Good-news Monday
Posted on
February 15, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The Herald’s lead politics story this morning:
So Scotland currently has no debt? No responsibility for any share of the enormous £1.5 trillion burden run up by the UK? We’ll take that deal. Where do we sign?
Chuck this in on top and the week’s off to a blinding start, frankly:
Who knew?
Of all the daft headlines that’s the daftest possible!
Eben Wilson, the director of TaxpayerScotland, warned the Government against using the new powers.
He said: “Scotland is party to vast UK debts. We are still running a huge deficit and with oil revenues 90 per cent down this year that will be increasing.
“To go and borrow yet more is foolhardy.”
Scotland’s “party” to vast UKOK debt’s now? Classic sneaky/creepy red/blue tory yoonery.
What a lovely country we live in, a happy place where our newspapers connive with another nation to keep us ignorant and poor.
Congratulations to the Herald on out-Scotsmaning the Scotsman. Now why is it I haven’t bought it for years?
Why do people buy this shit? Not just literally! How can people be so naive as to believe this nonsense?
I really do despair at times!
Not to mention Scotland wasn’t in debt in 1707.
There is debt and more debt and debt of different flavors.
Westminster has run up huge debts.
Councils have debt (both Scottish and the rest of the UK).
There are future debt obligations – such as pensions – that the state will be expected to honor.
There are, no doubt, many other government and quasi-government bodies in the UK that have debt of some kind that the Westminster government is expected to underwrite eventually.
And how much of this applies to Scotland and how a reporter cares to frame it depends on the politics/slant/propaganda agenda of the writer…
The Herald poised to go the same way as The Independent?
It’s Monday morning and I’m halfway through a three day hangover….exposure to yoonie trolling could well finish me off!
i’ll take it, where do i sign?
Does it really matter what the mainstream media say anymore? Including the “impartial” BBC? Looking forward to seeing the annual newspaper circulation figures due out in a few weeks. Hopefully we see further significant reductions in the union-loving, SNP-hating Herald, Scotsman, DR etc..
In a sense, the mainstream media has already “lost”. Just look at the SNP polling figures. Indeed there may be a correlation between the media spinning stories and headlines and the support for the SNP remaining resolute. Perhaps support for indy increasing too. Maybe the majority have simply had enough of being insulted for their money.
I look forward to the media publishing more tripe but I stopped buying the Herald in 2014 and long ago abandoned the Scotsman and the hilarious DR. Don’t encourage them by buying their publications. They want YOU to accept THEY know best. Thanks to the likes of Wings for providing an alternative!
Call it what it is; enemy propaganda.
Is there another country on the planet where the media conspire to try to cause quite so much damage?
Its nice to see our unionist media as dum as ever.
OFFS, they simply can’t help themselves! 😀
So we currently carry no debt and now we’re self sufficient for gas? Not quite what they were saying throughout the referendum campaign, but okeedokee I’m game. As others have said, where do we sign? 🙂
You would think that with The Rev overseeing every word the Unionist hacks get printed that the standard of journalism might improve?
Better cancel ma windae cleaner then
Are those the same potential Shetland Gas fields that Cameron flew up to visit before the referendum, on the hush hush?
I will follow the majority, where do we sign.
I seem to remember a similar one liner way back when they started talking about oil discoveries, we were going to have rock bottom petrol prices, we were going to be rich, of course they didn’t specify who “we” were!!
We do know what Indy means, but the Herald does make me wonder what Devo-absolute-maximum-Max might be.
It is often defined as Holyrood controlling everything but defence and diplomacy. But what about the debt repayments?
With Indy any debt inherited would be negotiated. Given Scotland’s historical contributions, rUK continuing state status, and assets left with rUK, I reckon an Indy Scotland should inherit little of the debt.
If Devo to the maximum were sought, since Scotland’s accounts would be separate, why shouldn’t the debt and assets be apportioned?
DevoMax is probably a WM nightmare worse than Indy!
Unbelievable, literally.
Soul destroying.
The Herald have obviously made a mistake and it must be an Honest one since every day under the editorial we’re told the paper is unbiased…… Aye Right……
What does it take to fall for this guff?
Oh Look kids! It’s our Heroes…the Defenders of The Union! Their cunning plan to protect Union ( The Union being a cunning plan of the SNP apparently) is to put themselves in sacks and load it with bricks…daring YES voters and the SNP to save them before they jump in the Clyde.
Do these Staunch Defenders of Imbicility think we’re going to anything else but watch? Is the Herald nothing more than the piss boy for the Scottish labour party?
Stay Tuned True believers for the next episode of Yoons in Space: Defenders of the Union!
Later this year West of Shetland a field larger than Laggan Tormore will come on stream.
“To the north is Clair Ridge, where BP is targeting 640m barrels of recoverable resources. The £4.5bn investment involves two new bridge-linked platforms, installed in the summer of 2013 and designed to continue producing until 2050 at a peak rate of more than 100,000 barrels of oil per day.”
“In 2013, the joint venture partners also commenced a £300m two-year appraisal drilling programme, one of the biggest BP has ever undertaken in the North Sea, to help define a possible third phase of development in the Greater Clair area.”
link to archive.is
The potential West of Shetland is huge and can match some of the largest discoveries made in the N. Sea in the late 70’s such as Forties and Brent.
Scottish oil has a way to go before being worthless, hope we don’t leave it too late before going for Indyref 2.
Add in this: link to news.stv.tv and it seems we’re well minted. ??
I thought recently that they told us Scotland had £50B of debt on top of our share of UK debt?
Have we paid it off already?
[…] Good-news Monday […]
I find both headlines very depressing, for what might have been.
The more people who read Wings, the faster we’ll get Independence…….
I’m surprised so many of you are so surprised at how low the Herald has sunk. I’ve been following it on Facebook (I refuse to enter the Herald website though) and there have been worse, more blatant anti-indy stories than this. The most recent best for me was how they reported on gangland feuds in Dublin – 100 years after independence, gangland fighting is tearing Ireland apart.
The reference to independence was clear to see as was the reason for mentioning it (despite being completely wrong abour when Irish independence occurred). The Herald has long been a joke now with so many SNPbaaad stories, little better than the Daily Record now.
The sooner that has been rag folds the better. Have they no respect for themselves even?
Johnston Press is adding the I (Independent) paper to its stables, or should that be pig sty?
I have news for the seemingly slow-witted writer of the Herald piece, Scotland as part of the ever loving United Kingdom, is saddled with UK debt. In fact this is confirmed further within the Herald article, when the man from the right wing tax payers group says;
““Scotland is party to vast UK debts.”
My bolding.
I assume those vast UK debts are John Swinney’s fault too. FFS Herald, it is articles with utter crud such as that, which mean people no longer read, and most importantly, no longer trust your paper. There really is nothing quite like ‘Scottish’ journalists running down their own country – a lifeskill not to be found anywhere else in the developed world.
Scotland was saddled with ENGLISH debt from day one of the cursed treaty of union with England in 1707. ‘Pooling and sharing’ is what the Labour party likes to call it.
Never mind the facts, though, just blame John Swinney, a man with no control over the United Kingdom economic policy. Borrowing 300 million, is a mere drop in the ocean to the United Kingdom’s 1.6 trillion (and rising) national debt. Doh!
link to nationaldebtclock.co.uk
As regards the new gas fields, all I can say is, poor wee Scotland, rich in oil and gas, yet apparently too poor, too wee and too stupid to survive as an independent nation without being run by an undemocratic, unwanted, unrepresentative, colonial parliament in England. Best keep sending all the oil and gas revenue to England for free then, like good little colonials, just to be safe, eh.
I despair.
If you are a NO voter reading this, please stop to think:
Why does the unionist press only print lies?
Why do they not promote all the genuinely good things about the union? The true good things? Like, um…..
Maybe there are, in fact, NO benefits at all to you and your family from being governed by Eton politicians?
In addition to this I see various media outlets are reporting that the Scottish Government are letting research contracts into fracking as if this was somehow a betrayal. The moratorium when it was announced was on the basis that more research was needed and that the Scottish Government would conduct the research into a range of issues with several separate research projects being undertaken including environmental and climate change strands.
As far as I am aware the overall research will be headed by a Glasgow university professor with a specific interest in Environmental studies. In short the research contracts are a fulfilment of an undertaking not a betrayal.
See people and pens/keyboards!
Is this the Scottish people’s fate?
To be trolled daily by an imposter ‘free’ Yoon press?
Someone pass a spanner, we must uncouple the Yoon gravy train.
You’d think there would be some sort of law to prevent misleading the public and the printing of pish.
Let’s make sure we kick the yoons where it hurts. SNP x 2 come May.
Giesabreak
I found the recent lurch by the Herald to seriously anti-Scottish anything on Facebook more than I could thole. I unfollowed them.
Newspapers are owned by a micro-elite who are both wealthy and powerful.
You can’t take their wealth away but you can reduce their power: don’t buy newspapers!
So what happened to all that debt Scotland would have if it became independent. I take it the banks are back to being British again or is that too soon.
Interesting to note how the Herald’s “objective” mask has slipped in recent weeks. Boy they must be getting really desperate. And I mean really desperate. The jury is still out on the National, but I’ll be keeping a close eye between now and May.
Another day, another closet unionist outed. The phoney’s are running out of places to hide. 🙂
I assume having run the story that John Swinney would put Scotland in debt for the first time since 1707.
That the Herald has had confirmation from Cameron and Osborne that Scotland is no responsibility for the £1.5 trillion UK debt
that
It’s the next stage in Project Fear, media to blatantly lie and smear to raise our blood pressure, ensuring mass casualties in the Yes ranks.
I’am sorry it’s not working, the media are now a laughing stock, I worry about cracking my ribs though.
Vote SNP X 2 in May and we’ll get a laugh at these Westminster toadies as they will be spitting teeth with rage at being kicked up the arse by the real people of Scotland yet again, ha, ha, ha, ……….. sorry I can’t stop laughing at this shower of red,blue,orange,purple tractors, like something out of kids cartoon. Ha, ha, ….
Debt
I remember reading many years ago see that in 1707 England was £80 million pounds in debt, more or less bankrupt.
Scotland did not invest in the Darien scheme, that was the parliamentarian landowning types in southern Scotland who lost all their money.
England saw this as an opportunity to capture Scotland by bribing these people who then sold us down the swanny.
At this time Scotlands Burghs were awash with cash, Scotland was very wealthy and according to customs receipts at the time the Scottish economy was growing at around 5% a year. It was an opportunity the English could not miss. Scotlands burghs were striped of their cash our country was impoverished. England has always been in debt and always will be, if they had all the money in the universe they would still be in debt such is their incompetence.
I seem to remember during the Referendum that the Herald insisted that Scotland was IN debt to the tune of a per-capita share of the UK debt total.
Now that same organ (and you can decide for youself which organ it most resembles)tells us we currently have NO debt.
So, which is it?
Small wonder that no-one with any sense takes the Herald seriously any more
Fcuk ’em.
Post Holyrood and following council elections, am inclined to walk away and leave them with their tick tocking mega-debt still gathering moss like a rolling stone (or should that be stour and sundry shyte?).
In short, abrogate the con-trick of the vested interests Union treaty.
No word from Kevin on Scotland going into debt for the first time?
@Jim Mitchell says: 15 February, 2016 at 11:43 am:
“Of all the daft headlines that’s the daftest possible!”
Wanna bet, Jim?
Now I’m not normally a betting man but I would speculate that some deparate dead tree press or some unionist dead-beat, off-line, broadcast station will come up with an even dafter one in the fairly near future.
Panic and desperation make them clutch at even the smallest straws. My gut-feelings are that many such are now twitching with their final death rattle before they pass away.
The Herald is now going down-hill so fast that there is nothing but a thick stone wall that will even slow their thick headed descent into mediocraty e wee bit.
@theMadMurph says: 15 February, 2016 at 11:46 am
” … I really do despair at times!”
Och! Mad Murph, what is there to despaor about?
The stats are showing the more these rags rail against Scotland the more of their readership melts away. What’s not to like?
When is it the next six-monthly circulation figures can be expected for those papers that don’t seem themselves as nationals?
Wonder if they’ll be up, or perhaps down…
HandandShrimp says:
15 February, 2016 at 12:58 pm
Giesabreak
I found the recent lurch by the Herald to seriously anti-Scottish anything on Facebook more than I could thole. I unfollowed them.
But if you don’t, you can see this morning for example, a whole range of UKOK yoonery comments piling in across social media and all of it stating vote SNP Scotland, get fracked Scotland.
Dirty tricks coordinated yoon social media campaigning or personal paranoia? or both. It could work but they are easily swatted aside by simple questions, which they never UKOK answer. Wonder why.
38% of the Herald is pretty good, but not many people read the business section.
In 1707 Scotland neither a central bank nor a fiscal deficit. In fact as part of the Act of Union, England paid compensation to Scotland for taking on a share of England’s debt as they had both and from hence forward Scotland would have to play a part in paying to service that debt. The debt was about £14m and the compensation was about £400k.
You would think someone in the Herald would know this.
Can’t you just see our First Minister taking the opportunity some FMQ when the cameras are on her, to slam down a dozen or more of these propagandist newsheets while mourning the death of objective mainstream journalism in Scotland? Wouldn’t that count for something?
What is it going to take?
Westminster could put troops on Scotland’s streets and we’d only know about it by word of mouth and the internet.
Long before the Indyref, I called for people to start wearing a black and white ribbon in protest at the mainstream media telling us that black was white. It is worse now than ever, yet hardly anyone with the power to protest actually does.
Only Wings seems to be alert to the problem, well alert in the sense it is acting in a capacity so as to actively register and contest this all-out propaganda. More power to Wings, but what about the rest? Have we such feeble strength in such shallow depth?
Truth be known, it isn’t the newspapers which trouble me. Most have been little more than adult comics for decades, and they are now reaping what they themselves have sewn.
The big problem is the BBC. Even though I resent it with every fibre and would see it wound up in a heartbeat, such is its monopoly over what gets broadcast that it remains a necessary source of information even when that information warrants the highest degree of scepticism and suspicion.
That which matters so much to us doesn’t get a look in. So much of our struggle to become an independent nation is much too reactionary and subserviant to the Unionist agenda, but that is because we have no mechanism to set the agenda ourselves.
I make no secret of my indifferent disposition towards the SNP, but even setting that to one side, I remain deeply concerned that our elected government, even here in our home country, seem to be so utterly impotent when dealing with this issue of broadcast media.
Yes, yes, yes, cue somebody saying the Scottish Parliament has such limited powers… Yes. I know. But why is action constrained by the powers set by Westminster? Why are we so meek? Think laterally, or outside the box as they say. Get Westminster’s rule makers scratching their heads to keep up with your agenda, not idle away the months and years waiting for some insired intervention to happen. We have virtually the whole of Scotland speaking with one voice. YOU ARE THAT INTERVENTION. YOU ARE THE UNPRECEDENTED EVENT. You will not be any stronger to do what you have done again.
I don’t mean we start burning the heather, or dig out the Brasso for the family claymores, but at what point does Westminster start being put on the back foot? At what point does the media reach the end of its chain?
Why is it left to websites and bloggers to flag up all the propaganda while people in the same struggle line up to get their mugs on Questiontime? Why is it only ever websites and bloggers who make reference to the McCrone Report? Even after all that has passed, there remain more people who know nothing about McCrone than those who do.
I’m not ready to draw parallels with Churchill and the landings at Anzio and in particular his wildcat / beached whale metaphor, but I can see me getting round to it.
Labour were well out spent by Tory party last GE, who spent a lot of money on facebook etc
“Conservatives dominated parties’ £1.37m spending on Facebook election ads
The Conservatives spent more than £1.2 million on Facebook advertising during the general election campaign, records have revealed.
Tory spending on the social networking site massively outstripped Labour, which spent just £16,454, documents released by the Electoral Commission show.”
This much we know and surely to god SLab have picked up on social media campaigning. Will Kez do a Kez Stone and widdle a small fortune, like red tory bonkers campaign like The Ed Stone, an 8ft 6in, two-tonne slab of limestone, with Labour’s six key election pledges carved into its surface.
And finally, the dude that cooked up the Ed Stone is now being touted as an independent consultant, by the great frauds at Pacific Quay, demanding that our taxes get hiked, neatly explained here.
link to ponsonbypost.com
Yoons like Torsten don’t even impress Ligger Neil.
@Janet says: 15 February, 2016 at 12:59 pm:
“Newspapers are owned by a micro-elite who are both wealthy and powerful.”
Indeed they are, Janet. However, until now they were wealthy, powerful and reasonably clever.
It would seem that the clever ones have now all either died already or have got out of the news business before the final end.
Thus leaving behind an elite who are now a lot less wealthy, not nearly so powerful as they imagine themselves and as thick as a six high stack of, four to the pack, of very thick planks.
Who but a congenital idiot sticks with a business that is losing its customer base as fast as the national daily papers and national broadcasters?
It is an obvious fact that as the readership shrinks the advertisers have less incentive to buy advertising space in the papers or on TV screens. People are not daft and can archive articles to take away the incentives for business’ to buy advertising space.
You have to be both blind and stupid not to see the death of both paid for TV broadcasting and newsprint.
Re Debt and slightly O/T
rUK owe Scotland circa $1 Trillion because that’s what I reckon the minimum they have taken in tax from the oil fields in the North Sea.
We have seen nothing of this invested in Scotland because it has all gone to pay for the huge projects in the South East of Engerland.
Just look up at the London skyline and look down on underground. See all the other “benefits” like Trident, the Gulf War, Aircraft Carriers with no planes, state of the art destroyers which break down almost daily all spent for the UKOK folks.
In fact anywhere not in the south east of Engerland is currently being ripped off.
My guesstimates are based on published annual oil outputs since 1970 and the average oil price reindexed up to 2015. This together with the average tax on oil of a minimum of $30 per barrel.
The numbers may be low but not lower.
I would need a statistician to confirm. The data is all there just look for it in the public domain.
All the shit that’s happened since 2014 surely the most frustrating are these contradictory headlines pertaining to everything that was promised claimed or said pre vote. Makes you pull your hair out. Arrrggghh!!! How the feck is the polling still at 50/50?????
I have a few thoughts as to why the Heralder
Of Doom might have headlined such an totally
Absurd story-
1. The Editor is hoping for a redundancy package,
Due to not having any readers with an IQ.
2. The editor has gone and the cleaner is
Just doing their best to make a story.
3. There is a UK Competion running to see
Which newspaper can create the most bizarre
Scaremongering story that has Zero connection
With reality.
From this day forth, I will not buy from any
Organisation who advertised with this rag.
I’ll depend on copies laying around as I would’nt
Be seen dead buying it.
If be very interested if the Herald could advise when Scotland was ever in debt prior to 1707.
Problem with the newspaper circulation going down is that the advertising goes to companies like Google who pay as little tax as they can get away with and Giddy-O lets them.
That of course assumes we continue to use Goole Chrome, Google Search, Google Mail etc etc. I don’t use any of them.
In fact I am trying to deGoogle as much as possible.
Oil production, average barrels per day, split by field
Nov 2014 779,902
Dec 2014 839,552
Jan 2015 883,556
Feb 2015 809,562
Mar 2015 868,656
Apr 2015 956,759
May 2015 1,002,555
Jun 2015 880,030
Jul 2015 843,381
Aug 2015 801,279
Sep 2015 897,858
Oct 2015 933,784
link to itportal.decc.gov.uk
@Truth, 3.12pm
Do I understand correctly that the real problem in 1707 was actually that Scotland’s nobles were heavily in debt, in the aftermath of Darien?
See map
link to energy-pedia.com
…. I see Gardham has been at the cat-nip, again !!!
UK Debt Clock
link to nationaldebtclock.co.uk states that The UK national debt grows at a rate of £5,170 per second.
Hurrah!
I used to buy the Herald on a Saturday for one reason – Ian Bell and his excellent articles. Since his demise there is no longer a reason to buy it, and I therefore stopped purchasing it. The above snippet shows I was right to keep my money in my pocket.
More oil and gas. Oh well, that is us well and truly fecked.
Now surely thats what you call total desperation.
Its an astonishing piece of fiction typical onions cant play the ball play the man,but i think the herald will find that oor John has more credibility in his wee toe than the entire ukok SNP bad special zoomer brigade put together.
No mention i see about the 1.5 trillion debt or the fact we get a block grant or in the sterling work John has done to protect Scotland from probably the worst tory government ever.
Nope Herald we aint buying it go back to the drawing board yoon eejits.
I like how the colonial apologists say “could supply most of Scotland” in quotes ,let your yoon plan slip there BBC gestapoo what you actually mean is we will see none of it but it could supply us but wont.
The only way we will get our hands on it is through independence or else it will just be another stolen asset to feed the London greed.
Rev Stew,
How about taking them,the Herald,to court, the small claims court that is, on the charge of being economically with the truth, ti would not cost much, but think of the publicity, especially if there was not a clear cut decision ether way.
(Must admit that I do not know if that is possible,)
Imagine a country that takes all of another countries earnings then gives only some of it back and then gets away with calling it….
“A Grant”…
We thank you for your generosity Yoonited Kingdom of England
Let’s not forget all the ‘PFI’ debt run-up by SLAB and their FIB/Dem cronies, the interest on these ‘great deals’ is currently one of the main reasons that Cooncils and the NHS are short of cash every year.
Auld Rock
@Albaman
If you had a stack of old Herald’s, you might be able to make a claim for the refund for the monies paid, on the basis you’ve found out they were all misleading, and therefore didn’t fulfill the purpose of a newspaper, which is to inform as well as provide opinion.
Could be worth a try, your cost would be limited to the court fee, as long as it was a “reasonable” case to bring!
During the Ref most of the Herald’s headlines were misleading, but a good few of the articles themselves were OK, and it did cover articles other media ignored.
Then a few days before the Ref it came out for NO on the basis of extensive new powers for Scotland or else. it then proceeded during Smith and the Scotland Bill to totally ignore that stance, and forget about its “or else”.
It put its coverage in favour of Murphy, we all know how that worked out. Then it put a lot of anti-articles in about Corbyn, ooops it backed a loser – again. Now it’s moved over to the Conservative Party as the last true bastion of Unionism, ever since Labour and the LibDems said they’d allow members to campaign for a YES if they wanted to.
So during the fiscal framework talks, though it’s covered the news, again with some articles others haven;t covered, it’s given prominenece to David Mundell, and Ruth Davidson at every opportunity, only to find out now that everyone bar the Conservatives has been forced to back Swinney and the Scottish Government in its stance over “no detriment”. Oops.
Since the referendum the Herald has backed a solid procession of losers. It’s still against Independence for Scotland. Ooops! 🙂
Dear Yoon,
Why do you think it is virtually impossible for anyone outside of the UK Treasury to get to see the UK accounts–ALL the UK accounts? Why won’t the UK Treasury show you exactly where your tax £s are being spent? Why aren’t the UK accounts fully open for anyone to easily scrutinise?
What are they hiding from you? What truth is it they do not want you to know?
Is it possible to pass a law that everyone who has an email address must be also be signed up for ‘Wings’? That would get us liberated!!
@Hobbit says: 15 February, 2016 at 3:26 pm
“Do I understand correctly that the real problem in 1707 was actually that Scotland’s nobles were heavily in debt, in the aftermath of Darien?”
I’ll try and give you a brief idea of the truth, Hobbit.
Scotland had suffered several years of bad harvests so the landwners, who were also the parliamentarians, were already a bit skint. However the matter is rather more complex than that.
Due to the the English parliament’s, “Navigation Acts”, that banned all other countries from trade with the English colonies unless done with the English Mercantile Marine, or if they used their own ships, those ships had to be crewed by English Merchantile crews.
In those days the Mercantile Marine could dictate the prices of both imports an exports. They were basically merchants who sold the cargo they brought in at the top price and then bought up the exports from the port at the bottom price. The English Navigation Acts had given them a monololy.
Furthermore, these Navigation Acts were deliberately deployed against Scotland and thus the Scots landowners were really feeling the pinch. Scotland though, as a kingdom, was not in debt.
The Kingdom of England had found itself fighting several wars because of those Navigation Acts, (mainly with the Dutch), and they had thus run up a massive National Debt.
The London Scot, William Patterson, instigated a subscription scheme to let the public bail out the English Kingdom/Parliament and this led to the formation of the Bank of England – actually a private company until nationalise BY THE UK, in 1946.
Now the very same William Patterson, quite obviously an England undercover agent, was in Scotland instigating the Darien Expedition supposedly for Scotland to set up her very own colony to bypass the English Navigation Acts.
The English & Dutch, who had now made peace, pledged to put up 50% of the funding for the expedition but then pulled out after the Scots had bought ships, took om crews and bought stores. Thus the expedition began underfunded.
Patterson was accompanied in Scotland by the author Daniel Defoe who was also an English undercover agent and the two were old friends. These two were beavering away setting up the Darien Scheme and Defoe’s letters reporting back to Westminster of how he had the ear of the Scottish parliamentarians are still in existance.
Add to all this that the monarch England shared with Scotland banned the Royal Navy from aiding the expeditioners annnd also banned the Soldiers of the monarch assisting them at Darien and you can see it was a well set up English Establishment con job. Along with the blackmail, bribery and corruption against the Scottish landowners/parliamentarians.
Not only that but there were English troops massed along the Scottish Borders and an English fleet lying off Berwick.
Furthermore, what the English still call the Jacobite, “Rebellion”, had been running since 1688 and was still going on almost 40 years after the treaty of Union and you get the picture that this was far from being a freely negotiated and freely signed treaty.
You cannot rebel against a monarch not your own and the English had deposed the joint monarch they shared with Scotland and imported King Billy & Queen Mary but as the two kingdoms were still independent kingdoms before the Treaty of union the English crowning of their imported monarchy could not affect the still independent Scottish Kingdom.
Hope that is clear enough if not as detailed as it could have been.
@ Hobbit 3.26
Yes that’s basically right.
From 1603, Scotland lost most of her trade partners because they were generally at war with England most of the time and the Scots merchant fleet was now fair game for French and Spanish pirates.
The Scottish navy mostly operated out of foreign ports on letter of mark since 1513. The ships that were left in our waters were over taken by English captains or Westminster sympathising Scots before 1707.
English war ships were stationed in the Firths of Clyde and Forth where they stopped merchant ships, confiscated the cargo and press ganged the crew into service with the English royal navy.
At this time King Billy had imposed a trade embargo on Scotland and declared that no help should be given to the trading post Darien.
Even with this the country itself was not bankrupt but we were not in the best position either.
There is more to the treaty than just finances, as the Scots Parliament were discussing a Scottish standing army which was bad news for England and the Scottish nobles, who would have lost their military influence in the Kingdom.
The Heralds outbursts are obviously the last actions of a dying rag.
@Auld Rock
Has anyone totted up all the PFI projects in Scotland?
It might be interesting to see the amounts and which of the big financiers were involved.
John Swinney is a miracle worker. He has overspent a fixed budget delivered by the Barnet formula.
The Yoons scream about the Scottish Government “underspending” it’s budget. The Yoon press scream about the Scottish government “overspending it’s budget, while all the rational and sensible people know how well John Swinney and the Scottish Government is managing it’s budget.
UKoK must think we are buttoned up the back.
SNPx2
@Hobbit, yes the Scottish ‘no balls’ were the ones in debt and never had the balls to stand up to English state bullying.
Fran, Robert – tnx for the feedback. Useful.
bjsalba 3.22
“That of course assumes we continue to use Goole Chrome, Google Search, Google Mail etc etc. I don’t use any of them.
In fact I am trying to deGoogle as much as possible”.
I haven’t used Google for months now, maybe even years.
Alternative SE’s which (currently) maintain privacy :
http://www.startpage.com
http://www.duckduckgo.com
Rock solid YES all the way,
SNP X 2 in May
As HandandShrimp says Scotland (the nation) had virtually no debt in 1707, the union increased our per capita debt by a factor of about ten (and tanked our economy for decades), not that you would know that if you listened to BritNats.
I think the compensation figure, the Equivalent, was £300K (and it was supposed to cover other things, e.g. to bribe those who had lost money on Darien, though it seems to have had little effect there). According to J. Pittendrigh, in PH Scott’s book on the Union, only about half of the Equivalent was ever paid. So rUK owes us £150K with interest. Using the self-styled ‘Bank of England’ (tells you all you need to know about the UK)’s inflation calculator back to 1750 and adding another 16% to give a rough estimate back to 1707, that’s about £34million. At 2% interest that comes out at just under £16billion they owe us.
But as Macbeda says this is dwarfed by the money they owe us for the greatest financial mis-selling of recent times, the deception over the oil designed to deny us a Home Rule parliament in 79 with an oil fund. At a minimum, compensation for those lies should put us where we would have been had we had the oil money and showed reasonable prudence. The economists and statisticians Jim and Margaret Cuthbert calculate we would be in surplus about £150 billion by now (including our share of the financial crisis costs) not £150 billion in debt.
That’s where our negotiations for full fiscal autonomy, and later independence, should start from. We have no legal liability to UK debt, as the UK gov made clear. We do have a moral liability but it is dwarfed by rUK’s moral liability to us. How to force perfidious Albion to live up to its moral obligations is a different matter of course.
To calculate the current (well, 2014) value of £1 in 1707, you can use this:
link to measuringworth.com
So that £18 million of England debt we took on is worth in real terms today, anywhere betweem £2.7 billion to £380 billion that England owes us. I’ll settle for half!
So, if John Swinney the Magnificent is about to take Scotland into debt for the first time since 1707 and we were not in debt before then what is the £4 billion we send to England every year for? Oh….. it’s to help pay their debt!!!
The Herald must be farming their journalism out to students or something like that. Even so, you’d think they’d check it over before putting it out.
Newspapers are in their death throes. Went to the pictures this afternoon with my wife, right next to the machine where you buy your tickets was a stand full of newspapers for FREE.
Scotlands biggest selling daily the Scottish Sun can’t even be given away for free in Dundee. When we left the cinema there was pages of the Sun blowing about in the car park.
Newspapers, littering and blighting our streets with their waste.
SNP-Bad / Slabber Party rag – don’t buy/subscibe to it and can barely bring myself to part with ready cash for the supposedly pro-Indy stable-mates.
As the deflating balloon said… “Pish”
@Alan Weir
Taking into account that the £400,000 wasn’t paid to “Scotland” but made its way into a private business, Company of Scotland, then Scotland actually received £0.
And yes, it does put a very different complexion on debt negotiations. If the rUK wants historical debt to be taken into account – the current £1.5 trillion or whatever, then how far does that go back? To the 1980s? To the Second World War? To the last time the UK had a surplus? Or back to 1707? Which includes interest and debt servicing since then – in real terms.
I think if Scotland offered to take £50 billion at the point of separation that would be voluntary and very generous. But it would have to be sold internationally.
It would, however, give us a debt to GDP ratio of about 30%, which would make us an exceedingly good credit risk.
Wait, when I went to get my National, there was no sign of the Herald, in two main supermarkets. Strange.
This is a crazy headline. They really do think the people of Scotland are that daft. What a disgrace that Scotland has not been in debt for a very long time of her own making. Aye indeed.
Why on earth are we suffering such horrendous ‘austerity’ against our people then, would that be due to UKok’s debt.
Technically it’s true. Scotland has never run up debts. Westminster has. Scotland would have a £220Billion Oil Fund if Westminster had not secretly and illegally blew it. The previous debt is nothing to do with John Swinney but he might be party to a deal were Scotland has to take UK debt, when Scotland is Independent. At least Scotland will be able to pay down the debt not increase it as Westminster does.
I wonder if the Rev is sat there despairing at us all, me included? Didn’t they all get my message:
“So Scotland currently has no debt? No responsibility for any share of the enormous £1.5 trillion burden run up by the UK? We’ll take that deal. Where do we sign?”
Indeed. Here’s my signature. Perhaps the Herald has been infiltrated by a pro-indy plant!
This headline proves that the British State has a black ops slush fund keeping these rags afloat…there can be no other explanation for committing both commercial and professional suicide.
As an aside, King Billy stopped the English navy assisting the ‘Apprentice boys of Derry’ during the1688-90 war with the native Irish….The reason?,…because the garrison was predominantly Scottish Presbyterians ( a fact written out of recent history). The English ships only moved down the Foyle once they were certain that the Derry garrison had won.
The ‘Non-Conformists’ i.e Scottish Presbyterians suffered with the alien act of 1705 not only in Scotland but in the ‘Plantation’ of the North of Ireland. This unequal treatment led hundred of thousands of this population to leave Ireland and emigrate to the US.
Fascinating to note that this formerly ‘loyal’ population became the backbone of the Revolutionary army that kicked the Brits out of what became the nascent USA. The decisive Battle won by these Ulster Scots ( Scots-Irish) against, unfortunately, ex Jacobite highland Scots who were so cowed by their experiences in the ’45 that they sided with their oppressors.
Again,later in the century, the Presbyterians remaining in the North of Ireland joined with their Catholic brethren and formed the United Irishman. A non sectarian libertarian movement based on the French Revolution. Unfortunately, the Orange card was played big time by the English Ascendancy and the hope of ecumenical unity was destroyed.
Facts that are seldom aired in the ‘ludges’ of the West of Scotland and the North of Ireland.
@jcd says:15 February, 2016 at 5:02 pm:
” … Alternative SE’s which (currently) maintain privacy :
http://www.startpage.com
http://www.duckduckgo.com
Ever try Dogpile, JCD?
It accesses many of the main search engines and roll results into one pile. Mind you one of the pile will probably be Google.
thanks to all for the short history lesson posted , although i knew most of what was shared i have gained a few more details today it just goes to show how deficient our education system was in the fifties ,i haven’t a clue if it has improved since then but i really hope the SNP government has some influence on today’s curriculum , never again should the truth be hidden from people here , it’s our history not biased propaganda our History .
For those interested in Darien, and the lead up to the undemocratic union treaty with England of 1707, could do worse than read this excellent essay by Scott Minto, from a while back.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
It puts to bed the nonsense perpetrated by unionists that Scotland was bankrupt at the time of the union treaty being signed.
yesindyref2 I think you are being far too generous when you say (5.22pm):
“I think if Scotland offered to take £50 billion at the point of separation that would be voluntary and very generous.”
Why offer to take anything? I like your previous suggestion, (5.05pm) that we insist they owe us half of £380 billion, better! Where we start from in negotiations and where we end up will, after all, be different.
OK. We’ve concentrated on the debt posistion. Perhaps of more significance is the actual £300 million first time borrowing by the Scottish Government, as it starts to build up Scotland’s own credit rating, rather than being totally dependent on inaccurate and incomplete UK Treasury figures.
Presuming the fiscal framework does get resolved, it will include substantial borrowing requirements, for the sake of argument £3 billion – 10 times the current proposed amount. But that £300 million properly serviced would help the credit rating for the £3 billion, if Scotland borrowed outside the UK Treasury / Bank of England.
That means in any case Scotland will have a continuing credit history, to help get our own ratings agency full report, Moody’s, S&P, for FFA, or for Independence. That would remove one other uncertaintly – our credit rating, whether a B- or a AAA stable. Chances are it could lift it one or even two ratings higher, even for relatively limited borrowing. There would be actual history for Scotland.
Perhaps this current borrowing is part of a master plan.
Could the Taxpayers Scotland have anything to do with this crowd. link to taxpayersalliance.org
Labour backs Scottish Government in Westminster funding talks
But!
Ms Dugdale argued the powers to be devolved, including responsibility for income tax and some control over welfare, are “too big a prize to walk away from”.
link to archive.is
What?
I mean ffs Herald ffs.
Repeat!
@Alan Weir
I thknk that £50 billion was actually the occasional line of the SNP / ScotGov when they were talking about currency union being refused, and no debt. It would be in exchange for assets – a starter set I guess of foreign currency, a frigate, couple of patrol boats, a few Typhoons, maybe an embassy or two or at least camping space. A copy of the likes of HMRC software, transitional arrangements.
We also don’t want to be seen to be ducking our share, but taking on a fair share. Zero would be a hard one for international financiers to swallow, Citibank etc., but £50 billion could be justified, seen to be reasonable and more than generous by us. It’s also good for goodwill with the rUK, ultimately, though we’d have to fight their rabid DM and DT press. My guess is the Times would eventually cover it in a fair financial article – ultimately it would be in their interest too.
yesindyref2 @5.59
Yes, I would think the borrowing is all part of a dress rehearsal, living as if independent.
The money/ economy management of the country has been under played by the SG – it’s the thing that was not articulated well enough for nervous No voters.
I have every confidence in SNP and their money management, but they have to demonstrate it physically for the sceptical.
Very pleased to hear the announcement of centres of excellence for manufacturing today.
If No voters were in any way concerned about the economy, they would run a mile from this accursed Union. That would be a hard headed practical decision.
@Les Wilson
I’m practically certain the taxpayers alliance came out hevaily against independence during the ref. They didn’t like all this talk of “social justice” 🙄
yesindyref2:
Yes I agree the SNP seemed to agree to accepting indeed the full population share of UK debt at the time of the referendum, at least if we got a formal currency deal. I was pretty appalled at that! But maybe they never thought a formal deal would go through and were aiming for sterlingisation with no debt.
I agree there would have to be horse trading, though we shouldn’t have to offer anything for a share of defence assets, embassies etc: that would be like a spouse having to pay to get his or her fair share of the house in a divorce.
I also agree with you ‘We also don’t want to be seen to be ducking our share, but taking on a fair share.’ but my argument was our share of UK debt is dwarfed by their liabilities to us, so the *net* obligation is rUK to Scotland not the other way round.
Where you say ‘Zero would be a hard one for international financiers to swallow,’ well they didn’t have a problem with Lithuania, Latvia and the rest of the former Soviet Union bar Russia having zero debt. And they wouldn’t have a problem if zero (or a positive debt of rUK to Scotland) was agreed between Scotland and rUK. But of course the UK govt will not agree even to zero unless we have something to bargain with (the timescale of Trident withdrawal?) so in real politik terms you may be right we have to cough up; sticks in craw though.
@Valerie
Can’t remember the exact words or even when exactly, but Sturgeon did say she wanted to spend the next Parliamentary term building up Scotland’s economy – it was with an undercurrent or being ready for Independence, can’t remember how she carefully put it.
I suspect the SNP strategists do actually exist (!), and have analysed what’s needed for Indyref 2, pencilled in 2021 as the year, by which time they are working towards making YES as certain as we can get. Perhaps greater than 95% probable, if all goes well. Either way, Scotland benefits – even the Unionists.
I would say more, but there might be Unionists reading!
West Dumbartonshire Public Conversation with Scot Cabinet about to start at 7pm. Livestream here
link to youtube.com
Re Indy Scotland and embassies.
As a member of the Eu, all Eu Embassies will look after your interests. So until we build up our own premises we can use fellow member states facilities.
The UK Establishment being delusional have very lavish Embassies and several in
Washington alone, our share of all the UK Consulates /Embassies and Foreign Office
building in Londinium will be substantial.
Stupidly decided to watch the Bird and friends on Reporting Scotland. Item re the Fiscal Framework set in barber’s shop with dear Glenn having haircut or Barnet cut as the spray bottle was called. In the next chair was Gardham who offered no insight whatsoever. Says it all really. Our ‘national’ broadcaster finds it hilarious to mock the importance of this week. Close them down. I know it’s my own fault for watching.
@Alan Weir
I don’t think the SNP had any choice but to go for currency union, otherwise it would prejudice the negotiating position – on debt and perhaps even on assets. By the rUK refusing a currency union, they would accept the zero debt liability of Scotland, giving us totally the upper hand. Otherwise we’d have no choice but share and share alike.
Yes, with Latvia etc. but that was with agreement from the USSR (Russia) – it did take some time though. Same with Ukraine – conincidentally enough with the Nukes.
Whatever the silly Unionists said – constantly – Scotland did and will always have, the upper hand in negotiations. But it has to be played very carefully.
If there is that Indy Ref in say 2021, I think it will be very different, it will be seen to be very likley the outcome being a YES vote, and I think the rUK will then prenegotiate, even if behind the scenes and in secrecy. That would allow currency to be properly in the campaign.
Stupidly I’ve bought the Herald today….. This story didn’t make it into my copy…….
Old dearie , we all do stupid things sometimes – forgive yourself and promise yourself to avoid all contact with the liars , spinners , manipulators and deviants ever again.
Re Scottish Offshore Gas.
A) The new Gas fields can supply 100% of Scotlands GAs without counting existing Fields
B) Existing Gas fields over supply Scotlands Gas needs by 400 to 500% already
Where does all the gas come and go?
Most Gas comes into Scotland via the ST Fergus pipeline and most of that get piped straight to England. St Fergus alone provides 1/4 of UK gas needs.
How much?
Latest figures from 2016 still show some older data bu latest records show:
Scottish total Production: 18700 tonnes (oil equivalent)
Scottish total Domestic use: 4600 tonnes
Scottish imports: 10400 tonnes*
*This import is mainly from Norwegian Sector coming into St fergus and piped to England. So Scotland is a middle man with no benefits(my view) or a region supporting the wider UK(UKOK view).
Total export to England: 20100 tonnes.
% of UK Gas consumption provided via Scotland 52%
% All Primary Energy generated in Scotland that is Exported 73%
Therefore Scotland produces about 300% of its energy need.
Note:
Of the 100%, and 52% UK GAS coming from Scotland another 40% of UK need comes from the Norway Sleipner field and piped directly to England. Scotland uses and needs 0% of this Gas. Scottish taxpayers are nevertheless paying for the project (largest undersea gas pipeline in the world) pro rata.
If Scotland runs out of gas we cannot get any of the Sleipner gas sent to England but contributed by us, as there is no pipeline network for distributing it to or in Scotland from England.
Note 2: The rest of the gas comes out daily from Unionist politicians and the media, but this gas is of no use to anybody!
Source: St Fergus Data +
link to gov.scot ‘ energy in Scotland 2016 key Facts’.
Should be in Wee Blue book II
This is obviously part of a highly sophisticated, orchestrated unionist propaganda exercise that is way beyond my understanding. But even I can see that it carries all the hallmarks of unionist genius that we have witnessed over the past few years.
This could be yet another article that turns it around for the Herald – and around and around and around in an accelerating downward spiral.
They deserve nothing less.
@dorothy devine
Thanks for the advice Dorothy. Good plan. They are shockers and why I expected anything different, I don’t know. Luckily stopped getting the Herald a few years back so missed the headline above. Why tell the good news when you can print all their bile.
Hobbit, Darien was a reality check for Scotland’s imperial ambitions. The Dutch had done well earlier in the 17th century but by the end of it Spain, England and France had the empire game sewn up. It was dog eat dog and with Spain on the decline my take is that opportunity-hungry Scots only had two real options. Join the English empire or join the French empire. The English were proddies and shared a monarch so a no brainer despite the near total opposition of the burghers and commons.
But that was then. There’s no European empires any more and small north European countries do better than anyone else. From the point of view of opportunities to be had, the union passed its sell by date a few decades ago.
Was going to write about my views about the MSM here but I would be just repeating what has been said already so many times. Its incredible watching whats going on, in my life time I hope to see them all off and the end of Westminster rule, its going to happen.
Some comments above about Darien.. here’s a song frequently played on CelticMusicRadio about it:
link to youtube.com
(Dreams of Darien by The Paul McKenna band)
You can tune in on 95.0FM or DAB.
@olddearie
I had the misfortune to also watch that “comedy gold”. Through it all I was waiting for them to mention the No Detriment part of the Smith Commission…..and I waited….and I waited….and I waited……
Just for the record, I don’t want to see a single penny borrowed under devolution, last thing we need is a national debt without revenue generating powers to service it.
Heaven help us if we ever have slab in power, all that corruption & misspent cash.
A Trojan horse, designed to bind us in the union.
Fuck that.
That John Swinney looks great for his age, since 1707 you say
Mmm, here’s an interesting thing. 86% of 137 women agree is exactly the same as 137% of 86 women agree.
Just goes to show, really.
Isn’t it time for Nicola,the SNP and the people of Scotland to declare war on these bastard Establishment creepy fucking wierdos.
I’ve just received my next batch of Herald vouchers, fortunately they are not yet current and are unused so they will be getting them back with a demand for a refund.
To think I am paying more than £360 a year to read this pish!
But no longer.
During the referendum campaign a guy came into our YES shop in Dunoon to sign the independence petition.
He was really angry
He worked in a technical capacity in the oil exploration sector and he said that huge discoveries had been made to the west of Shetland. But they had all been told to go home and say nothing about this.
He explained that the discoveries had been made in a difficult area as the sea bed had been disturbed by volcanic activity and they were working through granite but that there was 100 years of extraction probable in the field.
He also said that the sludge coming up was speckled with gold.
@old dearie
Reporting Scotland tonight
If I didn’t know better I might start thinking the Beeb were trying to goad YES voters.
Glenn Campbell & Heralds WM central contact Gardham ????
Seriously FFS ??
Said it before and I’ll say it again –
Sanderson is Gardhams mini-me.
Very devious reporting everytime.
The Herald wasn’t always this deranged, reactionary, cash-starved, clueless, self-destructive, anti-Scottish zombie that sacrifices its own journalists to appease twitchy local advertisers and greedy foreign shareholders, and whom nobody (especially not its own staff) actually likes.
Once upon a time it was a cheerfully well-nourished, comfortingly dull, parochial and insipid family newspaper for the middle-brow petit bourgeoisie and public servants of the Clyde Valley. Journalists could spend weeks in the boozer fiddling their expenses and nobody cared because there were hunners of them to take up the slack.
Yes, The Herald flourished in an age when the Caledonian Cringe ™ reigned supreme and few dared to believe in independence, far less mad science-fiction concepts like newspapers without paper.
Ahh, the good old days.
But the game is up.
Dearie me another pitiful, propaganda piece from the Herald. Scraping the bottom of the barrel once again. Trying to influence the outcome of the Elections in May … deja vu?
The Herald founded in 1783. The longest running national newspaper in the world; eighth oldest daily paper in the world (Wikipedia) ……. soon to be consigned to the dustbin of ?history …. if they don’t do a U-turn ASAP. A threat to the livelihood of the half decent journalists working for the Sunday Herald and The National … don’t care?
The Herald that continues to promote the myth of a poor, wee Scotland; past (1707) and present. No longer telling the truth and trying to enlighten people rather trying to keep us all in the dark by using one propaganda technique after another. Scottish journalists must have just about every country on the Planet feeling heart sorry for poor, wee Scotland and the Scots ….. being lumbered with so much gas and oil. Delighted that they don’t have to carry such an oppressive burden … a curse in fact.
Pre-Referendum ‘the Herald backed a ‘No’ vote in the referendum on Scottish independence. The accompanying headline stated, “The Herald’s view: we back staying within UK, but only if there’s more far-reaching further devolution” (Wikipedia).
They encouraged, brainwashed, people to vote ‘No’ 17 months ago and the ‘far-reaching further devolution’ powers haven’t materialized and even if the ‘no detriment’ issue is resolved Scotland will still NOT have ‘far-reaching devolution’ powers at all. Strange that the Herald doesn’t have a great deal to say about that now! Orders from Head Office in England?
The Herald wants more powers to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament but as per this article don’t want them to be used. And how often have we heard people, such as Cameron, making a big deal of the fact that the SNP should use the powers that they have (going to get?) and stop whinging? Then if you do plan to use them that’s wrong too …. so say the Herald now. You can’t win …. if you’re the SNP that is.
I think it’s quite telling that the Herald outlines that ”it’s the first time Scotland has been *entitled* to borrow independently of the UK since the 1707 Act of Union.” What a bl**dy embarrassment and just highlights how much super rich Scotland has been subjugated over the last 300 years. What about splattering the McCrone Report all over your front page … let the Scots know that they could have been as rich as Switzerland, have no debt at all and been lending to rUK. No?
No mention either of the fact that John Swinney has managed to balance the books, against all odds, EVERY year that he’s had control of the purse and that people like Osborne, his host of SPad economists, and Sir Nick MacPherson (Treasury) have made a right botch up of the UK economy: Created a ‘black hole’ of 1.7 trillion that you could drop a couple of continents into and still have room left over. A debt racked up by Westminster that Scotland has to help pay off …. from their block grant … pocket money. Tell that to the Scots too …. Herald …. and stop trying to dupe us. It’s not working.
@John J.
£360 is serious money why, with 1,000 ex-readers a serious online media could even probably produce a weekly printed sheet (?).
Hasn’t cost me a penny to read online and post as much I like. I just use ccleaner free version to clear out cookies.
I’ve been starting posting just for fun though, the odd serious one. Maybe Charles Linskail has the right idea – reduce it to the level of the Scotsman.
(PP)
Dave M Hill@8.04
Yes, re oil, there is masses of it in Scottish waters. Maybe harder to reach, but not many countries would shut down oil fields and stop exploring other fields unless it really would be too expensive to extract. Nah, gold, no way, shhhhhhh. We know what happens to countries and the indigenous people, where there be gold, and it really ain’t nice. That would be a disaster. Didn’t camoron take a secret trip to Shetland no so long ago?
Bad enough that we have oil to make and keep Scotland in poverty.
Re; Jock Mcdonald @7.36
It’s what the unionists have prayed for, Scotland indebted. It’s also what some no voters would be happy with.
My no voting friends were very unhappy that the Scotgov would not raise council tax, to pay for services. They would be happy ‘to pay more’, out of the profit from selling their house for almost £1m. That’s nice, but what about all the people who would really struggle to pay a penny more in order to mitigate tory austerity.
As each day passes, I hope the soft no voters are wising up.
Here’s something that should be included in the Scottish Modern Studies curriculum for S1.
link to historyworld.net
How to dissolve a political union.
Norway and Sweden: 1814-1905
Both Norway and Sweden benefit from a 19th century which is free of wars. They can concentrate instead on developing their substantial natural resources. Industry is established, railways are built, and in Sweden the Göta canal is completed in 1832 – enabling sea-going ships to cross the entire peninsula, over a distance of some 300 miles, from Göteborg to a point south of Stockholm in the Baltic.
But politically the attention of both countries is focused, above all, on the problems resulting from the union of the two crowns.
The Swedes, more numerous than the Norwegians, with a long and often glorious history as an independent kingdom, are convinced that they are the senior partner. They view Norway almost as a neighbouring colony, acquired by conquest.
The Norwegians, in contrast, have it in writing that they are equal and independent – in the terms agreed in 1814. Moreover the constitution which they devised for themselves in that year includes a storting, or parliament, based on a franchise broad for its time. All peasants owning their land, or renting it for more than five years, have a vote. The storting is able to provide an articulate expression of popular resentment against any sign of Swedish hegemony.
The grounds for complaint are numerous. The shared king lives mainly in Sweden and is represented by a viceroy in Norway. The very existence of this office is offensive. To make matters worse, it is occupied until 1829 by a Swede.
Offence derives also from other issues of the kind which invariably inflame nationalist sensiblities – what design of flag is to be flown on ships of the two kingdoms, what is to be the first language of documents, is the ruler to be described as the king of Sweden and Norway or of Norway and Sweden?
The Bernadotte monarchs themselves (Oscar I, 1844-59; Charles XV, 1859-72; Oscar II, 1872-1905) are eager to soothe ruffled Norwegian feelings on most of these issues. But they often find their wishes frustrated by a strong nationalist reaction in Sweden.
Diplomatic representation is the issue which provokes the final crisis. It has always been accepted that foreign affairs are the king’s personal responsibility, but one result of this is that diplomats representing the two kingdoms have usually been Swedish – and foreign ministers invariably so.
During the 1890s Norwegian demands for equal representation in diplomacy gradually evolve into a campaign for a separate Norwegian consular service. In March 1905 the Norwegian storting passes a bill unilaterally establishing such a service. When Oscar II refuses to sanction the bill, the storting responds with another dissolving the union with Sweden.
Many in Sweden urge strong action against the rebels, but the king – with the support of liberals in the riksdag – proposes a referendum on the issue in Norway. The result is 368,208 votes in favour of ending the union, and only 184 against. In October 1905 Oscar II relinquishes the crown of Norway.
Other news from the Herald
North Sea oil to run out by Wednesday lunchtime
Scottish Government to declare sharia law
Salmond urges slaying of the first-born
Anent the barbershop duet of Campbell & Gardham in a bizarre parody of a news programme, Jackie Bird was peein herself at the sheer novelty of it all.
The print MSM appear to be increasingly knowledge corrupters, debasing the principle of free speech because of their commercial orientation.
Rupert Murdoch delivering his lecture at the 1989 Edinburgh TV Festival with a faux anti-elitist message about who has control of freedom of speech and purporting to reclaim broadcasting on behalf of the people
‘…Much of what passes for quality on British television really is no more than a reflection of the values of the narrow elite which controls it’…
similarly the corporate elite that own the print MSM working in tandem with the political elite that have no interest in connecting freedom of speech with freedom of the press
link to thetvfestival.com
The result- an educated electorate seeking their knowledge elsewhere and the rise of social media.
I read this paper religiously for years
Simply astounding
The great deception continues – ‘don’t mention the debt and maybe it will go away’ has made the leap to ‘it never existed’
Astounding
My flabber is gasted
But this will do our cause no harm, people aren’t stupid, particularly the more ridiculous the yoony press gets
Kenlike@9.47.
You forgot,
SNP BAAAAAD.
O/T
100 uses for a Wullie Rennie.
1- a door wedge, mmm, no too useless for that.
ahundredthidiot
Me too. Local newsagent always kept me a copy to pick up on the way to work now I won’t even follow them for free on Facebook.
Are those the same kind of resources that were supposed to run out by 2017 or was that just oil?
We were also supposed to be skint and in debt as an independent nation,but now we are skint and in debt and not independent. Good job the uk has broad shoulders eh?
O/T
What’s brown and strides back and fore like some demented thing making interventions?
link to archive.is
Hope no one has nightmares.
OT
With the run up to the election in May and the EU Referendum possibly June (still think it’ll be on the anniversary of Germany being defeated in the 1966 World Cup).
Perhaps Rev Stu should price adverts on STV.
OT following discussions last night on Scotland’s population flat-lining and the interesting if depressing stats on how little it has increased I thought I would do a wee excel sorting exercise on the 227 countries of the world.
Lets call it 230 countries- 227 less UK plus Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
My first thought on seeing the table was- wow… lucky we don’t have a massive, active volcano which has left over half the country as an uninhabitable exclusion zone. Montserrat props up the table in last place with a 53% decrease in population since 1950. The remote Cook Islands are sitting in 229th with a population decrease of 33%. Both British Overseas Territories but we’ll skip past that.
Bulgaria’s population has decreased ever so slightly. Latvia’s population has increased by a measly 2.6% over the last 65 years.
And in 226th place, or if you like the 5th lowest population growth out of 230 we have Bonnie Scotland- the feeder club. The colony. The farm. The farmed. A tiny 3.5% growth since 1950.
To give a wee comparison- The UK was sitting at 211 in the table with a modest increase of 27.9%. When split up into the 4, Wales was sitting in 219th place with a 19.2% growth. Northern Ireland is sitting in 204th place with a 33.6% increase whilst England has fared by far the best out of the ‘home’ nations in 200th place with a 38.4% increase.
Ireland inexplicably is way, way up the table in 177th spot having increased her population by 65% in 65 years despite not having the benefits of being part of the UK.
we are down amongst a fair number of former eastern bloc countries: Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary- countries previously controlled or heavily influenced by a much larger state.
St Kitts and Nevis (a Commonwealth Realm) is sitting in 222nd place. The Pitcairn Islands (another British Overseas Territory) is not on the list but if it were then it would be sitting at the bottom as their population as dwindled from 161 down to 56.
So- what have I learnt? In my very simplistic terms, factors that seem to be present in low growth populations or declining populations seem to be 1. volcanos, 2. The Queen as head of state, 3. Being in the back of beyond and 4. Having been ruled by or heavily influenced by a much larger neighbour (sounds a little familar, eh?)
A good question for the unionists I suppose would be: if we are so much Better Together under Westminster rule (for that is without doubt their contention), had we been independent since 1950 would our population be less than it is today? That is what they would contend, is it not?
Would an independent Scotland really have a population that has shrunk perhaps? Do they really think our population would have slipped down the league table?
Do they really think we would be like the Cook Islands, as described by wikipedia:
“The economy is strongly affected by geography. It is isolated from foreign markets, and has some inadequate infrastructure; it lacks major natural resources, has limited manufacturing and suffers moderately from natural disasters”
Or Montserrat, with its bloody great volcano?
We are certainly the most advanced country to have such a low growth rate of population. The nearest advanced country is Germany with a population growth rate 5 times as high in percentage terms.
Are we all getting that warm Better Togethery feel?
Can we start to describe the union as a man-made disaster?
Of course- there are pluses and minuses to having a small, sparse population and although it cannot be seen in terms other than Westminster failure to invest, support industry and milk us for talent and money over the years we can look at it in other terms.
We may well have the greatest resources per capita in the world and a small population may well be a huge benefit when overcrowding, water shortages, food shortages etc start kicking in over the next hundred years. It could become a real strength in withstanding the future.
But weighing it up, between Westminster and the volcano, I think we would have been better together with the bleedin volcano.
The good thing about over the top articles is that it makes some of the NO voters think as well, and considering some of their postings get deleted for no good reasons (I know, I’ve replied to some only to see their posting disappear), I see a little more common ground, not just on particular issues, but on media behaviour.
These are people who actively post against the SNP, FFA or Indy, and if they’re being affected, then it must be getting through to those who aren’t really involved.
I think it’s part of that common ground we need to encourage NO voters to move from YES, I didn’t expect it to be the actual Unionist media that would push it.
England World Cup date I look up as 30 July 1966, but TV is already showing flashes of it. That can only get worse! Which isn’t good news for the EU referendum in England.
On independence, why not have an audit of Scotland’s contribution to Westminster over the years, taking into account of how & where the money was spent.
No doubt it will show a great deficit in our favour.
Let’s give England a chance & write off what they owe us so that Osbourne & co, can concentrate on getting England’s debt reduced.
Scotland starts with a clean sheet & we could possibly give England low cost or even interest-free loans to help them out.
After all, we are a charitable nation.
@Tam Jardine (10.27) –
That’s a superb piece of work there mister. Deserves to be a stand-alone article.
More power to ye!
🙂
@Tam
It wasn’t until 2011 that Scotland regained the population it had in 1977 according to the Herald. In fact from memry it declined until we got devolution and only then did it start rising again. Total disgrace.
Some years ago now I calculated the unpaid compensation in modern money as being around £80 billion in modern money.
English national debt in 1707 was around £30 million.
Darien was a real disaster for those who invested, but with proper backing by the monarch could have succeeded. The basic idea was sensible enough.
Unlike the South Sea Bubble just a few years after Union, which was known to be a scam from the outset but was backed by UK politicians. Losses for that dwarfed those of Darien yet we never hear of that.
Hopefully those Scots who were new Brits learned their lesson from Darien and were less affected by the SSB.
It should also be pointed out that even though only about 1/3rd of the promised compensation was paid to Scotland, most of what was paid was in English bonds of dubious worth rather than the gold which was agreed.
‘…Much of what passes for quality on British television really is no more than a reflection of the values of the narrow elite which controls it’…
similarly the corporate elite that own the print MSM working in tandem with the political elite that have no interest in connecting freedom of speech with freedom of the press”
Its more fundamental than that and it goes right down to the UKOK culture of majority of voters staying away from politics and elections at town house level, with local election turnouts at most 39.0%.
Here in Aberdeen, ACC is owned by SLab, Wullie Young etc, all middle class, wealthy, all slowly but surely destroying a once beautiful city, running up giant public debt, raging at SNP for not hiking council tax, directly blaming them for appalling SLab negligence or worse, stretching and ignoring rules and regs, doing stuff that makes no sense to anyone, with much of it deliberately messed around with or buried by neo fascist Voice of the North P&J.
Meanwhile at a national level, Scottish democracy is clearly on the up but who monsters everything Scottish democracy at the local level? SLab dudes like Wullie Young and Barnie Crocket, owners of ACC. These guys are not blocking Scottish independence and fighting hard alongside like of BBC vote SLab for nothing. They detest change and they wont go, not at 39% turnouts. No coincidence.
Even the ACC referendum postal ballot boxes were a joke, you could stick you hand in them, if you wanted, or needed. Funny that. If you want to see Wullie sweat, watch him being asked stuff.
Problem is yoon national media never ask dudes like Wullie much at all. Even creepier, dudes like Wullie are highly professional articulate solicitors, not exactly the good natured, if a bit gormless local rubes, they’re sold as by SLab and the BBC.
OT Scotland 2016 tonight. If ever you wanted to see the Beeb promote its SNP Bad campaign, watch this! It is so blatant it’s frightening.
Labour still using the no APD money. Still unchallenged by the Beeb.SNP cut off when trying to point out the massive hole in Slab’s plan.
Disgrace
Like others on here I bought The Herald for more than 30 years and had a subscription since Spring 2012. I cancelled it after Ian Bell’s death as there had been nothing much worth reading apart from his columns. I had my last Herald on Boxing Day and I don’t miss it – the crosswords are better in The National!
O/T Was at Clydebank Town Hall tonight to hear the FM and her Cabinet. The questions were not written down and taken randomly from the audience. The members of the Cabinet who answered were totally ‘on the ball’ – they know their briefs inside out.
There were no questions on the Fiscal Framework, the economy (local or UK-wide) but all on Scottish Governments responsibilities: Health; Education; Transport; Scottish Water; Women in Prison and Culture.
Europe Ref featured and Nicola echoed what I fear – coming out of Europe with an unfettered Tory government for x number of years and erosion of Human Rights, etc.
If they come to wherever you are please make a point of going to see for yourself.
Not exactly splashed across Fleet Street link to thenational.scot
Would be interesting to see if the Cameron family finances finally come out
Now we know why the big land owners in Scotland worked so hard for a NO and support the Tories
LETS START PLANNING FOR THE SECOND LAND BILL
Tam,
Well done for that.
link to caltonjock.com
OT
“Although most industrialised countries were experiencing population ageing, Scotland was the only EU country at that time where the population was also declining in numbers (1995-2001), and responding to the ageing population was seen as a key concern”
Good graph as well on page 9.
link to gov.scot
Lookie lookie what I found, don’t think it’s been posted. From our old fiend Alex Massie, the well-kent supporter of Independence and the SNP in the Speccie:
link to archive.is
“David Cameron is going to have to give the SNP what they want”
@yesindyref2 –
Cheers for the link to the Spectator/Massie piece.
If the BTL comments are anything to go by then the chattering classes in England are quite resigned, nay sanguine about Scottish independence, with a vociferous minority of snarlers keen to see it as soon as possible.
We wouldn’t want to disappoint them now, would we?
🙂
[Note to self] Daniel Sanderson, is to political correspondence as Michael Fish is to Hurricane prediction
“David Cameron is going to have to give the SNP what they want”
Scotland was promised this a few days before the referendum ,which helped persuade undecided voters,to vote No.
@yesindyref2
Hands has gone off on his hols, Cameron’s respect agenda working well there then. Check out the tweets between Massie and Martin
link to twitter.com
Ian Brotherhood and cearc
Thanks. Quite an interesting wee exercise with even worse results than I had expected.
Take 1985 for instance. 1985 was peak oil- the hghest tax revenues flowing to the treasury for oil and gas. What was happening to our population? It was shrinking.
In fact if we look at those same 230 countries/territories in the period between 1950 and 1985 the Scottish population growth level had fallen and was the 3rd worst performance in the entire world, only marginally less bad than St Kitts and Nevis and our old friend Montserrat.
If we take as our measurement the period 1950-1980 the situation is even worse – Scotland is 229 out of 230 in the population increase table. Interestingly although Montserrat had yet to be flattened by Hurricane Hugo or the massive eruption in the mid 90s it was still propping up the table with a higher level of depopulation.
As a country of 12K folk the Montserrat stats are pretty irrelevant to our discussion though. The substantive point is that for most of the last 65 years Scotland has had the worst population growth figures not just for any western country, or industrialised country but for any county at all excepting tiny islands and archipelagos in the middle of the ocean which are prone to natural disasters.
I do note with interest that the population figures start to pick up in the mid 2000s and really kick on from about 2006, 2007 onwards. Funny that.
@Nana
That’s totally hilarious “All Hands on Deck”. Reminds me of procul harum somehow
link to youtube.com
I’m totally gobsmacked by that one, what an own goal.
@ Tam Jardine 12.08 and Scottish Population
It took 3 land reform bills in Ireland before the land was finally taken off the tiny elite who owned all the land
Unlike Scotland, agrarian warfare prevented the landlords from clearing the indigenous people off many areas of the Country
Thus by 1914 huge numbers of people were still available to take the land on long low interest mortgages funded by Government bonds – and the big landlords lost it all.
Thus there are several Irish Atlantic counties today with populations far higher than the whole of the Highlands .
The Irish countryside is filled with villages and community life as Scotland should be – but when you traverse the Scottish country side you can go for several miles with no human life at all
The Irish countryside is filled with villages and community life as Scotland should be – but when you traverse the Scottish country side you can go for several miles with no human life at all .
We need to rethink how Scottish people can take back the land and fill the landscape and prevent it being turned into a permanent green desert inhabited by NO voters from England in second homes.
Let’s start planning the second land reform bill
This really is hilarious. Greg Hands jets off on holiday, and the Record makes it front page news. It has in fairness followed up on its famous VOW, but one has to wonder if it wouldn’t have quietly forgotten about it if the Rev hadn’t pinned it against the wall.
Constantly, hint hint …
Cadogan Enright
I don’t know Ireland well but I have knocked out western Norway a little bit and I was amazed at how used the land was. Lots of wee pockets of land- smallholdings everywhere. Many folk have wee cottages in the mountains or down by the coast- they have a connection with it many of us have lost.
Over here one human can own hundreds of thousands of acres of land he inherited. Try getting a wee postage stamp of grun in Edinburgh to grow some veg… 5 years ago I put my name down on the allotment waiting list when it was 7 years long. I think it is sitting about 4 or 5 years long now.
You are absolutely right about land reform- I don’t think the SNP have been anything like bold enough. They have nothing to lose as none of the landed gentry are ever going to cast a vote for them.
The Highlands is like a desert- a beautiful wasteland.
These type of headlines do seem absurd and laughable, but only to those who treat them with a pinch of salt, and/or read further into the stories by going online and checking what they say is true. The dangerous aspect of them is that the people who buy these publications and the vast majority who read them believe every word they print.
I was a bit of a noisy supporter of the yes campaign at work, and therefore had/have these ‘facts’ thrown at me all the time, both by clients and colleagues, many of whom are very intelligent people, and no amount of explaining can change their view, as, sadly the majority of people believe that if something is in the mainstream media, then it must be true.
@ Yesindyref2. I leave this here for you.
link to youtube.com
@ Tam Jardine says at 12:08 am … ”Quite an interesting wee exercise with even worse results than I had expected.
Take 1985 for instance. 1985 was peak oil- the highest tax revenues flowing to the treasury for oil and gas. What was happening to our population? It was shrinking.
In fact if we look at those same 230 countries/territories in the period between 1950 and 1985 the Scottish population growth level had fallen and was the 3rd worst performance in the entire world, only marginally less bad than St Kitts and Nevis and our old friend Montserrat.
If we take as our measurement the period 1950-1980 the situation is even worse – Scotland is 229 out of 230 in the population increase table. Interestingly although Montserrat had yet to be flattened by Hurricane Hugo or the massive eruption in the mid 90s it was still propping up the table with a higher level of depopulation.
As a country of 12K folk the Montserrat stats are pretty irrelevant to our discussion though. The substantive point is that for most of the last 65 years Scotland has had the worst population growth figures not just for any western country, or industrialised country but for any county at all excepting tiny islands and archipelagos in the middle of the ocean which are prone to natural disasters.
I do note with interest that the population figures start to pick up in the mid 2000s and really kick on from about 2006, 2007 onwards. Funny that.”
Tam another REALLY interesting post. ‘Clearances’ and ‘plantation’?
One (another one) for The National … if you’ve got the time or maybe the Herald will pick up on this and run with it!
O/T links
link to holyrood.com
link to scottishfinancialnews.com
link to commonspace.scot
link to droppings.theferret.scot
O/T links
link to thecanary.co
link to politicshome.com
link to thirdforcenews.org.uk
link to globaljustice.org.uk
Professor John Robertson has made an official complaint about Jackie Bird to BBC, Police Scotland etc.
GOOD for him. It’s high time we all ‘as a citizen, tax-payer and licence-fee payer’ started to complain to Police Scotland and so on over and above complaining to the BBC as the latter doesn’t seem to be working.
Maybe this would apply to some of the scandalous lies and smears we read about in the newspapers day in and day out? Report them to Police Scotland?
‘COMPLAINT: After the faked child abuse report, I felt I had write and complain. See below:
To: BBC Trust, Police Scotland, Ofcom etc…’
From: Dr John Robertson
Dear
I write to complain of an accusatory but demonstrably inaccurate and dishonest headline statement and report introduced by presenter Ms Jackie Bird on BBC Scotland’s Reporting Scotland at 6.30pm on Wednesday 10th February 2016. This accusation, un-supported by evidence, can be seen as deeply offensive and hurtful to the Scottish Education Secretary, Angela Constance and potentially damaging to the electoral prospects of the SNP Government.
Bird said as a headline:
‘People who have suffered child abuse accuse the Education Secretary of becoming complicit in the cover up of offences by failing to widen a government inquiry.’
Then in the report:
‘People who suffered child abuse have accused the Scottish Government of becoming complicit in the cover-up of offences.’
No individual or organisational representative was to repeat these words for us at any point in the reporting. Only one interviewed representative of a group was heard to say anything and, significantly, only this:
‘Are they complicit? I couldn’t offer an opinion either way.’
It’s not clear if the Education Secretary was directly challenged with these words as would have been fair to allow her to respond. As a citizen, tax-payer and licence-fee payer, I find this disgraceful and to me, illegal. Consequently, I have written to you, the BBC Trust, Police Scotland, my local MP and MSP. Please deal with this as soon as possible in order that the above can have only limited effect on the upcoming Scottish elections in May 2016.
Thank you
Dr John Robertson’
link to newsnet.scot
Great links as usual Nana in PARTICULAR the ‘Trident: How the banks have their fingers on the button’ which should be posted all over the Internet. We knew that individuals / companies had vested interests in Trident but WOW!
‘But how much do we really know about the detail of the finance behind Trident and the networks of power? I delved deeper into the murky waters of vested and financial interests that surround the world’s nuclear weapons – and the results were telling ………………
By my calculations (checking every member’s interests against those companies involved with the Trident), over 15 per cent have what can be deemed as ‘vested interests’ in either the corporations involved in the programme or the institutions that finance them, and this is just for our nuclear capability – one suspects the percentage for defence in general would be higher ……………….
But there’s more. The rot surrounding the rabid disease of cronyistic, chumocratical influence in Westminster also putridly festers in the banks. A report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (iCan) cited 41 UK-based financial institutions that invested directly in the nuclear weapons industry (including Labour Party bankrollers the Cooperative); institutions which can be found splattered across the House of Lords register, riddling the government external appointments list (note HSBC’s former directors Lord Green, Rona Fairhead of the BBC Trust and Ruth Kelly of the FCA); and on the headers of numerous political party consultations ………..
Perhaps what sticks in the throat the most, however, is one bank I haven’t mentioned: the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The bank that we, the public, hold an 84 per cent stake in after the 2008 financial crash. A bank that invests not only in 10 companies that are involved in Trident, but is also a financier of Russia’s VEB bank. So therefore a bank which invests in Russia’s nuclear deterrent, as well as ours.
We are fundamentally providing the money to pay for both the East and the West’s nuclear weapons – and then to add insult to injury we pay for our own, again, via taxation ………….
The whole nuclear weapons industry, the flaccid phallic posturing, the stern, brow-furrowing arguments for maintaining it – all are a con of epic proportions. We, the public, are being deceived left, right and centre into allowing fraudulent governments to squander our money on something which merely serves to inflate the wealth of those involved. There is no threat – except from our own foolhardiness for sleep-walking for decades and allowing this to continue happening.
The sooner we wake up, the better.’
link to commonspace.scot
@Yesindyref2,
Saw that story about Mr Hands going on holiday. I also saw the headline about the “Vow Delivered” in the Daily Rancid Headline where they proudly proclaim,
“SCOTLANDS BUDGET TO ALMOST DOUBLE””, with the new powers.
JEEZ!!!
You couldn’t make it up. But they did.
Bob Mack
Aye- in a normal country the Record would apologise for misleading it’s readership and heavily influencing the referendum.
They seem to be reaching a kind of hysteria at the record now that the tories have so perfectly and completely revealed the record’s treachery.
They were ‘Westminster’s Champion’ and now they are having a meltdown because the promises they printed in their paper were a bag of pish.
If it were not such a serious betrayal the current desperate rearguard would be extremely funny
Who let the kraken out…
link to archive.is
Takes me back to 2014
@ Petra
Excellent post Petra. Supplementary question, what is NATO for?
One correction, Rhona Fairhead is not a former member of the HSBC board, she is a curreent member earning approx £500,000 per annum in addition to her BBC Trust salary. Robert Carr, Deputy Chair of BBC Trust, is also Chair of BAE Systems, weapons manufacturer.
O/T new low for labour. Stomach churning…
link to twitter.com
@Tam Jardine,
Given that we hate the majority of the mass media,I could never envisage a day where I could ever again vote for a Party who were so complicit in their deceptions.
This includes of course all the mainstream politicians outwith the SNP.
It is not just about policy any more. Labour, Tories et Al, have shown themselves to be part of the same sickness that has afflicted our country for too long
Over 40 years of being deceived,manipulated and lied to ,and yet I unthinkingly put my x in the Labour box believing them the fairest choice.
Well, I’m thinking now,and my eyes are no longer shut.
SNPX2——–Then the Councils. We must eradicate the pestilence of UK politics from Scotland, then we can work together to create something new.
O/T this morning, heard on Radio 4 that councils and housing associations in England have had to put on hold or cancel plans for new sheltered housing for disabled or the elderly because of Government proposition to only allow the same housing benefit as for privagely rented housing (?) this means that these organisations can no longer proceed with their plans.
Well we certainly are better together with these people, UKOK my foot.
@ Cadogan Enright, years ago I met a party of elderly Irish Mountaineering guys in a bothy in Glen Gairn, they come to Scotland for a fortnight each Summer climbing & staying in the bothies. I asked them what the script was with the Irish bothies & was told the folk were still living in them! 🙂
If Gerry Cairns reads this, thanks for the superb hospitality kid!
@Helena
I saw that early this morning
link to archive.is
death-rate-in-england-and-wales-rising-at-fastest-pace-for-50-years-due-to-cuts-to-social-services-
link to archive.is
It looks as though Wee Ruthie has hitched her wagon to the wrong star. 37% of voters lent their support to the Tories last year but when you take into account that many people didn’t actually vote they only got 24% of the vote in real terms which means that from 63% – 76% didn’t want to see them in power at all. Then I suppose when considering the political climate in England … with not too much to choose from …. many who voted for the Tories did so through sheer fear …. fear of Ukip, an SNP / Labour alliance and / or Labour incompetence. If that’s the case the figure plummets again …. to what? The vast majority of people in the UK that’s for sure.
What we see now is more and more opposition being shown towards this party here in the UK and further afield. As per a couple of Nana’s links earlier we see that the UN (the International Labour Organisation (ILO)) is warning them that their controversial Trade Union Bill may breach International Law.’
The UN is currently carrying out an investigation into their treatment of disabled people; the first UN investigation of its kind. How damning is that?
The EU’s Banking Regulator has warned the UK not to give bank staff top-up payments to avoid the EU bonus cap which George Osborne is challenging in the European Court of Justice right now.
Junior doctors in England have had enough of them as have the TUC / STUC and so on.
The vast majority of Scots of course detest the party / its policies.
Now we have 130 leading charities complaining about ‘the UK government trying to gag them and halt campaigning, insisting they will not be silenced. …..
They have written to the Prime Minister David Cameron urging him to scrap what amounts to a “gagging clause” designed to curb criticism of austerity and other Tory policies ………..
Oxfam, the British Red Cross, Guide Dogs, Save the Children and Unicef UK are just some of the leading charities opposing the move ….
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations said the attempt was “tantamount to making charities take a vow of silence”.
And so it goes on. The list of ‘opposers’ North and south of the border is getting longer and longer. The Tories are taking us back in time to the 1920’s / 30’s when people had really had enough, were at the end of their rope, and a General Strike was called … 90 years ago come May 3rd. If they keep on track I can see General Strike 2 looming up.
Some interesting links to HSBC, fraud and Establishment here on Nicholas Wilson’s (Whistleblower) site.
link to nicholaswilson.com
@Bob Mack
Politics as it is practiced…
Politics isn’t governance, its really about how you get into a position of governance/control. Its management of perceptions to gain advantage either personally or for a collective and eradicating the malicious and dishonest is a near impossibility. At best, with the right constitution and the right laws in place, you can manage it and ensure that there are suitable enough punishments in place to make the outright manipulators and criminals think twice about how they practice it.
Human nature being what it is, the greedy, the over ambitious and the outright twisted will always attempt to influence others to their advantage and their way of thinking by either abusing a system or changing it to favour their viewpoint (see under Westminster and the UK patronage system). Its the checks, balances and machinery you put in place which provide the groundwork for your government and the protection of the population.
Really a new constitution is about providing a bulwark and guardian against the worst elements of human nature, for when you invest a person or collective with power and responsibility, there is always the temptation to abuse that power. A constitution is there to keep politicians (all of them) in their place by outlining their responsibilities and powers and yes penalties for those who abuse their office.
@ Petra, Ruthie knows full well that if the mass junk-mail scam fails & the Tories bomb, she’s toast & can go back to the tank-straddling full time! 🙂
O/T
Westminster’s plan to gag charities is provoking outrage. Perhaps War on Want’s criticism of UK mercenaries and the devastation caused is one example of news they don’t want us to hear?
“Private firms based in Britain are reaping huge profits by exploiting conflict and instability around the world in the absence of proper regulation, a British charity has warned.”
link to on.rt.com
The Slog seems to keep track of Establishment scandals:
“WATERGATE MEETS PROFUMO: David Cameron, HSBC, the BBC, and Rona Fairhead.”
link to tinyurl.com
@Cadogan
My mother was born in Dooagh, Achill, and I could see the site of Captain Boycotts former house from my Grandmothers house.
Achill is wild and beautiful, but for many years during my childhood, consisted of the youngsters moving away for work. It seems much more vibrant now, really trying to build on tourism.
O/T Labour wow they ‘care’
Check the comments
link to archive.is
@Nana 10.39
Ouch! Those comments are scathing, hehe.
@Macart,
Constitutions ultimately make no real difference. The parasites are well versed in going round the Constitution to avoid detection . In America,we see the Constitution violated daily,but the violaters are protected by those sworn to uphold the law and the Constitution.
The problem basically is as you say human nature. Humans are corrupt able, and especially so when a lot of money can be gleaned from that corruption.
There has to be something better.
@Bob Mack
Until humans actually change? ‘Fraid not. As I allude to in my earlier post a constitution and laws are roadblocks, they’ll slow determined bastards down, or hesitate, it won’t stop them appearing. They are, in effect, only tools.
In my opinion it takes a collective effort and agreement between the populace and their politicians. The people need to stay engaged with their politics and act as the final check on their administrators, be willing to use the tools to hand. Nothing guarantees manipulation and abuse more than an apathetic and switched off populace.
The electorate need to be willing to enforce the laws and invoke penalties. They need to turn out to vote and make themselves heard and felt, constantly turning and weeding the garden as it were.
Equally the politicians need to know that they are given office to serve and any deviation from that public service will result in instant removal. It won’t matter whether that be hands caught in the till, collusion with the media to subvert a democratic process (eyes on you Carmichael), or cash for access/patronage, instant sanctions would be employed against the individual and their party.
Such measures won’t stop politicians from abusing power and office, but such engagement should cut it back a ways and make any of em think twice.
@Tam Jardine says: 16 February, 2016 at 1:10 am:
” … The Highlands is like a desert- a beautiful wasteland.”
Aye! Tam, and not an inch of Scotland’s, mainly barren wasteland, that wasn’t man made. Furthermore it was man made for Westminster establishment benefits.
There is plenty of evidence that Westminster set out to socially engineer the subjugation of Scotland and the Scots.
Remember the English Royals always claimed the Scots lairds and clan chieftains should swear fealty to the English crown. It was what the Scottish wars of independence were all about and the Scots won that war but it didn’t take the English long to break, “The Edinburgh-Northamton Treaty”.
The Declaration of Arbroath was just a part of a full Scottish diplomatic campaign that sought to establish Scotland as an independent kingdom, (rather than being feudally controlled by England’s Norman kings). It was also designed to reverse the excommunication of Robert the Bruce after the killing of The Red Comyn.
The Pope, who was the head of Christendom, had accepted Edward I of England’s claim to overlordship of Scotland in 1305. The Bruce Excommunication followed, “The Divine Right of Kings”, legal system and the Bruce was excommunicated. Which meant all Scotland was excommunicated as, under that legal system, the sovereign monarch owned everything including their subjects.
The Declaration made these points –
(a). Scotland had always been independent, (even longer than England).
(b), Edward I of England had unjustly attacked Scotland and perpetrated atrocities.
(c). Bruce had delivered the Scottish nation from this peril.
(d). Independence of Scotland was the sovereign right of the Scottish people and NOT that of the King of Scots.
(e). The Scots nobility should choose someone else to be king if The King of Scots, (Bruce), proved unfit in retain Scotland’s independence. This established the Sovereignty of the people.
This is the main basis of even modern Scottish law. The people are sovereign and they, as God’s representatives, contract a Monarch rather that the choice of Monarchy being God’s alone. A very radicle concept in those days.
The Declaration was made in 1320. The Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton was a peace treaty, signed in 1328 between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland that agreed Bruce was the King of Scots and Scotland as independent.
Since then the Westminster aim has always been to suppress Scotland in any way they could. Their claim of a Union of the Crowns in 1603 is utter propaganda for Scotland and England remained independent until the forced Treaty of Union of 1706/7. Why would they need a Treaty of Union if there really had been a previous Union of the Crowns?
Yet in 1688 the English Parliament had it’s, “Glorious Revolution”, and attempted to apply their deposing of their Monarchy and importing King Billy & Queen Mary of Orange upon the still independent Kingdom Of Scotland.
Thus began what England wrongly still claim as, “The Jacobite Rebellion”, but the Scots could not rebel against a monarchy not their own and the Scots had not deposed their monarchy.
Those Jacobite wars were still being fought at Culloden almost 40 years AFTER the forced Treaty of Union of 1706/7. Culloden itself was an example of the English establishment’s determination to clear the Highlands. Butcher Cumberland murdered many innocent women and children to that end.
Scotland has suffered ruthless social engineered population decreases ever since. The Clearances were not confined to the Highlands but they have never stopped since then. For example, when Glasgow became, “The Second City of the British Empire”, it was a threat to the London Establishment.
You will note that the most productive square Mile of the entire British Empire, (around the Gorbals), was turned into the most deprived area of the United Kingdom and Glasgow’s might was curbed by building new towns from Corby in England to such as Glenrothes, East Kilbride and all the rest of the artificial Glasgow overspill.
The greatest export from Scotland is neither whisky nor oil & gas but has always remained, ever since the wars of independence, the diaspora of the legally sovereign, “People of Scotland”.
From the Plantations of Ireland to the formation of the New World the Establishment built its empire upon the backs of the People of Scotland and they are still attempting to do so today.
Vote SNP 1+2
@ nana 10.39
BTL comments: oooft!
Nana comment @10.39 not so much Labour Hame more like Labour slain. Not that they believe one comment, would rather believe the tripe they spout, having commented there before it makes no difference how many people tell them what is wrong they still continue on the road.
Nana says:
at 10:39 am
“O/T Labour wow they ‘care’ ”
Yes, the comments tell it like it is!
The article itself makes an interesting point which reveals a great deal.
“… someone would say, ‘I know you [in England] will not care about our problems …’ We both were horrified. I think everyone in the Labour party south of the board cares deeply about our fellow Scottish Labour and its fortunes. It is not that we do not care; it is that we do not know how to help.”
So Labour in London simply can’t understand what is happening here and are at a loss on how to help.
Well Labour at WM aren’t part of any solution, they are at the heart of the problem – full of Blairism and very much part of the London Establishment. They haven’t had anything to offer Scotland for decades. The pretence of a ‘Scottish’ Labour and nostalgia has kept them in existence here.
There is no ‘Scottish’ Labour, and the underlying London Labour has absolutely nothing to offer Scotland. Therein lies their problem.
Yes, the branch in Scotland could breakaway and follow their ex voters and become at least Home Rule or even pro Indy. Is that really in their mindset as a solution?
See that Tenner I owe you
How about we negotiate it down to £8.50
I know I made a promise to deliver your £10.00 safely and swiftly and even put it in a newspaper and made an I.O.U and vowed it and swore blind it would be paid..but…
I don’t want to pay you what I owe you and I’m bigger than you and it’s not fair to me to keep that promise so basically I’m saying Fukc You what are you going to do about it and I hate you anyway,
Let me know when I come back my holidays or it goes down to £7.50
Deal or no Deal?
@Nana
Oh Dang! 😀
Not only is that fella Angell wholly uninformed about the Scottish electorate, but apparently the feelings and thoughts his own shadow cabinet. Who knew?
And the comments… Jings!
Auntie says:
—————————————————————
Chief Secretary to the Treasury Greg Hands is on holiday but is expected to speak to Scotland’s Deputy First Minister John Swinney on the phone.
The deadline for agreement was pushed back earlier this month.
A spokeswoman for First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said an offer had been made for Mr Swinney to travel to London for discussions early this week.
————————————————————–
Aye right! Just hang up the phone and send Swinney on a three day break!
Are we independent yet?
link to moflomojo.blogspot.com
@Bob and Tam
“@Tam Jardine says: 16 February, 2016 at 1:10 am:
” … The Highlands is like a desert- a beautiful wasteland.”
Aye! Tam, and not an inch of Scotland’s, mainly barren wasteland, that wasn’t man made. Furthermore it was man made for Westminster establishment benefits.”
Not long back I carried out a comparative exercise between England and Germany specifically to compare on shore wind turbine deployment.
Having visited Germany in the past I was well aware that the Northern half had a topography similar to England, mainly flattish lowlands whereas the Southern half was very like Scotland, mainly Highlands.
So because I also knew German population density was only around 2/3 that of England and because of the aforementioned known topographical difference, I decided to compare the northernmost half of Germany with England. Where there should be a higher population density, hopefully more similar to England.
I could do this because all the relevant data was available for each German state.
Here are maps of German topography and wind turbine distribution which show the North/South state dividing line I used.
link to i51.photobucket.com
During the course of the exercise I was really very surprised to discover that the population Density of the Northern half was still only 612/sq mile and that it was very nearly the same population density in the South – 555/sq mile.
This really brought home to me what an unnatural demographic is presented by our own Highlands and its depopulation.
Chic McGregor says:
Yes indeed Chic, as the Highland estates exist to prevent the re population. That has to be fixed.
Once done we can go about the Highlands as Norway has done, with small active farms and villages all over, where people can work and stay and bring up their families in a good and beneficial inviroment and over time re populate.
We have lots of catching up to do.
Chic and Robert
Thanks for both your posts.
I am annoyed that this angle was not exploited more during the indyref but I think we have all been through a tremendous learning process on Wings and in the wider movement so next time we will be able to hammer this message home. At the moment I am swinging from being really angry to being very positive for the future and back again.
Also I feel frustration that this forum, which surely contains some of the most informative and thoughtful discussion in this land is simply dismissed by some as if we are all crackpots and frothing xenophobes.
Anyway- this depopulation of the land for some reason brings to mind a book I was given on Carrifran down near White Coomb in the Moffat Hills. I know the area from doing plenty of hillwalking around there with the scouts back in the day.
If you are not familiar with their story it is worth a look but they basically bought the land, fenced off the entire valley with deer fencing and planted something like half a million trees in order to recreate the land as it was thousands of years ago. link to carrifran.org.uk
Anyway- for one valley this project has been a monumental effort for those involved but it makes me think that solving the depopulation of Scotland will need significant land reform but also a structure where land reclaimed from the estates is released in blocks with a purpose and with support.
Just as we can’t reforest Scotland as it was in one enormous project (without imposing some kind of gulag arrangement on the entire populus!) we are going to struggle to go from wasteland into modern, vibrant, diverse use of the land in a single step.
Perhaps there is significant research and thought out there already on how we can turn the use of the land around but I would be interested to hear your thoughts.
There is no forested area in Europe that does not require the management and input of people to maintain it – the idea that forest or re-wilding can happen in isolation from humans is a myth.
This should be a major investment in the skills and opportunities for people not a silly plaything for deluded conservationists/landowners.
@Paula Rose
There is no forested area in Europe that does not require the management and input of people to maintain it
Maybe only if you intend to reap economic benefit from the forest.
Most of the UK, other than the highest parts are natural environment for forest (now) and that is how things were in the most recent past. In the absence of humans forest would be the normal state of affairs in the UK.
Of course I am excluding glacial periods, nothing is static 🙂
My point is that forested area of Europe are so due to human involvement – they do not exist without that.
Timber is a valuable crop for Scotland often on land which would be of limited productive use otherwise.
Generally speaking, pine trees are not native to Scotland. Pine needles are actually leaves which have adapted to conserving water and therefore develop in areas which are short of water. Somewhat paradoxically, in perma-frost (Tundra) type areas where the water is frozen a lot of the time or in arid, near desert type uplands.
Scotland is naturally neither of those types, having something of an over abundance of free running water. Even with human created drainage systems, losses due to too much water are not infrequent.
However, by utilising suitable drainage techniques, forestry workers are, by and large, able to grow pine trees successfully and because of Scotland’s milder climate, a lot faster than they may do back in their original habitats. Up to seven times faster if memory serves me correctly.
So whereas the UK as a whole imports about 7 times the amount of timber it grows itself, Scotland is yet again self sufficient with a surplus exported to England.
There are various growing methodologies and some are much worse at releasing GGEs than others. A major study of this has been ongoing in Cumbria for some years and foresters are no doubt already responding to the results.
Scotland is unusual for a developed country in that we produce more GGEs from land misuse, especially methane, than we do from our industrial and domestic heating output.
Highland depopulation has no doubt helped that come about, where once Glens full of crofters cultivated land for crops or husbanded bogs and moor to create grass pasture which has now reverted.
You only need to visit Lewis to see the stark contrast. Crofting is restricted to a narrow strip around the coast. The land on the crofts is fertile and productive because through the simple expedient of the people carting up seaweed and sand to make it so. Whereas inland, where they are not allowed, it remains largely moor and bog.
If it were any other country like say Denmark, Lewis, a large island, could have a population in the hundreds of thousands rather than the 20 thousand or so it has at the moment.
My long term strategy would be to create a major road upgrade in a loop up the A9, down the Great Glen and then down through Argyle to Glasgow. At regular suitable points around it, and there are plenty suitably large flat areas, I would create a new town, similar in size to those we have created in the Lowlands. That makes the whole thing logistically viable in terms of distribution costs, citizen amenities etc.
In time, around each town a small commuter belt and local produce area would naturally occur into the surrounding countryside. Job done.
Paula Rose
There is no forested area in Europe that does not require the management and input of people to maintain it – the idea that forest or re-wilding can happen in isolation from humans is a myth.
Hi Paula. The project I mentioned was the exact opposite- vast human effort expended from a diverse bunch of conservationists, ordinary members of the public and contractors.
What they have not done is create a sustainable commercial hardwood forestry of the type the French do so well.
I’m not putting that project forward as a solution to depopulation- I am suggesting that we need to start somewhere in changing the land use and this conservation approach taking one valley and changing fundamentally the land from dead space through investment and hard work into something alive is inspirational.
If you get what I mean.
Thing about trees needing humans is that they need humans because of humans. The question is, if we totally removed humans from the planet would trees be able to take over considering the damage done even to mature trees by widlife, but particularly young shoots? Deer and sheep are a problem for forestry in Scotland which is why the areas they control usually keep them out.
I worked for a fair time in Germany, near the Black Forest and used to go through to Strasbourg and Alsace every so often. My project didn’t have agreement from the unions for overtime which was great, every weekend off, just 40 hours a week. I remember I found in France, or sorry, Alsace, this hill in the middle of nowhere which had loads of information about trees and the good they did, absorbing CO2. But that cars killed off the lower parts of trees. Drove back through the Black Forest and right enough, up to about 6 feet high stripped of leaves or needles, whereas further in they were covered.
I wonder if there’s any research for the most efficient CO2 absorbing trees, but meanwhile it appears that the UK as a whole has more than enough trees to absorb all the CO2 emitted. I think perhaps the answer is to surrond CO2 emitting industry by loads of tall trees.
link to forestry.gov.uk
Sorry, read that totally wrong! That’ll learn me. No, there’s nowhere near enough trees in the UK.
@yesindyref2
The methods used to forest trees commercially can net add to greenhouse gas emissions, hence the importance of the best practice experiments in Cumbria.
@Chic
I get you. I guess I’ve passed or had coming the other way, enough timber lorries on narrow roads or forest roads to
scare the sheet out of merealise that, let alone the cutting.@yesindyref2
It is more the emission rates from various ground preparation techniques and from loam disturbance techniques at harvest time.
Scots Pine, as it says on the label, is a Scottish native, Juniper ditto, and were it not for the Channel, which has restriced our native flora considerably, we would also have European Larch & Norway Spruce/Maple etc’, etc’. What we do grow well though are the North American west coast conifers, Sitka in particular. Trees generally are carbon-neutral and there is something of a felling frenzy at present to clear conifers & re-plant with native hardwoods to take advantage of government grants as there is no commercial value apart from some bio-mass uses.. Land managers generally are now farming the public.
During this rather cold spell of weather why don’t we just buy up all these biased and rubbish newspapers and have one big gigantic fire At least a temporary rest from prejudice and a bit of comfort as well