.
To be honest, I thought this ‘any Unionist’ is better than a pro Indy stance thinking was something from the last few years – Better Together etc., driven by increasing desperation.
There we have it, while she does accept the BNP are horrible, that might be outweighed by their position on the precious Union.
Wonder how she would answer now? Do the decent thing and say the BNP are totally beyond the pale? Or, still consider ‘any Unionist’ potentially acceptable because that precious Union is above all else?
Sorry Rev but you are always warning everybody to be aware of selective reading of information, by highlighting the first part of her statement you are guilty of presenting her words in a selective manner and therefore out of context.
We can accuse KD of many things, including some astonishing verbal and written howlers, but in the second part of her statement, she never said she would welcome a vote for the BNP, but acknowledged that IF they did get a seat in Holyrood they would vote to save the union, that is as close to a given as you could get and consistent with her position regarding the union, (however misguided),
She goes on to say that she would wish to expose the BNP for what they really are
I would hope that is a position we could all support.
If we wish to take the unionists to task on the many contradictory statements they make then lets have at it, but please let’s not sink to the same sometimes grubby tactics.
The way to win the argument is by destroying your opponent’s position not their person.
Play the ball not the man
@Conan the Librarian
Be interesting to dig out some of these old comments made btl; and what was her pseudonym again?
[…] Wings Over Scotland All the way to the bottom An alert reader got in touch with us this evening to tell us that they’d been […]
“Sorry Rev but you are always warning everybody to be aware of selective reading of information, by highlighting the first part of her statement you are guilty of presenting her words in a selective manner and therefore out of context”
No, fuck off. We start with the exchange in full. And it shouldn’t be a difficult question at all. The answer is “No, the BNP aren’t better than ANYONE, the end”, but she can’t find it in herself to say that.
I reckon Dugdale has a handler and understands that her role is to carry out a rearguard action in support of Colonel Davidson.
To even entertain accepting such a ‘fascist, racist’ party in any shape or form, is extremely concerning here Kez.
So, you would ‘applaud’ the BNP, even though they are ‘fascists and racists’, and would possibly (likely?) be more accepting of them than you would be, of the democratic, inclusive, forward looking, 21st century SNP, who do actually work in Scotland’s interests for all of the people.
Ooft! That is very telling.
I truly hope that the labour branch in Scotland are crucified in the unionists GE. With you at the helm, they really are a despicable organisation.
I’m a bit confused. Maybe I heard it wrong.
In London parliament yesterday Labour voted for a General Election
In Holyrood today Labour’s Kezia Dugtail castigated the SNP for not voting for a General Election
When the other team makes the rules employs the umpire then changes the rules whenever it suits them to win
You do whatever it takes to beat them and that includes exposing every single tiny detail or scrap of evidence against them and when you’ve done that you kick them when they’re down with even more evidence to make sure they can’t get up and do it all over again (As long as it’s the truth)
This is politics, not the Osmonds!
Or was it for not voting against a General Election?
The Rev is spot on.
Kez is saying that she’d hold her nose and accept a vote from the BNP to save the union while accepting that they are fascists, racists and homophobes.
She is a nasty piece of work.
No better than the Tories….actually she is a Tory.
I will highlight that bit for you
“No, fuck off”
We’re just going to leave it at that, folks.
blackhack says:
20 April 2017 at 7:39 pm
“She really takes the biscuit doesn’t she”
Aye blackhawk, the Empire biscuit!
Peace Always
“I’d rather spend ME time doing”
Is Kezia actually educated?
It’s not ‘selective reading of information’ at all. The fact is K.Dugdale did not reject the BNP, and did not answer the question. Would she go as far as to actually accept a ‘racist, fascist’ party sitting in Holyrood as opposed to the SNP. Her (stupid) contempt for the SNP seems not to have shifted either.
I think we can all see for ourselves just how far the yoons would go to keep Scotland from being a democratic, independent country. Question is, why?
Well, now she’s had ten years to consider her answer, any chance someone could contact her on twitter or somewhere and ask her what it is? Clearly she’s not ruling it out so maybe the question should be under what circumstances would you support the BNP?
O/T
Row as Mundell accuses Scottish ministers of asking him to hush up critical report
This twisted Tory should not get away with this he should be forced to publish what he has and name the Scottish Minister who he is speaking about,I just can’t see any SNP Minister doing this but if true we should be told as we don’t want our Ministers in cahoots with these barstewards.
Well Kezia, time to do the decent thing and resign.
arthur thomson says:
20 April, 2017 at 9:03 pm
“I reckon Dugdale has a handler”
Hi, Arthur, that would be the Dug handler that teaches them to bark woof! woof! at our elected representatives in the Commons.
Peace Always
i am surprised that anyone is surprised
We’re talking about Dugdale here, this is the woman who advertises money for Tweets
Do we think she means only nice kind Tweets or is she paying some of her crew who are on the FMs page in a constant stream of abuse
How bad are things when you have to pay folk to Tweet
The woman’s a shocker
@Sohail Bhatti says: 20 April, 2017 at 8:36 pm
” … However, if the English Empire believed it subsumed Scotland (bought it), then it is all consistent.”
That hits the nail, Sohail Bhatti.
There are countless trillions of examples and more are exposed every minute of every day. It is a mental aberration that afflicts Yoons and pseudo-Yoons.
Just to take the example now being debated here on Wings.
Most media reports, as usual, are brimming with Yoon propaganda and not only does it go unremarked but even some who claim to be independence supporters use it frequently.
Here is the first part of the BBC text report of FMQ’s clash :-
Let’s just examine that with a little more attention to what Davidson was actually saying that was actually not true but a firmly fixed mental tenet of the Establishments insidious propaganda.
“Offensive and negative trash about our country”
My point is that Davidson was in fact deliberately lying and using Establishment propaganda. Now note there are several commenters on this topic berating Rev Stu but not a single one of them has mentioned the Davidson lies, propaganda and insults to OUR COUNTRY.
Davidson is referring to the UK as, “Our Country”, (see, “attempting to portray the UK”).
The truth, though is the term UK describes a bipartite united kingdom that is thus composed of two kingdoms in union. It is thus not a country. However, between those two kingdoms in the union there are four countries. Which one is, “Our Country”, in Ruth’s case?
So Ruth has just relegated Scotland from the status of an equally sovereign partner kingdom to not even being a country. So as it is in the Yoon mind-set.
Then we get the constant references to Britain and Great Britain but the United Kingdom is larger than just Great Britain and is not all of Britain for there are four non-UK states that are not ruled by Westminster.
So why are there commenters on Wings who see the Rev Stu as being wrong in showing Davidson’s real mind-set for what it is while skipping over Davidson’s insults and lies about Scotland and the peoples of Scotland?
Perhaps they are in agreement that the UK is a country and Scotland was extinguished by the treaty of 1707 as claimed by Westminster and Fluffy Mundell?
Does anybody think the bitterness shown by Kez is all down to being rejected by the SNP? Any ideas why she was “let go” or do folk on here actually know the reason why?
Comment Ms Dugdale?
Really? It’s a difficult question as to whether or not you would offer your support to a bunch of fascist thugs?
Really?
Ooooohhhh – you are SOOOOOoooooo toasted on 4th. And on 8th too – if you last that long as Slab leader.
Actually a very easy question for Dugdale and the likes of her.
She would prefer a vote for any British Nationalist fascist party over the SNP, anytime.
“I will highlight that bit for you
“No, fuck off”
We’re just going to leave it at that, folks.
And?
@ Smallaxe
Aye but I reckon she just pretends to be barking to get the sympathy vote. As we used to say, ‘act daft and ye’ll get a hurl’.
Stay strong Pal.
Maureen at 8.40pm, link to guardian headline…
If the European Union representative said that the election of a new UK government in favour of remaining in the EU would lead to a very quick decision on scrapping the article 50 procedure – and I think he did! – surely that is interfering in the internal affairs of another state. Regarded as an absolute no-no of international diplomacy.
Looks like the EU’s diplomacy boxing gloves are being used to full effect to negatively affect the tory’s election campaign. Good!
How deep is your hate, how deep is your hate. There is nothing like blind hatred to destroy your very soul. When did Labour become ultra unionists….
Jings! Quite a find there from the ex-files of Dugdale.
Got to be a juvenile mistake leaving her response hanging and open to interpretation when an equivocal ‘NO’ would have settled it. Still a shocker.
Why can she not be asked the question again… Oh wait, she’s leader of the twig office of Big Labour Party in Scotland and has a wee bit more political / media-savvy. I guess it’s a ‘NO’.
@maureen
Thanks for that Guardian link. A new twist in the debate.
I took the liberty of archiving it.
link to archive.is
Betty Boop @ 8.28 and Artyhetty @ 9.08
She was not welcoming a vote from the BNP nor applauding them as you respectively suggest.
She quite specifically says she “WONT applaud that” where that is IF the BNP gained a seat in the Scottish Parliament – and to do that people would have to vote for them.
The BNP would of course vote for the union – clue is in the name but that is not something she would applaud or welcome.
“”I WONT [my emphasis] applaud that…””
So she would not welcome support from the BNP for the union.
As the second part of her answer makes clear she would prefer to campaign to expose the BNP for what they are: Fascists, racists and homophobes. That would suggest that if they did stand any candidates in Scotland she would campaign to make sure they would NOT be elected. And perhaps be effective in stopping them getting elected in the first place.
Ms Dugdale can, on her CURRENT, performance come in for legitimate criticism but not I think on the basis of this answer. The reply may have been poorly written but it cannot be interpreted as support for the BNP.
OT Has anyone seen the Robinson tweets re Corbyn and the backlash?
Seems there are those who thought him impartial until this moment and are suggesting he should resign from the BBBC if he is incapable of impartiality.
Perhaps they should be force fed the Robinson lie over Alex Salmond ,still available on youtube.
I imagine KD losing sleep over not getting that call to join the House of Lords.
That ambition I believe is her core ideology.
O/T
seeing on twitter some attacks in Paris, police killed. 🙁
Time has indeed moved on. There is very little difference between the Conservative Party platform now and the BNP platform then.
She who hesitates is lost
its not support for the BNP, but it is indifference……history can testify to how that works out….
Rare foray into BBC News, Ruth not getting a good press on UK news. The rape clause probably could not have come at a worse time for Davidson.
I rarely watch TV News so I am not familiar with Laura Kuenssberg. I have read that she is pro-Tory and certainly she did not come across as a Corbyn fan.
To anyone trying to down play this….
The important part of the question was, “would you welcome a vote for the BNP as a means of preserving the Union?”
The absolute key elements of the answer were “That’s a very difficult question” and “can’t have a simple yes or no answer”.
There should have been nothing difficult about the question and the answer should have been an unequivocal no!
Any wavering or woolly response is shocking!
What about David Coburn?
He’ll be sniffing around for a new job in the next few years – would he be ‘useful’ to whatever then remains of SLab?
Some commenters here are exhibiting holier-than-thou piety at a time when we need to get real, and ye’s know who ye are. (Wee reminder – Dugdale has been trotting out the ‘indyref once in a generation’ myth for the past 2.5 years.)
Dorothy Devine says:
20 April, 2017 at 10:08 pm
OT Has anyone seen the Robinson tweets re Corbyn and the backlash?
Ah good old Nick. Anyone remember him?
I wonder if there was an investigation into him and his goings on over the early announcement of the RBS moving darn surf.
Just for you Dorothy. 😉
link to plus.google.com
She’s not the only one. Spring time for Labour… and the National Front, in Aberdeen.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
What Dugdale’s supposed logic implies is that she would vote BNP if they had the best chance of winning against the SNP.
I thought she was just another dead eye soulless careerist in it for the money and a puffed up sense of importance.
But she really is a fucking low life.
@ Legerwood
The mere fact that her answer was longer than “No” is enough to damn her, in my view.
It absolutely should not be a “difficult question”.
She could have got away with “No, and I will also be campaigning to prevent their getting a seat”, if she wanted to emphasize that.
I think you have lost all reason when you defend a union regardless of the extent you need compromise your values to do so.
The union offers little to Scotland while demanding much. I cannot understand the proud Scotsbut defence of Westminster….why do they have such a poor confidence in our ability to do much, much better for the people of Scotland.
The problem with Dipity is “does she have any clue who the BNP are/were? just look at her abilities in parliament, I think the answer is obvious.( she probably thinks its a fast food outlet)
Just had a wee look at FMQs on yatube.
How can anyone in Scotland vote for the Yoon parties?
“Totally EMBARRASSING,”
The SNPs maturity shines through every week, the yoon parties wont/can’t accept it, FACT.
Legerwood @ 22:02,
While your interpretation of her answer is fair enough, it could be said to lean over backwards to give Kez the benefit of the doubt. Given the second part of her answer, it should have been very easy for her to answer a simple “no” for the first part. (And indeed for the whole, tout court, instead of all that pussy-footing about.) Which leaves us wondering what on earth gave her that quite unnecessary difficulty?
It’s that whiff of nascent tolerance towards other supporters of Unionism, amplified in the meantime by several subsequent party-driven recalibrations in favour of the Union in plain defiance of virtually everything that Labour claim to represent, which makes us so readily contemptuous now.
It’s not as if her tolerance extends equally generously to her opponents in the SNP, who for their part have never had any difficulty whatever in unconditionally rejecting the likes of the BNP.
O/T
If you want a snapshot of the many positive things happening in Scotland today, I can recommend link to scoop.it – uplifting and informative and a welcome counterpoint to much of the dross in the MSM, which largely neglects such items. Glad to say that Prof John Robertson has returned to his task of presenting an impressive array of good news items to inform as well as encourage – and I am sure that this kind of resource will be very important in the months ahead. Worth a bookmark and regular visit – if only for the feel-good factor – And well worth directing those still unconvinced about Scotland’s future to take a look, should the opportunity arise.
It all goes to further highlight the reality that we have multiple single issue parties in Scotland. Also, given the fact that in every case it is the same issue, ie preservation of their Union, why do they bother to continue as separate parties?
It really is the Union above everything else with Kezia Dugdale. Has anyone ever confronted her about her dodgy blogging past and who is Fifi LeBonbon?
On another note I reckon the SNP should absolutely exploit their ‘dangerousness’. After all what could be more attractive to disgruntled Labour voters who feel betrayed by their party in rUK than supporting the idea of the SNP inflicting free tuition and prescriptions on Tories by way of their non-progressive policies?
Her answer should have been a timely emphatic ‘No of course not and I would hope to expose them for what they are’.
I’m interested in the timing of this conversation. After more than 3 weeks she still hadn’t answered – maybe hoping that it had been forgotten about? She then takes another 5 days to come up with a response, did she really have to think so hard about it?
Brian @ 9.15 Who’s WE?
Anyway just popped in for a look see, now going to bed rather annoyed at this really stupid woman. Night night folks and… play bonny.
Got to say I really enjoyed the illogical commentary on selective quoting to the Rev…
– Accusing Rev of selective quoting…
“you are always warning everybody to be aware of selective reading of information, by highlighting the first part of [the] statement you are guilty of presenting [the] words in a selective manner and therefore out of context.”
– Rev’s response…
“No, fuck off. We start with the exchange in full. And it shouldn’t be a difficult question at all. The answer is “No, the BNP aren’t better than ANYONE, the end”, but she can’t find it in herself to say that.”
– And then use a selective quoting response from the illogician – the very accusation that was foolishly flung at the Rev…
““No, fuck off”
We’re just going to leave it at that, folks.”
Absolutely outstanding hypocrisy on their very next comment. Bravo! 😉
Seriously couldn’t make this stuff up! What makes it even better is the awareness warning at the start of the accusation… 🙂
Still chuckling at that one. Brilliant!
Did anybody else notice how meekly Neil Findlay asked Nicola Sturgeon a question at FMQs today.
He looked every inch a man on a “Final Warning” at his work.
About time to, the guy is a ravin nutcase.
@caz-m –
Aye, big Neil The Findlay always looks ready for a square-go with abody, and today he already had the tie off when he stood up.
The man looks like he’s entered that eerily quiet phase which is often a sign of someone who’s about to go completely tonto.
Got a lovely tory leaflet for the council elections through the door today.
“WE DONT WANT A 2ND REFERENDUM” it blasts – no mention of a panicked We need a General Election, Then Ruth Davidson blasts we voted No — nothing about we voted remain, nothing about the R clause.
The tories are a real scummy party.
Ian Brotherhood 11.59pm
“The man looks like he’s entered that eerily quiet phase which is often a sign of someone who’s about to go completely tonto”
LOL Just made ma night Ian, good one mate.
But he does look as if he is one rant away from gettin the straight jacket treatment from the security guards at Holyrood.
OT
Just looked at my FB page and I counted no less than 8 Machiavelli May adverts posted. Effin effin FB Tory scum acting as pimps for the Tories. I classed them all as offensive. GRRRRRR!
link to caltonjock.com
Just did the SNP thing on FB – who you should vote for in local election – basically you put in your postcode and they tell you which order you should vote them.
What surprised me is it went totally against my local branch, although it pleased me. It put our youngest candidate 1st and the oldest last.
I’m happy with that as our oldest candidate is close to a dinosaur.
Had a fun time in pub tonight with former union colleagues.
SNP abstention came up, I suggested Corbyn could have offered he run the country as a minority administration. Not sure if legally he could, but the reply was that it wasn’t a goer as would need a deal with the SNP, so he had to choice but to vote for the election. Kinda kills Dugdales argument.
Having won that argument I threw in the prospect of the unionists joining forces and putting up only one candidate as an anti SNP candidate.
It was meant as a joke but they fell for it, hook, line and sinker. I sat back as they debated it and agreed it was a good idea.
That sums up the Scottish Labour Party that I once voted for, now more interested in saving the union and to hell with the folks suffering from Tory policies.
Looking forward to Sunday’s pub chat.
Would you welcome a General Election result with 150 UKIP MPs which led to a UK Government Coalition between UKIP and the Tories, and an instant swing to YES being supported by 75% of Scottish voters and Independence in 2020, and if not, why not?
yesindyref2 @ 01:33,
A hypothetical scenario (of course!), though only different in proportion rather than nature from the Tory-majority/UKIP-minority coalition that I posited to Labourites during indyref1. But taking your version, I for one have great reservations about it.
Firstly on a selfish note, I suspect that such an extreme BritNat government would basically point-blank deny Scotland its will, even taking things as far as to declare a state of emergency to prevent it, so the second part of your scenario might not be allowed to happen.
Secondly, I would feel very bad for the people of England, since a great many of them would be appalled by such an outcome, and I would feel bad for benefitting in some way from their misfortune. (But not bad enough to refuse to make the split – on the contrary, I would hasten to get the hell out!)
All this got me thinking about people I used to know years ago but have lost touch with since. At some point along the way politics gets talked about. All of them were dyed-in-the-wool Labour. When I said I’d always supported the SNP I received lots of tut-tutting, some arrogant mocking, and the usual lecture on the ‘dangers of blood and soil nationalism’. The people in question were all quite middle-class (teachers, journalists etc), and university educated.
One of them (a Celtic supporter) told me that if Scotland became independent all the Catholics would be persecuted! Another told me her family had always been Labour and that she could never vote otherwise. She was always a bit frosty after that.
Another guy read The Guardian religiously, professed to be a Marxist but still supported Blair. He loved to mock Alec Salmond, in the same way that Labour Big Beasts used to pour scorn on the legitimacy of Holyrood. I’d love to bump into all of these old friends again. Just to catch up. Talk about politics, perhaps?
@Robert J. Sutherland
I agree, it would be hell for the people of the rest of the UK. But it could be a difficult question to answer off the cuff.
@The Dog Philosopher
I loved your post, mibbee it’s because I’ve met the same people LOL
‘Would you welcome a General Election result with 150 UKIP MPs which led to a UK Government Coalition between UKIP and the Tories, and an instant swing to YES being supported by 75% of Scottish voters and Independence in 2020, and if not, why not?’
Yes, but I doubt that would happen. A UKIP MEP somehow managed to be returned from Scotland don’t forget, and there are plenty of people who are going to vote Tory.
I’m steeling myself for a massive Tory majority in June, but I have no illusions that it will lead to any immediate bump in support for indy. I think it will gradually, but a few years of a Tory majority government could just as easily lead to our parliament being dissolved, our territorial waters confiscated, and god knows what else these nasties have planned for us.
@ galamcennalath: “And that was TEN years ago. To be honest, I thought this ‘any unionist’ is better than a pro-indy stance thinking was something from the last few years…”
_________________
30 years ago, in 1987:
link to youtube.com
Skip to 2:30.
Plus ca change…
This unexpected GE may turn out to be bad news for the SNP and the cause of Scottish independence. In last year’s Scottish parliamentary elections, the SNP won 59 of 73 constituencies, with the Tories winning 7, the LDs 4 (Orkney & Shetland are separate for this election) and Labour 3.
While the constituencies for the 2 elections are no longer identical, extrapolating such a result to GE2017 means that it is likely that the SNP will lose about 10 of the 56 seats they won at GE2015. The local election results in May may assist tactical unionist voters to work out which pro-union candidate is most likely to win in a particular constituency, so the SNP may lose more than 10 seats.
If the SNP seat tally drops to well below 50, this will be bad news for those who would like to see an independent Scotland in the near future. Hopefully, I am being unduly pessimistic.
@Big Jock says: 20 April, 2017 at 9:59 pm:
” … When did Labour become ultra unionists”
They didn’t, Big Jock, because they always were.
Keir Hardie began as a member of, “The Crofters Party”. He was then sponsored by the Liberals to stand for Westminster in a Scottish constituency and lost.
He then moved south and was a founder member of the Labour Party and got elected. So there you go – the father of the Labour Party began as a Scottish Home Ruler and the party he helped found has paid only lip service to home rule but has never really made a serious attempt to be anything other than part of the Westminster Establishment.
Links
link to snp.org
link to newsnet.scot
Pete Wishart MP at the last Business Questions before the 2017 General Election brings up tory election fraud
link to youtube.com
link to autonomyscotland.org
link to commonspace.scot
link to businessforscotland.com
link to ericjoyce.co.uk
link to indyref2.scot
Excellent and brave piece from James Dornan msp
link to seemescotland.org
Kirsty Hughes and others appearing at the Scottish affairs committee Wednesday 19th April
link to parliamentlive.tv
Calum Kerr on Defra question
link to m.facebook.com
Diageo to cut more than 100 Scottish jobs over Brexit concerns, says GMB union
link to archive.is
link to blogs.cardiff.ac.uk?
link to politico.eu
link to bloomberg.com
Gina Miller plans ‘biggest tactical voting effort in UK history’ ahead of snap election
link to archive.is
Good Morning, Nana, no more pressing engagements today I hope.
🙂
Thank you, for the lovely links. Kettle’s on!
Peace Always
@daodao
The rules are simple. If the majority of MPs sent down to represent Scotland are formed by a particular party, then that is the winning party in Scotland.
As for a referendum? That’s already settled. The SNP and the Scottish Government as voted for in the Scottish elections already have a mandate and the vote has passed through the Scottish parliament.
If vote share dips at all in the GE, HMG and their media will spin what they’re going to spin regardless. It doesn’t stop the facts being the facts. Our democracy is two tier and based on seats won. Westminster seats and Holyrood seats, not vote share and frankly at this point, I’m way beyond giving a shit what the media or their chaintuggers say.
If the SNP form the majority of representation to both houses that is all the mandate they require to act in the best interests of the Scottish electorate.
A friend was in his local village shop yesterday, it is run by an old lady. whilst in conversation about this and that it got down to the GE. The old lady confided in him that she is now voting SNP cause Nicola is the only one she feels is honest.
Hope she converts many more.
Up early this morning to do some online research for a football story I am writing.
While browsing the Herald archive for 1947, I came across a story from Parliament, in which the Atlee Labour government passed an order which would have allowed them to “round-up the work-shy and force them to contribute to getting the ship of stte moving in the right direction”.
There was talk of setting-up internment camps to force people to work. I hope Mother Theresa doesn’t look back at this, if she gets her increased majority.
I also noticed, Labour in Glasgow took a bit of a belting in the local elections in 1947, but, interestingly, in a lot of the Glasgow wards, there was a 50%-plus turn-out. Against that, in one or two it was the usual, only two men and a dog voting.
@daodao 7.00.
You are indeed being unduly pessimistic.
Tactical voting may allow the Tories or Lib Dems to sneak a seat or two, but on the other hand, the SNP can also look to make gains.
Three seats are currently held by unionists/pandas but as the present incumbents have been making such erses of themselves over the last couple of years, they may struggle to hold on to their seats.
I am being appropriately optimistic 🙂
Try as I might, I cannot see anything seductive or persuasive about Unionism.
Neither Labour nor the Tories seem capable of engaging the SNP without succumbing to the demonisation and visceral hatred which quite frankly is simply not warranted.
I don’t know whether it stems from decades of contempt they held for the SNP, or jealousy that the SNP has taken over their heartlands. I really don’t get the acrimonious antipathy towards all things SNP. I say that as someone who is myself less than impressed with the SNP, but still rational enough to keep my personal misgivings in check while seeing the bigger picture for the overall good of my country.
I can and do feel contempt towards Labour for its “charlatanism”, if that’s a word. And I deeply resent right wing Conservatism which is a great blight and misery on many people’s lives. But I don’t hate them to such an extent it clouds my judgement. My judgement in those circumstances is vital to keeping my perspective, and without that I’d be hollow and lost, and angry before I knew why.
For as long as the Tories and Labour, and in fact the BBC too, are going to “monster” the SNP, the more energy they are going to expend fighting mythical figments of their own imagination. They are trying to save their Union by castigating the SNP as the enemy at the door, but they have to lie and fabricate to keep that narrative going. That might be good enough for the UKIP – EDL knuckle draggers and BTL commentators in the Express, but Scotland thankfully seems to have a resilience to it. It is false, and ordinary people increasingly see it as false, and therein lies the growth in support for the SNP and virtual collapse of faith in all others.
If the Unionists really want to defend their Union, then they need to park their hatred of the SNP up some quiet cul de sac, and start persuading people that the Union is in whatever way they want to describe it, an advantage to Scotland and in Scotland’s interests to be part of.
See, when your mind isn’t clouded by prejudice, a clearer picture emerges. Labour and the Tories MUST demonise the SNP, because to engage constructively with the constitutional absurdities which blight Scotland would expose Unionism as unsustainable sentimental delusion, and even the clear and rational advantages of sovereign control are something they find too unpalatable to even consider. That is not a rational position to be in.
My perfect Independent Scotland would be built on education, achievement for all, science, technology, research and investment. Unionism seems to draw its strength form traditional old wives tales, cattle lying down before a shower of rain and people being burned for witchcraft. It’s built upon things we just don’t do anymore. We are not ignorant serfs who devote our poverty to the service of an overprivileged superior. The Westminster elite is not running our country, they are ruining our country, keeping it a dark place where prosperity flounders for the lack of oxygen.
To defend their Union, the Unionists are going to have to step out their comfort zone and address the deficiencies and frustrations of a failing Union. And for as long as Unionist parties, and their dog-on-a-chain BBC, continue to smear and demonise the SNP, you just know they have nothing in the tank by way of an answer to Scotland’s constitutional injustice. The same shite is going to continue unabated, and there is no constructive and progressive discussion in the offing.
Its all very tiresome. You begin to suspect the only way Scotland ever can have a constructive analysis of its constitution is to vote for Independence first, and exhaust the debate objectively and constructively over ratification.
Right now, that’s where I am. I’d take any form of Independence, I’d slot our EU membership right away, have the BBC propagandists clapped in irons, and then have a thorough, exhaustive, and unfettered constitutional debate followed by a plebiscite to determine all that we want to do as a sovereign Nation. I don’t know why that should feel like a subversive thing to be saying. It’s what normal countries do without even thinking.
Scotland to its immense credit is doing peacefully what many freedom fighters have required to take up arms to achieve, but I fear we have reached the same point of the revolution where we must take over the TV and broadcasting. I’m not sure how we achieve that, but I feel it’s the stage we are at. Not that we must storm the BBC, heavens no, leave them be, but that we must get access to broadcasting our side of the story.
Nana says:
Good to see you posting again 🙂
” Gina Miller said the group called Best for Britain will aim to back parliamentary candidates from all parties “who campaign for a real final vote on Brexit, including rejecting any deal that leaves Britain worse off.”
Can we assume that Best for Britain will be supporting the SNP position and therefore candidates?
Good morning Smallaxe. haha not today, I’m a wee bit pressed for time.
I posted 4 more links, may be caught by wordpress or I may have done a Kezia and pushed the wrong buttons. Anyhow they might appear later.
Can’t recall if I posted this yesterday,no harm done posting again
link to taxresearch.org.uk?
Scottish Government pledges to support 135 Diageo workers facing redundancy
link to archive.is
“I don’t know whether it stems from decades of contempt they held for the SNP, or jealousy that the SNP has taken over their heartlands. I really don’t get the acrimonious antipathy towards all things SNP.”
Don’t you, Breeks?
My view is that the SNP shows up each and every Yoon politician for the incompetent, spineless, gutless careerist opportunists they are. They want all the trappings of power and the salaries, allowances, pensions and perks that go with it, but can’t be ar$ed in actually doing anything worthwhile for Scotland to earn them. Metaphorically, lying back and thinking of England is their dream job.
Meanwhile the SNP see Scotland for what it is and the wasted potential and want power, not for themselves, but for all Scots to make our own lives and our own decisions and share our prosperity widely, not hoard it to a small “elite”.
Which pretty much crashes the Yoon gravy train well and truly into the buffers, now and forever, because by and by they’re a mainly talentless bunch if left to their own devices.
” Brussels is demanding lifelong rights for EU citizens and their families in a move that would overturn Theresa May’s pledge to end the power of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Britain.”
Agree on anything between the hard right Brexiteers and the EU seems less likely with ever passing say!
link to archive.is
@galamcennalath
Thanks Gala, good to be here.
I would certainly hope Mrs Miller and her group have been speaking to our mps. I will be keeping an eye out for any more info.
Here’s the fundraiser which states
How will we spend the money?
We will use the money to back candidates who pledge to support a full and free vote on the Brexit deal. We will also work with organisations with the same goals.
link to gofundme.com
Nana says:
I would donate to their fundraiser, but I would need to know they will endorse the SNP’s position.
Despite being ‘Britain’ they may actually be ‘England & Wales’! We will soon find out.
It just shows how dippy Dugdale really is.
Though it was a pleasure to watch Nicola kick the shite out of all the yoon leaders yesterday, especially Ruthie the lump.
Just caught a little of the most amazing round table convo on Sky news.
A handful of thirty something bubble types metrosplaining the importance of continental EU residents to the UK economy and HOW they could and should be replaced over time by ‘British’ workers…(bangs head off table)
Put aside for a second the glaring logic of why these folk have been hired in the first place and focus for a second on ‘could and should be replaced over time’.
Don’t know about anyone else, but were I a worker of continental European origin and some smug, arrogant, self indulgent twat had just given me a heads up on my future awaiting deportation, the last thing I’d do is hang around and train my ‘British’ replacement.
People from points of origin across half the globe work across every sector in the UK. They pay taxes, buy homes, invest in their communities and otherwise contribute to our societies monetarily and culturally. If they decided that the UK was not worth the candle anymore and should they so feel like it, they could cripple the economy and infrastructure of the these islands overnight simply by NOT turning up to work.
We’re not even started on the ‘Johnny Furriners’ companies who actually invest in our nations by the by, just people of continental origin who reside and work in the UK. Nurses, doctors, farmworkers, builders, techies across umpteen engineering fields, research staff, the list goes on and on. They alone could bring these islands to their knees and send its economy, services, infrastructure into a tail spin simply by not turning up to work.
According to some folks, it’d be awfully nice if they hung around just long enough await and/or train their eventual replacement.
Just wow. 😮
It’s entirely thanks to Labours so called leaders like Dugdale, Corbyn, Milliband and Brown that we now face the prospect of an even more extreme right wing tory government, led by a woman with the instincts of a dictator. I for one will never forgive them. I just hope that this will work to Scotland’s advantage.
Macart says
They believe they sit at the centre of the universe. Exceptionalism, entitlement, elitism, and English Nationalism pervades everything. It always did, only now more of us see it for what it is.
The Scotsman lead story “Independence “Reckless” as 500k jobs rely on UK trade”.
Why don’t they just do the decent thing and change name to “The Unionist” or just fold.
In what parallel universe would the rUK, a country with integrated trade with a newly independent neighbour, cut off all that when their own companies rely on that country for 10% of their business?
Or are they proposing some sort of embargo, like we’re f**king Cuba or something? Do they think their readership are morons?
There would be some upheaval, but in the main, people and businesses just adapt where there is profit to be made.
I used to have some respect for the Hootsman, in it’s old “broadsheet” days. I guess I just wasn’t paying enough attention.
ledgerwood says:
“As the second part of her answer makes clear she would prefer to campaign to expose the BNP for what they are: Fascists, racists and homophobes. That would suggest that if they did stand any candidates in Scotland she would campaign to make sure they would NOT be elected. And perhaps be effective in stopping them getting elected in the first place.”
This is a very important comment Ledgerwood, because it exposes Kez even more, because in order for Kez to “campaign to expose the BNP for what they are” they would first need to be elected!
She can campaign to expose them any time she wants, or put another way, have we ever had a Slab campaign dedicated to exposing the BNP?
If not, I think we can assume that what Kez meant was once the BNP were elected, she would “expose them for what they are”
So she would rather see the BNP win a seat if it came down to a straight fight between them and the SNP.
We can now understand why Margaret Curran clenched her fist and shouted yes! when Ukip won a list seat at the expense of the SNP eh?
I know it must be embarrassing for you (or maybe just politically damaging) but the truth is you are on the side of something quite disgusting and something that will go to any lengths to make sure Scots don’t get told the truth about how we have been robbed blind by Westminster for so many years.
If this is getting difficult for you mate, just shove your fingers in your ears and shout lalalalala!
The auld woman who always got first comment on the toxic Scotsman website. What happened to Meths?
Change back to FPTP. Get rid of the unionist/green. They are toxic. Have an IndyRef. Job done.
Diago backed NO. Makes massive profits, pay no tax in Scotland. Now sacking workers. Brexit.
Non Dom tax evading, non resident Murdoch SKy. Destroying people’s lives. Unsubscribe.
Macart
I their plan for the people who own Nissan, RangeRover, the train services and the English water companies is that they going to keep them around until they get British owners to take over.
Interesting, I don’t sense a different Kez in her response.
Maybe just me, however at least she responded. Not now and certainly not on Twitter.
She is becoming irrelevant.
Robert J. Sutherland says:
20 April, 2017 at 11:04 pm
Legerwood @ 22:02,
“”While your interpretation of her answer is fair enough, it could be said to lean over backwards to give Kez the benefit of the doubt.””
……….
I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Time after time people put the worst possible construction on someone’s actions or words – especially those who criticise the SNP – and I am heartily sick of it.
It seems you cannot be charitable in your interpretation of actions and words but must be at the extremes – all bad or all good and no middle ground.
Yes of course there are actions and words that are beyond any doubt repugnant and would always invite censure and I would be in the front of the queue to do so. But not every word, deed or gesture of those on the opposite side of the argument fall into that category. Just because someone is on the opposite side of an argument does not mean they should always be met with reactions or criticisms that go to the opposite extreme.
Kezia Mitford methinks!
UKIP won a seat because the greens instead on telling folk to vote for them. Otherwise it would have been SNP. They would rather UKIP won than SNP. Just like the unionists who they collude with at every opportunity. Giving them the casting vote. ,To ruin the local/national economy. Waste money like there is no tomorrow. Get towns/cities into massive of unnecessary, wasteful debt. Not supporting essential services. Then demand taxes are raised on hard pressed households. Not supporting essential services. To cover their wasteful idiocy,. Totally against the majority wishes and the national interest.
ACC over a £Billion in wasteful, unnecessary debt. Illegally sold the City on the stock exchange for forty years. A grotesque carbuncle costing £200Million ruining the City Centre. How they got planning permission is a mystery. Shutting off roads causing the worst emission in the UK. A Labour/green coalition for Office and remuneration. A green casting vote. Reneging on all green policies. Off pedestrianisation etc. To add insult to injury after the incessant demands did not raise the Council tax. They are a disgrace. People are raging.
@Patrick Roden
Well said. I’m quite taken aback, Legerwood, that you would seek to defend or pull up those criticising Dugdale.
It’s shocking to me her first response is ‘it’s not simple’
Yes, it is! VERY f**king simple. Alarm bells should have been ringing big time, and her response, as a decent human, never mind Labour, should have been unequivocal.
The questioner was very clear, the direction and implications couldn’t have been clearer.
It’s incredibly shocking that Dugdale even harbours these thoughts and sits as an MSP,,but also explains, deep down, it’s not about doing a good job, it’s about position. Ultimately, it’s about getting down to London.
Not that we didn’t already know that.
BNP. Craig Murray makes an interesting point ….
” Can Anybody Find Any Significant Difference Between May’s Policies and the British National Party Manifest?
Indeed, the few differences I can find between the BNP 2005 manifesto and the current Tory platform are in areas like the NHS, where the Tories are more right wing than the BNP were. “
My bold.
Another aspect of this sordid affair and Kez. The blog is now deleted. Why?
I read on Twitter, that all Tory prospective candidates have been instructed to go through their social media and delete anything suspect.
If you are seeking public office, you HAVE to expect this level of scrutiny, and we have a right to impose it, as long as its about political views, actions.
Words and actions are incredibly important. Consistency and honesty are key, because now, in this age, the truth will out.
I’ve maintained for a long time that Dugdale and Davidson are sociopathic liars. The former benefited from her manufactured ‘sweet ‘ demeanour…which particularly middle-aged men were taken in by…sometimes on here. The latter benefited from her mouthy persona as defender of the faith.
Both have had their masks slip recently. Both sit and giggle at honest heartfelt condemnation from opposition msps and public alike. Both are shameless liars. Neither apologises or gets embarassed at any u turn or contradictory statement thrown back at them. Both are manipulative and without any empathy. Nothing touches them emotionally, apart from their own ambition being thwarted.They join a long line of dysfunctional males with similar personality disorders into politics, but their main role model is Magaret Hilda Thatcher…who unlike them.. had a messianic crusade that she believed in and (unfortunately)succeeded in realising.
Just for the record:
link to web.archive.org
This time next week I’ll hopefully be in bed catching a couple of hours sleep before the local government election count starts, Sarah Boyack will be the MSP for Edinburgh Central and Scotland will have a predominately pro-union Scottish Parliament.
Another women stopped me in the street to wish Sarah luck, said Labour were going to ‘get a kicking’ but Sarah would be fine because she’d done so much good work locally. She said she’d sat at her kitchen table for over half an hour with her postal ballot that morning completely torn over what to do with her list vote. She was voting for Sarah in the constituency vote, assumed that a list vote for Labour was a wasted vote but couldn’t bring herself to vote Lib Dem on the list because of their local income tax plans.
As someone who passionately believed in the union voting SNP just wasn’t an option, but that also ruled out voting for Margo MacDonald, the SSP, Solidarity and the Greens. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone discounting voting Green on the list because of their stance on independence.
What was so interesting about the chat with the lady in street was that she couldn’t quite believe that she was about to give the Tories a vote for the first time in nearly 20 years. I just wonder how much of a trend that example might prove to be…
Sorry, forgot link to Craig Murray …
link to craigmurray.org.uk
Osbourne illegally high Oil taxes lost Scotland 120,000. Scotland has 120,000 people unemployed. Scotland would have had full employment.
Coming out of the EU will lose the UK millions of jobs. 5million? It could lose Scotland 1/2Million jobs.
Independence would not lose Scotland 1/2Million jobs that is a lie. Staying in the UK and Brexit would lose jobs. Staying Independent in the EU would increase jobs in Scotland. Increase the population. It is Westminster centralised economic policies that have depopulated Scotland.
Westminster illegally and secretly took all the Oil revenues (£300Billion) Thatcher. The UK Tressury borrow and spends £Billions on wasteful projects when there are more credible alternatives. Scotland has to repay loan repayments on the debt, not borrowed or spent in Scotland. Scotland can’t put a tax on drink to save £1Billion+. Or cut Trident, a total waste of money . £Billion. HMRC is not fit for purpose. The tax Laws are not enforce for multinationals making vast profits. Scotland can’t borrow. The Union costs Scotland £20Billion which could be saved or better spent. The EU funds Scotland in renewable grants, shared Defence costs. Nearest bigger market etc. Scotland gains from EU membership. £Billions. Scotland loses £Billions in the UK Union.
Scotland is now fighting for it’s life. Fighting for it’s existence. Any more Westminster unionist rule, Scotland will be depopulated further, Damaging the economy etc. Scotland has friends in Europe and all over the world who will help.
It is UK/US foreign and defence policies and illegal wars etc that have cause the worst migration crisis in Europe since 11WW. Their policies have have caused the increased migration into Europe. Putting the UK and US into Trns of debt and starving vulnerable people. They are the trouble causers. The European countries have to take on the burden and cost.
The UK has taken 10,000 Iraqi refugees. 1000 in London and 9000 placed in the North of England. The US has taken 55,000 well- healed refugees. After misplacing millions of people. US population 320 million.
There are 4 million Syrian misplaced people cause by UK/US illegal foreign and defence policies, Illegally killing and maiming, starving millions of vulnerable innocent people. They have been illegally bombing the Middle East for nearly 100 years and illegally taking their resources. Unionist lying ‘psycho bastards’. Bullies and crooks.
The US has be sanctioning and starving North Korea for over fifty years. The Chinese have to help them out.
DW @9.59
Another fascinating insight, because I bet she has heard that view now, ad nauseam.
It confirms, that as long ago as 10 years, Slab knew they would leak, then haemorrhage their voters to Tory, that it would become a straight Indy v Union fight.
Yet, they would rather slope their shoulders, and do Tory dirty work, to get Tory rule in Scotland to preserve the cosy hegemony.
I despise Labour more every day, and I’m not one of their betrayed faithful.
link to theorkneynews.scot good read.
@Breeks says: 21 April, 2017 at 7:48 am:
“Try as I might, I cannot see anything seductive or persuasive about Unionism.
Neither Labour nor the Tories seem capable of engaging the SNP without succumbing to the demonisation and visceral hatred”
Ah! Breeks, while making another point you come very close to hitting a nail on the head by aiming your blow elsewhere.
First you expose your own view on what is supposed to be A Gereral Election. , and what the situation actually is with, “anything seductive or persuasive about Unionism.”
Then you hit the nail that the opposition to the SNP also see the matter of, “A General Election.” as a way to prevent Scottish independence.
In short the SNP are The Scottish National Party and thus not, “The Scottish Nationalist party.
While none of the Westminster Unionist parties are fronted as Unionist parties opposing Scottish independence.
Yet the ongoing fight is being conducted as the battle for Scottish Independence and both sides in the General Election to choose a United Kingdom Government are fighting that choice either for or against Scottish independence which means the whole Westminster Establishment are standing together to oppose Scottish independence and treating the general election as a secondary, or even totally unimportant, matter.
@ Lochside 9.56
Many “successful” managers and leaders are Sociopaths:
link to healthguidance.org
Notice any of these in Kez & Ruth?
Hell, they fill up “The Apprentice” with junior versions of these, a show where the biggest arsehole wins.
I agree that Dugdale merits no sympathy whatever. Every leader before making a statement or announcing a policy usually sits down with their top team discussing every pro and con of that statement. Are we really saying that giving leeway to the BNP for ANY Reason is a good idea?
I cannot condone that thinking. She is a big girl, complete with university education and lawyer training. Please please do not tell me therefore that she does not understand what the BNP stands for.
It appears kezia is more willing to vent her anger at a centre left party to ensure they are destroyed than she is to condemn an ultra fascist entity that infests our country.
It never fails to amaze me when they openly condemn the SNP and the next day cosy up to Orange Lodge extremists and any other unsavoury grouping found under loyalist banners.
Maybe it is just me.
The BNP have always been the conservative party just another sub party designed to make them look electable and split the working class oik morons into little hate groups divide and conquer by spreading intolerance,bigotry,racism and violence inside the cattle pens.
The political wing of the National Front and yes they are run by the tory as well.
As for Kez she is a mere dunderhead and that above proves it,played like a cheap flute,i doubt very much that she even knows anything about these people.
In 1978-79 these people tried to take over they won but to their astonishment their boss turned on them and every other group,Maggie was the ultimate betrayer she used them as fuel for her righteous campaign against all forms of extremism,Maggie did not care if you were on the right or the left you would be crushed as enemies of the state the only extremism allowed was Maggie`s extremism.
It worked as all the scared Brit cattle flocked to the tory pen queuing up for their UJ`s and meager rations awaiting the great tory robbery.
Do yourself a favour children of Scotland we had to live and fight through this do not let them make you,it is very simple vote yes to Scottish independence and back the SNP the only way we can get independence.
The rest we can sort out later okay 😉
@admiral says: 21 April, 2017 at 8:04 am:
” … My view is that the SNP shows up each and every Yoon politician for the incompetent, spineless, gutless careerist opportunists they are.”
As I already pointed out to Breeks, it is far more basic than that.
The SNP are, “The Scottish National Party” and their actual main aims are to do whatever is best for Scotland.
Thus campaigning for independence is simply because the Union has proven to be a bad thing for Scotland and is not, as the Unionist parties insist, their core raison d’être.
To those ends the SNP are indeed concentrating upon their declared, “Day Job”.
However, all other Westminster parties are nominally dedicated to doing what is supposedly best for the United Kingdom as a whole.
The reality is that the unionist parties do not view the United Kingdom as a bipartite Union of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England as equally sovereign kingdoms.
Just consider the facts, “The Conservative & Unionist”, Party is presently presiding over a Westminster Parliament that has set itself up to run as the, unelected as such, de facto Parliament of the country of England as the master country that is thus unequally devolving the assumed sovereign powers of an unelected as such de facto parliament of England to three country of England subservient dominions of England.
The Labour Party and LibDems are also firmly supportive of the illegal Westminster setup and stand shoulder to shoulder in opposition to Scottish independence. Politics in the so called United Kingdom has descended to the level of being all about the survival of the mis-named United Kingdom.
There cannot be a United Kingdom that is run as the country of England holding the other three countries in thrall for there obviously is now no actual union of two kingdoms in the now mis-named United Kingdom.
A united Kingdom would only have two equal component parts and there is actually no country known as, “The United Country of Great Britain & Northern Ireland”.
Now I’ll guarantee we will not get through this day without some political figure speaking or writing the obviously wrong statement when they refer to the United Kingdom as either Britain, Great Britain or the country.
Right down to the level of each individual the Unionists mantra is the mistaken belief that the UK is a country and that country is England.
Note, yesterdays FMQs when Davidson claimed that the SNP were talking, “trash about her country”, in an item where she was referring to, “The United Kingdom General Election”.
Note also the Conservative use of the Term Brexit when Westminster has no power to take Britain from the EU because Westminster has only the powers to take the United Kingdom out of EU.
In any case, three of the other British countries are not even EU members and another is an independent country.
Diageo.
The GMB supported NO and refused to give their Scottish members a vote on the issue. The GMB refused to give their Scottish members a vote on supporting Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
The GMB supported NO. Jeremy Corbyn supports Brexit. Diageo pays no tax on massive profits and cuts jobs in Scotland.
The GMB funds the Labour Party and private health care. Interferes illegally in the political process in Scotland. Trying to install placepeople against the local constituency party’s wishes. Illegal and corrupt leadership.
scunner says:
I learn something new every hour, via WoS. So Sherlock Holmes is more likely to have Asberger’s Syndrome than be Sociopathic because he shows emotions and develops attachments.
Politicians? The ruthlessness and lack of caring shown by so many does make you wonder about their psychiatric state!
Making a judgement about them is quite difficult though, because we see their public life and not how they relate to friends and family in private. They could be emotional and caring beings to those close to them. Or put more simply they may actually have people close to them, or may not.
Having said that, do some politicians exhibit the characteristics of sociopaths? Hell, yes!
I think Thatcher and Blair must be open to question.
Davidson and Dugdale? I actually think they lack the intelligence to scheme and manipulate very effectively. They get out of their depth quickly. Whatever they are, they are not high functioning, as Sherlock Holmes claimed to be!
Parliamentary Channel
Scottish Parliament
Preventative Health measures.
The Conservative Party (and any other party that is tethered to them) should consider the legacy that they are passing on to‘Generation Rent’ before they stand on a platform of trust.Their highly paid campaign manager might find it difficult to spin the bleak future that awaits them,
link to dannydorling.org
‘Generation Rent’ are also ‘Generation Zero Hours Contracts’ ‘Generation Early Mortality’, ‘Generation No-NHS’, ‘Generation No-Pensions’ ‘Generation No Social Support’ ‘Generation No Human Rights’ ‘Generation No Hope or Aspiration for the 99.9%’. Come on ‘Generation Rent’ and get out and vote but not for those who crave your indentured servitude.You are still living in nominally a democracy- use it.
O/T
Green Investment Bank has been sold for £2.3bn to Aussie firm Macquarie why has this been done now and very little reporting about it.
Lord Smith him of the Smith commission is chairman I wonder what he has got out of this.Will there be some asset stripping going on.
@galamcennalath says: 21 April, 2017 at 8:55 am:
“They believe they sit at the centre of the universe. Exceptionalism, entitlement, elitism, and English Nationalism pervades everything. It always did, only now more of us see it for what it is.”
Yes, galamcennalath, which beggars the obvious question as to why the Westminster Establishment is 100% for Globalisation when applied to large international, tax evading, neoliberal big business’ but are 100% against globalisation of the free movement of the common peoples throughout the World?
Phronesis @11.33
Good post – Use it or lose it !
@scunner says: 21 April, 2017 at 8:56 am:
… Do they think their readership are morons?”
You pose an interesting question there, scunner.
I may of course be wrong, but I have long believed they do not think their readership are morons …
They are absolutely 100% certain they are, in the main, morons.
It’s all converging into a straight pro-indy versus anti-indy battle in Scotland, regardless of type of election or referendum. It will continue to be so until Scotland regains its independence. All anti-indy forces in Scotland might as well merge and call themselves the britnat party.
“from just before the 2007 Scottish Parliament election”
Ah! That’s the one when the SNP promised to end council tax and eliminate student debt.
As a mere Sassanach I find this blog extremely interesting and informative. Can any one explain what a “Yoon” is?
While Kezia Dugdale continues to do her impression of a fly on a dog poo, Mrs May is lying through her teeth.
While pretending to the Electorate that she wants the best brexit deal possible for the UK, and build a new Britain based on global trade deals, the Prime Minister has wearied of Parliamentary Democracy, and now wishes to have the powers of a President, or better still, a dictator.
After repeated and emphatic statements that there would be no General Election, the Prime Minister turns on a sixpence and declares one, so that she, and she alone, can be a strong and stable leader with no political threat to her leadership for the next five years, during which, one must presume, she intends to establish herself as the only important political figure in the UK. In Bolton yesterday, she said,
“Give me the mandate to lead Britain.
Give me the mandate to speak for Britain.
Give me the mandate to fight for Britain. And,
give me the mandate to deliver for Britain.”
Behold, Theresa our Supreme Leader (and Dictator).
Ah! That’s the one when the SNP promised to end council tax and eliminate student debt.”
A tad different from SLab leader aligning with neo fascists in England Phil.
Did UK Labour gov not block all council tax change in Scotland too Phil?
Lovely side your on by the way Phil. BNP is a living horror and yet here you are, chuntering away.
Council tax has been kept low and so have University fees. All Scottish students now get a full loan. Scotland has the one of the highest % of the population with a Uni education 55%. On average 30% from school and 25% mature students. Plus EU reciprocal students and foreign students, who pay the full cost. One of the best education systems in the world. Even more could be done. In Scotland there has always been a major commitment to education. One of the first countries in the world to support tertiary education. 100,000 aprenticeship. College places. Etc.
The Tories have allowed two year after study visas for Oxbridge, Bath and Imperial, but none for Scottish universities.
Class sizes in England are 36.
@galam
Pretty well researched and known that boarding schools for the baby hooray Henrys, makes them ‘men’. The kind of stiff upper lip, emotionless man required to lead troops into battle and certain death. That’s the theory anyway, as we know it also creates some very weak characters, used to privilege.
Cameron, Osborne and BoJo, all products of the Bullingdon club, and how it shows. Cameron up for the job, as long as its jolly japes, runs at first sign of real trouble. The other two, constantly on the make, lining their pockets or self aggrandizement.
These types are free to act without consequence, and its sickening, and its why we get policy like the Rape Clause and the war on disabled. It’s why we bumble into wars etc.
It’s why we desperately need out.
Phil Robertson@12.01
There are no student fees in Scotland Mr. Roberson. In England it can cost you up to £9,000 per annum to attend University.
Regarding Council Tax the SNP were a minority administration in 2007 and were constantly blocked from cancelling the Council Tax by the Unionist parties, so the best the SNP could do was to freeze it. I suggest that you read the Scottish Government white paper on independence that was published before the independence referendum. It deals with that subject.
But you won’t of course.
link to twitter.com
I’m sure Dagdale will be hoping these tories get away with it without prosecution. For the good of GREAT Britain, you see. Tally ho!
Robert Peffers says:
Perhaps because they view everything in terms of ‘what can they get out of it’. If it brings them personal power and wealth, then fine.
Also, the Establishment may not be as keen on all this blood and soil nationalism as they suggest. Instead, it is a tool of manipulation to be applied to the masses. And at the moment a lot of English suckers are falling for it.
Of course it could be simply that there things to which logic doesn’t apply.
@Kenn500
Meths as of five years ago was retired in Spain playing Genesis covers in bars at night. Lost touch with him unfortunately.
Snp council manifesto lauched
see here
link to snp.org
Phil Robertson says:
21 April, 2017 at 12:01 pm
“from just before the 2007 Scottish Parliament election”
Ah! That’s the one when the SNP promised to end council tax and eliminate student debt.
Yes, the one where the other parties ganged up on the minority administration to thwart its reform plans for council tax, without of course putting forward any alternative plan themselves. The one where they ganged up to thwart the cancellation of the vastly overbudget Edinburgh tram line and allow the savings to be invested in transport improvements across Scotland. the one where Labour put forward budget amendments and then voted against them because the government accepted them. That one.
Crass opportunism but then what else have we come to expect from Yoons..
“A tad different from SLab leader aligning with neo fascists in England Phil.”
Not sure that calling the BNP “fascist, racist and homophobe” is aligning with them.
“Did UK Labour gov not block all council tax change in Scotland too Phil?”
The point here is that the SNP made one of their many unfulfilled promises. The Labour position is irrelevant.
“Lovely side your on by the way Phil. BNP is a living horror and yet here you are, chuntering away.”
Being unable to defend the SNP on its record of broken promises, you throw in the personal abuse. How you think that I am, in any way, on the same side as the BNP is interestingly irrational deduction.
Phil Robertson says:
21 April, 2017 at 12:51 pm
“A tad different from SLab leader aligning with neo fascists in England Phil.”
Well its a clear question Phil, if you’re on here using this to monster the SNP, you’re aligned with the BNP fascists.
Why is that hard to understand Phil, also, I give way to my honorable friend here,
“Yes, the one where the other parties ganged up on the minority administration to thwart its reform plans for council tax, without of course putting forward any alternative plan themselves.
The one where they ganged up to thwart the cancellation of the vastly overbudget Edinburgh tram line and allow the savings to be invested in transport improvements across Scotland. the one where Labour put forward budget amendments and then voted against them because the government accepted them. That one.”
You’re better than this Phil, not.
“Yes, the one where the other parties ganged up on the minority administration to thwart its reform plans for council tax”
And now the “big boy done and ran away” defence.
What plans for council tax reform?
What about student debt?
What about post-2011?
Mind you, blaming the Edinburgh trams for the Scottish Government failings is a new one.
Thanks
Does anyone know what happens to Meths? He had contacts to Grahamski. At that time believed to be Joyce, but probably not. Just curious.
Watch out – Lynton Crosby is back on the Tory payroll.
“The trouble with a lot of the coverage of elections these days, with all these polls that have come out, is that it is like a kid sitting in the back seat of a car shouting: ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet?’” says Lynton Crosby, the Conservative party’s 2015 election campaign director. “You just wanna tell them: ‘Shut up, close your eyes, sleep for half an hour, and we will be at grandma’s soon.’”
The media coverage of the 2015 general election was particularly frenzied. A relentless cycle of news and speculation, amid an electoral landscape disrupted by the rise of numerous small parties, changed direction from one moment to the next. Successive polls suggested the country was heading for another coalition. At the eye of the storm was Crosby, hired by David Cameron to deliver the outright election victory that had somehow eluded the Conservatives in 2010. His job was to ignore the voices from the back of the car who told him that his mission was impossible. “Of course, if everyone keeps shouting at you, you hear the noise,” he says. “But if you’re leading a campaign, your job is to stay calm and make everyone around you believe that if you just keep doing what you’re doing, you can win.”
It was this hardened self-belief in the forensic campaign strategy he had been planning for the past two years that helped Crosby deliver one of the greatest electoral surprises of recent times.”
link to archive.is
Conclusion : Forget the noise in the back seat of the British Media, Lynton Crosby is behind the wheel and has the route map to victory in his head.
In theory.
Ps. With a 20 point lead in the polls, why would Theresa May hire the most expensive campaign strategist in the business to engineer a foregone conclusion?
What plans for council tax reform?
What about student debt?
What about post-2011?
All vital issues Phil but aligning yourself with the BNP is the solution? and all to save this precious precious non farcical union?
Vote SLabour, save the UK, the BNP way.
Maybe Phil.
‘Mind you, blaming the Edinburgh trams for the Scottish Government failings is a new one.’
Ever heard of Opportunity Cost ?
Don’t bother with the pretence you are interested in good governance for Scotand.
Like all Yoons,it is always about the self and/or their British Nationalism. Usually both, like in your case Phil.
OT But can anyone tell me accurately why the Isle of Man succeeds in having greater independence than Scotland , and is never described as too wee , too poor , too stupid?
Come to think of it , the same applies to the Channel isles ,they forge ahead with their millionaires.
dakk says:
21 April, 2017 at 1:12 pm
‘Mind you, blaming the Edinburgh trams for the Scottish Government failings is a new one.’
Ever heard of Opportunity Cost ?
Yes, it’s usually about mutually exclusive options. Are you saying it was either the Edinburgh trams or council tax reform?
“Like all Yoons,it is always about the self and/or their British Nationalism. Usually both, like in your case Phil.
Don’t bother with the pretence you are interested in good governance for Scotand.”
Actually my post was not about British Nationalism (or self) it was about governance.
Why the deafening silence on student debt?
Imagine Scotland was still an independent country…
link to imgur.com
@The Rough Bounds says: 21 April, 2017 at 12:34 pm:
“I suggest that you read the Scottish Government white paper on independence that was published before the independence referendum.”
Ah! Rough Bounds, Might I suggest there is a dreary, green slimey and damp bridge somewhere in Scotland, with a message scratched into the moss covered wall that reads, “Phil lives here – keep out”.
A few lunchtime links
link to commonspace.scot
Don’t back me,’ says Tory SIC ‘paper candidate’ for Lerwick North
link to archive.is
How to read between the lines of the European Commission’s negotiating paper
link to ig.ft.com
Why the deafening silence on student debt?
But Phil, you’re a tory unionist, why are you so desperate to save Scots students from any debt now?
Given that English students are paying say £50K for a degree and its only going up in price too?
You are an odd lot Phil, tory yoons in your Scotland region of greater England.
SNP Manifesto for Council Elections :-
link to bbc.co.uk
Uh HUH!
Remembering for a moment what the thread is about, I see Mr Murray is attracting a fair bit of attention for his novel approach to voting tactics.
So basically Local Suthority or General Election Labour would strategize with auld Nick himself. Who knew?
Let’s not forget WHY we’re looking at a couple of decades of the most appalling Conservative government in living memory and why some parties are now apparently actively helping to keep them there.
‘Yes, it’s usually about mutually exclusive options. Are you saying it was either the Edinburgh trams or council tax reform?’
Eh,no,that was your Yoon parties that blocked the CT reform then Phil.
Half a billion quid of tram money could have been put to better use for Scotland if not for your mad Yoon agents.
But you are definitely just trolling on this one,my ardent British Nationalist friend.
Whataboutery Scots student debt grinches tory yoon Phil?
link to bbc.co.uk
“University graduates in England face higher debts on graduation than their peers in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the Sutton Trust says.
The social mobility charity says those who graduated from English universities last year – under the £9,000 fees regime – owed an average of £44,000.
It says average debts in other English-speaking countries ranged between approximately £15,000 and £29,000.”
Beeb gimps ofcourse call England the UK, Phil. No mention of you know who in you know where.
Wonder what BNP student fees policy is Phil? Or is it all for one and one for all, SLab and the BNP, bettertogether in this precious precious union of tory reign.
Recalled seeing this last night and thought it might be an appropriate graphic.
link to twitter.com
I’d be more than a tad umcomfy too, were I supportive of HMG, when you contrast and compare the voting groups.
After reading the SNP manifesto for the council elections I just wish the SG would do the same as the Tory, Labour and LibDem in Scotland are doing with their manifestos and stick to doing their day jobs.
Oh! Wait up!
Isn’t their day job to get independence for Scotland?
Well it is according to Mooth, Dippity and that other wee guy wha ah canna mind whit wi ca?
@admiral, breeks
The SNP are the new partner walking Scotland arm in arm down the road towards the sun and the Unionist Parties, especially Labour, are the ex partners who pushed their luck once too often and eventually got the bump.
They shout abuse and mutter nastily while slumped up at the bar, funds running down along with the slabbers of jealousy down their rabid chins.
The SNP and Scotland don’t look back..they don’t even hear the abuse anymore, its just drowned out by their laughter.
As for Kezia..Even though it was 10 years ago, I think it shows how she should never be anywhere near leading a party. Its all covered in that “cant have a simple yes or no answer”. Abysmal attempt to play the politician whilst portraying herself as an idiot.
Maybe such examples shows why now she goes into every interview with 1 key phrase that she will repeat throughout regardless of the question actually asked.
O/T
Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp says
link to businessforscotland.com
Robert peffers 1.37 pm.and an admirable manifesto robert,what is the tories manifesto?,No independence referendum.how can any sane person with an iota of intelligence vote for these Scotland hating creeps?.
Reposting this from SNP. Put your post code in and it will let you know the order to place your SNP candidate’s on your ballot if you are in a ward with more than one SNP candidate.
Post far and wide folks, this is exactly the information people were suggesting was needed in the lead up to council elections to ensure a better chance for both candidates being elected!
link to snp.org
They really are the Union at any cost.
And its such a high cost at that.
Everyone in Scotland should do what my old mum does,watches her soaps,doesn’t listen to the ebc news or political talk shows. She tells whatever political party who knocks on her door that she’ll vote for them. Then goes into that polling booth like she has done since she was old enough to vote,and votes SNP. God bless her.
Robert Peffers 11.06
You wrote “Now I’ll guarantee we will not get through this day without some political figure speaking or writing the obviously wrong statement when they refer to the United Kingdom as either Britain, Great Britain or the country.”
… and here’s another day where Robert Peffers demonstrates, once again, that he he doesn’t see that he is telling the rest of the world that they are out of step!
It is the richness of our language, our intelligence and our understanding of context that allows the rest of us to fully comprehend that which you, uniquely, perceive as “wrong statements” Robert.
If someone asks me what country was I born I will say England.
If someone at passport Control in China asks me where I have come from I will say The UK. If someone asks me which “country” I want to win the 100m Sprint at the Olympics I will say GB or Great Britain.
And do you know what Robert? In every case my answer will be understood exactly, and will be a “Correct statement”! Correct because I gave answers that were correct and fully understood by the receiver. Keep up with the times and evolve Robert. Change is good. It keeps us young. You will be a lot happier when you join the rest of us in the 21st century.
O/T but does anyone have that clip of May in East Kilbride, where the workers were told to applaud.
All the ones on you tube start after those instructions
Priceless in @shetlandtimes – Tory candidate says ‘buggers doon sooth’ forced him to stand in council election. ‘Don’t vote for me!’
This reminds me of the last council elections.
The gentleman in question is now deceased sorry to say so no disrespect towards him or his family,but, it just goes to show what the Tories are like having emailed Ruth Davidson about it after all this time I still await a reply.
Tory council candidate Les Mason is standing in a North, West and Central Sutherland ward at next month’s council elections following a telephone request from Conservative headquarters. Mr Mason only agreed to stand for the party on the condition that he did not have to campaign, and as long as Tory HQ gave him a guarantee that he would not be elected.
Mr Mason lives almost 100 miles away from the area where he is standing as a councillor. He has no plans to visit the ward where he is a candidate. Mr Mason admitted that the Tory strategy was to put up candidates like himself as spoilers, and freely acknowledged that he is only on the ballot in an attempt to split the vote and reduce the chances of the SNP candidate getting in.
Interviewed Mr Mason said: “Someone in Edinburgh at the top of the party phoned me up and asked if I would like to help them out. I emphasised I would but only if they could guarantee that I would not win.
“I did offer to go up to North West and Central Sutherland but the party bosses said there was no need to.
“They told me to do nothing and that was it. All they wanted was my name on the ballot paper to reduce the chances of the SNP getting in.”
He added: “That’s why people like me have been asked to stand, not because we have any hope of winning, but to split the vote and reduce the chance of the SNP getting in. That’s the Tory strategy.”
The hiring of Lynton Crosby by the Tories is interesting. Hopefully the election expenses scandal breaks during the campaign and how will they try and spin that away? Labour can always think of hiring John McTernan again.
At least four Tory MSPs are putting themselves forward as candidates for MPs in the GE
What do they know that we don’t!
Why are they preparing to abandon Holyrood?
Is this the predicted start of what we all know the slimy Bastirt Tories want?
In other news increased demand for Irish passports from members of the Orange Lodge
That’ll be them loyally not surrendering then eh!
So Phil’s conceded his red herring on the council tax issue. Why the deafening silence and lack of acknowledgement on that Phil?
As for student debt your words match exactly every rotten headline about this from the newspapers and the BBC since 2007? SNP have continually acknowledged that there is work to be done and have made inroads into finding ways to tackle this in Scotland:
‘However, Shirley-Anne Somerville, Minister for Higher Education, said the SNP’s policy of free tuition was a “huge factor” in ensuring the average student loan debt in Scotland remained the lowest in the UK.
She said: “We welcome the fact students start their working lives with significantly lower levels of student loan debt than if we pursued the same market driven policies as elsewhere in the UK.
“We will always take the opportunity to improve student support where we can which is why in 2016/17 eligibility for the maximum bursary of £1875 will expand for students who live at home in a household with an income of up to £19,000.
“In addition to this the First Minister recently confirmed a full review of the current student support system will take place in due course and we look forward to working with the sector to identify any other potential reforms that can be made.”
The figures come before the impact of changes to the system of support in Scotland introduced by the SNP in 2012 which will see a further increase in debt.
Michael Russell, the then Education Secretary, reduced grants to the poorest students as part of an expansion of loans to cover living costs.
The move was originally supported by NUS Scotland because surveys had shown them the biggest deterrent to students was the cost of living rather than debt.’
link to heraldscotland.com (Won’t archive)
But ah rather suspect you are not interested in whether they are at least attempting to mitigate this in Scotland and you say nothing about the mountains of debt on the shoulders of those students in England/Wales?
It’s so obvious you don’t give a damn about the issues Phil, your input on here is ideologically driven hatred of the SNP, only these two issues that have been repeatedly highlighted in the press as a means to undermine confidence in their very successful record in government, are what you fall back on to make exactly the same unfounded assertions and smears about the SNP’s governance in Scotland?
Utterly pathetic.
ot
a blast from the past
link to youtube.com
O/T – but Labour related (probably)
Constant lurker and rare commenter here. I had the pleasure of going to the CAMRA Paisley Beer Festival yesterday, an annual event staged in Paisley’s plush town hall.
As I was catching up with an auld acquaintance, this guy approached with a petition. He had a petition related T-shirt on. My acquaintance signed without thinking – his prerogative. However my suspicions were immediately sparked because this was a petition to –
Save the Children’s Ward at the RAH
Alert readers may recall that in the run-up to the Scottish elections, the Labour activists ran a few misleading petitions, including a certain Mr Bibby in Paisley.
I carefully read the blurb which stated “the Scottish Government’s plans to close the Children’s Ward”. Naturally I refused to sign the petition, telling the guy I can’t sign something which is inaccurate. I told him that any such plans are made by the Health Board and NOT the Government…
Interestingly, he WAS reasonably well-informed – ie he started to explain that the Government have to approve such a move. Such knowledge of recent changes in Scottish legislation implies he is a political geek of sorts. I stated that clearly means they are not government plans, and that he is trying to deceive people. I told him this had the smell of the Labour Party and directly asked him if he was from Labour – he denied it but couldn’t get away from me quickly enough.
I took some photographs of him and his colleague. I wonder if any Wingers have any idea how I could check and perhaps confirm my belief that these guys are Labour apparitchiks, and also how I/we can combat this continual onslaught of lies and twisted-truths. I’m quite disgusted by this form of campaigning, swanning around receptive happy drinkers spreading dishonesty as a (possible) campaign tool. Scotland deserves better than this BS.
Do you want to Tweet for Kezia Dugdale and Scottish Labour and get paid for it you can sign up at the website for the course on how to Tweet the correct kind of bile and abuse and all instruction is free
Sites to attack are also provided such as Wings over Scotland
and the First Ministers Twitter account
I didn’t make this shit up this is a real advertised job
Is’nt it Trolls
Guys it is Friday 3pm should you not be thinking of knocking off and heading for a drink or has the old fire breathing dragon got you working OT again.
Defend the union… eh how… talk pish blame the SNP for everything lmao
The real funny thing is not that,it is that you daft yoons still do not get it and we have told you lots of times so many times we got fed up telling you.
But here goes for old times sake we are not the SNP they just work for us.
Schrodingers cat at 3:03
Blast from the past.
Wow! look how young Lesley Riddoch looks there.
‘How can we know the dancers from the dance’.
(Yeats)
A more shallow collection of shoe shining,snow globe demonstrating bots,as we have ever witnessed,while having both the privilege and the shame of being their fathers sons and daughters,they are not only a waste of space,they also are depriving some truly talented individuals,real thinkers,taking a seat in the Scottish Parliament.
Look at the world we made,they cry proudly,a world where the only thing that matters is a striving for instant gratification and once achieved ceases to exist,there is no tomorrow,only the now.
Their one true ambition is to shut the door on the world and create a life that is isolated from life,come in and die with us,it will be great fun,is their message.
Political vampires,totally sucking the life and heart out of every person in Scotland,but happy to be subservient to ‘suck it up’ from the Trump’s and the Saudi’s of this world as a sign of their ‘global outwardness’.
The story unfolding of the Red/Blue/Orange Tories is a Scottish tragedy,that is for any sane,fair minded person painful to watch,but is also the best ‘advert’ for Scotland’s Independance you could ever wish for.
See no evil,hear no evil and….evil.
@Mike d says: 21 April, 2017 at 2:05 pm:
“… an admirable manifesto robert,what is the tories manifesto?,No independence referendum.how can any sane person with an iota of intelligence vote for these Scotland hating creeps?.”
I was sitting here having a break, a mug of tea and a choccy biccy when a quotation popped into my head that I thought I would like to share with the entire Unionist cabal throughout this laughably titled, “United Kingdom”.
It was the Micawber Principle, based upon that gentleman’s observations:-
D’you think they would listen to Mr Micawber’s sound advice?
O/T
One for the trolls and paid shills. One day this will be you…
Why I Did It
A guest post by Glasgow Working Class
“First of all, I want to sincerely thank James Kelly for allowing me this opportunity to set the record straight and to very briefly bid you all farewell. I can imagine what a difficult decision it must have been for him after the trouble I’ve caused on his page.
As some of you know, “Glasgow Working Class” was a persona I created when I was working at Better Together headquarters in 2014. I had several personal problems at the time, and my self-consciousness at being forty years older than most of the spotty teenagers in the building wasn’t helping. It was all too tempting to seek the easy way out, and when Blair McDougall went into hysterics after I introduced him to my new character who would taunt Cybernats with catchphrases like “Nat Sis” and “Mein Gott, up yer lederhosen”, I saw a golden chance to continue paying off my mortgage without doing any more hard work. I knew Rob Shorthouse would approve. They agreed to pay me £1 for every ten words of trolling on nationalist blogs, with no maximum daily limit. I even got a bonus when I made a Cybernat really lose it. I had genuinely found my vocation.
All good things come to an end, but even when BT was no longer around to support me in the manner to which I had become accustomed, I found that I just couldn’t let go of GWC. Far from stopping, or posting less often, I was posting more and more. I descended into a world of fantasy in which I almost became the monster I had created out of desperation. Even during the rare moments when I was “back in the room”, I could still hear McDougall’s helpless cackles and was convinced the silent majority found my contributions equally hilarious. It’s only really been in the last three or four weeks that I’ve recovered my self-awareness, realised that I am extremely unfunny, and decided to stop for my own sanity and for yours.
To anyone I’ve hurt, offended or simply bored rigid, I want to say I’m sorry. I truly mean that. You have my word that I will not be posting on this blog again. Thank you for reading this, and best wishes to you all.
Hoots man ra noo we British are still around ye ken ra noo. Scots wae Hae.”
From: link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
You just made his point for him. The United Kigdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the correct name of the ‘nation state’ consisting of the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England with Wales a protectorate of England and half the landmass of Ireland defined as the North as that nation state’s territory and a handful of other islands. Great Britain is the archipelago that these Kingdoms and their peoples (and the country of Wales) find themselves inhabiting.
Therefore Great Britain is not and can never be a country. Britain/UK and England are referred to as ‘the country’ repeatedly and that’s precisely what point he is making.
When you even have Wikipedia stating the capital of the UK is London. It’s astoundingly clear that England/Britain/UK are all regarded as ‘the country’ they are referring to. The only ‘country’ in that conflation is England. When you scratch the surface beneath yer average English MP you’ll find they ‘mean’ England when they talk of ‘our country’ and when that slips as it has on occasion they quickly cover themselves with ‘I mean the UK or Britain’ but how could they have when neither is in fact a ‘country’ at all?
‘The capital of the United Kingdom and its largest city is London, a global city and financial centre with an urban area population of 10.3 mil…’
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
I repeat there is no such country as the UK or Britain.
Marcia says:
21 April, 2017 at 2:51 pm
The hiring of Lynton Crosby by the Tories is interesting.
He’s the Australian delight what cooked up the last vote tory England, anti Scottish stuff, 2015. Alex Salmond the pickpocket thief on English wallets and
link to youtube.com
Voice over is really vicious but its probably going to get this anti Scots again, we’ve forced this GE on poor old Leave England. Anyone can be a tory thug, if you’ve watched likes of Ligger Neil and Nic Robinson in vote tory action.
Welcome to the toryboy sewer Sir Lynton.
Proud Cybernat that was an April fool post on Jame’s blog. Huv yet tae see the absence of that character btl since that was written.
Tumbleweed…typical…huh.
@ schrodingers cat, 3:05pm
Thanks for that link. The same arguments and the same case 22 years ago only, now, the it has bells on it! Project Fear alive and well in 1995.
Labour supporting Tory supporting Labour in the dance to keep their political hegemony in place and Scotland under the thumb of Westminster.
@ Proud Cybernat, 3:40pm.
GWC post was an April Fool. Now, he/she may well be an April Fool, definitely a fool of some kind, but, he/she ain’t admitting it yet.
“K1 says:
21 April, 2017 at 3:02 pm
So Phil’s conceded his red herring on the council tax issue.”
Where? To repeat, the SNP manifesto promised an end to Council Tax. I’ll leave it to you to work out whether that promise has been kept.
“As for student debt”, again we have umpteen excuses and misconceptions (student debt and student fees are not the same thing). But again the fact remains that, after ten years, student debt has not been eliminated. Aonther failed, broken promise.
Ironically the student loan debt is the biggest cash asset that the Scottish Government controls.
Phil Robertson says:
K1 says:
So Phil’s conceded his red herring on the council tax issue.”
Where? To repeat, the SNP manifesto promised an end to Council Tax. I’ll leave it to you to work out whether that promise has been kept.
——————————
the promise wasnt kept because labour, tories and libdems, who had the majority in holyrood at the time, voted against the snp bill to change the council tax.
but in your poor tortured mind this is the SNP’s fault???
put yer brain care specialist on danger money phil
jeezo
@Phil Robertson
Your doing yourself no favours and just drawing attention to the fact that it was the SNP who kept council tax frozen for years despite Tory cuts and Labour insistence it be increased.
Your drawing attention to the fact that student debt in Scotland is the lowest in the UK thanks to the SNP and their policy of NOT introducing student fees for those attending further educations colleges and Universities.
Your drawing attention to the fact that you are a blithering idiot. I’d keep my mouth shut if I were you, but I know you won’t. As your too wedded to the UK and Unionism.
Your not Duncan Horthsall by any chance, if so I claim my £5.
sensibledave says: 21 April, 2017 at 2:42 pm:
” … And do you know what Robert? In every case my answer will be understood exactly, and will be a “Correct statement”! Correct because I gave answers that were correct and fully understood by the receiver. Keep up with the times and evolve Robert. Change is good. It keeps us young. You will be a lot happier when you join the rest of us in the 21st century.”
Well no, sensibledave. I’m rather more inclined to leave you, your country and your kingdom as soon as my country, my kingdom and my countrymen can do so.
However, allow me to explain something for you. I spent my entire working life, over 50 years and never a day unemployed, often at the very cutting edge of several very advance electronic, physics and scientific fields.
I was often working in fields that were top secret before most Britons even knew what these were. Up to and including nuclear and quantum physics. Believe me, sensibledave, I’m a very long way from being anchored in the last century.
But I digress – all your rather pompous Britnat statements manage to highlight is that your outlook is exactly the English Nationalist/Britnat mind-set that has destroyed what really did have the potential, in 1706/7, to create something beneficial for the entire World.
Instead of which, and I do not exempt some of my own countrymen from the blame, it became one of the most evil intentioned regimes that has ever existed in the entire history on mankind.
Perfidious Albion just cannot help itself but has to destroy all it touches. In that time they invented Concentration Camps that were often no more than slave work camps where natives of British colonies were worked to death. They were leaders in the slave trade and it was mainly the English who committed genocide in North America.
The earliest settlers tended to be mainly Scots from the Northern Isles, some Irish and some Welsh employed by the Hudson Bay company and these were treated with derision by the English who referred to them as Squaw Men.
While the English were inventing Scalping and hanging Indian scalps on their belts as trophies the, “Squaw Men”, tended to live among the native tribes, to convert them to Christianity and to marry them.
Believe it or not fairly recent genetic testing in the Northern Isle discovered a strains of North American native tribes in the Scottish isles.
It turned out the Hudson Bay company would send the Wives and Children of deceased Trappers & Traders, “Home”, to a land they had never seen before when the trappers and traders, in a job of high risk and danger, died.
The British, (sic), Empire was an abomination of the worst kind. Britain did not civilize the Globe when it painted it pink. Britain enslaved the greater part of the World to feed the greed of the select few at the top. In a word the, “Establishment”.
If there was one Englishman who told the World the truth, (obliquely), that man was Charles Dickens.
He wrote of the Poorhouse, The Workhouse and the Debtor’s Prison. He told of the gap between the very, very rich and the very, very poor.
Now consider the contribution made by my country in the fields of medicine, anatomy, science, engineering and even in such fields as economics. the great Voltaire said of Scotland, “It is to Scotland we look for our civilisation”.
‘All of the damning quotes Labour have assembled come from the 2003 and 2007 election campaigns. In 2003 the SNP lost the election – the resulting Labour-led government at Holyrood doing absolutely nothing about the tax –* and in 2007 they won only a minority administration, which attempted to completely abolish Council Tax in favour of a local income tax but was defeated by the combined opposition of Labour and the Conservatives and eventually officially gave up on the plan in 2009.
(Though oddly, as recently as two years ago Scottish Labour’s then local-government spokeswoman Sarah Boyack was still talking about “The SNP’s plans to introduce their hated local income tax” as a current issue.)
In 2011 the SNP did NOT campaign on a policy of scrapping the tax in the coming parliament. Instead, they acknowledged the difficulty of coming up with a workable alternative and said that:
“We will consult with others to produce a fairer system based on ability to pay to replace the Council Tax and put this to the people at the next election.”
(Our emphasis.) The Nats, therefore, have NOT actually broken any promises. All manifestos implicitly assume a working majority, or all bets are off. After 2003 they weren’t in power, after 2007 they did their best but simply didn’t have enough MSPs to defeat combined Unionist opposition, and after 2011 – when they finally DID have a majority – they kept their commitment to consult on a fairer system.
The reason a brand-new one isn’t going to be offered this year is that Council Tax is a difficult and thorny problem to solve, and even the cross-party Commission On Local Tax Reform that was duly instigated by the Scottish Government wasn’t able to come up with a solution, throwing its hands in the air and saying that the Council Tax was bad but that they could “not advocate any single alternative to the present system”.
They passed the buck straight back to the political parties instead, saying:
“Our work is intended to inform new policies on local taxation which will be put to the electorate in the Scottish Parliamentary election in May 2016, recognising that political parties will attach different weights to the considerations for different options.”
So far the parties have bodyswerved the responsibility.
The SNP have fiddled round the edges, producing some slightly-progressive tweaks that nobody (except the Scottish Daily Mail) actually objects to in themselves but which by common consensus – including that of this site – are rather feeble and will produce a financial drop in a bucket.
Scottish Labour, which has been flapping around promising an alternative for nearly a decade, still has nothing to show for an endless parade of policy forums and debates on the subject. In October 2010 the party claimed to be “finalising” its proposals:,
link to wingsoverscotland.com
This has been thrashed out over and over again and here you are with a decade old canard regurgitating the exact same headline’s over and over again. You have no ‘rational’ or even intelligent response to what others are factually stating on the subject of CT.
It’s beyond pathetic Phil. It’s a pathological inability to integrate information and a deep resistance to any information that contradicts what ‘you want to believe’. It’s hateful and bitter and a serious case of a man propagandised tae the point of incoherence.
*My bold throughout.
Phil Robertson says:
21 April, 2017 at 5:17 pm
“K1 says:
21 April, 2017 at 3:02 pm
“”Ironically the student loan debt is the biggest cash asset that the Scottish Government controls.””
At least you the Scottish Government is keeping control of the student loan debt whereas Westminster is selling it off:
Sale of Student loan debt
link to ft.com
‘You will be a lot happier when you join the rest of us in the 21st century’
Says the Tory happily embracing the most right government of his stripe attempting to drag us all back tae 1930’s levels of inequality.
Ye couldnae hope tae huv a better example of why we’re attempting tae escape these nutters. They look back…it is we who look forward and whose socially progressive and inclusiveness is the beacon to all of those who wish the 21st century to be one where equality and co operation are the hallmark of the kind of future we wish for ourselves and those to come.
@K1
Well said 🙂
Legerwood @ 09:28,
Not sure if you will see this response now, in what seems to be a very slow-motion debate (=grin=), but I’m only catching up on WoS now, today.
Actually, I agree with you on your point that we should try to be charitable in our attitude to our opponents, and not rely on cheap shots that are basically unjustified. (Even though in that regard we in the independence movement are rather more sinned against than sinning.) I’m sorry if I didn’t make that clearer.
I think your attitude illustrates something admirable about your own character, actually.
However, I’m also sorry that you didn’t respond to the main part of my posting. It’s not exactly non-obvious, since several others have noticed the same curious reluctance from Kez too, and it seemed to be more than mere blethering. I can’t put it any stronger than this, but one gets the feeling that her hesitation was fairly typical of Labour in general, which seems oddly tolerant of strange bedfellows in the Unionist movement (not forgetting the Tories!), something at complete odds with their self-professed monopoly on progressive politics and the moral high ground.
Ken.
re Grahamski. I think he was the Majors election agent in Fa’kirk.
Active on the Hootsmon at the same time as she who Stu says can’t be named (without proof), but had a french doggy moniker, and certainly wasn’t an ‘assistant’ to Lord Foo.
If you ever wondered HTF we got Dugdale, it all started here.
Doing the online dirty for the then half Foo.
“This has been thrashed out over and over again and here you are with a decade old canard”
You’re getting the message! The Dugdale blog is from 2007. My original post was not meant to discuss the pro’s and con’s of council tax. It was merely to suggest that what people said in 2007 is not necessarily currently relevant.
Phil Robertson @ 20:29:
Like the former SNP manifesto intention to abolish the council tax, you mean? The equally-old one that your two-faced Unionists apparently just cannot forget…
The CT issue has been repeatedly brought up as you did, by Labour, Tories, Libdems and the media since 2007, looking for any scrap of SNP bad tae publish widely, or in your case to distract from the merits of the atl article, even when the facts regarding why the CT was not abolished have been in the public domain for years?
Yet you have just stated it ‘is not necessarily currently relevant’ from 2007 with regard to atl so why did you bring up CT and student debt the first place? What ‘relevance’ did this have to the actual atl?
You were repeatedly told the facts regarding CT, chose to ignore them and insisted you were making a ‘relevant’ point, when I correctly suggested you’d conceded the point, you categorically said you had not. When the article I linked to as evidence that completely blows your inference that the SNP somehow ‘deliberately’ put something in their mandate then somehow just ‘reneged’ on it as some standalone ‘fact’ as the smearing nonsense it is. You have come back with what?
A feeble ‘comparison’ between the abtl article and CT abolition from SNP 2007 manifesto?
They are not comparable Phil. Kezia Dugdale would rather ‘consider’ the BNP (or anyone with those extreme views) an acceptable party in Holyrood as long as they are Unionist’s than outrightly state ‘no way’ under any circumstances? How is that not ‘currently relevant’?
Let me just remind you that (Scottish branch and Head office) Labour will and do align themselves with anyone who ageee with their unionist stand, we don’t have to go back to 2007 to find evidence of just how low people from her party were and are prepared to stoop for the sake of the Union?
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Kezia Dugdale has never retracted those sentiments. Why would she, she does indeed believe in the Union…at any price.
Your weak and feeble attempt to draw a comparison between the verifiable false assertions regarding a manifesto pledge from 2007, that was slaughtered by the opposition in the chamber by those same ‘unionist’ parties, which is completely irrelevant to the alt article. And Dugdale’s core values, from a blog in 2007 as somehow ‘not necessarily relevant’ reveal a mind bereft of any integrity…you brought those two distinctly separate issues together and generated a context that in your mind had some ‘parity’, in essence reached for any criticism of the SNP as a means of ‘defending’ Dugdale’s’ mentality.
Rather than just state honestly that for you it doesn’t matter what she said back then and have the actual debate with the rest of us btl, you desperately reached for anything that was ‘not necessarily currently relevant’ to anything atl, just a smear against the SNP.
All you’ve done Phil is expose yourself as dishonest and ideologically driven. You defend her…cause ye agree wi her.