Buying democracy
“There now follows a party election broadcast by the…”
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The political broadcasts at election time are a time-worn tradition in the UK (as is our reaction to them) but not too many people really understand why political campaign broadcasts take this form, nor why it’s actually quite important that they do.
In the UK, the act of political advertising is prohibited on TV and radio; one cannot simply buy an advertising slot and run an ad for your party or against your opponent. Instead, the parties are allocated a slot of free broadcast time which must follow a strict format including that famous header at the start and a similar one at the end.
This system has acted to prevent the UK sliding towards what has happened in the USA where they’ve embraced a free market in political campaigning. Just about anyone with money can buy, sell and trade space to run just about whatever they like.
There are still some limits in the US, organisations have to declare their donations to candidates and parties and can be limited in how much and when they can do it, but there’s also a giant glaring loophole in the form of what’s known as a Super-PAC.
Simply, these organisations aren’t linked to a particular political campaign and can spend as much as they like without declaring the source of their donations. Want to flout spending rules? Have a friend set up a Super-PAC and get your rich donors to fund it instead of you.
Sure, there are rules against you co-ordinating your campaign with your friend but there aren’t any against you just putting out a general call through the media to no-one in particular. Just shout “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” and if someone does then it’s hardly your fault, is it?
Campaign funding in the UK is currently much more restricted than this. Political organisations are very limited in how much they can spend during election campaigns. The distinction between being the “lead campaigner” in the 2016 EU referendum and simply being another “registered campaigner” meant the difference between being able to spend £7 million during the campaign period and being limited to “only” £700,000.
These spending rules are rigorously enforced and even minor infractions can result in fines or, in theory, the invalidation of the election or referendum result.
The relative ease with which one can set up a registered campaign may also be a cause for concern, as each time it’s done means another budget of £700,000 to spend. There are rules in place for this – if two or more registered campaigners co-ordinate in any way then the spending on co-ordinated activity counts against each of their respective limits. But there are loopholes here too.
The rules only apply to spending within the “campaign period”, the official designated time running usually for about six weeks before the election or referendum. Spending outside of this period is barely restricted at all – the 2014 independence referendum campaign lasted around two years with only the very end of it taking place under campaign spending rules.
And we’re now seeing political campaigns spread into media other than TV and radio. In an era of ubiquitous internet, of social media, of the rise of “fake news” and the ability to harvest massive amounts of data about virtually anyone and use it to “microtarget” them, specifically, with political adverts designed to appeal to them and sway them in a particular direction.
As an example, I recently downloaded the data Facebook has been holding on me. I consider myself to have been relatively savvy about my social media use over the past few years and try not to click on those daft “surveys” you see popping up everywhere (they don’t need to harvest your data when you’re just outright giving it to them) but even so I discovered that they had attached over 130 keywords to my profile for the purpose of targeting ads at me.
(Highlights included “Socialism”, “Anti-Capitalism” and “Dick Cheney”.)
Herein lies the danger. It may well now be possible to flood a political campaign with money and sophisticated, algorithm-based propaganda and win it before one ever comes close to the regulated period in which one actually has to declare spending.
We saw the early stages of this in the 2014 independence referendum. Where the Yes side became a largely organic, grassroots network of local groups, the No side used canvassing and mailshots targeted using their “Patriot” database.
The techniques are far more subtle now – as demonstrated by the recent revelations about Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and other “Big Data” schemes. Channel 4’s documentary from last month on the topic is a must-watch.
Unless something is done to sort it out (which is unlikely), you can be absolutely certain their successor programs will be deployed against us in the next independence campaign, and we’re going to have to come up with new ways to combat them.
We may (we will) meet people on the doorsteps who have been targeted by adverts that we have never seen or have even heard about. We need to be able to counter any mis-information they have heard with objective facts. We need to cherish what media we have on our side and to support those who fact-check the dubious claims flying around the airwaves so that you can vaccinate yourself and others against them.
And we need to use the strength which cannot be matched by the No side: ourselves. We have far more activists than they do. We can get back out onto the streets and out canvassing, holding street stalls and running public information evenings. I’ve spoken to many party branches, Yes Groups, Common Weal locals and other activist branches who all say that they’re itching to get out there and get on with things. I ask them what’s stopping them?
Often, the response is one of quiet realisation that nothing is. Just because there isn’t an “official” campaign going on, doesn’t mean that we need to stop campaigning.
After all, our opponents haven’t.
An election can be decided by a contract a political party takes out with an IT firm or firms plus dubious accounting and not the content, power and delivery of their policies or candidates?
At it’s best this is unfair and irritating and at worst, we no longer live in a democracy where party politics and voting counts.
As always in uk, this advantage be it methods or money, is glossed over and compounded by press and bbc to the advantage of the London based elite.
I already detect that the work of the Electoral Commission is framed to support the tories primarily but also labour, i.e. support of a two party state where labour get in 33% of time and tories 67%.
Only solutions to the current injustice I see is for donations to be limited to £1K, personal and corporate and ban use of third parties employed by parties except for publishing.
I think that YES groups are reforming all over Scotland. We should be letting Nicola Sturgeon know that “it’s time”
I see that Pete Wishart is arguing about waiting until we can win a Referendum to have one. We really need to take a stance before next March.
There are lots of blogs and sites all wanting donations, which is hard for some folk. I think you have to decide to donate to few and YES hubs and maybe this new Truly Scottish TV. I would really like to find out who is behind this online TV station before I donate. I really like it but I’m always suspicious when they don’t reveal who they are.
I’ve been to a few talks where you were speaking, Craig, and very interesting they were.
UK.gov never stops campaigning against Scotland. Check out their rolling UK military recruitment tv ads, glossy, exciting, targeting teens. Latest peak time tv campaign’s are for Royal Navy, fast, exciting, aimed at young women, ends with, “born in St Andrews, made in the Royal Navy.”
Other than their Clyde estuary WMD nuke missile base, are there any Royal Navy bases in Scotland at all now?
Nope.
Any system will utilise any means to self preserve.
That is ultimately what Stephen Hawkins feared about AI.
Today we have people with vast resources, utilising those resources to promote propoganda to suit their own particular need. Currently like the attempt to destroy Corbyn via media.
Your interest or wellbeing is irrelevant. As long as the world turns the way they wish that is all that matters. They can never have enough wealth or power. Totally insatiable.
The problem is they corrupt everything. Rules were made to be broken, and principles mean zero.
Corruption causes nothing but more corruption in all spheres of life. That is why we have to start again as an independent nation to rebuild the important things in life for everybody, and not just the few.
The current spending rules and limits are a joke. Purdah period not policed correctly. Rules twisted to suit the establishment etc. Fines given to WoS but not SiU..blatant bias.
We need to win over hearts and minds…as the Rev says in the penultimate para…”Just because there is no official campaign going on doesn’t mean we have to stop campaigning.”
The sainted Obama (2012,Project Narwhal) was one of the first to use/abuse the abilities of `new media` to enhance the targeting of voters and party donors.
Christopher Wylie was asked by Brendan O’Hara, during questioning by Parliament Committee,if CA/SCL Group had any input in 2014 Scot Ref,
Chris said he remembered Alexander (Nix) being in discussions with somebody but didn`t know for what side,
hopefully in Nix gets questioned by Committee again Brendan could ask him ,
not that anything Nix says can ever be taken as a fact,
the guy is Fake News personified an out and out sociopath.
Journalists are the new Political Activists. At least Rev Stu admits it and believes in that cause.
The rest are simply up for sale.
They have money in the coffers…..we have feet on the street.
p.s. May 5th Glasgow, be there.
“These organisations aren’t linked to a particular political campaign and can spend as much as they like without declaring the source of their donations. Want to flout spending rules? Have a friend set up a Super-PAC and get your rich donors to fund it instead of you.”
https://wingsoverscotland.com/break-out-the-whitewash/
Therefore Scotland in Union = A Super-PAC
UK really is becoming the 51st (aka Airstrip 1).
Kangaroo says:
3 April, 2018 at 11:22 am
The current spending rules and limits are a joke.
The Democrats say that Hillary Clinton spent a billion dollars against Orange Hitler but she lost to a Russian funded troll factory attack campaign, on Facebook, that probably cost $150k, in St Petersburg, say the FBI. Long way from Pacific Quay, even so,
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/world/europe/russia-troll-factory.html
Kangaroo @ 11.22
Em, that’s not the Rev Kangaroo.
Its a guest post by a Dr Craig Dalzel!
Anyhoo…..my question would be…
Why do we need to stick to the rules this time?
After a yes vote the “Electoral Commission” will have no real power over us.
Obviously only in the manner that the other side do,and After they have…
While pointing out that they are trying to wreck the vote!
I’m thinking mainly of purdah…
We will never stop a NEW offer being made but we should have one or two of our own!
See also Brexit Dark Money which the Tories have conveniently buried all investigation into.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/what-connects-brexit-the-dup-dark-money-and-a-saudi-prince-1.3083586
http://archive.is/e8S7r
http://archive.is/6vd2O
After watching that clip the word “Feck” is all that can be proclaimed.
There it is the dark art.
Ref PW , I wonder if he is deliberately pretending to argue to hold fire until we can Defo win in an effort to rally the troops(YES folk) to step up & show the level of YES support & our need to have ScotRef soon.
Remember what NS said about the people deciding when etc
Or do they , the SNP know something we don’t ?
I see the English athletics have had a briefing from the Political officer as in how to do interviews . Johnny Brownlee on being asked about carrying the flag of the country saying its a honour to carry the flag Of England & to see other British teams ( don’t quote me as verbatim ) bbc news .
Perhaps an important aside to the information about party political broadcasts is the fact that political adverts, whether they be in newspapers or on the side of buses DO NOT need to comply with the Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) code of being Legal, truthful, honest or decent.
I believe that many people are unaware of this different level of responsibility, or lack of it, for political adverts. After all the ASA themselves put out adverts stating that ALL adverts have to be legal, decent, honest and truthful. It was only in the small print in their website that the exemptions for political advertising (amongst others) are admitted.
I contacted the ASA to complain about their adverts and not surprisingly they did not share my view that their adverts were misleading. They appear to claim that as the exemption of politics was mentioned on their website they did not need to mention it in their adverts. Surely if that applied to all advertisers their role would be useless.
Perhaps Stu, some Wingers or some journalists reading this would think this worth pursuing.
There may not be an official Yes campaign going on but we can still run a negative campaign on the mess the UK is in. If we can convince folk that Britain is heading for the rocks then the positive Yes campaign when it comes will have fertile ground in which to make the vital 5%.
Next time at the hairdressers/ tea break/ the pensioner’ club why not start the conversation with “What a state Britain’s in!” with the aim of telling them that you’ld trust them to do a better job of running the country than those idiots in Westminster
Jockanese Wind Talker
That Irish Times thing’s amazing,
“two days before the Brexit referendum last June, the Metro freesheet in London and other British cities came wrapped in a four-page glossy propaganda supplement urging readers to vote Leave.
Bizarrely, it was paid for by the DUP, even though Metro does not circulate in Northern Ireland. At the time, the DUP refused to say what the ads cost or where the money came from.
“Disgracefully, Northern Ireland is exempt from the UK’s requirements for the sources of large donations to be declared.”
“DUP eventually admitted that this spending came from a much larger donation of £425,622 (€530,000) from a mysterious organisation, the Constitutional Research Council.”
“The Constitutional Research Council is headed by a Scottish conservative activist of apparently modest means, Richard Cook. It has no legal status, membership list or public presence and there is no reason to believe that Cook himself had half a million euro to throw around.”
Aren’t Scottish toryboys busy.
On my Glasgow bus every morning there’s a big stack of free Metro’s waiting for you at the door, all stuffed with SNP Out.
Beeb gimp zone puff for Richard cook, “a prominent figure in Scottish Conservatives circles.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-18829302
Pity we don’t have a Scottish Electoral Commission to specifically address the “British” resources and their numerical superiority over Scottish resources. Given the respective disparity in size, you’d think that might be a legitimate concern that would warrant a commission or watchdog to oversee.
But then, if the Scottish Electoral Commission was obliged to protect the fairness and equity surrounding Scottish elections and referenda, the BBC, media, and UK Establishment would have a big and embarrassing problem on their hands.
A lot of Yessers have never stopped campaigning since 2013 . Im sitting here nursing ah cauld , that Buchanan St is nae shelter fae the cauld cauld wind .
@handclapping
Good idea. And add ” It’s such a pity the Indiref failed in 2014″.
No need to mention indiref2. Let them think it out for themselves.
The next campaign will be shorter. More experienced. A higher support starting point. It is just a question of timing. All no doubt being out in place. It needs a central bank.
If only the Westminster crooks were censored before then if there was any justice. The Tory unionists will be on the back foot and the majority do not trust them in any case. No wonder.
It is still the case vote SNP/SNP and Independence. Just get another to vote. Simple.
Or Scotland is finished.
So’s on comment on Johnny Brownlee correction it was his brother Alistair Brownlee who made the statement .
There are many levels of propaganda and use of media.
Who remembers Captain Euro? This comic strip did air as an animation on kids TV very briefly! I first saw it there years ago and when I finished laughing; realised the level of “suggestion” to children was no worse than the jingoistic “Warlord/Battle-Action/ Commando comics pitched at kids. Get ’em young eh?
Today, that comic strip has morphed into some weird satirical-cum-propaganda piece no longer an official EU programme. You won’t see Captain Euro in the UK needless to say.
http://www.captaineuro.eu/
For more euro-heroes and a reminder there was (still is) a Captain Britain, have a browse of this quirky euro site:
https://europeisnotdead.com/video/images-of-europe/european-superheroes/
Propaganda never sleeps and uses all media, there is a truth in “The medium is the message”. If you wish to use it, then use it well, there is an ongoing battle to own this concept. If the medium is the message, cyber or ‘online-media’ was the antithesis of MSM and perceived as the ‘truth’ or at the very least ‘more truthy’ – it is now being manipulated to appear that this medium is ‘Fake News’ – that is an example of the above phrase in action.
Another example would be the comic strip or animation as ‘childish, harmless entertainment’ all the better to embed propaganda. In adulthood we see the subtle references. Today with the proliferations of ‘adult cartoons’ that medium is perhaps no longer viewed as quite so innocent but subversive.
Anyway, that was a little left field with a touch of levity.
But in all seriousness, the independence we are seeking is hampered by a certain generation (myself included) who were indoctrinated in the ‘Great British Jingoism’ by Lord Peter Flint and his ilk (I think I still have a badge)
Of course, if you begin to see propaganda everywhere, then you begin to question everything – Is my ideology a result of propaganda, am I engaging in propaganda, who are the baddies? I suppose at some point you just have to pick your principles, get the head down and enter the fray.
Oh and have lots of friendly cuddly ‘Hamish’ toys or images around the stalls or on posters eh? You know it makes sense…
Metro/Mail
Brexit will help achieve Independence.
Great article, Craig. This is what we are up against.
This is exactly the case I have been making since 2014!
I have no faith whatsoever that sny of those “watchdogs” will protect the ordinary voter from the lies and mendacity of the rich and powerful elite who fund campaigns.
We have to do it ourselves.
Look at the current witch-hunt against Jeremy Corbyn. Who could have believed that an old man, who has devoted his life to opposing racism, could be tarred with an anti-semitism brush. The media are determined to destroy Jeremy Corbyn and it’s not a pretty sight.
The media demonised Alex Salmond too. Labour joined in, because they hated the SNP. The trick is to create a bogeyman who stands for an entire movement, or nation, and assassinate his or her character. Putin is another instance. It’s ugly propaganda.
As soon as a campaign begins, Nicola Sturgeon will be the target of the same technique. She is a more difficult target obviously as she is such a sure footed politician. That is why unionist trolls insist she should be dumped for someone else, anybody else.
We have to support the new media and spread the word by all means available.
Good article.
Liz g @ 11:44am said:”We will never stop a NEW offer being made but we should have one or two of our own!”
How very well put. And how disappointing that there wasn’t a counter offer ready when we needed one.
However the “Vow” scam can only work once, because the next time we will have a way to counter it in place, right? Please say that is right!
Our group is taking part in the Callander cycle challenge to raise money to get us going
“We need to win over hearts and minds…as the Rev says in the penultimate para…”Just because there is no official campaign going on doesn’t mean we have to stop campaigning.””
————-
It’s mostly the Rev who writes these articles for us to get our teeth in to, but he also has guest writers on the team.
A lot of folk just start reading in their excitment at something new to chew on..! 🙂
This one is from: CRAIG DALZELL 🙂 🙂
(And very good it is too.)
Propaganda never sleeps. Ain’t that the truth.
Front page online Irish Times, this ligger’s one of Ligger Neil’s vote tory daily lunchtime beeb gimp politics show, regulars. He’s usually seated next to a neo nazi from the Heil and a SUN goon, for that great BBC balance.
Is there a universe where ligger’s like this dude even mention staggering vote tory/Teresa propaganda pouring out of the beeb gimp zone alone?
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/theresa-may-displays-grit-of-the-old-fashioned-english-footballer-1.3449064
Its a funny old world ( my mate the scouser )
I was in my local house of refreshment a few months ago with my pal Joe, now Joe is a scouser, been in scotland for years and is allowed to vote, we never discuss politics so i had no idea about Joe’s opinions on the matter.
There where four of us and we where chatting about this and that as you do, when Joe suddenly said, i hate that sturgeon, i put a few questions to him about this utterance and i was amazed how little he new of the SNP, don’t forget this is a guy that lived most of his life in Liverpool and was a labour voter down there, and that means he has a unionist outlook to politics.
Anyway, i said to him, Joe do you realise it was the SNP that brung in your free bus pass and free prescriptions for all, and that the other parties in scotland voted against it.
This next bit amazed me, Joe said no it was’nt, it was Thatcher that did that, and the scary part is, people like Joe have a vote in scotland and he knows as much about politics as i know about the mating habits of the great hairy rabbits of Peru.
P.S. I don’t know if there are any hairy rabbits in peru, but
it sounds good. lol
Excellent post Craig.
Let’s hope we can all pull together in the same direction.
The outcome being a resounding victory in IndyRef2.
And Nicola Sturgeon as our first ever Scottish Prime Minister.
Go Nicola !!!
Disney could soon own SKy News. After fake news the fantasy land of make believe.
Murdoch the crook and his cohorts. The 53rd State. The UK of A. Gove, Johnston et al in Murdoch’s pocket. Murdoch the biggest liar on the planet. Sacked Johnston forvtelling lies. Gove’s wife works for the lying Mail. His household benefits from payments and bank transfers. Along with the major, massive electoral fraud. All connected. Killing and maiming millions. Sanctioning and starving people to death. In order line their own pockets. Enough is never enough for them. Psycho bastards. They kill off their own supporters. That’s how sick it can get.
Capella
Compare/Contrast how the BBC made Nige Farage the great English hero and Alex Salmond a Scottish monster.
BBC Scotland will never let it go either. You do not cross our BBC masters and simply walk away. Beeb Scotland gimps even used their war at the Russian front to smear his Royal Eckness.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-42398607
Please share the truth.
They tried to stop us by saying it is dangerous, it is one of the ways we can get the truth out to our relatives.
Vote YES next time.
Willie Rennie? The joke complaint. Alex Salmond is a major Statesman. Worldwide. Rennie is a nobody.
If we really want to win indyref2 then we need to hold it while Theresa is still UK PM. David Cameron in 2014 was a plausible rogue and you could, and many did, believe him and his promises. Theresa is different, aloof, wooden and with a string of falsehoods, sorry political lies, on tape and in print. She will do very well as a bogeyman for the Yes campaign if she is still with us
Slightly off-topic: Flower of Scotland asked (11:14) about who’s behind TruelyScottishTV.com….the registrant is Alex Airlie of Cleland: https://wa-com.com/trulyscottishtv.com
The Yes Movement is mobilising, as witnessed by the number of Yes Groups taking part in this weekend’s YesM8 protest.
As an organiser I felt a little deflated when attempting to contact existing groups. So many seemed to be completely dormant and so many failed to even respond to my calls.
The upside is that this little project of ours, here at Yes Bellshill & Mossend, seems to have spurred new groups to form and dormant groups to reform.
We’re making the connections now, so if you want to get ahead of the curve, get your group up and running. Connect with your neighbouring groups. Connect with regional & national umbrella groups (they are out there). Bring your ideas to the table, because there are thousands of us waiting to help to make your ideas into reality. Lets do this.
On an aside, you aren’t too late to get involved with YesM8. Just get in touch on twitter or facebook @YesM8Scotland
During the 2014 referendum I found it much easier to sway people by backing up my arguments with images. For example, the lady at a street stall who didn’t believe me when I said her pension was safe until I showed her a headline from the Scotsman backed up with a letter from the DWP to a pensioner in Falkirk. YES Hamilton created a batch of A5 presentation books loaded with images for canvassing and street stalls. Simple but effective.
Bill not Ben @ 12.55pm
Wee correction in the interests of accuracy – it was the Labour/LibDem coalition at Holyrood who brought in the free bus pass scheme. It started in April 2006.
However, while they get credit for introducing it all credit to the Scottish Government for keeping it going in the face of periodic criticism of the scheme from Labour. Usually this takes the form of saying it is unaffordable etc and should be scrapped.
May be a case for reviewing the age at which people can get a bus pass now that the retirement age is going up but not scrapping it.
@Flower of Scotland says: 3 April, 2018 at 11:14 am:
“I think that YES groups are reforming all over Scotland. We should be letting Nicola Sturgeon know that “it’s time”.
Aye!
Richt!
So, first of all if you only, “Think”, YES groups are reforming, then it is time you though again, Flower of Scotland.
Secondly, I’m almost certain Nicola Sturgeon is far better informed than anyone else in Scotland. She is, more than anyone, better placed and better advised as to the political situation in Scotland than anyone else. Into the bargain she is a well qualified lawyer.
She has a whole party of SNP members she must obviously be able to speak with and get the feelings of activists from them and no politician in the United Kingdom has a better relationship with the common people than Nicola Sturgeon.
Contrast her freely walking among the people to that of the recent Theresa May, “Thistle-Stop”, tour of Scotland, (if you blinked you would have missed it). In any case there were so many Security Service people, (probably armed), around Theresa May to keep the common people away from her. Anyone she did speak to, (not with), would have been well vetted or they wouldn’t have got near her to get the chance.
Nicola is one of us and she proves it by accepting us as equals as we accept her as our equal.
You may not have given it much thought, Flower of Scotland, but that lady shows a very great deal of courage and we know there are absolute yoon nutters hanging around who are no strangers to violence, (Reference the George Square incident after Indyref1, for example.
“I see that Pete Wishart is arguing about waiting until we can win a Referendum to have one. We really need to take a stance before next March.”
We are taking a stance, that’s why, among other things we are here most days on Wings. It is also why Wings has an increasing number of unionist disrupters on Wings. All with the same agenda – these people are not just trolls and if they are not just one person with many names then they are working in concert together from the same sources. The style, grammar and expressions used are so similar.
So who do I judge to have more idea of the situation?
Is it Flower of Scotland – a commenter on Wings?
Is it the First Minister of Scotland/Leader of the third biggest party at Westminster and Leader of the biggest political party in Scotland?
OooH! That’s a tough one richt enuch!
Will I needs think on it further?
Will I hell!
I’ll go with Nicola’s decision every time.
To be quite honest, I don’t think our main enemy are the regulated organisations and campaigns. Even with their £millions and dubious targeting technology, I think we have a bigger problem in the UNregulated political campaigns.
A couple of million Scots still give credence to BBC’s news and political reporting, yet they have been running a relentless anti SNP / SG campaign since an Indy threat re-emerged. And it is subtle – much of it is by omission, play down Scottish good bits and WM bad bits to give an unreasonably optimistic view of their Union. Then there is the continual British this, British that, reinforcing the myth that the UK is a cohesive country. With the BBC the blatant bias seen in interviews (pro BrtNat, anti Indy) is but the tip of an iceberg!
The BBC does not have to register as a political campaigner, yet it is probably the biggest.
Its wee siblings In commercial broadcasting are tarred with the same brush.
Handclapping 1.11
I agree that May will be more of a hindrance to the No side.
But I suspect that her response to the Announcement of our Scot Ref date,will be to hold another General Election or to engineer another EU referendum.
Her Government is on a shoogly enough peg to plausibly go for another UK wide vote.
This would keep our campaign off the front pages and/or provide the old chestnut… “Just put Labour in”, they will fix it fur ye Scotland!
Hope I’m wrong though, cause I want Scotland to be focused on the Indy question,and issues.
Not mair vow’s and whit will we dae aboot Europe shit!
@Kangaroo says: 3 April, 2018 at 11:22 am:
… We need to win over hearts and minds…as the Rev says in the penultimate para…”Just because there is no official campaign going on doesn’t mean we have to stop campaigning.”
Well said, Kangaroo, I’ve never really stopped campaigning for nearly 70 years now.
By the way the author of the article was not Rev Stu Campbell, but was Dr Craig Dalzell, (and if you click on the blue link, (his name), at the top of the article it will take you to more such stuff.
This is priceless. Donald Trump is allowing 60 other Russians to replace those he expelled. He also wants Putin to come to the White House on a trip, to moralist relations.
Mrs May will be biting the Cabinet table about now I would imagine.
Taking back control in a Strong and Stable way. Ha ha ha ha ha.
Normalise of course. Damn predicate the. Damn proof reading.
@Robert Peffers
Don’t get agitated Robert. I think we have a great leader in Nicola Sturgeon but she did say that she would call another IndyRef when the people wanted it.
All I’m saying is that we need one soon. September/October this year or Spring next year!
Peter A Bell has been blogging about this and it is not disrespectful to our First Minister.
We need YES groups to regroup and let their feelings be known.
I’m an SNP activist and have been voting SNP for 54 years. I’ve been a member for 42 years, so calm down Robert.
O/T. Being reported on Euronews that German prosecutor files extradition application for Puigdemont to be returned to Spain.
Robert Peffers @ 1.27 & Flower of Scotland @ 11.14
While I can’t speak for “all over Scotland” Robert, there are a lot of Yes groups that I looked in on during Indy ref 1 that are reactivating their site’s,and starting to fund raise.
Nicola wouldn’t necessary be aware of this yet because they are not all SNP affiliated.
It’s also possible that
Firstly…
This is just the beginning of the Yes groups getting going again,and will very soon become demonstrably Scotland Wide..
And Secondly…
This is what Nicol had in mind when she says that if the Scottish people let her know we want another vote,she will make it happen?
So while,yes Nicola is best placed to decide exactly when.
Flower of Scotland may be right,and we should be starting to say it….how else would she know.
Hope your keepin OK Robert, my best to you and yours.
Thanks Craig for the subtle reminder,
just four days left of the WoS fundraiser and it was payday last week, get donating people! I just have (again) 🙂
O/T
German prosecutors have asked a court to allow the extradition of Carles Puigdemont to Spain.
Jim Savage do you have a copy of the letter from the DWP to the pensioner from Falkirk. A mate in Aberdeenshire got one, I would like to compare them as we were told at the time that a junior Civil Servant had sent out the wrong info. Nonsense off course , you can live anywhere on the Planet and you still get your pension , even North Korea and Russia !
Those saying propaganda never sleeps are correct.
I was really pissed at the weekend when I found out Creative Scotland donated money to that English of all stories – Agatha Christie.
The only Scottish person in the production was the servant.
My point being, who made that decision at CS?
Are our institutions which are supposed to promote Scotland being run by unionists?
It’s the same with NTS, and Historic Scotland – who pushed for building of holiday homes on Culloden Field,- how do folk get voted on to these boards?
If algorithm-based propaganda remains within the rules, fighting it with street-stalls could be like picking the international side from the Highland League.
Perhaps only digitised campaigns will win in this age. Fight fire with fire and let the regulators regulate.
It’s the same with NTS, and Historic Scotland – who pushed for building of holiday homes on Culloden Field,- how do folk get voted on to these boards?
They work hard and become this dude. Its not for nothing the tories hold all top jobs everywhere and in anything.
http://www.thenational.scot/news/15567851.SNP_hating_historian_who_said_indyref2_was__cancerous__gets_top_job_at_National_Trust_for_Scotland/
@Tackety Beets says: 3 April, 2018 at 11:49 am:
“Remember what NS said about the people deciding when etc
Or do they , the SNP know something we don’t ?”
Of course, “they”, don’t, Tackety Beets, for the SNP, unlike other parties, are the membership but as a member I’d hazard a guess that the elected SG/Westminster/EU members of the party do indeed know a lot of things, “we”, don’t. It is better that way for then, “We”, can’t muck things up.
In any case Rev Stu, among others, has often made the point that the YES movement was a startling, spontaneous movement.
It was as startling to the SNP as it was to the unionists and its greatest strength was that it was spontaneous. It hasn’t gone away but it now leaves the question hanging in mid-air:-
“WHAT THE HELL IS STOPPING YOU ALL FROM CAMPAINING NOW”?
You asked no one’s permission the first time you arose to campaign – you just all got together and did it – why are you all waiting on permission now?
It’s like this – We de the campaigning and we leave the politicking to the politicians to get on with.
We don’t have what they have and they don’t have what we have.
Don’t just stand there – do something.
It worked well the first time and the grass-roots support shot way up and the good news is that the support has remained up so we are starting from a higher baseline than the last time.
This young man shows promise, on planet toryboy. Not sure what the dead dog business means though. National Trust Scotland do take a million quid from Scottish taxpayers too. It is odd how you no longer see a Saltire on any NTS castle or mansion, but the English flag is draped all over theirs. Spooky.
“Oliver has expressed strong criticism of former and current First Ministers Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, calling the former “yesterday’s man” and a “wrecking ball”, while hailing the prospect of a second independence referendum as “a cancerous presence” and a “hate fest”.
He said in a newspaper article “the SNP are in the dead dog business” and added “somewhere along the line something truly awful happened and the SNP became the only joke in town, and it was on us”.
I agree with @handclapping at 12.08 and @Robert Kerr at 12.16. I am a Scot who’s lived in the south of the UK for many years. I’ve always behaved as an ambassador, and polite defender, of my country. Here’s an example.
Friend: The SNP thought Scotland could be independent on the basis of only oil, and Scotland would have failed.
Me: No, oil is a small part of Scotland’s economy. It’s the Westminster government which has received all the tax from oil, and has used it to prop up the UK economy.
I agree with the poster on here recently who said that it’s a good idea to leave someone pondering a question. Perhaps something like, why did the unionists FAIL to construct a weatherproofed bridge over the Firth of Forth; or to finish the M8 motorway; or to dual the A9? Wingers will have their own pithy questions I’m sure!
eppy said:
Stu has beat you to it eppy (by five and a half years) – a search for Advertising Standards Authority reveals amongst others:
https://wingsoverscotland.com/how-politicians-are-licenced-to-lie/
https://wingsoverscotland.com/business-as-usual/
Wingers will have their own pithy questions I’m sure!
Why do you think Scots do not pay uni and college fees and you do?
Grant @ 2.03
I think street stalls and local meetings are our greatest strength.
The No side can’t match it, and more importantly,the MSM have done a great job of letting people know…
When we say “you will be manipulated online by dark money” we are telling the truth.
We should always advise getting information face to face and be pointing out the dodgy ad’s that everyone gets because of what the internet -thinks- you might like.
Also reminding people (nicely)that they don’t always tell the truth about themselves online!
Nobody likes to think they are being fooled,and while there is a place for online campaigns.
We can’t outspend them,but we can play to our own strength and put boot’s on the ground!
O/T
WINGERS NIGHT OUT THIS SATURDAY.
Latest updated info posted over on Off Topic page with latest details of our upcoming “do” in the Otters Head in Woodside, Glenrothes.
A sparkling night of wit, repartee, sensible ? conversation, Scottish themed quiz, free food, and a fundraising raffle.
See Off Topic for details of transport links, and affordable overnight accommodation.
Hope to see you all there.
Chas.
Respectable people like Lord Adonis accuse the BBC of bias. Shock.
He says Channel 4 ought to get the licence fee. (That’s £3.7 billion – a year ago: http://archive.li/dT1GG )
Of course, I read that on Putin’s Propaganda Channel (state funded)and not on May’s Propaganda Channel (state funded) so it is probably correct.
https://on.rt.com/92fa
Labour lords discover that the media is ruthlessy politically biased.
O/T here is an extract from Reuters on Catalan arrest warrants written in Berlin.
Link https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-spain-politics-catalonia-germany/german-prosecutors-file-for-extradition-of-ex-catalan-leader-puigdemont-idUKKCN1HA0XU
“International arrest warrants are active against four other politicians who fled abroad last year, including Carla Ponsati, a former Catalan education minister who is fighting extradition from her home in Scotland.”
Yes Carla your home for now is Scotland. You are very welcome here.
Yes Carla your home for now is Scotland. You are very welcome here.
True, unless you’re Cons and SLab.
Top toryboy Holyrood legal eagle, constitutional law, Glasgow uni Law Prof etc, but on Carla, not a peep.
https://twitter.com/ProfTomkins
“In the UK, the act of political advertising is prohibited on TV and radio; one cannot simply buy an advertising slot and run an ad for your party or against your opponent.”
Technically this is true but the reality is vastly different, below is a 3 minute “advertisment” against Scottish Independence broadcast by BBC Scotland on April 13th 2014.
It is the most sickening piece of propaganda I had seen and really opened my eyes as to what we were up against. This “cartoon” on Defense in an Independent Scotland prompted me to make my first ever complaint to the BBC.
Make sure and watch it then decide for yourself how impartial it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ5Qtlwge0U
This is always the worrying thing in that no matter how much money you have to campaign with you will always be up against the BBC who have a greater reach than any other medium. That video is shocking but just a single example of the total bias of the BBC on behalf of the state.
It will all come down to basics if the Yes side is to win and that means getting visible and having those face to face conversations.
Will see you all in Glasgow then on 5th May 🙂
The SNP and the Yes movement will have learned the lesson of targeting only those that will give us a majority,
not to waste money and time on the No hopers,
targeting dosen`t just mean through new media it`s about specific policies aimed at the soft No voter,
i`m sure the whole Project Fear was coordinated by a company like Cambridge Analytica/Strategic Communication Laboratories Group,
using stooges like McDougal,McTernan and Shorthouse to give it a false look of complete incompetence.
@Scot Finlayson
That’s about the best thing the campaign can do next time is specific targetting. Let’s be honest much of the funds spent by Yes Scotland could have been put to better effect in my opinion.
The Yes newspaper was pretty dire I thought but the revamp website was a total shocker. It was impossible to find any information on there. In fact to me it looked more like the revamp was in fact sabotage!
A bit strong maybe but that’s how I felt about it. Think about it 300,000 WBB’s costing £50K or near enough made up almost the entire spend by Wings Over Scotland. I beleive the WBB had a much greater impact in persuading those that needed targetting over to the Yes side than anything Yes Scotland produced.
Yes Scotland spent £1,420,800 compared to Wings £50,000. Which was the value for money?
US satire, switch their Sinclair media over there with say, DC Thomson’s mob in Dundee Courier wise, the corp that owns neo fascist Voice of The North Press and Journal and ofcourse, the great beeb Scotland gimp network, here in their Scotland region,
https://informscotland.com/bbc-scotland-style-goes-international/
Robin Mcalpine made the point a while back that a future YES campaign needs big donors.
I scoffed at the idea but now I’m thinking he has a valid point.
The uk est and it’s mouthpiece (bbc) never stopped campaigning and neither should we.
Just a wee thought to protect against yoon attempts to try and sabotage any referendum by not voting and claiming all those who do not vote as supporting the union, why not change the question to be ” do you wish Scotland to remain part of the UK”
This changes us from yes to no but it also stops non voters from being counted as supporting the union. The Tories can walk out of Holyrood and run any campaign they want, to ignore a referendum, but they should not be allowed to keep stealing democracy.
Thanks for the video Craig as I’d missed the programme.
Chilling – …ghost in…ghost out…
What I find so revealing is that when you see the whites of these guys eyes, I just think what sad, sad failures they are. Is this the best contribution they can make to society? Is that it?
What evil, cynical hopeless people with their absolutely rank patter to boot. Pathetic.
Ther, got that off my chest. Feel lighter now. Thanks. I needed that!
@heedtracker. You said this..
“Why do you think Scots do not pay uni and college fees and you do”?
I use this a lot, and the answer is usually along the lines of “ah..but thats because English taxpayers pay for those things”.
At this point i gently inform them that Scotland’s Government get a SET BUDGET (to spend as they see fit) and that the SNP SCOTSGOV choose to provide free higher education/prescriptions etc.
I also remind them that if the Tories were to win power at Holyrood, then all the “free” stuff WILL stop and the money saved would be wasted on other stuff, of no benefit to those in greatest need.
I leave them with the information that Scotsgov manage all these good things with a tiny amount of the fiscal powers required to run Scotland, quoting the circa 15% of tax powers, devolved currently, and imagine what the SNP (or any future indy Scotsgov of any political make up) could do to transform indy Scotland, if in control of EVERYTHING.
This has worked for me with a lot of people i know who were voting No in 2014 but then voted Yes, and for those who voted No, despite this input in 2014, lots of them are voting Yes this time.
The primary reason being they can see how they have been fooled in 2014 due to WM action since that No vote.
I even have one guy who is still not convinced by the Yes arguments, but will vote Yes because,…”it can’t be any worse than the mess brexit will cause if we vote No”…..touche’.
Television and radio news programmes daily review the papers. The papers reviewed are all British nationalist, except when the National is reviewed [if ever] . TV and radio presenters and reporters are nearly all former journalists employed by these Britnat papers. It is a vicious, prejudiced, incestuous,endless cycle of British nationalist propaganda.
Boycott all Britnat media! Don’t pay the bbc tax!
Interesting article.
Not had time to read many comments yet, but was reading about this re the US just yesterday. At the indy news site,’Common Dreams’ April 2nd article, title, The Stuff of nightmares. It’s about news outlets being forced to follow a right wing script, literally, or be shut down. Have a look, it’s utterly sinister.
It’s coming across the pond at a fast pace as well. UKOK, little America. Sometimes it looks like some humans have lost any humanity at all, if they ever had any in the first place!
Scary world these days folks.
Flower of Scotland says: 3 April, 2018 at 1:51 pm:
“Don’t get agitated Robert. I think we have a great leader in Nicola Sturgeon but she did say that she would call another IndyRef when the people wanted it.”
Me? Agitated? I stopped getting agitated about political matters in around 1950 or thereabouts, Flower of Scotland”.
The point I’m making is well thought through.
In point of fact it isn’t Nicola Sturgeon personally who got the mandate to hold another referendum. It was the SNP Scottish Government. If the SNP are voted out, or resign, there successors still have a mandate.
She asked for that mandate, “due to the, Changed circumstances brought about by Westminster made decisions”. (for that highlighted quote read, “deliberate Westminster lies”).
The electorate should expect that no matter if Nicola is still FM and/or still leader of the SNP that their mandate be respected by any other SG leader of any political party.
However, the mandate is to hold a second referendum when the changed circumstances that are ,
BRUKEXIT’s shape and form are clearly known.Thus it is not up to Pete Wishart, or even Nicola Sturgeon, when that clarity is know. The political rules are that the parliament at Westminster must be the first to get the Westminster Government’s Information and then the three devolved governments get informed by Westminster.
It is then the duty of the Holyrood government to inform the public. You cannot vote upon a matter if you do not know what the matter concerns.
To date the Westminster Government’s record of informing even the Westminster Parliament is abysmal and of informing the devolved parliaments very much worse and often totally missing.
The UK wide referendum vote to leave the EU was held by the UK government without the voters being made aware of what a
BRUKEXIT really involved.Both you and I know that much of the English
nationalistsErr! (cough!), Patriots, were misled to believe that it was great idea to ridBritainErr!England, Err! The UK of all those foreign immigrants including the Irish, Welsh and those drunken, workshy, subsidised sweaties, from the, patriotic Englander’s country of Britain.With the added bonus that all that English taxpayer’s money that subsidised those illegal immigrants, the Jocks, the Taffies and the Paddies and went as a free gift to the EU would be spent on the English NHS, Schools and infrastructure.
A referendum cannot really be called until the new likely effects of
BrUKexit are made clear to the people who must vote upon the matter.It really is as simple as that.
They’ll aw be flocking to Skye to stand in the footprints of giants Mac T Rex, hope the roads can hold up to the traffic . The long Haired ( Wash & Go ) one will be winging his way to Skye as we speak .
We need loads of hard hitting Posters everywhere. Different topics in highly visible areas, pointing out the things we will lose in big print.Bus passes, free prescription, threat to our NHS, University fees, do you want to eat chlorinated chicken? etc etc. Posters in the right places, that is the problem.
However if we can crack that it would give a good boost to yes.
On top of all the other things we would be doing.
SNP hold Glasgow Council, would it not be a allowable income for the Council? On the books anyway, it could be done at a reasonable cost, but still income for the Council?, that is how it could be a reasonable thing to allow.
galamcennalath says:
3 April, 2018 at 1:30 pm
To be quite honest, I don’t think our main enemy are the regulated organisations and campaigns. Even with their £millions and dubious targeting technology, I think we have a bigger problem….
The BBC does not have to register as a political campaigner, yet it is probably the biggest…
I couldn’t agree more. It makes a mockery of any alleged “fairness” when the BBC is free to manipulate the news agenda and political discourse of our country. That’s bad enough, but to have a monopoly over broadcasting, mind numbing levels of state funding, and no meaningful means of censure or correction, is just beyond the pale.
Even as a crude yardstick, just equate the hours of passive and active pro Union rhetoric with the token pro Independence narrative, (pro Indy narrative that is routinely hectored and contested), and then put a cash value against the broadcast material that compares with advertising revenue. You’d have an awfy, awfy, lot of free political advertising up against no very much.
What is the point having an Electoral Commission that can limit spending of a political party when the BBC is free to distort the whole political landscape with hour after hour, day after day, week after week of “free” political advertising promoting Unionism and all its skewed perspectives propaganda? It’s a joke, and not a very funny one.
The Electoral Commission in those circumstances ceases to be a regulating authority, and becomes instead a fig leaf which lends credence and the grand illusion of acceptability to a wholly inequitable and unethical farce.
We need to be careful however. As Robert Peffers often points out, neither William Wallace nor the Jacobites who were executed for Treason or rebellion were actually guilty of a Treason. Their actions were not treason because the crown they took up arms against had no legitimate claim to be their monarch. I see crude parallels with the BBC. There is actually no act of treason against us by the BBC. The BBC is doing what a pet propaganda organisation is meant to do – for its master. We “Scottish Separatists” simply aren’t it’s master.
The real treason, or rather, the common-all-garden betrayal and assault against Scotland, is the UK government’s refusal to allow Scotland its own “free” and independent broadcasting media, and thereby provide Scotland with an alternative and dissenting narrative for public consumption, something which might of course debunk and contradict the banal propaganda of the BritNat Propaganda channels. But that’s the whole point! If we Scots can harbour resentmentful thoughts and dissenting opinion, even if we harbour legitimate thoughts of insurrection, provided it’s legal and peaceful, then a properly representative news media requires to have the same lateral freedom too.
The current inequitable broadcasting injustice is in fact the real mechanism which keeps Scotland docile and in check, not some Mickey Mouse spending limit imposed by an Electoral Commissioner.
We are however fighting the wrong fight trying shut down the BBC, or even modify its output. We should instead be exercising our sovereign will to go ahead and simply have our own “Scottish” Broadcaster, then fight with every breath to stop the Unionists unconstitutional interference and attempts to shut it down and thereby frustrate the sovereign arguments and progressive dialogues of the people. Forget the BBC and crappy news channels we do have. Let us fight for the Pulitzer Prize winning news stations which we don’t have.
If our battle with the BBC was a boxing match, the fight isn’t going well for us because we currently have no fighter to put in the ring. We somehow expect the BBC to begin punching its own lights out. Yes, I’d love to see it too, but it isn’t going to happen.
If I was King of Scotland for the Day, our friends at Phantom Power, Truly Scottish TV, and Independence Live, all our bloggers and podcasters, our dissident ex-Diplomats and University Professors, would all be formally recognised and hopefully coordinated into a foundling Independent Scottish Broadcasting Service, and given the appropriate level of state support and broadcasting facilities which are broadly consistent with every other Nation’s right to have its own domestic broadcast news and political discourse. If Westminster agitated disruption, then that would be foreign interference in our domestic affairs.
We are not blood thirsty rebels plotting armed insurrection and arbitrary seizure of power. The Independence we seek for Scotland is a legitimate, political ideology which we are proud and happy to debate constructively. What right has Westminster or the BBC to prevent that discussion, or even declare the ideas subversive? A change of government, whether we vote SNP, Tory, or Labour by peaceful progressive consensus is the essence of a free democracy. If we desire a similar peaceful discourse along Constitutional lines and god help us, actually talk about Independence, then the same freedoms should still apply. It’s a discussion for gods sake!!!
If the Unionist Government doesn’t like it, and I rather suspect they wouldn’t, then let us point them to their own abject failure to produce material appropriate to Scotland’s criteria. We simply want the job done properly, but the British State has proven itself so hapless and underhand that we have decided to do it ourselves. Shut us down and silence us if you dare. Good luck with that.
Oh, how I would dearly love to be King of Scotland for the day… It’s fantasy of course. If I actually was King of Scotland, I’d have to do what I was told by the sovereign people. So, if all of you, every last one of you would just be good enough to leave the country for the day so I’m the only sovereign person left in the whole of Scotland, I’ll have everything sorted for you when you all come back on Thursday…
@Thepnr
Political targeting has been around probably since the first Democratic vote in Athens,
what has changed is the ability to do micro targeting which saves tons of money and time
Trump spent $500,000,000 less than whatsherface
one of the many reasons the American MSM hate Trump is that he doesn`t waste all his money paying for expensive TV time,
he gets that free by saying controversial sh@t,
maybe Nicola should say we will build a wall to stop all the English immigrants and get Westminster to pay for it.
That was a joke.
anyhoo
Just found out that the Commonwealth Games start tomorrow,that sneaked up from nowhere,
remember Amy singing Rhythm of My Heart,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyrcQCYcn08
O/T.
Porton Down admits that they don’t know where the Novichok nerve agent came from.
Flower of Scotland says:
“I think that YES groups are reforming all over Scotland. We should be letting Nicola Sturgeon know that “it’s time”
Yes fine. Yes Groups are forming, but are they doing anything? When they are formed and PERforming; actually succeeding in shifting opinion and countering the Yoon propaganda it might be time to get excited.
For the moment there is great risk of PE. Premature Election.
It was messy last time and rather disappointing. Good foreplay is needed to ensure a satisfactory climax.
@Liz g says: 3 April, 2018 at 1:54 pm:
“Robert Peffers @ 1.27 & Flower of Scotland @ 11.14
While I can’t speak for “all over Scotland” Robert, there are a lot of Yes groups that I looked in on during Indy ref 1 that are reactivating their site’s,and starting to fund raise.
Nicola wouldn’t necessary be aware of this yet because they are not all SNP affiliated.”
Tell you what, Liz g, no one in Scotland is more aware of what goes on politically in Scotland than is Nicola Sturgeon.
Put it this way – I knew that and I’m more or less housebound these days.
“It’s also possible that
Firstly…
This is just the beginning of the Yes groups getting going again,and will very soon become demonstrably Scotland Wide..”
I’m aware of that too. My point is, that going by just the comments here on Wings, it seems there are those who are either not aware of it or don’t want to be made aware of it.
“And Secondly…
This is what Nicol had in mind when she says that if the Scottish people let her know we want another vote,she will make it happen?”
Now, again I may be wrong, but I read that as, “she says that if enough of the Scottish people let her know we want another vote,she will make it happen? To date, (because she hasn’t made it happen), not enough have yer asked for it.
“So while,yes Nicola is best placed to decide exactly when.
Flower of Scotland may be right,and we should be starting to say it….how else would she know.”
Exactly, Liz g, that’s the point I’ve been pushing for some time now – do not complain on an open forum – take it to a local branch if you are an SNP member and no other political leader is as accessible to voters as Nicola Sturgeon and that goes for the SG. Have a look at their web pages and you will find that is true: here’s one way and the SG website also has more ways :-
https://www.snp.org/contact
“Hope your keepin OK Robert, my best to you and yours.”
I’ll never be really well again but I get by with a struggle. Just getting up of a morning, washed, dressed and fed is a major effort. Getting out and about is exhausting but I’m not the kind who gives in to it.
My old Granny who brought me up, (while Dad was fighting for the Queen and Mum was working on Munitions), told me a wee poem – it goes like this:
(In her best educated English voice)-
The Butterfly has wings of gold
The Firefly wings of flame.
(She then returned to her natural Lallans Scots)-
Bit the puir wee flech haes nane ava
Bit he gits there jist the same.
So I’m just like the Puir wee flech – I may take a while longer to get there, but I get there just the same.
;-))
Next indy ref we’ll need to be alert to who is “ghosted in ,and ghosted out” of Scotland. Dirty lying corrupt British state.
#Bob Mack at 1:50 pm
“This is priceless. Donald Trump is allowing 60 other Russians to replace those he expelled.”
Question is, did any of the expelled Russians help to get him elected?
Robert peffers you just keep getting up in the morning. Get washed,fed,and dressed. WOS needs you posting.
An interesting line from Porton Down statement that it did not come from them
“…or left the four walls of this establishment”
Now if you don’t have it or make it would that not be the end of your statement!???
To claim it could not get out suggests to me you have it on the premises
@Flower of Scotland says: 3 April, 2018 at 1:55 pm:
“O/T
German prosecutors have asked a court to allow the extradition of Carles Puigdemont to Spain.”
That’s no surprise, Flower of Scotland. That’s the way the law works. To have a criminal court case the prosecution tries to prove the accused’s guilt and the defence tries to prove the accused is innocent.
Unless, of course the defendant pleads guilty. If that happens the court goes on to set the sentence. Otherwise the court hears the case for and against and decides if the person is, or is not, guilty.
So it is normal for the prosecution to attempt to prosecute.
The defence to attempt to defend and the judge and/or the Jury, to decide the verdict.
What an education you are giving us Rev Stu =)
Thank you, we WILL add this to what we already know and understand.
I especially liked your saying: ‘And we need to use the strength that cannot be matched by the No side : ourselves’ 🙂
Most people are glued to their phones.
Share the truth, it is one way we can get people to question what they are told.
If you are ever asked tell them to vote YES next time.
Breeks 4.14pm. I think a week before voting day on indy ref2, All yes voters should point out to unsure/undecided no voter’s, family, friends, etc. Should Scotland be independent? WATCH the level of lies,deceit,emanate through the Richter scale from the ebc telling us why we are too wee too poor too stupid. And probably more “vows.
I never stop fighting for independence, I ware it in my person, I write to the newspapers, I write letters to people I am acquainted with, this has almost become a weekly newsletter. If there is truth in your writings it will be picked up by the press, If there is interest in my newsletter people will at least read them. Many tell me they enjoy it but do not always agree with my point of view, that’s OK at least they are opening up to other peoples view which is the object of the exercise.
Bobp 5.18. Should have added, then make your mind up.
I don’t want to ‘gain’ Scotland’s independence. I want to ‘regain’ it. There’s a big, big difference. Scotland is one signatory to a bipartite international treaty. Signing that treaty did not sign away our inalienable right to unilaterally dissolve that treaty should we, the people of Scotland, vote to do so.
The point is – we will always possess that right to dissolve that international treaty at any moment of our choosing. The Unionist noise going around that “huff, puff, sigh, whinge” no one wants another indyref is just bunk. If we vote for a party to give us an Indyref every single day of the week and twice on Saturdays, then that is what must be delivered because that is what the people voted for and expect to be delivered. If you don;t like the prospect of ‘neverendum’ then you have the right to vote for a party opposed to an indyref. But if the party that puts Indyref2, 3 4, 5, or whatever in their manifesto wins the Scottish Election then get over it. We WILL have as MANY referendums it takes for people to finally realise that indy is the BEST future for ALL the people of this country (aye, even the BritNats though I expect it’ll take them a good deal longer to finally come to that realisation).
Good. Now let’s get on with it.
HS2
Pop of Japan 127Million
Nearly twice UK 65.5Million.
Nearly as much as Russia 150Million.
HS2 absolutely no business case. Not enough customers. An totally expensive mistake. Osbourne – unionists can’t count of read a balance sheet. The Tory slush fund. The British Chinese Consortium. Useless, ignorant incompetents.
Journey in the notty of England and Scotland take twice as long comparatively. The funding should have been invested there to make journeys quicker and easier throughout Britain. To compare with often dearer more inconvenient flights.
Scotland can do it when Independent. No Trident, illegal, wars, financial fraud and tax evasion. More to invest to aid the economy and essential services.
Remember in 2014 they told us all the prices in the supermarkets could go up by as much as a third if Scotland became Independent and the Labour party were staging triumphant wee displays with banners outside the supermarkets so the media could get in on the act as well
How come the Labour party aren’t warning of all that terribleness now against the new free state of BrexitBritain
In the new Independent Scotland will this now mean after Brexit all the prices will be coming down as Scotland will be joining some form of EU community, so the Labour party will surely be welcoming that with wee displays and banners
Won’t they?
The Yes campaign in the next referendum will always be limited in the funds it has to spend compared to the other side. I’m not too happy about that but I’ll have to live with it.
What we can do though is spend the money more wisely and in my view it was the grassroots campaign themselves that made best use of the limited funds they themselves raised by crowdfunding for specific projects.
Remember the “10,000 flags for Yes” campaign?
That was also started by a Winger called tartanpigsy. All by himself he managed to order a container load with 10,000 Yes flags from China. He had to go to China as that was where they could be had for the least money.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/10-000-flags-for-yes–11#/
The cost worked out at around £1/flag payed for by contributions from just 850 people. These flags were distributed to Yes shops and cafes as well as other campaigners around Scotland.
It wasn’t long before they could be seen everywhere in the run up to the referendum, in bedroom windows, or gardens, on marches and many other events, even T in the Park.
Money well spent I would have thought. Whatever money we can use in the next referendum I hope it can be spent as wisely as The WBB’s and Yes flags showed it can be.
@Street Andrew 4.41 pm
Don’t worry your wee self. The YES groups are RE forming although have all been working hard during the last 4years. They have lots of talented activists just gearing up with loads of great ideas for our new referendum.
In fact it wasn’t messy last time. Away and tap your computer.
Liz g@1.54
Hi, remember we met at the last BBC demo at Pacific Quay? You and I had Wings flags. I came over to speak to you because you were a Winger.
@Jim Savage
The A5 leaflet is something Wings can do on an ongoing basis, as a pdf or jpg image, and some of us can print them up ourselves for limited amounts and hand out to people in small bundles, or even post, checking out the Royal Mail post calculator to keep it efficient and cheap:
https://www.royalmail.com/price-finder
I use A5 a lot, and gulllotine a ream of A4 into two of A5 every so often and print 1 up rather than 2 up on A5. 100 gsm paper, 80gsm is too thin. For specials I use 160 gsm, kind of thin card. All white and glossy finish.
I guess at 11,000 pages per cartridge at £180 each (business I get the VAT back so £150) for 3 colours and 18,000 sheet black, reboxed but genuine HP laser cartridges it’s about 6.5p a sheet at the maximum 25% coverage – suitable for small up to date runs, maybe 100 at a time or so. I get more because I weigh the cartridges, coverage is usually way less than 25% for the colours (don’t use powerpoint coloured backgrounds) keeping a record of the (accurate digital scales) weight of a full one and a nearly empty one as a guide, and doing the maths.
A good idea from IndyCar Gordon Ross from his “blog” of 1 April, on oil and money for a Scottish central bank.
Apologies don’t know how to post a YouTube link on here
I only use genuine HP by the way, I need the quality for products, but for compatibles you could get 1/2 or even 1/3 the price per leaflet.
“The Scottish question risks enflaming tensions with Spain after Madrid said at the weekend that it would not stand in the way of an independent Scotland joining the EU.
Alfonso Dastis, the Spanish foreign minister, told the El Pais newspaper on Saturday that he did “not foresee that we would block” Scottish membership.
Spain had previously indicated it would block Scotland in order not to create a precedent for separatists in the Spanish region of Catalonia, but Dastis said the two cases were “not comparable” on constitutional grounds.”
Hasn’t been headlines of the BritNat media, unsurprisingly.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/brexit-talks-turn-ugly-on-gibraltar-uk-prepared-to-go-to-war-with-spain-former-tory-leader/5634551
Regarding Pete Wishart’s commentary on indyref2 timing, If I’m right, Pete’s logic is that we will be seeing the full unmitigated force of brexit by 2021 moving enough support to an SNP campaigning on a mandate for an indyref. A failure to win an Indy majority at this point means we would never win the referendum anyway. People will only take actions when their very way of life is threatened.
I’m in two minds about this. The only optiion for me before March 19 would be October this year but it seems awfully soon and grassroots campaigning through winter just doesn’t seem an option for a March indyref – people are more likely to spend time watching TV (playing into the hands of better together).
Of course Leaving a vote till 2021 means that the SNP didn’t fulfill their mandate in the previous term. James Kelly makes some very valid points in his blog.
As we are out of the EU anyway, what about 2020?
Thoughts?
@galamcennalath
Nice one, bang up to date, quote made this weekend, rather than quotes from years ago 🙂
I’ve bookmarked it.
@ken500 re HS2.
HS2 should be binned and the collapse of its main contractor, Carrillion, should be the handy excuse.
However, these are WM unionists, many of whom have cash making fingers in the pie, no doubt.
HS2 is like going into a pub with 9 other mates and buying 10 rounds of drinks, but instead of 10 full glasses, you get handed 10 empty glasses but charged the cost for full ones.
At the end of the night, you are left with nothing for your night but 100 empty tumblers and and empty wallet.
The landlord however, has made a shitload of cash without actually delivering anything of any use.
That is about the best way i can describe HS2.
Its a scam.
In addition to my previous post, what would happen if the tories GUARANTEED a section 30 after 2021 with none forthcoming before then?
What would the snp do I wonder.
@Clootie says: 3 April, 2018 at 5:01 pm:
“To claim it could not get out suggests to me you have it on the premises.”
Clootie, I posted that Porton Down would have it and why they would have it when the story first broke.
I also posted that it wasn’t a specific Nerve agent but a class, or group of nerve agents. I also pointed out that it was a two part, (binary), agent and made from readily available, and individually safe, fairly common chemicals not even on the restricted lists.
In any event, how could the UK identify it if they didn’t have samples to compare it with – remember it is a class of nerve agent and I’ve no way of knowing how many are in that class.
It’s been a claptrap story right from the start.
The stripping out of Scotlands fishing going well for the UK today by the shock closure of Annan and moving the jobs once again to *Grimsby*
Mundell says he’s shocked, local Labour Rep making the concerned noises, Aye right! Wiznae planned or anything Naw!
@ScottieDog
For me the important thing is to have the Ref befor the UK leaves the EU, or at least the single market and customs union. That causes the minimum disruption to businesses and the economy in Scotland, the EU / EFTA + EEA can be pu on notice after a YES, and there should be the possibility / probablilty of a further transition extesnion for Scotland while we get our act together so we can stay in the single market and customs union even beyond the rUK leaving.
Having it before March 30th 2018 also makes it very difficult for the UK as a whole to go through with Brexit as, get our coats, we’re leaving.
Dr Jim
Of course BBC Scotland ignored the comments from the largest party in Scotland over the latest sell out of Scottish jobs by Young’s seafoods.
This is the problem of having a branch economy and I for one will not be buying any more of Young’s products.
The whole fish story stinks. The Five Fish Company in Grimsby (England) supplies to M&S announces job losses. A few days later in Annan (Scotland) their factory is to close. Moving to Grimsby ( England). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-43576256
Now has Grimsby gained Jobs or lost them? M&S (– show brit logo to make you feel proud) has worked a flanker with Youngs.
Still bertie ermstrong and his merry greedy men will be happy Brit scampi for brits. Whats not to like?
Brexit or Independence. What now Annan? What now Scotland?
@ScottieDog 6:40pm
“In addition to my previous post, what would happen if the tories GUARANTEED a section 30 after 2021 with none forthcoming before then?
What would the snp do I wonder.”
I’d hope, after wiping away tears of laughter, they would tell Westminster, “Aye, right” and “get lost!” Only a fool would trust a Westminster “guarantee”.
@ScottieDog
I take Breeks as a bellweather for the opinion of a good few YES voters, but also prospective YES voters who voted Remain.
If I have this right Breeks would be highly hacked off to be dragged out of the EU and lose EU citizenship with nary an Indy Ref 2 in sight until it’s too late.
That’s a good chunk of YES voters, maybe as high as 25% of the population of Scotland who might totally lose interest.
2021 or after is way too late, by then we’re oot with the rest of the dumb UK, go though all the disruption and loss of economy, then have to do it all agan to get back in to the EU if that’s the decision.
Not good enough, for me as well. I want the minimum disruption options left wide open.
@scottiedog.
They would be told to go do one, as would all other shite stirrers, trying to create a “leave it till later” narrative on here..
It is the right of the Scottish government to decide the timing for Indyref2, nobody else.
The U.N agree with that statement as well.
http://www.un.org/en/decolonization/declaration.shtml
……………
3. Inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.
……………
In other (legal) words…Now IS the time, or whenever WE say it is.
@ScottieDog
The timing of the next referendum is of course difficult and not least for those responsible for making the decision. I do believe the next one will be the last if Yes is not successful for more than a generation.
2018 Very much doubt it, would be a difficult choice to make one before the HoC has voted on the terms of the Brexit withdrawal. We have no idea what might happen here and it’s not impossible to imagine the government collapsing. There’s also the no small deal that towards the end of this year we will be overrun with TV programs and articles about the anniversary of the end of WW1. Red White and Blue everywhere you look including the next Rpyal wedding.
2019 Certainly possible and most probably I would have thought in the autumn of that year, will all depend on what the rest of 2018 brings I’d suggest. We would have left the EU but more or less in name only as we would be in the transition period so people still yet would have be feeling the effects of a full Brexit.
2020 This is the last chance salon if the Scottish government decide to go for it in this parliament term. If not used in this year then there is the possibility that the mandate for the referendum will be gone without majority support of those elected in 2021 Holyrood elections.
I wouldn’t put it off beyond 2020, there won’t be a better chance that I can see than there is in the coming year or two.
I’d probably go for autumn 2020 when the reality of Brexit is imminent, who knows what the political landscape will look like then, especially in regard to Northern Ireland and even the state of the UK which I see worsening by the day with the current mob in charge. Boris Johnson or Rees-Mogg as PM could be a bonus as well 🙂
2020 I s
Aye, the stripping out of Scotland’s fishing going well indeed for the UKOK (and their BritNat placemen) in Scotland today @Dr Jim says at 6:44 pm.
http://archive.is/jkDOQ
Just like after 1979 and the de-industrialisation of the Central Belt, Caterpillar, Ship Yards, Steel, Coal etc.
Some folk never learn.
galamcennalath, is it no a wee bittie strange that they refer to Fallon as the Defence Minister?
@Dr Jim
Young’s haven’t been so easy to get for some time, my local farmfoods don’t seem to have had then for a long time, and Morrisons was a bit hit or miss. Haven’t had an Admiral Pie or fisherman’s pie (the one without hard chunks of sweetcorn) at a £1 for a long time. I guess Young’s lost a contract or two, or just couldn’t afford to be cut down in price by the greedy buying power of the supermarket.
…..re the fish
linwood no more, annan no more….
Any chance for the folk to have a cooperative?
I’ll buy their scampi. Nice big Saltire on the packets. M&S and Youngs can get to Grimsby. We can tell Mundell and co –get stuffed and resign. Brexit brings jobs my shirt.
YES groups.
Don’t forget Bridges for Indy, coming to a motorway bridge near you.
Or, set up your own bridge!
Good advice on their Facebook page:
Tatu 3 i know how to post a You tube link , having seen Indycar Gordon Ross & hear his stupid comments re Scotland’s Oil { we should sell it to the English } even as a joke its in poor taste but the Idiot is serious .
The people interviewed on disreporting looked devastated, they know they are on the scrapheap or zero hours for the rest of their life after the announcement today.
Instead the article in the Grimsby local paper, and it’s all good news, contracts being won here there and everywhere for their fish and ready meals in their centres of food excellence.
The scotched earth policy continues,reminds me of the good old 1980’s when my town lost four large employers to “economic alternatives”
@Dorothy Devine
Well spotted, it also says ” … in a debate prompted by the start of Brexit talks last week”. That was last year.
So it’s old news, a rehash. Damn.
Re Novichock , my latest thoughts on it.
Interesting news from Porton Down, particularly that there is no known antidote from Novichock. Bearing in mind that Nerve Agents are normally instantly fatal and Yulia Skripal has seemingly on thevway to recovery andv now we know there is there is no known antidote. That can only mean one thing , If it indeed it was Novichock that was used it must have been old stock that has degraded over a long period of time. Craig Murray says of the person who defected to the USA and alerted the World that Novichock existed “Mirzayanov is an Uzbek name and the novichok programme, assuming it existed, was in the Soviet Union but far away from modern Russia, at Nukus in modern Uzbekistan. I have visited the Nukus chemical weapons site myself. It was dismantled and made safe and all the stocks destroyed and the equipment removed by the American government, as I recall finishing while I was Ambassador there. There has in fact never been any evidence that any “novichok” ever existed in Russia itself.”
So its looking like “Novichock” escaped from the Nukus plant in Uzbekistan , its been in store somewhere and has degraded to a state where it is no longer instantly fatal.
Doesn’t sound like the work of a state sponsored assassination attempt does it? One thing the Maybot said early on was that Russia either made and deployed it or that it had lost control of its stocks. This looks as if its the case , however the breakup of the Soviet Union was pretty messy and its possible it was under American supervision that the Novichock “disappeared”
So we have all this tit for tat expulsions and a significant rise in tensions where it must have been clear to the UK Government that Putin was not responsible for ordering or supporting the attack. Must have been trying to divert attention, now was it Brexit or Cambridge Analytical or even just to bolster Tory Support in the forthcoming English local council elections?
https://news.sky.com/story/porton-down-experts-unable-to-identify-precise-source-of-novichok-that-poisoned-spy-11315387
@Dorothy Devine
Despite the headline stating the date of the article as “April 03 2018” it is also stated:
“We will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their freely and democratically expressed wishes”, the British prime minister’s office said in a statement on Sunday (2 April).
The last time Sunday was on 02 April was last year 2017, I’m guessing the article was written then and not today.
Re article I posted. Yes, looks like google lied to me! I did a search for Brexit within the last hour and it said 3mins ago.
I was duped (again), damn!
On Young’s sell out of Scottish jobs.
I remember from 2015, but don’t have a link to source, that Tory treachery following the UK Government’s involvement in a reported offer of £1.34m in funding to Young’s Seafood’s Grimsby site.
It has recently emerged that North Lincolnshire Council had worked with the UK Government to devise a £1.34 million funding package to persuade the company to move jobs from Scotland to Grimsby. It is understood that the money comes from unused cash in the area’s Regional Growth Fund.
However, Scottish politicians were quick to cast doubt on the funding package, highlighting European Union State Aid rules which place strict limits on the direct financial support governments can offer to companies.
Re Gibraltar. If Brexit brings about the dissolution of the UK during the period of its ‘transitional arrangements’, it would create two successor states. Since the Treaty of Utrecht came after the Treaty of Union what would be the status of Gibraltar and Catalonia (both of which are included in the Treaty of Utrecht) with regard to those treaties?
Ronnie Anderson 7:15 i stopped watching that indy car months ago when he came up with some half brained scheme to give away our oil or other natural resourse. He is obviously trying to emulate Chunky Mark but does not have the brains to think through the shite he is spouting.
@Sinky
Here’s a source about the £1.35M Regional Growth Fund “investment” that saved jobs in Grimsby at the expense of those in Fraserburgh.
https://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Article/2015/08/14/Young-s-Seafood-jobs-saved
That wasn’t the end of the story though, investment by the Scottish government helped get the factory reopened in 2017.
http://www.originalfm.com/new-fish-processing-jobs-for-fraserburgh-as-firm-takes-over-youngs-seafood-building/
Leaflets:
Had a quick root about and 100k full colour A5 leaflets, silk paper 130gsm on a 5 day delivery come in at £607. 0.6p per sheet! Only checked one printer so may be cheaper if printed locally.
Distribution would be down to local YES groups but it should be possible to drop off 1000 or more to hubs.
Well C4 teatime news tories gave what ever is happening with science, planet toryboy, war with Russia “Novichock” news tonight about 15 seconds of their news hour, and then ages and ages on a new play about the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal.
Funny that. “Novichock” has certainly exposed just how bad the torboy corruption of all UK msm really is, AGAIN.
And yes Rock, FM Sturgeon has brought down the whole of Scottish democracy by agreeing with Strong and Stable.
Rock swipes on in a minute or so.
Scot Finlayson says:
3 April, 2018 at 3:09 pm
“The SNP and the Yes movement will have learned the lesson of targeting only those that will give us a majority, not to waste money and time on the No hopers,”
Thepnr (10th May 2015 – “The power of the press”):
“Embrace the NO voters, even the Tory ones if you hope to reach your ultimate goal.”
Rock (10th May 2015 – “The power of the press”):
“Target and embrace the ones who can be persuaded.
That is why the Radical Independence Campaign was so successful and the Yes campaign in the SNP “heartlands” a disaster.
Do you seriously believe that spending limited resources on persuading Tories in Scotland to vote for independence is a good idea?”
Thepnr (10th May 2015 – “The power of the press”):
“Embrace the NO voters, even the Tory ones if you hope to reach your ultimate goal.”
Rock (26th November 2017 – “The National FAQ”):
“How many have you converted so far since you started “embracing” them in May 2015?”
Thepnr (26th November 2017 – “The National FAQ”):
“Precisely none Rock though that won’t stop me trying.”
Thepnr says:
3 April, 2018 at 3:24 pm
“That’s about the best thing the campaign can do next time is specific targetting. Let’s be honest much of the funds spent by Yes Scotland could have been put to better effect in my opinion.”
The usual suspects who attack me, with hindsight, come to the same views as I express with foresight.
It’s 8 o’ clock and time for…
Does anyone have a favourite spoon?
(Just thought I’d go with the flow of O/T posts.)
Rock (25th April 2017 – “Faces Of Shame”):
“Thirty Tory MSPs too many in the Scottish parliament.
To think that so many Scottish voters vote for the Tories.
Who are they?
The vast majority of the selfish middle classes, the British nationalist elderly, the thugs and the English.
If we want to win next time, don’t waste a second or a penny trying to convince them.
Every second and every penny is better spent elsewhere.”
Now that Thepnr has finally seen the light, he will hopefully stop embracing the Tories and start embracing those who are more likely to be convinced.
re Pete Wishart
He is my MP and I am not happy with his take on this. Quite a few SNP voters stayed at home at the snap election and I think many of them did because the SNP were not countering the NO indyref of the BritNat parties. We knew the GE was not about YES/NO indyref but some dialogue on this would not have gone amiss. Nicola Sturgeon has as good as promised that once the outcome of the brexit talks is known and put forward for ratification by the 27 EU members she will use the mandate we have given the Scottish government – 3 times now – and put it to the people. 62% of Scottish voters and every constituency voted to remain…..we MUST be allowed to vote YES to regaining our independence which will keep us in the EU ( if there is a demand for leaving this will be a matter for Scotland after Independence) or NO and be subjugated to Westminster a bit longer….heaven forbid…..we should not delay….we need to win…..and we will.
Flower of Scotland @ 6.18
Hi
I do mind ye now Flower of Scotland……
I had thought your name was familiar because we had mibbi chatted on here in the past.
I’m glad at least one of us has a decent memory…lol
Will ye make it to the night out,or the big march on May 5th?
It would be great to meet you again…..and stop being a stranger on here,you don’t post nearly enough.
I am sure you’ve noticed that we need more sane people to add to the conversation!
Iain Botherhood has put the word round for any posters who were around in 2014,to come back and enhance this resource……yes I’m guilt tripping ye……but you’ve met me so you know I’m no really scary.
@Liz g @Flower of Scotland
Pleased to hear that you two ladies are already acquainted 🙂
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting the lovely Flower of Scotland on a couple of occasions, hopefully you can make it along for a bit next weekend FoS.
Liz @ 2pm
‘Are our institutions which are supposed to promote Scotland being run by unionists?’
I had to ask John Robertson for his previous work on this article, earlier today, as I was reminded of it when you posted your question above. Not so much ‘run by unionists’ but our upper tier of University’s and the Arts are indeed run by ‘non Scots’.
Here’s the research he did back in May 2016 on this very subject:
‘Are our arts institutions and universities ‘colonised’ or is it a case of the ‘cringe’
http://newsnet.scot/archive/arts-institutions-universities-colonised-case-cringe/
I suggested to him btl at the time, whether he could check the University heads in England to see what nationality was at the top tier, y’know tae see if ‘pooling and sharing’ was ‘true’… 😉
His reply is at 12.24pm May 26th. You guessed it only two Scots (at that time) held top ‘provosts, principles, directors’ positions in the entirety of England’s Universities.
It’s fair to say…we are colonised…in this regard, the entire cultural and educational aspect of Scotland is run by our neighbours…wonder how’d they’d feel if the hat was on t’other heid.
It’s a great article and well worth keeping a hold of, especially in response to the claims that we are anit- English, we’re not, we just happen to notice that our entire culture is dominated by theirs. That doesn’t mean we are ‘anti’, it means we observe the reality and impact of that situation, an anomaly that no other country suffers has imv directly produced ‘the cringe’.
That should be Prof John Roberston. 🙂
@Ken
“HS2
Pop of Japan 127Million
Nearly twice UK 65.5Million. ”
Yes Ken. But the rather more pertinent point is that Japan still has a significantly lower population density than England. More saliently still, the English resource to population density, being the worst in the World for any large developed nation, is well past the point of sustainability.
Security (not the protection from the ‘other’ variety but rather the ability to self generate that which is required for its population) is absent in many sectors not least of which are food, drink and energy.
It is for that very reason that ironically with a capital ‘I’, England requires full EU membership more than any other EU member. As the Yanks would say ‘go figure’ re Brexit.
Incidentally, that is why the English (read UK) government is determined to hold on to Scotland’s resource surpluses.
But getting back to your point about high speed trains, population size is not as major factor as you make out. A train, whether high speed or not, holds only a train load of passengers.
Yes, for distance journeys, travel time becomes an issue for individual passengers but beyond a certain distance that criterion is better met by air travel. That is why most of the Scotland to London passenger traffic is by air rather than rail and often more cheaply as well. OK there are environmental considerations too but HS rail to Scotland is unlikely to obviate the time saving requirements of those air traveling Scotland to London passengers enough to make a serious travel choice difference.
@liz g and Thepnr
I saw Ian Brotherhood,s post on twitter, and although I read Wings every day, at least once, I hadn’t commented for a while.
I will be at the March on the 5th, Liz, but won’t manage the Wings night. Unbelievable that I have to go to a wedding party instead!
Flower of Scotland @ 1.46
Great news about the march….we will need to organize a time to meet,at the wings stall obviously!!
Hope you enjoy the Wedding.
And please think of posting more,as another Winger pointed out (canny mind who or where,wasn’t kidding about the memory) recently, the more positive and useful post’s there are,the more diluted the nasty one’s become!
Take care of you FoS,hopefully speak soon X
Tatu3 said at 6:27 pm last night:
“A good idea from IndyCar Gordon Ross from his “blog” of 1 April, on oil and money for a Scottish central bank.
Apologies don’t know how to post a YouTube link on here”.
Here’s a direct link to Gordon’s YouTube uploads 🙂 :
https://tinyurl.com/yckt5ylb