Data without information
This week a Scottish journalist told us ruefully that over the festive holidays, all parties send the newspapers “Christmas boxes” comprising a load of ready-made and pre-chewed garbage stories, each embargoed to specific days, for them to run in the news desert between Boxing Day and January 3rd with no further effort required.
(This year’s crop had been particularly dismal, our source revealed.)
It seems, though, that the media plans to continue the practice all year.
In a week when the Red Cross issued an emergency warning about a “humanitarian crisis” engulfing the NHS in England, with A&E units closing their doors to patients 42 times in a single week, the Scottish media is still desperately trying to whip up scare stories about a health service in Scotland that’s coping considerably better with the vast pressures of the modern era than its beleaguered counterpart to the south.
(For example, 93.5% of patients in Scotland’s A&E units in December were treated in less than four hours, compared to just 77.6% in England this week. The Scotsman reported the 93.5% as “Christmas A&E waiting time targets missed”. Bed-blocking is falling steadily in Scotland while it rockets out of control in England, so obviously all this week the Scottish press were wailing about an SNP bed-block apocalypse.)
The Scottish media’s chosen method for making things sound as bad as possible has for many years been to propagate Scottish Labour “SNP BAD” press releases without the slightest scrutiny or verification. On the day that most UK papers were reporting a near-total meltdown of NHS England, the Times’ Scottish edition ran with this:
Alert readers will immediately be struck by the total absence of any context anywhere in the story. Is the number of operations cancelled due to lack of capacity rising or falling? We’re not told. How does it compare to elsewhere in the UK? We’re not told.
The reason for that is that the data has only been published since June 2015, under a Scottish Government initiative. Cancellations, along with the reasons for them, are released monthly by the Information Services Division of NHS Scotland, on a website that’s a model of accessibility and clarity. But there aren’t yet two full years of stats to compare, so Labour and the Times just fire out some numbers that mean absolutely nothing and hope that people assume the worst.
They’re not alone. Not long after the figures started being published, the Scotsman ran a shock-horror “80 OPERATIONS CANCELLED A DAY” story, which vomited figures at the reader in such a formless mess that after four paragraphs any normal person would have no idea what on Earth was going on, or where or why.
In the space of just a few dozen words we’re given figures that are daily and monthly, local and national, and measured in a bewildering mixture of numbers and percentages and fractions and percentages OF percentages, along with helpful asides explaining that 12% is more than one in ten and 17% is nearly a fifth.
We haven’t seen an incomprehensible shambles of numerical hieroglyphics like that since a Severin Carrell piece on oil revenues for the Guardian last March (following hot on the heels of a similar effort from the same author on debt a few months earlier), but examples of data being presented without any context are becoming increasingly common – the Scottish Daily Mail had one on police numbers just a fortnight ago, and one on train delays a fortnight before that.
What we CAN say, though, is that the Times’ headline figure of around 20 operations being cancelled a day due to lack of capacity appears to be a significant reduction on just six years ago, when the numbers were higher.
A June 2010 report by Deadline News revealed that of over 600 cancelled operations in Scotland a week, a quarter – roughly 150 – were cancelled by hospitals for reasons of capacity. (In 2010 non-emergency operations were only conducted on weekdays, so that’s effectively 30 a day.) Scottish Labour’s then-health shadow Jackie Baillie, who’d obtained the figures through FOI requests, complained that:
And yet remarkably, six and a half years later, with the size of the problem seemingly having gone down by a third despite huge financial pressures created by a Tory UK government’s austerity regime, her successor Anas Sarwar was reading from almost exactly the same script:
As far as we can tell from the ISD stats, incidentally, the number of hospital-cancelled operations over comparable time periods in Scotland HAS gone up slightly from 2015 to 2016 – by a whopping 0.4% (from 1.7% of planned ops to 2.1%). But that’s a very small sample, and is a micro-fluctuation anyway.
(The closest comparison that we can find for NHS England suggests that pro-rata, cancellations are still around 10% lower in Scotland.)
Lindsay McIntosh of the Times is every bit as capable of spending 20 minutes or so Googling all this stuff as we are. But that’s a little bit too much like hard work for the modern breed of Scottish political journalist, when you can just get two sides to give you quotes, wash your hands of any responsibility for determining which (if either) is telling the truth, and be off to the pub for a nice long lunch.
Shouldn’t a précis of this be going on billboards across the country?
Billboards and/or TV advertising. We need to get these basic truths out there beyond the Wings audience.
Neat piece of dissection Rev.
Been watching the unfolding tragedy south of the border. As awful as it sounds though, this is the government people voted for. In Scotland we voted somewhat differently and whether the yoonitariat like it or not, the difference between the NHS and SNHS is night and day. It kinda helps when your government believe in the service you provide and believe in the need for that service.
Under increasingly difficult circumstances and financial pressures, they continue to out perform their colleagues across these islands. Their efforts, I’m sure, are very much appreciated and long may that continue.
agreed ScotsRenewables @ 12.35 a whole section of people here are blissfully unaware of what is actually going on here and are happy to accept its bad SNP passing on Tory cuts ,
They are either Lazy or stupid ,or in some cases both .
I know a few folk here dont like Jim Sillars or his point of view but i believe what he said about Scots and Independence when a few years ago before 2014 he gave up because he simply got fed up trying to convince idiots , I believe this appraisal to be true , we are surrounded by small minded fools who will never change and only a good moan makes them happy .
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Joseph Goebbels – Thinkexist.com
“In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.
Adolph Hitler – Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X – Wikipedia
It really is not funny anymore.
Long term it must surely backfire due to the large number of public sector workers and their families who are SICK of having their hard work delivering valuabe services costantly run down by unionist parties and media.
And context and trends is everything. Well done Wings.
This I purely personal, but from being diagnosed with a form of cancer nine years ago, to a serious illness a year later, I have been cared for with the utmost professionalism by the Scottish N.H.S.
I have the good fortune to be treated at the two hospitals, Ayr and Monklands, that if we had remained governed by the previous Lab/LibDem administration, they would have been closed
How this M.S.M nonsense plays out with the staff of our N.H.S, I don’t know, but I know it would make me annoyed to be continually denigrated in this manner.
Has any other government, anywhere on the planet, every had to endure such blatant lies from a relentless, hostile media utterly dedicated to undermining everything the democratically elected government does? Would the media get away with it anywhere else? Would they even dare?
Didn’t think so. 🙁
There’s one almighty showdown, between the British media and the people of Scotland coming soon, methinks.
I do not take anything Quality??? journalist??? Lindsay McIntosh scribbles as worth while, I would not waste the time reading it.
Excellent article again Stu. On top of this though, today, we have some odious ‘journalist’ working for STV (@STVoliver) trawling Twitter looking for anyone who’s had a bad experience with the Scottish NHS. He doesn’t want to hear from anyone with a good-news story, obviously. I despair at my country.
Good to read some facts on this subject. Thank you.
I notice the Daily Heil has a blaring headine today about (POSSIBLY) Army GP’s being called in to help out in rural Scotland ‘cos it’s SO GRIM and a Tory MSP thinks that would solve the issue! Does the Army have any GP’s? I know they have medics, but GP’s??
Obviously today’s SNP baad headline!
In small print lower down the article it states that GP’s are even turning down a ‘golden hello’ of £20,000 to become a rural GP in Scotland. Hardly Nicola’s fault then…You can lead a horse to water…
I read an article on the BBC NI website a couple of days ago about the struggle they are having in NHS NI with only 67.5% of patients being seen in A&E within the required 4 hours target – more than 600 waited over 12 hours to be seen during the Christmas/New Year period.
Can’t find any up-to-date info on Welsh NHS but it wasn’t good before Christmas so I can’t imagine that it will show improved figures.
Remarkable that with such an atrocious NHS in Scotland, we have the best performance figures and, it seems, the best NHS. Wonder why?
One of the few good things about MSM, particularly the tv part, reporting only on the English bits of devolved matters on the so called national news, is that folk in Scotland will be well aware of how bad things are down south. So Labour’s increasingly desperate SNPBAD is going to be seen as rather feeble. Unless they assume Unionists are the kind of people who never watch or read the UK news. Which doesn’t seem that likely, does it.
It’s got to the point where you just can’t believe anything they print anymore apart from the date and the price, and even that you have to read twice.
I was talking to another SNP member ex Labour member who cheerfully informed me he would never vote for Independence,(me shock) not because he wanted the Tories or Labour, he felt that if Scotland were Independent the SNP wouldn’t be able to hold on and the country would be taken over by socialists and communists and that to him was a fate worse than death
So some folk like the SNP running things they just don’t like the idea of them totally running things just in case they don’t get to keep on running things
When I pointed out that was a little bit short term thinking there he countered by asking if I wanted to see a whole load of James Kellys or Alex Rowleys in power because he felt the Labour vote after Independence would go back to folk like that
I had to admit I’d never heard an argument like that one before
But did suggest he might be in the wrong party but he was quite offended at the idea he might be a confused closet Tory even after I pointed out these were not the aims or ideals of SNP
Strange sound like pre-prepated interference to off-set bad news from UKr to counter the fact that Scottish Government is doing a better job than is being done in other part of the UK
But WHY effectively defend the record of UK government that they oppose or it that this local government alliance runs deeper than that.
More important to prop-up Union than party goals.
Scotland’s NHS performing better than rUK would stick in their thrapples like cauld porridge. Any journalist writing that would get stabbed in the eyes with their own pens by their editors.
I do laugh when I hear that the Labour/Liberals/Tories/BBC (it’s all one) have commissioned yet another FOI looking to see if they can find numbers to spin. The BBC seem to do one every other day. Has anyone compared FOIs from BBC Scotland with those raised by the BBC in London?
Alex Beveridge.
I’ve had excellent treatment throughout last year when I had a couple of small operations and most recently at the Maxillofacial department in Monklands.
I always visit this site to give them praise when it is due.
link to patientopinion.org.uk
The Staff I encountered were professional and cheerful, the MSM ought to hang their heads in shame at the way they misreport things.
I suppose that assumes that they have a sense of shame though.
The cynic in me thinks this is the way the Tories (Blue, Red & Yellow) will eventually get the public to accept the privatisation of the NHS South of the Border.
The poor members of the public who die in hospital corridors are just big businesses collateral damage (the same way the poor buggers in the Yemen are to BAE Systems).
Cash is king to these MPs and their mates.
There is no way that at the same time the English NHS is in meltdown that Scotland’s NHS can be seen to be out performing their contemporaries in NI, Wales or England.
Especially as Scotland’s NHS is doing this despite a reduction in it’s block grant voted through Westminster by the Tory, Labour and FibDems.
That would make the electorate in other parts of the UK ask “if the Scots NHS can do it why can’t ours?”
The answer would be ‘subsidy junkie’ funding levels from benevolent Westminster without any evidence to the contrary that this is not the case.
If the electorate in NI, Wales and England were to question the disgraceful state of WM Govt. funding to their NHS then the veil would be lifted on the these privateers and the MPs they are lobbying. In the same way that immigration is being used to excuse decades of under investment in social housing infrastructure in deprived areas of the UK by Tory, Labour and Tory/FibDem coalition government in Westminster) to anyone prepared to look past the sensationalist scaremongering Daily Heil etc. headlines.
I echo the comments of others of the good work our SNHS workers continue to do in these difficult times.
However it is the Hospital Boards which are to be watched, these employ six figure salaried management who do not always ensure front line services are properly resourced and staffed.
These are in a similar vein the Local Councils who under fund social care and contribute to bed blocking and pressures on the SNHS.
Especially in the Unionist Council controlled areas like Aberdeen.
Make no mistake these Councils will use their powers to work against the Scottish Government and ensure pressure is maintained in the hope that they can maintain their places at the trough after May this year.
I assume the Unionist Councillors don’t really worry about the collateral damage they inflict to give Sarwar a bit of publicity, after all with ratings of 15% and falling in the polls chances are not a lot of the collateral damage are BLiS voters any way.
The Union must be protected and they don’t care how, just as long as it is.
Oh how disappointed they must be that the Red Cross has not been required to buttress the SNHS.
Some yoons would have needed hospital treatment to cope with their exploding brain cells if that had been the story.
@ HandandShrimp – BBC FoI requests increased 700% after the SNP became the Party of government. According to an Newsnet article from 2013:
link to newsnet.scot
I wonder if these NHS/SNP stories are deliberately released to coincide with NHS England bad news.
The six o’clock news reporting of the situation in England conflates the two, for the uncritical viewer.
@R-type Grunt
Yes STV seems to have been coming under increasing U influence in recent months.
A prize example (STV North) this week was the headline ‘story’ that hundreds of patients were dying in hospital before they could be placed back in the community.
Now there is a point to that, many I’m sure, would prefer to die in a nice hospice or at home with appropriate medical care on hand, surrounded by their families.
But you just know that if sufficient care is ever provided to do that for everyone the headline would be ‘Hundreds of people chucked out of their hospital beds into the community to die.’
Just had a telecall from a friend in West Midlands whose mother runs a care home.
NO MORE GP VISITS! Use Skype!
BBC please advise sitrep re SNHS.
How can we counter this mind numbing covert control of oyr people. Its like a terminal disease (excuse the pun). I wish one philanthropist would get behind indy Scotland and expose this to masses.
Bed shortage]problem reported in Irish Hospitals
link to archive.is
No SNPBaaaad here though. Ageing population problem!
In June 2015 I went into the New Southern General for a routine op expected to take around 2 hours, due to my insides being a lot worse than they thought it took nearly six hours, I was in high dependency for ten days then 4 days in ensuite single ward with Internet access and free TV etc.
Unfortunately there was an issue which I was warned that there was a slight chance of happening and I had to have an emergency operation which tool a further 7-1/2 hours and I was placed in an induced coma and life support as I suffered major organ failure. I spent over a week in intensive care , a further week in high dependency and a further two weeks in an ensuite single room ward.
I spend nearly six weeks in total in Hospital and received the best care anywhere on this planet,I was told by a relative who runs a hospital if I had been anywhere else I would have probably not survived.
Today I was speaking to somebody who said the very same hospital is a shambles and is not fit for purpose,understaffed and nobody wants to work there and that a recent damning report had just been published backing up what she said and that it was a waste of money and proof that the Snp were not fit to run the country. She had spent several weeks visiting her father and she was told by staff that it needed double the amount of staff to run it properly. Obviously we disagreed , however we agreed that the Staff’s car parking facilities are not fit for purpose and needed urgent attention.
Just goes to show how two peoples experience or perception can be totally different, she also thought it was time to give the tories a go at running the country ! At that i gave up trying to have a rational discussion.
If you want to know how bad the NHS in England is then come to where I live – Leicester.
The NHS in Leics has been appalling for most of the last 25 years. There was a brief period in the late 1990s where it wasn’t that bad but due to mismanagement/political feuding its been downhill ever since.
People castigate PFI – rightly so – but imagine what its like in a city/county where they argued about PFI for years, then decided to do it as it was scrapped. Result is an ongoing disaster.
As example is my own daughter who had back pains for years. After threatening to complain about the GP (“have you looked it up on the internet?” – no joke!) she finally got a referral to hospital – a physiotherapist – after 3 YEARS. Did it work? No. Could we get anyone to listen? No.
The tl;dr is she ended up in hospital in Leics (morphine, the works) and got diagnosed with “mid-term pain” – that despite being on the pill! She went to her uni GP in Derby, got a MRI scan 3 days later & had keyhole surgery two weeks later on fibroids (not quite endometriosis but close).
Thanks Capella – it would be interesting to see comparable stats for the other parts of the UK.
Day after day, week and month after year, the colonial media pump out this utter drivel. It is not aimed at us, the 45%. It is amied at the 55% to stem the flow from NO to YES.
They know it is utter, out of context bullflop designed to hoodwink the less politically aware. They know it will do little to sway any of the 45% but they have to try something–ANYTHING and EVERYTHING–to try and stem the flow.
But you know, when folks see through their smokescreen, their lies, then the trust is gone and gone for good. Only diehard yoon idiots would wish to be continually deceived like this by THEIR colonial media and establishment masters because all they can think of is “OBAY YURE QUEEN” – aye, like the brainwashed cultists that many of them are.
Who willingly wants to be lied to and pished on like this? I mean, WHO?
Amusingly the guy who misdiagnosed her was a Glaswegian of Pakistani descent – family lived in Pollokshields.
Might seem like a racist comment but its not meant to be – I live in the city/county where most outliers of race/religion/immigration can be found. Leicester had a <50% white/christian demographic 15 years ago.
I just found it funny as the Spanish (male) nurse couldn't understand a word he said – I "translated" 😀
The English majority really don't have a clue what Brexit is going to do to them 🙁
Well let’s face it folks nothing, absolutely nothing the SNP Government do to improve the lives of everyone here, even those who detest the very word SNP , Who heaven forbid think the thought of doing things differently by being Independent means the end of the world , how can we convince stupid people of what is starting them in the face, how many times do these people have to be pissed on , have their whole right of existence reliant on the whims of another nation , This relentless drip drip drip of misinformation will have effect, a lot of people will start to believe the lies that have not been refuted with any success, I have lost count of the people here who have urged the SNP to up their game , and I believe a opportunity was missed by not appointing Tommy Sheppard he saw the problem it’s a pity others didn’t , The way the Billboards were rubbished even by people supporting Independence meant I believe we’re on the right track this could have real effect and leads me to question the motives of our so called friends and the promotion of groups like RISE and the problems they caused by denying a majority at Hollyrood has become evident over the last few weeks, that should never be allowed to happen again and not repeated in the council elections .
I have been receiving my treatment here, everything stated on the website is absolutely true with the exception of a room for smokers which no longer exists.Parking is also free. I hold the staff in the highest esteem and although it is a 50-mile round trip from Gretna I chose to attend here instead of Carlisle, which is only a 12-mile round trip.Peace Always
link to scan.scot.nhs.uk
JimF says:
I would say definitely.
During IndyRef1 campaign, when I heard the statistic that over half of Scots thought the NHS was a UK wide organisation, I was thoroughly amazed. That was something which had never occurred to me, I thought everyone knew that in 194whatever the differently countries’ NHSs were set up differently and remained distinctive.
But no. Most Scots seemed to not know that. So now in 2017, what percentage still don’t know there is a difference? I suspect it’s still fairly high. So having negative NHS Scotland stories to coincide with negative News from England would be making the most of this confusion.
When people are confused, there is confusion! The water is muddy so NHS bad, means NHS bad. Blaming the SG at every opportunity is standard colonial media behaviour. Problems in England offer opportunities in Scotland.
All that’s needed to be known about the English NHS is this, which a fair few of us from “north of the border” pushed like there was no tomorrow in Cif – Guardian below the line in 2012. Posting and reposting the link to the gov petition, with updates to the count, which saw it shoot up from I forget, less than 50,000 to over 100,000 in the space of 48 hours as it was taken up even by the BMA who had their own petition.
link to petition.parliament.uk
“Drop the Health Bill” ended up with 179,466 signatures. The response?
“This petition has received the following response:
The Bill has now received the Royal assent, after 50 days of detailed parliamentary scrutiny in both Houses of Parliament. It becomes the Health and Social Care Act (2012).”
The English NHS is fsked by the Tories.
I still feel bitter about it.
gerry parker at 2.15pm.
Many thanks for that link gerry. Just sent them an e-mail.
Wullie: Tinnitus!
You posted just before Christmas regarding the hearing problem that you share with Mr Peffers.Mr Peffers informed us that the device you mentioned would unfortunately not be suitable for himself.
However, I have not forgotten about your predicament.Here is a link to a downloadable free trial of said device.I hope it is of some help to you my friend.Please keep me informed.Peace Always
link to neuromonics.com
I blogged twice last week about FOI requests, once in relation to the NHS and once about Police Scotland, pointing out that the people making the requests (and they seem to make a lot) are Tory and LibDem MSPs who seem to forget who’s paying for these FOI requests: thus we, the taxpayers, pay for our MSPs to employ office staff, research assistants, etc, to request FOIs and we, the taxpayers, pay for agencies like the NHS and Police Scotland to employ people to deal with FOIs. The MSPs then draw quite unjustified conclusions from the information they get and present them to us, the taxpayers, via the media who do nothing to set the record straight.
[…] This week a Scottish journalist told us ruefully that over the festive holidays, all parties send the newspapers “Christmas boxes” comprising a load of ready-made and pre-chewed garbage stories, each embargoed to specific days, for them to run in the news desert between Boxing Day and January 3rd with no further effort required. […]
These scare stories are the reason why unionist and anti-SNP support still remains at more than 50%.
The prominently displayed blaring headlines unconsciously enter and remain in the minds of the people who see them, even if they don’t buy the rags.
All so called “regulators” and “ombudsmen”, including the Information Commissioner, are rotten to the core.
OT – Baby Boxes – cost to SG of £6 million per year.
From ONS “In 2009, the average human capital stock per head of working age population was £419,326.” By now roughly it would be about £470,000.
If the baby box at a cost of £6 million, helped create another 13 babies, or increase the value per capita for a substantial number of babies, well, that’s the whole thang paid for.
Dontcha just love statistics?
The author does a tremendous job in pointing out the deplorable level of our press but it’s not enough. We must take direct action too. Boycott the advertisers. Otherwise we indirectly support these newspapers. Write to them and express your displeasure on social media. There are too many of us for these companies to ignore.
Here are a few to start with.
http://dailymailadvertisers.co.uk
What we need is the SNP to be more vocal in condemning the media inaccuracies and falsehoods…
What we need is Police Scotland to contest the misleading reports….
What we need are EU figureheads to support Scotland’s claim on EU membership….
What we need is our NHS to dispute the claims made by the media…
What we need is Humza Yousaf to be more forthright defending the railways…
You know what? What we do need is our mainstream media to touch base with proper journalism from time to time, or simply just to shut its bitchin’ pie hole and let people get on with their day jobs. Press standards? They are taking the piss. This isn’t journalism, it is horseshit. It isn’t written with a pen but a shovel.
I do enjoy when the EBC creeps don’t get the answers they are looking for.. this was in response to the dodgy linesmans cannabis foi on GMS
from 1:07:20 – 1:14:30
link to bbc.co.uk
Of course, there are many yoon punters reading this know fine well (or at least highly suspect) it to be a pile of steaming doo doo. And they are the worst types. Those who support the Union out of believing what they read in the papers I have a little sympathy for (though not much). They are the very ones who got conned by the Daily Redcoat’s The Vow con. These are the ‘because it’s in the papers or oan the telly, it must be true’ types and, as I say, are more to be pitied than lambasted. It will just take these people to read ONE story in the colonial media which they know to be a complete lie for them to have the blinkers peeled back and to finally see what is really going on and to begin to question.
And when they begin to ask questions…
But then there are the other types, the hardcore yoon types who absolutely KNOW that these rags, their colonial media, are constantly printing utter pish, lies, and are perfectly happy that they continue to do so. These hardcore yoons won’t call out their lying media only because it suits their narrow, short-term agenda.
But what they singularly fail to understand is that these rags are mere pawns in a much bigger game, serving an elite establishment who will enslave BritNat and ScotNat alike. These hardcore BritNat yoon dimwits are really happy to be shafted every which way mornin’, noon and night by these bastards.
FFS – get a grip of yerselves and see how you are being USED by the Elite Establsihment for THEIR ends NOT YOURS.
Rant over.
Someone earlier suggested some billboards to get some truth out there. Is there anything in the Wings war chest to do a wee bit of something? Maybe something on the side of buses in No cities like Edinburgh just saying something like “The Scotsman isn’t telling you the whole truth. Get the whole story at WOS.”
A gentle nudge in this direction might be all some of those cosmopolitan internationalist Noes might need before Next Time.
Ony ane jalousie Rock micht mibbies be a puckle pessimistic?
This may ssem ridiculous, but IMO we are at the stage now that every Scottish institution (Police, NHS, Scotrail etc) will need its own dedicated media debunking unit. This should not be necessary but they are under constant attack by the yoon media.
And for all these FOI requests – surely there should be some legal limitation on their use by certain organisations?
What do these so-called ‘journalists’ in Scotland actually do? They just seem to cut and paste press releases from Labour. No thought, no fact checking, nothing.
Serious question why are they getting paid? Can’t such simple work go to cheaper people, who would likely enjoy the experience?
Is ‘journalism’ really now just about learning how to do the cut and past command, word count check, and then drinking as much as possible? Hardly what I would call a profession.
Where is the critique? where is the detailed examination? where is the journalistic integrity?
I do hope these so-called ‘journalists’ dinnae start greetin when their papers cut their number even more due to falling sales.
With regards to Billboards @ Kenny says at 5:26 pm see the link below
https://informscotland.com
“Inform Scotland has finalised the billboard campaign for BBC Misreporting Scotland for the final two weeks of January.”
Billboards providers approached were JCDecaux, PrimeSight and ClearChannel.
JCDecaux refused to run it because they said it was “too controversial”.
Primesight refused to run because the BBC is one of their major customers.`
FYI
Primesight had up until Christmas in Elgin a ‘Scotland in Union’ ‘SNP Hits’ Billboard so not adverse to taking the Ultra Yoon cash.
ClearChannel, agreed to run a revised version of the original ‘BBC Misreporting Scotland’ poster
If Scotland won the World Cup, brokered a peace deal in Syria, our Universities found a cure for cancer, Trident left the Clyde, or Scotch Malt Whisky was proven to enhance cognitive processes …. ‘our Scottish’ media would say something negative about it.
No nation on Earth can have a media like ‘ours’.
Perfect material for our Billboards that might just awaken the brain washed readers of UK Media Propaganda mascaraing as newspapers!
Todays Daily Hail, the Fascist Daily runs a story by John Cooper where he claims that the First Minister is trying to make herself Saint like by assisting ne Mothers with Baby Boxes? Isn’t this so much better than Coper and the Tories route to crippling and then privatising the NHS?
This clown goes on to say that Scottish A & E waiting time targets are missed with with monotonous regularity and then move on to claim that 700 people died due to bed blocking?
I’d like to ask John if the 100,000 operations cancelled in England might just be a million miles ahead of the queue when journalist who give a damn about Scots, the Health Service, or justice, are looking for an important story to write.
What a thoroughly despicable creep of a Unionist!
john.cooper@dailymail.co.uk
The Daily Hail also covers why we should be giving public money to Formula 1 in order to save the Grand Prix at Silverstone. Bernie Ecclestone can’t the £17 million his company charges up front for the right to hold the race, and he just couldn’t take any less.
It mist be tough for Bernie as he has had to give his Ex £1 Billion, and each of his 2 Daughters £300 Million, and he recently paid a fine of £900 Million in order to stop Tax avoidance persecution.
In Tory land it would only be right to increase the 25% of
Scots kids living in poverty to keep good old Bernie Rolling in it.
Their Finance page confirms a good year for the Fat Cat Bankers. They have a pot of £15 Billion to split between them. This on top of the £80 Billion on Bank Bonuses paid out since the UK went into recession to pay THEIR Casino Banking debts.
Only in Brain washed Tory England!
We must sever every link there is with these Barbarians.
As predicted when the Billboards were first mooted all advertising site providers would be leaned on all avenues of promoting Independence would be blocked, Print media, Radio, TV, all in the hands of a lying Tory propaganda led right wing government being assisted and unhampered by a compliant Labour Party whose hatred of the SNP supersedes any kind of protection or assistance to people in Scotland, they would rather see this place an Industrial desert than the SNP succeed, the opening of the new Bridge will be accompanied by a rubbishing campaign by these people.
A prime opportunity for the SNP to make a statement, a real political statement by making sure there isn’t a Union flag within 10 miles of the opening ceremony .
The Times is horribly disappointing these days. That crew’s as bad as the Pacific Quay creep show.
Planet toryboy sends in their goons,
link to bbc.co.uk
NHS rejects claims of ‘humanitarian crisis’ in England’s hospitals
1 hour ago
From the section Health
I think Call Kaye should be asked to explain what is going on
The BBC will know the answer
Prof John Roberston regularly debunks these kind of pseudo statistics over on ThoughtControlScotland.
The UK Office of National Statistics head occasionally “reprimands” UK ministers for misuse of statistics. We need something like that up here to cover not just politicians (of all shades) but also the media. Something or somebody with official and independent clout.
rogerM says:
7 January, 2017 at 4:29 pm
The author does a tremendous job in pointing out the deplorable level of our press but it’s not enough. We must take direct action too. Boycott the advertisers
UK gov spends over £300 million a year on press ads, via the Government Information Service mostly. This spend spikes in election years and ofcourse for referendums like 2014.
We are paying UKOK hackdom to lie at us. But then the UK spends over £20bn a year on ads, which probably explains why outfits like the Hootsman are not now extinct.
There are press boycotts though in the EU. Breibart would fit in very nicely on Scottish newsstands, between rancid The Graun and the Daily Express.
link to irishtimes.com
@galamcennalath
‘Scotch Malt Whisky was proven to enhance cognitive processes’
Actually, after thirty plus years of extensive self experimentation and testing I can varify that last one.
Things always seem a lot brighter to me after a dram or two, or three. 🙂
On a statistical point, the difference between 1.7% and 2.1% is 0.4 percentage points not 0.4%.
Looks like work will be extra busy on Monday dealing with queries on cancelled ops and A&E stats. The joy.
Macart says:
Was that a quote from Maggie Thatcher?
Or was it, “A bottle of Bells a day keeps the Argies/Ruskies/Miners away”.
Smallaxe
What a wonderful person you are. I am on my way.
Wullie
Croompenstein @ 4:58
That was a joy to listen to. Just how the BBC chap tried and tried to derive some sort of “bad” story out of it!
On the BBC website Len mc clusky calls on Westminster and Hollyrood to assist the oil industry as he claims both control tax revenues, in yer f/kn dreams Len , now this guy is in charge of one of the biggest unions and he believes this to be true and of course this is peddled as fact by the BBC , is there anywhere we can look for the simple unadulterated truth in this country? .
There may be a lesson to learned from Donald Trump.
Trump has bypassed the media
He tweets to the American people so his message can not be skewed
The media then report what he has tweeted and the message is delivered.
The media are totally screwed and absolutely hate it because they are no longer the hand maidens of the government.
It is diabolically clever
@Robert Louis says: 7 January, 2017 at 5:51 pm:
“Is ‘journalism’ really now just about learning how to do the cut and past command, word count check, and then drinking as much as possible? Hardly what I would call a profession.”
Tell you what, Robert Louis, journalism has been basically that way since as long as I can remember. I started work as an apprentice with the MOD, (Admiralty), in 1952.
The first year was basic bench work, hammer, cold chisel, files and measuring tools from steel rules to vernier’s and micrometres.
We then did machine fitting on lathes, shapers and milling machines, etc. Along with such exotic things as Armature Winding and doing repairs and refitting of generators and electric motors.
Then the year groups were split up and the individuals went to their, (if they were lucky) various choices in other sections of the Dockyard.
I went for first for the Electronics Section and then The Radar, Radio and Sonar workshop. My very first experience in that field was with a RADAR Specialist and we worked right next to the Crypto Specialist.
Crypto involved cryptography of signals but what those signals carried was mainly military textual information and to that end the final testing, (so as to NOT be carrying sensitive defence information), used well known Press Agency information transmitted on Radio frequencies to and from News Agencies.
So the final test set-up was a standard RN Communications Receiver feeding a Cryptography Machine with its output fed into a Teletype machine. These Teletypes could output Ticker tape, Punched Cards or continuous, (perforated as pages), paper rolls.
So we got all Router’s news Agency News as it broke from all over the World. Not to mention the Sports results, including Horse and Dog racing results, often before the newspapers and broadcasters got them.
Now here’s the point – You went home and opened the family newspaper – there, word for word, was exactly what Reuters had sent out to the MSM and Broadcasters.
So there you go – even way back in the 1950s the reporters were just cut & paste merchants.
As a matter of interest the term cut & paste is derived from doing exactly that. Getting the Press Agency stuff on the ticker tape and cutting it up and pasting it in such a manner to form lines, sentences and paragraphs to fit whatever format the news outlets sold to their customers.
In the case of the newspapers the final bit was done by compositors and then by typesetters with lead typeface blocks fitted into frames.
Not until the days of Word Processors was the lead type scrapped by the newspaper industry.
@galamcennalath
Not a quote I’m familiar with.
So Europe sees Brexit as a U.K. economic crisis. The UN has serious concerns about the UK’s regressevive attitude towards human rights, and the International Red Cross says the English NHS is a humanitarian crisis, ISIS is aiming to launch a chemical weapon attack, and the Tory imbeciles in government are mesmerised by far right xenophobic imbeciles, who in turn are mesmerised by Donald Trump who looks like he’s been Tango’d, but likes Russia so much he’s going to kick start a nuclear arms race with them, while scuppering the air cover for UK’s aircraft carrier group. But the BBC says everything is fine, everything that is apart from everything in war torn, savaged by disease and madness Scotland.
Still worried about a hard border??? I’m gonna dig a moat and fill it with asset cursed crude oil.
If we could stop the world and press rewind, I’m really undecided where I’d feel safe enough to press play again, but I’m reasonably sure we’d all getting around on horseback.
@Lenny Hartley says:
7 January, 2017 at 2:56 pm
=======
You should have asked her to name this report and where she saw it. (Two questions she very likely wouldn’t have been able to answer.) You should also have informed her we’ve had the Tories in power for 6 going on 7 years and they’ve made a right mess of things.
Of course I know the feeling of thinking of a good comeback after the event.
Can you smell smoke ?
This sort of merde is prime poster/placard/ face-tweet material.
Totally torn a new one, courtesy of yer man.
Easily bite-sizable.
Aunties tea is numerically nearly out up here.
She, and they, know it too, really.
Slabs maw called them in ages ago.
Aw petted lip now 🙁
Stu Mac don’t worry I ain’t finished, I will be collating data from all over the U.K. And sending it to her. Think she is referring to a report that A+E response times longer than over same period than year before, however comparing apples with oranges as per usual as not all the A+E depts from the other Glasgow Hospitals had been moved to the new Southern General in the corresponding period the previous year.
It is the SNP “Pandoras “box. No matter what comes out of it ,you can bet it will still be bad.
It’s a bit sad that the u.k. is finished, but the world moves on and nature abhors a vacuum.
Scotland will seize the chance and we will be a nation again and there is nothing the yoons can do as every day their ever decreasing band of supporters is loaded in to coffins and the no vote declines.
They know that when the bbc is sold down the river by Westminster, they are finished.
That is how the bbc will go,the staff will be surprised but shit happens.
I agree with the view Trump is outflanking the MSM using twitter directly
His approach to Russian involvement in the election was interesting. He attacked back with the quality of their coverage of Iraq.
And we have not got to the point about if they were involved they provided evidence Clinton’s were not snow white – oh sorry the Russians were in the wrong because the people saw the truth!!
Good to see Nicola using twitter to outflank the BBC’s interpretation and reporting
Ian at 12.57
This would look good on a billboard, albeit it might be too deep for a section of the community to digest
Its only because journalists in Scotland have not been reprogrammed since Labour lost power. Days were when anything that Labour said was true because they controlled everything and had forever so even if it wasn’t true they could make it so.
Journalists made their reputations by guessing correctly what A coming out of John Smith House with B meant and journalism is a sit with Maisie learning profession so todays journalist have “inherited” all the faults of their predecessors. The only one exempt is Stu because he was in his Bath playing with his video rubber ducks and never sat with Maisie so he can see and tell what crap is
In Scotland the GP Doctors were off till the 4th Jan. Surely some could have offered some cover on the 3rd and got time off later. Anyone phoning NHS 24 at 8 pm on the 2nd Jan got an appointment at 5.30am or 10.30am with G. Docs. G.Docs do not give out prescriptions without seeing the patient. In the event the Doctor was phoned on the 4th and a prescription was sent to the Pharmacy.
500 patients died (bedblocking?) in Scotland. Out of a population of 5 million+.
The Scottish Gov put more money into the SNHS and increased social care.
Its so sad that the yoons are now dependent on Ruththemooth and that’s all they have got, but we’ll get over it in an independent country of Scotland.
The bigots will have to get used to living in a country governed by patriots who put Scotland first.
We will win, we will win as long as it takes, we will never give up !
Bill Board Idea
CONGRATULATION TO THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE AND THE SNP
YOU HAVE CONSISTENTLY DELIVERED THE SHORTEST WAIT TIMES FOR A&E
ACROSS THE WHOLE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM
SCOTLAND JUST A WEE BIT BETTER !
The 77th brigade are doing their work tonight.
That’s another brilliant fact-laden article to add to my rapidly growing SNHS collection. It will take its place in my personal armoury alongside other greats from yourself Rev and Scott Minto.
I disagree with those calling for this to be put on billboards because it is far too detailed for that purpose.
I think a far more effective way of getting this out there would be for everyone to get it put onto leaflet form, out of your own pocket, and distribute it through the doors in your area of choice.
By doing this we also alert people to the existence of WOS and every other site emanating from here, and hopefully bringing in a few converts along the way.
Any one planning on giving up on Scotland soon.
Guess what nobody is giving up ever is Scottish independence ever.
Our kid’s are depending on Scotland becoming free.
Following the Red Cross devastating attack on England’s NHS, here are 13 facts about the NHS in Scotland you won’t read about or hear on TV.
link to snp.org
O/T A suggestion to keep Rev Stu focussed during 2017 on the case for Scottish Independence, given, of course, it might be a “slow” news year and, we can’t afford for him to be bored and perhaps distracted? I would invite you, Stu, to present a series of live interviews with all the Scottish Party Leaders…You could be (a far more penetrating) “Gordon Brewer/Gary Robertson…Jackie Bird?” I would love you to have them on the spot and interview them for Wings, the party leaders? Live broadcast? How about it, I would gladly double my contribution to Wings to support this? They may refuse, of course. But ….hell, let them!
That’s interesting about the billboards.
But I’m curious, how can the BBC be one of their biggest customers? The BBC isn’t supposed to do adverts I thought. What advertising space are they paying for?
I don’t suppose there’s much chance of seeing Chris Cairns cartoons posted either.
Aye, the tools of our subjugation are buried deep… but not deep enough I hope.
Ian m
Hoarding idea is good.
However I have long thought that NHS Scotland should be officially named The Scottish Health Service or something similar, to differentiate it from the failing service in England.
So many people don’t know it is a completely separate service and assume all these English failures apply to Scotland..
Fireproofjim @ 10.25
The SG missed an opportunity when Health & Social Care were amalgamated. It should be renamed Scottish Health & Social Care: SHSC would differentiate us from the English NHS.
I suppose the SG thought folk would maybe think we had lost the NHS and that is why they didn’t rename it.
I posted this late on in an earlier thread but it may be of more relevance/interest here given the focus on the press.
On a day when again we’re aware in Scotland of the shortcomings of the corporate media, it is worth noting that others, in a different context, are calling out “journalistic fraud”. At the link below, Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept rips apart the journalistic integrity of the Guardian.
link to theintercept.com
Still Positive. says:
I suppose the SG thought folk would maybe think we had lost the NHS and that is why they didn’t rename it.
Or maybe the threat from Labour (UK Gov at time) of losing Barnett consequentials funding.
Wullie @ 7;26pm:
No problem Wullie, I hope it helps.Peace Always, and best wishes.
Fireproofjim says:
7 January, 2017 at 10:25 pm
“”…So many people don’t know it is a completely separate service and assume all these English failures apply to Scotland..””
It is not accurate to say that the NHS in Scotland is a completely separate service from the NHS in England, or for that matter the NHS in Wales and in Northern Ireland.
The training of staff whether medical, nursing, dental or in the professions supplementary to medicine and the registration of the staff with the relevant professional bodies are the same throughout the UK.
A doctor in Scotland sits the same postgraduate membership exams as doctors in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and indeed in the Republic of Ireland such is the degree of integration of post-graduate medical and surgical exams.
There is some divergence in salaries and as we know in contracts but the training is the same throughout the UK.
So ‘completely separate’ is not strictly accurate.
@Smallaxe says:7 January, 2017 at 4:01 pm
“However, I have not forgotten about your predicament.Here is a link to a downloadable free trial of said device.I hope it is of some help to you my friend.Please keep me informed.Peace Always
link to neuromonics.com
“
Yes! Smallaxe, you are very much one of the good guys. The Tinnitus is never going to kill anyone but it sure as hell is going to make your like a total misery.
Anyway, I recalled after your post that I had read some weeks ago, (I can’t remember where), that there was now a new surgical operation that could cure it completely and it was NOT the old, “cure”, where they surgically removed the inner ear and left the sufferer totally deaf.
Keep well my friend, we need people like you around us to keep us sane.
Welcome @Jean Nesbit…. The colonial media must be challenged by our ‘Leaders’…unless the SNP SG do something concrete the lies will pour like diarrhoea out of the multiple outputs of press..tv etc.
This said ‘shite’ is polluting the brains of even some pro-Indy folk. Earlier in the thread..someone mentioned their dad taking a dislike to AS… and why shouldn’t they? ..that’s the nature of propaganda…it’s sole purpose is to corrode people’s judgement by undermining their rational thought processes by hitting their emotional reasoning..i.e their prejudices…and even if rationally they know something is right, they are conditioned to feel emotionaly that it is wrong…. e.g.How many times have any of us experienced the ‘cringe’ ? well that is this conditioning by our ‘masters’.
It’s well known psychological conditioning..(look up ‘Millgram and compliance)’… that’s when they got innocent volunteers to ”electrocute’ people to the point of death, in a ‘faux’ trial experiment, for giving the wrong answers!
That’s why it is completely fucking stupid for the SNP to ignore the role of the constant propaganda being pumped out by the colonial media. They are ignoring basic psychology..the likes of which Goebells totally understood to the point that he helped mobilised a nation into global war and the attempt to annihilate a race i.e the Jews. Anyone that is dumb enough to believe that the Germans were unique enough to fall for this mass propaganda need jettison that particular racist interpretation for other examples e.fg Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka etc.
Robert Peffers:
Thank you, for your very kind words sir.My only regret is that the device, as you explained is of little use to yourself, we are all in your debt for your clear and concise contributions that have enlightened and often amused all of us here on Wings.
You have my utmost respect, sir.Thank you.Peace and Best Wishes Always.
OT
I keep hearing Ruth shouting about how Scotland exports more to England than to the EU. Is there any truth in this. I have never heard her challenged on this
Do they count stuff traveling through England and the Abroad. Like whisky.
Do they count water, electricity and oil.
Perhaps a article on this would be helpful.
@Stephen McKenzie @ 7:38
I loved it too Stephen and I put a link on, thank fuck someone listened.. 😀
Thank f**k somebody is still up. Everybody else seems to be having an early night.
Ok so 20 operations are cancelled , do they not realise a major reason for operations being cancelled is the patient is too ill to go through with it, or that an emergency case has had to take the place of scheduled operations, or one of the most relevent ones these days is that the Surgeon is of sick, so bad that they would rather a surgen spreading sickness germs in theatres than cancelling the operation and preventing complications, MSM are pure arseholes, no in fact an arsehole is useful, the media are the exact opposite, chocolate fireguards spring to mind
Still Positive:
Hi, I’m still up! I’ve been playing wee tunes to myself on O/T.I thought everybody had packed in for tonight as well. 🙂 Peace Always
We’re always watching Smallaxe hehe.
We got all the data, we got all the information, we got it all.
Informative article, complete with excellent below the line comments.
Cheers chief’s!
Good point, Wullie B! Lots of reasons why an operation can be cancelled. I had one cancelled once because of the anaesthetist. It was supposed to take place overnight but the anaesthetist, who had been involved unexpectedly in earlier emergency ops would not have been able to stay on duty for the duration of my op, hence we had to wait till 8am and the next shift coming on duty. All went well i am pleased to say.
Still positive/ Smallaxe: – I’m still up too! A very wide awake blackbird/robin – not sure which- still up in my front garden too, singing its little heart out. Noting worse than posting and no-one seems awake to reply.
Been searching for my mobile which I finally found on the ground, under my car, where it fell when I got out about two hours ago!!
I notice that the BBC didn’t hesitate to report Andy Murray’s defeat to Djokovic on its main website this evening – most times they report it on the sport section, then on the Scottish section and sometimes, almost reluctantly, it reaches the main page. No problems tonight tho since he lost.
Hi, to all who are still awake O/T but just to remind us of what we fight for. Peace Always
link to youtube.com
As if We need reminded!
It’s what we’re all about.. home.
Caledonia.
X.
Lovely video – and music, thank you Smallaxe. I was just thinking how lucky I am today – my work took me to Langholm and I have to travel to Inverness on tuesday. Brilliant opportunities to see our beautiful country.
Stay well and happy. Scotland will be free!
That’s why we’re all here..
Home.
X.
ps hi Meg merrilees x
Meg merrilees:
Your welcome, Meg, so close to Gretna today, we could have had lunch. 🙂
Enjoy your trip to Inverness, stay safe.Peace Always
Cactus: One for you on O/T Peace Always
Sorry guys – ‘off tae ma bed’ (Perth tomorrow and the car’s acting up tonight!)
Hope you can sleep soon, Smallaxe.
ps: Cactus are you always awake at night time? You need your sleep ye ken or ye might just need the help of our NHS and that might just make the crisis worse!
Goodnight Meg, Peace Always
Hehe thanks Meg, me a nicht owl? Och aye, thru the day too 🙂
It’s goes a little bit like this:
link to youtube.com
There are many of us.
Cactus: one on O/T your move, one for here
link to youtube.com
Peace Always
Last one ~
Did this on off-topic pure yonks ago, check out the series.. that’s a few moves.
link to youtube.com
Rest easy.
Goodnight Cactus, that was fun. Peace Always
Re. Disseminating information difficulties, it’s probably been mooted many times before but…
Getting the actual rate for a full page pull out, at this time of of a weekend for the National proved fruitless, but i’m guesstimating low five figures for an ongoing fortnightly/ad hoc (?) campaign.
Say, an even £12k a pop. Print both sides ?, 1 as poster, other as fold over for the dentists waiting room etc.
Assume only 5% of a 15k print run actually get put up. (in street front windows/whatevs prominent positions can be imagined/got away with)
= 750 high vis sites at around £15 each ?
2,000 sites = £6…. you get the drift…
Appropriately linked rebuttals/exposure like this could be widely seen, on a standardised format, in less than a day after the dirty deed is done.
Imagine all those thousands of extra , ego boosting page views too Stu 😉
Is it realistic/possible to get 4k peeps to d/d £3/month (for example)? Assume so, and work up towards it ?
3,999 really. I’ll do 1, & 2 street front windows.
Nicola on Marr later 9am
“Nicola Sturgeon has warned Theresa May that she is not “bluffing” on the promise of a second independence referendum if Scotland is “driven off a hard Brexit cliff”.”
Or in the vernacular… ‘Come ahead ya radge, yer tea’s oot’
The real meaty bit is previewed here though.
link to bbc.co.uk
Good morning pop pickers
This mornings Andrew Marr show has Nicola Sturgeon MSP advertised to appear and NOT Nicola Sturgeon FM of Scotland
when she is in fact both of these things
Is this the BBCs wee attempt at know your place politics
Some folk might think I’m being picky but when Theresa May was on she was advertised as PM and yet no one has ever elected her to anything other than MP or was that another UK vote Scotland missed or didn’t count in
I’m sure we all feel suitably belittled and humble
Why is Marr not a live interview ?
Feel their fear !
An omni-shambles, being found out.
Glove’s are off. Meoww
“She said: “I don’t feel as if I know any more about her (Theresa May’s) negotiating objectives than I did six months ago.”
Asked if she seriously thinks “there is no plan”, the first minister said: “Yes I do”.
She added: “I say that with a lot of regret as that puts every part of the UK into a very perilous position.”
Ms Sturgeon highlighted a meeting at Downing Street in October which also involved the first ministers of Wales and Northern Ireland.
She said: “I’m not exaggerating too much when I say the prime minister sat on the other side of the table at that meeting and said ‘Brexit means Brexit’ and not a lot more.
“I came out of that meeting more frustrated, after a meeting of that nature, than I have ever been before.”
‘Brexit means brexit’ looks destined to become an epithet, of biblical proportion.
Dancer 🙂
defo:
Thanks for the Marr/Sturgeon clip.Put me down for the £3d/d.Peace Always
Links
link to itisintruthnotforglory.wordpress.com
link to randompublicjournal.com
link to newsnet.scot
Emails show Jeremy Hunt’s Department of Health ‘colluded’ with ‘independent’ body to impose junior doctor contracts
link to archive.is
link to pulsetoday.co.uk
A rock hard Brexit looks increasingly on the cards
link to archive.is
Price of fish, meat and poultry soars by up to 44% since Brexit vote
link to archive.is
Big society. shared society, blah blah blah
May to shift focus away from UK’s poorest people with ‘shared society’
link to archive.is
link to neweurope.eu
link to opendemocracy.net
Nana: Good Morning,
Lovely links, Kettle’s on.Thank you
Nana: Sorry, Peace Always
Why do we think the BBC’s advertising the appearance of Nicola Sturgeon MSP and not Nicola Sturgeon FM
After all Theresa May MP hasn’t won and election but they still call her PM
Childish of me?…. I don’t think so!
defo @ 7.17 am
SNP BAD means SNP BAD.
In five years time I expect that the tired old hacks of the Dead Tree Scrolls, and the front men and women at PQ BBC will ask themselves-
‘What was I thinking, writing and broadcasting that same old shite every day?’
With newspaper sales in the thousands, and nobody watching the Yoon YV propaganda,it won’t be long before even the Yoon knuckledraggers stop buying or tuning into this pish .
These guys must really hate Scotland yo print and broadcast these lies on a daily basis, for money.
Edit: Delete Y, insert T. Oops.
@Smallaxe Good morning, one more link for you.
Chunky Mark raging and I don’t blame him.
link to youtube.com
“Price of fish, meat and poultry soars by up to 44% since Brexit vote
link to archive.is”
Which can balance out with a good export base. Indeed the daily hate was writing the other day about the 40% increase in ‘British’ Whisky and the increase in ‘English’ sparkling wine exports…
link to archive.is
Nobody wants Independence
BBC Scotland bringing it on this morning Gerry Hassan misquoting Sr Rajoy’s words as to what competence means
saying the SG aren’t competent to negotiate anything, when what was actually said was negotiations were’nt within the SG’s competence
The context and meaning entirely different
We would normally say in English, those powers are reserved
and if Gerry Hassan doesn’t know that then he’s just stupid, on the other hand if he does know that then he’s a malicious little bastirt
Which I have heard somewhere he is!
Nana:
I don’t blame Chunky Mark either, but I do worry about his blood pressure! I wish we could hear some more Englishmen like him.
Good on you Mark, they are going to ruin your country also.Peace Always
Good morning
I’ve been struggling to find something to say over Christmas on Wings. All the press are full of recycled news- repackaged, regurgitated stuff. The FM has made her position clear again and again (and it has been almost entirely consistent since 24th June) but every week the press have to try to present this as something new… a u-turn or concession.
I read the yoon comments on the guardian and the herald and they all amount to the same thing. Semantic, often tortuously semantic justifications for a situation that the people of Scotland at the last outing voted in numbers against.
Our vote in the Scottish Independence Referendum where independence was defeated by a combination of the status quo and devo max all rolled into one by the corrupt Westminster cabal in a true democratic outrage… that vote is rubbed in our faces. At the same time we are told to ignore the express wishes of the people last June: a result eminently more straightforward and reliable.
The press in Scotland have been attacking the FM consistently since June on her position on the EU even though it has barely changed and even though she has demonstrably displayed leadership and purpose; even though she has laid out her position and even though she has consulted with a non-political group of experts in order to produce a written proposal laying out how to fulfil the electorate’s mandate.
From May we have had nothing- vague soudbites are teased from her like pulled teeth and the press in Scotland are not too bothered. The UK’s position seems weakened by resignations, lack of strategy and economic factors; the currency has taken a hit and people are slowly waking up to the cold reality of ever increasing costs that is to be the theme of our personal lives for the next few years. The press in Scotland shrug.
For some folk we are just better off with the UK and that is the end of the matter. Perhaps these people would stick with the UK even were Theresa May to announce we were withdrawing from the United Nations. The 4-times stuff in the press is a comfort blanket and it is a good argument for the yoons: it takes a complex issue and presents it in a nice concise, simplistic form. It presents a false premise based on figures so crap they come with all kinds of health warnings and asks people one easy question:
What do you want- to lose *a large amount of revenue* or FOUR TIMES *a large amount of revenue*. It is risible: is this what folk voted no for? To be given a false ultimatum: would you prefer to be shot in the leg or the head?
This geological accident has been a curse for Scotland down the years. To have this aggressive, dominating, cunning and arrogant ruling class governing our neighbours down South has been to Scotland’s cost since at least the 13th century. We have been fighting against their subjugation in every century since and have suffered like no other from our neighbours.
They finally got hold of us in 1706/07 and have been sucking us dry ever since leaving us with about 30% in full blown Stockholm Syndrome mode, a devastated and empty landscape, outdated and under-invested infrastructure and some major psychological issues for the nation to resolve.
So bring on 2017: lets get this charade over with. Our First Minister is the right person to lead us to our political freedom and a return to the norm for a nation state. As for the zombie press they can go do one. I am fed up responding to the dross we analyse on here. It is demeaning for intelligent people to read Severin Carrell and Torrance and all the rest of them.
Tam Jardine says:
8 January, 2017 at 8:50 am
“Good morning
I’ve been struggling to find something to say over Christmas on Wings.”
You may have been struggling Tam but this morning you said it all and said it well.Thank you for your excellent post sir.Peace Always
I’ve just seen this item, hence the late response.
I have a friend whose procedure was canceled this month. It was canceled because he had a stroke a couple of weeks earlier and it was clinically inadvisable. I wonder if this statistic is included in the canceled numbers.
By the way, the treatment he received during and following his stroke was excellent. He was removed from his home without delay and the stroke team was waiting for him on arrival at the hospital. His treatment started immediately and was completed within three hours of the onset of the stroke. He was home within three days.
Contrasted with reports of NHS England all I can say is Scottish Government Good; Tory Government Bad.
The folk in England want proper hospital treatment and be able to get to work. Wait until Brexit strikes. The overpriced clothes. The Tories couldn’t make a bigger mess.
A disgraceful headline and article in the “Scottish” Sunday Express this morning re cancer patients. Written by Ben Borland. I met Mr Borland some years ago when he was writing for the Dunfermline Press. A wee fish shop was having to close due to unsustainable rate rises. Mr Borland came across as a bit dim – he has since, added dishonesty to that quality! How do these people live with themselves?
AAD says:
8 January, 2017 at 9:19 am
I’ve just seen this item, hence the late response.
I have a friend whose procedure was canceled this month. It was canceled because he had a stroke a couple of weeks earlier and it was clinically inadvisable. I wonder if this statistic is included in the canceled numbers.
Good Morning AAD, I mentioned this earlier, my sister works for a surgeon and this IS NOT taken into account, in otherwords it is still classed as a cancelled operation as it was cancelled by NHS, the system sucks donkeys hee haws, but like the D’Hondt system it works against the SNP Government as the MSM just use it to hammer our system, even though it is miles ahead of the bankrupt English NHS
Re. Gerry Hassan. Who cares? For a supposedly impartial academic, he’s as partisan as they get. That’s why he is on the BBC.
O/T
Its like following the bouncing ball without the music with the Tories.
We’ve had Broken Britain ( when was that fixed ) mibees Brian Spanner did it & did’t tell us
We’ve had the Big Society ( that Big it was printed in invisible ink )
Drum Roll ( its ah long intro )
Now pinned your lugs back you’s weil skelped puss’s ( an naebudy can deny we’re weil skelped )
The Saintly Teresa gives us the Shared Society ( 36502 wiz oor Co-op share number ) & we did get a return oan that Shared Society.
We’re Sharing the Austerity, but the MPs urnae sharing their £1000 wage rise.
The Peoples of England aren’t sharing in the Privatisation of the English NHS what they will share in is the Misery caused.
Nicola Sturgeon is treating Scotland as if it’s a nation state and it isn’t!
and Brussells isn’t listening
Says James Cusick our man in westminster
Nicola on Marr performing well. Marr said May will be listening, what would Nicola want to say to her. Nicola’s parting message to May was ….
“Don’t disregard Scotland, because it is not acceptable to do so. You said during the independence referendum that Scotland was an equal partner in the UK and it’s now time to prove that and how your respond to the sensible, compromise, and consensus proposals that the Scottish Government has put forward will tell us much, possibly everything we need to know, about whether Scotland is an equal partner of whether that is just rhetoric.”
I particularly like the “everything we need to know” phrase. That should to me very much like a challenge to allow us to make the decision about what Scotland does next.
NHS England does not measure A & E waiting times for 12 hour waits at the same starting point as in Scotland. Re BBC Feb. 2016
link to bbc.co.uk
As England helps make the rich richer..
So more people lose their dignity, while many on the edge are bribed, confused and turned against each other..anything, so long as the truth never comes out.
Let’s be free of the nasty, cruel union.
It has been established before on Wings. The minuscule cancellation rate to the number of operations done a year.
‘Minimum pricing’ will help healthcare etc. Councils spending money on essential services instead of wasting £Millions on grotesque projects the majority do not want. Against the majority wishes and the public interest.
The Tories are wasting £Billions on Hinkley Point, HS2, Heathrow and Trident. All will be redundant before they are finished. Cutting essential services, NHS and Education which they were elected to protect. The Tories couldn’t make a bigger mess.
Another proposal for ‘Federalism’. Every Vow promise was broken. Wait for Brexit. Westminster Unionists caused the migration crisis in Europe.
Dr Jim says:
Their perception is a million miles from ours.
To paraphrase Nicola, Scotland is an equal partner and we must have our views and position respected, and I am will to compromise. She used a phrase like “meet in the middle”.
The real problem is, no one in London ever sees Scotland as an equal partner and certainly not an entity to compromise with. For most in London, they equate Scotland with a region like Yorkshire or The SW.
We are a country, we are a nation, and we are well on our way to being a state.
Smallaxe
Thanks- enjoy your Sunday my friend.
@galamcennalath
There are heads bursting like plooks everywhere in Yoonworld today it certainly looks like the FM has put a big giant cat amongst a load of one winged pigeons
The anger and disarray is almost audible from here Twitter Radio and Telly folk can’t contain their fury at our wee upstart FM doing the job we voted her in to do and that tells you what they really think of us, we’re not a country we’re not a nation we’re not anything, if they had their fingers on blow up Scotland buttons they’d be pressing them now
Ahm so proud!
K1, if you’re about, still catching up on those old links..humph.
Ruthie lying through her teeth on Purchases Politics, as well as the compulsory telephone line drop for Angus Robertson. Same old,Same old.
Dr Jim says:
The bit I can’t get my head round is ….
They claim to believe Nicola is only bluffing about IndyRef2.
Is that because they think no one would actually want to leave their wonderous Union?
Or, is it wishful thinking and denial that their Union is on its last legs and on life support?
breaking new – BBC
UK Prime Minister Theresa May says she will lay out plan for Brexit ‘in coming weeks’
So that was a quick scramble to counter “Sturgeon”, or FM Nicola Sturgeon as she is known in Scotland.
Now to decide what to say over the “coming weeks”.
link to bbc.co.uk
Pienaars Politics of course, blooming predictive.
There are heads bursting like plooks everywhere in Yoonworld today
You can hear it from afar.
Grauns got comments (6022) under just one SNP bad headline, with usual sleazy Carrell stuff. Most of them are very good reasons to vote YES next time.
EU referendum and Brexit
Sturgeon offers to shelve independence vote in return for soft Brexit
Dear Prime Minister,
How do you view humanity? Do you believe in universal human rights?
link to repository.up.ac.za
Oh are we not a ‘nation state’ according tae BBC Cook? Perhaps these so called informed journalists should actually read the details of the arguments being presented to the Supreme Court regarding the triggering of A50 by use of the Royal Perogative:
4.10 The devolutionary settlement envisages the Scottish Parliament acting so as to implement EU law within the areas devolved to them. Thus, Schedule 2 to the ECA concerning subordinate legislation made for the purpose of implementing any EU obligations under Section 2 ECA was amended by paragraph 15 of Schedule 8 SA to make specific reference in Paragraphs 1A and 2C respectively to Acts of the Scottish Parliament and to Scottish statutory instruments made by the Scottish Ministers.
In that regard, and as noted by the Lord Advocate at §32 of his intervention, in Case C-428/07 R. (Horvath) v Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [2009] ECR I-6355 [24/297], the CJEU rejected a challenge to the differential implementation of provisions of EU law made under the common agricultural policy in which there was a variation across the UK in the detailed implementation of the EU Regulation concerned.
28 The CJEU was not concerned by that differentiation and applied its past case law to the effect that “the prohibition on discrimination is not concerned with any disparities in treatment which may result, between the Member States, from divergences existing between the legislation of the various Member States so long as that legislation affects equally all persons subject to it”.
29 The effect of this decision is that in areas in which regional or devolved authorities of the Member States are autonomously competent to adopt rules implementing EU law they will, from the viewpoint of EU law, be equated to Member States.
Nicola Sturgeon is treating Scotland exactly as Scotland will be viewed by all other EU nation states, the laws apply to the citizen and it us the citizens that she represents in protecting what is best for all the citizens residing in Scotland. The EU citizens in Scotland voted to remain in the EU. She is merely acting in accordance with the wishes of the majority vote of 62% whilst attempting to get the best deal ‘for’ Scotland as a whole within the ‘process’ of the wider UK vote to leave the EU.
This is not rocket science. We have cards and we are playing our hand.
Now, will journalists like Cook should just shut the fuck up as they clearly have no understanding or intelligence to bring to the debate and let the adults get on wi it.
Tam Jardine:
Thank you, Tam, I will, I hope you enjoy your Sunday too.Peace Always 🙂
__________________________________________________________________________
To:
All other Wingers who want to enjoy their Sunday, here is the URL of an e-mail which I received this morning from Global Research. I would advise you all not to read it until tomorrow, it is a long, depressing and frightening read concerning Anglo/American relations with the EU and Russia, Trumps impending impeachment and much more, it should come with a health warning! Peace to All.
link to globalresearch.ca
@ronnie Anderson 10.00
Aye, it’ll be a shared society where the peasants put their lot on the table and the great and good lift it with a plea of ‘Please Mrs May, can we have some more?” And all the while Tiny Tim begs to get his wooden leg back…
Mixing my Dickens there but what the dickens!
From Defo
“The real meaty bit is previewed here though.
link to bbc.co.uk “
Did you notice that when Marr started off on his ramble to try and pin down NS, she just gave a huge sigh 🙂
It’s like swatting away a fly for her.
Co-op double cream. Always in a blue and white carton with a Saltire on the tab and called “Scottish double cream”.
Today – Union Jack on carton, Union Jack tab and called “British double cream”.
They’ve all gone quite mad. Co-op HQ is in Manchester. But does some political commissar in Westminster send out memos to corporations demanding they badge all products as “British” and plaster Union Jacks over everything?
Running out of things I can buy.
It wouldn’t be so bad if any of them had more than just the one brain cell that they pass around each other when it’s their turn to speak
The FM isn’t threatening anybody or any thing, she’s in fact doing the exact opposite by offering suggestions support and assistance in the most consiliatory manner possible with her hand of friendship extended in good faith, if as looks likely the English parliament in the shape of Theresa May MP rejects all offers of friendship co-operation and goodwill what do the people of Yoonworld expect to happen
As the FM said this morning (I’m paraphrasing) it doesn’t matter what the issue here is what’s more important is if England refuses to listen to Scotland on this matter why would Scotland trust that they would listen on any other issue in the future
What the English are demanding (with menaces) is Scotland will and must submit to total dictatorship and be seen to do it on bended knee
And that’s where my hackles rise straight up stiff as a lavvy brush that’s never been used
Say whit now!
Capella says:
The problem I have is two fold.
Firstly I avoid the ‘butcher’s apron’ because it invokes feelings of revulsion.
Secondly, I feel ‘British’ as a source location for food sounds like someone is trying to avoid something. It comes across as evasive. It sounds like the supplier is trying to hide the fact that it comes from an inferior source.
Take beef. I buy Scotch beef because I believe it will be a quality product from grass fed cattle. I also tend to believe English beef will be of lesser quality because the cattle may well have been fed on soya feed. You can taste the difference! If labelled ‘British’ I am suspicion that it is poorer quality.
Or Stilton cheese. I don’t want ‘British’ Stilton, I want English Stilton.
Similarly, labelled ‘Produce of the EU’. I like Polish ham, English beer, Spanish wine, Italian cheese, French mustard. I want to know where something comes from, and from that I make quality assessments.
Morrisons now going the same way.
Scottish milk unavailable but Milk with butchers apron.
It is 6p more expensive per British pint and very visibly flagged as that 6p goes to farmers.
Does that mean the Scottish farmers have to supply their milk at cost and make no profit.
Popular brands disapperearing and being replaced with UK or unknown brands.
Feckin joke.
@Capella
After the 2014 ref this was Camerons idea as part of his keep Scotland British campaign
I always thought food had to be labelled with the Country of Origin?
Am I wrong?
Is Britain a country?
If the answer to either is no then is there a case for Trading Standards to investigate?
I typed
Trading standards Britain is not a country into google and got this. I’m sure there will be more but I don’t have time to go searching, and I have not read through the second link
It annoys me when I see the butchers apron on products.
link to hamlins.co.uk
link to food.gov.uk
As a Co-op member I will contact HQ and ask why the labelling has changed. I have photographic proof!
Will let you know if I get a sensible answer.
Who knew choosing dairy products could become so politicised, if that is indeed what is happening?
link to link.springer.com
* Laclau believed social structure is “shaped through discourse, understood as the domain of relations that precede the meaning of particular elements”**. This is also how Laclau understands objectivity: as relations, or structures, that precede the particular. Discourse, then, gains ontological status here. Discourse is the “terrain” of the objectivity of the social (Laclau 2005, p. 68).1
** the form and functioning of the social fabric (beliefs and practices i.e. institutional culture).
I had a quick look through the copy of the Treaty and Act of Union, which somebody (Robert Peffers?) kindly posted on Wings some time ago, and which I downloaded.
One thing I did notice – there is no equivalent of Article 50, covering one or other of the two parties – the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland – which signed the Treaty wishing to withdraw from the Union.
The Act and the Treaty make it clear, the new United Kingdom shall have a single parliament – the Parliament of the United Kingdom. We all know, that subsequently, in 1997 or 1999, dependant on whether you take the date of the Act or the date of the setting-up, the UK Parliament devolved certain powers to the reconvened Parliament of Scotland, however, the major powers still rest with the UK Parliament.
Given the current situation regarding Brexit and Article 50: should not the 56 pro-Independence Scottish MPs at the UK Prliament not table a motion, stating that, since it is the declared wish of the People of Scotland, as per the EU Referendum to remain members of the EU, but, the People of England have declared their wish to leave – Scotland now wishes to withdraw from the United Kingdom.
The Red, Yellow and Blue Tories would, of course, vote down this motion – in which case, backed by the Holyrood Parliament and its in-built pro-Independence majority – Nicola Sturgeon, as First Minister and Angus Robertson as Leader at Westminster, should then seek the assistance of the EU and the UN, in dissolving the UK and returning Scotland’s Independence.
Now, that would give Mother Theresa and her gang something to think about.
After all, the Act and Treaty of Union were enacted by two equal states, nowhere does it say Scotland must, for ever more, do exactly what England wants.
@Capella
I think its worth explaining your views to the Coop. I did complain to one English manufacturer about UJs and whether its a coincidence or not, a while after that they moved the UJs from the packaging. I pointed out that my area had a majority vote Yes to Independence, a large number of people here also see it as a divisive sectarian symbol, so it might be counter-productive in terms of sales. I also said I regard it as an attempt to influence my sense of identity by subliminal means, to which I object strongly (I referred to the work of the prominent social psychologist Michael Billig who calls this process ‘banal nationalism’.)
I also complained to Sainsburys and got this interesting reply in which they acknowledge the Saltire is a better brand than the UJ. However last time I looked they still had Scottish products with UJs on them.
We’re very proud of the range of British products we source, and, as part of our 20 by 20 sustainability plan we’ve committed to double the amount of British food we sell by 2020.
We use the Union flag on our packaging to denote British products. Our consumer research shows that the Union flag has a wider and stronger message than the St. George’s Cross when applied to English products. Our research also showed that for products from Scotland the Saltire has much more meaning regarding its place of origin for both our Scottish and English customers.
@Smallaxe says: 8 January, 2017 at 1:07 am:
“we are all in your debt for your clear and concise contributions that have enlightened and often amused all of us here on Wings.”
Oh! There is no debts, Smallaxe. We here on Wings are a valuable resource that is freely given. We have all learned from each other on here and long may that continue.
We are drawn from all walks of life and we each have a contribution to make, positive or negative, it makes no difference.
A lecturer at the Naval School of Medicine, a World leading source of Radiological Protection, (a term defined as, “The protection of people from harmful effects of exposure to ionizing radiation”), encouraged his students to disagree with the things he was teaching.
His explanation for this was along the lines that, if you wanted the very best information from anyone, then disagree with them.
They will shift Heaven and Earth to prove themselves right. If you had just asked they would give the information but, being busy people, impart only the minimum required.
So even those from the unionist point of view can be a source of good information. We just need to disagree with their information, (that is of course if they actually gave information in the first place).
They will then attempt to shift Heaven & Earth to prove us wrong and themselves right.
There’s a clue there for deciding which Yoons are Trolls and which are not. The genuine ones will quote sources. The Trolls will just make claims.
Which leads to ourselves, when we deal with unionist commenters. If we are just out to annoy them we just make claims but if we are aiming to convert them our claims must be backed by verifiable facts and good sources.
So now I’m off on a side-track from what began as just a simple exchange of mutual respect. This is where Wings is head and shoulders above some other political blogs. It does not close down such side-tracks that can clarify our thoughts.
Glamaig says:
Which raises a couple of issues.
1. Across England many people consider the UF as the flag of England. In their minds UK/GB/Britain/England are interchangeable terms.
2. Because England has a widespread culture of blood and soil nationalism they are have created a situation where their own country’s national flag has negative connotations! They need to reclaim their identity and symbols positively.
@Tam Jardine 8.50 am….Brilliantly and concisely put Tam. I feel the same way. At the moment it’s Groundhog day with the Unionist Media…waking up in a Universe of the venal and stupid running and ruining our lives.
Smallaxe@11.25am
Thanks for that paper from Global Research. It is very interesting indeed. My daughter lives in California with her husband and two kids, and thinks Obama and the Democrats are the best thing since sliced bread!
I think that their policies at home were ok but their foreign policies are as it says in this paper. They are worried that the Trump gov. will cut money to the sciences in which they work.
Don’t know whether to send her this paper or not. The more you know about the politics of the USA the more frightening it is.
BBC Radio 4 really going for it with ‘EU is doomed’ narrative today.
@ Glamaig – what an interesting finding from Sainsburys, that English customers prefer the Union Jack to the St George Cross, but the Saltire is fine for everybody to denote Scottish produce.
Could it be that the St George Cross is too identified with the EDL?
I’m happy with English products being designated by the English Flag. Maybe it’s time normal English people reclaimed their flag?
@ CameronB Brodie – Quite so!
@ Nana – the trade marks seem to regard “British” as the default brand for made in the UK. Way behind the times.
Socrates mac sporran @ 12.36
You are in a sense correct… Except for 2 things.
In 2014 the Sovereign people of Scotland said they wanted to continue with the Treaty arrangements.
Then at the following general election the Sovereign people of Scotland returned their representatives to Westminster, representatives who specifically said they would abide by the 2014 instruction.
Unless and until those instructions change that’s what we are stuck with.
Although that alters nothing about the Treaty it’s self.
Maybe the other partner will void it in some way??… Circumstances beyond our control so to speak..To coin a phrase…To be pedantic…Or to take the Supreme Court at it’s word???
We are not the only ones who could invalidate the Treaty!
I thought our First Minister played a blinder today on Marr’s show. The remainers in England and Wales will support the idea of staying in the “common market”. In effect supporting in part the Scottish Governments position.
May will have to say NO.
2 years to encourage independent thought and action.
14yr olds today will be pro Scotland and EU by the time they vote.
I see that after the FMs appearance on the Marr show this morning the usual suspects have gone into meltdown. A quick glance at twitter reveals the haters, bigots and yoonitariat are in full on zoom mode. Several pints of eye bleach required, so I’d avoid twatter if you have a delicate constitution.
It’s enough to say that their language and the general thrust of the comments are fairly grim to say the least.
These are human beings wishing pain, suffering and disgrace upon another human being you know. Wishing these things upon a person who has done them no harm whatsoever… classy.
Which leads me neatly on to something I posted elsewhere:
I don’t think the poor dears see what is right in front of their face. They’re so invested in looking for complex strategy, double speak and intrigue they’ve totally missed the most obvious conclusion.
Sometimes what you see is what you get.?
Both the SNP government and the YES movement learned a long time ago that you don’t win independence by practising politics in the Westminster fashion. You win independence by allowing Westminster to be Westminster. All you need do is follow, to the absolute letter, your end of a bargain. The central government establishment and its inherent nature will do the rest.
To put it another way. Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP Scottish government and the greater and wider YES movement have NOT broken their word. All of us have abided by the decision taken in September 2014.
Agree with it? NO.
Get back in our box? You wish.
But live with it we have and for why? Because this is a democracy and that means we get to hold different views and argue our corner. It means when events occur and circumstances change, we get to revisit past decisions and reconsider positions in light of new evidence.
The evidence to date is that since 2014 both HMG and Better Together have NOT lived up to their end of a bargain struck with the Scottish electorate. They’ve broken every pledge, reneged on every assurance given and finally have threatened the removal of 40 years of accrued EU rights, the over ruling of Scottish law and the complete dismissal of Scottish sovereignty which we were led to believe was only on loan to the parliament of the UK as part of our ‘partnership’. We were categorically assured that only by voting NO in 2014 could our continued membership of the EU be guaranteed. That was the deal, yes?
Yet we are continually reminded to respect the result of one referendum whilst being told to ignore the result of another. All the first Minister has done to this point which holds the deceitful and disingenuous nature of the Westminster system to account is attempt to ‘respect’ and abide by the wishes of the electorate in both referendum results. A board of advisors was formed in the wake of the brexit result. Their remit to explore the routes by which BOTH unions could be retained. They came to a conclusion and a proposal was formed based on those conclusions. This proposal, a possible path to retain both unions, was presented to the UK Prime Minister and as it stands, has been duly binned out of hand/taken under advisement. Ms May might wish to revisit that decision in due course, but if not? That would be her choice, not ours.
So the question is. When do you think Westminster should be held to account for a promise not merely broken, but shattered beyond redemption?
Cactus says: 8 January, 2017 at 2:40 am:
We’re always watching Smallaxe hehe.
We sure are, Cactus. I didn’t get to bed until 4:00am.
I was busy though. I had a large and rather expensive laptop that has my video/audio and video/audio conversion stuff on it. Not to mention my YouTube account. That Laptop had suffered a mains charger/power unit failure.
When I eventually tracked down a supplier of a spare power/charger the order was not filled but the supplier had cashed my payments. It took a very long time to sort them out but the unit eventually get here.
However, the laptop had been so long out of action that it needed update to both the Windows 10 64bit operating system and virtually all my other installed software. The trouble was that Microsoft now treats our computers as if they belong to Microsoft and Microsoft now dictates to us how and what we want to do with our own computers.
I began, selectively, to update windows 10 to the more recent windows 10 set-up. Then the problems began.
My obvious first move was to check out the computer’s hardware as without a means to charge the battery it had run out of power. I had also uprated my router and so needed to set up the laptop’s connections to the internet to download the updates.
No such luck, though. I have both wired, (Ethernet), and Wireless on my new router and things were set to auto-connect. So somehow, (not yet established), the laptop picked up a very, very slow internet connection from God alone knows where, and began, on Microsoft’s say so, to update Windows 10 with a massive downloaded set of updates.
It would have been fatal to attempt to stop it for I’d be stuff between two sets of operating system. This bloody update took almost 48 hours before I could regain access to the laptop.
So there was no way to check if the fitted battery had been charging until this morning at 9:30am. It hadn’t so I did right to resist switching things off and going to bed.
So now I am running tests on the laptop and so far they say the battery is good but NOT charged. Yet to date there are no indications that there are any faults on the computer or with the new power pack.
I suspect the charger is actually in the computer and not in the, so called new, Power unit/charger. I’m hoping that the system may be to charge the battery when the computer is not drawing power and that is why the batter tests o/k but is not charging. But the first, more detailed test, runs for over six hours.
So I have a restored & updated computer that is running very slowly and a tested o/k battery that is not yet charging and, because of the long running tests, I cannot yet test my theory that the battery will charge when the computer is not using power. — and there are other long tests yet to run.
So I’ve had lunch and am back on the other laptop posting to Wings again – if I can stay awake.
macart @1.26 pm.
Ace, Sam.
I wonder if we could frighten the sh.t out of unionists. Tell them that if it is a hard Brexit, Scotland will go ahead with Indyref2. If indyref2 fails the First Minister and Scottish Government will resign and leave them to the mercies of Kezia, Ruth and Willie. That should sharpen their minds! NO???? If we don’t get out of this foul union we are stuffed whoever is in charge – SNP Govt can’t go on mitigating Westminster austerity and robbery for ever!
Macart says:
A fair assessment of the situation.
When? When it becomes obvious that the UK will pursue, and the EU will accept, a Brexit which is fundamentally unacceptable to the Scottish Government.
I think May et al will stick to control over immigration and the EU will say no single market then. That might become obvious quickly after A50!
That leaves special status for Scotland which won’t go away quite so quickly because of NI and Gibraltar.
However, that leaves a period where England is planning to go out hard, but the special case arguments haven’t been resolved. IMO that is when we should be ramping up campaigning for IndyRef2 so it can’t be called at short notice as soon as it is certain that Scotland will be expected to follow England over the cliff edge.
Again, I have a feeling the hardness and intransigence towards Scotland might happen sooner than later. May has nothing to lose by tempting the SG to go for an early IndyRef2.
Lochside
Cheers- groundhog day it is.
Macart
Great post
One question I have for Wingers- anyone familiar with European parliament petitions? Is there any mileage in getting a petition to the EU parliament opposing the removal of our EU citizenship and requesting the EU parliament recognise Scotland as a sovereign nation currently a component of the EU member state? Is there currently such a thing in existence?
It might be pointless but if we can make it a non party petition from the people of Scotland it would perhaps do no harm to get a large number of signatures? link to europarl.europa.eu
@ Capella
I’ve just looked at my tub of Co-op “Scottish” double cream – use by today – and it has a saltire on the tub and tab, plus the information that it was produced and packed in Scotland.
But, and this was the first thing I noticed when taking out of the fridge, though not when I bought it, it also has a Red Tractor logo, the lower half of which is a butcher’s apron!
Robert Peffers: (Must try Harder) 🙂
The “debt”, to which I refer, sir, is the great respect owed to your knowledge of the technical and sovereignty subjects from which I have learned a great deal and also for the wisdom accrued by a gentleman of your advanced years.
I agree with you when you say that we, here on Wings give and take freely from each other, positive or negatively.Our allegiance to the cause of Independence is also freely and gladly given.
I thank you, sir, for correcting my error and I mean that sincerely, I have some habits in my writing that I am endeavouring to change.Grouse Beater, at one time, thought me to be of Irish descent by my use of the term “myself” when referring to “me”. Proud Cybernat once took offence, when I said, and I quote, “letters sent to yourself”, which he in retrospect quite rightly, thought that I was saying that he was sending letters to himself.
From this epistle sir, yourself will see that myself can go off on a side-track as well, so I can. 🙂
You have brightened up my Sunday Mr Peffers, I hope someday that we may meet and have a dram together. Peace Always
Scotch Beef, according to my butcher, is a premium brand as it’s mostly derived from beef cattle, England has a large population & has a dairy herd to match, somebody has to eat these auld milk coos!
Tam
You may recall a ‘question’ I sent to Europa back in Oct. I use apostrophes because I knew when I drafted it, it would not be answered fully until after A50 was triggered, but that wasn’t the point of the exercise. Anyway to recant, it was:
“citizenship and passports
Ireland confers citizenship and a passport to anyone born in Northern Ireland, if they apply for it.
My question is, in a post Brexit EU, could the EU confer citizenship and a passport to Scottish citizens who applied if they so chose?
You will be aware that here in Scotland we voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU in the recent UK Brexit referendum, so it would only seem fair.”
Whether that fox ran for any distance or not, or more likely by coincidence two or three weeks later, Charles Gorens MEP for Luxemberg proposed an amendment to current draft legislation.
Guy Verhofstadt the author of the draft amendments liked the idea and ran with it. Unfortunately (though understandably) the proposal was couched in more generic terms, allowing any citizen of the UK to apply for EU membership and although he made a quite high profile press statement at the time and although he showed enthusiasm for the idea, I knew then it was a dead duck.
Such a one-way arrangement might have flown with the 27 if it were specifically for Scotland and possibly for N.I. because we both voted remain but there is no way the 27 would accept it for leave voting England and Wales.
EU citizenship could still be retained but only now by some reciprocal agreement (unlikely IMO) or some cash compensation one-way agreement for the whole UK (even less likely IMO).
Opportunity missed.
galamcennalath says:
8 January, 2017 at 2:15 pm
Macart says:
“So the question is. When do you think Westminster should be held to account for a promise not merely broken, but shattered beyond redemption?
A fair assessment of the situation.
When? When it becomes obvious that the UK will pursue, and the EU will accept, a Brexit which is fundamentally unacceptable to the Scottish Government?…”
I see a problem here. I think it was a strategic error to bind Indyref2 to Brexit, not because it isn’t a sensible thing to do, but because it forfeits the initiative. When we make our actions conditional upon “Option A versus Option B”, we forfeit the initiative to whomsover is required to decide between option A or B. They can leave us in limbo indefinitely while they mull over their option interminably. They are left with the power to hold our actions in abeyance, which is more than a little disconcerting in a constitutional discourse about sovereignty. We are acting as subordinates, and frankly, that’s confusing a lot of people both here and at Westminster.
When we chose to adopt Brexit as a due cause to prompt another Independence referendum, we left ourselves hostage to an imprecise definition of what Brexit is, and at what point it actually occurs. As a result, we know that exiting Europe will “probably” provoke a second referendum, and yet here we remain in limbo for as long as Theresa May dawdles with her decision to affect Brexit, whether via Article 50 or a “Hard and dirty” Brexit without any negotiation.
I fully understand, and grasp the reasons Nicola doesn’t wants to play the grievance card, as in “it’s the UK, not Scotland which is provoking this constitutional showdown”, but I remain concerned that the sanctity of Scotland’s ultimate sovereignty has not so far been unequivocally ring fenced. It is non negotiable. It is inalienable. We, all of us, do see that don’t we???
It makes a massive difference to how events can be perceived.
What I find frustrating as a lay person is not being aware of the extent to which Theresa May fully understands the constitutional reality of Scotland’s sovereign right to be difficult, right up to and beyond termination of the Union, and the extent to which her own rhetoric is empty conjecture playing to the gallery. Either she, and her cabinet have it wrong, or we do. It is surely inconceivable that she does not know. What niggles me about that situation of intrigue, is that Brexit or the triggering of Article 50 doesn’t specifically clarify a thing. It is not a definitive action, but a trigger, a minor technicality. It is possible the Supreme Court ruling COULD bring the issue to a head, but I don’t expect the UK Supreme Court to have the nerve. I expect the SC will fudge the issue with weasel words and the game of charades will continue beyond.
Sooner or later, Nicola Sturgeon must either call time of Theresa May’s procrastination, or else move to enact Scotland’s sovereign destiny herself. Nearly everyone you speak to expects that to be a second referendum, but I am twice troubled that. First, I don’t trust our own democratic machinery which comes with its “Made in Britain” operating system, but second, and more important, is that a democratic response to endorse or reject Scotland’s sovereignty does not alter or decide the binary issue of its legal legitimacy. Only a law court can do that, not a vote.
We are lining up a referendum procedure to determine an issue which cannot be determined or altered by democratic opinion. I am confused, and a little concerned, why it is we’re doing that. The law is clear and unequivocal, and the democratic question becomes whether we recognise that legitimacy or ignore it. That isn’t an Indyref, it’s some absurd artificial contrivance outside of legal competence and akin to the dogs breakfast of Westminster but endorsed once again by yet another generation of blinkered and deluded Scots. In all faith, how can the solution to our constitutional grievance be an artificial construct as baseless and contrived as the shoddy and dubious Act of Union we want to be rid of?
Breeks
I think she answered your questions clearly for the most part on the Andrew Marr show this morning?
Breeks @4.23 pm.
“They can leave us in limbo indefinitely while they mull over their option interminably.”
You make an interesting point, but I think you overestimate them.
I agree, if the UK government made lots of sympathetic noises and said “we’re listening to Scotland and we will bend over backwards to get what you ask for”, even if they actually had no intention of doing that and then at the last minute screw us over anyway, then yes it may put the SG and Sturgeon in a difficult position for the reasons you outlined.
But they won’t do that. They’re incapable of doing that. We’ve already seen how quick they have been to deride the SG paper and position. Frankly, I don’t believe they will be smart enough to pretend to take a measured, reasoned tone with the SG.
What they will do is exactly what they’ve been doing – to continually tell Scotland every single day that the SG’s position is stupid or unworkable or impractical or whatever and that there is no chance of it working and no hope of the UK pushing for it.
It will become pretty clear from May’s rhetoric exactly what “Brexit means Brexit” actually means when she “lays out her plans in the coming weeks” (ref. the mainstream media, today). We might not know the fine details, but the overall strategy will be clear fairly quickly I think. Even if she doesn’t know for sure today (which I think is unlikely), the FM will know for sure in a matter of weeks, rather than months or years, exactly what way the wind is blowing, and will be free to call indyref2 pretty much whenever she decides to.
Just my tuppence, I’m probably talking nonsense, but hey…
@ crazycat – just checked and – you’re right! I never noticed that wee red tractor with it’s UJ fringe before. It isn’t very prominent. I usually chuck the lid away so the rest of the carton is Saltired.
Cunning little trick!
@ Socrates MacSporran
Given that it’s the English partner in the UK union who are causing the problem by aiming to leave the EU and drag Scotland out along with them, would it not be correct to construe matters in terms of England leaving the UK? This would indeed simplify matters, since Scotland as successor state to the UK would simply retain the former UK’s EU membership.
I’m sure any European jurist would be more than willing to emphasise the ‘equal’ status of the two parties which originally merged into the UK of GB, at least from a strictly legal POV. Size should not matter here.
If nothing else this approach should at the very least give WM pause for thought, and maybe, just maybe, begin to dent their unbridled arrogance. The thing though is to strike now, while the UK/English government are still playing headless chicken 🙂
[…] As is the way in Scotland these days, the radical anti-establishment movement of Scottish independence then went into motion – seeking a way to defend the decade long governing party. Not unusually, it was Wings Over Scotland who produced a rebuttal titled Data Without Information [LINK]. […]
It seems to me that this time we will have more scope in spelling out the failings of the union where Scotland is concerned, something I think we should have done during the last ref. The positives and I think the negatives should be spelled out.
Sickening display of bias on the BBC this morning regarding hospital waiting times. They know exactly what they are doing conflating poor times in England with those up here! English propaganda against Scotland. Nothing short of full control of broadcasting will do. It is our human right not to have another nation’s cultur and politics imposed uppon us.
[…] January controversial Bath-based (Am I doing it right?) Wings Over Scotland did a post Data Without Information about how the political parties send the media “Christmas Boxes” embargoed to various […]