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The People’s Mess 305

Posted on July 18, 2018 by

Oh God. Would you look at the absolute state of this, readers?

Let’s make like everybody’s mental health and break that down.

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And then there were fewer 297

Posted on July 09, 2018 by

In the light of David Davis’ resignation last night and the continuing shambolic chaos that is UK politics, it seemed a pertinent time for these findings from our latest poll.

Readers probably won’t be too shocked that it’s Scotland Vs The Tories again.

The divided kingdom 455

Posted on July 04, 2018 by

So this is an interesting one. The UK government currently finds itself in an appalling mess over the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with Ireland, due to the inconvenient fact of a small part of Ireland being in the UK, and has no idea what to do about it.

The closest thing Westminster has to a plan – and it has to be said that it’s not VERY close to a plan – is the so-called “backstop”, which isn’t a backstop at all and merely kicks everything down the road a couple of years, and which the EU has already said is a non-starter.

The fallback on the backstop, as announced last December, is “regulatory alignment” on the island of Ireland, which would effectively mean Northern Ireland staying in the EU and a border coming into existence in the Irish Sea (or to be more geographically accurate, the North Channel).

This would be, um, bitterly opposed by the DUP, on whom Theresa May’s government notionally depends, but given the absolute trainwreck of Labour’s position on Brexit it’s not at all clear that the DUP’s opposition would be enough to scupper any vote, so it could happen anyway, opening a simply massive can of worms.

That’s about the shortest rendition of the situation we can manage. But of course, in reality it’s much more complicated than that.

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The worst country in the world 187

Posted on June 30, 2018 by

In our latest Panelbase poll, we asked the same independence question we asked in the last one, and got much the same answer. (Technically the indy vote went up by about a sixth of one percent, but that’s statistically meaningless.)

That’s a bit disappointing after the events of recent weeks, but also not very surprising – after all, the way the question is framed pretty much guarantees at least 38% of the population will choose the second option straight off the bat.

Much more interesting is the question we asked next.

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Heads up 63

Posted on June 23, 2018 by

Way back then 125

Posted on June 19, 2018 by

Ah, those were the days.

That’s a relief, at least.

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The people betrayed 171

Posted on June 12, 2018 by

The Sun (English edition only, the Scottish one goes for a domestic murrdurr story) has an inflammatory front page today, as Parliament debates the most important series of votes so far on Brexit, including one to overrule devolution.

It’s a rerun of a(n in)famous previous front-page illustration from the paper, which you can see below. But there’s something odd about it.

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Blazing and addled 156

Posted on June 09, 2018 by

The turncoat 42

Posted on June 02, 2018 by

Guess who’s coming to dinner? 250

Posted on May 22, 2018 by

Last week we revealed that English voters would happily see Scotland and Northern Ireland leave the UK if it was the price of securing Brexit. But one of the odder things was that those figures included a sizeable number of Remain voters, who don’t want Brexit to happen at all.

We were a little perplexed, so we did a follow-up question asking those people if they’d elaborate a bit and got some interesting replies. One person, for example, answered “The Scottish people are very arrogant and although they want to be separate from the rest of the UK they are happy to take money from England”. Charming.

But there was also another stream of opinion on the subject, and it was revealed in the responses to another question in the original poll.

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Theresa’s Big Plan 282

Posted on May 02, 2018 by

Sane people across the nation have watched in growing disbelief for the last two years as the UK government’s catastroshambles over Brexit has unfolded. In the latest jaw-dropping developments, David Davis has revealed that he’s only just now thinking of STARTING negotiating a trade deal with the EU – 22 months after the referendum and with absolutely no idea of how to solve the Irish Question on which it all depends.

Meanwhile, Faisal Islam of Sky News has made the pertinent point that the one “land-based” border between the UK and mainland Europe, the Channel Tunnel, has no infrastructure in place for serving as a checkpoint because it was fundamentally never designed or envisaged for a Europe without the UK, and the UK government has done absolutely nothing in the last two years to prepare for that changing.

And the more ludicrously chaotically and ineptly the whole farce plays out, the more it’s only possible to come to one rational conclusion about it: that the Prime Minister’s grand plan for enacting Brexit is to fail.

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Bloody rebels 535

Posted on March 31, 2018 by

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    • Mark Beggan on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “Funny you should say that but I was thinking more along the lines of ” I want to be sedated”…Oct 8, 23:58
    • willie on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “Cheap power is an absolutely huge advantage for any country making steel or aluminium or other such products. Cheep power…Oct 8, 23:36
    • sarah on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “A suitable song for current times that occurred to me this evening Barry McGuire “Eve of Destruction”. Not cheery, obv,…Oct 8, 21:56
    • agentx on Simply Nothing To Be Done: ““The paper suggests Scottish households would be more than £10,000 better off per year if the country was independent. It…Oct 8, 21:26
    • Alf Baird on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “With decolonization Scotland should shift from having the highest electricity costs in Europe to potentially the lowest, making the country…Oct 8, 21:01
    • Mark Beggan on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “James when a woman uses such disgusting words it’s a Hundred times worse. Did you not know that?Oct 8, 20:41
    • Mark Beggan on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “In reference to Scottish Steel. A little in the spine wouldn’t go amiss.Oct 8, 20:33
    • agentx on Simply Nothing To Be Done: ““another definition of independence” How many definitions of independence are there?Oct 8, 20:30
    • Mark Beggan on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “Dream on. The great Left wing experiment has failed. Splish splash.Oct 8, 20:27
    • sarah on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “Thanks, Alf. It is encouraging to know that Scotland’s case is now in the consciousness of other countries.Oct 8, 20:07
    • James Barr Gardner on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “Originated in Scotland, joukery-pawkery, then anglified in England to Jiggery pokery.Oct 8, 20:00
    • Peter McAvoy on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “Regarding we need steel. Why has no party in Scotland on both sides of the independent debate never spoken about…Oct 8, 19:59
    • Insider on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “Wow ! 3-4 “mentions” eh ? Great stuff, Alf !Oct 8, 19:52
    • Aidan on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “Have you taken donations from the Salvo organisation to fund a trip over to New York to bang on about…Oct 8, 19:44
    • Xaracen on Walking Like A Zombie: “@Northcode (at 6:38 pm); 😀Oct 8, 19:30
    • sarah on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “@ gm I just tried to donate – still not able to. We’ll have to stay alert!Oct 8, 19:26
    • Nae Need! on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “Oo, very interesting. Thank you, Alf.Oct 8, 19:26
    • Aidan on Walking Like A Zombie: “I probably went to Harvard or MIT, fuck me what a deeply hurtful insult, I probably attended one of the…Oct 8, 19:02
    • sam on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “Thanks, Alf. Well said.Oct 8, 18:53
    • Northcode on Walking Like A Zombie: ““…can you squeeze thrawn in there? A good idea and I gave it a go, but I couldn’t find a…Oct 8, 18:42
    • Northcode on Walking Like A Zombie: ““…you’ve got someone like Northcode singing your praises… And I always will because Xaracen is a genuine independence supporting Scot…Oct 8, 18:38
    • Northcode on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “Thanks for the link, Alf. “The colonial power always behaves in bad faith…” A truism indigenous Scots are all too…Oct 8, 17:57
    • Aidan on Walking Like A Zombie: “@Xaracen – it’s another day of you telling us about how the Treaty of Union intended to preserve two independent…Oct 8, 17:51
    • twathater on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “BUT you’ll not be worrying about that hatey mc fuckwit because you’ll be down in engerland insisting that more export…Oct 8, 17:47
    • Alf Baird on Simply Nothing To Be Done: ““If anything significant happens in Scottish politics” Neither SNP nor BiS appear to understand that UN Member State status via…Oct 8, 17:14
    • Nae Need! on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “😉 @Mark. Interestingly enough, the same paragraph that Hatey chose to quote, is also the one that struck a chord…Oct 8, 16:03
    • Ian Stewart on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “I got the IPod Classic back in 2004 (I think) to hold my whole collection of about 800 albums. It…Oct 8, 14:34
    • sam on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “I see the SNP regards the continuing privatisation of energy resources as the way forward in the event of independence.…Oct 8, 13:49
    • James on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “#SitePrick1; LOL. Shows how much you know. But you made it big time eh? Corporal in the 77th. “Once a…Oct 8, 13:47
    • Sven on Simply Nothing To Be Done: “Dan @ 09.06. Always good to read your interesting posts Dan.Oct 8, 13:10
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