Challengers Deep
Posted on
February 22, 2025 by
Chris Cairns
The world's most-read Scottish politics website
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Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
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A tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
Christ almighty, I check in on Wings before going to bed on a Friday night after a hard week’s work and my head hurts from deciphering the cartoon.
I mean, it’s brilliant but isn’t everything upside down or is that the point?
A flag displayed upside down means distress/emergency.Perhaps the author was trying to convey distress with regards to the gender woo woo “ship” and all those who choose to board it.
Yip that’s the point
Sarwar jumped into a lifeboat I see. Captain Swinney decided to go down with the ship.
‘Twas on the good ship Venus, by Christ you should have seen us,
The figure head was a whore in bed and the mast a rampant penis’
An obsolete TRA feller, once stroked a phallic umbrella
Whose handle head was a knob instead of banana in Nutella.
Trans Continental Liner now a bin liner where it belongs.
If Sarwar’s Labour say they know how to fix the NHS
Why has Welsh Labour after running their NHS for the last 26 years being identified as the worst health service in mainland Britain?
Worse than Tory Englands NHS who in turn under perform compared to Scotland.
The pigs have replaced the humans but farm remains corrupt with lies.
It’s February 22nd, 2025 today, Effijy. Ask a trusted friend if you don’t believe me.
And that means the Tories in England are long gone. Since July last year in fact.
Please try to keep up.
Plenty of people know how to “fix” the NHS. It needs root & branch reform, eliminating great tranches of non-productive employees, and it needs a generational shift to its clients accepting some personal responsibility for their own health.
Not writing off their personal health as somebody else’s problem to solve.
But hey, we’re not going to fix anything here. You have your NHS State Religion to worship. I will just have to wait until the entire edifice collapses under the intolerable strain of an ever-decreasing, productive, tax-paying workforce writing blank cheques for an ever-increasing, unproductive group expecting the state to take ever more responsibility for the details of their lives.
Long may your pantomime Tory villains live, Effijy. You’re gonna need them to get through the difficult years that lie ahead.
Others who favour a more facts-based world view will reflect that it wasn’t the Tories that decided the only answer is for the state to sanction the killing off of the old and unproductive.
Yawn….
John McShiteyface doesn’t like you exposing the brass necked irony of Labour bigging up how they will TRANSform the SNHS when they have practically DESTROYED the Welsh NHS over 2 decades, McShiteyface and his fellow GREEDY BASTARDS are salivating at the continued expansion of NHS privatisation so they can dispose of these poor and sick untermenchen without a backward glance
Great cartoon.
Just missing the windmill which would have been ScotGov’s preferred motive power unit. Maybe it’s already under the water?
And the Ferguson’s makers badge. Unless, of course, the order was placed in a Turkish yard.
Who/what is so desperate to silence this site? Their persistence points towards this is no being some random attack. The site has been targeted.
Probably some Traniban hacker..
The persistence of the “hackers” suggests that whoever/whatever they are, they think they are above the law.
MI5 or their cousins at the other side of the Atlantic or Mediterranean, perhaps?
My money’s on MI5 and a half – the half-barsteward offspring of – well, work it out for yourself.
Then again, if there is a Scottish Society For The Suppression Of BTL Drivel, perhaps their patience has finally snapped.
The contrast between the Site Author’s superb and incisive journalism, and the BTL trash comments has long been glaring. The former certainly doesn’t need the latter. The latter often shames Scotland and even at its best, rarely shows Scotland in a favourable light.
On the subject of BTL trash comments, well done you for shoehorning in a reference to your antipathy to those we had better refer to as “rootless cosmopolitans”, eh?
As always, I’ll wait for somebody else to join me in my condemnation of your disgraceful and frankly swivel-eyed slur, no doubt forever, before drawing the obvious conclusion that your POV is par for the course for this particular cadre of Indy support.
“As always, I’ll wait for somebody else to join me in my condemnation of your disgraceful and frankly swivel-eyed slur”
Oh, dear. So you are just blowing the horn to battle to manufacture an echo chamber. What will you do next if the cavalry does not come to your rescue in sufficient numbers? wave an upside down flag like the ship in the cartoon?
The vacuousness of your argument becomes obvious when you have to resort to pulling yet again the emotional blackmailing card. That card has been so, so overused that doesn’t even make me blink an eye anymore.
So, which part in my comment has made you so upset that resulted in your knee jerk reaction? Was it the mention of MI5, was it the mention of its cousins at the other side of the Atlantic, or was it the mentioning of MI5’s cousins at the other side of the Mediterranean?
We usually respond with a knee jerk reaction like yours when we feel threatened. So, why do you feel threatened when mentioning the security services of those three places? Where are you based? Is it London, is it somewhere in USA, or is it somewhere at the other side of the Mediterranean?
And if you are based in any of those three places, what on earth is it to you if Scotland becomes independent or not?
“perhaps their patience has finally snapped”
And just like that, they go on and break the law? Why? Is it because they think they are above the law? Is it because the “law” has been recently changed so it does not apply to them even when they commit a crime? Or is it because the organ that creates/ratifies the law has authorised the move?
You’re an enthusiastic fluffer for the imperialist, colonialist regime in Mos cow, Mia. You’re an enthusiastic fluffer for the tunnel dwellers who seize babes in arms and strangle them with their bare hands. It’s not clear where your antisemitism comes from: the original 1930’s German version, or the more recent Scots/Irish offshoot growing out of the cancer that is our own home-grown, traditional sectarianism wedded to the drive for Islamic world domination. But who cares, eh? Either will destroy Scotland utterly.
On top of that, you post nothing but never-ending negativity at any suggestion that if Sovereign Scots want their freedom and sovereignty, then they had better get behind some decent, committed, rational Scots and back them to the hilt. Every such suggestion is shot down in flames while you manufacture imaginary bogeymen to justify you sitting forever behind your keyboard on yer fat, flabby erse.
But, every now and again, you do fire off a declaration that the enemies of Scottish Indy are running scared.
Of the likes of you? Aye. Right.
And you , Main ,are a snivelling shitebag still pouring out yr poisonous bile on here despite every-fucking-thing you’ve been promoting being exposed as infantile toytown propaganda and endorsement of unrelenting horror .
Where’s yr contemptous dismissal of those ” Orcs ” now that the latter have unequivocally won the Proxy War – so much for that ” gas station masquerading as a country ” , eh ? You still manning the Busby Front in yr blue n yellow clown suit , trying to kid-on yr on the side of * democracy * , just as you try to kid-on you support Scottish Independence whilst doing nothing but denigrate our country and constantly side with it’s enemies .
Have you stuck a poster of Starmer The Cunt next to yr alter to Zelly The B-Movie ham yet ? Or ordered yr blow-up doll of * NATO’s * latest tissue paper tiger – Rutte The Nuttecase as they perpetrate the fantasy of * Europe * defeating the Red Bear : hahahaha
Yr a despicable celebrant of other people’s misery and pain , a failed human and a babbling moron who thinks he’s a smartarse but just displays his idiocy with every comment .
Why intelligent , genuinely committed Scottish Independence advocates like Mia continue to engage with you is baffling – there being zero chance of you ever admitting you got anything wrong or the repellent nature of yr ” worldview ” .
Be assured , yr predictable response to this will go unread by me ; so , feel free to piss in the wind ; it’s blowing in yr direction
Absolutely Mia. The site is targeted and that makes me feel validated in my opinions and beliefs. Wings is obviously doing something very very right.
Shouldn’t you be at work?
I’m seriously starting to question your claim to work 17+ hours each and every day.
Then again, you have gone remarkably quiet about that since I first called you out on it.
Not just the Self ID policy that’s going down.
The SNP has gone down from a mighty ocean liner to a rowing boat. Think of that. John Swinn?ey, captain of a rowing boat. And a trans duck pond rowing boat at that.
Will the focus now turn to the more urgent problem Independence.
Everything can be sort ONCE we have gained total control of our Country and to do otherwise was stupid.
I was glad to hear that the Treaty of Union was never ratified and that Westminster still remain a English parliament.
I’ll vote to end the union
when
You explain why the politicians scotland currently vote for are magical replaced by competent ones after we leave the union
As the current ones only achievement is to make a worse job then the tories
magic cupboard theory
once we leave the union the magic cupboard will open that is where all the not insane politicians are hidden
McHateface.
Recently, NHS Scotland has saved my life.
I could see their lack of staff, equipment and it was the dedication of the Doctors and Nurses that saw me come through it.
Yes absolutely I despise your Tory demigods who where determined to sell off the NHS to their filthy rich donors and supporters just like they did with BP, Scottish Power, British Gas and how about the English Water Boards.
All of these sales made the rich richer and drove up prices and profits while cutting good jobs.
I read a story about a top Hollywood Script writer who was a multi millionaire when his wife was diagnosed with aggressive cancer.
His insurance was good but it only treats one condition for 1 year before you are on your own.
He spent everything he had, sold the house and took out loans where he could and tried 24/7 nursing himself to keep his wife going year after year.
When she passed he was declared bankrupt.
Right now people go cold and hungry when they should be heating and eating but generally they can survive.
When the NHS is sold and your condition requires £10’s of thousands per annum to keep you alive or you need a £50,000 operation for your child you sell your house and live in a tent to save them. If you don’t have equity and there is nowhere to go it’s time for the undertaker.
Westminster government after government has been looking for NHS cuts and savings so there is no meat on the bone. If taxes went up 10% to save lives I’m all for it as increases in the cost of living have gone way beyond that level making the richest 25% more rich.
Too right Effigy.
The state owned utilities most certainly went down to the corporate denizens of the deep.
And now they plunder and bleed the population dry.
Folks need to look around them. Where is all the money going. Why can we now not afford the very basics of life.
Folks are just flotsam in a sea of corruption, in an ocean of plunder.
But we bought the ticket for all of this. We chose where we now are. It did not have to be like this.
This sea of misery is our choice.
“Westminster government after government has been looking for NHS cuts and savings so there is no meat on the bone”
Absolutely. But the colonial administrators, otherwise known as “Scot Gov” are no innocent part on this. They are responsible for waving all this equality and diversity nonsense into our public services. They have politicised the NHS and abused it as an amplifier of their political gender message shite.
From what organisation/entity/deep state/country the colonial administrators got the order to peddle this shite is another matter.
It would be good to know how much money have each of the Scottish NHS Boards thrown in layers of useless managers for EDI, propaganda, pronouns crap, gender nonsense and the likes. The NHS boards have been subjected to a double financial attack. Firstly but continuous cuts in real time. Second by forcing them to divert funds to that nonsense.
It would be good to have a ballpark figure of how much of our money the colonial administrators have thrown at useless NGO and other quangos that they have been using as their echo chamber of “experts” to create the illusion of diverse opinion and that this was not a diktat, as it clearly was.
We need to know the level of mismanagement exercised by the colonial administrators who have been operating under Sturgeon’s SNP flag.
The truth about the NHS versus American health (don’t) care, from somebody EXPERIENCED in both:
link to whorattledyourcage.blogspot.com
Effigy I wrote a response to BASTARD TAX MOAN re his denigration of the SNHS but as is the usual situation on here currently it disappeared into thin air, he is just a GREED DRIVEN ARSEHOLE like his mates
My point is and always has been that the NHS as it currently exists is now unaffordable. As a nation, we can rein it in in a controlled fashion, or we can just let things continue as they are until it collapses.
Your idea that taxes can be raised a further 10% is straight out of the Guardian BTL, where the answer to everything is always just to increase tax. On others, of course, never on the writer.
Even Mia, just a few posts down, has engaged her AI ChatBot to spew out a few hundred words about the scandalous mis-management of money within our own SNHS. An organisation that long since re-structured itself to perpetuate and prioritise its own institutional survival over that of the patients it’s supposed to exist to help.
FFS. What does it take for the penny to drop? We spent two years protecting the NHS, with the result we now have a blizzard of avoidable deaths from preventable causes and a public health crisis that will last a decade. That was as daft as letting the house burn down because you don’t want to have to use and subsequently replace the fire extinguishers.
If this was a serious place we could have a discussion about how the ever decreasing numbers of productive tax-paying workers, supporting the ever increasing numbers of unproductive retired, ill, and just plain shirking, is bleeding obviously unsustainable. The fiscal model under which the Welfare State was started no longer exists for that reason.
Regular readers know only too well, though, that this is not a serious place. It’s an online fitba terracing, where one tribe endlessly hurls insults at another.
And that is to Scotland’s and Indy’s detriment.
P1sh..
Aged Tory dogma..
Welfare only comes after a generation is sacrificed in war; be it homes for hero’s (after WW1) and cradle to the grave welfare state care after the horrendous military and civilian cost of WW2.
As Bevan said;
“The NHS would only survive for as long as people were prepared to fight for it”.
And that was right back at the start.
Prophetic words especially after reading the crud churned out by Tory/ American moral lightweights here who have never done anything for anyone but themselves least of all their country of birth.
Greedy c@@@s seeing and lusting over a percentage and effing each other and everyone else over for the looting of as much of it as they can get their grubby hands on themselves and hell mend the consequences on those, and their descendants who actually fought for these rights in the first place.
You disgust me.
The place is sloshing with money, or at least “wooden” pounds at least..
Trouble is that so much of it is diverted to so very very many troughers (both political and financial services) that the basics of fair and reasonable governance has been lost in rampant financial or depraved sexual self interest.
The saddest part is everyone knew the ship was a wrong un but they still saluted,cheered and waived as it slid down the slipway.
Dinna be writing the obituary for SS Self-ID too hastily. This warning is prompted by a study of the Satanic Panic phenomenon of the late 80’s & early 90’s.
The assortment of misguided quacks and carpetbagging parasites (middle class humanities graduates all) who jumped on that particular bandwagon persisted long after the bogus, pseudo scientific, cause célèbre du jour of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) was thoroughly debunked.
They held onto their core beliefs because in a caustically ironic twist, they had become the Cult. I have written about this curious dynamic before. All Cults require a reality defying core belief for differentiation, cohesion and discipline. They also employ a key mantra to reinforce their raison d’etre, in this case TWAW.
The core adherents to SRA didn’t just give up, they persisted to the point of bringing about their own material downfall. Some folk will go to any lengths to avoid cognitive dissonance.
The disciples of TWAW are way more numerous than those of SRA. They have burrowed into the very fabric of politics, the Civil Service, academia, and the pernicious Third Sector. Some individuals will have jumped on the TWAW bandwagon out of cynical self interest. These may be retained, but they have shown their hand as fundamentally untrustworthy and intellectually dilatory. The central members of the Cult must be rooted out. It won’t be easy, they have built networks for self promotion and protection.
Is the Glen Kleenex still afloat?
Skip_NC
I thought it was just me. The propellor seemed to be in a strange place.
The suggestion being, perhaps, that they’ve got the natural order of things upside down and back to front ?
Maybe the ship has self ID’d as s submarine..
What could go wrong?!
Gender identity ideology, like British identity, is a cultural illusion imposed on Scots via the ‘union’ charade; both are a form of cultural imperialism.
Fortunately many Scots retain a Scottish identity and a Scottish national consciousness, which are fundamental elements in any peoples’ quest for national independence/liberation.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Speaking of dodgy vessels and governance ….
How are you enjoying our “Spirit of Tasmania IV”?
Only cost about a squillion dollars to build the new ferry for the Tasmania to Victoria run, but someone forgot to build a berth for it to stop in. The existing one isn’t large enough. Ooops!
So our genius rulers and their corporate twins decided to park it in Edinburgh for just a few million dollars (so far), and they’re hoping to lease it out to someone.
The government says the new berth should be ready by about 2027.
Enjoy! It’s a large red thing that looks bored and homeless, and expensive.
Public sector ferry procurement is just as bad, if not worse here Andrew. An astute Scottish administration (which we do not have) would now be using the laid up Spirits’ on a North Sea crossing.
However, there is a solution on Tasmania’s doorstep, as well as for us, not that public officials ever take the sensible option:
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Thanks Alf, very interesting read.
I don’t know if a cat would be right for the 450km crossing of the notoriously rough Bass Strait (it’s at the top of the Southern Ocean).
But the operator, TT Line, is apparently hoping to recoup some costs by leasing the “Spirit” out, so they’d be happy to let someone use it in the meantime if you need it!
The point I was making was more about sheer incompetence (or, maybe, corruption?).
thanks for that Andrew F
she look like a right beauty!
link to newships.spiritoftasmania.com.au
link to en.wikipedia.org
seems at least that TT-Line and TasPorts are building something at Devonport.
link to infrastructure.tas.gov.au
Another good one Chris says it all.
Every-time I clink on Wings site I’m taken to (link to billing.it.com) and its trying to get me to install a security software.
Me too.
Malware??
I have no idea better to be safe than sorry.
This malware is getting very wearing. I am reminded of the adage the flak is greater over the intended target. Your doing something right Stu.
I love Chris’ latest toon. The SS Self ID instead of MV Self ID made me chuckle. The sinking boats design, just like what it represents, is entirely arse over tit.
WRT to the cyber attack/malware carry on – using a Windows device I am only able to access ‘Challengers Deep’ from the Recent Comments, which obviously appear on previous articles’ sidebars.
When using my android device earlier this afternoon, I was able to follow a link, posted on Twitter by Chris, to Challengers Deep without any problems.
Freedom of speech, unless you say things «we» dont like.
The sublime of hypocrisy of globalist capitalism.
Viva Wings!
Do you include Trump and the US hard right in this? Are they global capitalists? They are certainly some of the worst culprits of the hypocrisy you describe. Vance going on about freedom of speech to try and shame Europe whilst they continue to ban books from libraries and heavily restrict who they allow into government press conferences (i.e only those who are not critical) and then people like Musk suing people who say nasty things about him on X, , Trump sacking people who dare to say he might be wrong, and so on?
A very informative and educational link over on Grousebeaters site exposing the person behind Grangemouth, Ratcliff the man who doesn’t give a fuck about Scotland or Scots, the man who doesn’t pay TAX(are you listening BASTARD TAX MOAN)in the uk YET this Labour lying bastards government are willing to underwrite loans to the tune of £600 million for RATcliff to build a refinery in a foreign country Belgium, REFORM voters ask Nigel Farage if he is happy at Labour giving away our taxes to a FOREIGN COMPANY that doesn’t pay taxes in the great super duper uk
THIS is what the arsewipes in the snp should be screaming about yet not a sound
link to grousebeater.wordpress.com
The Permanent State’s apparatchik in No. 10 Downing Street, Keir Starmer will address the Conference of the Labour Party in Scotland today. He will attack the performance of the SNP (not a difficult task, even for him) and entertain the possibility of an Anas Sarwar residency in Bute House in 2026 (Glasgow is famous for the quality of its recreational pharmaceuticals).
Starmer’s main focus will be on combating the rise of RefUK. The Scottish sub-sample from Labour friendly polling outfit Opinium today has Labour on 17% and RefUK on 16% (SNP on 36%).
This is not a “Spring Conference” in the historically accepted sense, it’s being held in the small suite of a hotel. These are merely staged events for the cameras and a compliment assortment of MSM hacks. The protocols will only permit scripted speeches with no scope for Q & As (even from tame hacks).
This will avoid any awkward questions such as why Rachel from Accounts announced massive investment in new technologies in the South of England, after having cancelled the £300m project for an Exascale computer at the University of Edinburgh last August.
Even the SNP Annual Conference is a pitifully attended affair, even allowing for their substantial pay role (much diminished since 4th July).
The disconnect between political parties and the masses has never been greater. So called conferences are a Kabuki theatre of middle class politics graduates talking at one another.
One Conference that might just have a material significance is the SNP, National, Constitutional Conference on 22nd March in Perth. This is the venue for debating the output of their internal, Governance & Transparency Review. That particular, pernicious document proposes to enact technical fixes which would make any leader a de facto dictator for life. I fully expect this event to be poorly attended with Party functionaries massively outnumbering rank-and-file members.
All things considered, electoral politics are fucked.
Correct. It’s all fake – a fallacy. By taking part we legitimise a corrupted entity.
“It’s all fake”
Naw. You are though.
“All things considered, electoral politics are fucked”
So stand for office yourself. You have a great, long list of all the things that are wrong. Write into your manifesto the necessary antidotes. If people really do think and believe as so many on here claim every day of the week, your meteoric rise to power is pre-ordained.
You need far less than 100 similar thinkers, plausible, personable, articulate, with non-swivelling eyes, and policies popular, believable and rational (whether or not these include Indy) to capture every seat in Scotland.
As per usual there will be no coherent response. The hard of thinking haven’t got any further than burning the whole edifice down around them with nary a thought of what the alternative might be, still less of doing anything concrete to actually make it happen.
Why, one might almost think they were nothing but a bunch of sophomoric anarchists or Omsk based troll farmers huh?
Turning one’s back on a corrupted and very very fake political process is now the most radical thing any of us can do. My sincere and AUTHENTIC belief.
Ah ken, Andy, no coherent response.
Just the usual mix – abuse, the conjuring up of imaginary, fantastical obstacles, and an absolute cast-iron commitment to doing SFA for years, all the while expecting some magical incantation to deliver Scotland’s Independence to them, effort free, on a plate.
And as always, the sheer fury that results at any suggestion that they should be prepared to put their money where their mouths are, get off their lardy arses, and stand for office themselves.
This is Scotland after all. The SNP and the Greens have set the bar very low. Alert readers would expect, what with the constant claims that Indy is the majority view, and the regularly posted assertions that solving the problems is easy, that the usual suspects would be shoo ins for office.
And that’s before we look at the European-wide sweep of new parties, policies and personalities. Change is in the air.
You’re right too with your suspicions about just who some of these people really are. Fluffers for Vlad, open scorners of those elsewhere who fight for their freedom and sovereignty, and ever ready to call time on the only route that will deliver us Indy.
The freely expressed democratic will of a majority of the people of Scotland.
It’s not rocket science, never was, and never will be.
So what’s your best realistic alternative Viv? It’s all very well wishing a plague on all their houses, but historically peoples or electorates that have put their faith in insurgents who claim they’re going to bring about sea changes in the existing, corrupt systems (“Drain the swamp!” anyone?) have often found themselves at a later date surveying the ruins of their civilisation having just strung those who sought to initiate the New World Order up on the nearest lamppost.
I tend more towards the old saw that people get the representation they deserve. There was nothing inevitable about the situation we are in now, just as there is nothing inevitable in a victory for the neo-populism which some seem inexpicably drawn to, or indeed to its defeat.
In the general scheme of things, the two major issues which most concern this place at present, independence for Scotland and gender-woo, probably don’t register all that highly on the list of things which concern ordinary voters, even if they do provoke huge controversy and debate.
Ordinary voters can and do have views on them of course and even care deeply about them as individual issues, but *most* of them don’t fetishise them as all important or base their whole worldview on them.
Electoral politics may indeed be fucked but to misquote someone whose reputation in this place is not particularly high, the problem is its still probably preferable to all the other ways of organising our societies that have been tried from time to time.
More patronising disdainful drivel from Max Headroom.
People commenting here are generally following on from the theme of the article, usually independence or the impact of gender woo woo; so rein in your criticism of them for daring to express an opinion on those subjects that dares not align with your own philosophy.
And who exactly are you to quote people while claiming “their reputation here is not high”..
You’ll be using the “if it looks like a duck” analogy next.
Get over yersel as opposed to just supporting the failed political status quo approach that’s been pedalled for years has been seen through at long last.
Andy Ellis said;
“Electoral politics may indeed be fucked but to misquote someone whose reputation in this place is not particularly high, the problem is its still probably preferable to all the other ways of organising our societies that have been tried from time to time.”
Electoral politics may indeed be fucked, Andy, but by far the worst fucker of the UK’s democracy is WM’s unwarranted and bogus presumption that England’s MPs can legitimately outvote Scotland’s MPs on any matter of Union governance. But they can’t! They can’t because that presumption gains no formal provenance from the Treaty or Acts of Union, and it can’t have come from anywhere else.
Given that both kingdoms are equally sovereign, then by default neither is subordinate in any way to the other, unless there is an actual formal written agreement between them that provides for the dominance of one over the other. The problem for England and its Union is that no such agreement exists. There is literally nothing in the Union’s formal founding documents that obliges Scotland or her MPs to submit to any English authority.
The onus is not on me or anyone else to prove the absence of such an agreement, though it is plainly absent from those founding documents; it is for others to demonstrate its explicit presence and its terms, or back the fuck down!
So put up, or shut up!
Watching Anas Sawar being interviewed by Martin Geissler this morning I couldn’t help feeling that Scottish Labour have enough time to change their leader. Oblivious to the polls and the background reasons for their electoral decline. Asserting the mantra that the polls are somehow inaccurate and he will be the FM in 2026. Give me whatever he is on. I think Scottish Labour will finish fourth. But the big take from the interview is there will be no Independence Referendum for the lifetime of the next Scottish Parliament. So that’s half the Scottish Electorate ignored. Gold medal for being tin eared.
@Young Lochinvar 1.20pm
Perhaps it would help if you interacted with what people actually wrote rather than what the voices in your head told you…? Or is your view of the screen obscured with spittle or some other excretion?
I was responding to Viv’s post, which opined that electoral politics in general was fucked. It’s hardly unreasonable to ask what he proposes as an alternative, particularly given that many of the usual hard of thinking suspects who continue to contaminate BTL discourse here seem to heartily agree with him, even as they offer up no plausible alternative.
For the uneducated or poorly read folks like yourself, the reference to someone here whose reputation is none too high is a reference to Winston Churchill’s famous quote from 1947:
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947
Probably a bit much to expect the moonhowlers to get the reference of course.
Apart from clarifying who you were actually quoting, you’ve simply fallen back on your usual unpleasant garrulous verbose disdainful rhetoric.
There’s simply no point in interacting with you, you are simply an unpleasant character with a superiority complex wafting through BTL like an unwelcome rank fart..
“Spittle or some other excretion”; ha!, classic pot calling kettle..
Yes , Y.L , and know(fuck)all Andy’s only constant is getting things laughably wrong .
Remember him jumping on the hysterical ” the unvaxxed are homicidal maniacs n should be prosecuted for failing to comply with * the Science * ” ( chortle ) bandwagon .
And when he couldn’t wait to tell us how much he was in agreement with the idiot Sturgeon’s lunatic call for a no-fly-zone at the beginning of the Proxy War . Something which , had it occurred , would likely have precipitated a full-on global conflagration .
Not to be outdone in the clown sweepstake he then tried to promote the ludicrous notion that Tolstoyville had blew-up it’s own pipeline . And all along propagating the obscene lie of R’s ” unprovoked ” invasion of U ; the fiction of R expansionist intent ( Reds under the bed chapter ZZZzzzzz ) and the subhuman character of R people – ” Orcs ” ; unconditionally supporting the needless slaughter of innumerable human beings in the name of …..what , fckn ” Democracy ” , what a sick joke .
And still he’s on here arrogantly spewing his shit views like he’s some kind of Authority On Everything . He’s a joke ; like his tweedledum , Main .
As you are well aware the franchise Fanny and his sidekick the ever present Mr negative Scotland McShiteyface are always deriding and denigrating any comments that oppose the current political morass of corruption and incompetence
The franchise Fanny’s only answer is plebiscite elections which he regales us with endlessly as if he has found the cure for cancer,ignoring the FACT that it has been proposed numerous times in the past even before he graced us with his incredible knowledge of what everyone in the world thinks ,the slight problem with his incredible cure that only he has thought of and which will immediately launch Scotland into International celebration is that the bastard party of deviants and perverts currently in government have said NO,NEIN,NADA to any form of unity or cooperation for a plebiscite election
And as for his wee sidekick John McShiteyface his answer is for other people tae dae the work by putting themselves forward, but he’ll no dae it because Scotland’s shite and he’ll be moving elsewhere
Bob writes:
“the fiction of R expansionist intent”
Well, well. Wings BTL has redefined the meaning of fiction. Maybe Bob was dropping some Scots words in there. Maybe Bob’s an Orc fluffer.
Currently R occupies around 20% of the sovereign territory of U. Around 3+ million U citizens are suffering under Orc occupation.
And then we have the recently clarified situation regarding U’s rare Earth resources. More than half of them have been annexed by R.
It’s a noteworthy Scottish nationalist who can big up naked colonialist aggression, occupation, annexation and oppression, but fair play to Bob. As we read his posts, we witness a twisted master at work.
Three years and the song according to Bob and his ilk remains unchanged. They had it coming.
WTAF is wrong with the people who shame Scotland like this?
I would like to know how much US AID money has been pouring into Scotland to keep us in our place.
For all of the political Cassandras out there prophesying (or conjuring?) the demise of electoral politics, today is of course General election day in Germany, where it looks very much like the AfD, darling of the insurgents, will be frozen out of power.
Hopefully Budeskanzler Merz will do a better job than his predecessor.
Politico have a liveblog of the results and a useful chart/maps for those interested in “things German”.
link to politico.eu
I’m not entirely despondent. There are indicators that despite many, many, false dawns, the influence of MSM is on the wane, and alternative media is filling the gap.
Polling of public opinion regards the conflict in West Asia is massively at odds with the propaganda spewed by MSM in the UK and USA. Excluding don’t know, and equally sympathetic, in Scotland, there is a net 44% sympathy for P over I.
In America, excluding don’t know, a net 31% of those polled agree with the statement that “I***** has committed war crimes”. Absolutely zero American, MSM news outlets have put out content that would lead to that conclusion.
The cancellation of the 1st round of Presidential elections in Romania is another interesting case study. The (unproven) notion that a couple of hundred thousand Euros spent on a viral TikTok campaign swung the result in favour of an outsider, misses one pertinent point. For that to be true, there must have been a massive and undetected, underlying dissatisfaction with the two parties of the Permanent State. Which is to say, that in a country where the spooks and the senior Judiciary can just obliterate an election result they don’t like, would you trust pre-election polling in any case?
This is not to say that change for the better is there for the taking. The Spookocracy will attack any insurgent force that threatens its supremacy. For example, I believe RefUK are peaking far too early with the next UK General Election unlikely before summer 2029.
The key to the electoral success of Sinn Féin in December 1918 was fortuitous timing. The British Permanent State was distracted by WWI, and Sinn Féin came out of nowhere to usurp an Irish Parliamentary Party captured by the comforts of Westminster.
The current turmoil in Geopolitical affairs may present another window of opportunity, for a nimble and determined actor to facilitate Scottish independence. No actor fitting that description exists to my knowledge.
So yes, all things considered, electoral politics are (for the time being) fucked.
So less than a third (31%) in America support the war crimes accusation? That’s a mighty small hill of beans to get your hopes up with.
Closer to home, somebody should commission a poll to gauge the popularity of Scotland taking 100,000 or so of our supposedly favourite victims. Not their donkeys though, if they are more popular, that will just confuse matters.
Or we start signing up volunteers to go spend a year or so in the tunnels, fighting against our supposedly most hated oppressors. Bring your own teenage lassie hostage, or even better, go get one, GoPro streaming live on Utube as you do so. Heck, I’d subscribe just to see the IDF response, “war crimes” or not.
It’s my considered view that those loudly virtue signalling are usually the first to STFU when it comes to impacting on their personal comfort and net financial worth.
But hey, I’m always up for learning new stuff.
As you are well aware the franchise Fanny and his sidekick the ever present Mr negative Scotland McShiteyface are always deriding and denigrating any comments that oppose the current political morass of corruption and incompetence
The franchise Fanny’s only answer is plebiscite elections which he regales us with endlessly as if he has found the cure for cancer,ignoring the FACT that it has been proposed numerous times in the past even before he graced us with his incredible knowledge of what everyone in the world thinks ,the slight problem with his incredible cure that only he has thought of and which will immediately launch Scotland into International celebration is that the bastard party of deviants and perverts currently in government have said NO,NEIN,NADA to any form of unity or cooperation for a plebiscite election
And as for his wee sidekick John McShiteyface his answer is for other people tae dae the work by putting themselves forward, but he’ll no dae it because Scotland’s shite and he’ll be moving elsewhere
My suspicion is that McShiteyface already lives elsewhere.
Let me summarise that post for you. Save the readers valuable time and improve your environmental footprint too.
I’ll even use all caps, just to make it easier for you.
IT’S NOT FAIR, THEY’RE ALL AGAINST US AND WE’RE DOOMED.
It’s my considered opinion that with a message like that one, you’re building no Indy support whatsoever, but what the heck, eh? You’re smack bang in the middle of your comfort zone.
As for your ludicrous belief that you’re “opposing” the political status quo, get real.
Nobody knows you exist. Like every other BTL poster here, you’re an irrelevance.
The answer to that lies in your own hands, but as you post, the situation is hopeless. And then there’s the flabby arse shaped dent you’ve imprinted on your comfort zone. Can’t risk that, eh?
@Hatey McHateface
Doesn’t stop the overall Independence support being 50 % . Without anyone supporting their case. I am glad to know I am an irrelevant BTL contributor. My condition should have been treated within 18 weeks. SHNS guidance. Over 105 weeks later I finally get a pre Op tomorrow with a view of an Op next week. I will see it when I believe it. Pissing my breeks and now on Fannyman drugs. I will stand in 2026 if I survive. Anyone but this pish SNP Government and their acolytes. Set aside serious money to go for litigation. Of course, Family A and E Doctor. GPs and SNHS nurses waiting on the outcome of this pish. Lawfare the only language the SNP understand.
George Ferguson
I wish you well.
If you decide to stand for office in 2026 I wish you success with that. There can be surely no Winger who will not vote for you if they live in your constituency.
There’s a vacuum at the heart of our politics and it’s inevitable it will be filled. If you are stepping up, you will be the first of many.
And yes, endlessly posting on here does make us all irrelevant. We are exactly where the people calling the shots would like to have us – pointlessly squabbling amongst ourselves. Only when some of us look like we might take away their salaries, perks and pensions will they start to take notice.
All power to your elbow, George.
A wee aside on the tactics of naked capitalism via a well known betting company. I did 2 bets one bet was Mo Salah to score and assist early payout on 2 nil. The other bet was a straight Liverpool win. Paid out early on the first bet. Kept me waiting on the second bet. Why? Opt in. The last time I did opt in I got 20p return from Spin O Reely and nothing on 777 beforehand. The lesson is forget opt in and cash out when you want. This is totally beyond the competence of Holyrood. Anyway that’s my bookie telling me Liverpool won. What’s the betting I get 20p back? On Opt in?
From Deutsche Welle”
The favorite for the future German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, sharply criticized Donald Trump’s administration and urged Europe to distance from Washington during a post-election panel airing on state broadcaster ARD.
“I am communicating closely with a lot of prime ministers, and heads of EU states and for me it is an absolute priority to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible, so that we achieve independence from the US, step by step,” Merz said.
“I never thought that I would ever need to say something like that, on television, but after the latest statements made by Donald Trump last week, it is clear, that the Americans — at any case these Americans, this administration — mostly don’t care about the fate of Europe one way or another,” the CDU leader added.
Merz said it was not certain what the future has in store for NATO and if Europe will need to act quickly to shore up its own defenses.
He also criticized Trump confidant and tech billionaire Elon Musk for meddling in the German election campaign, saying that the “intervention from Washington were no less drastic, dramatic, and ultimately no less brazen, than the intervention that we have seen from Moscow.”
Looks like #EuropeFirst might be happening before independent Scotland folks. If only we had some leaders with some fire in their bellies like Merz.
Agreed, Andy.
An online commentator I read has stated that for the UK government, there has not been a policy shift of such seismic proportions since Suez.
There are incredible opportunities to be exploited in our politics right now. There certainly has to be a mass culling of the herd of sacred cows, and when they go, the people who have been fattening them at our expense must go too.
Clearing this logjam will enable the long overdue emergence of new parties, policies and personalities.
You are on record as being far more of a Progressive than I am, so we probably won’t agree on which sacred cows need to get the chop.
Then we still have 4+ years of Starmer’s “lame duck” administration to grind through. Undoubtedly, he will ensure he gets his half million or so immigrants in for every one of these years. But by 2029, the dam will be ready to burst. If the Europeans are repatriating their internal hostiles, we can do it too.
In Scotland, we have a little over a year to get moving. Hopefully, this period of “nothing much happening” is the quiet before the storm.
If the Germans want to make themselves poorer. It looks like they have. They shut down nuclear. Rely on foreign energy imports and coal burning. And the Muslim terrorists keep driving over civillians. All a result of the Syrian refugee crisis and more.
Why can’t Europe secure the Mediterranean and stop them from coming? Never mind NATO. And eating insects for Klaus shwabb.
Eat Ze Bugs for Klaus. Eat the insects. No doubt if Nicola Sturgeon was still in charge. She’d be feeding the hospital patients insects for dinner time.
Terrible news for Germany. Nigel farage will be governor general of Scorlandshire in no time. And when that happens. Say goodbye to your free prescriptions. You’ll be coughing up!
A further pondering of Chris Cairns’ rich image surely reveals the historical “Ship of Fools” theme. The following snippet is from the Wikipedia entry:
« The Ship of Fools is an allegory, first appearing in Book VI of Plato’s Republic, about a ship with a dysfunctional crew. The allegory is intended to represent the problems of governance prevailing in a political system not based on expert knowledge.
« Images of the ship became popular, especially in German-speaking lands, especially after the publication of Sebastian Brant’s satirical book Ship of Fools (1494), which served as the inspiration for Hieronymus Bosch’s painting, Ship of Fools.
« Normally, the images show a ship crowded with men mostly wearing traditional jester or fool’s costume with cloth ears ending in bells, many quarreling, drinking, and fighting. In the book a ship (an entire fleet at first) sets off from Basel, bound for the Paradise of Fools.
« Benjamin Jowett’s 1871 translation of Plato’s text recounts the story as follows:
« Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering — every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary. »
@George Ferguson.
Every good wish for a successful outcome, George. Having just been seen at a Hospital Specialist Unit last week following being referred last October I can totally get the frustration and apprehension with which you and yours have been living whilst awaiting treatment.
Hope all goes well and smoothly, hoping for a full and uneventful recovery.
Go well.
You don’t have to imagine the SS Self-ID to acquire an impression of a Frankenstein’s monster of a ship specified by a committee of technically illiterate morons. Note; this is almost certainly an issue with executive specification rather than pish poor naval architecture.
The Glen Sannox is less efficient in terms of CO2 emissions than the ferry it replaced. So runs the BBC headline. Needless to say, the devil is in the detail, or more specifically, what accounting protocol you use when calculating CO2 emissions.
Compression of natural gas takes a great deal of energy, then you have to keep the cargo refrigerated while you transport it, then there’s the energy required at the port of destination. Lastly and most significantly, there’s the fuel oil requirement to ship it half way across the globe.
Never mind, if you can pass these unavoidable CO2 emissions off on some other poor sap, you can virtue signal your way to environmental nirvana.
Then there’s the small matter of the ferry being too big to use its home port. Bear in mind that the Sannox is six years late and the issue has been known about since day one. The Scottish Government is only now getting round to thinking about what to do about this problem.
Rectifying this issue is complicated by the Sannox’s intended terminal (Ardrossan) being owned by Peel Ports, who have their own agendas (see below).
In a truly competitive, commercial environment, heads would have rolled at the executive committee level responsible for these clusterfuck, specification decisions.
What the BBC article definitely highlights is the absence of an LNG terminal in Scotland. Personally, I wouldn’t entertain any LNG terminals in the UK until all the Natural Gas in the North Sea and West of Shetland is exhausted, but that particular ship sailed on a tide of sanctimonious and technically illiterate virtue signalling .
The LNG that fuels the Glen Sannox (when it’s running on LNG which bizarrely isn’t all the time) has to come the 934 mile round trip from the Isle of Grain on road tankers.
Not that this in itself comes even remotely close to justifying the humongous expense of constructing an LNG terminal in Scotland. The main reason for doing that would be to facilitate the additional of Hydrogen into our Natural Gas network.
LNG imported into the UK is invariably of a higher calorific value (BTU / ft3) *. As such, it is diluted with Nitrogen to maintain equilibrium. The Nitrogen is generated not by cryogenic distillation, but by the more efficient means of Vacuum Swing Adsorption.
It is proposed to “augment” (this isn’t really an appropriate term) our Natural Gas supply (1011 BTU / ft3) with Hydrogen to a maximum rate of substitution of 20%. Why not dilute the LNG being fed into the Gas network with Hydrogen (325 BTU / ft3) rather than Nitrogen? It’s a win win. For those of an environmentally puritanical bent, it would even reduce emissions of Nitrogen Dioxide at the point of combustion.
Ineos at Grangemouth already have a Liquid Ethane terminal for feedstock in their plastics division.
Perhaps a more promising option would be to site a LNG terminal at Hunterston. It’s a recognised deep port (built to take in iron ore and coal for Ravenscraig). It has the legacy of being a High Tension Electric Cable hub from the days of Hunterston Nuclear Power Plants (A & B). It’s also adjacent to Ardossan, and the sister ship to the Glen Sannox will also run on LNG.
The fly in the ointment would be that Hunterston is also owned by Peel Ports and they play games which (quite understandably under the Capitalist system) put their own interests above that of the State.
*Imported LNG has a higher BTU / ft3 because it’s cheep ‘n’ cheerful, retaining the longer chain hydrocarbons such as ethane that are stripped out for higher values, downstream utilisation in the UK. Our natural gas network is effectively pure methane. All the more reason to continue to exploit our own natural gas reserves.
With respect Vivian I haven’t an understanding of what you are talking about or the benefits there would be in utilising your suggestions, but there again obviously the SPADS and Calmac executive are in the same boat as me (no pun intended)
Either that or just like Professor Alfred Baird and worldwide ship building expert and entrepreneur Stuart Ballantyne who are renowned for their shipping expertise the Scottish administration and their ahem experts PREFER to make Scotland a worldwide laughing stock by deliberately ignoring sage and proven maritime experience in favour of monumental clusterfucks
And here you have it Twathater. The Glen Sannox is out of service. You couldn’t make it up but below is Calmac’s notice.
Updated 7 February 2025
“As per our previous update, MV Glen Sannox will be out of service from Monday 24 February to allow for a replacement of her anchor chain gypsy wheels. She is expected to return to service on Monday 3 March 2025.
During this period, MV Alfred will continue to operate her scheduled timetable and MV Isle of Arran will relocate from the Oban area to cover timetabled sailings between Troon-Brodick. “
Just watched BBC Newsnight.
Humza Yousaf was a key commentator.
Suggest that anyone who didn’t see this watches it on playback. Shoulder to shoulder with Sir Keir Starmer our ex FM is fir spending much much more on defence recognising that to do so will require a reduction in the health service budget.
LONG NAN DAOINE (THE SHIP OF THE PEOPLE)
Another Scottish chartered ship scandal story (summarised from Wikipedia) —
« The Ship of the People (Long/ Soitheach nan Daoine) is a moniker given to the Irish ship ‘William’, which played a key role in a Scottish human trafficking scandal in 1740, when over a hundred men, women and children were kidnapped from the Hebrides with the intention of selling them as indentured servants in the Thirteen Colonies. The scheme was devised by Norman MacLeod of MacLeod, chief of Clan MacLeod, who was in deep debt at the time, and Sir Alexander MacDonald, chief of Clan MacDonald of Sleat.
« The last chief of Clan MacLeod to live full time at Dunvegan Castle in the Isle of Skye, their traditional centre of power, was John ‘the Speckled’ (Iain Breac), who died in 1693. Subsequent chiefs lived as absentee landlords to their estates in the Scottish Highlands, who continued the trend starting with John of living lavish lifestyles at the expense of their clansmen. Norman MacLeod, who was clan chief since the death of his father at age 1 in 1707, became the most extravagant spender of these absentee chiefs when he came of age, and accumulated a large number of debts which threatened to bankrupt him and his estate.
« In early 18th century Scotland, the illicit selling of clansmen into indentured servitude under trumped-up charges by chiefs was a known business. At some point before 1739, Norman, alongside chief Sir Alexander MacDonald of Sleat, planned to kidnap a large number of their own tenants under the pretense of them being criminals.
« On 13 August 1740 the ‘William’ set sail from Donaghadee in Ireland with the ostensible destination of Norway. In actuality, the ship landed in Bracadale on the coast of the Isle of Skye several days later. On the island, nearly a hundred men, women and children as young as five were forcibly abducted from their homes by Davidson’s men, mostly on Norman MacLeod’s estates, but some from MacDonald’s lands as well. From Skye, the ‘William’ departed to the Isle of Harris to kidnap more people. After brief stops to disembark people unlikely to survive the trans-Atlantic crossing, the ship stopped once again in Donaghadee on 20 October to procure provisions for the voyage to America. Several victims attempted to escape, alerting local authorities and attracting the attention of the British government. All the victims were subsequently set free and mainly settled in Ireland for the remainder of the lives. Had the ship arrived at her intended destination, the newly indentured servants would have faced conditions little better than the slavery endured by African-Americans at the time.
« Norman and Sir Alexander both denied their complicity in the Ship of the People scandal. The two chiefs insisted they were legally transporting petty criminals who were allegedly present on the island, and that there were no innocents on board the ‘William’.
« MacLeod appealed to Duncan Forbes of Culloden, Lord President of the Court of Session and the senior-most judicial authority in Scotland at the time for aid, insisting on his innocence. Forbes, who was known to drop potentially difficult legal cases, did not charge either chief for their role in kidnapping the tenants, and tactility aided MacLeod in covering up his role in the incident. »
Willie colour me surprised NOT , every one of these clowns at Calmac are costing us millions they should be SACKED