Foote replaced by Dick
Last week, just a day after we highlighted the disastrous sales collapse of the Daily Record during almost certainly the most tumultuous and eventful seven-year period in Scotland’s peacetime history, the paper’s editor-in-chief Murray Foote apparently took the Scottish newspaper industry by surprise by suddenly resigning his position.
(We’re sure, incidentally, this is entirely unconnected with the recent advertising of some senior media vacancies in Scottish Labour.)
Rival hacks dutifully issued a series of glowing tweets about what a smashing guy Foote was and how much he’d improved the paper during his 27-year tenure there in various positions, most recently editor-in-chief, group editor and deputy editor.
So even though Foote accused this site of “debasing public life” with “sewage politics, conspiracy theories, hatred and paranoia” when we forced his paper to reluctantly and belatedly correct a massive front-page lie, we thought we’d join in the salutes.
Because the Record has certainly come a long way since this extraordinary editorial leader on the eve of the 2007 Holyrood election that brought the SNP to power:
Murray Foote was deputy editor of the Record in 2007. And while we don’t know who penned the editorial, the magnificent bit in the end – where, after hundreds of words of “DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES VOTE FOR THE SNP IN THIS ELECTION THAT ONLY TWO PARTIES CAN WIN, YOU MORONS”, including the phrase “the only sensible vote is for Labour”, it says with a straight face that “we would not tell you which way to vote” – has his stamp all over it.
(Foote still oscillates between taking credit for the Record’s infamous eve-of-indyref “Vow”, and categorically denying all responsibility, depending on the weather.)
So we wish him well on the next part of his journey, whatever that may be.
We’d also ponder on where the Record might find itself in another 11 years, but to be honest, looking over those sales charts since Foote joined the paper, that’s a rather longer bet on its future than we’d like to make.
(From The Archives #7.)
“Foote replaced by Dick”
Fnarr Fnarr!
What does it say of the mainstream media in Scotland at least, that someone so massivley incompetent can ‘slide’ into a media spot at a branch office?
It says its over – and as noted, its going down fast.
What a disgusting hate piece.
So glad it has gone well for them
I feel the same way about the Record as the people in Liverpool feel about the Sun.
It’s Torcuil Crichton I feel sorry for!
Very good Rev,
The tone of the Record’s drivel is jaw-droppingly insulting to our nations intelligence.
The very last sentence from the editorial is also a beautiful example of irony.
If the Daily Record high-heid-yins had any sense they’d look long and hard at why their paper is rapidly heading to irrelevance in Scotland. Perhaps that it fails to adequately represent the views of half the population might – just might – have had a big hand in it.
What you think, Dick? Still intent in writing that big long suicide note? Knock yourself out. Scotland won;t lose any sleep over your ultimate demise brought on by your own hand.
A remarkable editorial and way, way too long. I was gnawing my leg off with boredom half down. At least it didn’t have a picture of a gallows 🙂
The 2007 victory was a remarkable achievement. It was the very definition of swimming against the media tide.
I would imagine Foote will be Leonard’s man instead of the Mail chap.
winifred mccartney says:
I feel the same way about the Record as the people in Liverpool feel about the Sun.
They Sun sold out the people of Liverpool and their football fans. The Daily Redcoat promotes the Old Firm divisions and sold out the people of Scotland.
“But we would not tell you which way to vote…”
OFFS! 😀 LOLMAGGEDON
No. No I mainly won’t forget Mr Foote’s contributions to Scotland’s current predicament. He certainly did his bit. Yes and what a contribution it was.
Probably not one you’d want to be remembered for.
All parts of the body politik I suppose. Looking at your article Rev, it is actually astounding that this guy tells the electorate to forget about schools,hospitals,law,or who will run Scotland best. It is about no other factor in our daily life but the denial of a Nations independence.
In other words the SNP were going to do a better job,and he knew it. He was right on that score.
The job of any elected politician was to do exactly the things Mr Foote described as being irrelevant.
That is their Democracy not mine. Scottish politicians elected to do their best for the people of Scotland should do exactly that and I believe the SNP have done that very thing.
Mr Foote is clearly past his sell by date,just like this Union. They can March into obscurity together.
Let’s hope that Mr Foote gets his wish and gets a job with ‘Scottish Labour’ -he might be as ‘successful’ there as he was at the Record !
(Admittedly , there is not so far to fall , though )
So a catastrophic failure, now heads for that juicy SLabour spindoc sinecure. The red tories sure can pick em.
‘The Ryder Cup is in the bag’
The lack of ambition is palpable.
‘Here’s a little trinket to distract you while Westminster loots your resources’.
On another note, Richard Leonard wants to apologise to the women of Glasgow about their equal pay claim.
Wait for it, It was apparently lawyers who refused the claim. Now I have been around a few years, but I have never,ever heard of a lawyer acting without instruction from a client.
Lawyers give advice. You either accept that advice or reject it. Labour and Labour only whilst running the Council, decided in the case of women’s equal pay to stall and take it the legal route.
LEONARD IS A LIAR, and a poor one at that.
Looks like the paper version of the DR will reach zero in 4-5 years. Someone will pull the plug before then.
Every democracy needs a free press to act as a mirror to society and to hold power to account. It is hard to imagine right now how iScotland will actually be able to create such a free press. We have very little to build from.
Anyone know what the situation is currently in other Nordic countries?
A comic, published by sad comedians!
If it had gone with the people, supporting self determination whilst being radical and left of centre, it would be selling 300 000 and have the respect of a large swathe of the Scottish population.
Instead the record led and was mimicked by labour’s north british branch, i.e. it went down market, adopted right wing british nationalistic narrative, and tried to out sun the sun on hyperbole, sleaze and royals. labour’s north british branch later tried to out tory the tories on the union.
No surrender might get you an interview with the colonel, but it will not sell a single a copy of the record!
Tuck it behind other publications on the shelf!
I suppose a Foote in the mouth is a bit better than a — Err! Perhaps not!
Sounds like a rant from one of the rabid WATP/GSTQ fraternity.
Incredible as it is to say this, but since 2014, I firmly believe the UK nationalist parties based in Scotland all actually WANT Scotland’s economy and people to fail.
It is a policy which has served all their parties well up until now. Their collective aim, aided and abetted by the media, is to destroy all confidence and pride in ‘brand Scotland’.
A cowed and frightened people are more likely to stick to the status quo, on the premise that, ‘If its bad now, how much worse off will we be if we are independent?’
It was a policy of scaremongering which worked in 2014.
But you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
The UK nationalism lies and scaremongering will catch up with them all during indyref2.
Could Foote be heading to Labour as communications director ? Hope so
My cats have had a serious bowl problem of late, they appeared to be constipated.
I changed their food.
I changed where I fed them to see if that made a difference.
I kept them inside thinking that they were perhaps stressed by the local psycho tomcat.
Nothing worked, so I took them to the vet.
He examined them and couldn’t find anything physically wrong with them.
“How are you toileting them?” asked the vet.
“In a litter tray” I answered.
“What sort of litter are you using?”
“The Daily Record,” came the reply.
“Ah!” exclaimed the vet.
“There’s your problem. Cats are scrupulously clean creatures and no self respecting cat will shit on a Daily Record. Remove it and you’ll find that the cats will start pooing again, just like normal.”
I took the vet’s advice, removed the Daily Record and I have happy cats again.
Both are dropping bombs like it’s going out of fashion and everybody in my house is happy again, despite the smell.
The moral of this tail (no typo) is don’t line your cat’s litter tray with the Daily Record because cats don’t shite on shite!
I can see that graph at the bottom is a bit hand-knitted, but you know, contrary to most graphs with cropped axes that are doing it to exaggerate the message, that one would be even more effective if the y-axis went all the way to zero.
Seeing just how close the zero point is, in the historical context of the paper’s sales in the 1990s, would be quite powerful I think.
Cuilean says:
Agree completely. Strategic importance, the oil, the fish, a few key components they need. The rest they want to damage to discourage Indy.
That was what swung it. That, topped in the closing days with the Vow.
YES in IndyRef2 need to turn the tables completely. Take the initiative and make sure Brexit UK is seen as the scary risky option. And, Indy is seen as a solution and way forward.
What an achievement, he helped to remove over 80% of his readership, must be due an honour surely. Maybe he is like Mr Leask who seems only too glad not to engage with ‘nationalists’. I obliged Mr Leask, by no longer buying the Sunday Herald, couldn’t stop the Herald as I never bought it.
Don’t buy any paper now, I just scan the headlines on the website (with ad-blocker), just to see what manufactured nonsense I’m supposed to be up in arms about. It’s normally just about how bad the SNP are and what a superwoman Davidson is.
Considering how that 2007 election went, for Labour and the Record, it is hard to believe that John “the seer” McTernan was not involved in sculpting that editorial !!
The giveaway that it is not the work of JM-T is the last bit, which is eerily correct…
…”but we would not tell you which way to vote, you’d only tell us where to get off” …..
McTernan would never have got such a stunningly accurate prediction right..
McTernan is also famous for the time he clapped eyes on RMS Titanic just before it left dock, and predicted..”i can tell by looking at it, that ship is NOT unsinkable, if it hits an iceberg it will tear the hull open and sink”
People laughed at Mr McTernan as the cinema staff led him away….but Big John knew what may ahead for Jack and Rose….!!
Well with the drop, rather nose-dive, in the sales of the Daily Liar it looks as though Foote’s done a grand job right enough. Wonder where he’s off to now? What he’ll jigger up next?
And jeezo where would you start? You’d be here all day dissecting and decimating Foote’s ‘extraordinary editorial leader.’
We could start with:…..
”We’ve begun to tackle the shameful sectarianism that for so long has been swept under the carpet.”
”Look around. New schools and hospitals are being built.”
……………………………………………..
O/T
I came across this Iain MacWhirter article in the Sunday Herald yesterday ‘Iain Macwhirter: Brexit has created havoc in Northern Ireland’.
It included the following comments:
..”But here’s the problem. Northern Ireland has already lost its status as an indivisible part of the United Kingdom. During the Northern Ireland peace process, the UK gave up its territorial claim to the province. It said it had “no selfish strategic or economic interest” in Northern Ireland and would accept the reunification of Ireland if the people of the North voted for it. The UK Government repealed the 1920 Government of Ireland Act to make this clear. The Irish Republic made a similar change to its constitution, abandoning its territorial claim. It now speaks only of “a desire for the peaceful political unification of the island subject to the consent of the peoples of Northern Ireland and Ireland”. This effectively turned the North into a stateless province – but it kept the peace for 20 years…”
link to heraldscotland.com
OT but relevant to the wider picture …
link to rightsinfo.org
@galamcennalath says: 19 February, 2018 at 10:52 am:
“Anyone know what the situation is currently in other Nordic countries?”
Yes, galamcennalath, they all publish in Nordic languages and are thus almost as incomprehensible to the majority of Scots as the Daily Wrecker is. Strangely most of them have better circulation figures, though.
@Petra,
Astonishingly there are articles in the media from leading Conservative figures , claiming that the Good Friday Agreement should be torn up as it is not working.
Exactly how or why they think they can get away with that with impunity amazes me.
That has got to be the most moronic editorial in world history. Immature,infantile,contradictory,no substance and just plain out and out lies. Just sums up Foote and his readership. The DR and the BBC are the number one enemies of Scotland.
I am of what some might label the extreme and ‘heretical’ opinion that Scotland may never become independent through the British ballot box alone. There seem to be just too many Scots tone deaf to the inspirational themes of independence. The banal strains of utilitarian ‘cost of everything value of nothing’ Britishness satisfy their taste. They are unlikely to develop an ear for a different tune.
Mr Torrance huxtering the dead horse notion of UK federalism in today’s Herald is symptomatic.
These people will, eventually, destroy Scotland, in both idea and substance. It may be their intention. Scotland isn’t England and that’s the core of the problem. If we want to succeed we need to ‘anglomorph’.
If you don’t believe that, ‘they’ will destroy you with lies, damned lies and propaganda.
We have a massive psychological as well as political problem in this country. I’m not sure the SNP, now a respectable establishment party of government, has the stomach to put the fear of God into that particular constituency and endure any consequences.
British unionism is a thorn in our Scottish side. The situation must be reversed. We need to develop sharp spines; just like the thistle.
Robert Peffers says:
Just a wild guess, but that might be because they do their job by acting as a component of a democratic system.
[…] Wings Over Scotland Foote replaced by Dick Last week, just a day after we highlighted the disastrous sales collapse of the Daily […]
What a sad coincidence that the Daily Record’s crashing fall in popularity virtually coincides with the fall of Labour in Scotland (sarcasm).
Did the Record’s tendency to take their readers for fools drag Labour down with it, or was it the fall of the utterly incompetent Labour’s tendency to take the voters for fools that had a knock on affect for their propaganda rag?
Either way it’s a win-win situation for Scotland.
“Do you seriously believe Westminster will hand over oil revenues and still subsidise Scotland with the Barnet formula?”
Asks the editorial.
The Record obviously haven’t a clue about what Independence means.
Norway’s highest circulation newspaper …
Aftenposten morgen
2016 147,728
2006 248,503
1996 283,915
Falling away, but not like the Daily Record.
However, what is impressive is the number of newspapers in Norway.
link to medienorge.uib.no
“Reporters Without Borders ranks Norway 2nd in its Worldwide Press Freedom Index, right after Finland. Freedom of the press in Norway dates back to the constitution of 1814. Most of the Norwegian press is privately owned and self-regulated; however, the state provides press support.”
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
@Ottomanboi says: 19 February, 2018 at 11:51 am:
“I’m not sure the SNP, now a respectable establishment party of government, has the stomach to put the fear of God into that particular constituency and endure any consequences.”
So you conclude it must all be that BAAAAD SNP party that we must blame then, Ottomanboi?
The bit that gets me is ‘we do not own this country. We are only guardians of it for some time’.
O/T
Fraser Nelson of the Spectator telling us on Radio 2 that Scotland’s Free uni education system is failing because it is not attracting people from poorer backgrounds into Uni education and that the fee-paying English system is better.
WTAF!!
@ Bob Mack says at 10:50 am … ”On another note, Richard Leonard wants to apologise to the women of Glasgow about their equal pay claim. Wait for it, It was apparently lawyers who refused the claim. Now I have been around a few years, but I have never,ever heard of a lawyer acting without instruction from a client. Lawyers give advice. You either accept that advice or reject it. Labour and Labour only whilst running the Council, decided in the case of women’s equal pay to stall and take it the legal route. LEONARD IS A LIAR, and a poor one at that.”
Spot on Bob. I’ve already outlined some cases that I was involved in, in the the 1990’s, when individuals initiated Equal Pay cases against Strathclyde Regional Council through to the return of the Councils as such. The Labour Party was ruling the roost every step of the way, in particular Glasgow councillors. At one point, I heard that a number of Councils in Scotland wanted to resolve the issue and pay out, but GCC councillors said no.
I sat next to their cabal of many lawyers and the QC that they used from day one at Glasgow Tribunal (previously unheard of to use a QC at Glasgow Tribunals) to the Employment Appeal Court in Edinburgh, Court of Sessions in Edinburgh and the House of Lords. One of the cases was said to be the longest running Employment Law case in British history. How much did they pay Ian Truscott QC for that case alone?
link to advocates.org.uk
Their legal team wasn’t calling the shots at all. As you say LEONARD IS A LIAR. And just to add that the legal fees that they were forking out must have run into MANY millions, if not billions. A FoI request should be made to establish exactly how much the Labour Party squandered in relation to the many cases that the general public aren’t even aware of.
This is the party, Labour, that would rather pay lawyers and a QC than pay the Scottish workers that they exploited for decades …. right across Scotland. And to add insult to injury you’ve got people like Corbyn coming to Scotland bleating on about poverty-stricken children. Some of them might just be the children of the decent, hard workers that the Labour Party oppressed for nigh on 70 years: before and well after the Equal Pay Act 1970 came into force.
Perhaps he w has resigned because he is refusing to pen any more of the shite he’s been instructed to do. It’s not the editor that is the major problem with these publications – it’s policy of their owners.
Good full page piece by Mhairi Black putting a big boot into Labour in today’s Record BTW
Such a fitting tribute Stu. I commend your reluctance to go overboard with praise!
Now I cannot wait to see the first press release by SLabour’s new press/media guy…
Is my sarcasm too obvious there? 😀
He has gone the way of all other Labour Stalwarts. I’m alright ‘Jack’!
(ie Me first, Labour Second, next Britain then the EU and finally Scotland the region ! / Wouldn’t say the Lords is out of the question either)
Galamcennalath 10.52
Last year, “Reporters Without Borders” rated Norway as number one for press freedom.
Sweden and Finland came 2nd and 3rd.
link to archive.is
@HandandShrimp
I believe the former DM guy Alan Roden is now on Kezie Dugdale’s staff rather than Labour Party.
@Thepnr says: 19 February, 2018 at 12:10 pm:
“The Record obviously haven’t a clue about what Independence means.”
Nor does the Record have a clue about what constitutes a subsidy nor do the have a clue of what the Barnett Formula is or does. Mind you those examples are not the full story for the Record just doesn’t have a clue about most other things either.
1 – As the Scottish Per capita GDP is more often than not larger than that of England, (even allowing for the strange creative accountancy of the Westminster Establishment0, as per capita GDP is a measure of the average revenue paid to the treasury my each person that means the truth is that Scots are subsidising every other country in the United Kingdom.
2 – The Barnett Formula has nothing whatsoever to do with, “Needs”, it reflects the transfer of Westminster powers from the United Kingdom Ministries to the devolved administrations and as these powers differ in each devolved administration then so does the transfer of funding from the United Kingdom Ministries to the devolved administration in order to fund the different powers devolved.
Thus it is a downright lie that Scots get a larger per capita funding than everyone else. In fact the biggest per capita funding is in Northern Ireland who have the most devolved functions.
Then there is the fairly obvious political prestidigitation that the claimed subsidy comes from, “English Tax Payers Money”, there is no, “English taxpayers money”, for all taxation is gathered on behalf of Her Majesty’s Treasury and there is no legally elected parliament of the country of England as England is directly funded and taxed as the United Kingdom as is the parliament and MPs that govern England.
In practice England and The United Kingdom are one and the same thing. The Record either knows nothing or the Record are deliberate liars.
In Scotland’s history Foote will join the long list of tractors.
This really does need reading.
link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
Robert,
I actually think London is the highest funded part of the UK. It all comes down to the lies about tax v spend.
Everyone is brainwashed into thinking tax comes before spending, yet as prof Murphy has talked about and many progressive economists will attest to, taxation is only possible with spending.
Spending precedes taxes. Nowhere is that more stark than in the city of London. Of course tax revenues are high because that sector received a £1trillion bailout after 2007. (See national debt pre and post financial crisis)
Saying London provides is a bit like saying that a lotto winner is self-made.
As we saw through the bank of England’s QE programme, it is no more difficult for the central bank to up its balance sheet than it is to change the scoreboard at murrayfield.
What is far more valuable than central bank IOUs is energy and resources.
Amazing that there is still over 200,000 daft enough to buy this Red Tory Foreign owned English Published Rag!
I think the Scottish printed media, more than the media anywhere else, illustrate the old saw that ‘people don’t own the media to inform the public; they own it to try and influence the public’.
In Scotland, the emphasis is clearly on TRY as their efforts are no longer as effective as they once were. Roughly half the population or more have seen through the deceit and misinformation and are now ‘out of tune’ with the media owners yet no effort is made to represent the varying views among members of the public. This willingness to lose sales and income, year after year, is probably the strongest possible evidence that the media is not serving the interests of Scots, regardless of their political orientation.
The picture is similar for the BBC. Until Scotland is independent or completely assimilated into Greater England this will not change, though even with the latter I would expect the media to continue serving the interests of the Establishment rather than the mass of the population.
Only with independence are we likely to develop a media akin to that operating in Norway or Finland.
With regard to who is Establishment and who is not, just remember how many ‘socialists’ and Lib/Dem MPs quite happily end up in the House of Lords. If you think they still represent you, think again.
Well done Mr Foote, here’s hoping you have the same success with your next job as the last one.
Keep up the good work!
It’s the family members I feel sorry for, if only they had told the tuith.
Of course the daily stranger and Foote would never want anyone to vote on Labours record in Government.
That’s because its record down the decades has been appalling, communities suffered poverty and deprivation as Labour politicians did little about it as they advanced their careers and became wealthy.
@Proud Cybernat – Fraser Nelson is a liar. He’s been shown evidence on several occasions that UCAS is not the only route to Uni.
Poorer children in Scotland tend to cope better either going into Uni via college or getting a degree at college.
He knows this but continues to lie.
The fact so many BritNat journalists feel the only way to preserve the union is by cheating, fear-mongering and lying, shows the paucity of their case
@ Paul Wilson,
It’s a lot less than 200,000 mate
Somewhere nearer 145,000 at the last count, and dropping by about 13%
in the last round of figures!
Be at Scotsman like sales in no time.
Well silly me i did acutely read this , eh difficult to actually put a badge on it , was it a rant ? , was it good sensible advise ? , eh probably none of those .
While reading this load of junk my main observations were Lie- Nope – not true – labour didn’t do that ,Its a pity there wasnt a tick box next to every line of this rubbish , and as for Jack ,you know the one while in office managed to return some of the block grant to Westminster while piling on the debt with the only game in town PFI contracts .
This from supposedly intelligent people , god help us if these folk still have access to any kind of comment in the media , I doubt if so many people have ever been so misled by so few .A totally parallel universe these people inhabit .
After a 27 year career at the DR rising to Editor in Chief, I doubt Murray will lose much sleep over all the angst and genuine upset we see in this thread. I guess he did what he was paid for, probably very handsomely as well. Money is a huge motivator and a key element in the destruction of principled positions, I still hold on to a few principles but then I’m as poor as the preverbial church mouse, so I can afford to.
Sometimes the bleedin obvious is not all it seems.
Nicola had a warm and friendly relationship with the former Editor, not surprising as he inherited a cracking sense of humour. And there was an upstairs window overlooking one of Dundees’ main arterial routes proudly displaying a Vote YES banner throughout the last referendum campaign, the thing is, that was once home to Murray Foote, and his Mum still lives there.
All of that said, I’m as disappointed as the rest of us who use and fund this site that the DR did what it did, and unlike some commentators I believe absolutely that the Scottish Media stole our freedom, the sales chart is heartening indeed.
If Leonards’ mouthpiece is to be Mr. Footes next port of call, then I refer you back to my earlier comment regarding principled positions. A less priveleged career path might have seen the same guy campaigning for an Independent Lochee.
i wonder if it was stus article on the drop in dr sales which was the final nail in foote’s coffin? i dont believe in such coincedences… it cant have helped
A few quick observee’s:
Ahhh, so they DID once know how to spell properly in times past.
Aye we do.
They mock Scotland’s very fabric, cringe factor, Warp Speed 11.
See how sometimes at FMQ’s, when one of the back-benchers begins to ask the First Minister a question… if that back-bencher has a vested interest related to their question, they must first announce THAT vested interest before speaking.
SO, for the benefit of those that remain unaware (and in keeping things consistent) aye propose Dick should change their slogan to reflect this fact and aye move this motion:
Daily Record
“The newspaper that supports Labour in Scotland”
The People of Glasgow don’t want to buy a hate rag.
Every issue printed is a Labour in Scotland PPB.
I can’t stop re-reading that bat shit loony 2007 Record article! To think it was penned just over 10 years ago!
How Scotland has changed since 2007. Such a short time! So many seismic political events:
1. The 2007 SNP win at Holyrood.
2. The 2011 SNP win at Holyrood.
3. The 2014 Indyref.
4. The 2015 SNP win at Westminster.
5. The 2016 SNP win at Holyrood.
6. The 2016 Brexit Referendum.
7. The 2017 SNP win at Westminster.
The 2007 article begins with a direct order to its readers, ‘Do not vote for Alex Salmond today’.
And in concluding it blatantly lies ‘But we would not tell you which way to vote’. Just how stupid did they think we were? Just how Stupid do they still think we are?
Off the scale stupidity but SLAB’s entitlement and arrogance oozes out of every 2007 MSM sentence and continues to the present day.
How meet has been SLAB’s demise since 2007.
Little did Foote know he was penning SLAB’s swan song.
Dear God! How this party, crammed with Steerpikes, fooled us all for so long.
Yet BBC Scotland’s sole aim is to return Scotland to this 2007 pitiful level of political awareness.
Go back to sleep, Snow White! Keep dreaming, Cinderella! Ignore that man behind the curtain, Dorothy & Toto!
Well, Scotland is awake. Wide awake, to our MSM charlatans & snake oil sellers.
Robert Burns wrote
Thus bold, independent, unconquer’d, and free,
Her bright course of glory for ever shall run:
For brave Caledonia immortal must be;
I’ll prove it from Euclid as clear as the sun:
Rectangle-triangle, the figure we’ll chuse:
The upright is Chance, and old Time is the base;
But brave Caledonia’s the hypothenuse;
Then, ergo, she’ll match them, and match them always.
Our Chance and our Time will always be there for us to seize. None of this, ‘once in a generation’ uk nationalists’ piffle.
The first line reads *Do not vote for Alex Salmond* then they say *We wouldn’t tell you which way to vote*
They’re the same now as they were then, they can’t even write a few lines of a coherent argument without mixing themselves up with their own lies, and that’s the insulting behaviour they’ve always displayed to their readers
The Daily Record betting on the stupidity of the people who buy their paper
Seems their are less and less stupid people in Scotland eh
so in a way the Daily Record is a success
Proud Cybernat says:
19 February, 2018 at 12:19 pm
O/T
“”Fraser Nelson of the Spectator telling us on Radio 2 that Scotland’s Free uni education system is failing because it is not attracting people from poorer backgrounds into Uni education and that the fee-paying English system is better.
WTAF!!””
……….
UCAS published their annual report on University admissions about a week to 10 days ago. Throughout the report they repeatedly made the point that pretty well one third of applicants to Scottish Universities do not go through UCAS.
What the report also showed, although newspapers somehow failed to mention was that the gap between applications from more advantaged students and the less advantaged was closing.
UCAS converted all the UK applications to a common measure of disadvantaged/advantaged and looked at the situation over the past 12 years for each of the 4 parts of the UK. What they found when this was done was that, for Scotland, the percentage of applicants from disadvantaged areas had increased from 9.6% in 2006 to 17.2% or so in 2018. Around 80-85% increase. In Wales and NI it is around 40% or less.
The ratio of applications from The most advantaged areas to the most disadvantaged areas in 2006 was 4.5 to 1. So the most advantaged areas were 4.5 times more likely to apply to uni compared to the least. In 2018 that ratio is now 2.6 to 1 and this narrowing of the ratio is due to the increase in applications from the most disadvantaged areas.
Fraser Nelson could not be more wrong.
I for one will be tramping the dirt down when this rag finally turns to dust.As with the British /Scottish Labour Party it’s just another enemy of the people of Scotland.
Foote; the ugly, bloated face of British nationalism.
I love the last paragraph of …
link to theneweuropean.co.uk
“Boris Johnson is 53 years old.”
… coming on 11.
“Alastair says:
19 February, 2018 at 1:56 pm
After a 27 year career at the DR rising to Editor in Chief, I doubt Murray will lose much sleep over all the angst and genuine upset we see in this thread.”
I wonder how long it will be before he gets his knighthood for “services to Scottish journalism”.
In other words, services to the London Establishment, to you and me.
galamcennalath says:
19 February, 2018 at 3:01 pm
I love the last paragraph of …
link to theneweuropean.co.uk
“Boris Johnson is 53 years old.”
… coming on 11.
Are you sure they’ve not mixed up his age with his IQ?
Slow news day but the English are affected by worries over education fees.
Archived this from aunties web site but the comparison graphs are missing. 🙁
Scotland was not included on graphs but got in near the end of the piece. 🙂
link to archive.is
Meanwhile North of the wall:
“The rocks will melt with the sun before tuition fees are introduced in Scotland”.
Alex Salmond
“But we would not tell you which way to vote…” that line is comedy gold. The biggest laugh I’ve had since I watched a slabber trying to explain slab position on Brexit.
Cuilean:
“the uk nationalist parties based in Scotland all actually WANT Scotland’s economy and people to fail”
Yes absolutely, this is the colonists strategy.
A people with no confidence and who can be sold (via record, bbc, STV et al) that they are economically dependent on the colonists (England), will seek to hand their security and fortunes onto another.
Clyde shipyards is the classic example – you see how red and blue tories are two sides of the same coin!
Add some placemen and women (davidson, darling, brown, mcconnell and dugdale) into the mix who turn patriotism on its head to say “we are shite they are great”, lets stay with them – hey presto you have the uk!
Very logical to support the status quo if you are not prepared, or if it has not dawned on you to probe or question ask, “why do you want to look after us”?
Scotland used to be part of the pack preying on other, e.g. India, Canada and South Africa, etc, now we are the preyed upon and some don’t even realise it!
Never listen to Fraser Nelson, the house Scot, or half-educated tenement Scot if he listens to his betters. The epitome of the Scottish cringe, being told you are too thick to hold a high position in the UK and lapping it up.
Things seem a bit slow today so it may be a chance to post something to make folks think.
On The Subject of Per Capita GDP, (and Why it is more important than just GDP).
First we need a definition of just what is GDP and what is Per Capita GDP.
These definitions are, respectively:
GDP, (Gross Domestic Product):-
Per Capita GDP:-(GDP per person):-
Thus a list that only compares the total GDP of countries would obviously tend to have the biggest countries topping the list. So the USA would top the list and be followed by China.
Until the proposed
BRUKEXIT the United Kingdom’s two kingdoms that between then contain four countries would have come in at sixth.However simple GDP only measures the overall size of the countries economy and not how rich the whole country is because if a country has a big economy, but has lots of people to share the wealth between, then each person is poorer on average.
Per Capita GDP or GDP per person shows the wealth of a whole nation or indeed any particular area. but be careful that what is being compared are actually comparable. Obviously comparing the country of Scotland with the financial, “City of London”, is a bit of a kid-on.
A small country with not very many people in it may be much more productive, or have lots more natural resources, and manufacturing and service ways to create wealth, and so rank much higher up the list of Per Capita GDP.
Thus it is the Per Capita GDP the Scottish government have quoted as part of the past referendum debate. Scotland, with its relatively small population, would actually rank 14th in the world according to a table produced by the OECD – (The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development), but even the OECD figures do not even come close to the real measure of the Scottish true Per Capita GDP and the reason for that discrepancy is not too hard to find.
The United Kingdom Westminster Establishment are past masters of, “Creative Accounting”, that, if done by a professional Accountant would see the accountant serving a very long prison term. There are far too many of such Westminster operated Creative Accountancy schemes to provide a detailed list here but I can mention just a few to illustrate the point.
First is the way that the, “United Kingdom”, legally a two partner United Kingdom formed by a Treaty of Union between the two equally sovereign kingdoms of the Kingdom of Scotland and the, three country, kingdom of England. The resultant United Kingdom is thus legally a bipartite United Kingdom of equals but has always operated as the continued parliament of the country of England but that actual parliament was legally permanently ended on the last day of April 1707 and no one has been elected as a member of a parliament of either the country or the Kingdom of England ever since.
Thus only England, now that the United Kingdom is divided up as individual countries under devolution, is legislated for as being the United Kingdom under only English law. Only the country of England is funded directly as The United Kingdom and thus the powers devolved by Westminster are illegally the sovereign powers of the country of England even although there is no legal transfer of the people of Scotland’s legal sovereignty to the Westminster Parliament and such a transfer is specifically legally subject to Article 19 of the Treaty of Union that lays down both legal systems must remain independent in perpetuity.
So there is the first scam by which Westminster gathers the entire revenues of the United Kingdom and uses Block Grants that Westminster calculates to fund the devolved administrations and claims that they subsidise everyone else with English taxpayers money that is actually United Kingdom taxpayer’s money. i.e. we get a portion of our own generated revenues back. But it doesn’t stop there.
The next creative accountancy scam is the way that Westminster chooses to account the entire United Kingdom’s exports not by the country that produces it but by which port, airport or Chunnel that it leaves the United Kingdom from, and Westminster takes great care that these routes almost exclusively are from England and that applies even to such as, “Scotch”, Whisky that, (By the EU Laws), can only be produced in Scotland. It isn’t difficult for Westminster to discourage Scots, Welsh and N.I. exporting ports and airports while encouraging ever more English development.
Not to mention that the Chunnel may soon be subjected to import/export charges on the French side of the Channel. I’ll mention two more – Against all the market rules of supply and demand where the supplier of a scarce commodity can demand the best price for its goods Westminster operates the Electricity Grid Connection Scheme. By this they not only charge the suppliers of electricity more per kilowatt they add into the National Grid by the further distance they are from the most demanding consumers of the energy in and around London but they actually also subsidise those generators in and around London.
Then there is the Crown Estate incomes and the two crowns may rest upon the one person’s head but as Queen of Scots her Majesty is not legally sovereign under Scots law and thus those Crown Estate incomes belong to the people of Scotland and not to the crown of England.
Note that every oil, gas and other infrastructure installation around the Scottish coastline legally belongs to the legally sovereign people of Scotland and every drop of oil & gas revenue within the Scottish territorial waters and the Scottish continental shelf goes to the Treasury and is accounted as, not from Scotland, but from, “United Kingdom Extraregio Territory”.
Now do you see the big picture>
Ah, I get it, next will be Mouth. They’re all in it together.
@Robert Peffers 3:41pm
One of your best, Robert.
Wouldn’t make Fanny of the Week though! 🙂
That relates to Robert’s earlier post!
A £ spent in Croyden is better than a £ spent in Strathclyde
Boris Johnson
Instead of looking back over a litany of failure (both political and journalistic), I’m going to try to look forward. Because we could all benefit from decent journalism, which does need an outlet, and arguably still one in cold print.
If the decline of the DR is at least in part because of its Labourite owner’s (Trinity Mirror Group) unfortunate association with the inept and lacklustre NorthBritLab outpost, all too well reflected in the article quoted by Stu before it’s well-deserved fall from
grace(correction:) power, since it was never graceful, ever, surely the inevitable conclusion to draw is that the paper would do better for its readership if it were to begin to reflect the realities of life in Scotland instead of continuing to pander to clearly-failed Labour fantasies?It is the ever-widening disconnect between the fictions of the so-called newspapers (of all mainstream political stripes) and the realities observed by people that is surely accelerating their demise.
So despite everything, not least that dastardly Vow, let’s try not to be too mean-spirited, and simply ask: what hope for the Daily Record under new management? Will the piper still be playing the owner’s tired old dirges, as DMH appears to expect, or will there be something from a new and better songbook?
Pity Foote left the Daily Record, he was taking it in the right direction in my opinion down.
For when the Record lied over the Vow, it deserved nothing less. I have no sympathy for Foote, the Record help secure a no victory, now look at the mess we’re in over Brexit etc.
“On Brexit, do the Tories think they can simply ignore Scotland?”
link to prospectmagazine.co.uk
I don’t think they have taken their eye off Scotland, I think they are just pretending to. It’s part of wide BritNat policy to pretend there is no Scotland. Behind closed doors I believe they think a lot about Scotland.
Some say the unexpected election last year was specifically called to put a spoke in the SG’s wheel. There is merit in that theory.
I am certain maintaining their Union is more important that how they deliver Brexit.
One possibility is that they are prevaricating over the Brexit deal because they know if they announce something too hard, IndyRef2 will descend upon them! They may be trying to engineer the timing.
Might be the next editor of the Judy lol don’t ask it’s woman thing lol
With all the very worrying propaganda by the tories saying the good Friday agreement has failed, the most genuinely sensible thing would be for England to secede from the union. Just think they would no longer have to ‘subsidise’ us.!
Of course not one politician has suggested that.
@ronnie anderson
🙂 Aye or maybe ‘Punch’
Jings! Twiddling thumbs… washing done …tea prepared..Ho Hum!
BREAKING:
Pete Wishart
?
Verified account
@PeteWishart
5h5 hours ago
More
I will not be standing to be the Depute Leader of the SNP. A short statement.
So what job has Murray got with the labour party? What about the other hingers on?
Pete Wishart
“After listening very carefully to the response to my agenda I have decided that I do not believe that I have sufficient support within the party and I will not now be standing for the post of Depute Leader”
link to petewishart.wordpress.com
His “agenda” sunk like a lead balloon!
Picture brings back memories of David Hayman’s Pitiless Storm
right enough.
Y’know, on my darker days I sometimes think that other countries around the world are never going to take advantage of Westminster’s extraordinarily generous subsidy handouts. It’s to the credit of Scots that we’ve recognised their largesse and benefited accordingly. It’s not our fault if Jonny Foreigner cannot and will not see the milk and honey that will accrue to them if they link in to Westminster.
Foote may be gone but Clegg is still there.
@RJS
I totally agree with you. The Record has been getting better, and if it could make itself balanced, and more factual, it could do well, and it would be good for Scotland. Same goes for Scotsman and of course Herald. And all it needs is good journalism and editors that concentrate on news and old-fashioned reporting, not just repeating party releases.
@ galamcennalath 4:52 pm :
“His “agenda” sunk like a lead balloon!”
Indeed but at least he’s ready to acknowledge it.
If this was any party other than the SNP he’d be hanging on to the bitter death, “briefing” against others, knowing he’s scoring brownie points with someone senior 🙂
Re Pete Wishart
I’m not a member of the SNP so I have no influence on who will become deputy leader. What does stand out though is the quality of the elected members that the SNP have comapred with the other parties.
Just of the top of my head in addition to the above whom I both respect I can think of the likes of Jeane Freeman, Dr Phillipa Whitford, Johanna Cherry, Tommy Shepherd, Ivan McKee, Humza Yousef etc. ect. and many more.
Compare with the “quality” put forward for the SLab leadership contest. Just imagine the standard of candidate that the Tories or Lib Dems could provide as a new leader, it doesn’t bear thinking about looking at their current leaders
Talk about a gulf! The quality of choice between elected members of the SNP and the other parties is wider than the Atlantic.
TL;DR 🙂
Foote’s successor, at least has a sense of humour.
“Dick said: “It is an incredible honour to be asked to lead the finest group of journalists in the country.”
“There is no bigger job in the Scottish media and while the industry faces challenges we have an outstanding team which will ensure a bright future.”
link to pressgazette.co.uk
Just come into a very political anti SNP rant from one Jeff Williams from Central Fire Brigade on BBC Radio Scotland over fire fighters who are getting a 20% pay rise for extending their roles to meet 21st century requirements.
I haven’t bought a DR since 1981. No glimpse of one since then has ever persuaded me to change my mind.
I think we could borrow some of Murray’s lines from above though (with a bit of artistic licence).
‘It’s about who will run Scotland best’
‘When you vote today, think about the kind of country you want to leave for your children.’
‘Do you want (Teresa May) to gamble with their future?’
‘We cannot afford to be seduced by (her) half truths and false promises.’
‘Vote for Scotland’s future.’
Well said Murray!
“His “agenda” sunk like a lead balloon!”
Which means Wishart’s “hold, hold – wait ’til after 2021” is a BIG no-no. It would have been electoral suicide for the SNP to hold off Indeyef2 until after next SEs. To have had such a delay would also have ensured our EU citizens would have lost right to vote in IR2.
IR2 is rising on the horizon, peeps!
Thepnr @ 17:16,
You are so right there.
And the sooner we get those good folk among them free from mouldering down in the Westminster Mausoleum and back up here with the rest of us, the better.
(Just imagine a world without WM elections ever again!)
I still wonder if Pete Wishart wasn’t just throwing some itching powder into the Indy movement to stir things up, I’d like to think so.
Well we have a Dick in charge of the North British Branch, a Dick in charge of the Daily Record, and a Wullie in charge of the Lib Dems.
Any chance that The Red Tries have a Boaby lurking behind the photocopier?
The Record is a sleazy wee bums and tits, Ranjurs and Sellick, Sopranos-glorifying gangster rag.
A lurid little bum wipe of a rag.
PFI contracts, McConnell giving back over £1 billion because he couldn’t find anything to spend it on..
What an astoundingly evil little editorial on oh so many levels.
He’ll do well as that other Dick, ‘The Scarf’ Leonard’s lap dog.
They are slowly dying off by degrees.
I hope all those Corbynistas who were mug enough to donate to this lot of Never Weres are happy that there money is beibg so wisely spent, financing failures.
For the many so long as you are one of us: Corbyn’s son works for McDonnell (50K) McCluskey’s daughter works for Corbyn (40K) McDonnell’s son works for Corbyn (50K). I know mp’s not supposed to hire family members now but just swap around and that makes it alright according to labour and I have no doubt others.JC has the nerve to talk about austerity when labour councils are firing classroom assistants and we all know about labour GCC not paying equal pay – it was labour who paid thousands to make sure they did not get the equal pay they were entitled to, but labour still dares to talk about child poverty.
Sarah Smiths husband works for the Halo Trust and apparantly is paid more than the FM. Angelina Jolie left the Halo trust because their top people were taking £500 a day plus expenses. There should be an investigation into these ‘charities’ paying such ridiculous salaries and just who is getting these jobs.
What a lying useless only fit for cat litter tray rag. What person with a modicum of intelligence would buy this a”””wipe.
Vote no to stay in EU.
Labour saying, vote tory to keep out the SNP.
The people have woken up to the fibs.
Vote SNP or YES, nothing else.
The Vow was a most disgusting piece of treachery. Whether he wrote or not, Foote published it, and for that he is condemned, a House Scot.And what has he gained? Career failure and a few shillings in compensation no doubt.I do hope he joins SLAB, that will notch up another career failure for him.
@yesindyref2
That’s an interesting point.
Maybe he was showing the other ‘contenders’ that folk want a shot at indyref2 and not a continuation of the status quo.
It could be that SNP HQ are beibg too cautious.
I have heard that Joanna Cherry takes no prisoners and speaks her mind to those at the top.
o/t it’s on the BBC website so it’s gospel honest and no laughing at the back please .
The electoral commission has opened a investigation into LIB -DEM spending during the last election campaign ,I guess the outcome will be published by 6 .00 PM it’s 5.57 right now .
It won’t be the thinning ranks of Dick Leonard Union followers banging the drums among the work forces of the Teachers, Fire Brigade along with some NHS workers by any chance?
Or has all that kind of thing stopped years ago. I mean there is more than one way to keep Scotland struggling when you are out of power and have no policies that are worthwhile.
Must stop watching all these conspiracy theory films. 🙁
one of the worst interviews yet from bbc scotchland. Mhairi Stuart interviews an ex fire chief from central Scotland (obviously didn’t get the main job) Complains about the 20% proposed wage rise with catches!!!– och no 20% you just get for nothing. Complains over whats happening since 2002/3 — Scottish snp government is at fault– big fire in a car park in England proves the point!! Dear old Mhairi keeps him going. No questions of substance , everything is bad. Apparently the fire union should dictate what’s needed.
What a set-up. Don’t listen if you have heart or blood pressure issues. Reeks labour party. Incidentally no one from the snp to comment. Were they asked?
Talking of things media
For those suspicious of BBC taxpayer money being used to subsidise newspapers
The NUJ has this to say about redundancies at the Trinity Mirror group.
” It said that while Trinity Mirror was “orchestrating these brutal cuts to their own workforce” they were also receiving public money to recruit 64 Local Democracy Reporters as part of the Local News Partnership between the BBC and News Media Association.
“The union is extremely concerned that Trinity Mirror may be using this public subsidy to plug the gaps created by getting rid of their own employees,” said a spokesperson. “
link to archive.is
I love the exhortation not to cast judgement on Labour for Tony Blair because Gordon Brown is galloping in on his white charger to save us.
That worked out well.
OT
One of the things I heard from NO voters in Indy Ref 1 was that they might have voted YES if they’d been told the risks and uncertainties, in other words if YES had been totally honest with them, as they knew there’d be pros and cons. Being told all would be rosy, they checked things out and found there were problems, and so distrusted YES almost as much as they mistrusted Better Together who they thought were rubbish with their Project Fear.
Reminds me of a personal story, in a previous life I hawked ny skills as a freelance, and there was one contract when I talked over the phone, I didn’t think I had the right skills and told them that. No they said, you’re right for the contract. More talk and again I said I thought they needed another type of skill, and the answer was that if I didn’t have all the skills I’d be more motivated. Don’t get me wrong, by the way, like everyone else my CV was, errrr, exaggerated a little, I was well used to a little “bluff” (and frantic reading in the first week or so).
The long and short of it is that it did sound very interesting and challenging, and after me being totally open with them they offered me the contract over the phone without a face to face, paid me a retainer for a month (half pay) as they weren’t ready to take me, and it was one of the best contracts ever.
Truth won.
galamcennalath says:
19 February, 2018 at 4:21 pm
One possibility is that they are prevaricating over the Brexit deal because they know if they announce something too hard, IndyRef2 will descend upon them! They may be trying to engineer the timing.
———————–
I think you may be right, if negotiations finish at the end of sept, i can see westminster stringing out the commons vote until feb2019.
the window to run indyref2 before the uk officially leaves on 29th march is narrowing
If this had been in the Express I would thought it nonsense, however, Bloomberg is a reputable source.
“Prime Minister Theresa May’s team has drawn up a secret plan to withhold billions of pounds in Brexit bill payments in order to force the European Union to give the U.K. the trade deal it wants.”
Seriously? They are reneging on what was supposed to have been agreed in Phase 1?
link to archive.is
O/T
Ch4 news going big on drug deaths in Scotland – Dundee in particular
@galamcennalath who says:
“Prime Minister Theresa May’s team has drawn up a secret plan to withhold billions of pounds in Brexit bill payments in order to force the European Union to give the U.K. the trade deal it wants.”
Doubt if that will happen.
The EU is busy translating the phase 1 agreements (sufficient progress) and sorting out the “insufficient progress bits” into legal terms that the UK will have to sign up to.
If the UK doesn’t sign on the dotted line -no further progress until they do!
If they do sign up with Jesuitical “mental reserves” along the lines of “we’re not going to do this anyway” the UK will find itself 1)up in some International Court for breach of treaty and 2) unable to sign an agreement with any other country anywhere in the world
I’m glad Foote has legged it!
It is blame the foreigners time @galamcennalath says at 6:58 pm
“Seriously? They are reneging on what was supposed to have been agreed in Phase 1?”
Looks like it.
1. Brexit bill payments
2. EU Citizens rights
3. Irish Border
Phase 1 was to prevent collapse of Government before the EU Withdraw Bill got to the Lords.
Hard Brexit imposed on plucky Bwitain by Beastly Bwussels and no transition period.
Nae doot the Blitz spirit will have to see us all through (well it’ll have to see the man/woman in the street through ‘cos they ain’t Millionaire members of the Establishment.
The date of the next Indy ref may not be as important as some of us seem to think. Scotland has also been holding talks with the EU, we have no Idea what is going on, EU will not discuss Brexit with the Scottish Gov. but may well be holding talks on a hypothetical Independent Scotland some time after Brexit.
Re;Indyref2@6.42
O/T
I can see what you mean, but the SNP did not tell any untruths, ie lies. They tried to put a positive spin on what would definitely be a positive outcome for Scotland. They were up against it, and s**t sticks as they say. The whole of the media, the Britnat establishment, no doubt security services aka UK, and even those last minute like Obama who should have stayed out of it, as well as Betty, all people who had some major inflience on soft no voters.
After 300 years it was hard for people not to follow the negative, too stupid, no money, too small narrative.
(And no, don’t bother trying to be positive about Brexit, Britnats who read our posts, it won’t work. Boo hoo. ).
The reason the Britnats are terrified now, is because no matter what they say, their lies, false flags and fakse promises just will not wash with voters at all, other than a few clinging to their UKOK.
It will be a different kettle of fish next time, so much has changed, and so much will change for the worse, much worse, if we stay in the UK. People are not daft, just brainwashed, so our job is to unbrainwash them, and it’s working! 🙂
Re, Jockanese wind talker and all
So leaving the EU without a deal then? It could be any day, it’s fckd up to say the very least. Has May and her pals been emboldened by having wee talks with dodgy governments around the globe? Put nothing past them. UK, and especially Scotland, going, going, gone! Sold to the man at the back, oops, the men at the back! Humans rights? Eh? What on earth do you mean, no such thing, never heard of such nonsense!
Oh you could laugh if it wasn’t all so freaking serious!
Ps I signed a petition yesterday to stop a new fabby doo doo open cast coal mine getting the go ahead, in er, Durham, England. The Chinese gov are doing a grand job of cutting their carbon footprint, reducing coal, but shifting it around the globe. Not saying this is their doing, but this kind of thing could well be a trend, lovely jubbly eh.
@artyhetty
Yes, and that’s strangely the problem. It’s the same for us. Take currency union, night of the Ref they had Mark Carney and Danny Alexander on standby in case the pound plummeted, clearly a reason it’s unlikely a formal currency union would have actually been refused. We know that but others don’t, so it was practically impossible for us to really “admit” the possibility it wouldn’t happen.
Or the EU, specially considering Kirsty Hughes now, and EU spokespeople. We would have to formally apply, but it’s unlikely meantime we’d be actually out the single market and customs union, some sort of transition would be arranged. Again, we believe that so can’t really accept the possibility that it might not happen, that we get slung out in the cold for 5 years. Don’t be daft is what we’d say.
But somehow we have to find a way to openly accept these risks, and make them a part of YES 2. Perhaps the way is to get some undecided and soft noes as part of the YES movement, a group something like “I’m not YES” or “I don’t know about YES” groups, to go out and do their stuff!
I have not the slightest idea how that could be made to come about.
galamcennalath @ 16:21,
I’m not sure if the hardline Brexiteers do give a damn about us. We are the troublemakers of the EU troublemakers.
The more mainstream types do probably have more care. For access to the free resources if nothing else.
schrodingers cat @ 18:55,
I don’t buy this “window” argument, at least in the very narrow sense you appear to mean it. UKGov do not have a free hand, as I think you forget. The EU27 will have to have a clear deal to formally validate in around Sep of this year, and they are not in the least amenable to some kind of UKGov prevarication, much as Mayhem & Co might wish it.
On the contrary, the EU27 seem to be increasingly fed up with all the UK confusion. May’s new attempt to implicitly threaten them with a withdrawal of funds or security co-operation is backfiring. I forsee a hardening of the EU27 line, not a softening.
Besides, there just has to be a point at which we start to impose our own timetable instead of always bending to someone else’s. We up here on the sidelines can’t just drift on hoping that things will align in our favour by some kind of happy accident.
We need to be far more assertive than that, if we are ever to progress and win the necessary 5-10% over to our side. Who will believe in us if we look too much like self-doubters who don’t have sufficient nerve to ever make a move?
Thankfully, there seem to be a substantial number of SNP members and yessers who do understand that.
Back on topic, history has already turned that DR party promo into something of a joke.
For example, one can only wonder how James Kelly MSP and Co. can possibly measure up these days to the DR’s then earnest assurance that NorthBritLab has “begun to tackle the shameful sectarianism that has so long been swept under the carpet”.
The very same people who have now descended into desperately lifting all the stones they can find in the hope they can uncover enough dodgy voters to rally to their failing cause. In uneasy competition/co-operation with the once-despised Tories.
Which NorthBritLab booster could possibly make that claim and be taken seriously today? Or indeed pretty much any of the rest? No wonder the DR is struggling now. It can’t find enough credible faff to fill its pages!
Murray Foote has done more for The Daily Record in effing off than he ever done as editor,
probably asked by boss of Trinity mirror,
“how are you going to reverse the catastrophic decline in DR readership”
jokingly Murray says “well over 50% of Scots hate me so me leaving could only help”
Trinity, ” resignation accepted “.
I can’t believe the uk gov is inept on brexit.
Not the tories, they are not dumb. They know what they are doing.
They know what the parameters of brexit are & what they can negotiate.
They just can’t admit it.
It’s all about stringing us along as others above have said.
The only thing that they worry about is whether they can get over the line before events or public perception turn against them.
I think most folk reading wings know that “The Herald” is the longest running national newspaper in the world and was started in 1783 as a weekly.
What might not be so well known is that from 1837 to 1964, the then “Glasgow Herald” was owned by George Outram & Co. and was the first daily newspaper in Scotland from 1858 after changing from a twice weekly.
George Outram an Edinburgh advocate was the newspapers editor from 1837 and remained so for 19 years, ultimately becoming a proprietor. The kicker though is that he was also a Scottish Nationalist:
Outram was an early Scottish nationalist, a member of the National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights.
The Glasgow Herald, under Outram, argued that the promised privileges of the Treaty of Union had failed to materialise and demanded that, for example, that the heir to the British throne be called “Prince Royal of Scotland”.
“Any man calling himself a Scotsman should enrol in the National Association,” said The Herald.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Changed days for the Herald indeed!
Some thoughts.
I was trying to second guess the establishments game plan a while back. I really believed that when NS called Indy Ref 2, they would take the wind out of our sails with an EU Ref 2, which this time round they would win – hence nullifying any justification for our Ref2.
It appeared to me that the big money can do EU in, out and every which way in between, and still make money (carving up the public services) on Austerity max, or Austerity slow.
What was and is essential is to keep Scotland’s resources, maximise every penny and every drop of the oil, then fall back (eventually with the tax payers money/investment) on the renewables and the water.
But then events moved on, and in addition to what appears to be the EU providing WM with enough rope to hang itself, and every day having less and less chance to withdraw S50 and back out, I learned about the vast quantities of money tied up in the Offshore tax havens. For this, it is essential that the establishment leave the European Court of Justice, and you cannot remain in either the Customs Union or the Single Market without being in the ECJ.
The Offshore Tax Havens are now at the stage of threatening the wealth of first nations. The EU are not squeamish when it comes to tax havens, (Switzerland and Lichtenstein probably invented the genre for heaven sakes) but, it has got to such an extent now it cannot be ignored, and they are systematically legislating to sort it.
I think a hard Brexit is inevitable.
So, where does that leave us in the Indy movement. Well we have to educate, not campaign, but educate. And there is nothing stopping us except our own whatever.
I truly wish there was a bit more direction coming out of the SNP, but at the same time, how much more can they do, they are creating a bank, an energy company, running the country, saving the NHS (compared to England).
We’re the grass roots and we have to get on with it.
And now for the good news. Brexit is absolutely shit, and every bad news story, every doom and gloom forecast will meet willing ears. People absolutely believe the worst. Even those who vote leave! Project ‘Will You Look at That Shower of Edjits, What a ‘ucking Shambles’ belongs to us… and the SNP are the safe, sensible boring ones now.
And they decried us as too wee, too poor and too stupid.
This time the case for Indy – the cards are falling for dour, stoic, sensible, this is going to be shit/but we’d better get on with it – 100% Scottish psyche. We don’t do easy.
YES NOW
Hamish100 says:@6.09
The highly vicious anti SNP rant on BBC Radio Scotland Newsdrive this afternoon was by one Geoffrey Williams who must have been trying to impress his potential anti terrorist clients
link to 3ciglobalsolutions.co.uk
If the so called “Scottish Media” were actually sticking up for Scotland in for example us being dragged out of the EU despite a 62% vote to remain the next Independence referendum would be a walk in the park.
The truth though is that unlike in the past todays “Scottish Media” is no such thing and its agenda against Scotland’s best interests are clear for all to see.
We need a clear out which will only happen after Scotland does become Independent. Murray Foote should have taken David Clegg and Torchil Crighton with him out the door if he wanted to save the Record.
New blood is needed that will put Scotland’s case first and foremost. The Record cannot survive by ignoring the majority of the Scottish electorate by leading with Westminster bile and bias.
Doomed I tell yah. Doomed!
OT – defence
link to ukdefencejournal.org.uk
Basically speaking, with another article, Germany’s military in a shocking state of disrepari with a shortage of spares.
@Graf Midgehunter could maybe confirm if this is true.
Food for thought when it comes to iScotland’s military, and showing advance purchase of spares is a major item, or buy loads of stuff and it’s useless in a couple of years. UK’s not perfect, but not bad when it comes to inventory. Mmm, not AS bad.
With the Daily Wretched having just shot itself in the Foote. For an encore, might it now shoot itself in the Dick? Probably a more fatal wound.
Either way it seems to be haemorrhaging.
Norway or Canada type deal for Brexit?
Maybe neither. In-Out In-Out and shake it all about?
But there is also a lingering hope that once May finally comes clean about the trade-offs inherent to both approaches, and their inferiority to EU membership, that it might prompt a public rethink.
Such a rethink is unlikely, but the recent barrage of pre-emptive forgiveness from Emmanuel Macron, Donald Tusk, Jean-Claude Juncker and others suggests a repentant prodigal son would be welcomed home. Two years wasted is better than ten.
link to prospectmagazine.co.uk
A LOT of anger on Twitter about the way Tories are now starting a movement to rubbish the Good Friday Agreement.
DUP stated the UK govt had to start prep for direct rule from London.
The Shinners have just issued a statement quoting the terms of the settlement which actually state in this situation, its co managed by the UK and Irish govt.
You do wonder if this is the rock on which Brexit will break.
I know that Murray Foote voted YES in the Independence Referendum
Valerie @ 22:06,
You could well be right. We often forget that May is between her very own rock and ultra-hard place.
(It’s the Great Unmentionable on the Beeb, which on a RepScot report the other day assured us without an iota of doubt “that Brexit is going to happen”.)
Yet this Ukexitmobile has so many seriously wobbly wheels that it might be a wonder if all are still in place by crunch time in the autumn!
And no amount of blitz mentality on the BBC will be able to hide that particular wreck.
I am delighted the Daily Record is dying. It deserves to die.
And, in case you’re reading this, Neil MacKay, I do regret the loss of jobs – but it wasn’t independence supporters who caused it, it was your very own industry. Please don’t ever insult independence supporters by lecturing us on ethics, we’re tired of the ethics of your rotten industry.
Trains, Hotels, Airports etc in UK and abroad are awash with free copies of Union tabloids:- Scotsman, Daily Mail, Express, Sun, Telegraph and so on but never a pro Indy paper (whether you are in Scotland or elsewhere). The tabloid figures are inflated but only because they are giving them away everywhere free – in UK and overseas.
I refuse to even pick them up for free as it would give them “circulation”.
‘…it is young people who shall face the full brunt of Brexit, and who strongly backed “remain”. Unfortunately, children and young people’s issues were largely excluded from the referendum debates. These focused on the more “important” issues of trade, the economy and immigration…
The EU has positively influenced family law in furthering children’s human rights protections, particularly in the context of the right of the child to have an opportunity to express their views, the requirement for a balance between the depth of an individualised assessment into the child’s best interests and the speed of proceedings and the right of the child to maintain regular and direct contact with their parents. Reliance on the Hague Conventions may result in a watering down of protection for children…
There is an urgent need for the UK Government to address these issues to ensure there is no “gap” in the application of these Conventions upon Brexit resulting in no protections whatsoever…
In summary, this case study demonstrates that children’s human rights are being increasingly embedded into EU legislation and policy. This is helping to ensure that children’s human rights are protected, respected and fulfilled across the EU in line with the Charter of Fundamental Rights. This research highlights that there is a significant number of children born to families in Scotland who are at risk of losing significant protections of their rights in relation to cross-border family law’
link to togetherscotland.org.uk
‘There are currently 3.7 million children living in poverty in the UK. That’s over a quarter of all children. 1.7 million of these children are living in severe poverty. In the UK 63% of children living in poverty are in a family where someone works…
Families living in poverty can have as little as £13 per day per person to buy everything they need such as food, heating, toys, clothes, electricity and transport’
link to barnardos.org.uk
Looking at big issues through a children’s rights lens doesn’t really uphold anything about ‘better together’ in UKOK.
@Graeme McCormick
I know that Murray Foote voted YES in the Independence Referendum
That’s entirely plausible and I can even believe it to be true. Though that doesn’t explain what he said in an article penned by him in the Record on the eve of the anniversary of the Referendum where he personally takes much of the credit for “The Vow”.
The first step was to ask Brown to help broker the promise. Cameron, shaken by the poll and Our Hear No Devo front page, was now taking advice from a man who was his sworn enemy.
If Brown could get Cameron on board, I would convince Labour leader Miliband. If they both signed up, Lib Dem leader Clegg would have to play along. Brown is notoriously difficult to pin down because of his constant workload.
So I sent the following text message to a former colleague now working for him: “Would Gordon be able to get the three party leaders to sign an agreed wording Daily Record pledge for more devolved powers for Scotland? We could then present that as a front page document.”
And so The Vow was born.
The intention was clear from the off: It was a joint offer that would be presented as a binding document. Brown negotiated with Cameron, I negotiated with Miliband and Clegg fell into line.
link to dailyrecord.co.uk
Whether Foote voted Yes or No is a by the by. His Vow did sway some voters into voting No, doesn’t really matter how many the plain fact is that it would have swayed people away from Yes to No in the belief that Scotland would be getting “more powers”.
A gigantic red herring and I hope he has at least some regrets over his part in all this giving subsequent events. His future actions will no doubt reveal which side of the fence he is on.
Graeme McCormick at 10.21
Doesn’t surprise me at all. I suspect there is more to his resignation than meets the eye. I very much doubt if he was responsible for the VOW on the front Page of the Record which has been the only tabloid to give any space to the SNP – over the last three years it has given a page once a week and for some time twice a week to Nicola Sturgeon, Joan McAlpine and Mhairi Black.
I think a lot of the ranting here about the Record have no idea about it recently. It has put the boot into small Dick Leonard on several occasions recently and there have been several editorials praising Nicola Sturgeon in the last few weeks.
In fact the Record has been the least bad newspaper in Scotland towards the SNP (the Sun sits on the fence) and the worst are probably the P&J, the Mail and the Express with the Herald and Scotsman both disgracing themselves also.
Foote might have been actually given the boot.
@Dave McEwan Hill
I agree. The vendetta against the Record for the Vow is counter-productive, we’re looking for Independence, not some imaginary futile revenge.
@Dave McEwan Hill
Well Foote himself has claimed to be responsible for the Vow, his own article couldn’t be clearer.
I rented a flat in Beckton in London years ago. Brand new building. Shiny and sparkly. Landlord made me an offer, seemed like a good deal. Shiny new everything. Chuffed to bits i was.
A few weeks later, my friend, an architect, a teacher of same subject came to my flat. He shook his head. Saw it different. The fixtures and fixtures glittered but they were not gold. The structure…not so stable. The formica – cheap.
In 25 years this place will be falling to bits, he said. Then i went to open the cupboard door and the handle fell off. Symbolic?
We stood in the same building. But we did not see the same things. He knew more than me. He was right I was wrong. He had more, better information. He was in a better postion to make a decision. I wish i had called him up before i took the lease.
This is a true story, and an allegory. I have no faith. None. I read pish, i see pish, hear pish. Come the time, I hope to make speeches. I use my initials.
To quote the late great Mark E Smith – ‘the working class has been shafted, so what the fuck you sneering at?’
To quote Carver ‘I see a lot of typists’
To quote ee cummings – ‘there is some shit I will not eat’
To quote Julian Cope – ‘ignorance of your culture is not considered cool’
To quote me ‘No wonder this country’s going to the dogs’
Dave McEwan Hill @ 22:56,
I caught that hint earlier on. Together with your pessimism that anything will change as long as Trinity Mirror remain in charge? A hardening BritNat posture, even?
Maybe the London owners would prefer to drive their Scottish papers into the ground rather than align them more truthfully with public opinion here?
After all, from their selfish point of view, what’s to lose..?
Thepnr at 11.19
Yes. I saw that. He would say that wouldn’t he. Little choice in the matter. But he didn’t choose the editorial position of the Record. He was employed to articulate it. Support for Labour.
We wont win the next referendum by blaming those who opposed us last time. We win it by engaging them and welcoming them when they change their mind.
There are many in our media doing what they are hired to do to keep a job. I could name several broadcasters with BBC and STV that I know voted YES.
Well is the DR now pro independence for Scotland? Clegg turned over a new leaf? Is he pro Irish ? Thought not. The Vow was set out to destroy independence. It succeeded in 2014. No futile revenge but no forgiveness either.
yesindyref2,
“@Dave McEwan Hill
I agree. The vendetta against the Record for the Vow is counter-productive”
The Record and its readers must never be allowed to forget the Vow as long as the Record exists.
If the fake “independence supporting” The National wants to increase its sales from 8,000, it should consider publishing this WOS article as front page headline news.
Is it there to milk the most gullible of independence supporters or to expose unionist lies?
@Dave McEwan Hill
“But he didn’t choose the editorial position of the Record.”
Foote was the editor, the editorial position was his decision. No?
He did more than that, he claims to have asked an ex colleague to ask Gordon Brown to persuade Cameron and also claims that he personally persuaded Milliband to sign up to the Vow.
He did have a choice, he could have left it alone and if there was pressure that he disagreed with he like anyone else could have walked away.
We make our own choices do we not, just taking orders is never an excuse.
I have no axe to grind with Murray Foote and definitely don’t take part in any blame games. I’m just stating the facts.
If he is an Independence supporter then that pleases me. At the same time since he has influence the likes of you and I could only dream of in the run up to the vote for Independence I would like to see him come out and say so.
Just as he has done in showing how proud he appears to be in getting the Vow on to the front page of Scotland’s biggest selling newspaper two days before the vote.
If he can take the credit then I’m sure he can handle the flak.
It matters not who is the Editor of the Record. It matters not who are the journalists on the Record. The only thing that matters is that it has a proven,unaltering anti Indy stance. For that simple reason I would ,and never will purchase it again. It is the enemy of my hopes and desires. It is against the things I hold dear.
@yesindyref2 says: 19 February, 2018 at 11:03 pm:
In reply to Dave McEwan Hill :-
“I agree. The vendetta against the Record for the Vow is counter-productive, we’re looking for Independence, not some imaginary futile revenge.”
You speak only for yourself. You can cut out that, “We”, stuff. I believe the majority of Wingers, and many have said as much, would be only too glad to see that particular Record Broken.
Anyway it isn’t any form of revenge.
It is quite simply the same as in any war between two different countries. I war, even if you believe the guys in the opposite trenches are much the same as yourself and it is the respective governments who wanted war, not the troops in the front line.
You aim your gun with the intention of killing your enemy – the stark reason being that you either kill him or he will kill you and they sure as hell will kill you on their government’s orders.
Rock the pro supporting DR fan yet anti pro supporting National paper. Confused? He ain’t he’s a tractor back on his night shift.
Dave McEwan Hill,
“Perhaps he w has resigned because he is refusing to pen any more of the shite he’s been instructed to do.”
You are the most gullible of all independence supporters, in my humble opinion.
After decades as an SNP activitist, surely you should know better than to give the benefit of doubt to the likes of Foote?
Rev. Stuart Campbell,
“Rival hacks dutifully issued a series of glowing tweets about what a smashing guy Foote was and how much he’d improved the paper during his 27-year tenure there in various positions, most recently editor-in-chief, group editor and deputy editor.”
I’m sure when the FM and husband Peter were composing their congratulatory Tweet to Foote
They were both laughing like drains
Rock,
“The Record and its readers must never be allowed to forget the Vow as long as the Record exists.”
Robert Peffers,
“I believe the majority of Wingers, and many have said as much, would be only too glad to see that particular Record Broken.”
What is the world coming to?
Robert Peffers endorsing my point of view, without reading it of course as he claims he doesn’t read my posts.
Looks like lots of people missing the point.
Laying aside the fact that the Vow had very little effect on most peoples’ voting. The claims that it did were mostly Gordon Brown promotion.
It’s difficult not to be bitter about the Record re the Vow. It really is and whilst I appreciate the sentiment of ‘getting over ourselves’, that doesn’t mean we should not criticise and remember what an appalling lie they printed on that front page and all to ensure we remained shackled to this foolish neighbour intent on total self destruction ‘cos immigrants’.
It’ll take a wee bit more than a couple of editorials and a few columns from the FM for that utter betrayal to be forgotten. We’re allowed to still be scunnered by those who actively played a part in distorting and corrupting our genuine and authentic reasons for gaining our independence and if they had not played their part and had remained ‘even’ then perhaps parts of the electorate would have voted yes with clear and honest information published without such obvious one sidedness by every single paper in Scotland, the Record being the biggest cheerleader wrt to ‘the Vow’.
Foote? Couldn’t give a monkey’s whether he voted Yes or not and if indeed he did vote Yes…to betray his own principles is one thing, to betray ordinary folks by lying to their faces and still not admit how wrong they were especially given the reality of UKexit and what the fate for Scotland is in light of this…is unforgivable.
The SNP must be choked after the Herald reports that the Lib Dems Alex Cole Hamilton paid 83 pounds to rent their campaign office in a shopping mall and the SNP who were right next door paid 760 pounds
Oh dear, here’s the thing:
Would you rather mope, fruitlessly stuck in righteous indignation at past misdemeanours, or see an additional ally come over?
And how much better would it not be if it was a paper that did what it did back in 2014? Would that not have significant pull with a lot of other former “no”s?
I sometimes wonder if we can possibly win with so many existing supporters determined to bear so many old grudges.
This very visible absence of charity really makes us look very unattractive to the convinceable visitor, don’t you see?
The real question remains, as I said earlier, what will be the policy of papers such as the DR in the critical months to come?
Maybe the owners will stupidly dig in and won’t allow the paper to move with the people, but if that’s what happens, then’s the time to justifiably criticise, surely?
Dave McEwan Hill,
“the Vow had very little effect on most peoples’ voting.”
That has been my point of view as well, but many independence supporters believe that the Vow was responsible for Yes losing.
Papers and pundits from the NO side campaigned for the ‘short term’, they couldn’t see beyond their own ‘personal’ gains or losses. From our side it was the ‘long term’ we were focused on…and they scuppered that because not one of them from the Foote’s tae the Cameron’s gave a single fuck for the Scots who saw the writing on the wall, how soon did it happen?
Smith commission? Where was the Record’s sticking up for Scotland when it was plain tae the dugs in the street that we had been played?
Shower of selfish bastards the lot of them and I’ll bet the sink on it that all of them are able ‘to leave the country’ when the shit hits the farm…eh? Spivs and shysters one and all.
Sold out a nation they did.
Don’t worry Robert J, they’ll turn into independence supporter’s when their pockets get hit. Or as I just stated, they’ll leave wi nary a backward glance at the devastation wrought. Afterall did they ever really ‘care’ about ‘the people’. in the first place? Ah hae ma doots. As this very article reminds us, they’ve never been right about anything, blatant self preservation society is what they are and always have been since ‘SNPbad’ took up residence at Holyrood.
Robert J. Sutherland,
“Would you rather mope, fruitlessly stuck in righteous indignation at past misdemeanours, or see an additional ally come over?”
Would you want to stand shoulder to shoulder with proven liars like Dugdale and Foote?
They can vote Yes if they want, but I would not want them anywhere near the Yes campaign.
They have no shame, no credibility and no honour, whichever side they might opportunistically side with.
Last time, the official Yes campaign distanced itself from the genuinely pro-independence WOS for using some strong language to expose a lying Tory scum.
Would you want WOS to be distanced from while the likes of Dugdale and Foote form part of a Yes campaign?
For those saying “the vow” had no effect on the result how come a yes lead turned into a 10 point defeat in the last few days of campaigning?
K1 @ 00:25,
Aye, there’s always been some who can see which way the wind’s blowing, and turn around out of self-interest rather than any real conviction. (The Sun being a likely candidate, for one.)
But every straw in the wind still helps, does it not…?
Or am I getting too cynical myself now? =grin=
(But hopefully I’ll never be mistaken for Mr Negative, anyways…)
@Robert Peffers
I know I don’t speak for “we”.
Like many here I’ve wanted Independence for many years. Personally speaking, if Alistair Darling, Blair McDougall, Ruth Davidson, Jackie Burd and Andrew Neil came to me and said that they’d seen the light and wanted to campaign for YES I’d ask them what they wanted to do for it.
The think is, I don’t indeed, speak for many who’d do the same.
Joemcg,
“For those saying “the vow” had no effect on the result how come a yes lead turned into a 10 point defeat in the last few days of campaigning?”
James Caithness (17th October 2014 – “Healing and uniting”):
“Basically though the NO voters were and are and will remain selfish self serving gits.”
Rock (17th October 2014 – “Healing and uniting”):
“Apart from 10% of the 55%, they definitely were, are and will remain what you say.
Our only hope is getting to the 10% who are not selfish self serving gits but were scared to death by the likes of Asda and the BBC.”
I believe it was the likes of Asda and Pravda GB that did it, not the Vow.
And then there was the “silent majority” although many, including the Rev. Stuart Campbell and veteran SNP activist Morag, believe that the referendum wasn’t rigged.
@Dave McEwan Hill
I agree with you,
lets get Independence first, then we can figure out what to do with the likes of Foote and all the other Scottish media liars.
This an amusing thing, but not all that important.
Really, it is not.
One bit of the Trinity Mirror plc has done something that gives us some happy laughs.
But it will make no difference to anything – look at the rest of that Trinity Mirror lot. link to en.wikipedia.org
We have to be careful not to be distracted.
Mmm, the moment the talk turns to discussing wheter or not to take all help for YES and Independence, whatever its provenance, Rock shows up. What does that tell us?
Back to watching MI5 🙂
Mission Impossible that is …
Scot Finlayson @ 1.57
Surely you mean what to do ABOUT the media liar’s.
I’m sure you don’t want to be taken the wrong way Scot,ye know whit those very media liar’s are like.
Especially with this site…..they seem a tad more panicked lately as well…can think why though…
According to BBC Question time UKIP have been on the program more times than the SNP because they got more votes
So out of the mouths of the BBC they admit to changing the rules of British politics to suit an English agenda being that elected representation doesn’t count it’s purely weight of numbers which means in the next thousand years Scotland could never be represented equally on BBC Question time
The ramifications of that admission by the BBC should reverberate throughout the entirety of Scotland as a clear statement
Scotland doesn’t and wont count,,,,,EVER!!
The lie that UKIP got more votes than the SNP. Not proportionately. UKIP stood in over 600 seats. The SNP stands in only over 60 seats. Ie if a Party stands in over 600 seats they will get more votes. Not as a proportion/percentage of the vote. Fargue lies or does not know the difference, Neither does the BBC.
UKIP got 4million votes out of an electorate of 45Million electorate. (10%). Turnout of 50%+? = 20%
The SNP got nearly 50% of the vote. Over lmillion+ Out of an electorate of 4 million+. Over 2million turnout.
The amount of times Farague, the liar, repeats the 4 million (by proportion lie) and lies about the SNP votes and turnout. An ignoramous.
Farague can’t count or read a balance sheet.
UKIP got 20% of the vote (turnout) . The SNP got nearly 50% (turnout)
The SNP got seats in proportion to the number of seats they stand in. (Over 60 not over 600) obviously a Party standing in over 600 seats will get more votes but no as a percentage.
The coverage given UKIP is just plain wrong. Totally over proportion.
Germany was not allowed to keep an Army after 11WW. One of the reasons it is so prosperous?
No equivalent £Billions wasted on redundant weaponry and illegal wars.
EU basis formed after 11WW to stop starvation and wars in Europe.
Can we please have more of the “ soft west coast lilt” of Anne Lundon on “ Reporting shortcake” rather than the “ public school hectoring style” of JB . It is so much easier on the ear as the tone and delivery is rather soothing. Much more appropriate for “ Scottish “ broadcasting. Perhaps Anne could replace Kaye Adams also on radio? Oh and continue with the weather forecast.Are you “ listening” Donalda ??
Blair McDougall tweeted a tribute about not treating readers like idiots that, like everything else he says, sounded more like the opposite of the truth and kind of like trolling.
David Davis quote from speech re Brexit later (see the Guardian) – “They fear that Brexit could lead to an Anglo-Saxon race to the bottom.”
Notice anything in that sentence?
Is rock Away to his bed yet? He is always on the back shift or is he abroad? As for the Vow did it help or sow doubt and negativity? We know the answer.
No Press support the SNP (Gov). The most popular with the most support, The Herald is right wing. The National too radical. The Press are rubbish. They attack the Scottish Gov from the right and the left etc. When it is the most popular and gets the majority vote consistently in Scotland. Even with an electoral system changed by Unionists. To try and benefit them.
The Tories could not make a bigger mess, Labour will not win in the rest of the UK with Corbyn as leader. If he cared he would step aside.
Ref the suggestions for refreshing TV and Radio presenters.
I find Stephen Jardine a relief when he stands in occasionally.
Giving Goose After brexit it’ll be Anglo Sack on like day’s of yore ,clothes will be to dear lol.
Don’t forget the ashes, Ronnie @9.20.
link to bbc.co.uk
The Brainwashing Corporation reporting a speech by David Davis which he has yet to make, but in which he proclaims how the UK is committed to the highest standards of regulation.
So no lies then, no tax evasion, no banking fraud or money laundering, no tampering with elections, no paedophile protection at Westminster or at the Brainwashing Corporation, no lying about Scottish revenues.
Where do you stop when the UK’s ruling class is the UK’s criminal class.
OT . . Call KayE’s topic . . Rubbishing the Scottish Government’s budget. . . . two expert guests . . . Struan Stevenson and Andy MacIver . . . .
Tories to the MAX. An example of Bias to come!
…to be fair a puppet master was telling him to tell Scots how to vote.
Someone is funding the MSM to keep the unionist propaganda alive and kicking. They need only a few more decades to bleed Scotland dry.
David Davis claims Brexit is not about deregulation. Well, given the economic forecasts show how damaging it will be, why does Davis still want to go ahead with it?
Of course they don’t want Mad Max, there is no ruling elite in that scenario.
They want a dystopic future which is a cross between 1984 and Hunger Games.
Giving Goose says:
Immigration eh? Britannia has never been quite the same since we let that lot settle here. 😉
Regarding “The Vow”, I understand (according to an Ashcroft survey, I think) that people have said when questioned about it, The Vow had no impact on their voting decision.
These will be the same type of people that say advertising doesn’t influence them in the least.
Nobody wants to be portrayed as some kind of easily manipulated docile imbecile.
Many will also try to distance themselves from something that is tainted or has become toxic, the same way it was damn near impossible to find an American who voted for Nixon.
“The Vow” quickly became contentious.
People like to believe that their thoughts are their own and not an osmosis opinion absorbed through the daily rags that they read but the truth is, all of us are susceptible to marketing (propaganda), it is designed specifically around us to manipulate us.
I say again, we are all susceptible to conditioning and the first line of defence against it, is to acknowledge that.
Did *The Vow” make an impact on people voting? Of course it did.
Would people like to admit that? Of course not.
This is my own opinion….or at least I think it is anyway.
@Joemcg says: 20 February, 2018 at 12:32 am:
“For those saying “the vow” had no effect on the result how come a yes lead turned into a 10 point defeat in the last few days of campaigning?”
Two words Joemcg. Ignorance & Fear.
But to amplify upon those two it was ignorance of the truth and thus fear of the unknown. There is an old saying – “The truth will set you free.”
“The truth will set you free”, is a common saying in academic circles which want to insure academic freedom and promote the power of learning and many universities the statement on a sign at the entrance to the building.
However, the quote, that, “The truth will set you free”, did not originate in academia.
It comes from the Bible in which Jesus is quoted as saying, it in John 8:32. However, in this instance here in Scotland it refers to the lack of the real truth that has been kept from the common people by the Westminster Establishment, (and that comprises far more than both houses of the Parliament in London.
It is the lies, the misrepresentations and the lack of information that the United Kingdom Establishment propaganda uses to mislead the people the constant claims that Scotland is too small, too poor and her people far too stupid to be able to rule themselves.
The truth, though, is that Scotland is not just rich but very rich and contains most of the real resources of the United Kingdom that the United Kingdom is so desperate to hold onto.
You do not need to be, “Brain of Britain”, to realise there is something far wrong about the construct that is The Westminster Establishment. Real and provable historic facts show they used illegal methods, including military might, to force the Scottish Kingdom into union with the Kingdom of England.
From then they have claimed that England has thereafter been subsidising the Kingdom of Scotland because Scotland is too wee, too poor and too stupid to govern itself. Yet we have the Westminster Establishment now fighting tooth and nail in order to keep on subsidising those poverty stricken, very stupid wee Scots just from the goodness of their big charitable English establishment hearts.
Aye!
Richt!
Charitable the Westminster Establishment is not.
Anglo Saxons a fine tribe, One of my mates called Rab says , the ones that came To Britain became the Tories, the ones that went to South Africa became the Boers , the ones that went to Anerica became the Republican’s and the ones that stayed in Germany became the Nazi’s. Notice any connection?
Worried about interference in IndyRef2? – you should be.
“The US interfered in 81 elections.
Russian meddling may well have had some impact on the US election. But Uncle Sam has a long history of interfering in elections abroad to ensure deregulated capitalism persists as a global force. According to political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University, the US interfered in up to 81 elections from 1946 to 2000. And that number doesn’t include regime change operations that followed the election of candidates the US didn’t favour.
As the LA Times summarises:
These acts, carried out in secret two-thirds of the time, include funding the election campaigns of specific parties, disseminating misinformation or propaganda, training locals of only one side in various campaigning or get-out-the-vote techniques, helping one side design their campaign materials, making public pronouncements or threats in favour of or against a candidate, and providing or withdrawing foreign aid”. (The Canary)
Agreed Robert, Westminster will do anything to keep hold of Scotland’s resources, legal or otherwise.
Manandboy,
I happen to believe we were cheated in 2014, many would agree with me but I would certainly like to hear from people who thought everything was fair and above board.
Breastplate says:
Table 9
“Q.6 I am going to read out three reasons people have given for voting NO. Please can you rank them in order of how important they were in your decision, from first to third, even if there were other reasons that were important to you?”
47% ranked this first
“The risks of becoming independent looked too great when it came to things like the currency, EU membership, the economy, jobs and prices”
27% ranked this first
“Astrongattachment to the United Kingdom and its shared history, culture and traditions “
25% ranked this first
“A NO vote would still mean extra powers for the Scottish Parliament together with the security of remaining part of the United Kingdom, giving the best of both worlds”
Firstly, these figures are for ranking first. Other people ranked these as second, therefore implying it was still of some importance to them.
Secondly, the third option is clearly the essence of The Vow, showing a quarter of NO voters considered ‘more powers within the UK’ to be of greater importance to them than risks of Indy or BritNattery. The Vow was the big sales pitch for ‘more powers’.
Another little nugget lies in Table 3 …
“Q. 3 When did you finally make up your mind how you would vote in the referendum?”
The NET figure NO voters for last week is 9% (3+3+3), and NET for last month is 20%. Talk of ‘more powers’ began about two weeks out.
Obviously we can’t all of these were influenced specifically by the late more powers sale pitch. However the indications are they could well have been. And there is certainly no evidence they weren’t.
link to lordashcroftpolls.com
@Scot Finlayson says:20 February, 2018 at 1:57 am:
“lets get Independence first, then we can figure out what to do with the likes of Foote and all the other Scottish media liars.”
We do not need to do anything with the likes of Foote. They are a bit like Little Bo Peep’s sheep.
Leave them alone and they’ll go home,
wdragging their tales behind them.In other words their deeds will, (inadvertently), follow them wherever they go.
I was at the centre of a large and very active operation all the way through the referendum with a huge canvas and we met no reaction to the “Vow” except some wry amusement. It actually said nothing.
Afterwards of much more concern was the apparent 97% turnout of the postal vote in this constituency (which was recorded also in four others with most constituencies turning in over 90% where the norm is usually around 75%) which is, in any realistic sense, impossible. We had reports of postal votes being given to members of families who been out of the area for over twenty years and stuff like that.
This of course is the postal voting system described in 2009 by the EU and the European Commission as “a recipe for large scale voting fraud”.
Galamcennalath,
Yes, The Vow was pretty much in everyone’s face just before the vote along with Gordon Brown making a mockery of the Purdah.
Apart from the in/outs of the “Daily Record”, personnel and politics thereof, this also happens just when Trinity Mirror has bought Northern & Shell. I do not know that this is important, but it might just be a wee bit of shuffling around for a new job.
manandboy says:
20 February, 2018 at 10:08 am
Worried about interference in IndyRef2? – you should be.
USA is the leader of the free world. They’d argue they’re spreading democracy, presumably. Although neo fascists like Regan and Snatcher Thatcher probably weren’t all about that democratic spreading shit.
Putin’s Russia is hardly a democracy is it, an autocratic kleptocracy, like what the UKOK zone under toryboy rule is, RT being the wannabe beeb gimp network, like here in their Scotland region, where the no.1 task of all beeb gimps is, destroy Scottish democracy, make lots of luverly mullah.
Other news, as the great yoon catastrofuck that is Aberdeen City Council continues its good orks ruining Aberdeen and pissing away hundreds of millions on white elephants, see Yoon Catastrofuck of the Millenium Sir Wullie Young’s latest £100+ million city centre SLabour white elephant…its different in Dundee.
link to thecourier.co.uk
Dave,
I’m not saying people admitted The Vow changed their minds, I’m saying the opposite.
People generally believe their opinions came after mulling over both sides of a debate and have come to a thoughtful conclusion.
I’m suggesting that this is pish, most people believe what they read although you would be hard pushed to find anybody that would admit that.
So I’m not disagreeing with you, I’ve just come to a different conclusion and I believe my logic is sound.
P.S.
If broadcasting was devolved, I believe that we would already be independent.
Scotland is fcuked now under Brexit tory rule but tory propagandists in their Scotland region will ensure our annoying Scottishy brains are washed clean, for the great UKOK zone to come,
link to bloomberg.com
From stinky olde The Graun, Sevy the toryboy hammer of Scots democracy thinks that Scottish deer and squirrels are far more interesting for his Scottish readers,
The long read Tue 20 Feb 2018 06.00 GMT
‘People think the deer are lovely. Then they learn more about it’: the deer cull dilemma
The Scottish Highlands have a deer problem. Is shooting tens of thousands of them the only solution? By Cal Flyn
Tue 20 Feb 2018 06.00 GMT
Problem-solving could be key to grey squirrels’ success, study finds
Research in UK shows invasive species bests native red squirrels in complex tasks.
Tory britnat stench from The Graun is getting higher and higher these days. Is there something very democratic in Scotland brewing again, that they can all do this too?
link to wingsoverscotland.com
I cannot believe that people believe the now infamous “Vow ” had no effect on the Referendum. To set the scene, we must remember in the last few weeks up to the Referendum we were neck and neck with panic setting in to the Unionist side when polls indicated Yes in the lead.
They had to come up with a game changer,and after consultation between Brown,Cameron !Foote and no doubt many others including PR specialists, they devised a formula which would satisfy the middle ground. It was not aimed psychologically at the extremes of Yes or No, but specifically to those who were seen as waivers.
The promise was for more autonomy, and more say in how Scotland self governed. In other words,they recognised that this was what the Scottish people wanted, and so they offered this in addition to the “security” of being part of a state which offered financial security even though it was an illusion. They fed on people’s insecurity, and deliberately targeted that aspect.
We know the rest of course.Broken promises as usual.
I am also sure the same tactic would fail miserably next time.
Remember,we are after the waiver vote.
@manandboy says:
20 February, 2018 at 9:27 am
link to bbc.co.uk
Where do you stop when the UK’s ruling class is the UK’s criminal class.
===========================================
Now that is a phrase that encapsulates everything that has gone wrong with Westminster rule.
Breastplate at 11 am
I agree entirely. Our only enemy now is the media (and those who control it)
@manandboy says: 20 February, 2018 at 9:27 am:
link to bbc.co.uk
“The Brainwashing Corporation reporting a speech by David Davis”
All that news item tells me is that David Davis and the
BRUKEXITeers are bent over with their heads buried in the sand and with their arses exposed to the truth that is the Sun. The inevitable result is that the Sun will burn their exposed rears.The entire European Union and their Civil Service, (The European Commissioners), have said from the start that there can be no, “Cherry Picking”, of the European Union’s, “Four Freedoms”.
In every post-Brexit statement, the heads of the European Union state, “Access to the single market requires acceptance of all four freedoms.”
But what are those, “Four Freedoms”?
The total of these Four Freedoms are known collectively as, “The Single Market.
The European Union single market makes it easy for
BritishUnited Kingdom businesses to trade with European Union countries and gives then access to more than 500 million European Union customers.The ‘four freedoms’ of the European Union are the freedom of movement of goods, freedom of movement of people, the freedom of services across borders and the freedom of movement of capital over borders.
However the
BRUKexit campaigners would like to retain access to the single market, but want rid of such as freedom of movement of people.They will not get rid of Freedom of Movement while getting access to the single market because German chancellor Angela Merkel and all EU leaders have poured cold water on this idea and refused to compromise on the key EU principle.
Merkel says: “Whoever wants to leave this family cannot expect to shed all of its responsibilities but keep the privileges.”
European Council President Donald Tusk agrees with that sentiment saying,, “there would be “no free-trade agreement” with Britain without free movement.
However, French foreign minister Michel Sapin said there should be no “red lines” in negotiations before
BRUKexit talks have even begun.However, talks have now begun and the United Kingdom’s insistence that they can negotiate a deal that allows the United Kingdom to retain what they see as the bits of the European Freedoms they want to keep but reject those they do not like are pure, “pie in the sky, by and by, for you and I”.
It just isn’t going to happen because if the European Union were to do a soft
BRUKEXIT then the other EU member states would start to attempt to negotiate terms that suited their wishes and such as Norway who have had to accept EU rules while paying EU dues but having no say in EU decision making would also demand concessions with the inevitable result of the end of the EU.Breastplate says:
Imagine…. if the 40% rule in 1979 hadn’t applied, if a parliament had been set up, if broadcasting had been devolved at some point decades ago …. we might have been independent a long time ago.
If broadcasting had been given to Holyrood when it was eventually set up, IMO we definitely would have won in 2014. Looking at the figures I posted at 10:31, 47% had their primary reason as risk. If broadcast media had been more even handed instead of regurgitation BritNat propaganda, that 47% would have been much lower.
The VOW was a direct contravention of the referendums guidelines of the United Nations
Alex Salmond complained and everybody closed their eyes and ears and hid under their desks
The civil service in Whitehall interfered in the referendum, again in contravention of the rules, Alex Salmond complained and everybody said *Meh*
The UK treasury interfered in the referendum with the same result, the UK state said *Meh*
We can’t sell Independence as if we’re selling door to door encyclopedias in the hope of enriching the knowledge of the Nation in some gentle persuasive manner by informing folk “you know it makes sense”
The English MPs, Prime Ministers, past prime ministers, foreign prime ministers, POTUS, bloody Holy Men, Leaders of opposition parties, the Media all came to Scotland and monstered the people on TV, Radio, Newspapers Billboards, posters and door to door terror, and they won
Don’t knows, or swing voters are by their very nature indecisive cowards and the UK exploited that using these methods, plus there are the Wannabees the section of society who wants to be on the winning side so they must be shown who’s going to win before it happens so they then feel good about taking that side
Noboy wants to place their bet in the Bookies knowing they’re going to lose
All of the above requires money and an extreme determination to crush the opponent, fortunately the SNP this time has the money, the rest is up to us to scare Scotland shitless into the realisation that the UK of England is going to be the basket case of the world and the only way they will survive is by raping Scotlands assets until we are a breadline Nation with no hope
When i think of scottish politics i allways think of the great socialist Jimmy Reid, Jimmy as far as i know never actually stood for any kind of political office.
Jimmy was a great labour man most of his life, but later on he was an SNP supporter, and he died an SNP man, Jimmy came to realise that the scottish labour party did not have the will to change from the kind of party that Keir Hardie would have hated to be a part of.
Imagine if men the likes of Jimmy where starting out today, there is no way people like Jimmy would dance to the tune of the english labour party, Jimmy would have made a great First Minister, but ofc when he started out as a union leader that was where his heart lay, getting fair play for the workers.
But imagine if Jimmy was starting out as an SNP man today and really getting into the politics and striving to eventually become a MSP, what a difference that man would have made, forget John Smith, good man as he was, Jimmy would never have been a player in scotland for english unionism
Dr Jim
I could’nt agree more, well said
I forgot to mention Jimmy was on the Parkinson show with Kenneth Williams and you could see the respect ken had for jimmy, its on youtube for anyone that has not seen it yet
I still believe the referendum was fixed I mean postal votes Taken to England to count why ??? And no exit polls why ??? Davidson telling us the postal votes result before they were supposed to be counted ??? The whole thing was a complete fraud and the next ref., if we ever get one will be the same unless we get independent people in to observe what is going on alough that does not seem to help in Palestine ???no Without Scotland’s wealth etc., England could not survive they will never allow you your freedom without a fight and they are depending on the fact that most people do not want a fight or violence of any kind
Can anyone clarify if the horrific disease Foot and Mouth
was named after this cloven-hoofed Editor at the broken Record?
Just like Alistair Carmichael and the Liberals, Foot thinks politics is just a game to keep your team in power, no matter what lies and deceit you need to get up to.
Yet another so called socialist millionaire who is happy see 4 Million living in poverty, exponential growth of food banks, and North Sea Oil revenue go to the rich.
If Labour was supposed to be looking after the majority of people
why then has the UK Gap between rich and poor widened for each of the last 55 years? Labour where in power for much of that time.
You are just a second class Jock who doesn’t deserve to know what is happening in their Northern Colony.
The McCrone Report, the Dunblane Massacre, the theft of Scottish Maritime Waters, all Labour’s vicious contempt for Scotland and democracy.
“England could not survive they will never allow you your freedom without a fight and they are depending on the fact that most people do not want a fight or violence of any kind”
Of fuck I never thought of that – England will want a fight. I’d better no’ vote for Indy then.
Get a grip, FFS.
The English MPs, Prime Ministers, past prime ministers, foreign prime ministers, POTUS, bloody Holy Men, Leaders of opposition parties, the Media all came to Scotland and monstered the people on TV, Radio, Newspapers Billboards, posters and door to door terror, and they won
They did win but did they?
We are up against it. BBC World Service is the epicentre of tory British neo fascism. Throughout the night before 18th Sept 2014, that crew ran a fake but hysterical headline story from Australia, “jihadi terrorists are in Australian shopping malls beheading shoppers, thousands of Australia anti terrorist police were fighting them hard.”
None of it was true, with the second header in that historic BBC World news headline that night, ” and later today, Scotland goes to the polls to leave the UK, for ever.”
All of the beheading Australian shoppers BBC World news was headed by this abject tory nutter from Oxford, who Australia tolerated for about 18 months as their PM.
“I think that the people who would like to see the break-up of the United Kingdom are not the friends of justice, the friends of freedom, and the countries that would cheer at the prospect… are not the countries whose company one would like to keep.”
Beeb gimps love a toryboy, anywhere, anytime but not everyone does, US satire wise,
“Australia is for Australians,” says a tory nutter from London, merry olde England.
link to youtube.com
He’ll be back and the great beeb gimp network will love him for it, just like they really love Orange Hitler too.
link to sbs.com.au
Dr Jim says
Yes, I think YES2 needs to be double edged sword. Firstly a positive vision that Scotland could be a better place run by Scots for Scots. Secondly we need to be pragmatic next time and run our own Project Fear focusing on the reality of a Brexit UK.
BetterTogether’s Project Fear was based on a lot of nonsense. Like almost everything else they uttered it wasn’t probable or truthful. Our Project Fear needs to be based on more solid ground. Citing genuinely unbiased reports plus WM’s own predictions, combined with rapidly accumulating hard evidence.
Those who voted NO (which appears to be the largest group) because Indy appeared to them as risky, need to come to realise that BrexitUK is now the risky option!
Quote from Blair Paterson…low level yoon goon..
“they will never allow you your freedom without a fight”
Every indy dupporting Scots i know, would have phrased that as “they will never allow US, OUR freedom without a fight”.
B)air Paterson, yer a twat.
Breastplate @ 10.46
RE ..The Vow
Like you,
I can’t see how anyone can argue that the vow had no effect on Indy ref 1.
If the front page of a news paper has no impact… then what are they for?
Every campaign that every newspaper had claimed credit for was a lie then, if,front Page’s are irrelevant to shaping public opinion…they can’t have it both ways.
A Schrödinger’s front page,that simultaneously influenced public opinion all the while having absolutely no effect !
Is that really what they are sayin???
Ultimately if we are to believe this we would have to accept the the people of Liverpool just woke up one day and for no good reason decided not to buy the Sun anymore.
And that it had absolutely not a thing to do with any front page…..
So yes Breastplate I would say that it is indeed how people like to think they process information rather than how they actually do!
Otherwise they ( the media )wouldn’t do it….
As an aside I have noticed that around a half dozen or so of my friends have quietly stopped buying the record not because of it’s political stance or abysmal journalism.
But because I point out (when the opportunity a rises and Indy is not being discussed) that the Daily Record has the reading age of 8…..it really puts them off.
Project fear is the way to go, Westminster will try this tactic again but this time we must retaliate. The boot is now on our foot with the uncertainty of Brexit.
Challenge Westminster on this and don’t even care if it is a lie, when the start shouting hit them with another dose of facts to defend, then another, keep them on the back foot.
So we have gone from how Brexit would be a life enhancing, free trade utopia to ‘it won’t be like Mad Max’.
Can’t believe that clown DD actually used the Mad Max analogy, standing in the sophisticated Vienna.
As I, and others, have said, if we can’t win a referendum on independence in the coming months based on this horror show, we NEVER will win, and a No vote will ensure the question isn’t put again, for decades, if ever. A No vote will facilitate the plan to reduce Holyrood to a parish council.
@Bill and Ben says: 20 February, 2018 at 12:07 pm
“Jimmy came to realise that the scottish labour party did not have the will to change from the kind of party that Keir Hardie would have hated to be a part of.”
Where did you get that idea from, Bill and Ben?
Keir Hardie began his political life as a member of the Scottish Crofters Party and never won a seat at any level of government in Scotland. James Keir Hardie was a Scottish socialist, politician, and trade unionist. He was the founder of the Labour Party, the first Leader of the Labour Party and the first ever Labour Member of Parliament.
He was illiterate and illegitimate and started work aged 7. He was first educated at home by his mother who taught him to read & write in shorthand but later went to night school.
While working in the mines he soon became a full-time trade union organiser and he led the failed Ayrshire miners’ strike of 1881. This strike made a big impact upon the mine-owners and they granted important concessions out of fear of further industrial action in the future.
Hardie was a dedicated, “Georgist”, for some years, (Georgism, also called geoism and single tax), was an economic philosophy believing that people should own the value they produce themselves and the value derived from land should belong to all members of society.
He was also a member of the Scottish Land Restoration League. It was due to this, “Georgist”, doctrine on land monopoly Hardie eventually became a Fabian socialist. His reasoning being that “whatever the idea may be, State socialism is necessary as a stage in the development of the ideal.”
Hardie was sponsored by the Liberals, in April 1888, and Hardie stood as an Independent Labour candidate at the Mid Lanarkshire by-election but he finished last. However, Hardie became disillusioned by William Ewart Gladstone’s economic policies and began to feel that the Liberals did not really stand for the interests of the working classes and concluded the Liberal Party wanted the worker’s votes without believing in return the radical reform he believed to be crucial.
Then he again stood as a candidate for the Westminster Parliament but this time in England. He won the parliamentary seat of West Ham South as an independent candidate in 1892.
Thereafter he helped to form, “The Independent Labour Party”, (ILP). Then, in 1900, he helped to form the union-based, “Labour Representation Committee”, which was then renamed, “The Labour Party”, with which the ILP later merged. Hardie was also a lay preacher and temperance campaigner, who supported votes for women, self-rule for India, home-rule for Scotland, and an end to segregation in South Africa. At the outbreak of World War I, he tried to organise a pacifist general strike, but died soon afterwards.
So there you go, the person who began as a member of the Scottish Home Rule supporting Crofter’s party became the father of the Labour Party that also supported Home Rule for Scotland but the truth was that he, and the Labour Party he founded only ever paid lip service to the concept of Home Rule, (Not Scottish Independence), and the proof of that is in spite of Labour having several times held political power at Westminster as a majority government Labour has, when the chips were down, always backed the Union.
You really shouldn’t believe the Labour/unionist versions of history.
The postal vote was clearly an Achilles’ heel, and recognised as such by the EU. If that loophole can be closed, and a sensible residency rule for voter qualification devised, then I would be confident of victory. Sadly, without these, not so much.
I know it’s an oft-repeated factoid, and it’s all pretty academic now anyway, but does anyone have any actual proof that the PV was taken to England for counting at some stage?
The exact effect of The Vow has never been quantified by any academic study I have heard of but in general most voters I encountered who voted against independence desperately needed some hook to hang their No on. It may have been “currency”, “ma pension”, loss of EU access, warm ‘n’ fuzzy WWII-inspired Better Togetherness (“Was it for this the clay grew tall?”) or whatever, but there was always a ready-made excuse to hand to stop them opening up their minds to consider opposing points of view.
The Vow did drive a horse and cart through purdah, though, and that is undeniable, despite the Philadelphia lawyer argument it was not espoused officially by the UK government, so that was ok then. Civil service contravention of their neutrality was clear and breath-taking, of course, something that must not be tolerated next time either.
Prog’ on Don Roberto, R.B.Cunninghame Graham just started on Radio Scotland.
Jimmy Reid was a stalwart of the Communist Party & had no time for Labour. He later joined the SNP.
@Effijy says: 20 February, 2018 at 12:32 pm:
“why then has the UK Gap between rich and poor widened for each of the last 55 years? Labour where in power for much of that time.”
I’ve told you why until i’m blue in the face, Effijy, but I’ll tell it again.
It was under a Labour Government at Westminster that the United Kingdom taxation system changed from being mainly a direct taxation system, (on income and wealth), to become mainly an Indirect Taxation System, (on goods & Services).
They knew full well that by doing so there would be a well known economic consequence for their actions. That well known economic effect is that under a direct taxation system those most able to afford to pay do pay while those lease able to afford it pay little or no taxes.
Under an indirect taxation system those main burdens of taxation switch to those least able to afford to pay taxation. Labour thus began the process of switching to indirect taxation. They introduced VAT and also applied it to services as well as on goods, they also began increased indirect taxation by such as Alcohol Duty, Betting Tax, Road Fuel Duty and increasingly added in more and more services that came under VAT.
The gap between the rich and the poor began to narrow and then crossed over in favour of the rich. The Conservatives, of course, welcomed the changes with open arms, and upon regaining power their first actions were to increase VAT, bring more items under VAT, and give more tax allowances to the rich.
Actions never reversed by Labour when they regained power and always both left and right could rely upon the LibDem support for such taxation with the inevitable result that under the present austerity measures the richest people in the United Kingdom have more than doubled their personal wealth while the biggest growth industry in the United Kingdom has been food banks.
BBC r4 doing a beeb toryboy eulogy to British socialism. Toryboys have won so why not, take huge shits all over their crushed enemy.
Looking forward to their toryboy rendering of filthy rich socialist workers like Gordo Brown, currently mincing round one of the poorest place in teamGB, Kirkcaldy.
link to bbc.co.uk
If anyone is interested, there are 5 golden rules which Psychologists teach to anyone organising a marketing campaign.
They never fail, as in the Vow.
1. Run emotional ideas
2.Highlight your own flaw
3.Reposition your competition
4.Promote excusivity.
5.introduce fear,uncertainty and doubt.
Now compare these aspects to the wording of the vow and you will find its composition was not haphazard in any way.
We must be prepared to utilise the same methodology.
As we all know and have been told in no uncertain terms by the BBCs Claire Balding, one cannot be Scottish or a Scot when representing team GB at the olympic games
But she’s wrong, in fact one can be Scottish and here’s the way to do it
*LOSE*…….Elise Christie
Yer Scottish all day long when you do that
You’ll have noticed our team GB curlers are all still team GB
Pray for their souls
If you’re into beeb gimp circle jerks, listen in awe as future Sir Andrew Marr mutually masterbates this tory nutter from the USA, where everything is super and there’s nothing to be worried about, under Orange Hitler, or the wonderful toryboys of teamGB.
link to bbc.co.uk
Humanity is flourishing and the Enlightenment has worked, declares Steven Pinker. The Harvard psychologist has looked across health, prosperity, safety, peace and happiness, and sees signs that all are improving. He tells Andrew Marr how Enlightenment attitudes to reason and science have made this the best age in which to live. But Enlightenment values are under attack and Pinker calls for their vigorous defence.”
Guess who beeb gimps like future Lord Marr see as a threat to their toryboy right to reign over us?
YOU, vile seps of their Scotland region, YOU!
And here is an SNP no sae BAAAAD! story on the news:-
FALL IN HOSPITAL MORTALITY RATES
“The number of people dying within 30 days of being admitted to hospital has fallen.
Figures from the Scottish Government showed there were 7,800 fewer than expected deaths between the first three months of 2014 and the third quarter of 2017.
The figures were compiled to reveal the Hospital Standard Mortality Ratio.
People who had unplanned admissions to hospital or who underwent emergency procedures were the most likely to die.”
There was apparently no demands for those figures to be revealed under FOI Requests by the opposition parties. I wonder why that would be?
Aye!
Richt!
Well done our wonderful SNHS Staff.
We appreciate your efforts and your dedication.
I’ve been reading through everyone’s views on the impact of the Vow, or Not, and what led to us losing in 2014.
To my mind the list is endless from the historical suppression by the Media and the Establishment of how rich we are as a country to interventions by Heads of State, Civil Servants, the Treasury and celebrities; and of course loopholes in the electoral system and the postal vote scam.
We didn’t do too well either when it came to Alex and the currency, Alex being seen as a one man band and the leaflets that were being sent out: the last one in particular, which was massive in size, and didn’t contain ONE helpful piece of information. I remember sinking into a depression when it dropped through my letter box.
However returning to the Daily Liar’s record, well they were a main player in it all, imo, in particular Torcuil Chrichton. It wasn’t just the Vow but months and months of using every propaganda technique under the sun to influence minds. Far too many strategies to list on here but included the demonisation of Alex Salmond, taking advantage of football sectarianism and the so-called left-wing Labour supporting newspaper publishing data from members of right-wing Think Tanks on a regular basis.
Anyway we lost but have been fortunate enough to get a second chance (during a time of Westminster being severely weakened), so can at least use our knowledge of what went wrong beforehand to mitigate the damage next time round. We have to have faith in Nicola Sturgeon and her teams of experts working away behind the scenes on our behalf. The daily online reports from the SNP and their latest PPB show that they can see that they have to do everything in their power to get the facts out there. I also hope that Nicola is going to do something about the electoral ‘loopholes’, the franchise and postal voting, if she can.
But winning the next referendum is not about ONE woman. There are hundreds of thousands of US and if we want OUR country to become independent it will be down to US at the end of the day. We have to up the ante when it comes to combatting our greatest enemies, the biased MSM and the dark money operators, by getting the truth out there via backing the SNP through joining and / or donating, supporting sites like this, buying the National / Sunday Herald, writing in to newspapers / posting on comments sections, complaining to the BBC / STV, sending the latest news, such as from the Talking up Scotland site, to the BBC / STV asking why they are not informing the Scots, setting up hubs across Scotland and so on. All of this is not a big ‘ask’. If we all get off of our butts we WILL win next time round.
Liz g – re the Vow as you quiet rightly point out if a front page had no effect then why do it ? .
Despite the esteemed academics work on this , their conclusions just don’t make sense to normal people , according to them the Vow had little or no effect on the outcome of the vote , the Vow was carefully crafted as just to avoid Purdah Rules , it was not proposed by the opposing NO side as official policy as that would have indeed broken the rules , instead it was proposed and apperanty signed by the political party leaders as a promissory note to the electorate vote NO and we will do this , every one of the signatures knew that they couldn’t deliver as it was just a political party making a promise , not a government two very different statements .
The Vow has now become an Orphan not one party will assume ownership or even how it was arrived at , was it in fact even signed ? , It was front page news that just appeared out of thin air , all this while postal voting was well under way , so a addition to the NO sides arguments was allowed after people had voted , now eh that isn’t allowed there are strict rules to be followed , but I guess only one side were seen to observe them and it wasn’t the NO side.
It’s history now but I think more should have been made of this at the time , this one act should have been enough to call Foul , a stand should have been made , and with real doubt about postal voting irregularities , when for the first time ever we in Scotland set an all time world record for postal vote returns , not only that ‘ missing votes ‘ the surge to register in the final days for some reason wasn’t reflected in actual votes cast , we are led to believe the people who queued up to register in the end couldn’t be arsed by actually casting a vote , as I say history that should never again be repeated , every single instance of interference must be challenged immediately .
When i mention Keir Hardie and don’t expect to get a history lesson and be told not to believe the unionists, if i ever need a history lesson i won’t be looking at a certain persons opinion of it, picking silly little points up and running with them might seem ok to some, but to me its the way of the nitpicker, of which i am glad to say i have never been a party too
When i mention Keir Hardie i don’t expect to get a history lesson and be told not to believe the unionists, if i ever need a history lesson i won’t be looking at a certain persons opinion of it, picking silly little points up and running with them might seem ok to some, but to me its the way of the nitpicker, of which i am glad to say i have never been a party too
The Vow has now become an Orphan not one party will assume ownership or even how it was arrived at , was it in fact even signed ?
Didn’t the Smith Commision fart into life from their great 2014 vote NO for devo max, federal UK The Vow fraud.
My Slovene girlfriend was on the Smith Commision, god knows why and all he had to say to any impertinence from seps, “We voted NO, its the democratic will of us Scots,” all the way the south of England.
link to bbc.co.uk
Here she is, my gorgeous pouting Slovene BetterTogether girlfriend. Is it a coincidence that none of the hard core tory creeps on the Smith Commision nonsense were totally unelected?
No
The Vow was designed and deployed to stem the flow of the surging Yes tide. They panicked.
The Daily Record was instrumental in blocking Scotland’s Independence in 2014.
And whether one agrees or disagrees wrt the ‘Vow effect’, that intent was indisputable.
Robert Graham,
Regarding possible interference of the Indyref postal votes. One has to determine if it was possible or impossible to interfere with them. The EU seemed to believe it certainly was possible and aired their concerns.
So I believe it boils down to 2 questions when asking if Establishment lackeys interfered directly with postal votes.
1. Could they interfere with them?
and
2. Would they interfere with them?
There are those who believe that there was no direct interference with the votes, one in particular was btl in the National last week chastising people who believed there was.
I think they should speak up and explain to us why they don’t believe there was any interference.
“It’s just not cricket” isn’t bloody good enough.
Scotland – Definitely NOT “too stupid”…
link to imgur.com
Tinto Chiel @ 13:16 pm
Yes. There is a strong suspicion that in some areas the registration process was compromised and abused. It has been quietly tightened somewhat since, but perhaps not enough. It’s still all left to local councils, I believe, and some of them may be considerably more lax than others, with little cross-checking betwixt them.
But if you haven’t done so already, you can still make your own views known to the current SG consultation on electoral reform:
link to consult.gov.scot
There isn’t any, and wasn’t any. It’s the kind of conspiracy-theory diversion echoed by people like Blair Patterson. Need I say more?
Exactly as was re-used by Ruthie and her “me-tooooo” pals Kezia and Willie with the “No to a 2nd referendum”. Can’t have the plebs being challenged again to actually think for themselves, you know! Might cause them permanent damage. Especially since all the earlier soothers you mentioned all turned out to be frauds.
Too damn right. But it also has backfired. They won’t be able to deploy that cheap trick again.
And publicly back-slapped themselves for it afterwards! For me that was one of the clearest possible signs that IR1 was skewed, and therefore completely unworthy of being respected. That’s what happens when you cheat to win.
A hell of a lot of people agree, because despite the never-ended heavy propaganda effort in the media to dismiss Scottish independence, it just hasn’t left our hearts. Unlike the BritNat negativity, with absolutely nothing to offer except trying to put people down. Who needs these miserable frenemies? We have all the promises and no-shows and should be able to show the fearties a thing or two about all that next time round.
And there will be a next time round.
Sorry Liz, I meant to add that you’re bang on with what you say.
@Bill and Ben says: 20 February, 2018 at 2:40 pm:
“if i ever need a history lesson i won’t be looking at a certain persons opinion of it,”
Yep! You couldn’t even get up the bravery to mention me by name, (either of you), but no matter.
Here’s a wee challenge, for either of you, that I expect you not to accept.
Point out one single fact in my retort to your attempt to lionise a fairly obvious political chancer – just one wrong fact is all I’m asking you to disprove.
History, as written by the Unionist cabal, can be proven to be as much bunkum as their many claims that they are, “The British Government”, or that The United Kingdom is a country. It has always been a tissue of lies.
heedtracker @ 14:42,
I know that you just can’t resist your obsession with a certain glamorous foreign revolutionary-turned-reactionary, but the worst backtrackers by far in Smith were Labour.
There’s a nice graphic around somewhere that tabulates it. Virtually a whole column of “no to that” crosses under the Labour heading.
(Mind you, the others were only interested in setting tax traps.)
“Scottish government ministers have warned time is running out to reach a deal over key Brexit legislation.”
link to theneweuropean.co.uk
@Bob Mack 1:51pm
I’m interested because I recognize these “5 golden rules” in many letters and web comments from “concerned” people worrying about Scotland’s future. Britnats, in other words.
Re-the Vow, my memory of the precise timeline is vague now, but could it be that it was the combination of Gordon Brown’s promises AND the Vow that made the difference?
The Vow was the ‘formal’, the ‘official’, endorsement – a guarantee – from the then UK political party leaders in the Westminster seat of power that the things Brown was promoting would, with certainty, come to pass with a No vote.
Brown’s profile towards the end of the campaign (e.g. BBC TV coverage of his speech) was a carefully crafted, ‘clever’ (and yes, last gasp and probably very necessary) tactic to stem and reverse the momentum towards Yes, perhaps especially among left-leaning/Labour-leaning folk.
The Vow reinforced Brown’s intervention – ‘look, no need for you to take on the risks and uncertainties of outright independence, the glorious uplands of DevoMax – the nearest thing to federalism – is all you really want and need, and we absolutely guarantee, we give you our ‘vow’, that Scotland will be given this and very soon’!
I have often felt frustrated and puzzled by the way people think about politics etc. How it is possible,for instance, for people to elect clown-shoed idiots like the present incumbents at WM and still not take to the streets demanding that they stand down.
As a child, I used to have those Emperor’s New Clothes moments which I was too shy to voice, such as how did people end up with kings and emperors and give them such unquestioning obedience? Even when they tried to rise up and rid themselves of kings and emperors, why dd they often replace them with tyrants of the same ilk?
In short – and I do try to be short, though it often risks sweeping generalisation – I came to realise the fault is in ourselves. Not in itself an original observation, I’ll grant you, but to put it another way, it’s down to our brain and the way it works. The brain is the most sophisticated organ in the universe but often betrays us and acts like an idiot.
The human brain evolved in an entirely different environment from the world we live in now. The way it behaves is to do with survival in a landscape which presented us with many different ways to die on a daily basis. Instantaneous communication and rapport with those around us was necessary for survival, but we would know those people around us intimately and had learned from experience to trust and understand them.
Unfortunately, in a bigger more complex society, we erroneously often give that trust and belief to people we can’t possibly know and imbue them with attributes and abilities for which we have only doubtful proof. Thus we can be manipulated and allow ourselves to be manipulated because the brain often connives to do just that.
I did say, I would try to be brief, and so at the risk of being facile I would say we are often undermined by the political class, PR and the media, because despite its sophistication, the brain is sometimes an idiot
Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, “The dead will open the eyes of the living!”
While looking for something entirely different I came across this:-
link to youtube.com
I’ll post it here and ask for comment and/or opinions from anyone either for or against Scottish independence.
@Dan Huil,
These 5 rules are tried and practised techniques,researched and developed by Psychologists over decades.They were developed by primarily American businesses who truth be told are the best salesmen and women in the world. Look at how they convince a population to arm themselves to the teeth.
Influencing people is not that difficult. It can be done by a variety of mediums including film,audio,written word,or any form of communication. Proof?
Ever cried watching Bambi?
Ever seen an advert “don’t be the odd one out”
Ever heard “we are not as big as some but we do a good job”
Now these are minor examples,but used together they create powerful emotions.
What I try to explain is that because ordinary folk are now questioning is something they believed in and trusted for years. The Union. This creates anxiety, and leaves the person open to influence because they do not trust their own judgement completely. Those with sufficient expertise can utilise media to capture that persons situation and therefor influence them.
Example. Someone who has been in an abusive relationship. You could either reinforce their negative feelings about themselves, or help them simply by what you say and do.
stewartb @ 15:39,
I have always myself felt that Brown’s intervention was over-rated, especially by those down south. But maybe that was just because my own conviction had reached the stage where those “struts in a specially-crafted bubble” only elicited contempt. (Or more accurately, reflected the contempt for all of us that these little escapades demonstrated.)
But there is surely little doubt, is there not, that had there been a formal third option of some kind of Devo-Max on the ballot, that would have captured the majority vote at the time?
People were ready and willing for more, following the early assurance given that “devolution is a process, not an event”. It was the BritNats who insisted on a binary “all or nothing” choice. Then got a bad case of the jitters when it began to look like the answer was going to be “we’ll take it all, thanks!”. So they confected some vague last-minute promise of “something more” with “no-change”.
Subsequent events have made it clear though that it was always “no-change” that they really always meant. Probably now even wanting to backtrack from that, out of fear of that dangerous new Scottish self-confidence.
So maybe we, the well-convinced, are not the best people to judge the mindset of the “fearties”. Last year they were clearly still looking for an excuse not to re-engage, and the little corporal and her faithful followers were ready and very willing to exploit it.
Which is exactly why we badly need someone now to shake the “fearties” out of their torpor, to get them away from just blankly staring at the headlights that are rapidly bearing down on them.
Oh dear, perhaps we should all chip in.
Herald: “Doubts over Unionist campaign’s future after funding admission”
link to archive.is
Re the Vow and Gordon Brown and all the other promises.
I think Indy Ref 1 had to happen to fail, so that the Scots public could be exposed to the lies and broken promises of the British state.
You simply cannot put the broken promises and lies back in a box, hoping that they will go away and be forgotten.
That’s the real fear of the BritNat Establishment and their Tame Jock Servants. You simply cannot get away with lying to an entire country twice and hope to get away with it.
So roll on Brexit and Indyref2.
All the Yes side has to do is illuminate the lies, point to them and ask the Scottish Public, “are you going to go down in history as the biggest mugs ever?”
@robert.
That was torture to watch.
Looked nothing more than looking for excuses to have a go at the SNP to me.
Loads of politically uneducated people being asked leading questions by a unionist “journalist”.
In the short time since it was made, most of those who turned to the tories appear to have turned back against them (if polling is to be believed).
“Vote Tory, get more fish” summed it up..!!
What a joke.
@Bob Mack 4:05pm
Thanks, Bob. But at least more and more people are questioning the union with England. Three steps forward with that even if it’s one, or even two steps, backward because of britnat media manipulation.
We’re getting there.
“postal votes Taken to England to count why ??? ”
Why? Because they weren’t, that’s why, they were posted to the local authority, checked and put in the safge, and counted in the 32 local authorities.
This is driving me mental…
Was Ruth Davidson in Afghanisatan or not?
How can it *not* be possible to verify whether or not such a high-profile public figure was in the country or not? Did anyone actually *see* her at the Halo Trust centre in Dumfies? Did anyone see her walking her dog along a beach near Edinburgh when she was supposed to be in Kabul?
This is the type of thing that spawns bonkers conspiracy theories – it poisons the well, making it much easier to dismiss dodginess for which there is serious evidence. I’m not saying I believe it or not – the point is that MSM cerdibility is now so fucking low that almost anything seems credible. Bottom line though – if those photos were staged in Dumfries then Ruth Davidson has to resign.
I watched an excellent programme last night called ‘Boarding School the Secret Shame: Exposure.
Alex Renton, investigative reporter, has written a number of articles on the subject along with authorising an excellent book .. ‘Stiff Upper Lip: secrets, crimes and the schooling of a ruling class.’
link to amazon.co.uk
He’s the son of ex-Tory politician Timothy Renton, Baron Renton of Mount Harry. Alex’s experiences of being sent off to boarding school and suffering sexual abuse has led to him delving into this subject and building up a network of the ‘abused’ and list of abusers.
It’s far too long to go into but the following is the gist of it and gives you some insight into the mindset of those who are running this country.
Seventy five percent of Prime Ministers went to boarding schools. How many Westminster politicians overall?
The parents consider sending them there as it is a fast track to power and wealth. It buys status for their children and by sending them off at age six in some cases (mostly at the age of seven) helps to ‘feed’ them into top public schools.
The children feel that they’ve been put into care and for many of them it is a hell on earth from day one. Research findings show that the levels of abuse being perpetrated in boarding schools is double that of any other form of institutional abuse and goes on because they are not legally obliged to report it to the authorities.
This very British way of life has amounted to children living in constant fear, emotions being stunted, psychological strategies being used as coping mechanisms and many of those being abused suffering from mental illness in adulthood. Some have even committed suicide because of it. It’s not ‘historical’ either with a FoI request showing that since 2012 425 adults working at boarding schools have been accused with 165 being charged so far. Of the 425 adults 171 cases relate to people who have been abusing for quite some time … ‘historical ‘ abuse. It’s also just the tip of the iceberg as 75% of those contacted didn’t respond. I can’t remember if the FoI related to the schools or Police Forces.
Ascertaining what’s been going on is very difficult as many individuals have never confided in their parents and when they have and Police have contacted them they’ve refused to let them talk to their children. In most cases the reason for doing so was said to be ”prioritising their child’s future.” In some cases the parents did take it further and the teacher ‘disappeared’. Promises were given to parents that these individuals would never teach again however Alex Renton has found out that many were given references and went on to teach elsewhere (not unlike the priest saga. Just shuffle them on): Mostly to teach state schools where they were eventually caught out and charged.
One paedophile teacher who was interviewed said that he, as a child, had been ‘abused’ by 5 masters at his school and had enjoyed it as he felt that he was given love and affection, which he didn’t receive at home. He said that teachers, including Head Teachers, actually fall in love with the children that they abuse and that it’s not unusual for the boys to instigate the abuse. The main issue of course was as he said sexual relations with children in boarding schools was ”TRADITIONAL.”
Alex Renton has also interviewed individuals who were abused whilst attending Aberlour House (the feeder for Gordonstoun) and Gordonstoun itself. The following wasn’t part of the programme.
In one instance a 9 year old girl, known as ‘Kate’, arrived at Aberlour House on a bursary and was immediately, and constantly, bullied by the other pupils because she was poor and spoke with a Scottish accent. She was then raped on the first night of a week long outing when she was 12. The other children were aware of what was going on (later made her life a misery by singing songs about it etc) and when she contacted the Police as an adult, one girl (Jane who was also abused by the same teacher) was going to go witness and the perpetrator was arrested. The first appearance at court was held in private, as per the process in Scotland. However the case didn’t go ahead as Jane pulled out and the case was dropped. It was dropped due to the Scottish Corroboration Law which I’ve ranted and raved about on here previously. The totally archaic Law that’s still in place because of Ruth Davidson, Willie Rennie and Johann Lamont with the rates of reporting rape and convictions in Scotland being amongst the lowest in the World. More than anything leading to Scotland being an absolute haven for paedophiles.
This is the Ruth Davidson that’s got the brass neck to complain about ‘charity’ sexual abuse abroad, whilst her boss covers for the paedophile rings linked to Westminster and the Establishment covers for paedophiles working in boarding schools in the UK.
Alex Renton: ”This dreadful story is also about the flaws in Scottish law that let down victims of violence committed in private. Scotland, shamefully, has one of the worst rates of reporting-to-conviction in sexual and domestic violence – something its lawyers are prepared to tolerate on the grounds that they believe the country’s ancient laws ensure there are no miscarriages of justice. However, the pressure for change in the bizarre Scottish evidential rules is growing.”
The authorities have stated that if this had happened in England the case would have gone ahead and if proven the ‘abused’ individual would have been able to take a Civil Compensation claim forward.
In another Gordonstoun incident a paedophile was outed, left to teach in Essex (left there under a cloud) and then went on to teach in Kenya where he later died. The ex-Colonies said to be providing a home for paedophiles sacked from public schools in the UK and who knows maybe rather than ‘teach’ offering their ‘services’ to charities? Easily done when it would seem that there are no records being kept of the crimes that MANY have committed in the Motherland.
Th good news in all of this is that not only are people like Alex Renton (and previously his youngest sister Polly, now deceased) attempting to do something about it, a large number of those who were abused, have now set up websites and are trying to trace their abusers, in no small part due to Alex Renton.
link to alexrenton.com
We must accept that apart from those with a hard yes,and those with a hard No, there is a middle fertile ground of voters. How do we win them over?
We must accept firstly that no matter how badly WE see the Union, it has at least offered degrees of security to voters for most of their lives. Why did the Moonies collect money for their leader and he drove around in Rolls Royce cars whilst they begged for food?
It is a blind faith that has to be questioned and shown as wrong. You can only do this be challenging the beliefs they have about what the Union offers at a basic level in terms of security in all aspects of life. People are scared that independence will affect their life in terms of jobs,mortgages,health care, education etc. We have to counteract that fear to allow them to move forward just as many of the posters on here have done. Logical,reasoned argument is our best friend, backed up with evidence.
That is our route to indy..
I watched an excellent programme last night called ‘Boarding School the Secret Shame: Exposure.
Alex Renton, investigative reporter, has written a number of articles on the subject along with authorising an excellent book .. ‘Stiff Upper Lip: secrets, crimes and the schooling of a ruling class.’
link to amazon.co.uk
He’s the son of ex-Tory politician Timothy Renton, Baron Renton of Mount Harry. Alex’s experiences of being sent off to boarding school and suffering sexual abuse has led to him delving into this subject and building up a network of the ‘abused’ and list of abusers.
It’s far too long to go into but the following is the gist of it and gives you some insight into the mindset of those who are running this country.
Seventy five percent of Prime Ministers went to boarding schools. How many Westminster politicians overall?
The parents consider sending them there as it is a fast track to power and wealth. It buys status for their children and by sending them off at age six in some cases (mostly at the age of seven) helps to ‘feed’ them into top public schools.
The children feel that they’ve been put into care and for many of them it is a hell on earth from day one. Research findings show that the levels of abuse being perpetrated in boarding schools is double that of any other form of institutional abuse and goes on because they are not legally obliged to report it to the authorities.
This very British way of life has amounted to children living in constant fear, emotions being stunted, psychological strategies being used as coping mechanisms and many of those being abused suffering from mental illness in adulthood. Some have even committed suicide because of it. It’s not ‘historical’ either with a FoI request showing that since 2012 425 adults working at boarding schools have been accused with 165 being charged so far. Of the 425 adults 171 cases relate to people who have been abusing for quite some time … ‘historical ‘ abuse. It’s also just the tip of the iceberg as 75% of those contacted didn’t respond. I can’t remember if the FoI related to the schools or Police Forces.
Ascertaining what’s been going on is very difficult as many individuals have never confided in their parents and when they have and Police have contacted them they’ve refused to let them talk to their children. In most cases the reason for doing so was said to be ”prioritising their child’s future.” In some cases the parents did take it further and the teacher ‘disappeared’. Promises were given to parents that these individuals would never teach again however Alex Renton has found out that many were given references and went on to teach elsewhere (not unlike the priest saga. Just shuffle them on): Mostly to teach state schools where they were eventually caught out and charged.
One paedophile teacher who was interviewed said that he, as a child, had been ‘abused’ by 5 masters at his school and had enjoyed it as he felt that he was given love and affection, which he didn’t receive at home. He said that teachers, including Head Teachers, actually fall in love with the children that they abuse and that it’s not unusual for the boys to instigate the abuse. The main issue of course was as he said sexual relations with children in boarding schools was ”TRADITIONAL.”
Alex Renton has also interviewed individuals who were abused whilst attending Aberlour House (the feeder for Gordonstoun) and Gordonstoun itself. The following wasn’t part of the programme.
In one instance a 9 year old girl, known as ‘Kate’, arrived at Aberlour House on a bursary and was immediately, and constantly, bullied by the other pupils because she was poor and spoke with a Scottish accent. She was then r*ped on the first night of a week long outing when she was 12. The other children were aware of what was going on (later made her life a misery by singing songs about it etc) and when she contacted the Police as an adult, one girl (Jane who was also abused by the same teacher) was going to go witness and the perpetrator was arrested. The first appearance at court was held in private, as per the process in Scotland. However the case didn’t go ahead as Jane pulled out and the case was dropped. It was dropped due to the Scottish Corroboration Law which I’ve ranted and raved about on here previously. The totally archaic Law that’s still in place because of Ruth Davidson, Willie Rennie and Johann Lamont with the rates of reporting r*pe and convictions in Scotland being amongst the lowest in the World. More than anything leading to Scotland being an absolute haven for paedophiles.
This is the Ruth Davidson that’s got the brass neck to complain about ‘charity’ sexual abuse abroad, whilst her boss covers for the paedophile rings linked to Westminster and the Establishment covers for paedophiles working in boarding schools in the UK.
Alex Renton: ”This dreadful story is also about the flaws in Scottish law that let down victims of violence committed in private. Scotland, shamefully, has one of the worst rates of reporting-to-conviction in sexual and domestic violence – something its lawyers are prepared to tolerate on the grounds that they believe the country’s ancient laws ensure there are no miscarriages of justice. However, the pressure for change in the bizarre Scottish evidential rules is growing.”
The authorities have stated that if this had happened in England the case would have gone ahead and if proven the ‘abused’ individual would have been able to take a Civil Compensation claim forward.
In another Gordonstoun incident a paedophile was outed, left to teach in Essex (left there under a cloud) and then went on to teach in Kenya where he later died. The ex-Colonies said to be providing a home for paedophiles sacked from public schools in the UK and who knows maybe rather than ‘teach’ offering their ‘services’ to charities? Easily done when it would seem that there are no records being kept of the crimes that MANY have committed in the Motherland.
Th good news in all of this is that not only are people like Alex Renton (and previously his youngest sister Polly, now deceased) attempting to do something about it, a large number of those who were abused, have now set up websites and are trying to trace their abusers, in no small part due to Alex Renton.
link to alexrenton.com
stewartb says:
Sept 5th or 6th, Cameron was told he might lose. He received an extensive private poll.
6th or 7th, panic meeting. Pre arranged plan to offer vague DevMax was triggered. (I was told of it’s existence around May 2014)
8th wall to wall Gordon Brown on media.
9th The Vow
18th we voted
@Dr Jim re elise christie
Spot on.
She has been Scottish all day.
She was “British” as feck when she was 2017 world champion (2 events and overall champion) and won 2 other medals (a silver and a bronze)
Tried to post a long one about the vow with 3 youtube links, not appeared so splitting it in 3 to see if I can find the reason.
@stewartb
The Vow was a well executed plan by the Unionists, the Daily Record were just one conduit that maximised talk of “more powers” and Home Rule” in the crucial few days before the vote.
Here’s Gordon Brown on CH4 News giving it laldy about home rule and federalism on 8th Sept.
link to youtube.com
The Vow as published by the Record was precisely one week later and 3 days before the vote. This left enough time to get the story all over that evenings news reports as well as giving Brown another opportunity in an interview with David Dimbleby that same day to give it Home Rule once again.
Dimbleby actually waved a copy of that days Record in Browns face all against a backdrop of Edinburgh Castle outside the window.
link to youtube.com
Then of course there were still two days left for the rest of the Newspapers to repeat the story all over their front pages and they obliged.
The Vow really was the last big push in what had been simmering for many weeks if not months, the promise or hint of “more powers” was another propaganda tactic.
Who can forget Jackie Bird “interviewing” Darling the day after Brown was on CH4 news with his Home Rule agenda. Ms Bird started with the words “you all come together and you agree these proposals, let’s call them Devo Max”.
link to youtube.com
The Vow was far bigger than just the Daily Record front page, it was the Unionists last throw of the dice after the most recent polls had shown a slight lead for YES. Make no mistake this was all planned well in advance in my opinion.
It undoubtedly had an effect on voting intentions and it was meant to.
Geeo I am not a yoon as I have stated before I have certificates and letters of thanks from Gil Paterson and A., Salmond for the hundreds of pounds I have given to the SNP and the reason I said yous rather than us I have lived in England now for 37years and do not have a vote on the ref?i refuse to get involved in your playground abuse
@ yesindyref2 says at 4:16 pm …. ”postal votes Taken to England to count why ??? ”
Why? Because they weren’t, that’s why, they were posted to the local authority, checked and put in the safge, and counted in the 32 local authorities.”
And you know that for sure yesindyref2?
…………………………………
@ Ian Brotherhood says at 4:22 pm …. ”This is driving me mental… Was Ruth Davidson in Afghanisatan or not? How can it *not* be possible to verify whether or not such a high-profile public figure was in the country or not? Did anyone actually *see* her at the Halo Trust centre in Dumfries? Did anyone see her walking her dog along a beach near Edinburgh when she was supposed to be in Kabul? This is the type of thing that spawns bonkers conspiracy theories – it poisons the well, making it much easier to dismiss dodginess for which there is serious evidence. I’m not saying I believe it or not – the point is that MSM cerdibility is now so fucking low that almost anything seems credible. Bottom line though – if those photos were staged in Dumfries then Ruth Davidson has to resign.”
Interesting Ian! What really drives me mental is that wherever she was, she definitely wasn’t in the Yemen looking for bombs made in the UK. The ones that the Tories are frantically running around the world trying to offload onto despot rulers. The only ‘export’ that they seem to have and one that Trump definitely won’t need, so what’s left?
And on a Brexit note she spouts that she disagrees with her big T boss on leaving the Customs Union, whilst her bakers dozen have supported Treeza May all of the way and will continue to do so. Ms Davidson is nothing more than a lying, wee hypocrite, imo.
The UK and their VOWS:
Today David Davis tried his modern version of *The VOW* on the EU by making all sorts of whiny promises that the UK wouldn’t do anything bad against the EU post Brexit honest so please give us everything
You know what the EU said to David Davis, you’re a lovely guy Dave we believe everything you just said but the next guy in your job might change everything so put it in writing that’s concrete and can’t be manipulated to mean what you want it to mean then we’ll talk
Thanks very much The EU
The EU just told Scotland how to handle these Bastirts, although after a few hundred years of being lied to you’d think we’d know eh
The EU just said *We don’t trust you* because we know you’re a bunch of lying Bastirts, but they did it ever so politely
Petra @ 16:28,
Way O/T here, but sorry, Petra, it’s a long and very sad litany you relate, and it leaves me totally mystified as to why human beings can do this kind of thing to each other at all, but I can’t agree with you over the very longstanding “two witnesses” requirement of Scots Law. It’s there for a reason, and it’s not merely a vile Tory-LibDem anti-SNP plot, either.
It’s a well-known aphorism that “hard cases make bad law”. Which has been demonstrated more than once in practice following a public outcry that “something must be done” about some outrage or another.
The requirement is necessary to make sure that justice is safe, and that (among other things) innocent people don’t have their lives ruined by unsupported vengeful allegations. Which do happen, alas. Another human frailty.
The answer is not to bend the rules in some populist way, even if prompted by a very decent and natural desire to right evident wrongs, but instead to do the (sometimes extremely) hard work of getting the necessary evidence, so that any ensuing convictions are sound and sustainable.
@geeo says: 20 February, 2018 at 4:15 pm:
“That was torture to watch.
Looked nothing more than looking for excuses to have a go at the SNP to me.”
Exactly so, geeo, but that is just the point I hoped to make. If we are to fight against the unionist propaganda we, whether we like it or not have to watch and find out what they are up to in their efforts to discredit the independence cause.
If you hang on a wee while I’ll post something far, far more stomach churning but I’ll give it a wee while to get other reactions
Dr Jim @4.52.pm =)
Just saw report on Mr Davis’s speech to EU. Your’s is an excellent analysis.
STV would do well to report it just like that 🙂
The bit in the last line about half truths brought back a childhood memory.
Back in the fifties an aunt of my father came to stay with us. She had had one of her legs amputated and was well into her nineties but was as bright as a button. My parents bought the Record and one day I took that day’s copy up to her. She said she wished my father would buy a proper paper; she had moved to Glasgow in the 1880’s, and after it was founded everyone called the Record the “ha’penny liar”.
One thing about them, they have been consistent.
@ Petra,
Let us not forget the allegations against Queen Vic school where Thomas Hamilton allegedly camped in the school grounds with young boys, and taught them to use guns. This was prior of course to Dunblane.
It was claimed by a former housemaster that regular visits by VIP’s occurred whilst he worked there.you do wonder why a 100 year disclosure was put on aspects of this case.
Robert Peffers @2.02: thanks for pointing out that there were 7,800 fewer deaths within 30 days admission to Scottish hospitals, according to the latest figures.
At least that will provide Jackie Bird with her headline tonight on Misreporting Scotland: “Unemployment In Scottish Undertakers’ Sector Projected To Rise Says Think Tank” *smirk*.
Harrowing stuff, Petra @4.28. The SG did try to do something about the woeful conviction rate in rape and other sex crimes but, as I am sure you have pointed out before, got nowhere in trying to remove corroboration as a requirement.
Mind you, if you were to believe some of the more lurid rumours surrounding Thomas Hamilton, Scottish private schools and senior UK politicians, it’s perhaps not completely unexpected.
It’s hard not to become utterly cynical in 21st century Ukokia.
Thepnr says:
This I know for a fact to be true.
I was told about it around May 2014. The way it was put to me was that we wouldn’t be allowed to win. That Cameron had a plan to offer DevoMax ( the words used ) if things got close.
At that point I actually thought that would be a reasonable consolation prize and a big step forward. My interpretation was, of course, ‘devolution to the max’ i.e. everything but defence and foreign affairs.
By the time we got to September there had been so much lies and manipulation that when The Vow (and everything around it) came along I didn’t believe it. All along the plan was not ( as I had believed initially ) to offer DevoMax, it was in fact to pretend to offer it!
By the time Smith had finished this was crystal clear. The BritNat version of DevoMax is ‘the maximum devolution they will allow’.
galamcennalath @ 17:26,
Yes, the BritNat version of DevoMax was actually DevoMin. The miniscule amount they conceded with Smith, and carefully booby-trapped at that.
NorthBritLab leading the way, in flagrant disregard to all of the Great Gordo’s earnest assurances.
On reconsideration, more like DevoNeg even, with the likely upcoming power grab.
If we let them.
@geeo
Be alert. Scotland needs lerts!
@Petra
1. I did a postal vote, the address on the envelope was somthing like Returns Officer North Ayrshire Council , Cunninghame House, Irvine, Scotland, KA12 8EE.
2. I put it in a post box. The regular postie is honest
3. It goes to Glasgow sorting office
4. Glasgow sorting office has CCTV
5. Proportionately 44.7% of the Glasgow sorting office voted YES
6. Therefore it goes to the council and there is no global Scottish Royal Mail conspiracy to divert votes to England involving 100% of their staff
7. Subject to the opening and checking, the ballot goes into a safe and stays there until referendum day – 18th September 2018
8. North Ayrshire was SNP controlled
9. Therefore at least that council wasn’t involved in a global conspiracy to send postal votes to England and 100% of the council staff and electoral officers in Scotland aren’t crooks
Yes, as the electoral commission said, there was some electoral fraud, registering minors, dead voters, activists getting befuddled people to X the wrong box, around 2,000 votes NOT 800,000.
2014 VOW That the UK then gave themselves a vote on
Why were The Unionist parties given a vote on the Smith Commission when they were against further devolution in the first place
So’s they could vote against it, justifying the big fat lie that it all was
That’s the level of distrust any country dealing with the UK Guv should have
They lie for a living, ask any former country of the Empire,
although it’ll take a long time because there are around 60 of them
galamcennalath 5.26pm.
I believe that one of the purposes of The Vow was to cover up the fact that the vote was being rigged by other means. They had no intention of letting us have independence no matter what the real figures were.
We will have to be much more savvy this time or we will get cheated again. I hope the SNP are paying attention.
Well no other input to my comment about what the other side churns out against the SNP that some of those who are swithering may very well believe. If you thought the last one was stomach churning have a view at these two:-
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
I make no apology for we really do need to know what the other side is up to.
Correction:
2. My wife posted it at the post office. She’s a YESser
@John H
The Independence Referendum was under control of the Scottish Government, and 32 unitary authorities.
Are you accusing the SNP and 32 unitary authorities, and hundreds if not thousands of polling stations of rigging the fucking vote?
Jesus I’m off, wacky fucking conspiracy theories again, while the Unionists are laughing their arses off at crazy Nats, and YESsers wasting out time gazing at fucking navels.
@Robert Peffers *the videos*
Sometimes I get very angry
Then I realise I was quite right and forgive myself
An observation. “BritNat” now seems more common that “Unionist” in comments. And Yoon is almost non existent.
I now try use BritNat myself. I think Unionist imparts respectability and credibility on the relationship which isn’t due.
Obviously it’s up to others which description they believe best fits their points.
yesindyref2 @ 17:51,
Ah, but you’re forgetting the delivery flights from some of the outlying islands, etc. It’s well-documented (on the net, ‘natch) that these were intercepted by flying saucers in an unholy alliance of the UKGov with aliens from the Planet Zog. (Or was it the Selenites who live on the dark side of the Moon, I forget now… )
Petra – posted without comment .
CGI awarded a 7 year contract by Glasgow city council for IT support systems , CGI has with IDOX been closely involved in Postal voting tabulation ,
All postal voting is now privatised , the idea councils operate these systems from a wee room in a council property is for the gullible quite frankly , who knows where this work is done , but I bet the head offices of these companies are not in Jockland , so why would their operations be here .Both do have offices here but where is the paper actually sent too , A closer look at both these companies and their links to the British government it looks like between them they operate all government agencies. a bit like the recently failed Carillion very closely involved with this Tory government.
I remember someone from IDOX posted a strong denial that this company were anything but honest and above board perhaps any CGI or IDOX employee could clear any doubt as to where exactly votes are physically counted , it certainly would clear a few doubts .
Ok I lied when I said posted without comment , but join the dots it usually gives you the answer .
Robert Graham @ 18:07,
It’s this kind of arrant ignorance that gets us precisely nowhere.
The electoral counting process is perfectly open and transparent. You can even observe it yourself if you could be bothered.
Which you clearly weren’t and aren’t. Better just to grumble uselessly from your comfy armchair, and demonstrate to the world your total lack of knowledge.
Jeez.
Postal votes again LOL. I thought it had been done to death numerous times on Wings but clearly not.
Wings Over Scotland was officially registered with the Electoral Commission for the Independence Referendum and as such could have it’s own people at both the postal vote openings and official ballot count.
I was one of them that attended along with many other Wingers throughout Scotland. There’s an old article on Wings that tells you what the process was, how it worked and it’s worth reading the comments too.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
yesindyref2 5.57pm.
I have no intention of getting into an argument, but I’m simply saying that I believe that the British State used every means at it’s disposal to get a No vote. As one example, I heard Michael Portillo say before the referendum that referenda are easy to rig, and I think he would know about such things. Sorry I upset you so much but we are still allowed to have opinions aren’t we?
Robert J. Sutherland says:
20 February, 2018 at 3:15 pm
heedtracker @ 14:42,
I know that you just can’t resist your obsession with a certain glamorous foreign revolutionary-turned-reactionary, but the worst backtrackers by far in Smith were Labour.
Prof T is a classic example of the tory carpetbagger at work. Life in the Scotland region of teamGB is full of opportunities for carpetbaggers like Tomkins, if you’re on the right side.
He was very vocal on Smith Commision stuff but always had that grand olde GB, “Silence seps, we Scots voted No democratically and our GB democracy is sacrosanct!” in his arsenal of unionist stuff. And he used it too.
The Vow was a perfect example of psychological warfare, in a hahah UKOK democracy. If it wasn’t cooked up by the spooks of MI6, I’m a Dutchman.
Even their selection of the Daily Record shysters was perfectly tuned and targeted at the victims of their psych war, followed through as ever by their beeb gimp network in Pacific Quay.
Its easy to speculate though.
The fact that they launched a The Vow psychwar weapon of mass cheating, probably says a lot more about how the actual referendum ballot day was not in fact infiltrated much at all, at least not at the UKOK spook level.
And ofcourse once they did win, their Scotland region could then go and take a right royal EVEL fuck to itself.
Just ask Slabour greats like Lord Darling of Roulanish.
@Blair Paterson…
Perhaps if your posting history was ..well..less anti indy/SNP, i could believe you.
As it isn’t, i do not.
You are like those who say they are not a racist because some of your friends are black..!
Away ye go ya rocket.
@RJS
Thanks, that made me laugh.
I guess Hammond as defence secretary must have redirected the alien interception force, and sent the 4,710 secretly hidden Harrier jump jets to a grassy spot near to the 4,710 polling stations, transquillised the duly responsible ballot box carriers at 10.01 pm, and fired the “forget-me” gun at them before hurtling down to London at Mach967 or Warp 10 as it’s affectionately known, landing on the MI5 HQ roof where the votes were all reprocessed in 3 minutes flat, and then hurtled back to the counting places so quickly NOBODY NOTICED a thing, except perhaps the average of 150 Harrier jump jets parked in the car park, with pilots getting into their 2 seater convertibles complete with black labradors.
On the other hand instead of listening to a wacky Yank who writes books about, well, anything really if it sells, people could search for the likes of “scottish government procedure for handling postal votes” and find this one:
link to edinburgh.gov.uk
and there are many more ScotGov or council publications for those who prefer a dose of Reality TV, rather than space mushrooms with red caps.
Ref the Vow and other Brit Nat propaganda. I have just cancelled my Television Licence. There are programmes I will miss considerably but it had to be done to avoid watching Brit Nattery being bigged up verbally and visually and to avoid listening to our fantastic nation of Scotland being talked down.
I told them I was sick of their biased political stance and have at least now deprived them of a tiny bit of income.
Low and behold I feel cleansed. If you haven’t done it already give it some more thought. There are many other ways of keeping up to date politically and many other ways of reading/viewing matters of interest and entertainment.Hopefully, you may end off feeling as good as I do right at the moment.
Visit Scotland spokesman on disreporting is you guessed it, English. Why?
Sometimes a friend comes over and ‘borrows’ the computer, they still have a license and will go on to iplayer to check out something or other…it means they have to put in their iplayer id to access the content. Just saying.
They might have fiddled the postal vote, and tampered with ballot boxes while transporting them to various counts, but it was the bare faced cheating by putting them into the wrong piles that is often overlooked. The video taken in Alloa town hall showing exactly this happening didn’t last long on you tube, probably after too many people were asking the wrong questions.
Well done Vince, i have saved my £147 license fee for 3 years now. Money saved goes to Wings, SNP, iScot and Gaza school. A double whammy for BBC.
@Vince
Good for you, you won’t miss it nor regret it, I certainly haven’t.
As you yourself say, there are plenty other means of getting news and entertainment that does not require you to pay the telly tax.
I remember that I was concerned about actions of the Westminster machine possibly interfering in Indy1, I wrote to the SNP and asked if they could install independent monitors.
Their reply was that it was a reserved matter. So it is all really under Westminster rules. Have to question just why do the not allow independent monitors if they have nothing to hide?
The Ec is also answerable to them, and we have seen what they do when things go wrong, er nothing, they are a part of the corruption in the UK. So how do we really know what went wrong or what was done or not?
We need security of votes in Indy2, however we do it. I do not for sure know we were cheated in Indy1,but,my gut feeling is that they will attempt to cheat us this time.
They cannot lose Scotland and they will use every tool they can find to thwart us, whatever that is.
So we need to forget 2014 and stop bickering about it, and worry how we can have solid systems in place for this time around in order to prevent it ever happening at all.
“putting them into the wrong piles”
They weren’t, there were observers, including from Wings.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
“The video taken in Alloa town hall”
link to wingsoverscotland.com
I didn’t realise Alloa was in Russia, or was it the US, there were so many FAKES which didn’t even have the regular procedures, as explained on Wings by DOUG DANIEL.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
and once more, bung ho:
link to wingsoverscotland.com
@Vince 6:47pm
You won’t regret it, Vince.
On the subject of postal votes. I know (personally, because one of the individuals concerned told me), of a family who used their postal votes. The daughter was resident in England (but presumably was still on the voter’s roll in Scotland).
Even worse, this family had another property in Scotland and received polling cards (only two), which they used in addition to the ones they recieved at their main address.
Five NO votes where they were only entitled to two votes.
We need to limit postal voting to those unable (through ill health) to get to a polling station.
Going on holiday to the Costa does not count.
Can’t be arsed going, does not count.
Let’s get this tightened up.
Spare a penny, gov’nor?
link to thenational.scot
That thread went over 2 pages, here’s the first page of comments,
link to wingsoverscotland.com
and note how many people were actual (registered) Wings agents at the counts. Sad also to see how many don’t post here any more. Also found my own post with the actual address I sent my postal vote to, which would be similar for all 32 unitary authorities, and it turns out I did post it in a box after all, watching the postie empty the box (just to see my vote go off):
The Counting Officer
North Ayrshire Council
Election Office
Cunninghame House
Friarscroft
Irvine
North Ayrshire
KA12 8EE
I’m often away election time on business, days at a time, so have had a postal vote for many years, otherwise I don’t get to vote in my own country, and for my own country’s future. Deprive me of my vote and I don’t like you any more.
Did anyone catch the blatant lies of Struan Stevenson on radio Scotland this morning. He said I actually feel sorry for any health service worker earning £35k per annum and having to pay an extra £400 income tax. An alert woman came on to the radio stating that anyone earning £35k would only pay an extra £80, the BBC took on a tax expert and he agreed with her, typical BBC never got back on to Stevenson for an apology. As a North East loon, if I happen to bump into him, I’ll take him to task.
Postal votes again
You get some interesting results when you look at the weight and volume of these voting packs ,
let’s take minimum weights and dimensions, those recommended by the post office.
A 3mm thick postal voting pack of 1000 has a height of 3 meters By say 160mm X 200mm length and width , and could weigh anything from 7 stones up to a max of 16 stones . That’s conservative figures the maximum of 5mm thickness would give you a height of 5 mtrs
That’s some f/kn bloody big safe to accommodate that lot , and that’s only 1000 .
Ha Ha just saying like.
Yesindyref2 is correct in his explanation of how postal voting works, at least in North Ayrshire. Mrs Fairliered used to be involved in the count before she retired. She has been an SNP member for many years.
The only pochling is done by BritNat councillors and their cronies (looking at you Gallagher and Marshall) “helping” vulnerable voters to complete the ballot papers. That’s the weak area that needs to be sorted before the next referendum.
Well done Vince.
I stopped the license quite some time ago.
Then I moved house last summer & got aerial & dish fitted then thought f£ck it , never put a TV in any room.
Stick with it it’s odd at first as I missed all the political stuff, news & dare I admit it Corrie.
I’m now heading for 8 months and NO TV , it’s so much easier than even I thought.
Bonus ? Blood pressure lowered, save a few quid , much more time to do other things ehm Wings, WGD, GB etc etc not to mention Twitter where you enjoy the company of many Wingers.
Great fun all round.
BTW , John King is on Twitter , seldom see his posts on Wings these days , yea I miss his humour.
I think it is the postal vote system that is open to real abuse. I have mentioned in the past of tories (churchy type people) visiting all the local care homes in their area (no doubt near indyref2) helpfully gathering all the votes for them to post. Maybe next time we should ensure that such practices cannot be done by strangers (they didn’t know everyone) but by the care home owner or recognised relative.
@Bill Hume
In the situation you described I totally agree that we must get the system tightened up.
The people you speak of were committing an out and out fraud albeit as individuals. If enough were at it like they were then the votes do add up.
Many do need a postala vote for obvious reasons, too ill or infirm to attend. Working on ships or oil rigs but resident in Scotland. No matter the reason anyone applying for a postal vote in my opinion should have to provide the reason and evidence in support of their application.
That would go some way to preventing abuse such as you described.
No election or referendum is cheat free. Its just human nature to cheat. Come on, we all saw the near hysterical and absolute determination that Scotland should never be a nation state again, from the yoons in 2014. Ofcourse some nuttier yoons in the right place at the wrong time, would break the law.
Aberdeen city council is a yoon hive of the most aggressive Britnats going, they even banned the Saltire from all ACC buildings and properties. Then future Sir Wullie Young banned Scotland’s FM Salmond too. Because future Sir Wullie was able to do anything he felt like, in a local democracy that gets 20% turnouts.
You could hand deliver your indyref1 postal ballot to ACC, which we did. The ACC referendum ballot box was dumped under a stairwell behind a pillar in the Broad Street office block. It looked like a waste paper bin. You could easily see in to and reach in the ballot box opening, if you wanted to. It all looked exactly what the yoons of ACC thought of it all, nothing at all/ real threat to their yoon power and glory.
“Brexit will make us rich!”
…
“Brexit will not make us any poorer.”
…
“Brexit won’t make us *that* much poorer.”
…
“Brexit won’t make things so bad we resort to cannibalism.”
link to archive.is
David Davis: Brexit will not plunge Britain into ‘Mad Max dystopia’
Secretary for exiting EU to say in speech that fears of a race to the bottom are unfounded”
Nicked from Facebook, what the whole of the UKOK msm want closed down, because its bad, maybe even SNP bad levels of bad, on planet toryboy.
Must be torture for your average toryboy ligger not being able to control anything at all on Facebook, so they’re going to shut it all down, if they can.
We should use the EU referendum as THE standard for Indy referenda. Not the same franchise, but the same referendum “rules”. The EU didn’t Fund, Front, Campaign or interfere in any way with the UK’s EU referendum. This should be the standard and position the UK should be forced into. Let the Colonialist enablers in Scotland Front, Fund and Campaign without ANY help from the UK government. Let’s see how much real “grassroots support” they actually have, when they can’t bus in paid activists from England.
I agree with many others, Postal Votes need to be seriously tightened and the media will again be our biggest threat.
@Robert Graham
It’s not the whole voting pack, nor even outer envelope B, it’s the postal voting statement and ballot paper envelope (envelope ‘A’). From the doc:
link to edinburgh.gov.uk
and though I said safe, it’s actually stored securely:
“Place the ballot papers in the postal ballot box, which must be sealed at the end of each opening session and stored securely“.
Similar for the other 31, though some do have big room safes.
As others have said, the care homes are a big source of abuse, and that should indeed be corrected for Indy Ref 2.
The problem with restricting postal votes is it decreases voter participation and turnout – the exact opposite of what participative univeral suffrage democracy wants, and what Governments themselves want (in theory). From ScotGov:
“Improving voter turnout”
link to news.gov.scot
Yes, the postal voting system is open to corruption.
It stinks!
Because if, someone’s parents own property or reside here, even while main family home, siblings etc remain in an English local authority, they are switching homes to assist a constitutional campaign preference, .
Are they also registered for council tax /elections down south, while voting here?
I don’t get it..someone is turning a blind eye, somewhere in the system.
Maybe a rule that if you register to vote you must also register for Scot Tax foe 1 year minimum.
A short campaign and random checks on postal applications, please.
Is Florrie Lindley still in Coronation street?
More Powers?
Polling between Feb/Mar 2014 showed that 49.9% of the Scottish electorate believed that the Scottish Parliament would get either “some more powers” or “many more powers” in the future.
By Sep/Oct this had increased to 64% and after the referendum the polling showed that it had increased further such that by March of 2015, 69.7% though more powers were still going to be coming our way.
I wish I knew what the figure is now, source British Election Study (Scotland figures only) sample>2500.
link to britishelectionstudy.com
The Vow worked it’s magic alright, that much is clear in the changing attitudes from Mar 2014 to Mar 2015.
Are they also registered for council tax /elections down south, while voting here?
I don’t get it..someone is turning a blind eye, somewhere in the system.
No Louis. If you are registered on any electoral register in this luverly UK zone, you cannot be registered on another one.
Maybe you could be 2014. But the Electoral Register people are cross referencing where you are paying council tax, with where you are voting.
So if you are a council tax payer in London and own a second home say in Beauly, you cannot vote in Beauly or Scotland. The Electoral register people will write to you in London explaining that you are now being removed from the Beauly electoral register and you have two weeks to appeal.
If you are in the above category and you want to vote indyref2, you will have to apply for a vote in Scotland based on the fact that you are again a resident council tax payer in Scotland.
There is nothing to prevent you actually deregistering in London, registering in Scotland, voting indyref2, deregistering again and registering for your vote in London.
No doubt this will happen. There’s not much to be done about that.
Some time before postal votes are counted they are opened and sorted in to piles. In 2014 they were sorted in to ‘Yes’ piles and ‘No’ piles. It was possible to gauge visually which piles were bigger, and it was this information that was leaked (illegally) to Ruth Davidson.
@heedtracker
“No Louis. If you are registered on any electoral register in this luverly UK zone, you cannot be registered on another one.”
Heedy that statement is incorrect, you can be registered in more than one area and can even vote in more than one area but not for the same election or referendum. The Electoral Commission rules on this from their faq:
If I’m registered twice, can I vote twice?
<i?If you are registered to vote in two different electoral areas, you can vote in local elections for the two different local councils.
However, it is an offence to vote twice in the same type of election, such as in a UK general election. Doing this could result in a fine of up to £5,000.
link to electoralcommission.org.uk
@ Robert at 4:52pm … “Corroboration Law – two witnesses.”
Scotland is the only country in the Western world, other than the Netherlands, to use such an archaic law, which is ridiculous taking into account that the times have moved on technologically. An admission of guilt isn’t acceptable either in Scotland if it isn’t corroborated by another source FGS.
“Hard work of getting necessary evidence.” Well in many, if not the vast majority of cases that’s practically impossible as most paedophiles prefer to carry out their ‘practices’ behind closed doors. As innocent people, as you say Robert, are being protected by the Corroboration Law, innocent children, as I say, are being subjected to hellish sexual abuse in Scotland due to the Corroboration Law and something will have to be done about it, especially as paedophiles themselves have cottoned on to the (legal) fact that Scotland is THE place to be.
Take another look at the Law, take a look at legal systems around the world / best practise, change the jury system in Scotland or whatever? Currently Scottish law, as it stands, isn’t working for the most vulnerable people in our society, as research findings show that many, many of them have no recourse to justice or protection at all and that’s a crying shame. Damning for Scotland, imo.
On a personal note one of my nieces was sexually abused a few years ago and the paedophile got off Scot free due to the CL. As her case became known in the area another neighbour came forward to say that he had sexually abused her young daughter too, that it was reported to the Police but that case didn’t go forward either due to the CL. The Police involved were 100% sure of his guilt as there had seemingly been other cases too. The paedophile in question is now living in the Ayrshire area running a B&B that advertises that “children will be made most welcome”. The Police can’t do a thing about it. His wife who knew exactly what was (is) going on works in a nursery. Neither are on the Sex Offender Register.
…………………………
@ yesindyref2 …..”Postal votes.”
At 2. “I put it in the post. My postie is honest.
I’ve known my postman for over 20 years now and he seems to be honest too. He informed me that postal votes were being separated from the regular mail and sent down to England.
At 3. “It goes to Glasgow sorting office.”
And isn’t it possible that the votes then went to the Councils via a stop over in a centre in England?
At 5. “Proportionately 44.7% of sorting office staff at Glasgow voted yes.
Where did the 44.7% data come from? Additionally the staff, yes voters or not, would be separating the mail with postal votes and odds and ends of mail addressed to the Councils into particular sections. We have no idea who was responsible for dealing with that particular mail from there on. Not 100% of their staff, I’m sure. In fact it could have been dealt with by one person only.
7. “Subject to opening and checking the ballot goes into a safe and stays there until referendum day – 18th September 2018.
Now I know for a fact that this did not happen in Renfrewshire. I spoke to a number of people at the Council, days after the count, and was told that ALL postal votes were opened from the 8th of September on due to the sheer volume of votes received. It might still be well worth contacting your Council in North Ayrshire, at this late date, to find out if that’s what happened there too. If you have a mind to do so, that is.
Whatever the case it’s something that we should be looking out for next time round, for example send off your postal vote, if you must, and contact your Council a couple of days later to see if they have received it. If you know of someone who works in a sorting office ask them to be more vigilant and report back. On the otherhand it’s doubtful that the Establishment will use ‘known’ ploys, if that’s the case, next time round.
I had a Tory woman admit to me that her son lives and works in London but is registered to vote here at her house because … “his vote does more good here”.
She didn’t seem to appreciate how immoral that situation was.
The Scottish electoral roll needs tightened up to ensure voters actually live here. Scottish tax code, maybe?
I know it is off topic but this thing with the Whisky induststry is appalling.
The loss of 20,000 jobs as well as the loss income from tourism added to the damage to brand name recognition all because Westminster will make a trade deal with ANYONE for anything, in this case Peru? (USA also want to get involved)
Whisky counts for 20% of food and drink exports for the UK, but it is Scotland who will suffer the most so that is OK really
We have to get out
So far Westminster appear to be willing to barter away Fishing and Whisky.A pound lost in Croydon is worth more than a pound lost in Scotland.
That link I posted a short time ago from the Electoral commission faq, seems now that I think about it that it’s OK for people who don’t reside here but have holiday home for example are entitled to a vote in a Scottish Independence referendum. It wouldn’t break the rules of voting in two different places in the same ballot.
I don’t know if this is the case but it certainly seems like it.
If so then that is an area that must be tightened up immediately, there is no doubt that residency rules such as a minimum term of continued residence should apply for any further Scottish referendums.
With regard to the postal vote, are you all aware of the report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation into the Electoral system in the UK ?
I use their description “Postal ballots may as well have the words Steal Me written on them because of the way they are handled”.
You may not think postal votes are vulnerable,but many experts do,
@ Robert at 6:07pm …”Postal Votes.”
Thanks for that Robert. Beggars belief that anyone would believe that Westminster with any number of ‘tools’, top experts in every possible field and advanced technological know-how at their disposal would risk losing Scotland to a straightforward vote and count.
And Wings agents being at the count tells us nought other than what they actually witnessed. And we believe them of course. However there are great gaps, unaccounted for, from postal votes being sent out to the actual recording of the count that Wingers didn’t have any involvement with at all.
@Petra
Posties collecting mail don’t sort mail, they take it to one of the 1,000 collection hubs, or to one of the 38 mail centres which sort outward mail.
link to royalmailgroup.com
According to wiek (can’t be bothered finding it on the royalmail website), these are:
East: Chelmsford, Ipswich, Norwich, Nottingham, Peterborough, Romford, Sheffield, South Midlands (Northampton)
West: Birmingham, Chester, Manchester, North West Midlands (Wolverhampton), Preston, Warrington
South East: Croydon, Gatwick (Crawley), Greenford, Home Counties North (Hemel Hempstead), Jubilee (Hounslow), Medway, Mount Pleasant
South West: Bristol, Cardiff, Dorset (Poole), Exeter, Plymouth, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon, Truro
North: Aberdeen, Inverness, Carlisle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Northern Ireland (Newtownabbey), Tyneside (Gateshead)
So Scotland has just 4 mail centres, all, I think, with cctv.
Your local sorting office sorts mail for local delivery by walks, and is a “delivery office”.
Sorry, either your postie was pulling your leg, or someone’s pulling his / hers.
Good for you Vince.
Six months without a licence now and no regrets. Quite the opposite. Missing some good documentaries and my weekly fix of Call the Midwife (sad I know) but it’s been worth it.
No more shouting at the telly and misreporting Scotland.
Jackie who?
Bob Mack at 9.21
Exactly. The European Commission described it as “a recipe for large scale fraud” in 2009. And once the fraud is achieved by putting names on the voting register it continues unnoticed. It is ridiculously easy to register for a vote in the UK. Checking is entirely inadequate. There have been a large number of convictions in England.
Any interference with the vote is not done at polling stations or at the count.It is done in the period during which the applications to postal votes are recorded and sit for months on council computers. These are fairly easily accessed by interested parties.
Do you know why there are conspiracy theorists? That’s because there are conspiracies. Anybody who thinks that the UK with centuries of experience of control by any means possible is not likely to employ a whole range of clandestine anti democratic measures as it clings grimly onto Scotland’s resources needs their heads examined.
That is another reason why we have to go now while they are in political distress. All this nonsense about taking the time to get the case right gives exactly the same time for our enemy to get their their plans worked out.
I have a holiday home, I don’t get to vote there & my main residence as well. There is no council-tax discount now for holiday homes but U are still ineligible for improvement grant’s etc!
I certainly don’t get a local council vote either & before the referendum or a general election have to fill in a declaration form.
Just as a matter of interest the whole middle page in the Daily Record today is given over to FM Nicola Sturgeon and Jeanne Freeman MSP
Can I put this simply. We do not need the Daily Record to fold.(Unlikely as it is Scotland’s second biggest seller).
We need the Daily Record to support independence.
Keep an eye on things.
@Dave McEwan Hill,
I once watched David Copperfield make a Jumbo 747 disappear in Las Vegas right in front of our eyes We all knew it was a trick, but nobody could say how he did it,or where exactly the Jumbo had gone. Safe to say it was still at the place it was parked,but!!!!
Amazing how you can deceive people,especially when you had over a year to prepare!!
Agreed “ Petra @0929pm “ All aspects of rules relating to the voter register and voting ( especially Postal voting) needs to be tightened up significantly. A minimum period of “ Scottish residency” should be considered for indyref2 .The opening of postal ballots fully 2 weeks prior to the vote surely cannot be right?. Also I have yet to see any kind of “ rebuttal” as regards the “ eye opening”
“ Dunoon report” as regards to the postal vote in Argyll & Bute ( sept 2014 indyref) .
@Petra: “ALL postal votes were opened from the 8th of September ”
Yes, sure, I guess that’s procedures 1 and 2, but the votes aren’t looked at themselves, they’re in envelope A. That gets rid of a lot of the work in advance.
link to edinburgh.gov.uk
Ask yourself this question: Do you think the SNP are stupid?
Maybe the Rev can ask the authorities how they are going to tighten up possible abuses. I heard some large care homes in North Ayrshire had nearly 100% returns and mostly NO.
How can this checked?
If the UK establishment is so good at fiddling referendums and elections, you’d think they’d have stopped the SNP getting 56 out of 59, and even 35 out of 59 MPs, made sure the SNP and the Greens were in the minority so there could be no Indy Ref 2, AND made sure May got in with an increased majority last year. And fiddle the EU Referendum while they were at it.
Thepnr says:
20 February, 2018 at 9:06 pm
That link I posted a short time ago from the Electoral commission faq, seems now that I think about it that it’s OK for people who don’t reside here but have holiday home for example are entitled to a vote in a Scottish Independence referendum. It wouldn’t break the rules of voting in two different places in the same ballot.”
Is that accurate though PNR?
Its up to the local register people if you can vote, in Scotland. We know this because it happened to us very quickly, moving from Aberdeen last year, or at least quite quickly.
So in that link to the EC rules,
link to electoralcommission.org.uk
“I have two homes. Can I register to vote at both addresses?
You can only register to vote in your local area if you reside at an address in that area.
How I do know if I reside at an address?
Whether or not you reside at an address is not defined in law. Residence is understood to mean a “considerable degree of permanence”.
This means a person with two homes who spends the same amount of time in each can legally register at both addresses.
It is unlikely that merely owning a second home that is used for recreation would be enough to qualify you to register to vote in that area. Simply paying council tax on a second home would also not be enough.
Who makes the decision?
It is for the local Electoral Registration Officer to decide whether you can be said to be resident at an address, and are therefore eligible to register. Each case should be considered on its own merits.”
So there we have it, it is not defined in law, it is all down to local ER people and what they consider, “considerable degree of permanence.” Which is probably why you can appeal their decision if you are removed from the register.
yesindyref2
“Ask yourself this question: Do you think the SNP are stupid?”
Yes sometimes. Maybe too trusting too. Look at some of MSP/MP selections.
As the song goes
I’m only human after all, .. don’t put the blame on me!
No Lab/Tory/LibDem bothers to turn up at Scottish Affairs Committee held in Scotland. You would have thought this merited a mention on the Scottish news as the event was being held in Scotland. I suspect if this had been reversed and only the SNP didn’t turn up it would have been on the headlines, I can probably even write what they would be.
Three Scots Tory sign letter on 16th Feb demanding hard Brexit, by the 20th no Scottish broadcaster has reported this to my knowledge.
Hey Sutherland
My reply to your previous remarks.
UP YOURS. ! .
OMG he is at it again, tell you what instead of Keir Hardie lets put Jimmy reid’s name in my post, now Jimmy at one time was a member of the communist party, see if he has something bad to say about Jimmy being a communist.
We all have to start somewhere in our political life, some people will find fault with the likes of Tony Benn and Dennis skinner for just being themselves, and lets not forget Tony was not far away from leading the labour party at one time, because the man might not agree with everything about the labour party, but he was quite prepared to try and change it for the better if he had been given the chance, circumstances dictate how we proceed, but they don’t dictate what we do if we get there where the real power is, Mr Putin is an example of that, Yeltsin trusted him, and Putin went along with the old guy, then he got into power and did things his way, ex KGB man, i will not give a lesson on russian history as that kind of thing gets boring, and if i wanted to write a book about it i would not spend my time doing it here, life is to short for history lessons here, all we need to know is all over the internet anyway
Alba Gu snooker loopy!
@yesindyref2
How come McTernan told Andrew Neil on the Sunday 4 days before the Referendum,
“those Postal votes are running very strongly for No”
how could he know this unless he had been told by someone who had illegal access to the postal votes.
A few random thoughts.
I’ve been here every day, Don’t think for one second I ever left, and I’m sure it will be the same for others. It’s just … I only post when I’ve something to say (in as few words and as few posts as possible – I’m trying to be a good influence;) – ‘no you Rab, you’re the bees knees’ ), and there has been a drought of news and a changing cliff face of Brexit every day to (try) to get to grips with and understand on a basic level and a tactical one.
I doubt the ‘drought’ is an accident – no more Murphys and eggs, handing us juicy meme’s on a plate. They’ve been pulled in by the powers that be, least wise that’s my best guess, and one I predicted.
So, if there is less activity here, it provides more time for ‘doing’ stuff.
With regards postal voting. It’s a fact, various official bodies have gathered the evidence, and found significant security issues with postal voting.
There is no more to discuss. Any new indy ref MUST have independent adjudicators as Craig Murray has advocated. Given how many electoral commission investigations into Tory and Lib Dem election issues there have been in recent elections… I’m quite sure Westminster will WHOLEHEARTEDLY wish to put the voters minds at ease and agree to such a scheme. Aye right, but their bums are oot the windae.
And please, please remember, some folk (and it may not be obvious from the outside looking in), genuinely need to use the postal vote system.
Now plan ahead… they will say the cost of adjudicators is prohibitive. Lets get our SNP members to Cost it out now. And Crowd fund them as much as we can. And lets make sure our SNP reps understand this must be.
Oh, and if they say that in the run up, it cannot be done officially, then lets get it done unofficially, lets sponsor some UN post grad from central EU and get it done.
And the issue of holiday home votes, must be bottomed out, not endlessly speculated on here. Again, anyone in the SNP Gov with the facts? step on up please, and re-assure us it didn’t happen or won’t happen again. Endless speculation on this is such a waste of energy. And if any of the posters here still want to speculate, gonnae no. give it a break, at least wise until you’ve submitted the FOI request and got the reply, so you can win or lose that argument for final.
Likewise, did the postal votes go to Englandshire at any time in the proceedings. If it did, well guess what – they got away with it. Lets find out if it happened, with the only purpose being, making sure it doesn’t happen again! Anything else is wasted energy.
With regards 2 witnesses in Scottish Courts of law. This is not correct. The statement of one person Corroborated by some other fact or circumstance, e.g., fingerprints, dna, overwhelming circumstantial evidence, will be enough for conviction.
This includes a confession, but only if the Judge believes it!
And with regards a single victim in a sex crime (i.e. one persons word against another). The Morov Principle does apply and has been used in Scottish Courts for donkeys. Quite often the PF will hold off on a single sex attack case, hoping against hope that if another case comes to light, with the same MO, unconnected victims, and the same perpetrator, both cases provide mutual corroboration and there is a better chance of nailing the bastard. For cases such as these I am in no doubt the PF is extremely mindful, of how traumatic the experience can be for the victim, and a not proven, not guilty verdict can add to that.
Back in the early 70’s, believe it or not, England looked to Scotland with regards its prosecution service. At that time, it was the ‘bobby on the beat’ in England who presented the prosecution case at court, often with nothing but a beaten out ‘confession’ and nothing else. A system that if nothing else engendered very lazy, sloppy policing, and at worst, rewarded institutional corruption and violence.
Scotland’s Police and its Judicial System are not perfect, but some of the criticism levelled at them is not fair either. Can we please not throw the baby out with the bathwater, and is it possible this is not the best platform to try and reform it.
Kindest regards and best wishes to all.
YES NOW
Jimmy Reid at one time was a communist, does anyone want to nitpick that fact about the Great Jimmy Reid. mmmm
It is ludicrous to think that the Director General of the BBC openly admitted he was trying to save the UK, whilst the Bank of England and every other system in the Establishment acknowledged that they were fighting to keep the UK together, and suddenly the State Security services headed by MI5, would just sit back and do nothing to ensure that the UK remained intact, when that is exactly their mission statement
“To ensure the integrity of the UK”.
Not Scotland. The UK.
@ Scot Finlayson at 10.38
This has been explained a number of times before, but you may have missed it:
The postal votes are “verified” to make sure the details used to register for a vote (signature, date of birth, presence or absence of a middle name/initial, etc) tally with those on the declaration accompanying the ballot.
The ballots that pass verification are counted into bundles – at this stage they are not sorted into Yes and No. The council staff performing this operation are instructed to hide the side of the paper that has been marked by the voter, but they are being observed by experienced scrutineers from all the registered participants, who do their best to see the votes anyway.
They won’t see them all, they won’t know if the ones they do see are representative, and it is illegal for them to pass on any information gleaned this way. Nevertheless, an impression can be gained, especially if one outcome is dominant, and the scrutineers do tell people like Ruth and McTernan.
It was mentioning what she had been illegally told that got Ruth into trouble, not genuine knowledge of the actual votes. The same is true of McTernan, but he didn’t get rebuked as far as I can remember.
Now plan ahead,
Just read a few of the posts, about about voting rules and regs, done while I was drafting the above.
With regards ‘holiday home’ voting –
‘Whether or not you reside at an address is not defined in law. Residence is understood to mean a “considerable degree of permanence’
What does this mean. It is totally open to interpretation e.g. Swindon boy Luke Graham MP ‘now’ has permanent address in his constituency.
The SNP need to be all over this like a rash. And, I rather think we need to be identifying/evidencing ‘holiday homes’ Not occupied a considerable degree of the the time permanently.
We have to disallow these votes before the ‘postal’ vote. Not after the count.
Please write to your SNP reps and get them all over this.
And we need to be cleverer than that. Our Scotia Nostra, who were thinking of buying a holiday home here to vote Yes in the last round, need to be encouraged back, in view of the above poorly constructed ‘legislation’. I don’t doubt for a second the buggers on the other side are going to do the same.
YES WE WILL
@heedtracker
Confusing isn’t it that the Electoral Commission can give two different answers to the same question on their website.
FWIW I believe your link to be the most accurate of the two, and that unless you can prove that you spend equal time in each home then you will only have one vote. Doubt if any checking is done though.
So it doesn’t stop people abusing the system though it would seem.
Dr. Jim @ 8.21pm
No. Florrie Lindsey has departing the Street, as has Harry Hewitt, allegedly crushed under a bus although I know for a fact he’s sniffing around an American starlet called Mandy Sparkle and touting himself around for a part in the Title Family where
IT IS AN AFFRONT TO DEMOCRACY –
That paid activists and representatives
can be bussed in from our partner nation –
and relatives who visit can vote
whenever and in whichever
‘devolved nation ‘ England’s middle-class
feels it needs to protect IT’S INTERESTS.
It’s a 300 year old trap.
Just throwing out some ideas about tightening up voting procedures. many have already been explored above. this is just a sorta check-list summary.
– 1)independent international observers at each and every polling station are a must. Whatever the expense we need to find a way to ensure they are present.
2) votes should be counted at the polling station, tallied up and then checked at the counting station. We can then eliminate transport problems etc because we will already have the tally for each polling station.
3) postal votes are a nightmare system and their use should be reduced to a minimum but some categories of voters obviously need them. I suggest they are sent to 1 place (Edinburgh or Glasgow for example) and sealed and held under police/legal authorities. Then counted in public with independent observers immediately after or before the other tallies come in.
4) rest homes/hospitals etc – polling stations set up on the day in the hall, dining room or wherever, like all other polling stations, under same regulations, votes counted, tallied etc before being sent to counting station.
5) residency/2nd home qualifications – Scottish government and its legal advisors need to specify clearly who qualifies for a vote and who doesn’t. End of story, perplexities, and gaming the system.
Its no conspiracy theory that Postal voting is wide open to fraud and is banned in several European countries.
If large scale fraud took place it wasn’t by altering votes or with a complicit postal service it was by injecting votes from households on the register that wouldn’t actually be voting.
In Argyll the high turnout was analysed to be statistically unlikely. After the a portal vote sampling was allowed and the ratio of No:Yes in the postal votes was much higher than the overall vote tally.
Ragardless of what happened, Postal votes should be banned – end of story.
Failing this they should be counted apart and the total of each should be checked for a similar ratio. Any major divergence would be suspect and should trigger a close inspection. However thats a lot of effort and uncertainty.
Best just ban postal votes.
In addition, there is plenty of evidence of organized, large scale postal vote fraud in many UK/local elections. Why would a Scottish referendum be immune? Its just begging to be exploited.
..Royle Family where he will meet his old Street wife Concepta played by actress Doreen Keogh who recently died.
I know things.
@ben madigan
“2) votes should be counted at the polling station, tallied up and then checked at the counting station”
Totally agree with this and they should be counted under the watchful eyes of the official representatives who have registered themselves with the Electoral Commission.
That would include the likes of us manky unwashed if we volunteered to represent Wings at your local polling station.
Crazycat @ 10.28
To the best of my knowledge ….what you described is what does indeed happen.
As I have said before, one of my lot was asked as a council employee to decant the postal vote’s from the envelop to a ballot box.
There were three different occasions for this to be done!
She..like everyone else was asked only to attend ONE of the three…
It turned out to be the one Winger Gerry Parker witnessed…
Anyhoo despite dire warnings,,, fit for TV licensing…
And the required protocols being mostly adhered to…
As I am sure Gerry Parker would agree..
She was able to tell that No was ahead.
Now this was in yes voting N.Lanarkshire.
What that tells us…..I can’t be sure.
Except that if there was any “jiggery Pokery” going on it couldn’t have been at that point.
Ergo..sadly Ruthie is off the hook!!! Well at least for knowledge of how the postal vote was going!!
ephemeraldeception at 11.13
Exactly. The postal vote take-up in Argyll and Bute (and four other constituencies) was over 95%. “Statistically unlikely” is hardly the way to describe this. “In reality impossible” is a better description. That figure is not in any doubt BTW.
We had a large team at the count. They were surprised to see the postal ballots come in and then be immediately mixed with the polling station returns as they were counted. They found it very difficult to effectively scrutinise the postal ballot count and actually complained to the returning officer as they felt they were being deliberately blocked from effective viewing
When two representatives went to see the returns as is our right they were initially allowed the polling station returns but refused access to the postal ballot marked up register.
They only got to see this after copying the Scottish Government into the demand but they were not allowed to copy any information about who had voted.
@ Liz g
I was a scrutineer, so I’m sure that is what happened in my council, and I have no reason to believe that the rules vary elsewhere.
I concentrated on the signature-checking (there were plenty of people getting in each other’s way trying to look at the ballots), which was interesting. Most of it was done electronically; what I watched was the manual assessment of ones the machine rejected.
Everything was done to maximize the number of acceptances, but in some cases the signature was clearly forged, and in other rather sad instances, relatives with the same names had used each other’s ballot papers. If they’d used the right papers but swapped envelopes, and both could be found to compare, that was ok, but the wrong ballot papers caused both to be disallowed. (Serves people right for naming their children after themselves 😉 .)
Thepnr haw u ah wiz oot aw day at several polling stations an then the count in Motherwell ah wiz washed well showered an sprayed wie Aldi’s finest Lacura body spray lol.
(That would include the likes of us manky unwashed if we volunteered to represent Wings at your local polling station.)
Crazycat @ 11.44
Yes….While, I have no doubt that the postal vote needs to be tightened up.
If for no other reason than to restore public confidence.
In that particular instance (one of my lot being co-opted )
Had there been ANY dubious shit going on…..she would have shouted it from the roof top’s ..
While you/any one else needn’t believe me..(of course you needn’t)…I can only speak to my own example!
But there it is…..
@crazycat
Exactly the same experience that I had, trying to sneak a look at the ballots seemed pointless to me but not for others including an SNP rep.
He knew we were from Wings and actually mentioned that “it wasn’t looking good”. We thought about shopping him but decided not to bother, the Tories were at it as well.
It’s no surprise to me at least that the postal votes were mainly No’s as with the overall result they were mainly elderly judging by the papers that scrutinised the signatures spat out.
I remember one in particular, she must have been the oldest woman in Scotland to my knowledge she was over 100 years old and I can’t remember exactly but think she was 103.
One last thing according to another poll conducted by ICM on behalf of the Electoral Commission the postal votes across Scotland made up 19% of all votes which was in line with previous years.
@Greanach
So no Martha Longhurst or Minnie Caldwell then
What can you do, all these new people eh, how time flies by
Yesindyref2, if you believe it is impossible that the postal votes were interfered with, say that. Making an irrelevant list, laughing about aliens with Robert Sutherland and making up far fetched scenarios of how postal votes could go missing makes you sound childish.
This is a serious matter to most of us, Explain to us why you believe it impossible for anyone to interfere with the postal votes and not how silly people are for believing the British State would do such a thing.
Here are a few interesting observations from that ICM poll:
The public are less confident in the safety of postal
voting from fraud and abuse, which is consistent with
previous election studies. Around three in five (59%)
are confident that postal voting is safe from fraud
and abuse (2011: 61%).
3.11 A large majority (80%) of votes were cast in
person at a polling place on 18th September, while one
in five (19%) opted for a postal vote. This is in line
with the figures from May 2014 and May 2011.
8.10 Those who believe that electoral fraud or abuse
took place at the referendum tend to cite general
concerns relating to electoral fraud. Around a third of
this group (36%) report that they saw stories in the
media about electoral fraud, while 8% refer to a
general impression that fraud is a problem. Some are
more specifically concerned about the voting process:
14% say they are concerned because you don’t have to
provide identification to vote, and 9% claim that
postal voting is not secure.
8.17 The public are less confident in the safety of
postal voting from fraud and abuse, which is consistent
with previous election studies. Around three in five
(59%) are confident that postal voting is safe from
fraud and abuse (2011: 61%). A quarter (26%) describe
it as ‘very safe’. However, a sizeable minority (20%)
believe that postal voting is not safe from fraud and
abuse.
8.19 Concern over electoral fraud appears to be a key
factor in confidence in the safety of voting methods.
Those who believe electoral fraud to be a problem in
Scotland are more than three times as likely as those
who believe it is not a problem to describe postal
voting as unsafe (43% compared to 13%).
link to tinyurl.com
Ronnie Anderson @ 12.00
Ye dae know that there’s a theory going round that “Aldi’s Lacura”
Put’s people into a trance.
Everybody who is exposed to it transfers seeing the word yes tae no!
Oh Ronnie…. Whit have ye done?
@ Yesindyref2 at 9:40pm …”Posties collecting mail don’t sort mail.”
Well most of us know that. Not exactly enlightening. It’s right enough, however they have mates that do. People in the same line of business knowing each other, discussing what’s going on etc over a pint or whatever.
“Someone is pulling your leg”.
Really? Maybe you’re trying to pull ours?
@ yesindyref2 at 10:12pm …. “Petra: All postal votes were opened from the 8th September.”
Yesindyref2: “Well I guess that’s procedure. The votes aren’t looked at themselves.”
Is that right enough? I thought you said earlier that they were held in a ‘safe’ until the 18th September? Some safe! All totally intact? Looks as though your latter statement is incorrect and how do you know if the votes were looked at or not? Did you have multiple clones of yourself monitoring what was going on all over the country?
I was told by officials at Renfrewshire Council, just days after the result, that they had been ready to go meaning that the postal votes were at the stage of being added to the count or more so had been counted already. No doubt how Davidson and a number of others like McTernan, days before the count, could pronounce that No would win. It would also be interesting to know what Wings agents made of it all. Did they reckon that No was winning as they counted? Could they differentiate between the postal votes that they were counting (if that was the case – were they in fact included at all at that point in time) and regular ballot papers?
I’m not on here for an argument. MANY experts worldwide, backed up with research findings, state that postal votes ARE rigged. That’s the experts opinions, not mine. Are we to believe that Westminster decided not to use their ‘manifold resources’ to do likewise? Decided to play the ‘white man’ with a referendum that could have resulted in Trident get booted out of Scotland, with all that entailed, and lose their cash cow? Anyone who thinks that they didn’t do their utmost to rig the vote needs their head examined, imo.
As I’ve said already I’m not on here to get into an argument. My main objective in life right now is in doing my utmost to ensure that Scotland becomes independent, ASAP. To do so we have to analyse ALL that went on beforehand, that is when we LOST.
Let’s sort it all out, analyse as far as we are capable of doing so, and WIN next time round.
Re postal votes.
When my mother was in a care home suffering from dementia in 2011 her postal vote for the Scottish Parliament elections went to my sister’s home address as that was the last place she lived – we had joint Power of Attorney. We were in the Care Home one Saturday afternoon when my sister wanted to fill in the PV form. We never knew how our Mum voted previously.
My sister tried very hard to get our mum to vote SNP, as both of us were doing the same. My sister put mum’s vote as SNP x 2, but I felt she should not have a vote as she didn’t know if it was “New Year or New York.”
So, if it turns out there a ‘socialist’ sinecure in the offing, would that be a case of ‘Foote loose and fancy fee’?
Boom, boom.
Hat, coat’n that.
Agreed Petra,
There’s no going back and what’s done is done.
There are many here who believe that postal voting is unsafe and needs to be changed. It is unhelpful to Scottish independence that others are arguing that the postal voting system is impenetrable and no changes are needed.
Problem with polling fraud theories, plausible as they may very well be, is that in subsequent polling exercises, many of which include a question on how people voted in indyref1, for weighting reasons or for attitude analysis, have shown broad agreement with the 45:55 result.
Including the Rev’s BTW.
But we will still win indyref2.
Should have added to my last post @ 12.44
Relatives filling in PV ballots can work both ways.
@heWasp says: 20 February, 2018 at 6:59 pm:
“They might have fiddled the postal vote, and tampered with ballot boxes while transporting them to various counts”
Why would they bother tampering with ballot boxes or deliberately putting papers in the wrong piles? It is far simpler to fiddle the vote by registering people to have a vote that shouldn’t have one legally. Even registering people who no longer exist or who have gone out of the country.
I’ve done volunteer work in all sorts of homes,(institutions), hospitals and hospices going on 70 years now and have witnessed political activists including MPs, MSPs and councillors in such institutions handing out postal ballot application forms for inmates to fill in, or even filling them in for the inmates, and later, “assisting”, inmates to put their crosses in the right boxes and then being kind enough to see the papers get to the post or even gathering proxy votes.
Factually some constituencies had a really unbelievable high level of postal votes. Strange that such a high level was not the norm across the whole of Scotland but only in certain marginal.
And that’s not conspiracy theory that’s the evidence of my own eyes and the official figures for postal ballot applications.
@ Daisy Walker at 10:40 pm .. “Corroboration Law / Morov.”
Please do your homework on this Daisy. You’re not doing sexually abused children in Scotland any favours and why would this not be the platform to reform it? In other words just shut up? Well I don’t think so. We are all on here trying to reform, or more so OUT, tthe stinking, perverted English Establishment. If Scotland is falling short this has to be looked at too and discussed on here, like it or not. Our children clearly need our help, protection and support, as per research findings. Our children being subjected to the most vile aspects of sexual abuse. Many on a regular basis. Types of abuse unimaginable for most of us on here.
I outlined a personal issue earlier, however my professional background has MORE than touched on the paedophile question too. When you read, as I did a number of years ago, that as Police in Scotland searched for a singular paedophile on a beach close to Edinburgh they identified 130 plus known paedophiles that afternoon, that data should make your hair stand on end. If not it made my hair stand on end because it didn’t even include ‘unknown’ paedophiles. More than anything the data didn’t include how many parents were aware that they were there. All eyeing up their kids.
Let’s all get real and put an end to this. ”This” being that Scotland is an absolute haven not just for paedophiles in the UK or Europe overall, but from much further afield. Now why would that be! Our Corroboration Law?
@Dr Jim says: 20 February, 2018 at 8:21 pm:
Is Florrie Lindley still in Coronation street?
I wouldn’t know, Dr Jim, I never watched it but did know about some of the earlier cast who came to the TV from the Theatre circuit.
There’s some interesting stats on empty houses and second homes in Scotland in the excel tables here
link to gov.scot
Really interezzzzzzzzzz
Jeremy Corbyn was a spy back when Ena Sharples Florrie Lindley and Martha Longhurst were drinking milk stouts in the snug of the Rovers Return
I mention all that to put a time period and context on when Jeremy Corbyn and his handler the Russian agent were splitting the cash that the kremlin at that time was prepared to splash out on useless information they could claim came from a verified British source
Lots of that stuff went on then and it was totally meaningless in actual spying terms but a nice wee earner for the Russian agent enjoying his easy life in jolly old England and the so called source of the drivel that was sent back to the motherland
It’s just like the Union reps of today making lots of cash out of their members and living a nice life off the proceeds, quite often in other countries
Lovely lolly
Next week some Tory spies or gay ones or fornicators or friends of gangsters
Newspapers never change do they, and they wonder why their sales are in the toilet, deary deary me
The breaking of purdah allowed the Better together campaign to steal the referendum. Fines had they been imposed would not have righted the wrong.
Breaking the rules has no down side if you win
crazycat @ 22:57,
Thanks for some sanity here. I did note that there seems to have been a change in procedure since IR1, in that immediately after validation of the signatures on the accompanying documents, the postal ballot papers themselves are now placed directly into sealed ballot boxes without any inspection or stacking. These boxes are opened and counted along with all the rest. It seems that a lesson has been learned from the Ruth Davidson episode.
It doesn’t help our case at all when people retail all sorts of wild theories but somehow can never come up with any solid facts to back them up. That’s the real joke. (And to foulmouth people when you are checked on such unfounded allegations doesn’t win any arguments either.)
I find it odd that those who generally admire and support our public workers in the more obvious sectors like the health service seem conversely so ready to decry those who serve us by doing their level best to record our democratic decisions. In my experience all the people involved with elections are every bit as dedicated and determined to do their job properly as eg. any hospital nurse, and don’t deserve to be vilified by people who obviously haven’t a clue about what they actually do. Just because some vote didn’t go the way that someone wanted.
Which is not to say there aren’t recognised weaknesses. There clearly are, and they have to be understood and dealt with. But they aren’t in ever more unlikely dastardly deeds with the postal votes or ballot boxes, as some still persist in thinking despite all lack of evidence. So there’s no need for counting at polling stations. Counting in multiple locations would actually be harder to monitor and verify.
The real and evident weaknesses, as some thankfully do recognise, are with voter registration in general (especially when the stakes are so high as IR1) and with postal voting “helpers” for the elderly, and indeed also with people living in houses of multiple occupation whose votes cannot be guaranteed as secret and truly their own, as all votes should be. Signature fraud can be and (sadly) is detected in practice, but “vote lending” with the willing or unwilling participation of the voter cannot be, as things stand. (Even in perfectly benign cases, as mentioned upthread, when people are doing their honest best to assist family members properly.)
The point about international observers I think is not especially to observe the count process as such, but rather to observe the conditions pertaining to the conduct of the election in general, eg. fairness of treatment of the opposing campaigns, non-intimidation of voters, etc.
A repeat of the Vow, for example, should immediately invoke a public cry of “foul” from neutrals, and not merely be some bullet point in some obscure report published after everything is over and done with.
Take a look a this Wikipedia article on the Royal Commission on the Constitution of the United Kingdom
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
“Various models of devolution, federalism and confederalism were considered, as well as the prospect of the division of the UK into separate sovereign states.”
What if a decision was taken in secret to opt for the latter, and promote the former?
50 years later, and independence is more of a certainty than a prospect.
If the UK is being divided into sovereign states, it would make sense for the UK to leave the EU first instance.
Robert Peffers @ 3:59
Watched that video and was concerned that the NE seem to think that leaving the EU will boost their income levels. Well it might allow more UK boats to catch more fish, but you can bet the processing will be do e in Grimsby rather than Peterhead. Turkeys voting for Xmas comes to mind.
Other videos appear to be a thinky veiled attempt to denigrate the SNP and indy using a paid for shill who states openly at the beginning that he used violence against a Union Jack waving person. Talk about smear campaign! But some of that may stick. Needs a counter offensive I think.
Robert Peffers
Forgot this link
link to theneweuropean.co.uk
If Scotland is not in the EU and local wages are hit hard with massive job losses too then nobody will be able to buy the fish anyway, so what use higher catches?
Answer: Wasteminster will sell out the fishermen again.
Postal votes are a scam. It has been proven. End of.
I’ll come back later. (maybe a lot later)
It shouldn’t surprise us to know that the North British Tory branch is just like any other part of that sanctuary for right wing hooligans. It is split down the middle over just how destructive they want Brexit to be.
link to thenational.scot
Remember the three MP’s from Scotland that voted for a hard Brexit are not Tories, they were Ruth Davidson candidates as far as I can remember from the election claims.
Robert J Sutherland,
“It doesn’t help our case at all when people retail all sorts of wild theories but somehow can never come up with any solid facts to back them up. That’s the real joke. (And to foulmouth people when you are checked on such unfounded allegations doesn’t win any arguments either.)
I find it odd that those who generally admire and support our public workers in the more obvious sectors like the health service seem conversely so ready to decry those who serve us by doing their level best to record our democratic decisions. In my experience all the people involved with elections are every bit as dedicated and determined to do their job properly as eg. any hospital nurse, and don’t deserve to be vilified by people who obviously haven’t a clue about what they actually do. Just because some vote didn’t go the way that someone wanted.”
You’re the one throwing mud here, at no time have I suggested or even hinted at pointing the finger at anybody at the count. You just set up a straw man that you could then defend.
I’ve been talking about the possible interference with the postal votes but you know that fine well as you mention weaknesses yourself.
Now pay attention Robert, I’m not the one stating categorically that there has been interference in the postal votes but that’s what I believe to be the case, I have no proof.
You on the other hand are stating categorically that there has been no interference in the postal votes (except by possible alien intervention in the Royal Mail), yet you have no proof that there wasn’t.
You suggest people who believe that interference took place are touched by insanity.
Your lack of knowledge of events happening do not negate those events happening. It is illogical to think this and would ask you to reevaluate your own beliefs.
Robert, my particular concern is the postal votes.
If I were to be tasked with manipulating these, I would prefer to do it before the count.
So here we are again, back to the 2 questions.
1 Was it possible for the British State interfere with the Postal votes?
You still haven’t addressed that Robert. Was it possible or was it not?
2 If it was possible, would the British State interfere with postal votes?
As I have said before, I have no proof of interference and freely admit that I could be wrong….but what if I’m not?
jfngw says:
… or put another way, they lied about being Ruth Davidson candidates and were actually Tories in not-very-good disguise. 🙂
Chick,
“Problem with polling fraud theories, plausible as they may very well be, is that in subsequent polling exercises, many of which include a question on how people voted in indyref1, for weighting reasons or for attitude analysis, have shown broad agreement with the 45:55 result.”
I understand this, I’m not suggesting that vast amounts of postal votes were interfered with but just within the 3% margin of error.
Remember that they also had The Vow, Gordon Brown and the media as part of the formula for making sure they won the referendum.
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. What a monstrosity of a name for a country.
What other country calls itself GREAT.
Fabulous France? Incredible Italy? Super Spain? Gigantic Germany? Perfect Portugal? Beautiful Bulgaria? Astonishing Australia? Delightful Denmark?
Look forward to the day my passport simply says SCOTLAND.
@galamcennalath
Of course, but I prefer to think of them as Ruth Davidson’s hard Brexit MP’s. After all that’s how she sold them and she needs to be held to account for this sales pitch.
BREAKING from Pravda Quay
with Union Jackie Kim Ono:
link to imgur.com
Interesting article which just shows the contempt WM unionists show for Scotland.
link to itisintruthnotforglory.wordpress.com
@Kangaroo says: 21 February, 2018 at 6:35 am:
replying to Robert Peffers @ 3:59
“Watched that video and was concerned that the NE seem to think that leaving the EU will boost their income levels. Well it might allow more UK boats to catch more fish, but you can bet the processing will be do e in Grimsby rather than Peterhead. Turkeys voting for Xmas comes to mind.
As a boy my family moved from a farm to Edinburgh north because of my father’s work when he was demobbed post WWII. We were actually still really out in the country in a pre-fab estate down near Granton and thus near Granton Harbour. This at the height of the Herring Fishing industry.
There were steam trawlers operating from Granton Harbour 24/7/365 and they emptied their holds, refuelled and sometimes re-crewed and sailed back for another catch.
These trawlers were rust buckets because they were badly neglected for maintenance in their rush to haul more herring from the seas. Along the waterfront a short distance away lay Newhaven harbour and there the wooden drifters also operated on a 24/7/365 basis as did small ports all round Scotland’s shoreline.
There lies the truth of why the fishing industry of Scotland was destined to decline and soon did so. They were fishing themselves out of existence.
The seas have not as yet recovered fully from their overfishing. There would now be no Scottish Fishing Industry whatsoever but for the efforts of the European Union and the EU regulations and it is those European Union regulations these idiots are voting against.
By the 1950s my father had changed jobs a couple of times and was working on the railways at Edinburgh’s Waverley Station. I was serving a 5 years apprenticeship at Rosyth Dockyard and there were no road bridges across the Forth in those days.
The special Dockyard worker’s train left from what was then the Suburban Rail circuits platform that sat on the through line for goods trains heading down to England. Every morning two very special goods express trains thundered through Waverley heading for respectively London’s Billingsgate Fish Market and Smithfield Meat Market.
These express trains were composed of special very long refrigerated wagons that were around twice as long as the standard freight wagons of the day.
The express for Billingsgate had a minimum of 13 of these giant refrigerated wagons. At Waverley no time was wasted in decoupling just one on those wagons to shunt to the Edinburgh fish Market to supply fish to central Scotland and a minimum of 12 headed on south for London.
The meat express also did the same but its cargo was Aberdeen Angus beef instead of fish and just one wagonload remained in Scotland. Strangely that you had one hell of a job finding a butcher’s shop in Edinburgh that actually sold Aberdeen Angus Beef to the public. Even if you found such a butcher you usually found that they reserved the best beef for those and such as those of Edinburgh’s High Society on a little list.
Draw your own conclusions – I know what conclusions I drew back then and they haven’t changed a bit since then.
Cheating in IndyRef1.
Personally, I think the biggest cheating was the purdah bursting, external interference, more powers intervention near the end of campaigning. Changes policy and offers occurred late in the campaign which should not have been allowed. Statements were made by ‘BritNat friendly’ non Scots about currency, EU, trade, etc etc. This went against UN standards for conducting independence referendums.
Politicians lie, they spin and twist, so the whole Project Fear propaganda side of their campaign was to be expected.
The private media is at the behest of its owners. The state media is exactly that, an instrument of the UK state. So there really should have been no surprises at the widespread bias.
Despite these latter two, YES moved from 30% to within a ba’hair of winning.
We’ll never know whether YES would have passed 50%. However, ‘illegal’ campaigned at the end made sure it didn’t.
The seas have not as yet recovered fully from their overfishing. There would now be no Scottish Fishing Industry whatsoever but for the efforts of the European Union and the EU regulations and it is those European Union regulations these idiots are voting against.”
This tory nutter was on BBC r4 vote tory Any Questions lately explaining to Nairn that the EU has destroyed the UK’s fishing stocks.
link to europarl.europa.eu
You can probably see why England voted Leave, with barefaced liars like this tory nutter given the great beeb gimp network all to themselves, to spout their endless frauds.
EU has been able to get what’s left of UK fishing stocks to recover a bit because local fishing interests had no power over Brussels.
So what if what’s left of the Scottish fishing fleet kept voting for a toryboy zoomer who promised to let them fish out the UK seas for a fast buck, when he was virtually powerless in Brussels.
Both sides of why the UKOK toryboy creepshow in Scotland despised Brussels really.
@Cubby says:21 February, 2018 at 10:02 am:
“What other country calls itself GREAT.”
You are off on a tangent there, Cubby. The term, “Great”, as used in the title, “Great Britain”, is a very common geographic term used in naming places all over the World and of course its foreign language equivalents too.
There term, “Great”, in this context refers to nothing more than size. “Great Britain”, is not a description of the entire British Isles. It describes only the largest, (greatest), island in the British Archipelago and that island only includes Scotland, Wales and England.
Other such similar geographic terms includes Greater, Lesser, Little and so on. Here are a few well known examples.
The island of Great Cumbrae in the Firth of Clyde describes the bigger, (greatest in size), of the two Cumbrae islands. In England there are, for example, “LittleHampton”:-
link to visitlittlehampton.co.uk
Here’s a thing to try. Go to this website:-
link to streetmap.co.uk
And put the word, “Great”, into the search box and tick the choice button, “Place”, and do a search. There are many hundreds of places beginning with great in their name. You will find similar results for Little, Lesser, Upper, Lower, New, Old and so on. The Great in, “Great Britain”, only means the biggest island in Britain and the term, “Britain”, does not mean the United Kingdom and, “British”, does not mean only the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom does not mean either the kingdom nor the country of England.
The fact that you, and most of the rest of the World, think of what these terms wrongly mean just shows how successfully the Westminster Establishment has been at brainwashing the public.
The same goes for the terms, “US”, and, “USA”. There are lots of united states in the World and even several united states in America. You probably don’t know that the correct full name of, “Mexico”, is, “The United States of Mexico”.
But brainwashing by the USA has conditioned the World, (and the USA’s own population), to accept the term, “American”, to be exclusively the citizens of only the USA.
The truth is that the Americas stretch from close to the North Pole to Tierra Del Fuago near the South Pole
Dear Petra,
I’ve checked over what I posted, at no time, and in no way did I say or imply ‘in other words just shut up’. I’m incredibly sorry if it could be construed that way and that was never my intention.
With regards ‘doing my homework’ you are not the only person with a professional background. With regards losing corroboration in Scots Law, it opens up the doors and makes it incredibly easy for miscarriages of justice.
There is no easy answer.
With regards over 100 identified sex offenders being on the beech – can you tell me, what crimes did they commit on that day and at that time – since the Police were there, there will be good records.
Sex offenders exist. Unless your going to execute them all, at some point they will be released from custody and …live among us.
How you manage that is interesting. Do you whip up an emotional tidal wave of outrage, so that the public can ‘legitimately’ burn them out their homes. Or do you get them to register, so you know where they live, and do regular visits on them (so you know where they work and what cars they have access to, and who they are living with and – if appropriate formally and legally disclose to them their new partners past history, and liaise with mental health teams, and check their computers.
All of this is done in Scotland. In other countries, the convict is driven out of town and becomes an invisible, unaccounted for anonymous person. But just as much if not more of a danger.
Ask yourself – someone who preys on children, someone who commits one on one / my word against your word type crimes, are they going to pick a moment they think they will most likely get away with it to commit crime, or a time when they will be caught within hours.
Anyway, I said before that I don’t think this is the best forum for discussing this, not least because it needs all the professionals, including victims and victims aid workers to be round the table.
But if the above sheds a bit of light on the matter I hope it helps. PS I spelt Morov wrong, It is Moorov. He was the manager of a factory way back early 1900’s and every now and again he would take a single female worker into his office – no witnesses – and abuse her.
Over the years there were lots of victims – all without corroboration, except they all identified the accused, they were all separate witnesses, all identified a similar course of action by the accused. This was the corroboration and the principle stands and is used daily.
In the last 22 years we’ve come a long way. In 1994 it was still legal for a husband to rape his wife. That changed in 1995.
By early 2000 an accused could do his own defence in court – for a sex offence – and seize the moment to ‘rip’ the victim apart in court. Many a case failed because of this. And the law changed.
Peace and love to all.
@Heedtracker
Left to their own devices this is how the British treat their fish stocks.
In 1768, Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster built a quay at Wick in order to promote the town as a herring fishing centre. Progress was made with the intervention of the British Fisheries Society, harbour improvements made by Thomas Telford in 1810 and the building of an additional pier in 1831. The industry reached its peak between 1860 and 1890, when as many as 1000 boats were based at the harbour.
The fishing boats employed around 6000 fishermen and provided work for an additional 6000 workers, including women who gutted, salted and layered the herring.
Failure to attempt to conserve stock contributed to the herring being fished out by the early 1900s. By 1930 there were less than 30 fishing boats working out of the harbour.
link to ambaile.org.uk
I did laugh. The Dail Record has a headline ‘MORALLY BANKRUPT’.
I thought it was a confession, but it’s about RBS.
“….. In my experience all the people involved with elections are every bit as dedicated and determined to do their job properly as eg. any hospital nurse, and don’t deserve to be vilified by people who obviously haven’t a clue about what they actually do. Just because some vote didn’t go the way that someone wanted.”
Lucky you.
In my experience, my Local Authority has done everything possible to deserve vilification; Corruption, nepotism, prejudice, covert defamation, abuse of protocols, distortion and misrepresentation of the truth, shallow and patronising complaints procedure, and thoroughly stunning ambivalence towards honesty and probity, combined with a rampant “us and them” jobsworth mentality.
From reception desk to boardroom committee, I would no more trust these vile people to share a packet of sweets fairly, let alone manage an election, for the simple lack of wider integrity by default and corporate accountability.
This local government system is the toxic cesspool which spawns many of our most reptilian politicians, so it is hardly surprising so few of these pillars of our communities are held in high regard.
We all know the expression of one rotten apple spoils the barrel, yet somehow expect progress when a good and decent apple is dropped into the festering mess.
Furthermore, local government is just one component in a thoroughly rotten “establishment”, and yes, I mean Scottish Establishment, where the Courts would rubber stamp a warrant onto a slice of toast if presented by a local authority or quango. Justice??? You’re having a laugh my dear.
What Scotland needs, and perhaps we might never see diligent informed constitutional debate until we have it, is a root and branch purge of scumbags, parasites and crooks from positions of influence and authority, and a truly terrible anti corruption watchdog established, which is fearless and tireless in its endeavours, but visibly worthy of trust and confidence from the ordinary people. Something perhaps like a legal constitional police force. Hell, imagine we had our own legal system dedicated to protecting the people and our constitutional rights…
That of course is a pipe dream given our endemic dysfunctional, low-integrity society. So here we remain; stubbornly indifferent and inexact towards our own laws and sovereign constitution, but playing the percentage game to cleverly outfox our enemies by our cunning guile in a rigged game where we respect their rules, their right to change the rules, digest their ubiquitous propaganda, and respect their faulty sovereignty and faux constitution above the legitimacy of our own.
We value a democratic victory “somehow” won against all the corruptions of the UK’S Establishment over and above the ancient and unchallenged sovereign constitution of our Nation. Well heads up people, we’ve already had that victory, then bottled out of bringing down the House.
Scotland’s people have already done their part. They returned blistering SNP majorities at Holywood and Westminster, and in 2016 delivered the irreconcilable, Union busting constitutional conundrum of the sovereign will of Scotland lying at odds with the will of Westminster, and yet still, the constitional precedents are ignored.
All we have achieved is to prove that Scottish democracy, no matter how absolute it’s mandate or majority, lacks the potency and killer instinct to smash this cursed Union and emancipate Scotland’s ancient and unassailable sovereignty.
We have reduced our sovereign constitution from law into a quirky conversation piece at the dinner table. “They” didn’t do that, we did, by our meek aquiesence to being cheated and defrauded.
Vote SNP next election!!! I will. There is no other choice, and it’s a very creditable provincial government. But in terms of sovereign Independence for my country, I’d be voting SNP to what end? Another impotent majority to sit on its thumbs? Another belittling degradation from Westminster? More representation which doesn’t seem to understand or respect Scotland’s inalienable sovereignty?
Next election, I’m voting for whoever I consider most likely to give the Union a black eye, bloody nose and notice of eviction. Not deliver some meek and rambling inadvertent ratification of the prevalent constitutional absurdity to curse yet another generation from cradle to grave just as my generation was cursed.
All voting is open to abuse, and the sad fact is that, it cannot be stopped, when you can fly all over the world on a false passport rigging a voting system is child’s play
Mossad took the names and addresses of innocent jews that lived in Australia, they then made false passports for their agents to get into a country as australians, then they executed the guy they came for who was a leading member of hamas and a cold blooded killer, but my point is. its all to easy, and it cannot be stopped
Grrrr. That the Daily record at it again. Two whole pages given to John Swinney and Michael Russell and a quote from Chris Law on an other page.
Corrected!!!!!
Grrrr. That’s the Daily Record at it again. Two whole pages given to John Swinney and Michael Russell and a quote from Chris Law on another page.
I was looking at a thing about state killings and such, a former chief of the UK intelligence service said, yes america and the CIA murders other countries nationals but we have never done that type of thing.
And do you know what, he did not even have the decency to blush.
Dave McEwan Hill says:
21 February, 2018 at 11:43 am
Grrrr. That the Daily record at it again. Two whole pages given to John Swinney and Michael Russell and a quote from Chris Law on an other page.
Just 4 years too late Dave, at least.
If you think dudes like Torcuil Crichton have changed their minds, you’re a very patient YESer.
They’re only seriously worried about going bust Dave, that’s all it is at the greatest liars in Scottish The Vow history, the Daily Record.
Dave Mcewan
Dave i am not having a go my friend just interested, why do you spend 70 pence on the Daily Liehard, i hope you don’t as you can go to your local library and read it there and you are not helping it to keep afloat, i would never even read it in my library, i never read fiction myself lol
@Breastplate says: 21 February, 2018 at 9:59 am:
“Problem with polling fraud theories, plausible as they may very well be, is that in subsequent polling exercises, many of which include a question on how people voted in indyref1, for weighting reasons or for attitude analysis, have shown broad agreement with the 45:55 result.”
Aye! Breastplate, and the problem with your theory is that if the capability to sway elections exists, (and we have nothing less than the current governments of the USA and The United Kingdom of GB & N.I. who claim that this capability exists).
However, both claim that in spite of them claiming Russia has indeed already interfered in both USA & United Kingdom elections they, both the USA and The UK of GB & N.I. governments are far too upstanding and far too honest to even dream of doing such dastardly things.
So either they can and do interfere with elections or they are claimant they wouldn’t do so but could or are admitting they are not so clever as the Russians.
Thing is do you, or do you not, believe that the USA and The United Kingdom governments are as honest and trustworthy as the USA & United Kingdom Governments claim they are?
So there you go – the proof that the capability to interfere in opponents elections as a fact are none other than the USA & United Kingdom Governments who both claim they have not, or cannot, do the same thing to others, (including the Russians and the Scots, Welsh and Irish, (and perhaps even the English).
You trust them if you like but I’ll reserve my judgement for a wee while longer.
@ Cybernat, Guid Yin Kid!
Re Robert Peffers
I hear what you are saying about the term “Great” in the context of Britain and agree with the official use and description that you kindly describe, however the brainwashing goes deep.
So deep in fact, that a great number of people throughout the UK actually believe that the term “Great” refers to “of ability, quality, or eminence considerably above average.”
And that has created an enormous problem with managing the ordinary voter’s expectations within the UK.
You can imagine the thinking going something like this;
“We are Great, right?”
Then they look around them and it suddenly dawns on the person that actually things are not so “Great”.
There is an obvious decline in the UK, which is quite obviously not fitting the billing of “Great”.
There is massive inequality, poverty, sections of the economy are dependent on foreign labour e.g. Health and Agriculture. Housing provision is limited and expensive, roads are crumbling, the armed forces don’t cut the mustard. The NHS is struggling, the trains are crap etc etc.
That then creates a mental confusion and then a lashing out at someone to blame – and that is one of the undercurrents in Brexit.
That term and usage of the word “Great” has a lot to answer for.
@Cubby says: 21 February, 2018 at 10:02 am:
“Look forward to the day my passport simply says SCOTLAND.”
What, though, Cubby, if it says, “Bonny Scotland”, or, “Scotland the Brave”?
Folk buy the Record for the Racing, costs 75p.
Thepnr says:
21 February, 2018 at 11:34 am
@Heedtracker
Left to their own devices this is how the British treat their fish stocks.
It really was a huge but unregulated industry that destroyed itself. If youre old enough from Aberdeen you will remember the sudden crash in the industry, as seine-haul fishing emptied UK seas of all life.
This is what happened to the world’s whaling industry too, the killed everything valuable and went bust. Its a miracle EU controls have worked at all, considering the black fishing crooks in action. Look at how the giant Newfoundland cod stocks were wiped out and have never recovered.
UK purse seine haul fishing emptied the Med of life too. Same industry then headed to Icelandic waters, where they got fcuked right off.
Icelandic fishing produce is sold all over the world today. Icelandic fishing industry now wants even stronger fishing regulations because they work.
But then they’re not run by toryboy roasters like Bertie Armstrong, a very bare faced EU hating tory liar, who also explained to BBC Nairn with toryboy nutter Hanan, that before the hated EU stuck their oar in to the UK fishing industry, hundreds of eastern bloc fishing trawlers used to wait of the Western isles to buy all the fish Scots trawlermen could catch, SO who needs the EU anyway, explained Bertie.
Bertie kept telling Nairn that no one around today remembers these pre EU glory days either but toryboy Brexit is going to be the greatest thing to have ever happened to the Scottish fishing industry. SO vote tory everyone.
Must be true. Toryboy’s like Bertie never lie.
Robert Peffers at 10.29 re Fish Trains.
I don’t remember special double length refrigerated Fish Vans. My recollection is that they looked just like ordinary goods vans but carried the lettering ‘Insul Fish’.
In my boyhood trainspotting days at Portobello Station one of the daily highlights was the passing of the late afternoon fish train which, if my memory is correct was referred to as the 5.19.
It came down the goods line frequently hauled by one of the rebuilt Gresley A2 Pacifics which had originally been 2-8-2s. It then negotiated the curve on to the Lothian Line which ran round the back of Portobello Yard with much screeching from the loco’s wheels.
This took it to Niddrie yard where it either changed locos or the A2 ran round to the other end and proceded south.
Re Bertie Armstrong and this – “hundreds of eastern bloc fishing trawlers used to wait of the Western isles to buy all the fish Scots trawlermen could catch”
Is he referring to the Klondykers from the USSR?
If so, will somebody update him that the USSR collapsed and doesn’t exist anymore…nor do the Klondykers.
Robert Peffers,
What you have quoted in your comment is Chick McGregor’s post to me.
I’ve found Chic McGregor over the years to be thoughtful, measured and respectful in his comments on here. I don’t disagree with what he said but I felt a reply was due.
I believe if you read my post again in that light, you will understand my position on the trustworthiness of the UK government.
Went to Portobello beach once, i thought i was in the south pacific, not the musical btw, i can hold a tune but they’ve never been in touch lol
Regarding voting/elections without wanting to bore the pants off you but as a comparison to what other countries do to organise and make life easier for their citizens, maybe this could help.
In Germany when you move to another flat or house you have to register (within usually 2-4 Weeks) your new residence at the local community Citizens Bureau. After that any matters regarding the community can be sent directly to you.
E.g. you are automatically registered as a voter and any election info-material such as voter cards, where to vote, how to vote etc. is sent directly to you. All you have to do is turn up and vote..!
Postal voting is allowed, just ask for the community Citizens Bureau for the documents and also so that they can sign you OFF the list for the election day polling station. The vote will be checked off against the voting list as confirmation but the inside envelope with the actual ballot paper remains sealed and is NOT opened until 18.00 on election day so that no one can see in advance what the vote was.
When you register your new address of residence you have to give them your old address and the local authority then informs the old authority that you,ve moved. They then de-register you so that you have no vote/no voter cards sent to you for that area.
If you need confirmation of residence for various other matters such as insurance, banking, mortgages, car registration etc. etc., the Citizens Bureau is your first port of call. Not sure where to go to when you need help with something just ask you’re Citizens Bureau..!
It has nothing whatsoever to do with “Police State” but a lot to do with the organisation/administration of your local/regional authorities for the benefit of everyone.
It’s also one of the reasons why driving a car without insurance is almost unheard of here.
Btw, in Denmark it was more or less the same when I lived there.
Is he referring to the Klondykers from the USSR?
If so, will somebody update him that the USSR collapsed and doesn’t exist anymore…nor do the Klondykers.
To be fair to Bertie the Scottish fash leader of toryboy greatness, he was trying to make the point that yes, the EU is an incredible market for his Scottish region’s fash, but IF it is all over now, there’s a whole world out there for his Scottish fish produce. Rule Britannia 2.0 look out world, toryboy’s like Bertie have Scottish produce to sell you.
Also Bertie explained to Nairn that just like Iceland, Scottish fish industry will get to keep at least 90% of all UK fish catch, instead of just 40%, thanks to this awful and cruel EU.
You can probably see why toryboy Bertie is such a big hit with what is left of Scottish fishing industry.
Actually here he is Nairn on the great beeb gimp network.
They come to Scotland for their world famous beeb gimp balanced and unbiasedness and they have on three hard core tory yoons, Dimbleby and one SNP. Absolutely no one from Holyrood, that would against everything the beeb gimp network stands for.
link to bbc.co.uk
Bertie really gets going towards the end, like that Hanan fraud too, BetterTogethe wise.
In the matter of Electoral Fraud it is my belief that the most wide open area for possible fraud is the ability to create false Electoral Roll entries and then to subsequently use these to cast false Postal Votes.
Presently I or any other householder can add the names of friends who actually exist but live outwith the home electoral area or just make up names and get pals to fill in the necessary PV applications.
What check, if any, exists to stop false entries being made on The Electoral Roll?
Prior to Indyref1 we were told that they had achieved 97% Voter Registration. Of course, as numbers were concerned how do we know that the 97% represented 97% of those entitled to vote or a figure representing the number of voter registrations received as a % of those reckoned to be entitled to vote – a completely different thing.
Anybody who believed that it was possible to achieve actual 97% Voter Registration is in need of attention . This declared figure, of course opened the door wide for rigging of the Postal Vote.
Apart from sorting out the validity of Electoral Roll Entry Validation to eliminate fraudulent entries, the whole operation of the Postal Voting System must be tightened up.
Furthermore Exit Polls must be conducted and at the count for each electoral area/constituency separate declaration figures for Postal and Ballot Place votes must be made.
Anybody who has any doubts as to whether or not Indyref1 was rigged only has to read the Argyll and Bute Report.
What I would like to see is the conspiracy theorists come out with a detailed plan of how they think the referendum was rigged, and who exactly they are accusing of a crime which carries a prison sentence.
Is it the people of their community who run 4,710 polling stations on the day?
Is it the people of their community who drive the ballot boxes to the central counting stations, or the ferry, or a hub?
Is it the people of their community who work at the 32 councils throughout Scotland?
Is it the people of their community who count the votes at the 32 councils throughout Scotland?
Is it the people of their community who observe the counters at their work?
Is it the people of their community who work in the 4 mailing centres who sort the postal votes using automated postcode recognising machines?
Is it the people of their community who program these machines?
Is it the people of their community who work in the 32 target mail delivery offices for the 32 unitary authorities?
Is it the people of their community who drive the post vans?
Or is it Tom Cruise and his crew of “Mission Impossible: The Rigged Election”, using false eyeball recogntion hacking in 4,710 polling stations simultaneously, or 32 council counting halls all at the same time, or 4 mailing centres or 32 delivery offices all over Scotland, while suspended from a wire making sure their foreheads don’t drip sweat onto pressure pad alarms? Perhaps with the help of the latest James Bond?
Who exactly are you conspiracy theorists acusing of a crime?
Or is it 500,000 people throughout the UK who are the criminals? Who falsely registered to vote and are liable for prison sentences of 6 months to 2 years for committing a criminal offence and depriving YES of a victory by 100,000 votes?
We’re going to need more prisons.
Geoo phone up the SNP offices and ask them to check if what I said is true I use my full name on my posts unlike you so you will be able to put it to the test
Yesindyref2,
I’m sorry if this is difficult for you, I have already admitted the possibility of no interference in the referendum votes because I have no proof otherwise.
You are asking me for proof of interference which I don’t have, so to play your game I’ll ask you to provide proof that it didn’t.
Do you believe it was impossible to interfere with the votes, yes or no?
Entrenched emotional attachment to one’s own beliefs is not conducive to logical thinking.
So because you’ve dodged the question before, I’ll ask again. Do you believe interference with the referendum votes was impossible?
In some parallel universe the politically energized Scottish masses stormed the offices of the servile unionist-colonialist media and announced the immediate establishment of a Scots republic.
The parallel SNP announced it was not at all well pleased.
Yesindyref2,
Belittling other people’s arguments doesn’t make your argument any stronger.
The question I’ve asked you to answer is quite simple to answer, it’s not a trick question.
@gus1940 says: 21 February, 2018 at 12:27 pm:
“I don’t remember special double length refrigerated Fish Vans. My recollection is that they looked just like ordinary goods vans but carried the lettering ‘Insul Fish’.”
No you wouldn’t remember seeing them unless, like me, you were in the Waverley Station at between 05:30 & 06:30am at the side nearest Market Street where the Scotsman/Evening News printed their news papers. These refrigerated vans thundered through only pausing long enough for a shunter to decouple the final cars in the train of vans behind the engine. It only took seconds to do so. Then the Station Pug, (a wee Tan-K engine), pulled the decoupled van,(s), into the Fish or Meat Markets.
Waverley was their only scheduled stop between the Highlands and London and the vans were used nowhere else.
In my boyhood trainspotting days at Portobello Station one of the daily highlights was the passing of the late afternoon fish train which, if my memory is correct was referred to as the 5.19.
It came down the goods line frequently hauled by one of the rebuilt Gresley A2 Pacifics which had originally been 2-8-2s. It then negotiated the curve on to the Lothian Line which ran round the back of Portobello Yard with much screeching from the loco’s wheels.
This took it to Niddrie yard where it either changed locos or the A2 ran round to the other end and proceded south.
I’m no train spotter but I believe the engines drawing the early fish & meat trains were indeed Gresley A2 Pacifics, don’t know if they were or were not re-worked, though.
My old Dad joined the railways as the shunter who uncoupled the two early fish and meat cars from the trains at Waverley. He then became the station tan-K driver before getting better pay and conditions at his own trade, (Engineer), at Granton Gasworks as Maintenance Engineer and part time Engine Driver.
Where he worked until he retired and emigrated to Australia with my mother to join my younger sister who was already established in Australia. There Dad, now don’t laugh, became a cowboy, (he was the supervisor), on an Australian Cattle Station. He ended up running the whole Cattle Station as the owner concentrated on his other business which was Landscape Gardening.
While my mum became the cattle Station cook and drove the chuck-wagon, (A large pantechnicon van with sides that folded down). The Aboriginal cowboys would come to the van and, without dismounting from their horses, would eat their meals sitting on their horses. As you may have gathered Mum & Dad were a right pair of adventurous characters, not afraid to try anything as an employment.
@Breastplate
I repeat what I said earlier in the thread, did you not read it?
“Yes, as the electoral commission said, there was some electoral fraud, registering minors, dead voters, activists getting befuddled people to X the wrong box, around 2,000 votes NOT 800,000.”
I’ll correct that to around, from memory, 4,000. That is NOT a rigged referendum, that’s a normal level of fraud, and efforts are made to reduce it all the time – as they should be.
Now, do you want to answer my question – who is it you’re accusing of electoral crime to the extent of over 400,000 votes? Cat got your tongue?
@yesindyref2 says: 21 February, 2018 at 1:44 pm:
In reply to @Breastplate:
“I repeat what I said earlier in the thread, did you not read it?
“Yes, as the electoral commission said, there was some electoral fraud, registering minors, dead voters, activists getting befuddled people to X the wrong box, around 2,000 votes NOT 800,000.””
You seem inordinately motivated to defend the indefensible, yesindyref2, what exactly is your unmentioned interest and motivation for doing so?
Let’s be quite clear about this – both the United Kingdom government and that of the United States of America have asserted that they have hard evidence that the Russians have interfered in both USA & United Kingdom elections but have failed to stipulate exactly how they did so.
Yet you claim that the United Kingdom claim they do not also have the capability to do so. Either that or the United Kingdom government has such great integrity they would not use such tactics that they obviously know how to use.
How else could they accuse the Russians of doing so unless the United Kingdom government knew how it is/was done.
Let’s hear you wriggle out of that one, yesindyref2
@ gus1940 at 12.59
Registering to vote is now as described here:
link to electoralcommission.org.uk
These new rules were not introduced in Scotland till after the referendum (this is not necessarily sinister; the so-called Gagging Law was also deferred, to avoid complicating the referendum process).
This does reduce the potential for fraud. It may be impossible to eliminate it entirely.
With regard to exit polls, the standard methodology for elections is to sample specific polling places, every time. Then the change from the last election is extrapolated. Clearly, this cannot be done with an unprecedented referendum. If we have another one with the same question, an exit poll becomes possible, but only if some sampling had been done in 2014, which it wasn’t.
Could another methodoogy be used? I suppose so, but it would need to be tested to see if it was accurate.
Robert Peffers at 1.44
Re Gresley A2s- these locos were originally P2 Mikados of 2-8-2 Wheel Arrangement built specially for the Edinburgh to Aberdeen Route.
They were rebuilt as Pacifics (Class A2/2s) by Thompson who along with Peppercorn was responsible for ALL other A2s.
@Robert Peffers
The answer is simple, I don’t want the rational, positive, engaging, YES movement to be tarred as a bunch of conspiracy wackos by a few nutters who think all the members of Scottish communities as in my posting above, people we live in the same street, drink with, socialise, send out kids to school along with them, work with, stand in shop queues with, whose votes we need for a YES vote, all 10,000 of them, secretly conspired with the “British establishment” to take all the votes to Engerlund and have them altered.
YES lost by 400,000 votes. Get over it and concentrate on winning Indy Ref 2.
That’s if you’re at all interested rather than misquoting people and throwing around wild accusations at …
… well, are you?
Yesindyref2,
I’ve been perfectly clear that I believe the British State interfered with the referendum it’s not a secret but you know that already.
The reason for asking me that question was that it was loaded with yet another outlandish scenario that I was somehow suggesting that as much as 400,000 votes had been interfered with which of course is not what I’m saying or suggesting. Another attempt at belittling another’s position to bolster your own.
Let me see if I have your position clear.
You have now conceded that it possible to interfere in the postal votes but you are not sure of who did that and who didn’t.
Is that your position?
The question I posed last night which I’m sure you’re well aware of is Could the
crazycat at 12.59
Thanks for your reply re my earlier post.
Why is the person who was the householder under the old system not required to provide id in the form of NI No, d.o.b etc.
Furthermore there are plenty of people who have become householders or changed address since the new system was implemented.
Re Exit Polls why is it necessary to have a previous election as comparison before Exit Polls can take place.
Why comparisons with previous similar elections is useful in practice the Exit Polls are used by the media primarily to forecast the end result while the count is in progress with the occasional reference being made to previous elections to indicate swing.
The excuse not to have Exit polls because of lack of previous ones is pathetic and raises the question of how the original ones came about in the absence of previous ones for comparison..
Yesindyref2,
You are doing it again. Another scenario where wackos are accusing their neighbours of criminal behaviour.
Get a grip of yourself.
@crazycat
Alex Salmond did say after the Ref he was sorry he didn’t organise an exit poll, but as you say about no previous record, I don’t see how it could have been done short of having a poller at every one of those 4,710 polling stations. Which would have been incredibly expensive.
@crazycat
Just guessing at the costs for a single poller at each station, overnight accomodation probably x 2 for many of the rural and small town places, subsistence, travel, plus even £100 per poller for a total of £200 each as a low estimate of the average, plus overheads of processing and collating the returns, that’s £1 million, and probably twice that.
@Breastplate
Can’t you read? I’m done with this. It’s totally non-productive, 3 and a half years after the first Referendum. Improving the next one is of course good stuff.
Fill in the consultation on electoral reform, it closes 12 Mar 2018:
link to consult.gov.scot
Yesindyref2,
I would like to think that we can address all of the problems of the last referendum to ensure safety of the next referendum.
A bit of respect for others here wouldn’t go amiss either and I include myself in that.
@Breastplate
Seems reasonable 🙂
meh, vote rigging happens but has little impact. the best way to rig a referendum is to buy up all of the newspapers, radio stations and bribe the tv channels…..oh, wait a min……
@schrodingers cat
Manipulation of the media is where the majority of any vote rigging takes place. I prefer to see it as brainwashing of the public.
@Robert Peffers
Thank you for your instructive note on geographical terms and making the point I was alluding too that most people assume that the Great in Great Britain is a boastful viewpoint that underpins British supremacy and British nationalism and the British empire.
I have spent many a nice summer afternoon in Millport looking at Little Cumbrae so was pleased to read your example.
Happy for the passport just to say Scotland. PS not bothered what colour it is.
I would agree with that Thepnr.
@ Robert Peffers
Thanks to Robert Peffers for nicely making the point I was alluding to. Most people see great in Great Britain as a comment on British supremacy British Nationalism and British Empire rather than a geographical term.
Thanks for the Cumbrae example. I have spent many summer afternoons in Millport looking out to Little Cumbrae.
Happy with Scotland for the passport. Not bothered about the colour.
heedtracker at 11.55 and Bill not Ben at 11.59
So you don’t want the previous NO folk to change their mind?
How do you suggest we win the next one then?
What stupid comments.
So you don’t want the previous NO folk to change their mind?
How do you suggest we win the next one then?
What stupid comments.
Its what I do.
DR is clearly losing a lot of money and its a business that can go bust, just like any other.
If it does go under, boohoo Dave, boohoo. If it survives by whatever it is you think its doing to win indyref2, well best of British luck to them.
But never trust a yoon hack Dave, no matter how hard you want to. They’ll try to destroy indyref2 as easy as breathing.
We could go on and on forever debating as to whether Indyref1 was rigged or not. Go on until we’re all blue in the face.
The fact is that Westminster agencies have the capacity to do so, rig elections, to the point of just changing the percentage at the final overall count with a couple of taps on a keyboard. We’re not talking about hundreds or thousands of people being involved. It only takes one person along with a small bunch of cohorts. Experts, backed up by research findings, tell us too that postal vote fraud is rife, not only in the UK but worldwide.
Did we lose the last referendum through rigging …. or not? We’ll probably never know one way or another unless someone decides to leak classified information. Anyway it’s all water under the bridge now, imo. Whatever the case we should learn from what may or may not have happened previously. Exit polls are a must next time round. Discouraging people from using a postal vote, if unnecessary, may help. As an example since I showed my 97 year old neighbour proof of postal vote rigging she’s made up her mind not to use a postal vote in future. Holiday home owners should be banned from voting altogether. A 5 year residency limitation should be put in place to ensure that students, seasonal migrant workers, etc, who leave Scotland to go ‘home’ after voting on OUR future are made exempt. And Craig Murray mentioned a Polish Agency that monitors elections worldwide (forget the name now). They base themselves in the country in question 6 months before polling day and monitor. as an example, MSM bias. Having them here could possibly curb the out and out lying and scaremongering next time round. Seemingly we’d have to get the approval of Mrs “now is not the time” May to do so. Eh?! That alone tells you what this battle is all about. Why we need to get our Independence.
………………………
@ Daisy at 11:17am …….”Peace and love to all.”
Yeah I’ll go along with that Daisy. We’re all on here, most of us anyway, with one objective in mind and that is to work together to help ensure our country becomes Independent in the very near future. That’s the priority.
Peace and love to you too.
……………………….
@ Dave McEwan Hill at 11:45pm ……. “Daily Record.”
Thanks for the info Dave on the Daily Record publishing John Swinney and Mike Russell articles. Someone followed up by saying that ”they are four years too late” and have changed their tune because their ratings have plummeted, or words to that effect.
I doubt that anyone will ever forget what they did 4/5 years ago however all I’m interested in now is getting our Independence and if their “change of tune” helps to convert people to our cause that’s fine by me. Great in fact and If other newspapers were to follow the DR example, and all started “changing their tune”, support for Independence would go right through the roof overnight.
Aarrrgh, OT seems to be bleeding over to this thread with peace and nail-sheathing or something
link to youtube.com
In a biography of King Faisal I of Iraq there is the following line:
……Britain was caught in increasingly contorted twists between its own ambitions and its conflicting commitments….
Sums up the anal retentive Ukanian mindset, duplicitous and perfidious.
I do like to have a read at some different kinds of stuff, as at my age i get bored very easily, cause if you live long enough you have basically read or seen it all before somewhere.
Having said that, here is a little bit of insight from the Russian philosopher Ouspensky, its a very interesting thought, he said that parties are generally a waste of time unless they have real meaning.
Of course he was speaking of gatherings of people to have a bit of a bevvy and a few snashters to eat, but if you used this as some sort of metaphor for the unionist parties in england and scotland, it does make a helluva lot of sense because they don’t appear to have any real meaning these parties, it seems to be all smoke and mirrors Alba Gu snooker loopy!
Voters had already made up their minds before the Vow.
Other forms of cheating/rigging were used.
The rotten to the core Electoral Commission had distributed Better Together propaganda to every household because Better Together didn’t have the resources to do so.
Postal vote rigging on a massive scale.
Votes for English owners of holiday homes.
Poll tax arrears fear to prevent voters from registering to vote.
The more vunerable had already been scared to death by the likes of Asda and Pravda GB.
And of course there was the “silent majority”.
The Vow was only used as a coverup for the cheating/rigging and did not have any effect on the result.
Apart from cheating, the official Yes campaign was more or less a total failure – massive No votes in the then “SNP heartlands”.
The utter stupidity of the Yes campaign distancing itself from WOS.
The likes of Harvey and Sillars were more interested in having a go at the SNP at every opportunity than in campaigning for independence.
45% was only achieved because of the tireless grassroots efforts of the likes of RIC and Tommy Sheridan.
Without that Yes would not have got much more than the core SNP vote of 35%.
Rock @ 18:06:
Oh yes, the fantabulosie tsunami of support that translated into, =errm=, oops, mysteriously evaporated in the following Scottish Election.
Ha, ha, ha. Nice try at the false facts. I’ve got a much better fix on what you’re about now, snark. We’re not as stupid as you think, so don’t bother to try to pull another one like that.
Robert J Sutherland @ 1.42
Not to forget that we always hear of the 45 & 55 %
The actual numbers between Yes and No are not spoken about very much.
These are not…if memory serves big numbers….
But if almost a whole city ( Liverpool ) full of people can take one position based on one front page full of lies,on one day.
And this is not in dispute,and,is infact well documented!
Then surely the same amount of people can be swayed by that Vow….and that amount of people would be enough to make all the difference,especially since the that actual front page was given such legitimacy by the broadcaster’s.
Nobody even had to buy the bloody paper to know in great detail what the vow was all about……
[…] infamous ‘Vow’ on the Daily Record being comprehensively shown to be a lie, has since busted that wide open in Scotland and what has happened since, is remarkable, with three big changes in the Scottish […]
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