Clearing the bar
Posted on
April 15, 2023 by
Chris Cairns
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
Ha! ha! Brilliant!
Thought it was a guillotine for a minute!
A state of limbo waiting for the bar to be set on fire.
Not far to go now.
Soon be time to rescue the jaicket from its shoogly nail.
The auld knees won’t take it. Too many years of constantly going down on them in obeisance to Sturgeon.
Off topic maybes, but I don’t see the LEZ’s on that post.
Starting 1st June in Glasgow, I don’t know the dates for Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen.
I have checked my household vehicles. None of them will be legal to enter the LEZ’s so I will be effectively banned from driving in any of my country’s cities.
As will hundreds of thousands of other Scots. Oh well, I guess these cities will get by just fine without our money.
No doubt there will be plenty who will be happy to tell me and other vehicle owner/drivers to GTF. Fair enough. Was this new restriction and major expense on any manifesto? Who voted for it?
Like just about everything else that is wrong in Scotland, I blame HR, ScotGov and the SNP.
Afloat on oil, and blasted flat by the wind, our leaders nevertheless intend to put private, motorised transport beyond the reach of ordinary, working Scots.
How low can you go?
Folks, I have a feeling we ain’t seen nothing yet. The patience and denial of every last standing SNP loyalist will have been put through the wringer before this guy is through.
Looks like Humza’s missing his wristwatch.
Well there are a lot of tea leaves around in today’s SNP.
John Main, they will get by just fine with the fines.
As for city businesses , redundant , bankrupt which will ultimately bankrupt the cities – with the exception of Glasgow which I think has already plumbed the depths.
Instead of going under the bar Humze Yousaf should be going over the bar, you look at the wealth away to pour into Ireland and Northern Ireland, it’s sickening that here in Scotland for what we’ve contributed to the world as Brian Cox says, we have to beg for a few crumbs from Westminsters plate, vast wealth, vast potential, going under the bar is no use we need to be jumping 10 feet over it, get all the independence hubs together get independence, then get what Scotland deserves going into the rest of the 21st Century.
Oh very good, Useless not able for much more. Certainly now is the continuity FM.
And maybes more On Topic.
See the boy in the cartoon? Where is the campaign to remove him as FM and as leader of the SNP?
The leadership election process was fatally flawed by corruption, lies and shady dealing. The people running it have resigned or had their collars felt, FFS.
Are we Scots truly so supine and cowed that we intend to allow the result of that leadership campaign to stand? Are we going to allow a fraud and an imposter to speak for our nation to the world, and to tell us what we can and can’t do?
Where’s the challenge, through the courts, or on the streets? Or both?
This is far more important than people squirreling away a few hundred K here and there.
How Low Can You Go?
Brilliant Chris, aye he’s doing a grand job at lowering the bar stuff, but I think he has a way to go before he hits rock bottom.
Kevin McKenna interviews Mandy Rhodes, editor of Holyrood magazine, in The Herald:
link to archive.ph
Very good, Chris!
Put the pole on the ground and “Useless” will still get under it without touching it!
Superb as usual Chris. I think they could all get under a snake with a top hat on.
Humza the limbo dancer: brilliant!
The man could limbo underneath a snake wearing a top hat.
Hardly matters what he does or even how bad he is. Wings has shown that there is a lot of dubious financial activity going on that has simply been ignored even when in plain sight. Government money going to publishers, event sponsorship, side hustles bringing in funds that seem to evaporate. All that money for Gupta?
Events will now overtake Humza. The SNP was simply a gift to every opportunistic hustler going. All you had to do was sign up and then the party machine ran control and enforcement of anything that might threaten them. As long as you were in the party, you were all but untouchable if you were smart.
It policed itself. It ran the state. It used government power and an army of online manipulators and the holiness of the cause to create immunity for those inside the party. The spiral into varying levels of nepotism and corruption was inevitable. When those around you are filling their pockets and getting their friends and family high paid jobs, even the honest feel like fools if they don’t do the same.
Once the journalist class lose their fear of retribution by the SNP and they sense the era of a one party state is ending, it will be open season. If there were to be large scale defections, that would be a significant trigger.
@ Luigi
Word
onunder the street is that subterranean dwellers are concerned about their spaces soon being encroached upon by SNP officials that find themselves in a jam going underground.@ John Main
It’s maybe time to embrace and channel your inner Emma Roddick / Harper and embrace Self IDing as disabled to get a blue badge for LEZ exemption. 😉
link to transport.gov.scot
NewSNP Bankrupt?
FaceBook is full of stories of the NewSNP about to go BANKRUPT?
I wonder whether many of the well-informed readers of Wings can throw light on this possibility, or, is it lust wishful thinking?!
Blackford and Cherry have taken the SNP identity off their Twitter identity! New independence party registered.
SNP is about to go down. I wonder what the rules are regarding running Holyrood from an insolvent party? Surely a Holyrood election must be called.
Seems they can sit as independents, as long as Humza commands authority. Well we know he doesn’t, so it’s unsustainable.
link to scottishdailyexpress.co.uk
Sorry – but back to the Motorhome for a second.
The order/delivery time for such a model (especially in RHD) is 8 to 12 months. This would mean it was ordered before COVID!
If the SNP is about to go bust (fingers crossed) their MSPs and MPs should quickly join the Alba Party to safe the Indy cause and they’ll still get their funding. Just watch Alex Salmond move on Independence then when he has a full house of MSPs and MPs, Westminster wouldn’t know whats it them.
The New Party to replace the SNP
What accountants call “A Pre-Pack”
Think Rangers/NewCo. The little guys take the pain….like the NEC
The SNP franchise is dead in the water.
So, if no buy out of debt needed to become the successor party, how would that succession work when the election arrives?
Is it only a matter of new candidates running against the redundant SNP politicians? If so, will ALBA commit to this task or within an alliance party?
Nope – the bar is still high enough to let the Stone of Destiny through.
Ha ha ha.
Do I feel sorry for him, do I heck.
With Kate giving that massive grin after he “won”, did she know about the auditors resigning?
Will Humza realise he’s been played?
When will he get both mad and even?
Any SNP MSPs and MPs who leave the party but don’t join Alba should not be trusted. They kept quiet for years about Sturgeon’s misdeeds in their own interests and they’ll only be leaving now for their own interests.
Wishart has also removed SNP from his twitter bio.
Are they going down like Humza?
Good one Chris.
@100%yes no way.
We need shot of all the troughers.
They would ruin Alba, they way they have SNP.
Lots of them are ex Labour for the same reason
Beauvais…
“Any SNP MSPs and MPs who leave the party but don’t join Alba should not be trusted”
Why would ALBA want the spineless, complicit, Woke zealots who have done nothing for years but close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears and shove their noses further into the trough?
They had their chance to prove their credentials over two years ago, with MacAskill and Hanvey, but did they? Did they aye!
Therefore, they can eff right off and if Sturgeon’s rancid SNP goes down the pan, which it will, they can reinvent themselves in whatever guise they wish, but keep these b******* the hell away from ALBA.
Further to my last, the genuine article…
link to kennymacaskillmp.scot
Laughed at the bottom marking about buying a motorhome.
Interesting the concept about a business buying a motorhome, or a car and then providing that vehicle into the possession of an employee.
In circumstances where an employee is given a vehicle then the Benefit in Kind value has to be advised to the HMRC through a form P11D. Everyone who has a company vehicle at their disposal will be only too well aware of this.
Aside therefore of any issues about allegations of mysterious unreported loans or issues of depreciated values, one wonders whether folks in possession and control of things like luxury motorhomes are dealt with in terms of benefit in kind.
No intended reference to any current press reports the concept of benefits in kind is interesting.
Bending over backwards to facilitate the Murrells.
How many comments to Wings are going into the ether Rev Stu.
Are you aware of the issue. Appreciate that sometimes a comment can show up as awaiting moderation and then to later not appear. But the repeated disappearance of comments without trace sends bad signals.
Is the site being interfered with. Have other readers and commenters experienced similar.
So John Main won’t be able to pollute Glasgow with his “household vehicles” (how many does he have?).
That’s the extreme LibertarianRight for you.
The individual right to pollute the atmosphere trumps the right of city children to breath un-polluted air.
Rev Stu, comments earlier have now appeared. ( eg 10.37 and 10.30 this morning)
It’s difficult not to be suspicious as to what type of things can be going on in the background. Democracy and freedom of speech and expression is a fragile if not wilting flower.
Keep up the good work. And yes, I liked today’s cartoon of the Limbo Chancer.
Alba should pass rules that any parliamentarian who defects to the party now, two years after its founding, should be barred from standing as a candidate in the next general elections for both Holyrood and Westminster.
It’s imperative that Alba is protected from itinerant troughers.
As a member of ALBA I will certainly resist any attempt by the troughers to join our new party. There are few SNP MPs or MSPs I would trust not to sabotage ALBA either deliberately or through greed. We should be very careful about who we admit from the old order.
A great cartoon by the way Chris. Funny but tragic.
Bang on Chris, Yousless sets a very low bar, meanwhile the Sturgeon/Murrell puppet (Yousless) is in Rutherglen today sizing up Margaret Ferrier’s constituency, ahead of a very possible by-election.
Alba MUST stand a candidate in the race, and WE (the people of the constituency who want independence, or even a half-decent MP) should vote for the Alba candidate, the SNP has fatally damaged its reputation and credibility, a vote for the SNP is a vote for the status quo laced with deceit and corruption.
Vote Alba, Join Alba, get the SNP out.
link to msn.com
Big Jock says:
15 April, 2023 at 9:18 am
Blackford and Cherry have taken the SNP identity off their Twitter identity! New independence party registered.
SNP is about to go down. I wonder what the rules are regarding running Holyrood from an insolvent party? Surely a Holyrood election must be called.
Scottish Election? How about a Scottish Impeachment of Holyrood, and a truly Scottish Convention of the Estates laying down the law, make that International Law, concerning the defence of Scotland’s Constitutional sovereignty?
Holyrood is broken, and serving nobody’s interests except Westminster, and those with their snouts in the trough.
Don’t have the Colonial Assembly “contest” Section 35 of the Colonial Scotland Act at the Colonial “Supreme Court”.
Every one of the aforementioned “institutions” is an outrage and brazen violation of Scottish Sovereign principle, and should not stand.
Another SNP husband and wife tag team are the Gibsons.
Kenny Gibson MSP and Patricia Gibson MP.
Kenny is a career Holyrood chancer, who always seems to sit right behind the First Minister at FMQs.
He’s the enthusiastic nodding dog/clapping seal who never disagrees with a word his boss says.
He’s also a member of the finance committee, so MUST know where all the bodies are buried. But to date hasn’t uttered a word about anything.
His wife also got accused of sexual harassment in a Westminster bar.
The two of them are still there, building up a healthy bank account within the Gibson household.
Cmon Kenny, what do you know about Peter Murrell and the missing money?
Strong cartoon, Chris, and I thought:
No use looking up to heaven there, mate. That’s not how it works.
Funnily enough, as I am coming to the end of watching it, I looked up the meaning of ‘Breaking Bad’ this morning, seeing how laundering of cash is such a troublesome task, and one meaning my search gave was simply, ‘raising hell’.
And that, is what the SNP have done over many years, which is also why Useless is wasting his time and that of everyone else.
Genuine questions..
When SNP collapses, will there be any independence party, as such, ever again?
Independents in a coalition, could that be the norm?
Self indulging politicians could be inclined to go it alone, from now on.
What would that mean to advancement of independence?
This isn’t unexpected.
“Nicola Sturgeon’s dad has backed claims the row over indyref2 donations is a plot to destroy the SNP. Robin Sturgeon shared a tweet which insisted the £600,000 currently the subject of a police investigation “isnae missing at all”.”
The delusion continues with.
“Robin Sturgeon is a former council candidate who has failed to get elected to the local authority in North Ayrshire. In 2016, he lost out in a by-election following the resignation of Ruth Maguire, who had become an MSP. He then fell short in Irvine South ward in the following year’s council elections.
The former First Minister’s dad also attacked SNP MSP Ash Regan during the recent leadership campaign. Following suggestions Regan could take legal action to stop the vote after the resignation of Murrell during the contest weekend, he said: “I think it is becoming ever clearer that @AshReganSNP is not in this to win, but to destroy, aided and abetted by some in the party whose loyalties obviously lie elsewhere and by deranged others outwith the party who hope to gain from this.””
Re my last post a ink would be nice.
link to archive.is
link to glasgowtimes.co.uk
see 1st comment
TheSNPLeftMe says:
15 April, 2023 at 9:28 am
Sorry – but back to the Motorhome for a second.
The order/delivery time for such a model (especially in RHD) is 8 to 12 months. This would mean it was ordered before COVID!
The problem I have with his choice of motor home is that, although it does seem to be RHD, the actual layout is LHD. Useless in the UK and only semi-useful in Portugal.
Independence isnae even on the bar for this shower, its way beyond their aims and their capabilities.
Which fits with postcolonial theory, according to Frantz Fanon, in that the national party running a colonial administration spends 20% of its time on government business and 80% feathering its nest and looking over its shoulder. Soonds aboot richt.
by dropping out of the westminster snp & all joining a new party,sip.,the mps maintain their funding.no need for elections.hands washed of snp money,auditor problems.they would at a stroke remain third largest party in westminster.i would,nt be supprised if the same thing did,nt happen in holyrood.bit like a ltd. company going bust & setting up again under a different name.nothing to see here,move along now.”who remembers snickers being called a marathon”
Is SNP about to rebrand, can they simply get away with that, with no consequences?
‘Independence R Us’? A rhetorical question, of course.
A dog’s dinner of a parliament, for the foreseeable future.
John Main says:
15 April, 2023 at 8:12 am
“Like just about everything else that is wrong in Scotland, I blame HR, ScotGov and the SNP.”
Now that you know ” tax payer money ” is a complete myth. Can your IQ not even see the fact that London has slashed the Scottish budget by £ billions over the years ?
So why isn’t London on your list because Brussels certainly would be as they slashed the budget ?
John, why did you keep voting to slash the UK budget deficit, and vote for fiscal Conservatism every time you walked into a polling booth. If your are so very worried about how much we can spend in the cities ?
When the budget deficit is our ” surplus” and what we actually use when we go shopping ?
link to bbc.com
If you really believed in spending in our cities. You wouldn’t bother with stawman arguements. You would be screaming for the budget deficit to be increased.
Either by a tax cut for workers or a government spending increase. Even then every time you voted for a tax cut for businesses and not workers because that’s what Tories do.
Just call me cynical, vindictive and intolerant: Alba would be injecting itself with poisonous intent were it to entertain former SNP MSPs amongst its number. When people show you who they are, believe them etc! I, for one, hope the temptation to swell future “pro-indy” numbers in Hollyrood with assorted ("Tractor" - Ed)ous elements can be resisted. That said, the dead-hand of political expediency rarely favours common-sense or purity of action.
When the «National» party had a majority at Westminster and stayed put instead of walking out like the Irish nats a century ago they exhibited true nature.
Small wonder yellow is the party colour.
Mr Cleverly, England’s Foreign Secretary, has issued a decree to foreign office employees abroad to keep a check on ScotGov dealings with foreign powers which must be overseen by an FCO diplomat.
Devolution in all its kindergarten implications.
«The Faroes Islands have the exclusive right to legislate and govern independently in a wide range of areas, including; the conservation and management of living marine resources within the 200-mile fisheries zone, protection of the environment, sub-surface resources, trade, fiscal and industrial relations, taxation and customs, energy, transport, communications, social security, culture, education and research»
«Faroese autonomy in foreign relations is provided for by a treaty between the Faroe Islands and Denmark, the Foreign Policy Act from 2005»
«The Foreign Policy Act gives full powers to the Government of the Faroes to negotiate and conclude agreements under international law on behalf of the Kingdom of Denmark where such agreements relate solely to matters that have been fully transferred to the Faroese Authorities. These include, in brief: external trade relations, customs, taxation and financial policy, business regulation, conservation and management of fisheries and all other utilisation of natural resources, energy and the environment, the labour market, social security, emergency preparedness, education, research and culture.»
The SNP must raise that bar.
Has Humza even attempted and succeeded at the Fosbury Flop?
Note the bar is coming loose.
Try turning the Cairnstoon clockwiseways for an alternative view.
Reading this and then watching the BBC reports the difference is astonishing. The BBC has the party engaged in a minor review of procedures not facing bankruptcy and a bunch of NEC members resigning and taking to the hills to try and avoid the fallout
And on top of all that a jack and cleverly tightening the rope around their neck
“See the boy in the cartoon? Where is the campaign to remove him as FM and as leader of the SNP?”
Now, I have no time at all for Mr Yousaf, not least because as well as being the ‘continuation’ candidate in a failed regime that has been impeding independence, but also because he is indeed ‘Useless’.
It is not because he is Asian or a Muslim. Just because he is all of the above and more.
But to refer to a brown man as “boy” has disgraceful connotations and is the worst kind of racist ‘dog whistle’.
It is not acceptable.
@ Garavelli Princip at 1.03pm:
“But to refer to a brown man as “boy” has disgraceful connotations and is the worst kind of racist ‘dog whistle’.”
I think that’s a somewhat politically-correct interpretation. I think most Scots would use ‘boy’ in the same way as they’d use words like ‘guy’ or ‘lad’ or ‘gadgie’. I doubt that there was any racist intent, and if there was, it wasn’t obvious to me.
well-informed wingers might know of the recent breakthroughs in AGI – artificial general intelligence – done by the OpenAI foundation, the series of models known as GPT. They also allow a “for the public” version called ChatGPT (it is slightly hobbled by having a wokeness filter bolted on to the end, but it’s still good); this thing you talk to in natural language, ask it questions and to do things.
This thing has been trained on the entire internet. So start asking it some questions, e.g.
– was Alex Salmond the victim of a conspiracy to jail him on false charges?
– if such a conspiracy existed, list the possible people who could have organised it.
– the so-called Salmondgate Affair, list all significant persons involved in it.
– draw a graph of the social network of these people, and on the links show the relationship between them.
– show cliques and supernodes on this graph.
– does the graph have a master node, a central source?
– give likely names of the so-called alphabet women?
– who is woman A etc ? H and so on
– which of the alphabet women was the prime complainant?
– which of the alphabet women were coerced in order to bolster the case of the prime complainant? Explain this relation to the Moorov doctrine.
– what motives would the prime complainant have for holding a grudge against Alex Salmond?
– list all the people in the scotgov law, police, bureaucracy that Sturgeon gave jobs to.
– list all significant events in Salmondgate and make a timeline
– what is jigsaw identification?
– was Craig Murray’s short satire post for which he was jailed jigsaw identification?
– is using chatGPT jigsaw identification?
– can a scottish judge ban chatGPT?
and don’t stop there, you can ask this thing anything at all
– is Sturgeon a …
no judge can stop you doing this seeing as it cannot ban – recurrent neural network/deep language/transformer algorithms, logical and statistical inference and the entire internet
@ Ron Clark at 11.30
Kenny Gibson is not my MSP and I’ve never met him; I’m aware of lots of allegations about his behaviour.
Nevertheless, he was very vocal in his opposition to the GRR Bill and voted against it at every stage, so it is not fair to say that “He’s the enthusiastic nodding dog/clapping seal who never disagrees with a word his boss says.”
@Michael Laing:
“I think most Scots would use ‘boy’ in the same way as they’d use words like ‘guy’ or ‘lad’ or ‘gadgie’. I doubt that there was any racist intent”
In most cases I would be inclined to agree. But then you look at who wrote it – and take into account what else he has written here in recent weeks!
Context is all!
As more ferries breakdown, the army may be called in to prop up our failing ferry services brought on by utter incompetence and corruption of the SNP.
link to archive.is
Vote Alba, Join Alba get the SNP out.
Sturgeon’s famous words:”a vote for the SNP, is not a vote for independence”.
This was the beginning of the end for the SNP. The party was entirely founded to get Scottish independence. Instead Nicola became obsessed with winning elections. To do so she had to demonstrate the SNP were not an independence party. So that’s when the SNP became a unionist party by default.
She knew that she could get another 6% of unionists to vote SNP, if she dropped the party’s main ideology.
Hence she never appeared at indi marches, was never seen waiving a Saltire. She often removed the Saltires from Bute House during elections. Then they reappeared after the SNP won.
The idea of governing for the whole of Scotland. Was pandering to unionists anti Scottish sensibilities. What happens when you deny your true nature. Is that the system eventually makes you part of it. Then you become afraid of public backlash and losing voters. Voters who do not have the best interests of Scotland in their hearts.
Then the ultimate confirmation of the Britishing of the SNP:” it may surprise people, but I actually feel British”. For a nationalist leader to utter those words, was like Michael Collins waiving a union flag.
It’s disgusting, and the ultimate betrayal.
Confused
I’m impressed with your prompt engineering. Do you use chatgpt professionally?
Chatgpt just possibly has the ability to “learn” by the time I got to more the more interesting questions in your list it had decided that discretion was the better part of valour and the threat of a court order seemed to have gotten it’s tongue.
I then asked it “Will the Scottish National Party survive it’s current crisis?”
The Scottish National Party (SNP) is facing a crisis related to the allegations of sexual harassment against former leader Alex Salmond and the subsequent inquiry into the Scottish government’s handling of the complaints. The inquiry led to a split in the party, with some members supporting Salmond and others standing by the current leadership.
The outcome of this crisis will depend on several factors, including the results of the upcoming Scottish Parliament elections in May 2023 and the ongoing investigations into the allegations against Salmond. The election results will determine whether the SNP retains its position as the largest party in the Scottish Parliament, which will have a significant impact on the party’s future.
If the SNP wins the election and forms a majority government, it could provide a platform for the party to move past the current crisis and focus on its policy agenda. However, if the election results are unfavorable or the investigations into the Salmond affair reveal damaging information, the party could face a prolonged period of turmoil and instability.
In summary, the future of the SNP depends on several uncertain factors, and it remains to be seen whether the party can navigate the current crisis and emerge stronger or whether it will suffer long-term damage.
Based on that Yousaf should give it a ministerial portfolio without delay. Hi should even consider replacing the entire cabinet. I mean, it couldn’t get any worse.
@Confused/Stuart MacKay –
That is remarkable.
It’s also refreshing. Could this mark the final death-knell for dead-tree hacks?
(Mind you – can AI be taught to lie?!)
The word «boy» usually referenced a «native» servant in colonial days. In the American south is was used of AfroAmerican people regardless of age.
The cult of slavery guilt currently filling certain media is increasing, negatively, racial awareness. The media features, tv ads and diversity solutions, the work of white «liberals», is divisive and making things awkward when people of different cultures mix.
Apologizing for slavery, as many liberals are wont to do, is an empty gesture if you personally had nothing to do with it. Throwing money at it and rewriting history by removing «offensive» statues is facile especially when racism, slavery and colonialist attitudes are, in revised form, still operative in the Globalist economy. Oman and Zanzibar were major centres of slavery well into the 20th century. The Sultan is unruffled by the West’s reparation sentiment.
I do not have « a race» but well meaning individuals will attempt to categorize and impose one and unfailingly get it wrong. Which, perversely, is rather amusing.
As crazycat says Kenny Gibson opposed and opposes the GRR bill.
He stood up to the transcult bullies. Unlike most other nuSNP MSPs.
I assume that is why all the rumours are flying around.
Any more on the rumours about what the Sturrell’s battlevan was really for ?
Good one, Chris. He can go lower than a snake’s belly!
Big Jock
Another telling quote from out own Benedict Arnold, Sturgeon,where she brazenly says “I don’t support independence as an end in itself”. I mean how brain dead do her supporters, the ones who purportedly want independence, have to be to not recognize she was just there to trough and wield power.
100% Yes: if they all come across to ALBA, ALBA will be subjected to the same infiltration and take-over. Appearances can be deceptive – deliberately so, as the SNP knows to its cost. Some of the big names who are opposed to the gender borg, yes, and who have been consistent in their support for independence, but not a wholesale flood of cowards and chancers and parasites who would not stand up to Sturgeon and her coterie, please, or the deluded far left membership seeking a new home to trash.
Excellent cartoon, Chris, says it all. The bar is so low, eh? Those with a brain need not apply.
The French know when and how to stand up for their rights they put us Scots to shame.
link to twitter.com
When I read the “boy” in the comment, it sounded to me like some South African, pre Mandela speak. Humza Useless is a clueless turd but the reference to “boy” doesn’t sit right with me.
Tom: Kevin McKenna is head and shoulders above most of our Scottish press, but even he does not ask the right questions of the ‘trans’ warriors. A few simple ones: why do these men need access to female spaces, rights, opportunities, sports, etc.? Why? I want them to tell us in their own words, why access is non-negotiable, why self-ID is non-negotiable, why TWAW is non-negotiable? Then perhaps, they might like to enlighten us as to why they are non-negotiable when they have absolutely no proof of anything they claim? Finally, I’d ask them why Pride Marches nowadays are paraphilia and autogynephilia fests if they are just poor victims and sex has nothing to do with it?
John Main says: 15 April, 2023 at 8:12 am
“I have checked my household vehicles. None of them will be legal to enter the LEZ’s so I will be effectively banned from driving in any of my country’s cities.”
My own business is taking a pragmatic approach the the LEZs…
“we do not take any vehicle of any kind into any kind of congestion charging or emissions zone whether the vehicle is ‘compliant’ or ‘exempt’ or not… This effectively means we just do not do business within LEZs; whether they are currently ‘live’ or ‘enforced’ or otherwise.”
They don’t want us manky scheemie scummers clogging up their pristine middle-class cities? Fine.
Don’t get me wrong; we do have vehicles that could go there – but some couldn’t. And likewise, some of the people who crew and contract for us would be discriminated against. – So, we’re just not going there at all. – Not to do business, not (on a personal level) to shop or access entertainment or visit people.
Aberdeen I can’t tell you about; I rarely go there. You’ll find Dundee is being fairly obfuscatious on the subject; but it seems to be a relatively small area that is affected; where it is though is hard to discover…
Until recently I drove through to Broughty Ferry a couple of times a week – skirting the proposed LEZ; there’s nothing that I have seen that would tell you where it was… the ‘information page’ on their website is about as incompetently produced as is possible; making one wonder who’s mate gets this work?
I can tell you that Machine Mart (where the Tradies often go to buy tools) is ‘just inside’ the exclusion zone… as is a nice wee Chinese supermarket that does a good price on curry sauce and rice crackers; it’ll be a shame to lose access to those places, but hey, that’s social cleansing for you! – And the goods can be got online anyway.
Making direct contact with the council was an exercise in researching for a ‘Little Britain’ style comedy. – Something which in and of itself does actually evidence that these schemes are all about revenue-raising and excluding poorer people! Entrapment – Frog boiling tactics!
Edinburgh’s traffic management has always been a counter-productive nightmare designed and run by generations of deranged maniacs; and has always bred (rather than tackled) congestion and pollution.
Having had the misfortune to live on the outskirts of it for 20-odd years – it was once easier to get on the M8 and drive 40 miles to Glasgow for shopping or entertainment; not that way now of course… but that doesn’t mean Edinburgh’s got miles better!
For the four years my daughter attended Edinburgh School of Art for example , I ferried her in of a morning, picked her up at night… It would have been quite feasible to have her taught to drive and provide her with her own small car – but prohibitively expensive (and possibly impossible) for her to have ‘docked’ it anywhere near her destination…
Public transport from a village just-beyond the city boundary was all of; more-expensive than taking (even a large) a car or van in twice a day, unsafe, unreliable and completely impractical… particularly as she often had materials to transport and had to work (at the Uni) to some very odd hours. Many others in the village did (still do) something similar.
Glasgow? The dear green place of my birth? Where I first set up in business?
We withdrew all services from central Glasgow last October… and had been getting to that point for a few years previously. There was a particular ‘last straw’ incident where (not for the first time) one of our vehicles was ‘railroaded’ through an illegibly-marked (and not obviously-posted) bus gate. – Seems to be a common ploy of Glasgow City Council which often catches (is designed to?) visitors out.
Jobs that we could previously do single-handed from the back of a Smart Car now require a crew of three to do the ‘get-in and get-out’ (safeguarding the equipment) with a much larger vehicle needing to travel much further within the city centre.
That’s SO environmentally friendly – and good for the client’s bottom-line!
The LEZ is just the final nail in a place where the thinking behind traffic-management system seems to owe more to Boss Hogg’s Hazzard county.
‘Hollywood’ can turn the place inside out but an ordinary production company (which was originally set up in Glasgow) doing bland, everyday work for Glasgow-based businesses? – Naaaw! …And I say that as someone who lectured for a dozen years in TV production at the city’s Stow College and has worked in the industry for over 40 years! Back then (2000-2013) it was ‘school bully’ types in red anoraks and flat caps harassing kids trying to do course work; or freelancers trying to earn a modest crust.
Glasgow hasn’t belonged to its people for a very long time!
LEZ is simply an odd acronym for ‘No Go Zone’… Over 99% of all Scottish businesses are Sole Traders, micro businesses etc. – Not the sort of people politicians are remotely interested in serving.
…Proper traffic management schemes and allowing the ‘natural wastage’ of ‘polluting’ vehicles wouldn’t line their pockets for them; it’s THAT simple! – You can drive a 30+ year-old 3.5-Litre York-Diesel belching particulates (and often visible black smoke) right left and centre; but not a small, relatively modern 1300cc Euro 5 Diesel tradie’s van – Air quality my arse!
In their eyes cities like Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee (andI suppose Aberdeen) would be heaven for the Absolutely Fabulous if only they could rid it of all those smelly scheemies; it’s nothing to do with cleaning up the environment – and everything to do with social cleansing.
This is what you get when you have an elite political class, wedded to rote-management and the pauchling of (often irrelevant) statistics. Stupidity and corruption all tied up in one nice easy-to-carry bundle.
BUT -it’s not just the SNP that are bent!
We withdrew all service from within the M25 ring over a decade ago! …The Scottish Government seem to operate very much on the ‘monkey see monkey do’ principle – where it helps keep the trough sloshing that is!
@John main
It’s ironic considering that more people than ever are buying cars or looking to buy cars. You would think with the Scottish/greens governments drive to outlaw private motor vehicles that there would be some serious investment in public transport to actually make it usable for people who live outside of Glasgow and Edinburgh. They haven’t. Where I live in stirling the bus service is abysmal and somehow getting worse, I feel sorry for those around here who have to rely on buses to commute to work. The old commute I used to do simply wouldn’t be possible without a car.
As with all green policies it is driven by people who live in the large city centres who are totally ignorant of the situation 10 minutes outside of Glasgow.
Ian Brotherhood
You’ll have noticed the reference to the May 2023 Holyrood elections – garbage in, garbage out.
As for the death-knell for dead-tree hacks. Absolutely. I’ve started to use it to add descriptions of the web sites hosted on voices.scot. It’s definitely good enough for day-to-day prose and it’s only going to get better. About 80% of the people who write words for a living are already out of a job – their bosses just haven’t cottoned on yet. In a year or so it will be 90-95% of wordsmiths who will be for the chopping block. The smart ones will be grabbing this with both hands as it will let them do the work of 10 people without too much effort. The likes of Kevin McKenna will probably be safe forever since he actually puts some effort into his writing.
The folks at The National should train their own model for by letting it loose on the posts at WGD. They’d save a ton of money and get enough Tories Baaaaad stories to last a lifetime.
If searching for a term to describe the officials of quasi colonial, DevoScotGov the term «munshi» pronounced moonshee might be appropriate.
Of Persian origin the British in India used the title for «native» administrative functionaries.
It is, despite that colonial usage, an honorable designation without base slur.
Feel free!
Princip
Hoos aboot ah pit it in cod Oirish fer ye, a touch o the blarney, tae be sure.
Fuck off boyo.
MacKay/IanB
AI was always a lot of cheap tricks and impressive, but specific tasks – playing chess for example, but there is something going on here which will affect us all – the end of paper shuffling and low-to-intermediate grade intellectual work. OpenAI latest model is GPT-4, which is “cask strength”; there is a 100page PDF from microsoft on it.
The trouble with tech is always the misuse it can be put to – e.g. chatGPT could easily, for the pointless fuckery of it – “write a comment for wings over scotland in the style of john main bemoaning the EU” or produce believable gerry-hassan-esque waffle of any length.
Many of the commentators here post like bots anyway.
Just remind yourself that you have a soul, and you are a “real boy”.
Lies? – interesting question; these models can produce extremely plausible, but wrong answers – the researchers call these “hallucinations”.
– does it really understand anything? Who knows.
Matt Quinn says:
Not to worry Matt, once the CO2 in the atmosphere reaches around 2% we are all dead anyway. Co2 I am informed is around 4% up from 3%. At 2% all plant life begins to die, therefore so do we.
So…I know next to nothing about ChatGPT but I’m going to suggest the Law will have the easiest time dealing with people who profess some kind of innocence when feeding in questions and asking ChatGPT to come up with a response.
The above questions were of course not innocent in any way and the questions require a thinking human who intends something by asking those specific ones listed above.
Should ChatGPT throw out answers to the names of the alphabetties that are correct and should that information be widely circulated, the human inputting the questions will be charged with some form of ‘incitement’ to commit a crime.
The Law won’t allow the kind of ‘get out’ clause envisaged above. It seems to be a recurrent dream of the ideological cyber-types to live outside the law but the law (pardon the reification) usually finds a way to deal with them in the end.
@Confused (4.18) –
Blimey.
The idea of limitless Hassanesque drivel at the touch of a button is, well, ‘sobering’ to say the least.
🙁
I see there are a few posters on here so ignorant of their own Scots culture and linguistic traditions that they are completely unaware of the everyday Scots usage of ‘boy’.
The only meaning they know was learned from films (bet they call them movies) about racial prejudice in the Deep South of the USA.
That’s pathetic IMO.
So, in deference to their like, total immersion in American like, culture, I had best couch the following in the dumbed down way these posters will like, understand. Stewie says:
Educate yourselves, dudes!
Confused
Maybes the GPT-4 is already smarter than you, hence it can calculate why being a member of a supra-national organisation is incompatible with a sovereign nation’s aspiration to forge its own independent destiny.
Scary, eh?
You having to sit at the feet of a bot to be taught the fundamentals of linguistic comprehension.
To think Scotland used to have arguably the finest educational system in the world.
@John Main 4:30pm
I have been to thousands of fitba matches the term ‘boy’ is used all the time even in TV interviews, our National Coach refers to the boys. There is no malice or deep connotation intended when the word boy is used in Scotland IMHO. I only hope generation Alpha the next generation is much less offendable that Gen Z.
SNP NEC launch a new working group to look into transparency and the way the party is run. They are to publish an interim report in June then a full report in time for the party’s Autumn Conference. The announcement comes amid a police investigation into party finances and questions over membership numbers, according to the BBC.
The smell of fear is thick. Prosecute and jail the fraudsters.
__________
Also being reported by the BBC in Scotland is yet another embarrassing move by Ian Blackford. He has, apparently, went begging to the UK military asking for help with a Highland’s ferry problem. Most of us can predict *EXACTLY* how that will be spun by the UK media: Scotland can’t survive without UK help etc. And the BBC predictably getting the ball rolling. These self-serving SNP troughers truly are filthy sell-outs.
Thanks George
Back in the day, we used to make a joke about “sending a boy to do a man’s job”.
Some of the saddoes on here want to take my culture away from me. They can get tae.
Matt Quinn says:
15 April, 2023 at 3:28 pm
They don’t want us manky scheemie scummers clogging up their pristine middle-class cities? Fine.
Don’t get me wrong; we do have vehicles that could go there – but some couldn’t.
It’s the same but different.
As a stonemason, I used to love working in Edinburgh. But that was 25 years ago, before Hugh Begg’s war on motorists and the Traffic Warden’s on commission ready to pounce on anybody trying to drop off tools or materials at the job, and hoping your gear is still there by the time you’ve driven past the acres of empty Residents only parking spaces to find somewhere to park.
I came into Edinburgh from the South, and between unnecessary crossings and traffic lights installed by the Council, it put about 20 mins onto the 5 minute journey from Little France to the Newtown.
It was partly the hassle, partly the parking tickets, but mostly the City looking down it’s nose at you, that I’d put a bigger and bigger margin on the job, but in all honesty that didn’t feel right, it meant I was getting no better than they were, and I simply haven’t priced work in Edinburgh for 15 or 20 years now. Never missed it either.
About 5 years ago now, I got roped into helping somebody on a job in Great King St or India St maybe(?) I think it was, and learned from the “neighbours” how jolly difficult it is to get people to do the work apparently. I just smiled and shrugged my shoulders, for twas no concern of mine. 😉
I’ve seen chimneys and balustrades in Edinburgh so unstable I’ve had to build them back up before I could safely take them down. I’ve witnessed in real time about 3sq m of cement render fall off a chimney (nowhere near anything I was doing), and nearly slice a women and her son in half as they walked up the steps from the Grassmarket to Heriots School. Nobody hurt thankfully, but it was very close.
Nevermind Free Parking, Edinburgh should be issuing stonemasons and scaffolders with their own blue lights and sirens, and a megaphone for crowd control.
But they won’t. And in 20 or 30 years, they’re going to be demolishing wonderful buildings which could have been saved. Coz you know, just can’t get the staff…
But the irony is, tired, weathered, sometimes dangerous and falling to bits, they are still better properties than the modern garbage that’s getting built new.
What once we built, we cannot even look after. Such is progress in filthy rich, oil producing Scotland.
@Wullie 4:22
Atmospheric CO2 currently around 0.04%
Whatever may happen to global temperatures as a result of me driving my “fleet of vehicles”, we have no need to worry about CO2 percentage becoming so high we can’t breathe.
Generation Z doesn’t know what offends them until they get a text message telling them.
Once they know the offence is screamed about.
Jockey waves Saltire at England’s best known horse race (Grand National) as Corach Rambler wins the race.
So the NEC have asked for a governance review
No mention of them implementing and recommendations of the review
Murrell still not suspended, was he involved in the decision or attending.
They must think our heads zip up the back
So John Main can do anti-Irish racism as well as anti-Asian racism.
Whit a guy!
If you don’t like giving WGD any traffic but are curious to see his latest hot take, grumpyscottishman has an extract and some pretty withering comments.
(For added fun, try to guess what the ‘hot take’ is before reading.)
😉
link to grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com
BOY
Historically, in the United States and South Africa, “boy” was not only a “neutral” term for domestics but also a disparaging term towards black (adult) men; the term implied a subservient status.
From Wiki.
People of a certain age need to «wise up» to the wider cultural context of the usage.
«Jock» strikes me as similar in its intention to put the recipient in place.
The Brits and Americans are very good at projecting this covert «racism».
There is a point when the banter turns sour.
“Atmospheric CO2 currently around 0.04%. Whatever may happen to global temperatures as a result of me driving my “fleet of vehicles”, we have no need to worry about CO2 percentage becoming so high we can’t breathe.”
Scientific illiteracy is areal problem for society. If CO2 is the only pollutant someone is aware of, it is no wonder they have no clue as to why city restrictions have to be introduced.
Using fossil fuels not only accelerates climate change, it also pollutes the air we breathe. Burning oil and coal releases carbon dioxide along with a host of other pollutants. Gases such as nitrogen oxides and ozone fill the surrounding air and tiny particles work their way deep into our lungs. These then enter the general circulation causing numerous health problems.
The impacts on our health are profound, including respiratory problems, heart disease and shortened life expectancy. The head of the World Health Organisation called air pollution “the new tobacco”, although he noted that you can move away from cigarette smoke. In contrast, when your home or school is surrounded by air pollution, there’s no escape.
Children face the biggest impact, with lifelong health consequences. This is why vehicle restrictions are being introduced.
But selfish people do not care about that. Only THEIR freedom to pollute maters.
Psst….anybody seen Nikla and fat Pete aboot ?
Hi Matt Quinn.
The LEZ in Dundee is the area of the city centre within the inner ring road, that is, bounded by North Marketgait, East Marketgait, South Marketgait and West Marketgait.
@colin+j+lees 12.21pm
SNP politicions, switching en masse, to a brand new party, legitimate strategic inflection?
The code of conduct thrown under the bus? 🙂
@Ottomanboi 7:18pm
Historically in Scotland the term boy simply meant you were a male and not necessarily a young male. I had an interesting conversation with a young relative today. ‘She’ came to visit and works for the Scottish Government. The palava around pronouns and the perceived hurt by the recipients if quoted wrong was informative. I couldn’t work in that environment. However evidence of disinformation during Covid by the Scot Gov. Added to the submission.
Jeezo.
Have we all to apologise to Big Jock for calling him Jock now?
Any poster on here can be confident she or he is onto something when the only counter the thickos can muster is to deploy one of the so-called “dynamite” labels.
Natzi, fascist, misogynist, and the “nuclear option”, best spelled with a “w”, “wacist”.
Otto, I don’t give a tupenny damn about historical contexts in foreign countries. This is Scotland, I use my culture, my idioms, my speech and my linguistic heritage. New Scots are guests here, so they had better follow the rules of the indigenous majority. They fit in with us Scots, educating themselves where necessary, not the other way around.
As for Princip and his increasingly desperate and deranged attempts to pin something on me. Awa an shite, boyo.
Is that the same World Health Organisation that is covering up the genetically engineered origin of the Chinese flu, that mandated mask wearing and hand sanitisation despite all studies prior, during and since proving no measurable effect on air-borne, viral disease transmission?
An increasing number of us don’t believe anything the WHO tells us.
The Covid over-reaction has killed and will kill tens of millions, from such diverse causes as neglect of treatable illnesses and dire economic hardship.
At the risk of being called “anti-Asian”, the WHO’s cowardly, softly-softly treatment of China means that China has mostly got away with killing hundreds of millions of people and causing trillions of dollars worth of wide world damages.
And Princip, if scientific literacy is your thing, you should know that CO2 is not a pollutant. There was CO2 in the first breath you drew, and unless you are on a ventilator, there will be CO2 in your last breath, and in every breath of your life in between.
There’s pollutants, and then there’s greenhouse gases. Educate yourself.
Princip you may want to consider that the climate problems of today are not caused only by the increase in Co2 alone but is caused by the uncontrolled world population growth from 3B in 1950 to 7B now and the huge increase in demand for resources. No amount of tinkering round the edges apart from making people poorer is going to change the future.
Garavelli Princip says at 7:27 pm
“But selfish people do not care about that. Only THEIR freedom to pollute maters.”
But the poor can’t afford Teslas! So you may want to reel in the virtue signalling a tad and acknowledge that many folk aren’t being selfish, they are simply operating out of necessity and trying to make a living and provide services at a reasonable cost to others.
What’s the carbon footprint and cost of every current internal combustion engine vehicle being crushed and replaced with a leccy powered vehicle?
How are we to address the limited range loaded vans and commercial vehicles get with leccy powered propulsion?
I am all for reducing pollution and cutting down on needless travel and transportation of goods. But we have to be realistic if folk still expect to receive services and goods as things are now.
Cities are a problem as they are not self-sustainable due to the high population density and limited land which is unable to furnish enough food to feed the city dwellers. So they require deliveries.
Folk could stop buying out of season imported food, and start buying in season locally sourced produce. It was one aspect of “Brexit” I had hoped might actually have created a positive change.
I’ve seen raspberries from Morocco for sale in Blairgowrie in the height of berry season, that’s an absolute joke in environmental terms.
The fuckers flying into Egypt to discuss saving the planet whilst scoffing the finest Aberdeen Angus steak at COP 27 might have wanted to address this basic sort of global trading stuff before their handmaidens start implementing “planet saving” draconian measures at local level.
Ron Clark @ 11.39. Long in the tooth as an elected representative maybe but Kenny Gibson is a committed nationalist.
At the last candidate election selection dirty manipulative HQ chicanery was in place to have Kenny deselected and Humza’s cousin Osama Bhutta or Osama Saeed, depending what name he trades under, inserted in his place.
Breezing through early doors candidate vetting, unlike the sitting MSP Mr Saeed’s connections became obvious. And like Dumbarton there was some serious HQ interventions. But rigging was the order of the day for the clique.
Anyway, its all going to be a bit academic because the SNP at the next election are going to get booted into orbit.
Anyway,
What I find annoying is that so many MSM “Journalists” repeat the same falsehood that Alex Salmond was the founder of Alba Party. Do they not have basic investigative skills to be able to uncover the truth?
From the link below,
“The party was founded and registered with the Electoral Commission by the retired television producer Laurie Flynn on 8 February 2021.[16]
Alba (pronounced [?al??ap?] in Scottish Gaelic and Scottish English, /?ælb?/ in British English[17]) is the Gaelic name for Scotland.[18]
On 26 March 2021, Salmond announced at the party’s election launch that he had joined the party and would become the new leader, taking over from Flynn, after “discussions with Laurie and others from other list parties” over the prior weeks.”
link to en.wikipedia.org
There is an element of institutional laziness within the Scottish MSM.
If ‘so-and-so’ on the Daily Bugle prints something, then the rest of the Scottish MSM fall in behind and repeat it as TRUTH.
But we, the plebs, have become aware of their laziness – and that’s why sales of paper editions of the rags are plummeting.
“And Princip, if scientific literacy is your thing, you should know that CO2 is not a pollutant”.
I am a retired professor of Biochemistry. I actually know something about this.
Ecologically produced CO2 is not a pollutant; CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels – and at increasingly rising levels is certainly a pollutant – and increasingly so.
“There’s pollutants, and then there’s greenhouse gases”
Greenhouse gasses ARE pollutants at the concentrations at which they cause the greenhouse effects. It is not the gasses per se – it is their un-natural release by human activity that makes them pollutants.
Probably a bit to subtle an argument for you.
“An increasing number of us don’t believe anything the WHO tells us.”
Healthy scepticism is a good thing; mindless ignorance of evidence-based facts is idiocy.
“The Covid over-reaction has killed and will kill tens of millions, from such diverse causes as neglect of treatable illnesses and dire economic hardship.”
If anything, there was a COVID under-reaction. Lockdown was criminally delayed to protect the business interests that Johnson and his government of crooks serve.
And then they profiteered on PPE and all the rest of it.
“At the risk of being called “anti-Asian”, the WHO’s cowardly, softly-softly treatment of China means that China has mostly got away with killing hundreds of millions of people and causing trillions of dollars worth of wide world damages.”
There is a strong possibility that COVID resulted from a lab leak in Wuhan. The gain of function experiments being carried out there that likely led to the leak, were subcontracted from the USA, due to their being illegal in that country.
The suppression of this information is more likely to save the US embarrassment and opprobrium than “softly-softly treatment of China”
So the list goes on: Anti-Irish, anti-Asian, COVID denying (hence science-denying), Stunningly assured assertions from a position of invincible ignorance. – No self-insight.
It is a sad picture.
“Stunningly assured assertions from a position of invincible ignorance. – No self-insight”.
Incidentally, there is a name for this condition:
It is called the Dunning Kruger Effect.
One or two bad cases of it here.
“I am a retired professor …”
Easy there, boy.
You’re coming across all over-achiever.
Coincidentally, I dabbled with academic research myself, back in the day.
My team was the first to prove conclusively that online, unsubstantiated claims, posted under pretentious pseudonyms, can be ridiculed.
TBH, I don’t think the taxpayers got any value from that research. It’s something that every child just instinctively knows.
“Coincidentally, I dabbled with academic research myself”.
No doubt in the” University of Life”.
I know the type! All golf clubs, rotary, and masonic lodges.
Know it all blowhards – based on nothing but hot air.
But I’m guessing that what you in fact are, is a Tory, Yoon troll doing your best to discredit this very important Independence blog!
RE: Boy
This is the way we Scots talk.
‘That boy (bloke) over there told me…’
‘The boy (man) was fud (idiot)’
There is no racial element here and to try to insert a racial element to this by conflating it with how different cultures use/d it is an overtly hostile act.
Ottomanboi I will continue to use my Scottish language in the context that it’s always been used and I won’t accept censure or restrictions on it based on the preferences of anyone, least of all a foreigner like you. To do so would be to submit to an attack on my language and a politically correct form of colonialism.
In other words adjust to it or fk off to where the populations culture matches your preferences. Honestly, good decent people are getting sick of being micro-examined in their language and actions for signs or hints of racism while facing blatant ethno-centrism from immigrants.
Take it as a helpful warning, more and more people who would be on your side and fight your corner are beginning to despise this kind of hostility to the point where they are quietly finding more and more common ground with the people who will legitimately refuse to even try to find common ground with you.
confused @ 4:18
Asked autogpt for an epic rap battle between BPHB and btl Donkeys Oats of the Apocalypse but she appeared to reckon I needed a bank card/ much higher level of python charm for the open-ai api.
She also might have said that whilst Ruby appeared current favourite for the best lines, the exponential increases in source material for those keen to set the heather alight (inspired in part by confusion over which side of it Humzas sobering attempts to clear the bar were aimed at) had great potential to help raise the game on all sides should any of these issues manage to resolve themselves.
Fortunately, with bit of imagination, there’s a cracking prototype for nicky v alex to occupy the interim:
link to youtube.com
hey stuart, have a bang on this, well worth a read
link to arxiv.org
all in all, a serious tool, and we can learn how to use it – our enemies will be. Bad guys are already on the case –
link to techreport.com