Another bullet dodged
Posted on
September 02, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Then:
And how about now?
“Defence jobs in Scotland ‘in decline’
The number in military roles is down from 12,400 in 2008 to 10,100 this year.”
Phew! Protected again!
(And no, we’re not sure why ‘in decline’ is in quotes there.)
So, we make up less than 8.5% of the population, and our defence budget would be about 10% of the UK….errr….yyyyeeeeesssss.
No mention of the fact that we could HALF the current expenditure and STILL increase the amount spent in Scotland?
Just one more display of how Scotland is merely a region of the UK, a big one right enough.
That tweet is incredibly stupid. Of course we’d have a defence budget around a tenth of the UK’s – being about a tenth of the size of the UK, all our budgets would be about a tenth of the size of UK budgets.
(Well, initially…)
I suspect “our defence industry” means the UK’s defence industry, rather than Scotland’s…
That wisnae in the Broon Bomber’s vow and we have nae plans tae bomb, invade or nuke onybidy soon.
Mind ye, the Glesga Ferr Ferry tae Rossy can be pretty rough and we might need a few nearby NATO extra MOD polis.
I’m getting all contorted and twisted and sore dodging all these bullets.
So there are now 3,730 civilian jobs related to defence in Scotland.
What happened to the 300,000 jobs that represent Jackie Ballie’s oft-repeated Trident dividend?
cue the raving yoons telling us it could be a lot worse lol
There’s that huge word again..’are’..
Instead of ‘maybe’ or ‘in our opinion’.
Still no sign of them frigates…
Ah well – Brexit Together.
One thing’s for sure – when indyref2 comes along, the better-together mob will need a new name, because all they’ve done in the 2 years since 2014 is prove that we are definitely not better together.
Not to mention the fact that there will be fewer food banks to guard….
I haven’t posted for a while as I am losing patience with my fellow Scots. Despite everything that’s happened. Taking us out of Europe against our will, renewing Trident, Austerity, 6 years of Tory Rule, Ukip, bigotry and racism in England, lies about jobs, Boris as foreign secretary, May Thatcher part 2. Scots still only back independence at 46%!
Any other half decent country would be backing indi at 80% plus. We shouldn’t be scraping the barrel trying to get 51%. I am going to take a break from following things as it’s despairing watching Scotland getting wrecked and the citizens begging for more.
Never mind BREXIT lets get to EXBRIT !!!! by any means possible.
Latest UKOK slogan Better Sink Together.
Politics is back to normal this morning with Tory co-ordinated business leaders writing in the North British against uncertainty and Indy Ref 2. Business Studies will tell you that businesses can prosper by being first to seize new opportunities rather than sticking to a conservative approach.
Then we have the leader of a breakaway group of Labour councils complaining that Scottish government won’t give them the same status as the all party COSLA official body.
However the smaller than expected increase in Yes support in The Times You Guv poll shows the enormity of the task facing SNP supporters to counter the overwhelming negative attitute of the foreign owned press and Labour / Tory sympathisers in the BBC.
That list of promises and assurances they’ve broken gets longer by the day.
Who knew?
Based on the figures from the Fraser of Allander Institute, there’s been an approximate 20% cut in the numbers employed by the MoD in Scotland since 2008, with more cuts to come:
link to news.sky.com
link to politicshome.com
O/T
“Scots still only back independence at 46%!”
And that is largely down to the corrupt, colonial broadcaster, the BBC in Scotland. Which is why we have to do everything in our power to neutralise its output, bring its anti-Scotland message down to a small peep.
The Peep the Beep Campaign is progressing. But volunteers for distribution are needed and, so far, the sign-up has been – let’s just say ‘slow’.
We need to get these stickies all over this country. On every lamp-post, post box, phone box, empty shop windows, back of toilet doors – EVERYWHERE. The BBC control the airwaves but we control the STREETS. We need to bombard everyone in this country with the message that the BBC CANNOT BE TRUSTED. It is the only way to bring their anti-Scotland message to a peep. They can broadcast all day long but no one will be listening since they will be trusted only by the most zealot of Yoons.
We have to Peep the Beeb. If you want to sign up to take 1,000 stickies then email your contact details to me at the email address at the foot of this image here:
link to imgur.com
Also, let me know your top TWO preferences as to what Sticky should be printed. There is presently a three-way tie. These are just examples – if anyone can come up with a better one then we can go with that.
Come on people. We CAN and MUST do this.
I’m not sure who’s doing these polls, but if it’s a Yoon poll I would take the 46% for Yes with a pinch of salt.
The Yoons want people to think that Scotland doesn’t want Independence, and what better way to do it than with Yoon manipulated polls.
No one has ever asked me how I would vote, funny that.
@Big Jock,I would take that poll with a large pinch of salt.It is just more UKOK propaganda.Funny how it was released the day of the First Minister announcing a new push for Independence.
The big swing will come when Article 50 is signed and Brexit starts to really bite.
So YES supporting (No to Europe) voters last time ‘will’ be the stumbling block to separation from Westminster control in the future.
Now that’s encouraging; I get it; no I really do ?
All that knocking on doors and tramping the streets persuading uninterested, disenfranchised, scared, even terrified people to a positive, bright inclusive Scottish future; potentially sacrificed for what exactly?
A Neo-Brit Red/Blue/Purple Tory independence day ??
(13% of YES voters were really UKIP ???)
I just don’t get the mind set.
(Thomas Muir & James Wilson …dearie me; scunnered)
OT
See the Indy campaign starts today! I watched some of the speech by the FM and boy it’s a cracker!
She says we are not fighting the same campaign as 2014 as the arguments have changed… 🙂
I’m upferit..are you?
Major B you’re underplaying that, I’m certain there should have been at least one more zero in that figure, especially since the entire central belt relies on the trident Base for employment. It’s creepy but I regularly get the feeling that I need to leave my desk in Edinburgh, head West, and fine tune a hydrophone or fidle with a periscope.
Big Jock – your comment “Snap”. Not a twitter user myself but I tune in to the rev’s – jings what eye opener that is into the minds of the “kick me” brigade. Don’t go there.
I lost count of the permutations given by the adversaries of self-determination.
One day we had ‘tens of thousands’ employed looking after Trident (polishing a turd) next day it was 12,000, the next over 20,000, and so on, and so up or down. But it was always a town’s worth would lose their jobs or homes come nationhood reinstated.
Any politician either quoting incorrect figures in error or inflating them deliberately, should be fined heavily for misleading the electorate.
End of. (As the imperious are apt to finish.)
@mogabee
Count me in – but best to keep me away from any YES Ukippers.
I wouldn’t know where to start to try and persuade folk back from the dark side. (And yes I have encountered a few; always left shaking ma heid)
Reassuring to know that all these miltary jobs are based in Helensburgh. Thanks, Jackie.
UK Defence spending is nearly a 10th of taxes raised nearly £40Billion – £515Billion taxes raised in the UK. 1/4 of Defence spending goes on Trident. A total waste of money.
Scotland contribution is nearly £4Billion. Scotland could save nearly £1Billion on Trident. Scotland has no frigates to patrol it’s shores. Aircraft based in Scotland illegally bomb other countries, against the majority wishes. Scotland doesn’t have frigates to protect it’s shores and stop drugs damaging it’s economy.
Norway builds 100 vessels a year. Westminster sanctions and starves vulnerable people.
Scotland used to be a major location for many MOD bases, both UK and NATO.
Since the end of the cold war a lot have been closed or moved and general spending as a %age of GDP on defense has fallen.
Now Scotland contributes roughly £3.4bn a year to the defense budget of the UK and it gets roughly £2.2bn a year in spending – that is bases, salaries, and even pensions of ex-personnel. Although it is hard to actually get figures since the last year that the MOD produced a breakdown by ‘nation’, that i can find, was either 2006/7 or 2007/8.
If anyone can find more recent figures please post.
Suggest everyone gets involved with this survey
link to survey2016.scot
O/T Forgot to say
This is the SNP’s National survey – get involved
link to survey2016.scot
Reading the herald this morning the vilification of Nicola campaign seems to be warming up
Reminded me of the same thing they did to AS
The tone of unionists is almost to spit as they say the name
Is anyone counting
O/T
Discussion about Scottish Independence on Victoria Derbyshire show.
When do we start counting BBC staff and Britnat Journalists as “UK defence jobs”?
It is clearly their assumed roll to suppress rebellion amongst the natives and defend the UK realm, promoting Westminster’s interests in Scotland to the detriment of Scotland’s own interests at home and abroad, and the incidental subversion of our democracy.
The anaemic truth is Scotland is currently unable to defend itself from this endless deluge of Unionist propaganda, and our appointed UK “guardian” is the one discreetly content to routinely abuse us. What we need is a plan, … Or some gutsy wee lass with a dragon tattoo and a taser.
@ Proud Cybernat 9.58am
Have signed up 🙂 Looking forward to getting the stickers out . Well done for kicking this off
link to imgur.com
What about the decline in Oil jobs because Osbourne was taxing the Oil sector at 80/60% when the price had fallen 75%. Losing £Billions and thousands of jobs.
Scotland still raised the same in taxes £54Billion. The rest of the UK raises £515Billion. Pro rata less £42Billion. Then the rest of the UK borrows and spends the rest. Loan repayments of nearly £4Billion are dumped in Scotland. Along with the nuclear dump.
There were supposed to be thousands of reservists to make up the numbers. Westminster can’t recruit to the Military because of their Defence policies. Chilcot marked the failures. The Tories have put a ‘D’ notice on the Defence failures underlined in Chilcot verdict.
Any other half decent country would be backing indi at 80% plus. We shouldn’t be scraping the barrel trying to get 51%. I am going to take a break from following things as it’s despairing watching Scotland getting wrecked and the citizens begging for more.
That’s the whole point of UKOK propaganda though. Red and blue tories have pretty much lost all democratic control of Scotland but they do still own and run their UK, public finance, taxation and ofcoure the BBC.
Just this morn, BBC r4 Jim Naughty/Nic Robinson, ferocious old tory bruisers, its all NO, Scotland’s bankrupt with no oil and £10bn deficit this time, rancid The Graun’s Scottish today, its just an “away day” says Libby McSpanner , or just another tory britnat.
SNP to hold ‘away-day’ for all its MPs to bolster case for independence
BBC r4 Today show ended with prospective UKIP leader’s demand that the extra £773 Scots are “given” per year should be taken off us and given to English region like his, the north east.
Survey done.
gordoz says:
“This is the SNP’s National survey – get involved”
Good to see. Filled it and expressed my views on what matters to me.
However, since it is an SNP survey, it is unlikely to get a balanced sample of the population.
Still, by processing results based on Yes/No in 2014, it lets the SNP/SG know how people are thinking.
@mogabee
There was a speech?
Perhaps more focus is required on those who did vote yes but have real reservations about the EU. I believe it is something like 10-12% of yes voters.That accounts for the figures.
Much would depend I suppose on their reservations about the EU and how those could be smoothed over.
I have just turned my TV off in rage. BBC is conducting a totally unbalanced interveiw with a number of quivering women insisting they were subjected to violence or threats of violence because they were NO voters.
‘Make the argument’ says Nicola Sturgeon.
Fair do’s, and there are different ways of doing that, not all of them involving tea and biscuits and lengthy chit-chat.
One way is to nail – once and for all – the lie that BTUKOK told about ‘British’ pensions vanishing in the event of a Yes vote in 2014.
We KNOW that they targeted our most vulnerable/lonely citizens i.e. the elderly, and did it methodically, by phone and on the doorstep. Lacking genuine support for their reprehensible campaign, they had to bus-in paid canvassers to do it for them.
The lists they used, the briefings they received, the stats compiled as a result of that specific campaign…they exist, somewhere. They are proof of how low the Unionists were prepared to go, and their exposure would surely secure the kind of swing we need to see in the older demographic before Indy2 is called.
A crime was committed and the assailants have walked away. The people who did a shift on the phone, with a wee list of ‘names’ to target – and those who had the total fucking brassneck to knock on people’s doors with the clear aim of frightening them – should be made to use those same lists and do the same round of door-knocking, this time to apologise to everyone they lied-to.
It’ll never happen, of course, but the guilty must be left in no doubt that we know what they did, won’t forget it, and will not allow them to do it again.
Defence jobs down, eh!
Lets hear a very big cheer for Bitter BUMs Together!
(mass instantaneous cheering and clapping)
((((( HAW QUEENIE, I WANT TO BREAK FREE! )))))
heedtracker
Its propaganda ! If its believed on this site , then really all is lost! There’s no way its correct as its most definitely a yoon poll. Do you think the truth would ever be published! Anyway I don’t read the papers or listen to the BBC news, so I don’t know anything about it!
heedtracker says:
“BBC r4 Today show ended with prospective UKIP leader’s demand that the extra £773 Scots are “given” per year should be taken off us and given to English region like his, the north east.”
Aye right. Some of that money will be our share of ‘National’ Infrastucture projects in the SE of England. Or our share of defence spending outside Scotland. Or our share of financing London’s many museums and art galleries.
And while we are discussing money “given” to us …. how come Norway (who actually produce twice the oil Scotland does) say they took £9500million in tax in 2015. Yet HM Treasury claim our take in 2015 was peanuts in comparison.
“given” my arse.
“One can talk good and shower down roses, but it’s the receiver that has to walk through the thorns, and all its false expectations.”
Anthony Liccione
link to facebook.com
‘Funny how it was released the day of the First Minister announcing a new push for Independence’
Imagine a Yoon manipulated poll against Scottish Independence on Nicolas big day.
Can they be any more obvious, or desperate for that matter.
Ian Brotherhood says:
You are right Ian, the pension scare along with Brown’s claim about organs from England. All lies and propaganda.These were well targeted, (organs was more general- Brown) and must have came from UKOK data.
There is much more that could be mentioned, and must also now be tackled.We are going to be very busy.
@Sinky says:2 September, 2016 at 9:45 am:
” … However the smaller than expected increase in Yes support in The Times You Guv poll shows the enormity of the task facing SNP supporters …
Why? Oh! Why? Wingers pay the slightest bit of attention to any BBC/MSM or Westminster Establishment commissioned opinion poll figures must be the biggest enigma of the century so far.
This is particularly so in regard to anything whatsoever emanating from You Guv in particular. They are, without doubt, the most unreliable and biased pollsters of that bunch of lying unionist numpties.
I’ve been busy for the last week or so going round buying bits and pieces to update and finish my DIY built-in entertainment centre and my growing Home Network systems.
Some of the electronic parts in particular have been hard to track down locally. I make a point of NOT buying on-line if I can buy locally2. This to support local Scottish business’.
I have been amazed at the number of total strangers who have stopped me to say they loved the collection of YES & SNP badges and stickers on both my woolly hat and my wee campervan.
Now I’ve had these badges & stickers on the go since before the Yes campaign began and I cannot ever remember such interest from the general public. Even at the height of the Yes Referendum campaign. I thus suspect that, like everything else, the You Guv poll and the BBC/MSM reports are the usual pure pish.
A wee blast from the past:
The Unheard Voice (from 23.04.2010)
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Man, prices don’t half rocket, eh! Great poster idea though!
Note: Oil & Gas Production from Scottish waters ( UK 🙁 ) was higher than Norway. Since both are based on $/bbl then the Scottish earning would have exceeded Norway. However we didn’t have control and therefore never seen any benefit or fund.
See below
link to crystolenergy.com
“The number of civilian MoD employees has fallen from 6,500 to 3,730 in eight years”
An open policy, announced some years ago. Work will be migrated from civilians (notoriously unreliable) to serving grunts (outside of churches, the Oxford definition of uncritical stupidity).
PS: Please stop calling it ‘Defence’. It’s attack, and it’s expensive and risky. Defence is cheap and safe.
Well EBC quickly out the traps after Nicola’s speech about Indy this morning (anyone got a link?), the polls say no certainty of Indy winning, deficit now too high, will hurt the Scottish economy, blah blah.
All boils down to wee are too wee, and too stupid.
Surprise, we certainly are not, as they will find out before long.
@Robert Peffers
I’m a frustrated sub-editor. I weep for all the writers who don’t know what ‘enormity’ means.
Survey Done:
@ Big Jock:
You don’t believe the spewspapers or the EBC.
Don’t Believe their Polls!
Don’t let the Barstewards get you down.Peace and Love.
Well said Robert if they had not released a poll after all the yoon garbage we just got i would think they were slipping.
The usual suspects will now be out saying its over indy is dead SNP bad get back in your box Scotland but it is all just wishful thinking.
I personally and i would guess most yessers as well have at least 1 no from last time that will now vote yes and i have ZERO who will vote no that voted yes last time.
We must make it clear to those who have doubts about the EU is that in an indy Scotland this question will be asked again but we have to get indy first to be able to ask the question.
O/T
As expected one young Scottish female out of a panel of five (two had an English accent and three were of Asian descent – not exactly representative of Scotland plus throwing in the wee immigration frightener) was allowed to rule the roost during this Derbyshire discussion. SNP Baad, families divided, hellish violence and intimidation in Scotland (she experienced it firsthand), Sturgeon should be focusing on our failing NHS, education and so on. Two texts were read out at the end both against holding another Referendum; the latter stating that everyone in the UK should be involved in voting on the breakup of the Union. Totally scunnered with the ongoing blatant biased reporting.
As to defence in Scotland, I thought that the MOD had been forced through a Freedom of Information request to admit that around 500 Scots were employed in the industry, not thousands at all. Time we got that one sorted out such as by getting it in writing from wee Baillie.
We talk about troops and so on but one of the most worrying issues, to my mind, is the fact that we are reduced to having three patrol boats monitoring 7000 miles of UK coastline which includes of course numerous oil fields and the nuclear base at Faslane. Both key targets for terrorists. France has 30 patrol boats to cover 3000 miles of French coastline and countries like Norway have dozens.
With the UK patrol boats focusing on the South of England, in an attempt to catch illegal immigrants, one wonders how often they actually sail into our waters and how much we are paying for the lack of ‘service’.
Times are changing Heedtracker.
For 300 years, Scotland didn’t have the Internet. For all we don’t yet have the means to overturn the UK’s grip on propaganda, rest assured there is a reciprocal fear in them that they don’t have the means to overturn the impregnable fortress which we have built in cyberspace.
Many people, on both sides of the argument are still painfully naive about Scottish independence. There is a great deal of inertia to be overcome where a population has grown lethargic and indifferent about seeing the world through their TV screen. – A TV screen which is happy to keep them docile. If we can sow the seeds of doubt that what they see on TV is untrue, the only place they can go for verification is the Internet.
I have a big dog who is sometimes fussy about what he eats. If I gave him a stale old roll, he’d likely turn up his nose and walk away in disgust. If however we were out on a walk, and he found the very same stale old roll thrown away by the roadside, it becomes a prized delicacy, and for no other reason I can discern than because it is food that he found for himself. It’s a primal thing. It will disappear down his bone chute in an instant, and woe betide anybody who tries to interfere with a dog and his new found horde of roadside treasure. The moral? I think that is how truth works. The truth we have handed to us on a plate is always a lesser currency than the truth we find out for ourselves.
Knowledge is the kryptonite of propaganda. Perhaps it isn’t the BBC’s lies we need to debunk. It is simply shaking our people out of their coma-like torpor when it comes to sovereign politics. The truth they find for themselves will do the rest.
I’m trying very hard to tone down my frustration with the SNP, but I have to say it, so far, the quest for Indyref2 seems to be putting as many people to sleep as the BBC does. We need a breath of freshly seized initiative and momentum.
Sorry folks, I was rushing earlier 10.56am. Remiss of me not to state the facebook video is Nicola’s speech this morning
link to snp.org
big jock
this one’s for you.
family do last week, been 2 years since I last met a distant relative, who, prior to indyref1 assured me quite categorically that he would be leaving Scotland if she voted Yes.
2 years and a Brexit later, I couldn’t believe my ears, full turnaround, NS statesmanlike, stunned at NE england vote, def voting Yes when indyref2 comes along.
no gloating on my part, but my wee heart sang for days.
keep the faith big jock, we shall overcome.
marydoll says:
2 September, 2016 at 10:52 am
heedtracker
Its propaganda ! If its believed on this site , then really all is lost!
Planet toryboy and rule Britannia types do seem to have been totally freaked out by Brexit and how a couple of percentage points either way can turn things upside down. So they pile in really hard from now til the end of time, or until they can get the red tories back in to Holyrood, which ever is sooner:D
So 2 chunks of good old rancid The Graun’s style of rule Britannia
Theresa May will lead us into a bleak future – outside the single market
Martin Kettle
and
Angus “Robertson said the SNP should push for a second referendum “when we know we can win it”, but warned activists that “we have to go up the leafy drives of the people who voted no”. He also cautioned that “who you elect as deputy won’t ensure a second independence referendum happens any quicker”.
After a ferocious Jim Naughty NO monstering, Nic Robinson went after Tommy Sheppard on their private toryboy BBC r4 Today attack show, for and with a Sheppard tweet he apparently didn’t like during some royals thing, “off with their heads” Its a crime, all of it is, between the ears of the UKOK toryboys. But its more than just winnable.
Just getting over the GMS onslaught from Murdoch and Andy Collier ex-SNP adviser this morning and get into the car to get the messages in.
Geez! Radio on and another coshing from shortbread from union convener Smith about how we should be grateful for the UK warships and aren’t we lucky to have the crumbs from the big table kinda thing! Something must be happening today!
I switched my Leonard Cohen CD on to cheer me up! 🙁
Anyhoo! Survey done.
PS:
No hard border after independence says Sturgeon as she asks for views of 2 million Scots
link to archive.is
@mogabee says: 2 September, 2016 at 9:59 am:
” … I’m upferit..are you?”
Upferit? Jings! mogabee, Ah’ve nivver been doonferit syne aboot 1946.
Mind ye Ah’m muckle mair slow nor ah yaised tae be.
The mind is willing but the body now rather weak. We all become old if we are lucky, (or should that read unfortunate), enough to live long enough.
I’ve spoken to four separate previously YES voters in the last few days who say they hate Europe so much they would rather vote No in any future referendum. These people who previously thought Nicola was doing a great job now spit out the words “That woman” and “Europe”. Could this factor be liniting our progress on a wider scale?
Paula Rose @ 9.17am
As a long-time Winger, I never had Pauls Rose down as the sort of lady who would need to go anywhere near a bullet!!!
Nae apologies Nana!
Your excellent (& welcome) links are clear evidence of pooling & sharing our resources.
Clunk – “I have been indoctrinated by the silent majority beeep” 🙂
Just watched the FMs speech…
Dang!
The right wing meeja will be going into full on frothmageddon by this point.
Light the blue touch paper.
Bwahahahahahahahaha! 😀
@Petra says: 2 September, 2016 at 10:27 am:
“Discussion about Scottish Independence on Victoria Derbyshire show.”
Who she?
We’ll all feel a lot better if we listen to this every day (if you don’t just burst out greeting)
link to youtube.com
How much per head is spent on the Falklands and or what is its value to the UK
Vladimir Putin probably spends more on patrolling the North sea and surrounding area than the UK does (actually I meant that as a joke but now that I come to think of it)
Scotland is only ever considered an asset to the UK if they think we’re going to take their asset away then we become the numbers game again (We love you Scotland even though you’re poor and insignificant sponging wasters who are nothing but a nusance to your benefactors who hate you so much for existing and why have we not bred you out yet you Scottish Bastirts)
Everything in Scotland is failing and it’s the fault of the SNP, The UK government says so, the BBC says so,the Press says so, the other political parties say so
And yet…International awards flood in from around the world in support of the SNPs policies on Health, Education, Green energy, and wonder of wonders the Named Person Act, not to mention, but I will, strategies for reducing crime and disorder even though the UK government place a VAT charge on our police for doing that job (which is in effect a tax upon Scotlands people) that doesn’t get charged to the rest of the UK people
According to everyone else in the world and epecially Europe Scotland’s a tippy toppy place to be given the scope and breadth of the SNPs teensy weensy set of most devolved powers in the universe parliament
It’s all on again where the TV Stations fill our airwaves with Tories of all colours to denigrate Scotland and by not questioning their assertions and outright lies is agreeing and supporting those assertions
So folks who are about to get angry with the SNP about not being strong enough in disputing these Unionist claims should remember the SNP has no control over any broadcasting or media whatsoever and that same media are the defenders of the British state so fairness does not apply just in the same way the UK government invents undisputed numbers Labour and the Tories are allowed to argue with each other but when it comes to Scotland it’s a united front against Scotland
Once again it’s up to us to do what folks in other oppressed countries do but this time it has to be done bigger and louder and more often
The SNP will do their part but we know how they’ll be painted so it’s people power we’re going to need to depend on or it will be
The End
Just a thought, folks.
Everyone is reporting a ramping up of Yoon abuse and hysteria. Auntie is in overdrive.
Why now?
I really wonder if there is some private polling which is showing Yes, well in the ascendancy?
We inhabit quite a narrow spectrum of politically active groups but they are not representative, ordinary people just get on with life, until a few days before the vote.
I think the Yoons are just hoping something gains traction. As I’ve said repeatedly, I’m giving them nothing in the way of oxygen.
‘Fairish’ reporting re. Nicola’s speech on the BBC such as that Nicola is pointing out that the latest economic figures are due to years of being ruled by Westminster.
I just want to mention too that I find myself between a rock and a hard place when it comes to paying for a TV licence. On the one hand I would love to ‘stuff’ it but on the other hand want to know what they’re getting up to and then complain, on a regular basis, even although I know they won’t give one whit with regard to what I have to say. That’ll change of course when we get our Independence.
Surge in Irish passport applications:
link to bbc.co.uk
@Dave McEwan Hill says: 2 September, 2016 at 10:43 am:
” …I have just turned my TV off in rage. …”
Och! Ah did yon years ago, Dave.
I still have TV sets though, as I make and edit HiDef videos, take and edit photos and stream videos and sound around my home network and also play computer games and such like.
Mind you the dumb idiots at the BBC still attempt to coerce me to pay for live TV reception. They just assume me guilty of illegally watching live TV but have no evidence to back up their illegal threats of legal action.
These idiots do not even know who I really am and thus send their threatening letters telling me their, “Officers”, will be calling upon me but they never arrive and the only force they are, “Officers”, of is their own office.
They are no more than office workers who only know there is an address without a licence and that is why all mail is addressed to, “The Occupier”.
What is more they have no more legal right to, “Investigate”, on my property than any other member of the public. i.e. they are legally allowed to enter the property only to make their way by the marked paths to the main entrance with the purpose of contacting, “The Occupier”, and they must not, “investigate”, anything or even perv through the windows as that would invade, “The Occupier’s”, privacy. That is unless they come with a legally issued search warrant.
A warrant they will not get issued unless they can offer evidence that a crime is likely to be taking place on the premises – but as they do not even know the name of, “The Occupier”, they are not going to get a warrant to search.
Their letters say that you have not answered the BBC’s request to say you don’t watch TV. The point is that there is no legislation that says you must tell the BBC anything.
What is more if you do bother to tell them that you do not watch live TV they will only stop attempting to coerce you for money, (for, “coerce”, under Scottish law read, “Blackmail with threats of legal action”), for a short time and then the letters will start again.
If they do ever come to, “Investigate”, they come mob handed and they will try to browbeat you by acting like they are some kind of legally authorised, “Officers”. Which they are not.
The way to deal with them is to first request they state the exact name of which, “Occupier”, they wish to speak with.
If they fail, and they will fail, then request they leave your property at once. In any case they do not need more than one person to legally contact, “The Occupier”, so tell, (not ask), the most senior person to remain and tell the rest to get off your property at once.
You have now wrong footed them and established that YOU, not they, are the one doing the questioning. They will most likely leave in rather a hurry at this point.
Then you inform the most senior, “Officer”, that you are going to record both the video & audio of what is going to transpire as evidence for your intention to bring police charges against them for first of all wrongly assuming you are guilty of criminal activity without any evidence. For attempting to impersonate some form of legal force and using pseudo legal language in order to do so.
Then take out your mobile phone if it has photo capability.
You won’t see them for dust as they leave.
Big jock
Three centuries of colonial domination had lead British nationalism to be internalised by the majority of Scots, as the natural order. Changing public perceptions of social structure is not a straight-forward task and is not made any easier by an information/media environment that exists largely as a vehicle for promoting a culture of British nationalism and a British identity.
I think we are getting there though but then I don’t put too much faith in what we are being encouraged to think.
@Marydoll says: 2 September, 2016 at 10:52 am:
” … Its propaganda ! If its believed on this site , then really all is lost!”
Bingo! Marydoll, Let’s nail this one for what it is.
If my memory serves, “You Gov”, is a company that signs up, and even pays, the people they poll. It is thus NOT a even a random survey in the first place.
In the second place, as the polled and signed up members on their list reply to each survey, the pollsters build up a picture of each signed up member’s total lifestyle and even their pet likes, dislikes and political and other leanings.
It is thus quite easy for You Gov to construct an automatic computer program to place the signed up people into little lists of those likely to give the answers required by any particular customer for any particular poll that the customer wants to achieve.
In practice You Gov could probably produce a poll to prove just about anything their customers wanted to prove.
It ain’t Rocket Science. It is in fact, “Computer Science”.
Aye Robert that’s true re polling companies, I’m signed up tae one of those survey groups, I find it fascinating that I have received only one survey regarding politics in over two years and that was just before Holyrood elections, nothing since eh? Shower ah shysters…they pick the people on their lists that they know will slant the results in the direction they are aiming for.
Same wi vox pops on the telly, they deliberately seek out those who support the view they are trying to promote. It’s propaganda 101. (as the americans say)
@ Dave McEwan Hill 11:53am:
Downloaded your link,
A language I can’t understand,that resonates in my very being.
Thank you,Peace,Love and Music!
YouGov is flawed, leaning heavily on the middle-class and semi-retired..they are subscribing to outdated orthodoxy.
One in 12 has switched to Yes. Add the 2% demographic shift, at both ends.
I’d say we’re at 54-55 %.
What Frigates? I see no Frigates!
I wonder what the Frigate dodgers will get for Ft George and Kinloss?
@Vronsky says: 2 September, 2016 at 11:07 am:
“ … Work will be migrated from civilians (notoriously unreliable) … “
Aye!
Richt!
I spent my entire working life as one of those civilians this lot claims as, “Notoriously unreliable”. Here’s the truth of the matter.
I worked in the RADIAC Lab, (RAdiation Detection Indication And Computation. With the beginning of the nuclear powered submarines there really was little by way of test equipment and the vast majority of the early radiation detectors, (Geiger Counters and such like), were mainly old WWII USA stuff and pre-transistor and Integrated circuitry.
No one in the MOD really had any depth of knowledge of the equipment or work involved in testing, repairing and calibrating the gear. Not to mention that few in those days knew a lot about radioactivity or radiation in general. (After all Marie Curie had only died on 4 July 1934).
So we were more or less on our own as regards the electronics, Nuclear and Quantum Physics side of the job. It was thus a constant series of courses to learn things.
We got the theory first but the electronics side of things was quite a different matter and we often had to adapt or design and build our own test equipment, and thereby hangs the tale.
It went like this – the law said to work on certain equipment a person had to have passed the relevant legal course and passed the relevant exam to get the relevant certificate to do the relevant job. Who though was to design, develop and build the prototype gear?
Aye! That’s right – we were.
So we would do the research, both on the radiation side of things and the new emerging electronic field of semiconductors. Build a prototype test equipment and send it to the authorities Dan Sath.
They would have the prototype farmed out to a private company to produce a production model and in the course of time these would come into service and end up in our lab for either testing repair and the statutory periodic calibration using live radioactive sources. Trouble was that we, who came up with the original idea and built and designed the original prototype, did not now have the statutory certificate to work upon the units now in service in the RN. It was then off on yet another course to obtain the legal certificate.
So there we were, in a classroom, in a Naval Establishment, in the Deep South of England. (Now there’s an example of split infinitives for you). This is how it went. We would get the lectures and take the notes and do the experiments along with the armed forces persons on the course.
At the end there would be session that went along the lines of the class being asked questions and also of questions being asked by the class. The latter would go something like this :-
Tutor: Then you test A at this point to see of the answer is yes or no. If Yes go on to C if no go on to D.
This would work its way through the entire circuit with the Yes and No answers telling you where to test next and guess who drew up that series of tests?
Eventually the whole series of questions would arrive at the point where a class member would ask the instructor, “And if it doesn’t work then, Sir, what do we do?”. The answer was always the same. “In that case you have gone as far as you can. You must then return the unit, or in the event of a whole ship/boat installed equipment, you either return the Unit to the Dockyard or call in the Dockyard experts.
This was our queue to shoot our hands up and say, (with tongue firmly in cheek), but Sir, We are the Dockyard – what do WE do?
So much for the claim about those notoriously unreliable civilians.
Robert I’ve just noticed that I’d missed one of your posts.
Victoria Derbyshire is an award winning journalist and broadcaster who hosts a current affairs programme on BBC2: In the morning from Monday to Friday (every morning?)
Anyway she covers numerous topics, is half decent, sympathetic / compassionate (had an abusive childhood / aggressive father) and is not slow at pulling up her bosses.
She focuses a great deal on the impact of austerity cuts such as in interviewing family members of the ex-soldier who starved to death when he was sanctioned.
She had cancer recently (mastectomy / chemotherapy etc) so often has others covering for her now who aren’t so fair minded. As happened this morning. No doubt down to BBC bosses rather than the presenter.
Her partner, senior BBC editor Mark Sandell, was sacked by the BBC following claims of bullying and sexual harassment and an investigation into his expenses ‘revealed’ by The Mail on Sunday. He went on to sue the MoS and was eventually reinstated following a ‘bullying’ appeal.
”A senior BBC editor who was sacked in one of the corporation’s most notorious disciplinary cases is returning to work after successfully appealing against his dismissal.”
The UK is in contraction all across the board, post Brexit will accelerate this situation as the government and negotiators will cut a deal which will be detrimental to many and will only be for the advantage of The City.
Quantative Easing, which was really the only sword in the government’s armoury to relieve the financial meltdown in 2008, is failing. The banks are still one QE payment away from bust and when the Treasury announces almost-negative borrowing points, then the economic situation is grave.
There is no way of getting out of it. All has to be cut and sold off, UK is bankrupt. The next five years will see mass privatistion of just about every public sector holdings, including NHS, schools, land and government departments.
Military contraction has been around for a while, but it is the beginning of slash and burn policies. By the next decade the UK will look more like a State of the USA. Every facet of our lives will monetised, controlled and run by corporations, not governments that we vote for.
I saw a Youtube video recently where the vlogger, from the States, came back from being ‘missing’ for a couple of weeks. He said he had to go into hospital for a gallbladder operation to remove gallstones. He was in the hospital for four days, he received a bill for $300,000.
Welcome to the future… or
Scottish independence with its own currency within the next three years.
Defence spending: Is it just a rumour that the two aircraft carriers under construction are to be stationed in Qatar?If so the Qatari gov’t sharing costs perhaps?
If Scotland allows herself to be dragged out of Europe then I fear she, as part of the UK, will be swept into the arms of the TTIP, fracking,health, and defence policies of the USA. A subsidiary of a subsidiary you might term our predicament.
The USA does no longer seem to be the USA as portrayed by John Wayne, Rita Hayworth movies, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan etc, and that I experienced in early adulthood. And the political choice now facing the American people is Trump or Clinton.Try Google for some background info on them.
And so for me, to remain in the EU is imperative.
In the past eight years or so a high percentage of Mod jobs at Faslane,Coulport and Rosyth were transferred to Babcock. It might be worth checking to see if this is the reason for the figures before going on about this.
In saying that, people that I know feel that their jobs are much less secure since privatisation.
Robert Peffers.
Brilliant stuff!
Last time the telly tax clowns come to my house, it went like this….
(Knock knock)
Opens door, to be confronted on path by 3 amigos.
“Hello sir, our records show that this address does not have a tv license”
Me. Interesting stuff, well, thanks for that information, bye bye….” (shuts door).
(Knock knock)
Opens door again..
“Sorry sir, the door must have blown shut…”(kid you not)!
Me. “No, i closed it, problem” ?
“Do you have a tv license for this address”?
Me. “You forgot to say “sir”, are you becoming passive aggressive towards me”?
“Calm down sir, no need for this to get nasty”
Me. “Right, so now you are saying i am threatening you” ?
“No sir, of course not”
Me. “In that case, you must be threatening ME with things getting nasty” ?
“Emm…errr…no…not at all…ehh, seems you mistake our reason to be here…we are just asking a question regarding the lack of a tv license for this address, sir…”
Me. “Seriously ???, so now you are saying i am too stupid to understand why you are here despite you telling me right at the start, the first time you come knocking” ?
The guy was a gibbering mess by this point, he was still bumbling apologies as they retreated back to their van.
Never had them since…lol.
Having suffered the lying propaganda perpetrated by Unionist politicians and their tame lackeys at The BBC and the dead tree media for years I recently decided to play them at their own game, carry out an experiment, and float something from my head for which I had no evidence in the various comments sections in the press.
Having heard the ludicrous reasons for the delay in placing the Type 26 frigate orders I floated the suggestion that the reason was that Portsmouth Dockyard was being frantically upgraded so that it could build the Type 26s.
That was some weeks ago and I expected that the usual suspects would respond by denying the truth of my suggestion and heap ridicule on it. Not a peep resulted.
Earlier this morning I posted the same suggestion as a comment on a relevant story in The Herald and up till a few minutes ago nobody had risen to the bait.
I’m now beginning to wonder if there may be some substance to what was just a product of my own imagination.
The new highland clearances, but instead of highland clearances we should call it the Scottish clearances, and instead of getting rid of highlanders it is getting rid of Scottish wealth at an astonishing rate, from Oil, to jobs and self respect, or did a lot of Scottish people really ever have that?
One can only hope people wake up in time.
Self respect Jamie, i saw Scots no voters after the 2014 referendum wearing scotland tops.nawbags don’t do ‘self respect ‘.self loathing maybe.
Actually, with 8.5% of pop, and 32% of area of UK, Scotland would struggle to compete with the UK in area to population density issues.
Defense, infrastructure (e.g. roads, telecoms) are all harder if small population, but large area.
However, given that the UK has never put in more than the least amount of all of the above, it would be no worse off. At least there would be less chance of Scottish airbases being shut to maintain ones in the South of England.
Hi Stu
After watching BBC morning news yesterday, I can explain the reason ‘in decline’is in quotes. According to the newsreader (propagandist) the defence jobs in Scotland had decreased by 25% but in the rest of the UK the decrease had been greater, so Scotland has had an increase in the number of jobs. No one who had written that could defend themselves against accusations of propaganda. You have to tie yourself semantic knot to end up with a report like that.