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Critical Massie

Posted on November 19, 2017 by

This is Spectator columnist Alex Massie reacting earlier this week to the news of Alex Salmond doing a show for Russian news channel RT.

Alex Salmond is these days a private individual with no responsibilities to anyone, and RT is a legal, Ofcom-licenced UK broadcaster whose output is beamed free into every home in the land.

The first episode of The Alex Salmond Show featured guests from both Labour and the Tories, opened with lengthy discussion and advocation of women’s and LGBT rights, followed by a 15-minute interview with deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont – something which has proven beyond the capabilities of mainstream UK news outlets despite the remarkable events currently engulfing an EU member state.

(BBC Scotland, we should perhaps note at this point, does not currently carry a single dedicated political TV show from a Scottish perspective at all and hasn’t done for more than a year.)

Massie used some slightly more measured language when it came to writing about the show in the Spectator, merely describing Salmond as an “idiot”, a “fool”, a “chump”, “pitiful”, “embarrassing” and “disgraceful”. But when it came to another former Scottish party leader, he was for some reason in a rather more forgiving mood.

Kezia Dugdale, unlike Alex Salmond, still has a day job in politics. Despite resigning as Scottish Labour branch office leader, she remains a list MSP for the Lothian region, and is paid over £61,000 a year by the taxpayer to represent the people of that area.

She’s chosen, though, to take three weeks off from that job in order to appear on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, during which time the people of Lothian can presumably go and get stuffed.

(She’ll be donating her salary to charity while on the show, but that doesn’t help people who need the services of their member of parliament, and the financial sacrifice will be outweighed many times over by the fee Dugdale will be paid for appearing, of which she’s pledged only “a portion” to good causes.)

So you’d expect Alex Massie to be pretty hopping mad about it, right?

But all he can manage is a weary, vaguely disapproving “good luck to her”.

We have no idea how much Salmond’s production company is being paid to make The Alex Salmond Show, but we suspect that it’s a somewhat less profitable endeavour than Kezia Dugdale’s jungle adventure.

And we’re also pretty sure that raising women’s rights, LGBT rights and the situation in Catalonia is a more honourable pursuit than eating kangaroo’s genitals for laughs and money, even if Dugdale occasionally manages to squeeze in a bit of politics chat with some mouth-breathing bubblewit from TOWIE or Made In Chelsea between waterfall showers and Bush Tucker Trials.

But the sheer temerity of Alex Salmond in yet again refusing to lie down and die when indignant Unionist hacks wanted him to will never be forgiven as long as he lives, and is the frame through which all Scottish political journalism should always be viewed.

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275 to “Critical Massie”

  1. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    John Swinney hit the nail on the head. “The stench of hypocrisy” is how he described unionists demanding that Alex Salmond stop broadcasting to the public. They make themsleves look more pathetic every day.

  2. Muscleguy
    Ignored
    says:

    Very nice headline Rev. As for Massie, what a shrivelled, bitter shell of a man he comes across as.

    As Alex said in his first show ‘Oh the gift tae gie us, tae see oursels as ithers see us’.

  3. Gullane No4
    Ignored
    says:

    Disappointing choice of adjectives from a Spectator writer. I would have thought that they would show a bit more class.

  4. John Jones
    Ignored
    says:

    Funny how Alex Salmond gets castigated for being on RT, But not a cheep about Stan Collimore doing the same thing, maybe it’s because he’s English and therefore immune from criticism.

  5. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m reading that as Alex Massie being still on the fence over the Alex Salmond show

    🙂 🙂

  6. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    I see Kevin has an interesting article in the Guardian, ostensibly on Alex’s show but actually about state intervention in politics, including possible UK state intervention in the Scottish referendum. Typical Kevin tongue in cheek opinion piece but he touches on important points.

    No comments allowed yet unfortunately.

  7. Valerie
    Ignored
    says:

    Visceral hatred on parade for all to see from Mr Massie. Fine use of his talents.

    Watching Brewster, who appears to be growing out his fringe, questioning Keith Brown in that aggressive style.

    “WHERE ARE SCOTTISH RENEWABLES HELD IN HIGH REGARD”

    he barks at Keith. Now he’s asking Keith if he will appear on RT.

  8. cuilean
    Ignored
    says:

    David Davies was paid £750 an hour plus travel costs for four appearances on RT between last December and September, has said said he has no regrets about appearing.

    How hypocritical is Theresa May for urging Alex Salmond to “reconsider” his decision to host a chat show on RT?

    https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/snp/alex-salmond/news/90693/alex-salmond-writes-theresa-may-over-russia?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

  9. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    They are just jealous.

    Alex Salmond beating them at their own game.

    The BBC MSM propaganda programme. Working for tax evading Non Doms.

    It just gets worse and worse.

    Celebrities in the bugs. Cooking programmes while starving people to death.

  10. Iain
    Ignored
    says:

    The British establishment and media weren’t shocked or angry about David Cameron’s appeal to Putin for Russia’s support against the cause of Scottish independence, were they? It was all chumminess on that issue, wasn’t it?

    But Salmond having his own show on RT is, somehow, shamefully taking the side of the western world’s arch-enemy.

  11. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    The Unionists even managed to get in their condemnation of Salmond on the most recent edition of Radio Scotland’s “Breaking The News” comedy show via journalist Hugo Rifkin.

    Not a peep of protest from anybody else –

    which was hugely disappointing given the supposed point of the show.

    Clearly no intention of tackling the issue that the condemnation via people like Rifkin was a very big news story.

  12. Iain
    Ignored
    says:

    Incidentally, I notice that you can’t comment on Spectator articles now unless you subscribe to the magazine.

    So: Spectator journalists now in hiding like those in the New Statesman, and Carrell in the Guardian.

  13. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    I suppose one of the key differences between Alex’s show and Brewer or Neil is that I am watching Alex’s show.

  14. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Ah, the thoughtful even-handed spirit =cough= of the BritNat mentality shines through once again for us all to admire and respect.

    It’s clear who, between Salmond and Dugdale, the Tory wordsmith really does respect, even if he has a very peculiar way of showing it.

    Unlike his absurd posturing over Alex, I do tend to share Massie Jr.’s sympathy for Kezia however. How often have we all freely used the term “poisoned chalice” in connection with her former position? The NorthBritLab franchiseholder slot didn’t exactly do any of her predecessors much good, and likely won’t deliver much joy to Corbyn’s grey political commissar either.

    Kez’s first choice of future direction may not seem very smart, but then she does have an upcoming =ahem= legal defence to fund, and it doesn’t look as if the comrades are rallying behind her on that one. With friends like that, who needs enemies?

  15. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    Mr Massie appears to have transposed his insults.

    If you give an independence supporting individual a platform outwith your or your political leanings the opportunity to have a voice , it fair shakes them up. This ia only an example of the way most Unionists regard that opportunity for an alternative voice for independence.

    Media ,it appears, is only good when it expresses one viewpoint.

  16. Valerie
    Ignored
    says:

    BTW, that beautiful human being, Harry Leslie Smith, who I believe is well into his 80s, and campaigns like a Trojan for far Left, was on RT.

    He is crowd funding for his Last Stand tour of refugee sites. He tweets every day, so of course someone asked why he was on RT.

    He responded saying he will appear on any platform, unpaid, to get his message over.

  17. ClanDonald
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m no fan of RT but the hypocrisy of the media really does give off a bowfin’ stench.

    Here’s another example, how many of the journalists squealing about Salmond being a Putin-enabler for appearing on RT got their knickers in a similar twist over this? None, you say?

    “Figures from the Electoral Commission show that the Conservatives have banked more than £161,000 from people with links to the Kremlin”

    Link : http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/27/david-cameron-russian-oligarchs-donations-ed-miliband

  18. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    What I would like to know would our shower have given him his own show and under his rules I doubt it.
    Cameron help me please Mr Putin.

  19. Bill McLean
    Ignored
    says:

    Simply shameful even for a former journalist of his poor quality!

  20. Muscleguy
    Ignored
    says:

    There is a new Reds Under the Bed hysteria over Russia. I’m no fan of Trump but the hysteria over any contact with Russia is getting very silly.

    This has infected our politics and made fools of a number of politicians in their urgent need to distance themselves. Most notably Patrick Harvie who has gone down in a lot of people’s estimations as a result.

    In NZ the Greens just had a terrible election as their new leader revealed she had fraudulently claimed the dole in the past. Even apologising and repaying the sum did not save her. Patrick needs to be careful, he has calculated wrongly on this issue and made himself look silly and foolish and hung his staff out to dry as a result.

  21. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    Must hurt Massie having to turn down the RT ruble,plus losing the chance to spout his purple prose to a worldwide audience,

    it`s not as if Massie is part of the Oxbridge Mafia,programmed to protect the English establishment whatever the cost,

    think he had an Irish education,which would make you think he would be more antiestablishmentarianist,

    or maybe his lack of belonging to the Oxbridge Mafia makes him feel he has to be more pro establishment to fit in.

    anyhoo,

    Alex and Prof T Devine are doing a show/talk on Sat Nov 25th in Edinburgh,still some tickets left i think,

    https://tinyurl.com/yctxq5wv

  22. Jimbo
    Ignored
    says:

    The MSM hacks (AKA Unionist party activists) are furious that Alex Salmond hasn’t just got himself a platform on a TV channel, he’s got himself a platform on an international TV channel. That’ll be boiling their blood. The whole world will now be able to look in on the pathetic state of the mendacious foreign MSM in Scotland and the narrow, puerile politics of the British Unionist parties.

    Also; I felt that Alex Salmond raising LGBT rights on a Russian TV channel was a great thing to do. In view of Russia’s attitude to LGBT rights, it showed he has full control over output. If translated and shown in Russia it would probably be considered scandalous. 😀

  23. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Again in this wonderful democracy and to news media openness.

    Did the BBC get turned down by Alex Salmond when they offered him a to slot? How about ITV or STV? Sky?

    Nope.

    Why? Because from the state broadcaster (U.K.) onwards they wish to stifle independent thought and actions in relation to Scotland.

    If only he signed up for I’m a celeb……. oops.

  24. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    There’s a spectrum of groups with self importance behaviour. It starts from feeling elite and entitled, moving through institutional exceptionalism, to a collective narcissistic personality disorder!

    It sometimes seems everyone related to WM, its Establishment, its media, and the Union which defines it, suffer to some degree from this sense of entitlement. They believe and behave as if their UK is something special on this planet of nations.

    (I’m sure the EU27 currently see the UK in this light !)

    It manifests most frequently as hypocrisy and a genuine belief in ‘one rule for us, another for them’. Basically, rules are for the little people, not the special people like themselves.

    We Indy supports, for the most part, don’t want to be better than everyone else, we just want to be the same as everyone else. And why should that offend anyone? Well, of course, it will offend those whose every decision is driven by their sense of superiority and entitlement.

    How dare Alex Samond behave as he wishes, such freedoms are for the specials!

  25. Robert Roddick
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve just watched the Sunday Politics on BBC with the aid of subtitles as is my wont. When the Lib Dem guest ventured the opinion in connection with the BiFab situation that ”I think that the Scottish Government has done a fantastic job”, it came up on the screen in subtitles,as ”I think that the Scottish Government has done a good job”. Maybe they can’t spell ‘fantastic’ or maybe it was just one of the usual subliminal tricks,beloved of the BBC, to make the Scottish Government seem less than fantastic.

  26. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    Now that it’s become our civic duty to browse the RT schedules for interesting shows designed to bring down the West and undermine our values, I watched Renegade Inc.

    Bailiff Britain reveals how the Justice system (England) and Local Authorities are privatising debt collection.

    Informative and useful for anyone likely to become the victim of state sanctioned bullying such as single mothers who steal food because they can’t feed their children. A problem Alex Massie & Co have absolutely no interest in discussing.
    It’s high time their neo-liberal values were undermined.

    https://www.rt.com/shows/renegade-inc/408200-britain-debt-privatisation-bailiff/

  27. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    Alex Massie? Wasn’t/isn’t he some kind of Winter Olympics performer?

    https://www.paralympic.org/Athletes/Biographies?athlete=Alex%20Massie

    Oh!
    Wait!

    My wee pal has just told me this particular Alex Massie thinks he/she is a journalist of some kind. So that’ll explain why I haven’t heard of him/her for I’ve only read reliable sources of news since around the 1970s.

    Maybe he/she writes for the Daily Mail or Daily Wrecker or some of the other rapidly failing Scottish dailies. Perhaps if said daily publications were to employ known good, unbiased, journalists they could avoid having to rely upon advertisers or foreign wealthy owners with axes to grind yet still continue to go down the circulation list.

  28. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Man gets to speak his mind:

    How dare Alex Salmond appear on another country “State Broadcaster” channel says the BBC?
    He’s a respected former politician they say, well not respected by the English government or the Scottish English media ever, they used to denigrate him at every opportunity, they even burned an effigy of him, made a poster campaign of him calling him a thief, they called him a joke politician, but now they insist they respected and admired him

    John Swinney hit the right word when he called the lot of them hypocrits and I would add, of the highest order of hypocrits

    They can’t censor him, they can’t edit him, they can’t get to who he has on his show because they don’t know until they’ve done it, and they can’t stop him!
    and every time they try his viewing figures will go up

    Boy does it get right up their England worshipping Arse licking noses

    Gordon Brewer today spends half of his interview with Keith Brown insisting England was better at everything because the Scottish government with their limited powers can’t offer an absolute cast iron guarantee that BiFab wont continue to thrive in perpetuity forever until the end of time and beyond or they’re failures

    Kezia going up the jungle is a laughable distraction but deadly serious at the same time claims Neil Findlay, pity he didn’t make such a fuss when Tory MSP at the time Douglas Ross was away from Parliament missing voting and representing his constituents to referee Rangers football matches or when the Scottish parliament wasn’t good enough for him and became a MP then proceeded to do it all over again

    Maybe hypocricy isn’t a word that appears in the British Nationalist dictionary

    Kezia is about to blow the whole Scottish Labour hypocricy up along with Jeremy Corbyn and all his little lying Labour chums, does anybody seriously think Richard Leonard, Neil Findlay and pals are going to escape the wrath of the woman they tortured, plotted against and conspired against NOT to exact her revenge

    A woman scorned isn’t likely to punch you in the mouth but you’ll bear the marks her tongue leaves on you forever

    Oh the joy!

  29. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    It appears Mr Massie needs a hug… along with the vast bulk of the mainstream unionist media. More than a hint of the hypocritical tbf.

    Unless I’m much mistaken, the commentariat’s job is and has been, to shape opinion. You only do that by ‘informing’ from your perspective surely? How you inform though, is the real issue I suppose. Honestly/dishonestly or passionately/dispassionately. Objectivity RARELY.

    Seems to me there’s quite a lot wrong with the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ attitude of those meeja types and the political class. It also seems that Mr Massie and a great many others in his profession don’t like folk forming opinions or having lives of their own. (shrugs)

    Wonder if it’s ever occurred to these bods to ask why people should listen to them? Why we should lend weight to their opinions, trust their judgement and so on? Maybe they should take a look out of the window every now and again and look at the UK politics and society THEY helped create with THEIR… opinion.

    They might have a bit of a lightbulb moment, but most likely not. (really big shrug)

  30. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Lord Macaulay, quoted in a comment by A Hinnrichs on the letter page of Saturday’s National sums it up very well.

    “we know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality”

  31. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m very grateful to Alex Massie and the rest of the MSM for drawing my attention to RT. I am now a big fan.

    I’ve just been watching which I found very interesting.

    https://tinyurl.com/ybxwuq22

    broadcast on 4th Nov.

  32. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Interesting to note that amid all the positive coverage of happy crowds in Zimbabwe on the BritBC radio, there has been no scrutiny of the burning question, ‘Is it legal within the constitution?’

  33. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    All I want for Christmas is an edit button.

    link should have come after watching in last post.

    Anyone know if Alex Massie’s birth was by cesarean section if not he should be very grateful for a proper …… I just can’t bring myself to even type the pejorative word for a woman’s genitals.

  34. Clootie
    Ignored
    says:

    I started to compile a list of ex-politicians who have taken very lucrative positions at a senior level in finance, media and business.
    Another list would be those “Lords” taking a 1000 pounds a day for introductions.
    I could raise the issue of the BBC broadcasting UK propaganda on the World service for several decades ( paid by Whitehall until a few years ago)

    …but what’s the point. The Unionist frenzy will dominate the news. In my view no thinking individual could have watched Alex’s first show and described it as Russian propaganda.

    Massie like so many supporters of the Empire wants a return to the “obedient Scot”. Massie sees Kezia in the Harry Lauder mode of entertaining without challenge.

    Blair / Brown / Darling / Gove / Fox / Wallace / Alexander etc etc. Are Loyal Scots
    The management and cast of BBC Reporting Scotland are Loyal Scots
    Sport stars / entertainers all know the risk of NOT being loyal Scots.

    However anyone who has ever suggested being loyal to Scotland and the truth is to be attacked at every opportunity.

    I suspect the real annoyance to Massie is that Alex Salmond actually executed journalism instead of the trash the MSM wants to feed us.

  35. Greannach
    Ignored
    says:

    If all Kezia Dugdale wants is to be a celeb, you’d wonder why she went to the bother of trying to get elected to Parliament rather than just follow the X Factor route.

  36. farnorthdavie
    Ignored
    says:

    Re the dug having three weeks out and donating her salary to good causes.

    I wonder why she should have any salary during those weeks to donate? Her salary is paid directly by us all through the taxes we must pay therefore I find it galling that she, or any elected politician, can simply take three weeks paid leave in addition to the paid leave they are already entitled to.

    Simply offering to give our money away is, in some way, supposed to make us think that this antic is acceptable it seems.

    Rather a contrast with the employees of BiFab who continued to work knowing they would not get paid. Compare and contrast the labourers with the ‘Labour’!

  37. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Hark the Herald: by Paul Hutcheon Investigations Editor

    https://archive.is/aYwK2

    PS:
    Has Leonard saved anything else since last night?

  38. dakk
    Ignored
    says:

    Massie seems angry,threatened and fearful of this RT Alex Salmond business.

    It’s not fear of Russia which troubles him though.

    There is a continuing nagging fear of Scotland which still haunts the British nationalists who live among us.

    Let’s enjoy their discomfiture despite the foul,distasteful language used in this attack.

  39. Graemeo Rab
    Ignored
    says:

    Do British Unionist actually believe that they somehow hold a higher moral ground than anything from Russia?.Clearly they need a reality check, for a vast chunk of people in Scotland view British Unionism as abhorrent and completely abnormal behaviour.

  40. Fairliered
    Ignored
    says:

    Dr Jim
    When Douglas Ross is refereeing Rangers football matches he is representing his constituents, particularly if he is as biased as we supporters of non Glasgow teams expect from Scottish referees.

  41. Blair Paterson
    Ignored
    says:

    Clootie A., Darling is not Scottish he is London born so is English it always amazes me how many people don’t know this

  42. Brian Powell
    Ignored
    says:

    call me dave

    Hang on, 5 minutes?

  43. gus1940
    Ignored
    says:

    Isn’t it amazing how often ‘journalists’ from The Spectator appear as political pundits particularly on The BBC.

    Although the rag is owned by the despicable Barclay Brothers management is delegated to our old pal Brillo as head honcho.

    Is it not time that some investigation was carried out on the apparently very cosy relationship between The Spectator and The BBC particularly as regards Brillo’s position as lead political attack bitch.

  44. gordoz
    Ignored
    says:

    Has turned into his faither ! :):):)

  45. yerkitbreeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Funny – I had completely forgotten about Mr Massie as he’s had so little of value to say recently.

    I suppose his vitriol is a way of getting noticed.

  46. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    I think the personalised attacks on Kezia by us does us no favours. We can leave that to the Labour Party and to the media.

    Our job is to persuade our opponents to be our friends and supporters.

  47. Gfaetheblock
    Ignored
    says:

    Re John Jones and Collymore.

    You are wrong, there has been widespread condemnation and mocking of Collymore for taking the rouble.

    https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/nov/01/stan-collymore-russia-tv-show-rt

  48. Jason Smoothpiece
    Ignored
    says:

    The British Nationalist Centre will be horrified that Mr Salmond has access to well viewed media, this is not part of their plan.

    As for personal attacks on Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon by the so called media, they have a cheek there are no British Nationalist politicians who are of anything approaching a similar high calibre.

    The British Nationalists know this and hence the constant stupid attacks on the two.

    I think even daft folk are beginning to realise that the media in print and TV and radio are frequently talking PISH.

    Sorry about that crudness on a Sunday but it has to be said.

  49. dakk
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘Sorry about that crudness on a Sunday but it has to be said.’

    God forgive you.

    But not Massie.

  50. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    Mr Massie misses the point that there is no going back to the way things “always” used to be. There are too many Scottish folk who think we can do better on our own. The will for independence is not going away any time soon.

    It is no crime to believe that you can do better than Westminster to improve the lot of your countries folk. Amazing how that aim provokes such anger in the likes of Mr Massie.
    He clearly believes that Scotland is doomed to fail without Westminster to hold its hand and guide it along the way.

    What a lack of insight. We have provided these islands and indeed the world with some of the greatest scientists, engineers, and inventors the world has ever seen. We can make it just fine

  51. mogabee
    Ignored
    says:

    If only Massie was half the man that Alex is!

    Does Massie still appear on political tv shows at all? I don’t have Scottish tv, so not up to speed with who is on what programme, but all these journalists greeting and whining about Alex Salmond makes me more keen to continue to watch AS’s show on RT and definitely not go out of my way to read or watch moaning minnies.

  52. Dan Huil
    Ignored
    says:

    Sad pathetic baby Massie. This is what happens when Britnats believe their own britnat propaganda. When things go wrong for them, in this case when a pro-indy commentator gets a TV show and starts to expose britnat lies, the britnat babies start to greet, their hypocritical tears running into their whiffy sniffy snot.

    It’s been great fun this week watching these britnat babies soiling their own britnat nappies.

    Great publicity for Alex Salmond.

  53. crazycat
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Valerie at 12.11

    Harry Leslie Smith is 94! His stamina and commitment are amazing.

  54. Toby
    Ignored
    says:

    Personally, I don’t give a damn about Kezia Dugdale appearing on this programme. It long ago ceased to be a novelty or have any entertainment value for me.
    I do object to an MSP or an MP , who is paid at public expense, absenting themselves from ‘the day job’ to engage in such trivial, worthless pursuits. All be it that it is claimed she will donate her parliamentary salary to charity, this is money she should not be entitled to receive from the common purse.
    3 weeks parlimentary salary equates to approx. £3500 gross. ( not including expenses) This is paid to her from taxes paid be me and others. If she is not there to do her job, why is she being paid the salary ? Will she continue to be paid parlimentary expenses to run her constituency office and pay her staff during her absence ?
    Her expenses for appearing on this show will be paid by the production company and no doubt she will receive a substantial bounty as well. So she should not be out of pocket. Why is she receiving her parlimentery salary when she has taken an unofficial leave of absence.
    I feel I may agree with her party leader, she should be suspended and required to pay back the funds to which she is not entitled.

  55. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    dakk says:

    angry, threatened and fearful of this RT Alex Salmond business

    Indeed. From our perspective that’s an excellent sign. Once upon a (not so long ago) time it would have been just jokes and ridicule.

    “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi

    They know they have a fight for survival on their hands, and have done since 2014.

  56. Valerie
    Ignored
    says:

    @ crazycat

    94??? What a man. I want to take him in, so I can talk and listen to him all day.

    Simply amazing.

  57. Street Andrew
    Ignored
    says:

    Greannach says:
    19 November, 2017 at 1:34 pm
    If all Kezia Dugdale wants is to be a celeb, you’d wonder why she went to the bother of trying to get elected to Parliament rather than just follow the X Factor route.

    Maybe she doesn’t have a talent (?) I think that’s a requisite for appearing on a talent show.

    Whereas being a celebrity doesn’t seem to require any qualifications at all.

  58. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Macart says: 19 November, 2017 at 1:02 pm:

    “It appears Mr Massie needs a hug… “

    Ah ken whit Mr Massie needs, Macart, an it’s no a hug. Unless, yon, “hug is roon his thrapple an it’s muckle ticht.

  59. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    There is a distinct pattern here.

    The MSM, Establishment, Torrance and other commentators will always be like sheep and follow the same angle which is at all costs, deflect any attention from the mistakes the tories are making, hide the true motivation – make the rich richer at any cost and save the Union and your own job.
    At all times, do down the opposition and make every attempt to vilify them, ignore their successes and concentrate on, exaggerate and in absence of a story, create a diversion which presents the opposition as a threat to a ‘strong and stable’ government. If you ignore this, or stick your head above the parapet, you will lose your job.

    Corbyn needs to control Labour branch in Scotland- Kezia stood for a Scottish labour party, not a Branch Office and as such was vocally agin Corbyn.
    She had to go and has now been hung out to dry; those who want to stay in the establishment will be the first to condemn her and will prove their loyalty by the degree of their insults towards her.
    Leonard will create the impression that he is being guided by his team but is the WM stooge who is supposed to save the Union.
    At all costs keep your enemies close ( Boris), and if you can’t do that, destroy them – Kezia, Alex Salmond.

    Scottish Tories is a branch office but (T)Ruthless tells the PM what to do, talks down Scotland and is touted as the next great white Saviour so she is untouchable. She is protected by the establishment.

    No-one is attacking (t)Ruthless for going on the Bake Off; Kez is being roasted for ‘I’m a Celebrity”
    Ruth never holds a surgery for her constituents – Kez is being slated for going away for 3 weeks.
    Ruth has pronounced on RT – Ooft!
    Russia is the villain; Alex is fraternising with the enemy – he is obviously the enemy too.

    SO many diversions and twitter is completely diverted.

    Meanwhile – what is happening in Yemen?
    What is happening in Catalonia?
    What is happening in Ireland – North and South/ the border/ Good Friday Agreement?
    What will be the true cost of Brexit?
    Why does Theresa May NOT summon the newspaper editors and demand an end to divisive headlines using such judgemental words as Saboteurs; Enemy of the People; Mutineers – an MP was murdered recently – do we need to have another murder?

    Someone posted recently that a possible war in the Middle East could affect oil supplies and boost N Sea oil to $300 a barrel – so just watch what happens, grubby fingers can’t resist such a lure and it would be a welcome boost to British coffers, especially after the devaluation of the £ as a result of Brexit!!!

    The Rev is brilliant at spotting the hypocrisy and diversions.
    All of us, Politicians and posters need to keep our eyes on the real ball being played, keep the eye on Independence and build the future we want to live in.

  60. Andy-B
    Ignored
    says:

    Jeez Salmond’s show has unionist lickspittles foaming at the mouth, does anyone even take Massie seriously. Maybe he in the market for a future gong from the establishment.

  61. winifred mccartney
    Ignored
    says:

    How many people who absent themselves for 2/3 weeks would have a job to come back to. Is this a signal for all of us just to do what we like and still get paid from the public purse. What happens if she if the first one sent home or if she wins – just watch the reactions. If sent home early it will be I told you so and if she wins it will be what a platform she has had to big up labour especially with younger viewers. Just more hypocrisy from labour.

    Neil Findlay making a fool of himself on Politics Scotland – RL needs down time with family after 9 hard weeks – but he is out campaigning in Rutherglen. More likely he had not had his instructions from London regarding KD and AR. No mention from him either about the £1m per month being repaid for Labours PFI deals just as there was no mention of PFI in GB latest witterings trying to re-write history. But we will not forget the lies and deceit that follow labour like a bad smell.

  62. admiral
    Ignored
    says:

    gus1940 says:
    19 November, 2017 at 1:53 pm
    Isn’t it amazing how often ‘journalists’ from The Spectator appear as political pundits particularly on The BBC.
    Although the rag is owned by the despicable Barclay Brothers management is delegated to our old pal Brillo as head honcho.

    It never ceases to amaze me how the rabidly BritNat and anti-Scottish commentariat are happy to accept inflated pay packets from tax dodging offshored companies to witter on about “Great” Britain, blah, blah, blah, whilst simultaneously bleating about the SNP and “use your powers, use your powers”..

  63. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    That’s great watch on Russian TV, as the beeb gimp network now call it.

    Massie’s just another trashy toryboy thug but it was Crichton Torcuil of the Record who really threw his UKOK toys out of the pram this week, Wednesday? if you can find. Torcuil says it’s a shit show with two “failed separatists.”

    SO THERE.

  64. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Clootie says: 19 November, 2017 at 1:25 pm:

    “… I suspect the real annoyance to Massie is that Alex Salmond actually used executed journalism instead of the trash the MSM wants to feed us.”

    I suspect the real reason is that Alex Salmond showed, in just one show, exactly how such televised interviews really should be done. That is Alex actually interviewed his invited guests and did so in a relaxed and friendly manner.

    There was not the slightest hint of awkwardness, hostility or pressurisation upon the guests. The guests then responded in like fashion. The result was a friendly, non-confrontational and enjoyable experience for all concerned and that included the audience.

    It is one of the most off-putting things about, the BBC in particular, but includes every other United Kingdom/England based TV network how the, “Presenters”, fail to actually present but instead either attack or harass their invited guests.

    Another fact seems to indicate the, “Presenter”, is totally unaware of how microphones and audio amplifiers actually work.

    There is no need for raised voices. I have stopped even listening to sports commentators these days for their very annoying shouty attitudes.

    Are these numpties aware that they make themselves seem like idiots when they behave like idiots? If it looks like an idiot, shouts down a microphone like an idiot, and comments like an idiot the chances are that it is an idiot.

    The other quite off-putting factor of Radio Jockland’s football programmes is the coverage of just one actual match, (usually either Rangers or Celtic), and a bunch of other idiots attempting to shout over the match commentary at any actual incident in the other games spread around Scotland.

  65. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Maybe they can’t spell ‘fantastic’ or maybe it was just one of the usual subliminal tricks,beloved of the BBC, to make the Scottish Government seem less than fantastic.”

    Yesterday BBC r4 gimp network news had lengthy reports on the death of AC/DC’s Malcolm Young, greatest, biggest, world wide phenomena heavy rock band, beeb gimps honked out across their regions, Young left the yewkay at 10, for Australia, born in Glasgow etc but the same gimps couldn’t bring themselves to say the word, “Scotland.”

  66. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    While I have criticised Kezia in the past for some of her logical inconsistencies I have to say that the Paul Sinclair piece on Stu’s Twitter is one of the nastiest things I have seen in a long while. I actually feel some sympathy with Kezia and I wasn’t expecting to type that.

    God what a nest of vipers Labour has become.

  67. sassenach
    Ignored
    says:

    Who was the Libdem wifie (there’s always one, I suppose) on the Brewster show today who opined, when discussing Alex’s interviewing on RT, that ” You’ve no need to worry about him taking your job, Gordon “.

    Typical Libdem smarmy git.

    Alex shows the Brewer just how a professional interview SHOULD be conducted.

  68. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    If, like me, you missed it, here’s the BBC’s reason for not going with the austerity deaths story.

    http://archive.is/Zwj0N

    Here’s the Science Media Centre’s comments on the article.

    http://archive.is/alEG5

    This is a thinktank which features in the BBC’s journalist training.

    http://archive.is/GDHtM

    Pity the BBC didn’t follow their own teaching here.

    “It’s a good idea for journalists to seek out viewpoints, but it’s important to point out what view represents the consensus and what is a minority view”

  69. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    As I recall, other MPs have appeared on TV shows. Penny Mordaunt
    a current Minister for one and Nadine Dorries was also on I’m a Celebrity. I think the latter was suspended for a short while and was then readmitted to the Conservative Party.

    The real gripe seems to be that Kezia upstaged the election of a person no one had heard of until the leadership campaign.

  70. David Mills
    Ignored
    says:

    Wait that tiraid of foul language was a reply to a tweet he sent to himself asking himself a question either Mr Massie need to seek psychiatric assists with that disorder or, & I am not discounting the possibility but option are true, he generated the original tweet as a pretence for the afore mentioned foul mouth tiraid.

    If the it the former he must be pittyed and helped where/when possible.
    If it the latter he must be such a petty, self inflated, troll with it would appear no cohorts
    And we’re back to pitty, such a bile filled petty little lonely man.

  71. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peffers @ 3.52pm

    The late Sir Jimmy Young used to be periodically attacked for his style of interviewing, when he had his Radio 2 mid-morning show. JY would ask a question, allow the subject to answer, then, either come-back with a supplementary, or move on to the next question.

    Interviewees as diverse as The Duke Of Edinburgh or Margaret Thatcher liked him, because he didn’t have an agenda, and let them speak.

    It seemed to me, watching the first Alex Salmond Show, Wee Eck is adopting the JY approach, which will pay dividends, I am sure lots of important people will want to appear.

    This, of course, will not go down at all well with those kinds of journalists and broadcasters – the average or not very good – who were so disdainful of JY. In their minds they are more-important than their guests and what they have to say is all that matters.

  72. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @farnorthdavie says: 19 November, 2017 at 1:35 pm:

    ” … I find it galling that she, or any elected politician, can simply take three weeks paid leave in addition to the paid leave they are already entitled to.”

    Very, very true, farnorthdavie, but you missed out the really ironic part. The appearance money fee she gets from the programme maker will be paid for by the consumers who ultimately pay the advertisers who fund independent TV.

  73. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    There you go, Tories really don’t do morality that isn’t culturally defined and affirmed by culturally approved authority stamps.

    These twats are on a mission that will require increasingly totalitarian modes of social control.

    The biology of fear – and anxiety – related behaviors

    Abstract

    Anxiety is a psychological, physiological, and behavioral state induced in animals and humans by a threat to well-being or survival, either actual or potential. It is characterized by increased arousal, expectancy, autonomic and neuroendocrine activation, and specific behavior patterns. The function of these changes is to facilitate coping with an adverse or unexpected situation.

    Pathological anxiety interferes with the ability to cope successfully with life challenges. Vulnerability to psychopathology appears to be a consequence of predisposing factors (or traits), which result from numerous gene-environment interactions during development (particularly during the perinatal period) and experience (life events), in this review, the biology of fear and anxiety will be examined from systemic (brain-behavior relationships, neuronal circuitry, and functional neuroanatomy) and cellular/molecular (neurotransmitters, hormones, and other biochemical factors) points of view, with particular reference to animal models.

    These models have been instrumental in establishing the biological correlates of fear and anxiety, although the recent development of noninvasive investigation methods in humans, such as the various neuroimaging techniques, certainly opens new avenues of research in this field. Our current knowledge of the biological bases of fear and anxiety is already impressive, and further progress toward models or theories integrating contributions from the medical, biological, and psychological sciences can be expected.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181681/

    Fear, Death and Politics: What Your Mortality Has to Do with the Upcoming Election

    ….Terror management theory (TMT) is derived from cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker’s efforts to explain the motivational underpinnings of human behavior. According to TMT, one defining characteristic of human beings is self-awareness: we’re alive and we know it. Although self-awareness gives rise to unbridled awe and joy, it can also lead to the potentially overwhelming dread engendered by the realization that death is inevitable, that it can occur for reasons that can never be anticipated or controlled, and that humans are corporeal creatures—breathing pieces of defecating meat no more significant or enduring than porcupines or peaches.

    A psychology professor explains how thoughts of death influence how we vote or make other decisions

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fear-death-and-politics/

    How to overcome fear and anxiety

    What is a panic attack?

    A panic attack is when you feel overwhelmed by the physical and mental feelings of fear – the signs listed under ‘What do fear and anxiety feel like?’ People who have panic attacks say that they find it hard to breathe, and they may worry that they’re having a heart attack or are going to lose control of their body.[8] See the ‘Support and information’ section at the end of this booklet if you want help with panic attacks.

    https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/publications/overcome-fear-anxiety

    Did I take that too far? 🙂

    @Alex Massie
    You’re no the brightest of buttons, in fact, you’re a bit of a normatively-bound, right-wing authoritarian. Horses for course like but please keep the heed.

  74. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Brewer and the wind turbine nonsense. A bigger country will have more as a proportion but no more percentage wise. Scotland have less but still have more % wise.

    No mention of the Hinkley Point extravagance.. The waste of £Billions The Tory slush fund. The Tories and their associates milking it. Cameron and Carrington. The British- Chinese consortium. Scotland has to pay a % of the debt. Two tidal barrages would have cost £20Billion and produced more. Cost a lot less, cleaner and less dangerous.

    No mention of the Oil & Gas sector 40% tax (when prices were low) which has cost Scotland £Billions and the lose of 120,000 jobs. Until there is a feasible, relevant alternative.

    No mention of the fracking in England not paying any tax. Tax free. No corporation tax?

    No mention of Scotland 25% in surplus in fuel and energy and nearer the source but paying more because it is colder. Scotland should be paying 10% less per unit for parity. A tax on the whole Scottish economy.

    No mention of the fracked Gas imported from the US and Gas from Norway. Or the cut in investment in solar,

    Brewer is a dunce. A switch off.

    Hammond ‘no unemployment and no tax evasion’. What planet is he on. Zog. What an ignorant incompetent.

  75. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Jimmy Young was a right Tory. Thatcher.

  76. Iain
    Ignored
    says:

    Maybe Salmond should invite Massie to be one of his RT interviewees?

  77. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Scotland’s energy is often produced by renewables. Along with all the other forms of fuel and energy. Scotland has an abundance of coal with CCS. Enough facilities/capacity to store for Europe. Instead of flying nuclear waste around the world. Or dumping it in Scotland.

  78. proudscot
    Ignored
    says:

    Once again Oor Alex has put the cat among the Unionist pigeons, and from the hissy fit they are all throwing, his new RT talk show has achieved more free publicity than he could ever have got by paying for it!!!

  79. Clootie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Blair Patterson

    Blair
    Yes you are correct as regards place of.birth. However A family line to Scotland, school in Fife (private), Attended Aberdeen University. Took the Scottish bar etc. I know plenty of people who consider themselves “Scots” based on links/and their lives and not place of birth

    given your point a number of SNP members, officials,MSPs and MP could not be considered “Scottish”

  80. North chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Wall to wall BBC coverage on Zimbabwe today . May must be eyeing up a post Mugabe trade deal ( cheap food for the masses) as long as “ the right people” are in charge ? ( Scotch beef etc ., non EU subsidised ,only affordable by Neo Liberal toffs post Brexit).

  81. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    Socrates McSporran 4.34

    Thoughts on the Young/Paxman technique

    http://archive.is/0KEds

    And – depending on your Sunday mood – you can read here a Young/Thatcher interview from September 1981. (wouldn’t archive)

    https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104529

    Thatcher on oil

    ” But we do have a very tough world recession caused by having to pay about 150 per cent more for the price of oil than we did just over two years ago. And you’ll say, but we have oil, but the condition on which that .. oil is brought out of the North Sea was that those who bring it out and explore for it shall be able to sell it at world price. That is what I inherited. ”

  82. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Much speculation that May will make a divorce bill offer before the December deadline.

    Annoying that much of the reporting talks of MORE money on the table. There is currently nothing in the table, just a vague offer to pay €10billion for two years SHOULD a transition period be agreed. There is no guarantee such a transitional agreement can be agreed, nor that the UK would want an arrangement on offer which would be full single market membership.

    The EU is looking for all obligations to be honoured. So a solid no strings settlement is required.

    This, along with the Irish border, will be a test of whether the Tories want an ongoing close-ish relationship with the EU, or whether it’s all a ruse to crash out and blame them!

  83. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    ” When the dust has settled on Brexit, Scotland is likely to have left the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland will probably have reunited and England and Wales will be left thinking, “Why on Earth did we start down this path?” “

    Hopefully!

    https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201711191059242662-brexit-eu-uk-breakup/

  84. Ian McCubbin
    Ignored
    says:

    All that has been said here in comment and what Stu reported on are reasons why already I no longer watch any political or news broadcast on BBC. Hypocrisy is too kind a word

  85. Graeme
    Ignored
    says:

    Source
    https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201711191059242662-brexit-eu-uk-breakup/

    “Peter Else · Owner at Self-employed
    If Scotland and Northern Ireland leave the UK England will be left thinking “What should we do with all the money we don’t have to use subsidising them?” The balance of power would shift away from the left and we might get a reduction in taxation and regulation which would lead to a boom in Englands economy whilst Scotland goes bankrupt like they did the last time they had control of their own economy. At the same time less trade deficits and an end to the massive contributions to the EU monstrosity would allow even more tax cuts. Bring it on as soon as possible.”

    there you have the truth at last no wonder the English voted for Brexit, my fear now is they’re gonna kick us out of the UK and keep all the cash to themselves. greedy bastards

  86. mogabee
    Ignored
    says:

    Graeme

    What cash? 😀

  87. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    The fact that Salmond has full editorial control of his show is, according to the UK media, proof that RT is a propaganda channel. Their argument is RT only allow full editorial control to mask the fact they are only a propaganda channel. It is impossible to sensibly discuss this with them, see latest This Week, they are irrational.

    Is RT a propaganda channel, almost certainly. But if you ask some in Russian ‘is BBC World Service a propaganda channel’ they would also certainly say yes. All these news outlet channels that broadcast to another country are propaganda channels, why else would they exist.

  88. Graeme
    Ignored
    says:

    All this talk about RT being a propaganda channel is bullshit of course it’s a propaganda channel just like the BBC each with their own agendas so what’s new.

    Can anybody tell me a broadcasting TV or radio channel anywhere in the world that isn’t a propaganda channel.

    All’s fair in love and war.

    Bring it on Alex

  89. Reluctant Nationalist
    Ignored
    says:

    A good post, Cameron.

    *faints*

  90. geeo
    Ignored
    says:

    Dear Graeme…

    The only ‘cash’ WM would be keeping after Scotland leaves, will be the tic notes owing £1,700,000,000,000.

  91. Glamaig
    Ignored
    says:

    Imagine pro-Scottish propaganda. That would be so unlike anything we have ever heard it would be mind-blowing.

    The fact that 45% voted yes in the current set-up shows that Scotland is alive and kicking!

  92. Graeme
    Ignored
    says:

    @geeo

    I( agree and in the interests of clarity I was being sarcastic 🙂

  93. Glamaig
    Ignored
    says:

    I watched the ‘BBC: Protecting Ruth Davidson’ film on You Tube. Now YouTube have sent me a promotional email with some recommendations, the first of which is the ‘Nigel Farage Sunday Show’. WTF!

  94. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Dave McEwan Hill,

    “I think the personalised attacks on Kezia by us does us no favours.”

    What “personalised attacks” are you talking about?

    She is being, rightly, attacked for not doing the job she is being paid for from public funds.

    Labour and its leader have no shame left, otherwise they would be ashamed of not throwing her out.

  95. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    In the next WOS opinion poll, it would be interesting to find how many people in Scotland consider the BBC to be the mouthpiece of the UK government.

  96. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Alex Massie
    How do you understand pluralist culture? How do you rate of your moral being? How does Superman overcome inertia when he flies?

    MEDIA STUDIES, CRITICAL THEORY, AND CULTURAL STUDIES

    In these remarks I gloss Hanno Hardt’s (1989) article on the development of a critical approach to the problems of communication and media in American social science research. Hardt traces the understanding of a “critical” position through four periods: (1) pragmatism of the Chicago School, (2) the empirical sociology of the Lazarsfeld tradition, (3) the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, and (4) the Cultural Studies movement in the United Kingdom. Hardt argues that “communication and media theorists in the United States have embraced a notion of critical research that grew out of a reformist environment and was based on a sense of responsibility among social scientists that operated well within the dominant ideology.”

    INTRODUCTION

    A number of intellectual movements, including pragmatism, neo-Marxism, Critical Theory, and British Cultural Studies, have helped shape the “critical” approach people in media studies and cultural studies take. The term “critical” refers to the social criticism that emerged during the last part of the 19th century, thanks to the advancement of science and the effects of industrialization (Hardt, 1989, p. 559; hereafter cited by page number only). The phrase “social criticism” mean taking a scientific approach to social problems in order to bring about change. Of course, scholars in many disciplines have studied culture: recently, they have focused on ideological representations and the process of ideological struggle with and within the media, stressing the relationship between the media, power, and the maintenance of social order.

    COMMUNICATION AND THE STUDY OF SOCIETY

    European thought, including British and Continental philosophy, has always had an influence on the development of North American intellectual life. This influence is evident in the development of the pragmatism, that uniquely American philosophy which was founded by Henry James and John Dewey. These thinkers set out to reconcile morality and science, adopting scientific practice as a way of solving the problems of everyday life (p. 560). John Dewey (1931, p. 24) described pragmatism as an extension of historical empiricism, with one major difference; it does not insist upon antecedent phenomena but consequent phenomena, not upon the precedents but upon the possibilities of action.

    One might say (quite simply) that the meaning or the significance of a concept or a proposition must be determined with reference to its practical effects. That is, Dewey tried to establish a theoretical context for studying social problems. Social scientists realised that, with an increasing concentration of political and economic power, the study of institutions and collective activities was a key part of social scientific inquiry: accordingly, they tried to expose the predatory nature of American industry (Thorsten Veblen), to offer an economic interpretation of history (C.A. Beard), and to provide a sociological critique of traditional thoughts of individuality and morality (Albion Small and Robert Park). These thinkers emphasized the social processes in their studies, suggesting that the struggle to achieve a perfect society was the same the struggle to achieve a perfect democracy….

    http://people.ucalgary.ca/~rseiler/hardt.htm

  97. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    galamcennalath,

    “The EU is looking for all obligations to be honoured. So a solid no strings settlement is required.”

    Rock (28th June – “Slight reprise”):

    “The UK will have a “snap” Brexit while we are caught napping with no legislation in place for an independence referendum.”

  98. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Glamaig says:
    19 November, 2017 at 7:47 pm
    I watched the ‘BBC: Protecting Ruth Davidson’ film on You Tube. Now YouTube have sent me a promotional email with some recommendations, the first of which is the ‘Nigel Farage Sunday Show’. WTF!

    I noticed that too. All the youtube vids down the side of the Salmond show were a collection of anti SNP videos with all the usal titles like “Salmond flounders with Jon Snow,” “Joanna Cherry panics on Question Time,” etc

    It would be interesting to see how youtube does this as its not by view numbers and hit rates, they’re usually in the hundreds, if that. Is some Scotland in Union style money being fired in to youtube to get these vids in there, like how you pay google to get in their top and front page searches?

    There’s that weirdness and the usual stinky olde Graun Scotland black out, this is from the Graun tories today, their Scotland region news wise,

    Weather
    Scotland set for snowfall as wintry chill arrives
    Forecasters expect wet and windy week across northern parts of UK, as Scotland shivers under cold Arctic air
    Most of Britain will enjoy unseasonably mild temperatures during the week before a cold snap for the weekend.

    View more sharing options
    Shares
    91
    Josh Halliday
    Sunday 19 November 2017 10.38 GMT

  99. Graeme
    Ignored
    says:

    it’s all very well Kezia giving her wages to charity while she buggers off to the jungle as if that exonerates her for abandoning her duties.

    We the tax payers pay that money for her to represent her constituents (who didn’t vote for her) not give to charity if we want that money to go to charity we can make that decision for ourselves it’s not her decision in fact it can be argued that it’s a misappropriation of funds

  100. Glamaig
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘Dugdale demeans politics, say MSP’ screams BBC headline. Seems a bit extreme. Maybe they are expecting her to switch to the SNP and are trying to undermine that?

    Looking forward to the ‘Davidson demeans politics’ headlines when she goes on Bake Off. Aye right. Hypocrites doesnt even begin to describe it.

  101. Bob p
    Ignored
    says:

    Never bothered watching rt till all the furore about alex salmond. Caught the first episode,and I’ll tell you this,I’ll never miss any others. Thanks snow (ya prick) lol.

  102. admiral
    Ignored
    says:

    Glamaig says:
    19 November, 2017 at 8:08 pm
    ‘Dugdale demeans politics, say MSP’ screams BBC headline. Seems a bit extreme. Maybe they are expecting her to switch to the SNP and are trying to undermine that?
    Looking forward to the ‘Davidson demeans politics’ headlines when she goes on Bake Off. Aye right. Hypocrites doesnt even begin to describe it.

    I mind when the Dug was unionism’s great hope (it wisnae that long ago) – the MSM quickly abandoned her for Ruth the Mooth, a love affair that is still ongoing. Wee Ruthie will get found out, too.

    Meanwhile, Nicola and the SNP go on doing the day job, defending Scots and Scotland as best they can against the depredations of an ever more vicious Westminster.

  103. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    The viciousness with which Labour have turned on Kezia does seem extreme. One does wonder what is being said behind the scenes.

  104. Wull
    Ignored
    says:

    My guess – purely speculative – is that Alex Salmond is positioning himself as the ‘unofficial’ leader of the wider Yes movement, and I hope I am right.

    Now that he is no longer an MP, he has a freedom in that regard which he did not have before. His role is not constrained by the SNP and its discipline in the way it had to be when he was a sitting MP.

    Nicola Sturgeon made the point when she said that although RT would not have been her choice of channel for such a programme, Alex is not an elected representative and is free to act as he sees fit.

    Alex S and Nicola S putting a little bit of public distance between each other is no bad thing. Indeed, it’s good for both of them, and will be good for the independence cause. They are both smart enough to know that, and I don’t believe there is the slightest rift between them.

    Nicola S’s announcement that SNP Ministers will not be allowed to appear on Alex S’s show goes in the same line. I would expect – again, it is pure speculation on my part – that both are perfectly comfortable with this. And, as the best of friends, have a real arrangement about it.

    I do not believe that arrangement could even be portrayed as some sort of ‘compromise’. Not in the least. Rather, it is an arrangement which suits both parties fine, and will work well for both of them.

    It will also work well – best of all – for securing the independence they both want. S & S are not just allies, but the best of friends. And S & S are both for YeS!

    Nicola has to govern for the benefit of all Scots. She has to serve wider interests beyond the SNP and its goals, defined too narrowly, without of course denying or betraying these. She has said so several times.

    Whatever you or I may think of it – and I reserve the right to have my own opinion on the matter – it was on these grounds that she justified the ‘compromise’ (her word) which she proposed on Brexit after the result of the referendum on the EU. She had to take into account the best interests of Scotland, and of all Scots, in view of the fact that Brexit was certainly going to go ahead anyway.

    Nicola S cannot, at the present moment, take the lead in galvanising support for independence. So, at least, she has decided. As First Minister, with responsibility for governing in the best interests of the whole of Scotland, it is not primarily her task to bring about the breakthrough in public opinion which is still to be achieved.

    My reading is that she has decided needs others to do this.

    In present circumstances, she does not see galvanising public opinion behind independence as a role for her personally, or for her Ministers in the Scottish Government. Her job, and theirs, she has decided, is to show that they can govern Scotland well, and much better than their various rivals would.

    For the meantime, she and the rest of the Scottish government will concentrate on doing that; it will be for others to build up support for Scotland becoming independent.

    She and her Ministers will only begin to campaign wholeheartedly for independence once the referendum is called. For now, the strategy for now is simply to ‘get on with the day job’, and to do it as successfully as possible.

    The idea that Alex Salmond has now been ‘unleashed’ was not planned, but fits into this scenario remarkably well. What he has been ‘unleashed’ from is the rigours of having to support and maintain Party discipline! As a free-standing member, and not one of its elected representatives, he is free to operate (i.e. to love his life and pursue his commitments) in whatever way he wants.

    That will include stretching out not only to SNP voters, but also to other Yessers and, maybe above all, to waverers who are still unsure, but could switch to Yes.

    These are key people now, as Indyref2 approaches. It can only be won if they are won over. They do not need to be converted to the SNP, but they do need to become convinced that independence is now the right move.

    I expect Alex Salmond is confident he can play a major role in bringing them on board. And I further expect that Nicola Sturgeon also believes that he is just the man that can do it. The new role which he has invented for himself is no doubt his own invention, not that of Nicola, but she is not at all disconcerted by it … To the contrary, she will be hoping it will be just the job to help bring round enough former ‘No’ voters to ‘Yes’ to make the difference. And she no doubt has every confidence that her friend Alex is just the man to pursue that goal.

    He will do it, moreover, in a subtle fashion. As an elected politician he had to be – and was – very sharp in the debating chamber, defending his positions with skill and hitting back with sound argument whenever his opponents attacked.

    He does not have to do that as an anchor-man, or journalist, or chat-show host … Or, indeed, as public speaker, or organiser, or symbol of the Yes movement, or reformer of the Scotsman Newspaper, or whatever …

    These roles still allow him to make all his points, but without the constraints required when he was an MP, and MSP or, indeed, First Minister. The man has truly been ‘unleashed’. he can make the points more freely than ever before, and appeal to the widest possible audience. Wider than Nicola S in fact because, as First Minister, she is bound into the ‘Party Political Game’, and can’t escape it the way he now can.

    With his chat-show / interviewing / tv host role, Alex S can just mention whatever he wants to say in the calmest possible way. Usually in a passing remark, which is quite different from having to enter into the cut and thrust of (parliamentary) debate (against contrived arguments put up by opponents).

    I say ‘usually in a passing remark’ because that is just what he did in the first installment of his RT show. Whether when facing the camera directly, or chatting with one or other of his guests, he could say what he wanted in the way he wanted to say it, without all the silly games that are played during parliamentary question-time.

    He was still the same Alex Salmond, thank goodness, and yet, unleashed from the Westminster / Holyrood / Party Political / Point-Scoring situation, he was also able to be more relaxed and more himself. That will surely grow as the series develops.

    This style will serve the cause well. If he keeps it up, which I am sure he will (indeed, he will be getting better and better at it), the points will come across without anyone feeling that he is being aggressive, or obtruding, or being too much dominant.

    ‘Obtruding too much’ is what everyone is fed up with in television presenters, or even journalists in general.

    As if they (the interviewers / journalists) and their opinions were the story, and not the interesting person they are interviewing, or the concrete fact on which they are supposed to be reporting.

    That ‘obtrusive’ style of journalism has just about had its day. It follows a trend originally set by Robin Day on programmes like Panorama, when it was refreshing compared to the exaggerated and subservient deference to authority with which it contrasted. It was then taken further by Paxton and other Newsnight cronies, at first much appreciated but eventually hjaded and over-cynical. Until Tom, Dick, Harry (and Gordon) and every half-baked imitator – sorry, interviewer! – on air tried to turn himself or herself into a Jeremy Paxman mimic …

    Alex Salmond was different on his initial programme on RT. Theer was none of that nonsense, which has become such a turn-off.

    While not being afraid to make the occasional comment, in a spirit that maintained a friendly and conversational style, when Alex S interviewed someone the whole intention was to let the person speak. And, therefore, to let the audience / viewer hear what that person wanted to say.

    Not rocket science, but so refreshing, compared to the dross everyone else serves out.

    That way is in fact much more subtle. And much more mature. Let people speak – and let the listeners and viewers decide for themselves what they think about that person’s views.

    Like that, it is not the interviewer (Alex) who will either damn or exonerate the persons being interviewed. They will do that to (and for) themselves.

    This is what I liked most about the ‘show’. (Though I don’t particularly like that word ‘show’: to me, it’s too glitzy. If it had been an hour-long event I would have preferred ‘The Alex Salmond Hour’ – maybe in future!).

    It is not just the ‘style’ of the show, but the way it allows the content to come through that matters. The viewer can therefore engage with that content, and with the speaker being interviewed. The viewer’s freedom is respected. Viewers may make up their own mind about what they hear, and about the person being given a platform.

    It isn’t really ‘The Alex Salmond Show’ because – although he obviously enjoys the role (why shouldn’t he?) – it wasn’t all about Alex. The interview with the President of Catalonia was about the President of Catalonia; the one with Helena Kennedy was about Helena; even the one with Tasmina was about what Tasmina saw, heard and thought. It wasn’t about an interviewer making speeches and interjecting his own ideas all the time, as happens with Marr, Paxman, the Brewer and all his tv and radio colleagues in Glasgow.

    Alex S was such a contrast to the interviewer telling the viewer what to think about it all, which is what happens all over the mainstream media.At bottom, this is the difference between adult politics, as practised by AS, and treating people (the viewers) like children to whom ready-made answers and opinions are spoon-fed. On the assumption that, being babies, they are unable to think for themselves.

    Just spoon it down their throats, let them swallow it all, and they’ll soon go back to sleep … !

    Or: ‘Now, children, repeat after me … !’

    Spoon-feeder journalists are just bullies who want everyone to think the same way as they do. And they end up being propagandists. Goebbels was their grand-father. Or is at least their patron …

    Alex S was not like that at all on that first episode.

    Opponents might say that it was easy for him because the people he was interviewing were basically in agreement with him. Even Helena Kennedy, they will say, who obviously seemed to like him. But Helena is a Labour peer and not, as such, on the same side of the political divide as Alex (though I don’t know where she stands on independence – is she a sympathiser, or at least open to the possibility?).

    They cam say that if they like. But Alex Salmond already showed his ability to interact with those who don’t agree with him when he was first ‘unleashed’. It was clear when he introduced David Davis as the first guest on his Edinburgh show, during the Festival Fringe. He called the Brexit Secretary his friend; and obviously meant it. And he asked the audience to respect him (as he did) – and they did just that.

    Now, that is adult politics. As pursued by adults, for an adult audience. Time for everyone to grow up …

    Adulthood is dawning, as is simple rationality. And both these grown-up virtues are on the pro-independence side of the argument. The Alex Salmond Show could ultimately become a big factor in proving this.

    It is going to be a great antidote to the juvenilia of Westminster. And to the table-thumping nonsense of those who seek to imitate the most infantile habits of that Westminster juvenilia at Holyrood. When adults behave like children, they deserve to be ignored.

    The bullies in the media always tried to present Alex Salmond as a bully, and still try to do so. In fact, as his show will increasingly make apparent, he is the voice of reason.

    I say that although I certainly do not agree with him 100% on everything.

    That’s the thing about adults – you don’t have to agree 100% on everything in order to respect each other, or to be friends, or to support each other. The Yes movement has to be like that too. We won’t agree on everything, either before or after independence, but we will agree on becoming so.

    And it will be very important after independence is won that we create an adult style of politics, quite different from what Westminster has become (and maybe always was, though I know Alex S thinks it deteriorated greatly in the last couple of decades, and I expect he is right).

    The voters of Moray did not intend it, and neither the man himself nor the SNP desired it, but their ‘unleashing’ Alex Salmond may yet be the best thing that ever happened to the independence movement.

    I certainly hope it will be.

  105. admiral
    Ignored
    says:

    Graeme says:
    19 November, 2017 at 8:02 pm
    it’s all very well Kezia giving her wages to charity while she buggers off to the jungle as if that exonerates her for abandoning her duties.

    Mind all the Yoon screeching when Philippa Whitford MP used up some of her spare time to cover a sick colleague’s shift and give desparately ill women with breast cancer vital surgery to save their lives (Daily HateMail pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and opinion SNP BBBBAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD). Where are these people now?

  106. Bob p
    Ignored
    says:

    Graemorab 1.38pm. Re brit unionists and a reality check. Oh these b******s will get the biggest reality check of their stupid lives if Putin ever decides to kick a**e. This wont be brit nat bullying the likes of Afghanistan or Iraq.

  107. Robert Kerr
    Ignored
    says:

    @wull

    Your best BTL post so far.

    Although long I read it all…. no speed reading!

    Thank you.

  108. Graeme
    Ignored
    says:

    @ wull

    Great post I normally swerve long posts but that had me gripped early on and read it to the end and agree with every word in fact I think Alex show could be a game changer

  109. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Wull, good post!

  110. Graeme
    Ignored
    says:

    @wull

    Great post I normally swerve long posts but that one had me hooked early and read it all the way through and agree with every word, in fact I think Alex show could be a game changer which may explain why the yoons are frothing so much over it

  111. SOG
    Ignored
    says:

    @wull

    As others have said – I usually scroll past long posts. Yours kept my attention right to the end. Thank you.

  112. Pacman
    Ignored
    says:

    I was a bit bored today and sat through that Brewer show on the BBC parliament programme.

    He mentioned that Salmond appearing on RT will be a stick to use against the SNP. The more I think about it, the more I hope so as it will be counter-productive as show up the hypocrisy, double standards and frankly uselessness of the BritNat establishment.

    Firstly, with Alex Salmond’s show appearing on RT, a Russian state funded news channel and by assertions from it’s critics personally controlled by Putin, Salmond and by extension the SNP, are endorsing and accepting the policies of Russia and Putin, in particular raised in the programme it’s appealing record on LGBTi rights.

    With that argument, there are many other countries, particularly in the Middle east, that have far worse abuses on gay members of their society yet the UK have friendly relations and with some, close allies. Why is there nothing as vocal as being directed towards Alex Salmond in regard to this being said about the UK government?

    Secondly, the argument that Salmond is an apologist and mouthpiece for a state funded broadcaster with a specific agenda is rubbish. The same can be said about anybody who appears on the British Broadcasting Corporation who is doing the same.

    These are only two but I’m sure more will come and the stick that the British establishment intended to use to bash the SNP, by it’s association with AS, will simply be turned against it. It really will be fun to watch it 🙂

  113. James D
    Ignored
    says:

    Wull – you need your own blog! 😉

  114. Jock McDonnell
    Ignored
    says:

    @will
    You may very well be right.
    I think now, with the unionists a shambles we can push the envelope.
    We should.
    Last time we didn’t call the bbc neutrality into question, Salmond shows signs of doing that now.
    We can’t pretend ‘no’ is a safe option & allow the bbc to leave it uncritised.
    With a border in the Irish Sea, Scots will ask ‘well, where is our deal, what’s different about NI’
    The answer is of course hideous & starkly revealing.
    Time to push, the Union is creaking under brexit.

  115. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Graeme @ 19:05:

    no wonder the English voted for Brexit, my fear now is they’re gonna kick us out of the UK and keep all the cash to themselves. greedy bastards

    Whit? fear? You may be dreading independence, but I for one don’t buy the “subsidy junkie” lie.

    Such daffy reactionary Leaver sentiments have their uses, since although they are ill-founded, they are also at least self-consistent. What I just can’t abide is this abusive control-freakery where they tell us we’re dreadful spongers on their largesse but also that they love us madly and just can’t possibly let us go.

    We might though have something very real to fear if we stay in this toxic failing Union and such an attitude prevails to “justify” ever-increasing depredation of our precious resources. Economic death by accelerated parasitism.

    Just remember, peeps, there is no “good Brexit”. Every dang one of them will leave you and me poorer. Come the inevitable economic slump, the bigger one (England) will need to turn more and more on the defenceless resource-rich one (us).

  116. Free Scotland
    Ignored
    says:

    @Wull at 8:27 p.m.

    Nice one. Riveting read.

  117. Glamaig
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert J. Sutherland

    I think it was sarcastic humour.

    I am hoping that all the ’15bn deficit’, pick-pocket Salmond etc, Jock-bashing etc propaganda will backfire on them down south and they face a backlash of English public opinion demanding Scottish independence 🙂

  118. Graeme
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert J. Sutherland says:
    19 November, 2017 at 9:26 pm

    Graeme @ 19:05:

    no wonder the English voted for Brexit, my fear now is they’re gonna kick us out of the UK and keep all the cash to themselves. greedy bastards

    Whit? fear? You may be dreading independence, but I for one don’t buy the “subsidy junkie” lie.

    —————————————————————-

    I hope you didn’t miss the sarcasm in my post I don’t fear them kicking us out of the UK in fact I would quite welcome it

  119. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    @heedtracker

    Have a vague memory of Scottish Labour run Glasgow City Council refusing an appeal to award AC/DC`s Malcolm and Angus Young some sort of recognition/commemoration from the City,

    outside their birth country they are two of the biggest names in the music industry,

    AC/DC don`t/didn`t get on TOTP`s,bit to wild for the Oxbridge BBC,

    recognition (statues ?) from their home town,Cranhill, could have been a massive source of much needed income to the town.

  120. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    Valerie says @ 19 November, 2017 at 11:52 am

    Watching Brewster, who appears to be growing out his fringe, questioning Keith Brown in that aggressive style.

    “WHERE ARE SCOTTISH RENEWABLES HELD IN HIGH REGARD”

    he barks at Keith.

    Obviously he was trying to portray it as SNP spin and his action was to cut through the BS but Brown was simply stating a truth which is that people working in the Scottish renewable sector are respected worldwide for the expertise in their particular field.

    In trying to attack the SNP in that instance, he had unwittingly attacked every hard working individual in the Scottish renewable sector. It really isn’t any different from any other attempted attack on the SNP where it is really is an attack on Scotland and the people of Scotland.

    These types of political presenters, as mentioned by posters, seem to think that attacking, interrupting and shouting over their interviewee’s like Paxman did is an effective way of cutting through political spin and BS. While I don’t like Paxman, he did have the sharpness, quickness of mind as well as the eloquence to excel at that sort of interviewing that Brewer just simply hasn’t got.

  121. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Wull –

    🙂 🙂

    Great stuff. You’ve articulated what many of us were probably thinking but hadn’t the patience to ‘wordify’.

    Just to add something to the list of points and observations you made about AS and his new ‘show’ – aside from anything else, he just radiates contentment. He looks genuinely happy, and that is not something many people – even great actors – can fake. For example, when Jon Snow was being a total dick and using every trick in the book to try and rile him, Eck just chortled and eyebrowed and smiled his way through the lot. He’s a class act and we’re very very fortunate to have him on our side.

    😉

  122. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Pretty daft hoohah about RT, I’d be positive that its output is read by some in all the armed forces and security apparatus, and should be by the FCO to see its take on various matters. I’d imagine a daily summary would be made available, with top stories, with a separate analysis. If not, then some people in the “British establishment” should be sacked for incompetence.

    For instance the RAF deployed 4 Typhoons to Romania earlier this year, at the same time as Daring (T45 air defence) was deployed to the Black Sea, and reasonably obviously at some time there were going to be tests of Daring’s air defence role, including the Typhoons and probably Romania’s own.

    From the “West” point of view, this is to help strengthen Romania against various threats, from RT and likely Russia? This:

    Royal Air Force (RAF) fighter aircraft will deploy to Romania in May as part of NATO’s continued militarization of Eastern Europe.

    It’s what you’d expect the take to be, and depending on point of view, perhaps with some sympathy. It certainly shows the other side of the argument. But RT being available gives us all the chance to seek out the opposing point of view, and should in a free democratic society, be welcomed rather than suppressed. Freedom of information can lessen tensions.

    As for Dugdale, I too sympathise with her, and the reactions of so-called fellow Labourites in Scotland show just what back-stabbing hypocrites they are, all nicey nicey when she was the leader and had influence like giving them shadow ministerial roles, and why she needs a break from them – likely permanent I think.

  123. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    admiral says:
    19 November, 2017 at 8:19 pm
    Glamaig says:
    19 November, 2017 at 8:08 pm
    ‘Dugdale demeans politics, say MSP’ screams BBC headline. Seems a bit extreme.””
    …………….

    To Ms Davidson on ‘Bake Off’ add Mr Corbyn on ‘Gogglebox’.

  124. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    To summarise a bit of that, if RT is the Russian balcony to the West, then at the same time it’s a window into the soul of the Russian apparatus.

  125. geeo
    Ignored
    says:

    I have ZERO sympathy for Dugdale.

    She is an enemy of Scotland and Scots.

    It may be seen as harsh, but if every unionist politician were to drop dead tomorrow morning, Scotland would be a better place for it.

    If thats too harsh then replace dead with out of office

  126. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    I agree with Wull by the way, Salmond is kind of like Obi-Wan Kenobi. “Kill” him off as FM and he’s stronger than ever. May the Force be with you! Nicola Skywalker is off and running, with increasing confidence and maturity.

    And I agree about Harvie, he’s standing on top of a very shoogly peg these days.

  127. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Mmm, I can just see Patrick’s reaction to that: “How Rude!”.

    I’ll shut up now.

  128. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    Great post Wull, as others have said, long but interesting.
    Just one point, it was the voters of Gordon who unleashed Alex. The voters of Moray unleashed Angus Robertson. I’m looking forward to seeing what contribution he will make – and the media fit of vapours that will follow. Pass the smelling salts.

  129. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Scot Finlayson says:
    19 November, 2017 at 9:36 pm
    @heedtracker

    Yes AC/DC have been scrubbed from Scotland’s cultural heritage completely, across the planet really. No one associates Scotland with AC/DC.

    Its all an almost perfect example of how yoon culture can dictate what is and is not Scots. AC/DC were and are still a worldwide music phenomenon, far bigger than anything England has produced since the 80’s. And yet, here they are today, the great yoons of teamGB, airbrushing Scots and Scotland out of world heritage. Listening the beeb r4 gimps refusing to even mention the Young brothers were Scottish, was just the usual from our BBC imperial master baiters.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDCs7ijNUVM

  130. Glamaig
    Ignored
    says:

    geeo says:
    19 November, 2017 at 9:57 pm

    People change their minds, it happens slowly. They come to see things differently, bit by bit. Although some people will never support independence, they they are a minority.

    About 0.75 million people now support independence who didnt 5 years ago. Even politicians can, and have, changed their minds – calling them enemies wouldnt have helped.

  131. Graeme
    Ignored
    says:

    I agree with geeo I have no sympathy for Kezia Dugdale, she has made a career (albeit not a particularly successful one) out of lieing and deceiving the Scottish people and keeping our country shackled to a decaying corrupt union to further her own political career

    Hopefully this jungle thing will be the last throw of the dice and we can consign her to history as nothing other than an unpleasant memory

  132. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Wull at 8:27 pm.

    I’ve making it my business to read all of your infrequent posts as they appear, ever since your post last year about “The Declaration of Clergy”.

    You post some good $h!T!

  133. geeo
    Ignored
    says:

    glamaig.

    I was very specific on who i called enemies of Scotland.
    Unionist POLITICIANS !
    NOT unionists in general.
    Not unsure/undecided’s.

    If you can name one unionist politician who is not an enemy of Scotland, feel free to do so….

  134. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    SHAZBOT!

    “I’ve making” should be “I’ve been making”.

  135. ScotsRenewables
    Ignored
    says:

    I feel sorry for Dugdale’s dad

  136. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    @Wull,

    Excellent post Wull.

  137. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @ScotsRenewables
    He seems sanguine [1] with the idea:

    https://twitter.com/Jefforbited?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

    [1] I think that means happy?

    The more I absorb the reaction on Facebook To Kez in ImAC, the more I see the possibilities of a young politician speaking to a new audience

    Indeed.

  138. TheItalianJob
    Ignored
    says:

    @Wull

    I agree with all others on here Wull. Excellent and an articulatily written post.

    Keep writing. You have a talent there like many on this site.

  139. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    The voters in the NE did not turn out to vote. 6 thousand did not bother. It was raining. Will they bother the next time only time will tell. Some people do not obviously care. If some people were as interested in how their country was run as they are in sport etc. It might help. If Dugdale had not illegally invited Labour voters to vote Tory. Corbyn might have got in in England but then Dugdale did not support him. Wanted Owen Smith to win. Looks like it’s pay back time. Are the ‘socialists’ out to even the score?

    FPTP the unionists would be wiped out in Scotland. They changed the electoral,system to continually anger and annoy people. To one many voters do not understand. They give their vote away. Or are misinformed. Increase the volume of votes for the opposition. Not much difference between them.

    Another month May and the Tories could have been out. The Labour abstainers keep her there. The vote on 12th September would have gone against the Tories if the other Parties members had voted as they were informed. There were Tories abstainers. How long can the farce continue?

    Is Dugdale going to make an appearance in the jungle. Not there so far. No sure how it works.

  140. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Graeme @ 21:35,
    Glamaig @ 21:34,

    Gentle sarcasm isn’t always evident in postings, but I should have twigged. Sorry about that. =abashed grin=

    Though I did not long ago stumble upon some comment somewhere from a (presumably English) BritNat who (non-sarcastically!) accused the Scots of being selfish by wanting to keep hold of all those resources that they had.

    There isn’t any mutually-contradictory argument one BritNat or another hasn’t exercised at one time or another…

  141. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ken500
    Apparently a couple get parachuted in or choppered in a day or two after it starts.

  142. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi heedtracker.

    You opined,
    “Yes AC/DC have been scrubbed from Scotland’s cultural heritage completely, across the planet really. No one associates Scotland with AC/DC”

    You’re really out of the AC/DC loop, iye? Take a look at this:-

    https://www.sundaypost.com/in10/chat/acdc-star-bon-scott-honoured-statue-kirriemuir/

  143. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    That’s why Corbyn did not criticise Dugdale he wants to do reality shows as well. Bit boring. Next it will be Johnstone. Along with the Dad. Not very funny. Cooking programmes when they are starving vulnerable people. Snakes and reptiles. That’s just the participants.

  144. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    Neatly reasoned Wull and yes, I’d say Mr Salmond is indeed setting about widening his influence now that he is no longer bound by the discipline of office or party.

    THIS is what is basically setting the cat among the pigeons. I’d also hazard your unionist politicos and their meeja agree with almost every word you’ve written. Some feared it may happen and yet others didn’t see it until it smacked them across their collective kissers like a wet haddock.

    They see it now though. 🙂

  145. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    yesindyref2 @ 22:35,

    Ach, he’s her da. It’s definitely a “glass half full” time for Dugdale Snr., and so it should be. Whatever reservations he might possibly have, he’s not likely to pubicly stab her in the back over them. Unlike all her “comrades” in NorthBritLab, who are definitely in scapegoat mode now, desperate to offload their many manifest failings onto her, who after all is only the latest of many who have gone before. Failings that, absent Kez, will no doubt surface again anyway before too long.

    Given that Dugdale Jr. appears to be seriously disenchanted with matters that were by no means all her own fault, her return from gobbling up unpleasant creepy-crawlies out in the wild could turn out to be an interesting continuation by other means of her future relationship with NorthBritLab.

    Well, one can but hope…

  146. Alex Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ken500

    “Snakes and reptiles. That’s just the participants.”

    Hahaha thanks for that 🙂

  147. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Is RT Sputnik news not Galloway. Might explain the nonsense about Scottish finances. He never lived down an apprearance on a reality show.

    Tommy Sheridan did one to get his legal fees. That was more a necessity. The snakes and reptiles at so called Murdoch news.

  148. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @RJS
    Could be interesting. Labour weren’t too chuffed when she resigned as leader, complaining she didn’t warn them. But if she’d warned them there’d have been all sorts of pressure on her to stay on or something. I think she’s just sick of it, and the reaction from supposed supporters and friends.

  149. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Alex Salmond stood for Gordon in Aberdeenshire. Greatly missed. The snakes and reptiles took over. Tories back to 3rd place. A little too late. Looks like Alex is off to pastures new. He needed a change. Always surprises. He never fails.

  150. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Brian Doonthetoon says:
    19 November, 2017 at 10:49 pm
    Hi heedtracker.

    You opined,

    I do. Thanks for the amazing infor. I will head to Kirrie asap, and do my greatest air guitar, in front of Bon, circa AC/DC live at the Capital Aberdeen, 1978, because it feel like yesterday. Bloody hell that’s the year before the actual indyref1, of which I can hardly remember.

    Give teens the vote:D

  151. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    I just had a long trawl through UK no. 1s from the start of the 60s to 2000.

    750 no. 1s in total of which only 8 were by Scottish singers or bands.(not counting Rod Stewart).

    Also had a quick look through the American no. 1s of the 60s.
    Two Scots had no. 1s there, Lulu and Donovan. Note, neither Lulu or Donovan seem to have ever had a UK no. 1 hit even though Lulu won the Eurovision for the UK.

    Hmmm! with a capital ‘H’

  152. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    @Brian Doonthetoon

    I thought Bon was born in Forfar not Kirriemuir,

    help bring in the tourists if Forfar got a statue of Bon.

    anyhoo,

    don`t think Alex would be right to lead Yes campaign in Indy 2,think he is a bit too marmite,

    but as i said a few weeks ago, Angus (Robertson not Young) would be a perfect fit.

  153. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s funny how although Kezia was and is a complete liar and incompetent politician, (to be fair she didn’t have much to work with) we’ve softened our attitude to her
    And I think I know why, Unionist “journalists” disgust us more than even Scottish Labour politicians and Alex Massie falls right into the putrid bottom dwellers that are those “journalists”

    Amazingly Kezia has risen above something for the first time
    So no matter how bad people get at least they’ll never be as bad as Unionist “journalists”

  154. Alex Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dr Jim

    I think your spot on regarding Kezia and the journalists. She represented Labour and did as she had to do whether instructed or not. She did at one time promise a free vote for all Labour MSP’s on Independence but changed (forced to?) her tune.

    Now though we see those in the media that previously covered her in platitudes and how great she was denouncing her as useless and an insult to the party.

    These gits are the lowest of the low. They are the real enemy.

  155. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    If KD comes over there could be a few more. The new branch manager got no support on his credit-denying tweet, not a clueful start.

  156. Alex Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ll say one more thing, I believe that she is a complete idiot for agreeing to appear on that shit show. There can no way back for her now in politics Scottish or otherwise.

    However the way her former “friends” both politicians and journalists have ganged up to attack her makes me puke.

    The hypocrisy of them stinks which by the way leads back to Corbyn as he is the one that plotted her demise. Not surprised she seeks respite in an Australian jungle.

    Anyway she’s out of it now we can leave her be, Bake Off Ruth is a different story, she needs brought down a peg or two. Her fall I believe will be just as quick as Dugdale’s.

    Hopefully soon if not sooner.

  157. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Alex Clark
    She might not be coming back to politics, who knows. But she could come back to campaigning though, and the exposure would do that good.

  158. Alex Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    @yesindyref2

    If the media do afford her any exposure when she comes back none of it can be good. For Kezia that is.

  159. Petra
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh well strange one on here! I’m doing an overnight shift looking after a young relative. Just posted some thoughts about Kezia Dugdale that haven’t appeared. Maybe if I had been wandering around Glasgow half sloshed at 4pm in the morning I would have had my post accepted. Is anyone actually monitoring this site at this time in the morning at all? A time by the way that people in Canada and the US actually frequent this site.

  160. Petra
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh well I’ll try once AGAIN. No links. No swearing. No lies.

    ……………………………

    [EDITED BY REVSTU, WHOSE FUCKING HEAD HAS JUST FUCKING EXPLODED]

  161. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh Petra , pet that sounds a tad soor grapey to me- besides
    Cactus hasn’t put in an appearance!

    I wish ms Dugdale luck in the jungle , I hope she enjoys the experience as much as the great Foggy did – though I’m not sure he was too enthralled with the snake down his trouser.

    It may give her a different perspective on life and who knows where that can lead.

  162. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    An old fogey tells it like it is and ends up in ‘The Infamous Ledger’: https://wp.me/p4fd9j-iY

  163. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    This is the guy who took the Tories to court over the £1Bn DUP corrupt bung to stay in power
    video here
    https://twitter.com/chunkymark/status/932161454568038400

    http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/11/09/swallow-the-lot-and-swallow-it-now-britain-is-and-was-deluded-about-its-negotiating-power-with-the-eu/

    Brexit: “flabbergasting complacency”
    http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86675

    The Guardian view on Brexit and the Irish border: Britain’s shameful dereliction
    http://archive.is/1hbey

  164. Liz Rannoch
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Grouse Beater 7.33am

    Love the Ledger – I’d like to nominate Shirley Ballas the other week. I don’t watch any more but picked this up while wandering about online:

    http://metro.co.uk/2017/11/05/shirley-ballas-apologises-for-reffering-to-the-united-kingdom-as-just-england-as-her-on-air-gaffes-continue-7054567/

    Also the wumman at the cenotaph for the Merchant Navy going on about England. I think it was somebody on here who noticed it. Don’t know how to ‘grab’ a bit but it’s here on ‘Remembrance Sunday about 1hr 14mins in.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09ffs6y/remembrance-sunday-the-cenotaph-2017

  165. ShredderIsAlive
    Ignored
    says:

    Not exactly much of a journalist if he’s putting Tommy Sheridan in that category.

    He wasn’t a serving member of Parliament when he made his appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, and straight up admitted that he did it because he needed the money.

    If he wanted a more relevant name, how about serving Tory MP Penny Mordaunt on that stupid diving show?

  166. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @Nana

    The Guardian piece pretty much nails the Eire/NI problem top to toe Nana. How and ever, the title of the article is wrong. Britain hasn’t let Ireland down.

    Brexiteers have let Ireland down. Self absorbed Conservatism and naked greed has let Ireland down. Societal intolerance has let Ireland down. All of that mainly. Scotland’s government and electorate didn’t nor did the electorate of NI.

    At this time, probably more than at any other time, it is vitally important to be very, VERY precise in where responsibility lies for these events. For journos to generalise, to spread ‘blame’ is dangerous and stupid.

    I know they have to sell stories for a living, but some don’t need any embellishment. It’s really not that hard to find the culprits in this instance.

  167. Jack Collatin
    Ignored
    says:

    My tuppence worth: Angus Robertson to lead the YES campaign.
    Massie is not a daft lad. He has prompted the reaction for which he hoped by using a really bad sweary word.
    Job done.
    We’re talking trivia and ‘I’m a Nonentity, Get Me In there’, nonsense about Dugdale, while England suffers a severe mental breakdown.
    120,000 die because of giggling Davidson’s, and guffawing Carlaw’s, austerity robbery.
    Time to set a date of our own:-Indyref 2.

  168. Les Wilson
    Ignored
    says:

    Here comes the attack on Scottish Independence, helped by the Americans.First shot perhaps to make a Catalonian style intervention in Scotland. This is the Times, just wait and see the rest jumping on the bandwagen to make it seem real. With no real evidence that Russia was involved, or made up fake news as some may call it.

    From Rev’s twitter account.

    https://twitter.com/WingsScotland/status/932525164855746560/photo/1ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwingsoverscotland.com%2F

  169. Les Wilson
    Ignored
    says:

    My posting above now not available ie does not exist but still on the Rev’s Twitter account.

  170. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    Since that number (120,000) of deaths due to austerity is reportedly an England-only number. Maybe the SNP should be seeking to establish a Scottish number, and, if it is less than 10,080 (8.4% of 120,000) then it is a tribute to the Scottish Government’s mitigating Tory austerity.

    If more, it still shows how bad austerity is, and how, even with the Scottish Government’s efforts at mitigation, Tory austerity still hits Scotland harder.

  171. artyhetty
    Ignored
    says:

    UK British, London based and controlled political climate is a sleazy, corrupt can of worms.

    Pop over to Carltonjock, he has a new article today. Just who runs the UK is anybody’s guess, but it all stinks to high heaven.

    I sent the film shown here last week about PFI, to a friend thinking they might be interested as they work in the area of law. Nah, only if it has been an SNP bad story. Labour are not to be criticised by some loyal to them, no matter what.

  172. ScottieDog
    Ignored
    says:

    @artyhetty
    The UK is a plutocracy. It’s so blinking obvious, or it should be.

  173. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Corbyn likes reality shows. Leonard doesn’t. Decisions. Divisions.

    Did Leask get throw out of Russia? Or have a bad experience. The migration problems.

    The Tories are killing off their voters. The elderly.

  174. Lenny Hartley
    Ignored
    says:

    Petra @04:27 yes this site is monitored 24/7 but not by the Rev. Posts have been disappearing for a long time now and nobody can get to the bottom of why it’s happening – get used to it, and give the Rev a break.
    Considering your rant appeared it’s possible your original posts went into the moderation queue due to the use of banned words or you may have mis typed your email address etc.
    Btw I’m with you on those drunken posts.
    Hope everything is ok with your young relative.

  175. Joe of the Coutts
    Ignored
    says:

    Why oh why would they use Edwina Curry and her rabbiting on Radio Scotland? Are they bonkers? Yes.

  176. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Telegraph .. ” Theresa May has been warned by a senior Tory MP that the British public will “go bananas” if she agrees to a Brexit divorce bill of £40billion or more. “

    …. and when the EU27 say, “you are still trying to short change us”, what then!?

    Presumably that £40b includes the £20b to be paid IF a mutually acceptable transition of two years is agreed.

  177. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    Herald journalist in paranoid mode about Russian fake news, on same day as the Herald runs a Dugdale story with a fake photograph. You have to admire their hypocrisy.

  178. Robert Graham
    Ignored
    says:

    o/t – A good interview by Chunkymark on u/tube . He was in Ireland and featured a very good interview with Bernadette Devlin , she sums up the british establishment’s view of everyone and everything foreign , it was a short clip but she got the message across , He then shows the views of folk who will actually be affected by any changes to the border , this is going to be an interesting pantomime to watch , over to you Boris .

  179. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    Liz Rannoch 8.22

    No idea who Shirley Ballas is –

    and I’d jump from the Queensferry Crossing before watching a dancing competition –

    but its archived.

    http://archive.is/LJi2N

  180. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    This is totally hilarious, she’s not even in yet (Tuesday apparently), and already #TeamKez is getting followers.

    Won’t be long before the only ones not in #TeamKez will be the Scottish branch of the Labour party.

  181. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    I heard McTernan and some other Labour person on the radio this morning. John was sceptical about the likely success of Corbyn and Leonard. He back Anas of course.

    The other chap seemed dismissive of the centre ground promising milk and honey regardless and said the fact that Leonard immediately went off to try and take credit for something he played no part in just showed how wonderful he is.

    John, in a reflex action I think, then went on to say how awful the SNHS and Police Scotland are under the SNP. Probably some sort of delayed action compulsion from the 2015 election 🙂

    No idea who the other chap was but he wanted Kezia flogged with old copies of the Morning Star whilst John said people should chill out a bit.

  182. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert Graham

    Here’s the video with Bernadette Devlin

    https://twitter.com/chunkymark/status/932241393526882304

  183. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Les Wilson.

    Here’s your link fixed.

    https://twitter.com/WingsScotland/status/932525164855746560/

  184. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s the youtube link for the Chunky Mark chat with Bernadette

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSOsA3r_AUM

  185. Graf Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Galamcennalath

    “Telegraph .. ” Theresa May has been warned by a senior Tory MP that the British public will “go bananas” if she agrees to a Brexit divorce bill of £40billion or more. “

    …. and when the EU27 say, “you are still trying to short change us”, what then!?”
    ———

    “The Tories.. “I think where we have to be clear is what we’re paying for and what we’re getting. No one is suggesting that we should just hand over money without any proper scrutiny. That would be entirely inappropriate. But it may well be entirely appropriate to put in money to facilitate international trade which will secure jobs in this country.”
    ——————

    The Brexit bill has nothing directly to do with the future relationship between the EU and UK.

    As long as the UK is a member of the EU, there are running costs, committments for on-going or coming projects, obligations for pension requirements and other similar financial necessities.

    The Brexit negotiations are, amongst others, about quantifying the total accumalated amounts and paying the bill for the time of our membership so that a clean slate is left in March 2019.

    That’s all.

    The future relationship is a new game (lover..!) and should the UK require entry to some EU institutions, eg. Euratom, then any costs/membership which may inccur should be negotiated as per project.

  186. Robert Graham
    Ignored
    says:

    Nana – thanks i didnt want to ask ha ha thanks again .

  187. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T.
    Dugdale lover rages over Labour “bullies”

    I noted this headline in the Sun as her “lover” is SNP is that why they used that instead of partner and I wonder if they would refer to Davidson’s one in the same way.
    I really don’t care one way or the other just a thought.

    Russia has sent midget subs up Gare Loch to spy at Faslane MOD can take no action. FAKE NEWS but I bet some Tories would believe it.

  188. ScottieDog
    Ignored
    says:

    @Scott
    On the subject of midget subs, there’s not much effort involved in breachIng Scotland’s sea defences. I mean we got rid of our maritime patrol aircraft. Not sure about open skies but we certainly have open seas!

  189. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Graf Midgehunter says:

    The Brexit bill has nothing directly to do with the future relationship between the EU and UK.

    Indeed. The current negotiations leading to an Exit Deal have absolutely nothing to do with any future Trade Deal. Yet the Tories and their legacy media are going to great lengths to try to merge the two in people’s minds.

    As you say, they are trying to push the idea that the required payment to settle an Exit Deal is somehow going to contribute towards a good Trade Deal.

    Perhaps it’s simply a means to sell the idea of paying over money to EU to voters who believed they were choosing a simple ‘walk away’. IMO it’s more about setting up impossible scenarios so the UK can go for a hard Brexit and blame the EU for ‘forcing it upon us’.

    I have only seen two strands of Tory Brexiteers thinking on the Trade Deal …. the jump off the cliff brigade and the cherry picking fantasists. They seem to have abandoned any sensible single market/customs union outcome.

    The cherry picking fantasies were never going to happen, so that leaves cliff edge or change of government.

  190. Liz Rannoch
    Ignored
    says:

    @ mike cassidy 10.17

    Thanks for that.

    I like dancing (watching – too decrepit now!) and used to watch SCD until a couple of years ago. Too much bias and favouritism – just like the rest of EBC.

  191. geeo
    Ignored
    says:

    Feel free to correct me here, but the mooted £20 billion from WM to the EU is NOT the ‘divorce bill’.

    It is the cost of market access during the transition period.

    The full £40/50/60 billion ‘divorce bill’ would be outstanding over and above the £20billion

  192. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Graf Midgehunter @ 11:02:

    The Brexit negotiations are, amongst others, about quantifying the total accumulated amounts and paying the bill for the time of our membership so that a clean slate is left in March 2019.

    It all depends on what you mean by this phrase I have highlighted in italics (and the devil is very much in the details). It is not only intended to cover expenditure incurred in the current accounting period but also to cover future ongoing financial committments that were entered into by the EU as a whole (and thus with UK approval) during our period of membership. One such, for example, being the future pension payments for all former and current EU civil servants of UK origin. The idea being to achieve a “clearing of the slate”, as you mention, by some sort of one-off payment.

    The UK negotiators seem to see this quite differently. Perhaps a part of it is due to domestic UK political pressure from the BritNat media jackals as gala suggests, but also I believe because they desperately want to “wheel and deal” over trade using “slate-clearing” payment as negotiating leverage.

    After all, it’s about the only leverage UKGov does have in this very lop-sided little game.

  193. Robert Kerr
    Ignored
    says:

    @geeo

    That is my understanding too.

    It really angers me that there is ALWAYS deliberate confusion generated by both politicians and churnalists.

    Do they all think we are stupid?

  194. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    Might have to join team Kez…

    Outright bullying now on show from the new, so-called ‘Leader’ of WM Labour in Scotland.
    Not content to allow speculation about her future he has now hinted at coercive control a really nasty way to bully people… i.e. if you’re really, really, sorry, i’ll allow you to keep your job, but you realise that i’ll always be able to threaten you with losing your job if you disobey me ever again Kezia!!!!

    Following the Keep your enemies close but under strict control theory!

    Nicola is backing Kez, that’s good enough for me – come on Kez, go for it girl.

    ( PS I don’t support that fact that she abandoned her constituents for three weeks though – have to find a way to atone for that, but I reckon she’s been under a huge amount of pressure up to now and needed a complete beak.)

  195. Jack Murphy
    Ignored
    says:

    So just where does the power lie within the Scottish Labour Party?
    UK Executive or Scotland?

    The new Leader Richard Leonard in BBC radio interview commenting on the Kezia Dugdale situation,AND THE ABERDEEN LABOUR GROUP.

    “…….Mr Leonard was also questioned about the status of the Labour group on Aberdeen City Council, who are currently all suspended from the party for going into coalition with Conservative councillors against the instructions of the central party……..”

    “…..Mr Leonard said the group were “seeking direction” from the party’s Scottish executive, which he was now a member of, and said a report had been sent to the UK executive.

    He said: “I don’t like to see a situation where members of the Labour Party are put outside it.

    “But neither can we allow for a situation where a group of labour councillors defy an instruction which was issued by the Labour Party.”

    BBC Radio Scotland TODAY:
    http://archive.is/9Ntab

  196. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    geeo says:

    Feel free to correct me here, but the mooted £20 billion from WM to the EU is NOT the ‘divorce bill’.

    It is the cost of market access during the transition period.

    Yes, agreed, but….

    The UK is planning to leave within the current 7 year EU spending round. It has made commitments covered by payments which would have made, if it had stayed. May’s argument is that by staying for a transitional period, payments made then will in part mitigates EU loses.

    There is some truth to this, but the ‘divorce bill’ goes way beyond just commitments from the current spending round. Some projects are longer term, and the UK has obligations there. Then there are pensions of the many EU staff.

    Also, my understanding is that the EU ends each round in the red and rolls that over. There’s a French phrase for it which I forget. Part of this debt is the UK’s.

    My objection to confusing divorce issues with a transition arrangement is that such a scenario is far from certain. The EU will insist on full single market, all laws including ones still to be passed, and the ECJ. It remains to be seen whether hard Brexiteers would want such a transition!

    I am pretty certain the EU will treat the divorce bill as an Exit issue, to be settled quite separately from what a transition arrangement might bring. Which is the way you look at it too.

  197. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Alex Massie
    Tory a-holes, such as yourself, generally don’t value intellectual freedom, so are often ignorant of their own lack of morality.

    Have the grace to recognise when you’re outclassed and out of your depth.

    The moral roots of liberals and conservatives
    http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind

  198. orri
    Ignored
    says:

    Kez can just as easily abstain from the Jungle as from Holyrood.

    However the whole she should resign bit is an indication of what this might be about.

    If Dugdale quitting Labour meant she instantly lost her seat then the same would hold for her being kicked out. If that were so then it’d be easy enough for party to abuse the electoral process by sacking list MPs in order to bring less popular candidates in. Assuming the electorate are sophisticated enough to vote on the list taking into account the probability that a particularly odious candidate would probably not be elected. Those kind of games are probably why there’s no provision for adding members to the party list after the election.

    Think, some, in the scottish Labour camp are crapping themselves at what might happen if they push Dugdale too far whilst she’s still an MSP. At a minimum she might declare herself neutral. At an extreme she might openly ally herself with the SNP. The Greens might also have a bit of a wobble. Not to mention what happens if it’s not just Dugdale but a significant number of Labour members who all resign the whip.

  199. John H.
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for the link Nana (and Robert Graham).

    DUP duped. Brilliant.

  200. schrodingers cat
    Ignored
    says:

    im not sure 3 weeks in a reality tv spot light is a break but i get the point about supporting kez because the rest of slab are vilifying her.

    but her comments in holyrood and elsewhere about stu were unacceptable.

    but when stu asked if he should pursue her in the courts, I was all for it, as were the majority of wingers, i’m not so sure that this was the correct course of action, as i still feel kez might be a convert to yes and if so we may regret this

  201. Jack Murphy
    Ignored
    says:

    Reuters TODAY.
    The European Union Member States are voting today on re-location of the European Medicines Agency as it departs the UK at Brexit. 🙁

    http://tinyurl.com/y8uvyskh

  202. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    @me at 12:07

    “reste à liquider”, which means “yet to be paid”.

    It refers to commitments and rolled over debt into the 2019-2025 budget round.

  203. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    In case you haven’t seen it –

    here’s Philip Hammond saying there are no unemployed people –

    and Andrew Marr being so shit at his job he doesn’t even call him out, never mind fall from his seat laughing.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89iIz17SIxw

  204. Flower of Scotland
    Ignored
    says:

    The BBC in Scotland seem to be keen to humiliate Kezia for I’m a Celebrity, but not Ruth for Bake off. Maybe they think Kezia is going to cross over to SNP, so they dish the dirt just in case she,s thinking of it.

  205. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Never mind the quality smell the fear

    And not just in the Labour party but in the Scottish media as well as they collectively panic over what statements from Kezia might be broadcast followed by her exit resignation newspaper headlines of Bullying and the Undermining of her position since Jeremy Corbyn became leader

    Make no mistake the Scottish media including the BBC STV and print garbage will be holding their wee meetings to all run with the same story all based on Kezias lack of credibility while at the same time attempting to justify why they all reported her favourably in the past and hailed her Scottish Labours saviour

    Kezia is what she is but nobody should deny she pulled out every trick and lie in the book she was ordered to for and on behalf of her party
    So if some folk think she is destroying herself I would argue Scottish Labour provided her with the faulty ammunition to blow her brains out, but she did it for them

    And now she’s going to return the favour to Jeremy Corbyn, Richard Leonard, Neil Findlay and the rest of the gang of thugs who forced her into this positon

    Folk saying it’s for the money? well lets face it, it’s probably no more than a couple of years salary as opposed to she could have hung around Holyrood as a list MSP forever and earned a lot more, so I believe the amount of money is a secondary consideration

    I believe this is Kezias revenge is sweet moment so why not have a bit of fun and earn some dosh while she’s doing it
    If she plays her cards right, which she’s not known for, but if she does this could be worth a huge payday over the next year for her with chat show appearances and reality nonsense lining up to give her money and the Labour party being exposed for the hypocrits they are at the same time

    It’s all win win for Kez

  206. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    ” Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, suggested EU parliaments will block a Brexit trade deal if the UK plans to diverge too much from the EU regulatory model. The UK had to decide what it wanted, he said. “

    An early warning that the UK has to agree to not diverge too much, or there will never be a trade deal!

    All free trade deals are about countries agreeing to converge in terms of standards and regulations. The whole idea of Brexit is to ‘cut red tape’ and ‘free up industry’ by sweeping aside the current level of regulation. That is incompatible with an EU trade deal.

    No surprises there … or, there shouldn’t be!

    I understand the hard Brexit über right view, I just believe it’s mad, bad, and immoral.

    The sooner everyone sees Brexit for what it really is, the better.

    http://archive.is/n9bDS

  207. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    orri @ 12:18,

    Even if Kez quit Labour, she remains an MSP unless she resigns. Remaining but independent (as two former SNP MSPs once did) makes her a potential thorn in the flesh for Labour. Which is why hardliners like Findlay are itching to hound her out of her seat as well as out of her “leadership”. (Which was always largely cosmetic anyway.) Except that a brutal clearout starting with Kez could easily backfire with the public at large.

    We have to understand the bigger picture here. This is a Corbynista takeover of NorthBritLab, and it’s only begun. There’ll probably be no more of Kez’s “I’m in charge up here, really I am”. London is now firmly back in control and they are just as keen to push the SNP aside as they ever were. It’s just that the tack to be tried now will alter.

    However, Labour are no more interested in Scottish independence than they ever were. Even less so now that they think that just a few more wins here and down south will wheel them into power in the UK without any need for “assistance” from the SNP. I just wish that leftie correspondents in The National would lose their rose-tinted specs for once and wake up to that hard reality.

  208. Graf Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert J. Sutherland /Galamcennalath

    Apologies for not being entirely clear but yes you’re right the bill does include the financial commitments previously made which overlap into the short-term future after March 2017.

    It does not include however a transition period. That is a separate thing. If a transition period is deemed necessary from both sides then it entails the UK observing the EU rules and regulations, incl. ECJ. and a “still” access “membership” contribution for the transition period to cover costs. 10-20bn..??

    May’s position and the rest of the barmy army in London is pure desperation.

    They’re trapped on the one side by a strong EU team which knows exactly which cards it holds and is not afraid of using them. ..tick-tock, tick-tock..

    On the other side they’ve sold Brexit on a huge pack of lies, the media has been goaded up to frothing point and they’re not getting anywhere..!

    Plus scandals here and anything else you fancy X……x.

    I hope the establishment get ripped to pieces.. 🙂

  209. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    London is now firmly back in control

    Indeed. However, they won’t drop the ‘Scottish’ title and will continue the pretence of representing Scotland. A gullible group of voters will continue to be duped by another London centric party.

  210. schrodingers cat
    Ignored
    says:

    fos

    kez is a loose cannon, no doubt about it, many on social media hinting that she may cross the floor and join the snp. there has been hints from nicola in the past that kez is not 100% against indy, indeed, she said herself that lab mps & msp could have freedom to chose, that was until london lab came down on her like a ton of bricks.

    she also said she would quit if leonard won the leadership election, it also looks like alex rolley was stiffed by london labour to clear out the blairites

    so, all in all, kez defecting isnt beyond possibility and perhaps why nicola has come out in support.

    her dad and partner are pro snp

  211. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Perhaps some light reading for the jungle? I can’t think of a better place for Kez to reflect on the issues of empowerment and identity, self-determination and the natural location of sovereignty.

    Book Review: Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0891243217732013

  212. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    @galamcennalath
    In the context of negotiations the French verb LIQUIDER means to settle, by implication once and for all.

  213. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Graf Midgehunter @ 13:03,

    Yes, agreed in all respects.

    A Leaver prospectus that if it were a share offer for a private company would immediately bring arrest for fraud.

    UK withdrawal from the EU is a crazy neo-imperialist fantasy. As I say, Suez’56 for slow learners.

  214. Abulhaq
    Ignored
    says:

    Kezia sets an example of the career path unionist apparatchiks will ineluctably be compelled to follow there being no other rôle or use for them in their current political manifestation.

  215. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour Leadership race.

    I doubt this so called transparent party has revealed the number of votes cast from their members?

    I’d wager the new guy, that I’ve never heard of. didn’t even get 5,000 votes in a Nation with a population of 5.5 Million.

    I was away when Wings posted the North Ayrshire Corruption story.

    I haven’t recovered yet.

    Cover up the Council Cover up who covering up the cover up that they want to cover up.

    Can anyone advise why our SNP Government isn’t making strides towards a major inquiry?

    There must be a fortune to be saved by cancelling these PFI Contracts, stopping the pensions for all those behind the scam,
    and tacking those contractors for their profits through criminal activities.

  216. wull2
    Ignored
    says:

    It could be the Bugs taste sweet up North, and Sour down South.

  217. schrodingers cat
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert J. Sutherland says:

    Even if Kez quit Labour, she remains an MSP unless she resigns.

    ————–

    is that certain robert, eric joyce vseems to infer that the power to replce kez lies with oor dick?
    http://www.ericjoyce.co.uk/2017/11/kezia-dugdale-deserves-a-fair-wind-and-a-successful-future/

  218. Flower of Scotland
    Ignored
    says:

    @schrodingers cat

    I never usually listen to BBC Scotland anymore. It makes me queasy. However I wondered how they would approach the Kezia in the jungle thing.

    BBC in Scotland are so predictable that it made me laugh for a change. Bettertogether stalwart John Beattie show giving great amusement especially as comments from Kirsty Strickland were right on the nail. She talked about “snakes in the Labour Party” and there was an audible gasp from Mr Beattie!

  219. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    Can an MSP `elected` from the Regional list be replaced, (outwith death or resignation) by the party from which the MSP was listed, at any time during the life of the parliament ??

    and can an MSP selected by a `Party` on the Regional list change parties during course of parliament ??

    anyone know for sure ??

  220. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    schrodingers cat @ 13:28,

    Hmmm, when they quit the SNP, both Finnie and Urquhart were constituency MSPs, whereas Kezia, due to the fickleness of fate, is currently a list MSP. Which indeed in her case came from a Labour Party list. But it does not obviously follow that a party resignation (or expulsion) of a list MSP directly affects their standing in Parliament, compared to (say) what necessarily must be done if they have simply died. List MSPs are oft derided in some quarters as “2nd class” and “unelected”, but I’m not sure their standing is quite as tenuous as such dismissal may imply.

    I’m happy to be corrected on that though. Not sure though that Eric Joyce is necessarily the go-to expert. There doesn’t seem to be an exact precedent. Anyone got the definitive take on that…?

  221. Peter McCulloch
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s a pity we couldn’t just put all those in the Labour party here in Scotland in a jungle and leave them there.

    I also wonder how much of a honeymoon Leonard will get, before they really start sticking the knives in his back?

  222. Sinky
    Ignored
    says:

    From the archives:

    Where is the BBC’s coverage of Labour’s Lord Robertson’s cosying up to Putin

    http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/9128-bbc-wipes-labour-peers-putin-nato-invite-from-news-bulletins
    When is Cameron going to Apologise for going cap in hand to Putin asking for support for the No campaign??

    http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/camerons-plea-to-putin-help-me-stop-salmond.23138182

    Still No Media interest in the links between Better Together’s main donor Ian Taylor and the Russian Oil Baron Igor Sechin who is on the US banned list and who Alex Salmond mentioned today at FMQs,

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27197709

    And here is the link between Igor Sechin and Ian Taylor of Vitol, who are major donors of the Better Together Campaign.

    http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=ian+taylor+vitol+linked+to+russian+oligarch&d=5001237261855516&mkt=en-GB&setlang=en-GB&w=7vuhJ3y3nmziTOc6NwWTBQ1Rkv8025lFSM

    No mention of the investigation into new secretive Tory funded No campaign run from London that is planning to spend £400,000 in the referendum campaign.

    http://wingsoverscotland.com/while-were-investigating/#comments

  223. Sinky
    Ignored
    says:

    Lest we forget:

    By David Leask and Paul Hutcheon The Herald 12 January 2014

    DAVID Cameron’s Government wants the backing of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the battle against Scottish independence, the former USSR’s leading news agency has reported.

    Itar-Tass, citing a source in the Conservative Prime Minister’s office, said Britain was “extremely interested” in referendum support from Russia, which this year holds the presidency of the influential G8 group of rich industrial nations.

    The state-owned agency – acknowledged as the Kremlin’s official mouthpiece before and after the end of Communism – said the Cameron aide had warned Scottish independence could “send shockwaves across the whole of Europe”.

    Its report, which follows claims Cameron and his Spanish counterpart Mariano Rajoy have forged an “anti-separatist pact”, sparked criticism last night from Alex Salmond.

    The First Minister said: “This report from Russia raises serious questions about the UK Government’s underhand tactics. If this is accurate, then Westminster has been caught red-handed trying to stir up hostility to Scotland instead of representing Scotland’s interests – it seems the No Campaign’s self-named ‘Project Fear’ has now gone global.”

    The Scottish Government, as revealed in this newspaper, has already launched its own diplomatic charm offensive, trying to explain its independence project to sceptical governments such as Rajoy’s.

    For the first time since devolution an Edinburgh administration is pursuing a foreign policy that is at odds with the interests of the British state.

    However, some nationalists increasingly suspect that Whitehall is using diplomatic back channels to rubbish independence.

    The Tass report, by one of the agency’s correspondents, hit the Russian language news wires on Hogmanay.

    Its opening paragraph reads: “Great Britain is extremely interested in the support of Russia, as holder of the G8 presidency, in two vital areas in 2014: the Afghan pull-out and the Scottish independence referendum.”

  224. winifred mccartney
    Ignored
    says:

    I certainly don’t think KD should be in the jungle-no teacher/nurse/or anyone paid by the public purse can just waltz off on holiday and still get paid or have a job to come back to.

    The new leader has obviously not yet had his instructions from London so is reluctant to face any difficult questions regarding KD and AR.

    But even I am surprised at the cruel vitriol coming from the labour party. I knew Anas had a lust for power I didn’t know he had a lust for cruelty and is quite prepared to use labour money and resources “man the telephone banks to make sure she eats every bug etc in the jungle” as he is quoted today in the press.

  225. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Further to the Kez departure thing, is it not interesting that the harshest criticism of her has mostly come from within her own party? The Tories haven’t reprised their old “day job” refrain, and the SNP has, if anything, been lukewarm sympathetic, with Nicola leading from the front.

    I guess political non-Labourites “in the know” understand better than we mere mortals just what a bum deal Kez got from NorthBritLab. Hung out to dry after a predictably futile effort to herd cats, =err= comrades, while trying to keep London at bay in an inevitably pretendy charade.

    No wonder she failed. Did we ever expect anything else..?

  226. Marga
    Ignored
    says:

    OT, and sorry for Spanish-speakers only as far as I can see, but as well as hosting AS, RT definitely has a sense of humour.

    Here’s 5 mini-videos by an RT presenter, taking the mick out of Spanish government claims that Russia is interfering in the Catalan independence affair:

    https://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/els-cinc-videos-on-la-cadena-russa-rt-deixa-en-evidencia-espanya/ (“I’m a Kremlin bot, and so are you, don’t deny it” etc.)

  227. starlaw
    Ignored
    says:

    Winifred McCartney 2-12pm

    Hundreds of civil servants, swan of for a week or two on holiday, claiming sickness and stress.

    The vitriol coming from the Labour Party is not new either. Labour thinks it should control every person who Labour deems to be working class. I and many others found out years ago just how nasty Labour can be especially when they had control of the Unions. Falling out with a local Labour activist could cost you your Job.

  228. orri
    Ignored
    says:

    Unlike the stooshie on their replacement MEP where there are no definite rules the Tories replaced Alex Johnstone with Bill Bowman who was next on the list.

    https://www.holyrood.com/articles/inside-politics/scottish-conservatives-2016-regional-list-candidates

    From memory there’s nothing in the rules about what happens if an unelected list candidate subsequently leaves a party. Only the list given in by it is considered.

    From which it follows that no longer being in the party who’s list you were on doesn’t see you unelected. If that were the case then there’d be a possibility of a list party getting one or more seats based on the popularity of the candidate first on their list only to subsequently throw them out.

    Only way Labour can ensure control of Dugdale’s seat, without the obvious of not pissing her off, is to hound her out so their next list candidate can take over. Assuming there is a next candidate.

  229. crazycat
    Ignored
    says:

    @ RJS at 2.00

    Hmmm, when they quit the SNP, both Finnie and Urquhart were constituency MSPs

    Are you sure about that?

    My memory, confirmed by the ever-reliable (!) Wikipedia, is that they were on the Highlands and Islands list:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highlands_and_Islands_(Scottish_Parliament_electoral_region)#Additional_member_results_2

  230. meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    Schrodingers cat

    Love it –
    the bubbles are barely flat on the Prosecco but you’ve already christened him: –

    ‘oor Dick’

    spilt ma tea on that yin…

  231. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    orri @ 14:37,

    Alex Johnstone’s replacement was of course due to his untimely death, not from dismissal or resignation.

    You make the interesting point that list MSP’s, despite coming off a party list, are not actually “unelected”, since voters can plainly see who is at the top of each such list, and do vote accordingly. It’s therefore not exclusively (or even principally?) a party vote. And certainly not for Kezia, whose face was all over Labour Party literature.

    Furthermore, just consider what would happen if any list MSP were suspended by their party while being investigated for some alleged misdemeanour. Would that “neutralisation” require the MSP’s immediate dismissal and replacement? I can’t believe that would make any sense, or ever happen.

  232. Derick fae Yell
    Ignored
    says:

    John Finnie and Jean Urquhart were both list MSPs when they resigned from the SNP. They sat as Independents for the rest of the Parliament

  233. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    crazycat @ 14:48,

    Thanks for that follow-up. Facts are golden. I had looked up the 2011 results on Wikipedia before posting, but maybe I looked at the wrong year, or even misunderstood what I was reading. (Neither impossible! =sigh=)

    If they were indeed list MSPs as you say, then the precedent is clear.

  234. David Caledonia
    Ignored
    says:

    Lets be clear about this, people like massie never speak for scotland, Alex laughs at people like him, they cannot overcome people like Alex intelectually or politically so all they have left is to play the, he is a fool and an idiot card
    Massie is a nonentity that nobody listens to or takes seriously, its allways a good thing to expose people like , to me personally i find their silly ramblings extremely funny as they don’t seem to understand that all they do is turn people against them and their newspapers

  235. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Woohoo! Kezia Dugdale makes Graun front page, online. Severin should go with her too. Its a lotta lotta lolly and that’s what yoons are all about, loads of fackin money.

    Kezia Dugdale joins I’m a Celebrity and causes split in Scottish Labour
    Former leader’s decision to join jungle reality show overshadows election of her successor, Richard Leonard
    Kezia Dugdale, seen here during the election, is expected to join the rest of the I’m a Celebrity contestants later this week.
    Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian
    View more sharing options
    Shares
    155
    Severin Carrell Scotland editor
    Monday 20 November 2017 11.32 GMT

  236. meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    Maybe Kez will set up her own party – ‘the REAL Scottish labour and this one isnae a branch’
    Party.

    Amazing what you can achieve when you get really scunnered by other people.

    Just as an aside, anybody know what happened about the court case regarding (T)Ruthless’ side-stepping her list to try and replace the next MSP list-header whom she didnae like and the elevation of Mr. to ‘Lord Duncan of all he can manage to keep up with’

  237. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Severin says, read this vile seps. 12 million pairs of British eye balls, all eyeballing a SLabour star, as Brexit goes tits up, its not like this is a critical period of UKOK history or anything.

    Nadine Dorries ?@NadineDorries

    Should not be suspended. Time for party leaders to grow up! @kezdugdale has found a way to cut through the filter of political journalists and let the public see who she is, in tough and challenging circumstances. She will be seen by 12mil Smart lady http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-42037321
    10:32 AM – Nov 19, 2017

  238. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    Apologies MEP list-header…

  239. admiral
    Ignored
    says:

    heedtracker says:
    20 November, 2017 at 3:02 pm
    Woohoo! Kezia Dugdale makes Graun front page, online. Severin should go with her too. Its a lotta lotta lolly and that’s what yoons are all about, loads of fackin money.
    Kezia Dugdale joins I’m a Celebrity and causes split in Scottish Labour
    Former leader’s decision to join jungle reality show overshadows election of her successor, Richard Leonard
    Kezia Dugdale, seen here during the election, is expected to join the rest of the I’m a Celebrity contestants later this week.
    Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian
    View more sharing options
    Shares
    155
    Severin Carrell Scotland editor
    Monday 20 November 2017 11.32 GMT

    I wonder how long it will be before Sev writes a “the greatest politician since sliced bread and next FM of Scotland” article about Tricky Dicky.

    Come to think of it, he could just look out the articles about Wendy Alexander, Iain Gray, Johanna Lamont, Jim Murphy and Kez and change the name – they were all pretty much the same hagiography, anyway!

  240. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    How can a “List” MSP continue to sit if they kick their party & its list into touch? farcial!

  241. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T

    Chuka Umunna?Verified account
    @ChukaUmunna
    37m37 minutes ago
    More
    BREAKING: The Brexit Minister Lord Callanan has just given a personal statement in the House of Lords to correct himself on the revocability of Art 50 having wrongly claimed in the Lords last week that the UK could not legally revoke Art 50 1/2

    Wonder if that will reach the news tonight…

  242. meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T continued:

    Chuka Umunna?Verified account
    @ChukaUmunna
    31m31 minutes ago
    More
    Replying to @ChukaUmunna
    Last Monday Callanan claimed the Supreme Court in the Miller case ruled Art 50 was not revocable – they did no such thing. The decision to revoke Art 50 is a political decision. If the facts change, the govt is denying people the ability to have an open mind on what happens 2/2

  243. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    This is an interesting Indyref2 poll, with regional categories.
    It’s received 163 votes so far, only 28 of which are for No.

    http://www.strawpoll.me/14442845/r

  244. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    heedtracker @ 15:02,

    It’s always mildly amusing to observe Labour fanboy Sevvy’s take on matters in his beloved Northern Accounting Unit. But it must be quite confusing for him to discern the party line on recent events.

    According to the faithful Graun scribe, Kez has “caused a split in Scottish [sic] Labour”. Duh! As if it wasn’t there already. And plainly visible to anyone who cared to look. =sigh= It’s a wonder that people like him can manage to scrape a living with “insights” like this…

  245. Moonlight
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T
    A glossy A4 sheet has appeared in my mail this morning.
    “Members of the Scottish Parliament for the North East Region”

    Bowman, Kerr, Chapman, Mason.

    Jolly little pictures of them doing their “good works”

    No mention of other MSPs in the region, no mention of the Tory or unionist party. Implies to the uninitiated that these are our sole representatives at Holyrood.

    No mention that these are list MSPs and not directly elected.

    Paid for by

    “The costs of this publication have been met out of Parliamentary resources”

    W T F is going on here, why am I paying for Tory propoganda.

    Perhaps some of the wise people on this blog can help me here.

  246. Alex Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert J. Sutherland

    Finnie and Urquhart were also List MP’s for the Highlands, Jean Urquhart stood for Shetland constituency but lost to Tavish Scott.

    “She came to prominence in the isles after standing as an SNP candidate in the 2011 election to the Scottish Parliament. She lost to sitting Liberal Democrat candidate Tavish Scott, but gained enough support to be elected to the Highlands and Islands list.”

    http://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/2012/10/23/urquhart-resigns-from-snp-over-nato-stance

    Both were urged to resign from parliament by senior SNP MSP Christine Grahame who quoted the SNP Code of Conduct:

    “Christine Grahame said John Finnie and Jean Urquhart, who now sit as independents, should leave Holyrood, under the SNP code of conduct.”

    Ms Grahame, convener of the Scottish Parliament’s justice committee, told BBC Scotland Mr Finnie and Ms Urquhart must now comply with the SNP code of conduct which she said states, “any member resigning from a party group at any level of government owes a duty to the party also to resign as a member of the local authority or parliament to which he/she was elected as a party candidate”.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-20083831

    It would seem from the above that you cannot forcibly be removed from parliament if you leave or are sacked from the party. That’s the impression I have but can’t find anything like a set of rules though they likely exist.

  247. orri
    Ignored
    says:

    To clarify, “unelected” in this context only refers to missing election due to insufficient regional support to gain additional members under D’Hondt.

    Think the lassie dingied by the Ruth Davidson Party lost because unlike Holyrood there’s no clear instruction written down as to what happens when a MEP dies or otherwise vacates their seat.

    That last bit is kind of interesting as given the rules only deal with the initial election a biased minister might decide to have a run off election based on D’Hondt using the excuse that public opinion might have moved. In simple terms treat the other seats as secure and not guarantee the vacant seat goes to the party that had it.

  248. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Severin Carrell
    Do the security services have something on you or are you simply an unprincipled dick?

    National Identity, Constitutional Identity, and Sovereignty in the EU

    3 The national identity versus the state sovereignty narrative

    What are the moral background principles to which the identity clause gives effect? To cut a long story short, national identity ought to be respected by the Union, not because nations are valuable for their own sake but because the individual members of a national community have a compelling interest in the respectful treatment of their nation. Respect for nations and the people who feel attached to them is conducive to the realisation of six valuable, liberal goods. Those goods include individual autonomy, distributive justice, deliberative democracy, justice as equal respect, liberty, and the viability of the common, multinational political community. The former three liberal virtues are often considered to be goods that can best be achieved within the context of thriving, politically autonomous national groups, which deserve to be respected for that. The latter three, in contrast, are virtues stemming directly from national identity being respected by the central institutions of a multinational polity. Each of those goods is briefly described in the following paragraphs.

    A first good that national societies are thought to help produce – and hence a first reason to treat nations with respect – relates to individual autonomy. More particularly, it has been claimed by liberal nationalists like Will Kymlicka that national societies provide individuals with a context in which they can exercise their autonomy in a meaningful way. To put it in Kymlicka’s own terms, ‘freedom involves making choices amongst various options, and our societal culture not only provides these options, but also makes them meaningful to us’.18 By a ‘societal culture’, Kymlicka understands ‘a territorially-concentrated culture, centred on a shared language which is used in a wide range of societal institutions, in both public and private life (schools, media, law, economy, government, etc.)’.19 Nations constitute the paradigm case of such a societal culture.20

    A second liberal ideal to which national societies are instrumental is distributive or social justice. The view is commonly held that distributive justice is easier to realise in a political community where citizens share a national identity. Welfare redistribution through fiscal and social policies presupposes a willingness to pursue solidarity among the members of the political community, that is, a readiness to make (financial) sacrifices for one’s fellow citizens. People will more likely be prepared to make such sacrifices if they identify with the potential beneficiaries and if they trust the latter to show solidarity with them when they are in need of support. Liberal nationalists believe that a common national identity offers the best prospect of citizens identifying with, and having faith in, each other.21

    A third liberal good which is commonly associated with national societies is deliberative democracy. Deliberative democracy is predicated on the assumption that genuinely democratic decision-making requires more than casting votes: it also presupposes public participation in deliberation and discussion. A common national identity facilitates the attainment of this ideal in at least two ways. First, when citizens are tied by linguistic and national bonds they experience fewer difficulties in communicating with one another, which benefits, in turn, the democratic debate, not only in the decision-making bodies but also in the media. Secondly, democracy can only work if there is sufficient confidence and trust among citizens themselves and among citizens and politicians. Only if people are convinced that their fellow citizens are interested in their opinions too and only if the losers in this election or debate are assured of a chance to win next time is true democracy possible. Moreover, in an indirect democracy, citizens need the confidence that their interests will be genuinely represented in parliament. Liberal nationalists believe that the high level of trust democracy requires is most likely to exist if citizens share a national identity.22

    Admittedly, one may object that the conditions for individual freedom, distributive justice and deliberative democracy need not necessarily be shaped and maintained at the Member State level. Indeed, in a multinational polity like the EU, the argument from individual autonomy, social justice, and democracy may well work in favour of European nation-building and against the preservation of the Member States’ national identities, rather than the other way around. However, this objection overlooks the close ties between people and their own national group. As is explained below, it may be feared that nation-building at the EU level for the sake of a European societal culture, distributive justice and deliberative democracy will come at the price of injustice as unequal dignity or respect. Though it cannot be excluded that, in the long term, the EU itself will become a fertile ground for the realisation of those liberal virtues, it may be argued that, at present, these goods are still largely the realm of sub-EU national groups, which deserve to be respected for that.

    The reasons for lauding the inclusion of the identity clause that we have discussed so far all bear on the importance of national societies. Yet there are three additional and perhaps even stronger reasons for welcoming the identity clause, which are of a slightly different nature. Here, the focus is not on benefits associated with the presence of a common national identity in a political community but rather on goods that are realised when a multinational political community pays respect to the national identities of its constitutive political entities and their citizens. These goods include justice as equal respect, liberty, and the viability of the multinational polity. Unlike the three preceding arguments in favour of respect for national identity, the arguments to come have no particular link with liberal nationalist thought.

    It has been noted that a lack of respect on the part of the central polity level for the national identities of the sub-polity units and their members is unjust. But in what does this injustice reside? It seems that many of its advocates23 ground the injustice thesis in the double assumption that individuals have a vital interest in political respect and recognition for their identity and that part of what constitutes an individual’s identity are her social affiliations, including – in many cases24 – membership in her national group.25 If people feel that their identities are not respected by their political institutions, or not treated with equal respect and dignity, then they are likely to experience their treatment as grossly unjust.

    A second reason why respect for national identities on the part of a multinational political community like the EU may be thought to be a good thing is that it is supposed to be a safeguard for individual liberty. A leading advocate of this thesis is Jacob Levy. His view is that, in a political community in which public power is divided between the central level and smaller units, it is of vital importance that citizens remain loyal to those smaller units.26 In the absence of such loyalty, Levy fears that the smaller units cannot serve as a genuine counterweight for the central polity’s (potential) desire to aggregate power. As a result, public power risks being increasingly concentrated in the hands of central government and this tendency toward centralisation may threaten individual liberty.27 The citizens’ loyalty to their respective sub-entities must be strong enough to rival their loyalty to the central polity level, and Levy considers ethno-cultural and linguistic attachments to the sub-entities to be particularly suitable in generating such a robust loyalty.28 It is therefore important that those ethno-cultural and linguistic identities be respected within the larger political community.

    A final good to which respect for a multinational polity’s distinct national groups is often said to be instrumental is the viability of the multinational polity itself. Given that its citizens identify with distinct national groups (either at the polity or sub-polity level), the viability of a multinational polity may be precarious. The previous point on individual liberty indicates why this is so: people’s loyalty to their national group is often so strong that it is able to rival their loyalty to the larger political community in which their nation is embedded. The advantage of citizens’ solid loyalty to their own national group is, as we have just seen, that the exercise of power at the central polity level does not go unchecked. The potential downside of this strong national allegiance, however, is that the legitimacy and authority of the larger polity are not taken for granted by its citizens, which may endanger the stability and even the continued existence of the polity.29 Hence, it is felt necessary to devise means for assuring multinational citizens’ loyalty to their common political community. There has been a lively debate among political philosophers about what could bind the citizens of a multinational polity in a sufficiently durable way to their common political community. This is not the place to dig into the details of that debate. Suffice it to say for the present that, in order to gain the loyalty of its citizens, a multinational political community should make sure that citizens do not feel excluded or alienated from its institutions and practices – citizens are unlikely to endorse institutions or practices in that case.30 To guarantee that a political community is truly inclusive so that all its citizens feel ‘at home’, citizens must feel that their identity, including their national identity, is respected. Consequently, and even though it might sound paradoxical, a multinational polity like the EU will need to pay heed to the loyalties its citizens feel towards their own national groups if it itself desires to become the object of its citizens’ allegiance in order to secure its viability.

    https://www.bjutijdschriften.nl/tijdschrift/rechtsfilosofieentheorie/2016/2/NJLP_2016_045_002_006

  249. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Alex Clark @ 15:50,

    You are in agreement with crazycat on this one, so I likely got their status wrong.

    There does seem to be a catch-22 on this one, though. Party rules may require you to resign your seat if you quit the party, but if you quit the party, their rules no longer apply!

    Both Finnie and Urquhart stayed on anyway after resigning, did they not? So if there are any parliamentary rules, they were only observed in their absence!

  250. Orri
    Ignored
    says:

    Put it this way..

    We don’t even have a way those who voted for a representative to recall them. Why would you hand a party the right to do so?

    Also it might be worth remembering that the party those who voted Labour in the last election was led by Dugdale in Scotland on a pro EU ticket. Whilst her resignation might be a factor in how things have changed it’s not the only one. There’s no guarantee that they’d have won as many seats had they been led by another leader.

  251. geeo
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh dear…tricky dickie backs England over Scotland…http://archive.is/l3awM

  252. Derick fae Yell
    Ignored
    says:

    God almighty.

    The evilness of the bad penny Kezia Dugdale’s disobedient trip to the outback to eat worms is STILL the lead item on BBC Scotland News website. All day. Whatever you think of #TeamKez that is just bizarre.

    Meanwhile the Scottish Goverment excellent work in brokering a deal to save BiFab, has been rapidly demoted to the null-space of SNPGood don’t mention it don’t mention it

    They just get worse

  253. Petra
    Ignored
    says:

    I see that the Tories will be handing over £140 million to settle the VAT row. No doubt the 13 Scottish Tory layabouts at Westminster will take credit for it.

    ……………………………………………….

    @ Lenny Hartley says at 9:24 am ……… ‘’Petra … yes this site is monitored 24/7 but not by the Rev. Posts have been disappearing for a long time now and nobody can get to the bottom of why it’s happening – get used to it, and give the Rev a break. Considering your rant appeared it’s possible your original posts went into the moderation queue due to the use of banned words or you may have mis typed your email address etc. Btw I’m with you on those drunken posts. Hope everything is ok with your young relative.”

    You’re right Lenny. I’m no doubt not the only person on here who experiences posts disappearing into the ether and of course I don’t want to harass Stu who has enough on his plate. I was annoyed because I had spent ages on digging out some information and reckoned that there wouldn’t be too many posts being monitored at 4 in the morning, lol.

    The post in the main focused on Kezia Dugdale’s astrological chart. Maybe that related to the problem? Anyway suffice to say that she has major transits going on right now that highlight that she is an absolute loose cannon who is nursing her wrath … and yes she’s livid. She has inside knowledge of the Labour shenanigans, bullying and abuse cases in relation to Holyrood overall. It’s no wonder Corbyn is telling Leonard to back off. It won’t make any difference of course as she’ll spill the beans and make major changes to her life between now and the beginning of June 2018, in particular next March / April / May.

    ……………………………….

    There was an interesting article in the Sunday Herald yesterday …’Detroit inspires towns revival.’

    It highlighted that Scotland’s most deprived towns could be regenerated by nostalgic US ex-pats under a new scheme (Tartan Cent) which will tap into the successful crowdfunding platform that helped rebuild a bankrupt Detroit…… with wealthy members of the Scottish diaspora able to make online pledges of financial backing. Bring it on!

  254. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Unfortunately, there are still too many influential ‘leftists’ who have still failed to grasp that the key to social and multinational equality, is to be found through the emancipation of marginalised identities, such as Scotland’s. The respect of universal human rights is not possible without such an understanding.

    Why might this wrongheadedness be so prevalent? The right-wing Yoonstream has a lot to answer for, in terms of creating this socially debilitating state of affairs. Out-of-touch academics are also a fundamental problem, as it is not possible to think clearly when your head is full of epistemological mince.

    EUROPEAN INTEGRATION, IDENTITY, AND NATIONAL SELF INTEREST: THE ENDURING NATURE OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

    The Study of National Identity in Europe

    ….Research on identities, especially those in Europe can be divided into several different camps and includes the research of historians, social scientists as well as journalists. This voluminous literature addresses, among other issues, nations and nationalism, nationalism and violent conflict, ethnic and social identity.20

    National identity has been manifested in vastly different ways in Europe over the second half of the twentieth century. Most of the debate has centered on how different national identities wrought destruction and conflict rather than cooperation and integration. National identity in Europe often defined itself in terms of irredentism and chauvinism.21 After World War II, in a concerted ffort to push national identities toward more cooperative relations, European politicians built institutions to mollify the destructive role of ethnic and national identities.22

    http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=poliscitheses

    Sovereignty, Article 4(2) TEU and the Respect of National Identities: Swinging the Balance of Power in Favour of the Member States?

    Abstract

    The question of whether and to what extent sovereignty has been transferred to the European Union (EU) from its Member States remains a central debate within the EU and is interlinked with issues such as Kompetenz-Kompetenz, direct effect, and primacy. Central to any claim to sovereignty is the principle of primacy, which requires that Member States uphold EU law over national law where there is a conflict. However, limitations to primacy can traditionally be found in national jurisprudence and the Maastricht Treaty introduced a possible EU limitation with the requirement that the EU respect the national identities of Member States. The Lisbon Treaty provided only minimal further support to the principle of primacy whilst simultaneously developing the provision on national identities, now found within Article 4(2) of the Treaty of European Union (TEU).

    There are indications from the literature, national constitutional courts, and the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) that the provision is gathering strength as a legal tool and is likely to have a wider scope than the text might indicate. In its new role, Article 4(2) TEU bolsters the Member States’ claim to sovereignty and the possibility to uphold aspects crucial to them in conflict with EU law and the principle of primacy. Consequently, it is central to the relationship between the constitutional courts of the Member States and the CJEU, and where the final elements of control remain in ‘hard cases’. However, it does so as part of EU law, thereby facilitating the evasion of direct fundamental conflicts and reflecting the concept of constitutional pluralism.

    https://academic.oup.com/yel/article-abstract/33/1/298/1683959?redirectedFrom=fulltext

    Mass communication and cultural identity: the unresolved issue of national sovereignty and cultural autonomy in the wake of new communication technologies.

    Abstract

    PIP: The trend in modern mass communication appears to be toward the imposition of the cultural, economic, and political values of the societies with the most advanced communication and information technologies and media sources. The consequence of this reality is that the cultural values, national aspirations, economic needs, and political independence of developing countries are not taken into consideration. Thus, the national interests of African states make it imperative for them to carefully evaluate, assess, and examine the development of their present media structures and ownership patterns. If the mass media is privatized, their owners serve as mouthpieces for multinational corporations. This phenomenon can severely undermine African goals of self-sufficiency in food production and industrialization, political stability that guarantees territorial integrity, and preservation of the African culture. It is imperative that African governments do not allow big multinationals to take over the molding and control of public opinion. Although modern systems of communication are exceedingly expensive and sophisticated, ways must be found to make the media public utilities.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12281811

  255. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Graun Britnats had jolly strong views on Dugdale jacking it in, its bad for Scots you see, yet from same crew on Kez in the Jungle, not a peep.

    https://archive.is/WmR5j

    Labour Opinion
    The Guardian view on Kezia Dugdale’s resignation: good for her, not for Scotland
    Editorial
    She was the party’s eighth leader in 18 years. She lost many big battles. But she also showed Scottish Labour a way back

    Come on Guardian view, on Scotland, aka Severin Carrell, lets see you kick some vile sep arse again:D

  256. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Salmond on Russian tv has really angered beeb world service gimps, with a total rescheduling of usual vote tory world service bleh,

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csvtp0

    The Russian Blogger Running for President
    Trending

    For the second in our special series from Russia, we trace how opposition leader Alexei Navalny has used social media to move from writing LiveJournal blogs about corruption to trying to run for president.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csvs47

    Punk, Protest and Pussy Riot
    The Cultural Frontline

    Can you change the world through art and activism? Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot tells the Cultural Frontline about her manifesto for change through artistic action that she advocates in her new book, Riot Days.

    Shut for 10 years, we find out why the reopening of Belgrade’s Museum of Contemporary Art has been met with both praise and protest.”

    Its interesting how beeb britnat tory creep mentality works, in their f you Russia, for giving our own Salmond a tv show?

  257. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    P.S. Another reason too many influential ‘leftists’ fail to recognise that emancipation of identity leads to social equality, is that Marxists are ideologically against valuing culture and respecting difference. It isn’t possible to live historically with in eye on the future, with such a Victorian mindset. According to Fanon and post-modern critical social theory, anyway.

  258. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Alex Massie
    I hope this is critical enough to convince the Tory traditionalist in you. British nationalism masks UKOK’s half-hearted attempt at methodological nationalism. The British state which failed to achieve an equilibrium of power, in the sense of a stable institutional solution for the relations between different territorial communities of the multinational UK. Then again, Tories don’t value equality, do you?

    Social Theory’s Methodological Nationalism

    Abstract

    The equation between the concept of society and the nation-state in modernity is known as methodological nationalism in scholarly debates. In agreement with the thesis that methodological nationalism must be rejected and transcended, this article argues that we still lack an understanding of what methodological nationalism actually is and, because of that, we remain unable to answer the substantive problem methodological nationalism poses to social theory: how to understand the history, main features and legacy of the nation-state in modernity.

    The first section of the article reconstructs the origins of the critique of methodological nationalism in the 1970s and differentiates between its logical and historical versions. It then critically reviews the most salient critique of methodological nationalism in contemporary social theory, that of Ulrich Beck. The final part of the article assesses the thesis of social theory’s immanent methodological nationalism by demonstrating how social theory’s equivocations towards the nation-state only mirror the nation-state’s own ambivalence within modernity. It is shown that social theory’s ambivalent attempts at conceptualizing the nation-state reflect the actual ambivalence of the position of the nation-state in modernity: its historical opacity, its sociological uncertainty and its normative ambiguity.

    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1368431006060460

    The critique of methodological nationalism: Theory and history

    Abstract

    This article seeks to further our understanding of what methodological nationalism is and to offer some insights towards its overcoming. The critical side of its argument explicates the paradoxical constitution of the current debate on methodological nationalism – namely, the fact that methodological nationalism is simultaneously regarded as wholly negative and all-pervasive in contemporary social science.

    I substantiate the idea of this paradox by revisiting some of the most successful attempts at the conceptualization of the nation-state that have sought to transcend methodological nationalism in four disciplines: sociology, nationalism studies, anthropology and social psychology. The positive side of my argument offers a distinction between different versions of methodological nationalism with the help of which it tries to address some of the problems found in the literature.

    Theoretically, methodological nationalism is associated with, and criticized for, its explanatory reductionism in which the rise and main features of the nation-state are
    used to explicate the rise and main features of modernity itself. Historically, the article reassesses the problem of its prevalence, that is, whether methodological nationalism
    is a key feature of the history of the social sciences.

    http://www.suz.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:7a897ba2-b57e-40bb-8f91-849d1bef82c6/Text_14.pdf

    EMPIRE-, STATE- AND NATION-BUILDING AND DECONSTRUCTING IN SPAIN

    Introduction

    Spain is probably the clearest case of failure in the attempt to build a large nation-state in Europe. Against old expectations, the relatively recent establishment of democracy in Spain has not helped to build a large nation-state. Rather, it has favored the integration of Spain into the European democratic empire along with the development of small, increasingly self-governing nations. The so-called Spanish ‘state of autonomies’ is not an equilibrium, in the sense of a stable institutional solution for the relations between different territorial communities, but a frame for competition among territories and for the development of increasing demands for selfgovernment. Homogenization of language and culture in Spain has decreased during the last decades. The Spanish state will not, thus, be what it could have been, a uniform nation-state under the Westphalian and French models. It actually tends to move increasingly away from that model.

    In the 21st century, building a Spanish nation-state, in the sense of a political organization based on effective sovereignty, power monopoly and the homogenization of the population, is an unviable endeavor. In homage to Juan J. Linz, this paper builds on several of his findings regarding the processes of state-building and nation-building in Spain and tries to go over. The Linz’ main points that are identified and highlighted here are the following:

    1) Spain is a case of frustrated state-building and failed nation-building.

    2) Modern Spain can be conceived as a multinational state, the first of its kind in Europe; building a nation-state in Spain is nowadays both unfeasible and undesirable.

    3) Democracy, however, can exist and survive, in spite of the absence of a nation-state, on the basis of federal and consociational politics permitting the accommodation of multiple national groups. The Spanish ‘state of autonomies’ can be an appropriate institutional frame to create legitimacy for the Spanish state and prevent secession and conflict.

    http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=863A1631F628FBEE76172C6522D9D5B4?doi=10.1.1.548.6376&rep=rep1&type=pdf

  259. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    geeo,

    “I have ZERO sympathy for Dugdale.”

    Me too.

  260. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    geeo,

    “I have ZERO sympathy for Dugdale.

    She is an enemy of Scotland and Scots.”

    Dave McEwan Hill (27th September – “From March to September”):

    “Cone on in, Kezia. You’ll find we are a pretty nice bunch”

    Rock (27th September – “From March to September”):

    “Isn’t that the same lying hypocrite of a woman whom the Rev. Stuart Campbell has taken to court for defamation?

    The woman who relentlessy attacked the SNP in parliament while being in bed with an SNP MSP at home?

    No, I don’t want that woman anywhere near the independence campaign.

    She is free to vote Yes if she wants.”

  261. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Rock
    Empathy can grow out of compassion and forgiveness. Empathy has great power to heal social ills and improve the ethical content and effectiveness of government policy.

    N.B. As a general rule, Tories don’t do empathy. Also, ‘long-distance’ empathy is hard to maintain (see Scotland v Westminster).

    Empathy, Justice, and Social Change

    This chapter’s focus is the impact of empathic distress on laws, which are a major vehicle of profound changes in economic institutions, politics, and history — perhaps the major vehicle since laws are less subject to individual choice and affect everyone’s behavior. It draws heavily on work on empathy’s arousal, development, contribution to caring and justice motivation, its limitations, and the law review literature. The conclusions: empathy is no panacea, nor is it a sideshow as some claim, and despite its flaws it has been a constructive force in social change. Since there’s no viable alternative, empathy may be the only glue available to help conflicting groups achieve the social cohesion, conflict resolution, and cooperation needed to save the planet. So, empathy must be kept alive. Scholars can help by researching how to minimize its flaws and exploit its virtues.

    http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199969470.001.0001/acprof-9780199969470-chapter-4

  262. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood , can they no spell Edniborough??

  263. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood@ 3.33

    your Indy poll is now on 3,017 votes of which 152 are NO. = 5% approx.http://www.strawpoll.me/14442845/r

    Do you know who is doing the poll?

  264. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood@ 3.33
    Nice one, 3,166 now. 😉

  265. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Meg M –

    Don’t know, it just popped up on Twitter.

    Some are pointing out that it doesn’t cover all areas of Scotland e.g. Lanarkshire, and that’s fair enough but it is what it is…

    Currently 3,455 votes in, 174 of which are ‘No’. Dunno what that is as a % but its, eh, well, not very much!

    😉

    http://www.strawpoll.me/14442845/r

  266. pool9
    Ignored
    says:

    Alex Massie is his father’s less talented shadow.

    Allan at least can write.

  267. Cairnallochy
    Ignored
    says:

    Has anyone calculated whether Kezia has spent more time or less than Ruth has spent courting English Tory constituencies (having, as I have been informed, held only 2 surgeries since 2016 election) ?

    On another topic, Mr Graham, having tried to berate the SNP on an EVEL issue to the evident amusement of the Deputy Speaker, has announced in an article in the Indy that he and his Tory colleagues are going to Westminster to hold the SG to account on the devolved issues of health and education. More wry smiles from the Speaker’s bench I suspect. Hope the video is posted !

  268. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Ruth Davidson is Teddy Taylor in knickers. The internet is full of Carpet Bags for sale! She won’t have to look far.

  269. David Caledonia
    Ignored
    says:

    Richard Leonard is just another yorkshire dick sent up to Scotland to support the Labour party and its westminster bias when it comes to scotland
    Never trust a yorkshire man that comes to scotland to try to meddle in our democracy here, they are all just wolves in sheep’s clothing
    Mr Leonard made his appearance on FMQs today, if what he said is all he has to offer as the leader of the scottish branch of the labour party, then its as i thought, business as usual on behalf of westminster, Mr Leonard is just another puppet and let me say, not very good as far as i can see, in fact he is a good choice for Party pooper of scottish labour, and a gift to the SNP



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