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A Brief History Of Hope 168

Posted on September 14, 2024 by

The Tartan Messiah 42

Posted on September 11, 2024 by

Well, Shauny‘s knocked it out of the park.

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After the swarm 72

Posted on September 11, 2024 by

On 15 October 2012, I signed the Edinburgh Agreement with David Cameron to secure the independence referendum of September 2014.

On the same day Peter Kellner of the polling company YouGov wrote one of his condescending commentaries from London dissing any hope for the Yes campaign.

“However, from Salmond’s point of view, it is about the only thing going for him. Indeed, were he to be given a truth drug, he might well curse the fact that the SNP won last year’s Scottish elections outright, and thus found himself in a position to keep his promise.

He would surely have been much happier remaining the leader of a minority government, unable to get his independence legislation through Holyrood. Then he could have railed against the Scottish satraps of the Britain-wide parties for silencing the voice of the Scottish people.

Instead, by winning an outright majority, he has shot his own fox. Rather than shed crocodile tears for his inability to call a referendum, he must now put the issue to the test.

As a shrewd and intelligent man – indeed, one of the shrewdest and most intelligent in British politics – he must know that his mission is impossible, that in two years time his country will vote to remain part of the United Kingdom, and that far from being achieved, independence will be deferred for at least a generation.

All YouGov’s evidence from the past four years is that independence is a minority passion north of the border. Even as the SNP was surging to victory last year, Scots told us by two-to-one that they wanted to remain within the UK.

The SNP won because most Scots thought it had governed their country well, because they liked Salmond, and because they thought the Scottish Labour Party was useless – not because they wanted to sever links with London.”

Kellner’s view was almost universal, and not just among the London pack of journos and politicians. Most, if not all, of the Scottish media agreed with him.

However, by September 2014 things looked very different.

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Honest John 90

Posted on September 07, 2024 by

The Last Legs 67

Posted on September 06, 2024 by

In the 1990s, Dr. Robert Smith, a surgeon at Falkirk Royal Infirmary, performed a pair of amputations on two men. Neither of the men involved had anything physically wrong with them, but both were suffering from apotemnophilia – a rare psychiatric condition involving the desire to have healthy limbs amputated.

Sufferers, counterintuitively, claim not to feel “whole” with four limbs and obsess over having their unwanted body parts chopped off. Smith argued the surgeries were life-saving, claiming the patients would commit suicide otherwise.

Apotemnophiles, like autogynephiles, insist that there is no erotic element, but it was later discovered that one of the men Smith operated on ran an amputee fetish website.

Upon investigation, the hospital deemed the procedures unethical. Smith was banned from mutilating healthy bodies (although he was found not to have breached any of the hospital’s rules at the time and not sanctioned), and the dubious experiment ended.

But let’s imagine for a moment an alternate reality.

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All The Rainbows In The Sky 125

Posted on September 02, 2024 by

There may, readers, be a connection between this:

and this:

But the key fact about the SNP is the same either way.

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The Scissor Sisters 56

Posted on August 31, 2024 by

The Solution 22

Posted on August 30, 2024 by

All one can hope is that this was an unfortunate slip of the tongue.

Otherwise, folks, you’ll just have to buck your ideas up.

Into the far away 183

Posted on August 27, 2024 by

Poor old Tommy Sheppard’s got a contract, so he has to keep talking. And this week he said something that, if anyone really thought the constitution was still a current live political issue, would have attracted a lot more attention than it did.

Because even the SNP are now saying another indyref is – at best – a decade away.

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Going For Broke 157

Posted on August 24, 2024 by

But Then Again Maybe Not 181

Posted on August 16, 2024 by

These paragraphs are all from the same story.

The Hate Crime Act has rather faded into obscurity after the furore surrounding its introduction, with the police apparently just trying to pretend it doesn’t exist by ignoring thousands and thousands of complaints, and the useless Scottish commentariat duly proclaiming as a result that it was all just a big fuss about nothing.

But as soon as everyone stopped looking at it, there it was.

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The Manipulation Of Perception 212

Posted on August 13, 2024 by

In many ways, the fabricated, hysterical furore of Humza Yousaf Vs Elon Musk is the ultimate in summer-silly-season politics stories.

Absurdly plainly, the former First Minister ISN’T going to take any legal action against the billionaire owner of Twitter. He only likes bullying small nurseries, and even then he doesn’t follow through. He didn’t even sue us for calling him racist a few months ago, so there’s zero chance he’s going to square up to the world’s richest man.

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    • Young Lochinvar on Seven Days Too Long: “James @ 9.51 “Shower of b8st8rds” is what yer looking for James..May 3, 00:29
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    • Towbar Sullivan on Seven Days Too Long: “Ballycogley Independent Orange Lodge will be taking part in the annual Orange March in Rossnowlagh on Saturday 11th of July.…May 2, 20:16
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    • Young Lochinvar on Seven Days Too Long: “Geri @ 1.31 Game set and match Geri! Just handed Hatey his fundamental on a platter 🙂 🙂 Brilliant! No…May 2, 19:32
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    • Alf Baird on Seven Days Too Long: “Aye, an whaur’s the £150 billion+ per year missin fae oor Scottish GDP, Mark? https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2024/03/19/the-real-economic-price-of-the-uk-union-for-scots/comment-page-1/May 2, 18:00
    • Sven on Seven Days Too Long: “Geri @ 16.19. The vids I’ve seen show one cop & what I’m guessing is a Jewish security guy trying…May 2, 17:23
    • Bilbo on Seven Days Too Long: “Geri. You are saying exactly what Polanski said. If you believe what you said is true, why did Polanski apologise…May 2, 17:13
    • Bilbo on Seven Days Too Long: “I don’t see text links text links to predominantly sex websites when I look at this site. Sounds like your…May 2, 16:50
    • twathater on Seven Days Too Long: “Fearghas I’m afraid I don’t share your enthusiasm about the integrity and honesty of Fergus Ewing , he along with…May 2, 16:23
    • Geri on Seven Days Too Long: “Sven, Allegedly – they set about kicking him in the head AFTER he had already been incapacitated & tasered. What’s…May 2, 16:19
    • 100%Yes on Seven Days Too Long: “Goes anyone know if Dave Llewellyn has a YouTube I know he used to do Twa Auld Heids?May 2, 15:50
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    • Del G on Seven Days Too Long: “Why am I seeing the top of your home page with dozens of text links to predominantly sex websites?May 2, 14:34
    • Sven on Seven Days Too Long: “I’d suspect there are better examples of police misbehaviour than this, Geri. I’m a bit prejudiced on this as I’ve…May 2, 14:26
    • Young Lochinvar on Seven Days Too Long: “Wonder why the MSN news is what it is today and who is pulling Starmers strings? Google: declassified uk for…May 2, 14:13
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