Ground Zero
Well, there it is.
It’s not like it hasn’t been coming.
Two weeks before the SNP forced through the Gender Recognition Reform Act last December, shortly before the “Isla Bryson” affair catapulted the issue into mainstream prominence, they still led Scottish polling for a Westminster election by a colossal 26 points. Today, well under a year later, the last shreds of that lead evaporated.
(It’s even worse than it looks, because the demographics of Scottish constituencies suggest that on this poll Scottish Labour would win the election by 26 seats to 22, torpedoing even Humza Yousaf’s farcically embarrassing stance that a majority of seats, not votes, would be sufficient to act as a mandate for independence.)
It’s hard to credibly attribute the plummet to anything but gender policy. Half of the lead had vanished BEFORE Nicola Sturgeon’s sudden resignation in February. Even after a brief new-leader bounce for Humza Yousaf, two-thirds of it was gone by the time of her subsequent arrest under the ongoing Operation Branchform investigation.
But if you map trans-related events instead, the picture is pretty clear:
Each development in the story of the convicted double rapist Sturgeon refused to identify as a man and was happy to see incarcerated in a women’s prison saw another precipitous drop straight afterwards, as the general public – until then still largely unaware of an issue that had previously been confined to broadsheet newspapers with tiny circulations and politics programmes watched by nobody – got a crash course in what was going on and was horrified.
One appalling story followed another on an almost daily basis.
After 16 years of Unionist parties and the media not being able to make a single notable dent in the SNP’s popularity, the cult of gender ideology finally took it down.
It’s unlikely, of course, that gender was the sole reason. But every camel’s back has a breaking point, and once people’s faith in a political party goes the descent is usually vertiginous, as those who’d been reluctantly giving it the benefit of the doubt reassess things they’d previously been willing to excuse or at least overlook.
When your voters can no longer suspend their disbelief, you’re in trouble.
Another poll – an unscientific one we ran on the Wings Twitter account yesterday – cast some interesting additional light on the issue. Our following on the social media website is now an eclectic amalgam comprising three main groups – hardcore Yes voters, gender-critical feminists and Unionists who come for the SNP-bashing. Which goes a fair way to explain these results:
From an unusually high number of responses (about twice what we usually get, because a number of Unionist followers tweeted the poll), indy still came out on top by 55-45. But startlingly, almost half of the Yes responses wanted to delay independence until the current government was gone. And even among respondents who still wanted it straight away, a common theme rapidly became apparent.
We could have printed scores and scores in a similar vein. But the bottom line is that the Yes group was split almost evenly into two categories: “I’d rather wait until the SNP and Greens were gone to get independence”, and “I’d like independence immediately, specifically in order to get rid of the SNP and Greens”.
Or to spell that out in cold hard black and white, the only thing uniting indy voters was their loathing of the two main “indy” parties.
Now, as we said, Twitter polls are not scientific. All three of the main factions in Wings’ following – which obviously also cross over in varying degrees – lean towards those disaffected with the SNP for one reason or another, either for failure to advance independence (the hardcore Yessers), anger at gender ideology (the TERFs), or just flat-out opposition to independence (the rubbernecking Yoons).
But this was a large and widely-drawn sample, and the sheer level of hostility to the supposed party of independence from the supporters of independence is a bellwether that offers a strong clue as to feelings back along the line.
There are still lots of Yes voters who aren’t THIS disillusioned with the SNP, but it’s crystal-clear from the scientific polling that they’re nevertheless PRETTY disillusioned – you don’t blow 26 points of lead in 10 months if your supporters are happy.
And it remains this site’s view that the true picture for the party is already much worse than the polls suggest, because even people who still say they’re SNP when directly asked to choose by a pollster may not make the effort to actually go out and vote.
Four weeks today we’ll get the first solid data for that proposition, at the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election. If things are as bad as we’re currently hearing from canvassers, Labour – as absurdly dysfunctional as they are themselves – aren’t just going to win the seat, they’re going to absolutely romp it. Not particularly by picking up new votes, just by watching the SNP plunge past them.
And if that happens, the prospects for the SNP next year will be truly bleak. Because once you go over the cliff edge, however high it is, nothing’s going to stop you until you hit the bottom.
Hopefully they will crash and Alex will come back unite the independence movement and get rid of all the hangers on
Spot-on analysis as usual. I gave the SNP my vote for forty years and they betray me and all the rest of us for gravy. That’s all it is. Sheer greed.
The rot started for me with the Alex Salmond stitch up and subsequent enquiry run by Linda Fabiani , the GRA bill affirmed for me that neither the SNP or Labour are fit to run the country, Labour could possibly redeem itself by admitting it made a mistake and backtracking before the court judgement is announced, but for the DNP/Greens it’s good night Vienna
And the faithful will still be singing Scots Wha Hae as the stern of the SS Sturgeon slips beneath the waves, taking all hands with her.
Tioraidh!
It needs a catastrophe to wake up the rest of the movement to an alternative. Whether that’s an SNP under new management or a different party remains to be seen. At the next GE is 18 months before Holyrood 2026 but even that might not be enough time.
I’ve been saying the solution needs to be the SNP have to crash and burn in order to get forward movement on indy even before she/her bolted.
Agent Sturgeon return to base your work here is done.
I hit the wrong option yesterday ( sorry), I hit right now rather than never. Although I would like to see independence before I shuffle off this mortal coil, I don’t think it will happen with these self serving, misogynistic fantasists. Also the terror I feel that the SNP apologists/ loyal voters, would be so in thrall to them, if by some remote they did achieve it, would enshrine them into semi-permanence in power. That would be an utter, utter disaster for women, children and Scotland.
For me, the big question is why the Party pursued this insane policy initiative.
Are we to believe that Sturgeon and her Gauleiters spontaneously alighted on GRR as the pressing imperative on their time and energy?
Aside from her technical incompetence and personality flaws, Sturgeon was otherwise a calculating and sure footed, machine politician.
The extreme measures built into the Scottish Government’s GRR Bill were tested time and time again in polling and were found to be deeply unpopular with the electorate. So why doggedly pursue an unpopular policy?
Every cult must have a specific, outlandish, core tenet. Something that sets it aside from the general populace. Something to differentiate them from the “unbelievers”.
A spacecraft hiding in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet (Heaven’s Gate).
A subterranean land of milk and honey under the Mojave desert (The Manson family). Control over a Chinese satellite death-ray (Workers’ Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought).
The tenet is multi-functional within the group. To gain access to the cult a disciple must repeat the tenet. The tenet is deployed as a mantra to increase cohesion of the group. Those who repeat the tenet most loudly and most often are promoted within the group. The competence and abilities of those selected for promotion are an irrelevance. Devotion to the tenet is all. Subservience to the cult leader as expressed through evangelising the tenet is paramount. The tenet defines the group. The tenet binds the group. The tenet is used by the cult leader to control the group.
Curiously, actually “believing” the tenet as a factual truth is not required by the upper echelons of the cult. Vincent Bugliosi (prosecuting District Attorney) was of the opinion that Charles Manson didn’t believe a word of Helter Skelter. This cynicism towards the core tenet the nearer the top of the managerial pyramid is inherent in all cults / religions.
A parachute could stop them of course. Maybe a massive collapse of vote next month, will cause some kind of rebellion by SNP members committed to independence.
The sad thing is we don’t have the luxury of voting out the SNP, interim Unionist cabal, then back to a re-ivigorated SNP or other indy party. If the next SG is unionist, they will destroy all the good things that remain; publically owned water, the NHS, free tertiary education, more progressive taxation, lower council tax.
Anyone with the intellectual capacity of Winnie The Pooh can see the direction in which the SNP is heading.
Unfortunately for them, the SNP doesn’t have a leader with the intellectual capacity that high. He is reminiscent of Elmer J Fudd
Independence is his Bugs Bunny, never to be captured, by carrots or otherwise.
That’s all folks!
The surreal aspect of this is that the current SNP and London Labour are equally in the grip of woke genderist attitudes promoted by their parasitic green eyed cliques.
The SNP abandoned Scottish nationalism, Labour abandoned socialism and both splash and scratch like cats drowning in a pond.
In the meantime the totally cynical Conservatives continue to defecate on the citizens from the heights of smuggery.
You’ve captured it accurately for me and my family. We are hardcore YES voters, who want Independence now, but there’s simply no way I could trust this shower of utter incompetent clowns/grifters in the SNP to deliver it. They’ll never regain my vote either, such is the level of betrayal of Sturgeon’s legacy.
This paradox is why I find myself politically homeless at present. I know Alba offer a safe place, but ideally we need them to gain seats and traction, as quickly as possible, to fight for all of us, who believe that independence is the number one priority above all else?
Oh and as a constituent within Rutherglen and Hamilton South East, it’s going be a quite a development on a personal level not to cast my vote for the SNP, but I’m sure I’ll adapt pretty quickly….
It’s hard to attribute the plummet to anything but gender policy.
Do the other three main political parties have a gender policy that is so much better?
https://archive.ph/1upF9
Government confirms misogyny will not be made a hate crime
Don’t let the Tories fool you into thinking they’ll protect women’s rights!
Chris Avery…
“some kind of rebellion by SNP members committed to independence.”
Sorry to burst your bubble Chris, but the “SNP members committed to independence” of whom you speak, stopped being members of the SNP some time ago. Why do you think 50,000 of us quit?
The slaves are returning to their roots heading back to labour. Labour ruled the roost for 80 years and did much to destroy Scotland. Scottish voters are imbiciles they do not deserve independence the rest of the world would screw them over.
” Sunrise
Sunset
Since the beginning it hasn’t changed yet
People fly high begin to lose sight
You can’t see very clearly when you’re in flight
It’s high time that you found
The same people you misuse on your way up
You might meet ’em
On your way down ” ( Allen Toussaint )
Hence all this recent blabber about the formerly taboo subject for Nu SNP management/careerists – Independence . Though it’s just same Westminster – sanction- required pish repackaged : substance-less sound n fury ; signifying fuck all
Likewise the reappearance of the Zombie That Came From Vogue ..ie .. Sturgeon . The laugh ( one of the many ) is that her devotees think she is still an asset . She is , just not for them .
Schadenfreude is a pretty poor substitute for actual progress – on Independence . But I’ll take it anyway .
Yv been knocking it oot the park even more than usual with yr recent posts , Stuart .
Would disagree that this is exclusively down to gender policy.
The entire party is such a colossal mess that I don’t think you could say this is down to any one thing.
Lack of action on independence, the Salmond enquiry, Sturgeon’s arrest, the missing money, the deplorable behaviour of their ministers, the Green deal, ScotWind, education, policing… all of this will be contributing to a total non-specific disgust across the political spectrum of the country.
Those on the Yes side who are now realising that Sturgeon lied to them now will also be realising she’s been lying to them about everything since 2015.
Humza will get the blame, portrayed as a replacement who wasn’t quite good enough, and while he should be making a clean break with the immediate past and it is weak-kneed of him to not do so, the true blame lies absolutely and totally with Sturgeon. She has put the credibility of independence back 30 years.
The party that rightly slated unionist policies became themselves abhorrent.
Greedy politicians supping the gravy whilst the MI5 infiltrated top brass deliberately sabotaged the independence party. !
Sturgeon has much to answer for, but so do the pathetically weak and naïve snp members!
@ Chris Avery at 1.09pm: “Maybe a massive collapse of vote next month, will cause some kind of rebellion by SNP members committed to independence.”
If the SNP are anything like Scottish Labour, they’ll blame their collapse in support, not on themselves, but on the stupid voters. The SNP has shown zero willingness thus far to take any responsibility for the catastrophic clusterfuck they’ve created over the past nine years.
To be honest I think you may be using an ACME Stretching rod there.
While there may be individuals who blame single items such as GRB, I would say the majority of folk may be like myself and just fell away from the SNP because they fell away from focusing on the Get Scotland Independent raison d’etre.
Sure they might have turned their attention to aspects like GRA but its the turning away rather than what they turned too that caused the graph to hurtle downwards.
I did wonder though…given the Gloryhunters out there potentially seeing whats coming over the hill… does (Scottish)Labour have a lobby/infiltration issue as yet with the Gender Activist brigade?
This WOKERY is throughout western politics.
There is no real political opposition because any country that steps away will face International sanctions.
Kr4nkie probably had very little control on the WOKE agenda but can be blamed absolutely for not pushing Independence.
For me this raises one big question: in the event of Scotland getting an independence vote of some kind, what would happen next? I would want some kind of convention of all to determine a constitution. All issues would have to be addressed- currency, eu membership, republic or not, etc. To have any legitimacy such a convention would have to represent everyone- including those who voted no. If everything was decided by the snp/greens and was negotiated with the UK government by them, then I don’t see that I could vote for that as it would not be democratic. I would also expect the public to be able to vote on any possible constitution as well
I am for Scottish independence as a basic principle.
The governments that we get after independence may be good, bad or indifferent.
I accept that.
Anyone who states that they will only take independence if the current mob aren’t in charge isn’t really for independence at all, are they?
Still either too many gullible people on twitter, or they’re staffers or paid agents, but Chris Law was getting roundly praised for saying Lab and Cons are “two cheeks of the same arse.”
I mean, FFS, George Galloway said that ages ago,
Law is trying to raise his hopeless profile,
He’s seen the polls, and he’s going to lose his seat.
Hopefully, the latter,the guy never paid off the company that renovated his battle bus, even after buying the sports coupe and the castle.
I despise nuSNP
Hobson’s choice really, Canada++, or Labour.
No wonder there are so many politically homeless.
The idea that it would be easy to vote out the SNP/Greens quickly after any grant of independence is fanciful; imagine their preening and strutting at ‘their’ victory; and-with their alleged control of the criminal justice system and untrammelled powers to legislate away any views hostile to their ‘vision’ (not to mention full control of the levers of finance/nepotism and propaganda) I think its a fair bet they’d be deucedly hard to shift
I am currently reading Why I Write by George Orwell and at the section I read last night he spoke of the decline in belief in the country of England between WW1 and WW2. He identified two groups, what he referred to as Blimps, people who would normally have found employment in the maintenance of the Empire but who now found that this was in decline and that ambitious people were looking for alternative employment but that the Blimps could be relied on to have the sufficient amount of patriotism to protect their countries borders and honour pledges made to other countries they saw as allies. The other group were the Intelligentsia, what he referred to as the highbrow Left. He felt that this group had lots of ideas and demands but absolutely no connection whatsoever to the average punter or the prevalent culture of the country they resided in and would in all likelihood wish to see this replaced as their ideas and worldview were being dictated by Soviet Russia (in modern times Globalism/China etc).
George Orwell wrote this around 1941/42 and like 1984 it is extremely relevant with regard to the here and now.
All I can think of is “about time they were shown up for what they truly are”
Thank you
If I were to pop my tin foil hat on for a minute I might say MI5 sleeper Sturgeon played an absolute blinder trashing the primary supposed party of independence.
Vivian O’Blivion @1:06pm
It was the Sturgeon clique that pursued this path and ensured that the party followed. Add the #metoo vendetta and they all assumed they would be on a fast track to a larger trough at the UN or the lucrative lecture circuit in the USA. For Sturgeon, the SNP and Scotland was simply the means to an end. The goal was to ingratiate themselves with President Clinton (not Bill) and they’d be lauded as powerful women for ever more.
The reality is even better. While the SNP do deserve a calamitous drop in support, what’s more likely is that they will drop to perhaps 50% of their current levels, as there are quite a few Wee Ginger Dugs out there, and also people who just don’t think about politics at all for the 5 years between elections, and then vote as they always have done, or who Nan told them to vote for.
If that’s broadly correct, that takes the SNP down to 20-25%, which isn’t enough to get many MPs or MSPs, and it holds back Alba and ISP to a maximum of 20-25%, which means they don’t get many MPs or MSPs either.
Those who are elected will be Unionists.
All good.
As a Scot it’s quite something to be watching this bonfire from afar (Ireland, where we have our own issues with the wokerati), but the outcome of the polling is hardly surprising. For far too long the flag waving and pan drop sucking fraternity have been belligerently walking to this point. As much as the SNP has been in a orbit entirely of their own the Alba shower have done the square root of nothing to offer a viable alternative; when they either can’t or won’t put up credible candidates, and poll a staggeringly irrelevant return given the now quite apparent loathing of the SNP, some really serious questions have to be asked just what in the name of the wee man they contribute to the pursuance of Independence. Add to this heady mix of bile being spouted from both parties directed at each other we then have the insult to anyone with any capability of thought ‘Scotland United’… Who dreamt up this patronising pish? What makes Alex Salmond think that ALBA lapdogs being openly hostile towards the SNP (let’s be honest, they’ve made it easy)and critical of everything SNP will result in any Scot voting for the SNP in the absence of ANY alternative, but the ISP, because an irrelevant Party says we should? Why would any woman, husband, father, vote for a septic boil of a Party such as SNP, but hey, overlook all of that and ‘Scotland United’ vote for them anyway… FFS 🙁 That’s before any mention of the collection of egos and idiots that collectively call themselves Salvo/Liberation Scotland.
Independence for Scotland is dead for the foreseeable, there is nobody today with the courage, nouse, political prowess and ability to take on the British Establishment at their own game. Where is the real protest, the disruption, the civil disobedience necessary to take this up several notches?
Will their still be a party come the next Westminster election? This is why Humza was given the job not because he’s their to delivery for trans or Indy he’s their simply because he’s unpopular at every level, chief mummy will be pleased.
There’s no wonder the SNP are so unpopular, just off the top of my head this is because of: GRA, trials without juries that has the legal profession amongst others up in arms, the ferry fiasco, the police investigation, a leader who is unpopular with the public, bad governance, no idea of how to achieve independence despite totting it for years at every election, marching at the weekend to rejoin the EU, now we are told we have to suck up being out of the EU, and rather than being independent we have to settle for more power to Holyrood, for the SNP to mismanage!!
We are sat here talking about the SNP and the reality is Alex Salmond and the Alba party while he is leader is a zombie party and isn’t going to go anywhere until Salmond steps down and steps aside, he know this but his ego won’t allow him to do it. The general public is ever going to put Salmond back in a place of having power, its just never going to happen he’s unpopular with every age group of the population.
I’m afraid Salmond isn’t going to ever be the come back kid some on here believe.
Mr Salmond talks about uniting the Indy movement while he doesn’t want anything to do with Salve that isn’t uniting the Indy movement its dividing it because I do believe Salvo is Scotland only hope.
I have come to realize Scotland and the movement needs to be rid of both Salmond and the Sturgeon era for good, before we can move on.
From a time when Scottish nationalism had style and direction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Wood_(artist)
What would she, Compton Mackenzie, Cunningham Grahame, Mac Diarmid, Erskine of Marr, John Mac Lean and many more make of the current situation?
They and their aims were considered rather eccentric.
Ideal dinner guests…..Slàinte mhath to them all.
How do you derail an independence movement?
Never give up,that’s how.
Remove the most effective operators
Feed the needy and glib (“Mr Russell, your horsebox to some landfill is ready”)
Feed the needly and glib (2)
(“While I deplore your privileged colour and ambiguous/timeous love of somtething called scotland, let’s have bute house agreement that noone ever approved, let alone voted for”)
Install agents (“Mr Foote, your taxi to jackson’s close is ready”)
Pursue policy noone gives a fuck about
Persecute and,elastically, prosecute anyone with reasonable critique
Then claim the salted ground to trample on (“douglas alexander: I will never leave politics, no matter what electorates vote”.)
Set the controls for the heart of the darkness
I am for independence in any way.
It’s obvious now SNP are lost and won’t deliver this .
Your article here just confirms. So the true YES movement need to focus on supporting two parties Alba and ISP only they will deliver.
It may be too late but ALBA need to ditch the Scotland United (waiting for SNP) approach and stand a true Indy candidate opposing Gender reform. If they did stand and have enough time to get their clear message out and at the same time call the SNP out they’d have a chance to win Rutherglen. If SNP are at ground zero we can’t wait any longer for them to fall. We need a viable alternative and if ALBA is unelectable for all the Salmond baggage, right or wrong, then sorry Eck you need to step away or ISP needs to fill the void. We need to up our game here and quickly.
A Labour government in Westminster will have many problems to face. One will be the dodgy concrete,reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. This material will not only be found in schools but elsewhere.
This from the BBC:”Prof Chris Goodier, of Loughborough University, said the “scale of problem is much bigger than schools”.
“It also covers much of the building stock in the country,” he said. “This also includes health, defence, justice, local government, national government, and also a lot of the private sector.”
The Chancellor, Jeremy *unt (T.M.Jim Naughtie) said the Tories would pay “whatever it takes” to put the problem right in schools before explaining money would have to come from existing budgets.
Labour would give no spending commitments whatever.
A period of government by Labour in England and in Scotland would usefully expose further the great inadequacy of UK government. Austerity is in play for many years.
Maybe we can ask them to show us the money.
If the SNP was to be changed to basically what is was before Sturgeon, which of the current MP’s & MSP’s could be considered as being suitable to remain in such an SNP. The current lot all went along with what has happened. Words were never enough and any that seemed worthwhile too often switched to whatever personal cause they felt strongly enough about to make that, and not independence, their main focus. All of them have shown their true colours for years now.
Sturgeon led the changes slowly enough over years to sufficiently hide it. Any change to the SNP now would need to be massive and happen very fast. It’s doubtful that could even happen. Maybe if some were rightfully convicted that would help speed things up, or if incontrovertible evidence of malice against Salmond became well known, that might drive serious change, but as things stand now any serious change to the SNP seems unlikely.
It seems that the SNP has always been split between fundamentalists and gradualists. The days of gradualism are long gone. So maybe just leave the current SNP as gradualists (never never), with Alba as the fundamentalists (need another word for that, it’s just too crap). One thing is clear, the sooner the SNP politicians arse’s (bottom’s) hit the pavement the better.
I’m not surprised that the SNP lost support after people realised they have bad intentions towards our children.
I’m just surprised that making a laughable greasy racist the new Heid Bummer o’ the SNP hasn’t made them any popularer.
Send in the Jamie Hepburn!
If anyone was tasked with the job of bringing the SNP to its knees and a final bullet in the back of the head, I’m pretty sure nobody could come up with a better strategy than has/is occurring.
Which begs the question, was this the intended crash and burn flight plan for the SNP all along?
The SNP have proved to be a Unionist party, they have done an exceptional job at giving independence a right old kicking.
Kuntz.
Great piece, Rev, and so well researched. Most, if not all, the MSPs and MPs read your blogs, so they will know very quickly that they are all doomed if the continue to espouse insane policies that harm people. Governments and parties are meant to have a duty of care towards their people, not a string of policies that actually harm everyone else, while leaving the woo woo cocks (no pun intended) to crow at the top of the midden. Reversing your predecessors’ policies is poor for the course in politics.
I find it very hard to forgive what they have done to women – women, moreover, who supported them through thick and thin. If they drop the GRRB, inject some sense into their ‘green’ policies and understand that people are on their uppers and cannot afford any more outlandish initiatives, I would be prepared to vote for them again next year, and, after that, if is no ALBA candidate standing, because I want a United front, not a fractured one. Otherwise, forget it. They know what they have to do and if they don’t, they will fall with a massive slam – and deserve it thoroughly.
Sinn Fein, hopeful of winning the whole of Ireland, North and South, have just opened the door to the gender woo woo. They, too, will fall, just like the SNP. Any party that supports this utter bilge water is going to fall hard for the very simple reason that most sane people detest this harmful garbage and will not vote for them. They have all been given fair notice: support the woo woo to the detriment of women, children, gays and lesbians and many men, and you will lose support faster than an ice cream meting in a bairn’s mitt on a hot summer’s day.
The opinion of an SNP ex minister for Soc.Sec.
«An SNP minister has warned that Scotland is unable to become a “successful,
modern independent country in the short to medium term”. Ben Macpherson, the minister for social security and MSP for Edinburgh Northern and Leith, also claimed that a transition after any vote for Scotland to leave the UK could take “many years” or even “potentially decades”. He said Scotland did not have the necessary infrastructure to become independent quickly and successfully»
How long has the SNP had to set up such an «infrastructure»?
There isn’t even a Scotland based meteorological service..the Channel Islands have one.
The guy in question seems to delight in the revelation that independence is off.
He also thinks Scotland would be «leaving» the UK.
With such as that what can be expected from this «political order».
I dunno what the ppl of Hamilton expect to receive from Labour? It’ll only be more GRR – on stilts this time because if they do take WM those fuds will rubber stamp GRR to avoid rioting in the streets of London.
& can someone please explain to me this votes Vs seats thing? I thought it was seats otherwise how did Bojo become PM with only 43% of the vote but smashed the seats?
What is the official line? Seats or votes?
Get real folks.
With Alex Salmond, some may decide to vote Alba, some may decide not to. Without Alex Salmond, nobody will vote Alba. It’s inertia and SNP voter habits holding back Alba, not Alex Salmond.
@Lorna Campbell (2.58) –
‘Sinn Fein, hopeful of winning the whole of Ireland, North and South, have just opened the door to the gender woo woo. They, too, will fall, just like the SNP.’
Yet another case of snatching defeat from the proverbials. Rank and file SF supporters are enraged.
For anyone who needs a crash course in what’s happening there, the case of Cork City Library is instructive – plenty of material via Twitter.
The Current SNP brought this upon themselves, they are a bunch of lying, deceitful, careerists, grifters who have destroyed the reputation and credibility of the SNP as a party for Scottish independence.
What will happen when the party finally croaks it, and it surely will, it must be looked at as a cautionary tales for real indy parties that emerge from the ashes of this once great indy party, that you can’t fool the voters all of the time.
I see the SNP under Sturgeon and the clown Yousaf as akin to the (IPP) the Irish Parliamentary Party, that promised much but delivered very little.
As for the degenerate Greens they must follow the SNP out the door if you value your children’s and grand children’s mental and physical health.
Apparently they are archiving the great Scottish programme Taggart now, Scottish tv programmes are like the Tasmanian Tiger, there’s much talk about the possibility that they still exist even today, but no one really believes that they’ll ever see one.
Sturgeon the betrayer destroyed the SNP, she and her grifting clique can never be forgiven for that, so many people put so much time and energy into building the party up to rid Scotland of or parasitic neighbour, only for her to ruin it all in under a decade.
The problem with getting independence under the current shower is what happens after a yes vote? They get to control constitutional debate etc. until they get kicked out? That seems like a recipe for disaster. There needs to be a lot more discussion about what the process is after a yes vote. What currency gets used is the least of it. Independence is too important to be trusted to political parties. There needs to be some sort of convention that includes a broad cross-section of Scottish society that comes up with a constitutional system that gets put to a vote. The system needs checks and balances – what both the current Westminster and Holyrood systems lack in abundance. You’re incompetent or commit crimes, you get held to account.
The commenter who lives Abroad is greeting the imminent electoral decline of the SNP and its replacement by Unionist parties with gloating satisfaction but might do well to remember the cautionary advice, ‘Be careful what you wish for.’
Wall to wall unionists representing Scotland at Westminster will just be like revisiting the unloved past for Scottish voters. The dominant party representing Scotland might well be Labour but they are as risibly incompetent as the SNP. They are all out of the same stable of troughers and careerists and to boot, if the UK Government becomes a Labour one, we will have the same old neoliberalism and transgender ideology blazing out in technicolour and mega surround sound by grey Big Brother Starmer.( A bleak outlook when the only alternative is a return of a Tory government, whether or not Scotland actually voted for it.) I think we have been round that roundabout before, many times.
Whither then, Scotland? A grim prospect lies before you. Go home and think again?
@Graham Lamont and other voters in RHW –
Colette Walker of ISP is standing. ISP also support women’s rights and indy. Obviously she’ll not win, but would you consider helping her not lose her deposit AND warning the SNP that Yes voters are taken for granted at their peril, rather than not voting at all? I’m not a member of ISP but I’d genuinely love to see her get more than the gender addled Greens!
David Lyon @1:40pm
However it was adherence to gender ideology that formed the purity test to see whether people got ministerial posts. That winnowed the talent pool pretty extensively so it did contribute to the SNP’s downfall, though perhaps indirectly.
I don’t see things getting better. Maggie Chapman’s speech today calling for child payment to go towards the gender affirmation industry at a time when child poverty in Scotland is growing is just a sign that the Indy movement has a ball and chain around its neck and we won’t get independence with people like this in positions in power.
Transgender ideology was always going to be a negative for political parties once the general public realised this wasn’t LGB acceptance & now it’s come for their children it’s something that’ll continue to lose votes. Hence why Labour pivoted so hard away from it as they realised it’d just be handing votes to the Tories. I fully expect it to be a major issue in the next GE and if the SNP are still supporting Gender Ideology (which they will be as they’re too far in to back out now) then this could be the best case scenario for them. If another scandal emerges between now and then (which seems certain with Trans Ideology) and the SNP/Greens dig in supporting Trans/Queer theory then support could further decline.
I’m not expecting Labour to be better but they’re cynical enough to dial back on Queer Theory if there’s votes in it.
‘David Martin says:
7 September, 2023 at 1:12 pm
The sad thing is we don’t have the luxury of voting out the SNP, interim Unionist cabal, then back to a re-ivigorated SNP or other indy party. If the next SG is unionist, they will destroy all the good things that remain; publically owned water, the NHS, free tertiary education, more progressive taxation, lower council tax.’
Lower council tax??? https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23650535.snp-table-plans-hike-council-tax-22-5-per-cent/#:~:text=If%20implemented%2C%20the%20plans%20would,the%20fairness%20of%20the%20charge.
Has anyone heard what the nuSNP have decided re Fergus Ewing or is this still to come? If they expel him (after his mum’s been dead a wee while they’ll think) that may open a few more eyes. Plus will he sit as an independent, join another party or set up a party and would any other MSPs consider the latter two options?
When RHW is a catastrophe for the SNP, I wonder if a few non Sturgeonites might read the runes and decide time to move on???
I’m a hard yesser and feminist, the SNP can whistle for my vote – I’ll vote for any pro independence, anti GRRB candidate on the ballot paper.
@ Alan Mackechnie 7 September, 2023 at 1:56 pm (with minor edits):
After independence I would want a convention to determine a constitution, currency, EU membership, republic or not, etc. To have legitimacy, such a convention would have to represent everyone – including those who voted no.
Absolutely right. But it could come before independence, and be the Convention that declared UDI. It’s a no-brainer, as a way forward. But the bugger is, how to create it. Is any group working on this?
I am a supporter of the union but I also believe in democracy and if independence ever comes through the ballot then that will be the will of the people and we move on. I came to this site a few months ago and the level of research is outstanding. I believe the SNP in this current form has done something impossible a few years ago. They have united unionists and Independence supporters in the belief that what ever happens the SNP is a disaster for Scotland and both camps.
An informative read.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Kosovo_declaration_of_independence
It doesn’t even sadden me to say this, given I know there are still good people in the SNP, even if they seem vanishingly few in number; I hope the SNP gets everything it deserves over the next couple of years. They’ve taken us for fools and they deserve to be punished for it.
«It, independence, is coming, ready or not»
It is possible to exaggerate the need to be «ready» in every respect, every i dotted, every T crossed, belt and braces firmly adjusted.
Opportunities arise without advance notice.
The only ready that matters is the readiness to seize an opportunity when presented.
For that the body politic needs to be loose, flexible and ideologically baggage free.
OPPORTUNIST
noun, usually disapproving
Someone, who tries to get power or an advantage in every situation.
Let the pursed lipped disapprove as the boat leaves without them.
Tory Penny Mordaunt in the HoC after a visit to Scotland claimed;
““I discovered that the bill to Scottish taxpayers of the smelting business debacle stands at £32 million.
“I discovered that £33m that was ringfenced for Scottish farmers has gone Awol…””
If true why haven’t we heard more on this, as we have heard of the millions wasted on the never will sail ferries, the millions wasted on the Bottle Return Scheme etc.
Just how much exactly has the SNP/Green government at Holyrood wasted of taxpayers cash?
May i commend this to your perusal, as Blair and Starmer begin their bromance.
A reading age of 8 in order to fully appreciate the text is presumed.
https://assets.ctfassets.net/75ila1cntaeh/3ipqk6pGuY2BjhyCRmQtc4/082cc98938ec8bbb1b13b2166f280739/Tony_Blair_Institute__A_New_Direction__Ideas_to_Transform_the_Future_of_Britain__July_2023.pdf
Brave new world or the best of all possible worlds, that hath so many «fascist clones» in it?
Ian Brotherhood: it’s the same old story. Some leading politician has a ‘trans’ child or relative and it turns his/her brain to non-nutritious soup. All the parties are riddled with politicians who have ‘trans’ relatives – usually youngsters. This doesn’t stop them from trying to condemn everyone’s else children/grandchildren/nieces/nephews, etc. to the woo woo and lifelong medicalization. They must be called out for their perfidy. Their personal struggles with the gender woo woo have nothing to do with ordinary voters.
I could scream when I think of what the SNP once was and is now. Hundreds of thousands of people’s efforts to reach independence just binned in fewer than ten years. As William Blake said: it is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. The betrayal is so much more profound, damaging and long-lasting.
Well, many folk saw this coming, and it has. THIS is what happens when a party that is elected to get us free from London rule, dithers for ten years, and indulges in personal hobby horses such as the gender nonsense.
The SNP really, really need to wake up. So many pro independence folk now despise them, and see absolutely NOTHING useful in Humza as first minster. That man, in particular will NEVER lead the SNP to any kind of electoral victory.
But, as others have pointed out before, the SNP has been infiltrated right to the very top. You might call it the Scottish spook party instead.
Working hard, day in, day out to divide the independence movement, whilst all the while pretending to be pushing for independence
Where is the indy strategy Humza?? Seriously, why will you not work with other pro independence parties, instead of the utterly cluelesss and frankly toxic, gender-obsessed ‘greens’?
Were it not for Alba I might completely despair, but with them, their is at least hope.
It is sad to note, that what is happening with the SNP right now, is exactly what happened to the British Labour party branch office in Scotland. For decades, they had been voted in,regardless. Their was no need for them to deliver what they promised Scottish voters, because, well ‘nobody votes Tory or (snigger,snigger) SNP’. And then folk decided enough was enough and DID vote SNP.
Now, here we are in 2023, with the SNP in the same situation, thinking they do not need to focus on independence, or do what they were elected to do, since ‘nobody in Scotland votes Labour or (snigger, snigger) Tory’.
Humza and his accolytes presume that no matter what, come the election pro indy voters will feel they have no option but to vote SNP. AND THAT IS PRECISELY WHERE THEY ARE WRONG. It is exactly the attitude Labour had, until they were booted out. The shock amongst them was tangible, and yet their contemptible attitude to their core vote, was exactly what destroyed them.
Their is still time for Humza to fix all this. Call a Holyrood election, and base it upon independence. But he won’t, just as the SNP stood by whilst England forcibly removed Scotland from the EU, wholly against our clear, democratic wishes, so, now in 2023, they will also do nothing. Absolute charlatans, careerist cowards, each and every one.
Everybody expect the general election in May 2024. The SNP, unless it changes track rapidly, is on course to get utterly, utterly shafted. And deservedly so.
@Ian Brotherhood
I have never used Twitter and did a search for Cork Library and what came up was results claiming people with trans flags were protecting it from the Far Right. The same article appeared to be repeated verbatim in different media outlets. It is almost as if the media is controlled by people who are in cahoots with the trans lobby and anyone who is not on board is a far Right white supremacist. This cannot be true though as three or four people on here claim that it is the far Right who are behind the trans lobby.
An interesting meeting of my local Yes group yesterday evening.
The group has two non-alignedto any party, the local SNP activists a couple of whom are very loyal and myself ALBA.
With the Group convenor who is also the SNP convenor we decided to do our own version of Scotland United, back in July I contacted an ALBA MP and a prominent NEC member to see if they would be uo to explaining the ALBA route to independence at the same meeting as the SNP would explain theirs.
The SNP MP and MSP were contacted – all were enthusiastic, ALBA confirmed the date and we waited on the SNP. We were informed they were both away on that date so we asked them for a suitable date.
The MP suggested a date ALBA confirmed – then the MSP said she had government business the next day and the MP said he would be in Estonia. The event is now on hold until they provide a new date.
All those at the meeting last night were angry – the people they had worked tirelessly to get elected were now treating them with disdain.
@Lorna Campbell
“it is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.”
Quite! The one consolation I have is that the polling which prompted the post also polled on individual policies. The policy people most disapprove of – gender reform at -20!
https://nitter.net/RedfieldWilton/status/1699458737344274823#m
Lorna Campbell
That would explain the rapid spread. You only need to infect someone high up the management tree and everyone below suffers. It would also give a free run for sympathisers to get into the higher ranks. Rinse, repeat, everywhere. The R number would likely make the Covid-SARS virus weep with envy.
Given hints at a kinky side quest from the daily record boys club, and compounding Penny Mordants (presumably) accurate observations with quite astonishing reports of the royal society deciding to part with Neil Oliver because of his political views, an equally valid question might be:
When do we deserve our first £1million from Indy
(a) right now
(b) after current government
(c) never
I would like every single one of them to lose their seats, including Cherry.
Not a single one of them, including Cherry, should be allowed anywhere near ALBA.
“Do the other three main political parties have a gender policy that is so much better?”
Only the Tories, and their motivation and commitment is suspect. But as the article points out, this is more about SNP supporters staying home than shifting.
@Lorna Campbell (4.52) –
‘it is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. The betrayal is so much more profound, damaging and long-lasting.’
Aye, it is, and who would bet against ‘betrayal’ having been hard-wired into the strategy for dealing with post-2014 ‘rebellious Scots’?
Psy-ops is such a huge element in political culture now, Sturgeon’s behaviour is a microcosm of what’s expected of ‘young global leaders’. Remember when Blair’s toe-curling alpha-male antics with Dubya Bush were explained (by some) as him having to prove that he was prepared to ‘pay the blood price’?
It feels like paying allegiance to High Wokery has similar value as proof of loyalty. (Utter compliance with the ‘covid’ narrative is a given and she went beyond the call with that particular duty too.)
Sturgeon may not have had a war to throw our youngsters into but she made it plain, with the broom-cupboard address, which Scots she valued more than others – a vanishingly small % favoured over the 50k+ who were voting with their feet, posting pictures of scissored membership cards.
RoS, at 4:37,
We may come to things from entirely opposite perspectives, but I’ve long held the view that the numbers of coppers involved (average 20) and length of time (2 years) means that it’s highly likely that Operation Branchform isn’t merely looking at £600,000 of missing SNP money. So far it’s a £3 million investigation, and from work that I’ve done in the past with the Home Office and national investigative agencies, (including with Police Scotland), it’s hard to see how that would be justified for some petty cash.
I may be wrong. Maybe the politics of the whole thing have led to extreme caution among the Police, but still, 20 cops and 2 years. Doesn’t sound like an inquest into £600,000 that should be readily auditable in the SNP accounts.
I think it’s likely to be about public money and SG accounting. Who has the power to award contracts, who receives them, and what the relationship networks are. It may well be: it’s an opinion, not me asserting a direct allegation.
I would vote for Independence BUT ONLY if I had some idea of what it would mean for me, my kids and grandkids. Far too many unanswered questions and nobody seems even willing to try and address them.
It would also be helpful to know if there were any honest, competent politicians to actually run an independent Scotland. Currently, I see very few.
Of course saying the above makes me a troll or a Yoon in the eyes of the feeble minded.
One thing is 100% certain there will NEVER be agreement on any course of action adopted. So much uncertainty is not good for anybody. Such is life. At least Billy Carlin has got it all worked out!
I cannot grasp, intellectually, why so many Scots put «qualifications» before independence. Such people are little better than the useful idiots currently running the show.
The UK ie the main bit of it, provided you dont read the DM, is in a mess.
The signs of societal melt down and weariness with politicians and the graft economy they feed is easy to find.
The UK is morphing into a third rank America. There is zilch there for Scotland.
Using kids and grandkids or the economy as an excuse for dithering is just so feeble.
The meek leave nothing to inherit.
Anyone got a working crystal ball for Chas? Perhaps you could supply the success of the UK as well as puir wee Scotland.
I see I’m not the only one saying Indy, but not yet
Indeed. And this is what the numpties who hijacked the SNP have done to us.
Unfortunately Alba is full of Israel hating, ban the bomb loons, as is the ISP, so the sane Indy voter has nowhere to go
Slightly disappointed that I won’t be able to spoil my ballot paper 4 weeks today by writing in huge letters PATRICK HARVIE IS A NONSE! But I’ve found someone I can finally vote for. Niall Fraser of The Scottish Family Party will be getting my vote. If anyone us unfamiliar with him there’s a nice wee video of him calling out Bumza Useless at his race-baiting Fringe cringefest on YouTube, well worth a swatch.
Nah, the Rev is right, this all finally broke through to the public consciousness with GRR and the “Isla” Bryson affair. And it’s ironic that every candidate in Rookie Glen is for full on gender self-id, even the SSP FFS!
The Scotland United strategy is staggeringly misguided when the SNP do nothing but show their contempt for Scots. Alex still labours under the delusion that the SNP can be rescued, when it’s time for open battle and a biological realist Alba candidate in Rutherglen.
If you use Twitter/X or use the thread reader you can find details of the latest tribunal case against the Green Party (E&W).
Look for Tribunal Tweets.
Sharar Ali, former senior member of Green Party made his case at the tribunal.
Senior members of GP who did him down were taken to bits. result in October – pretty sure he will win
To the people who fear that by clearing out the SNP we will leave the field clear for unionist parties to dismantle all hopes of independence. You are badly wrong.
The attempted stitch-up of Salmond was ONLY possible under the SNP. If that had been done by Labour or the Tories the outrage would have been colossal. It was the fact it was done by rats from within was the only reason it worked.
This is true of every rat policy. The SNP are currently infinitely more dangerous than any unionist party for the reason that people trust(ed) them.
When you trust a rat that is the most dangerous situation of all.
Sin Fein are very far gone down the fantasy biology rabbit hole. It would be laughable, if it didn’t have such a terrible effect on the younger generations.
The party of women will be launching after the coronation.
“I can’t do this alone. You will join me as candidates. We intend to stand in as many UK constituencies and council seats etc as possible.
This party will be international, we will be launching in as many countries as possible.
More details to follow.
For the constituency of women, there is the Party Of Women.”
Posie Parker
Kellie-Jay Keen aka Posie Parker will run against Starmer.
I wonder if Starmer is changing his tune re trans rights in preparation for being asked questions by Kellie-Jay.
A poll asking Scottish voters if they would vote for ‘The Party of Women’ would be interesting.
I need an alternative to just ‘staying at home under the duvet’ and ‘The Party of Women’ would be the perfect solution for me.
Re Cork Library, when looking it up I found this, an article praising the mayor for singing Oh What A Beautiful Morning in response to protesters asking him questions on why Queer Theory books were in the childrens section of the library.
This is the only response which should be given to anyone who asks awkward questions, no platform, no debate, close their bank accounts, render them unemployable and belt them one in the chops if it’s a woman, the police won’t do anything.
https://archive.ph/h9S33
Sorry, ISP are just another set of Israel obsessed, ban the bomb loonies
@ Donald T
” Where is the real protest, the disruption, the civil disobedience necessary to take this up several notches? ”
Good question ; alas , one I can’t answer .
But that is exactly what is required . I don’t think anything else will work .
All this talk about ” Statesmanship ” ” bending WM to our will ” ” building support ” ” being patient ” ( lol ) and so on , and on , and on ……is pissing in the wind .
The only thing that will get the attention of our opponents – more importantly , the attention of the latent , ” not that interested in Politics , but kinda support Independence ” demographic – is sustained public protest – more than marches – , coupled with creative disruption in WM by SNP MPs ( I know !! unlikely ) : not the opportunistic , buck-passing perma-whine that passes for ” commitment ” in Holyrood n WM .
BTW Your characterisation of the good people in Salvo/Liberation. is way off the mark . As far as I can make out , the people involved have done and continue to do excellent work in a non-Party aligned manner ( all the better for that ) and – contrary to what you say – manifestly ego-free . The utterly frustrating thing is the resistance they’re receiving from inside the Movement – ‘kin Scots ” own worst enemy ” syndrome .
Likewise with the work/emphasis of Alf Baird , the failure to embrace the full Constitutional argument – what’s actually still IN LAW ( though for how much longer is questionable ) and the historical parallels with former Colonial experience will , if continued , prove to be grave mistake . We have to use every tool/* weapon * at our disposal . Why not ?
” when you ain’t got nothing , you’ve got nothing to lose “
Starmer is trying a reverse ferret, but have you seen the self-id fruitloop they’ve stood in Rutherglen? ??
GRR is bad enough but is a distraction.
The real scandal is the c*vid jab which is actually killing people.
Crickets
It was under Alex Salmond as FM and Kenny MacAskill as Justice Secretary that the Scottish Prison Service first introduced a policy of prisoner gender self-identity.
So, let’s no kid ourselves and pretend it’s all the doing of Sturgeon and the Greens.
The SNP became woke under Alex.
By Christmas next year all countries will have ceased to exist, they will all be retail zones using a single digital currency under the benign dictatorship of George Soros’ brain in a jar with the death penalty enforced for anyone who questions this.
I am willing to wager £1 on this, that is how certain I am.
StuartMacKay/Vivian: so many aspects of life are engineered by politicians with little sense. They see an opportunity to jump on a bandwagon and take it, regardless of the damage it does. I think that the gender woo woo itself is cultish/utter delusion, but the politicians behind it are either too thick to understand it or could not care less if it serves their purpose – which, in the SNP’s case, was to put independence on the back burner, albeit Sturgeon herself is into this stuff.
Anyone can go on-line and discover who is backing this stuff financially, then ask the right questions about why? That the politicians refuse to even look at all the workings around the woo woo lobby suggests to me that they already know and approve – because, they, too, are neoliberal global corporate backers. The Lib Dems actually had to admit that a pharmaceutical company had greased their palms with a cool million. We still don’t know about the other parties. It is emanating from the hard left which invariably goes too far in every era and allows the far right to respond with punitive measures. GC women and most sensible people are not right-wing; they simply want the law and science to be applied and no one’s rights to be removed in favour of men in frocks – because it is all about them. It starts and ends with them. The females and children are fodder for their delusions and queer theory. Cross-dressing is sexually motivated at all times, no matter how ‘nice’ the person is, so it is ‘woman-facing’. We do not tolerate ‘black-facing’, so why ‘woman-facing’? Simply because it serves a social engineering project enabled by politicians on behalf of those who would destroy our society in pursuit of money.
Johnlm says:
7 September, 2023 at 7:22 pm
”
” GRR is bad enough but is a distraction.
The real scandal is the c*vid jab which is actually killing people.
Crickets ” .
Now , John , you know you can’t say stuff like that in polite company ; you’ll end-up on a charge of Aggravated Conspiracy Theorising with Intent to Bigot in a Be Kind Zone ( ULEZ , obv )
Aye , no heard * much * on that subject in CorpoNewz recently – or ever . Weird , isn’t it not
Anton Decadent
Well, what did you expect when the World Economic Forum get together is held each year in Davros?
Does anyone know if you can be charged with a hate crime for something you say during a political campaign?
Ruby: for those GC women not supporting independence, the Party Of Women is ideal, but it is no solution at the moment for those of us who do want independence. I think that KJK does a fantastic job, as do so many others, including Graham Linehan, Barry Wall, KJR, et al, too many to mention, and not forgetting the Rev. It appears that her application to establish the party before the 2024 GE is being blocked or delayed in some way, although this could be incidental.
After independence, it could have a very positive effect as it would highlight all the problems women face specifically as women: healthcare, pensions, benefits, work pay, homecare, childcare, etc. No man in a frock can even begin to speak for us or to understand our needs as females and even to entertain the possibility that they might is so insulting and denigrating as to be worthy of utter contempt and the loss of a vote. This is what women are going to have to do: campaign relentlessly with the threat of vote loss/deselection/removal from office if politicians continue down this lunatic path.
We are 51-52% for the voting electorate (a bit less I suppose, if you do not count the handmaids and aunt Lydias). We also need to boycott companies that cater for the ‘woman-facers’ to the detriment of women, and, above all, completely ignore the colonizers of our spaces, services, sports, etc. – no validation to help them get their jollies – and we really need to keep reminding people that it is all about sex, and little to nothing to do with ‘feels’ and wrong bodies.
The polls are going the right way. Let Glasgow Flourish? Not under this SNP.
The Glasgow Green fountain is black. It gets cleaned twice a year I was told.
The tree that never grew
The bird that never flew
The fish that never swam
The bell that never rang
The Trongate church, has graffiti, piss and broken bottles in the arch way. The clock face is cracked. Everything is damaged and faking.
The lamposts at the cathedral are rusting, discoloured.
Royal Exchange Square, is now Chewing Gum square. And you can’t sit on the steps anymore. They belong to the restaurant now…
It looks like Banksy has spray painted the pillars of the GOMA with fluorescent green.
The statues of Glasgow stand around in pigeon shit. And of course historical significance doesn’t matter with the new hotel being build to overlook the city chambers.
Our city is a disgrace. Where is historic Scotland? Where is Glasgow life?
Make Glasgow Clean Again.
Saint Mungo is turning in his grave. We need stone mansons. We need cleaners.
Make Glasgow Clean Again. A city where only our rivers run free, and our fountains grow trees.
No new funding for the people’s palace in Glasgow. They are hoping to get funding next year. The crooks in the city chambers don’t give a dam.
I you want to spend a day walking around in your own filth. Visit Glasgow. You’ll want a bath afterwards that’s for sure.
I’m am delighted to see the SNP polls tanking. I despise the SNP. More than any other party I’ve ever known. I hate their guts. For what they’ve done.
When we start jailing politicians for lying, are their ‘signers for the hard of hearing’ also to be found guilty?
Some folk seem to think that once Independence is achieved it will become this self healing cure, that slowly turns all the problems into solutions.
No. Independence could fail, it is not a given it will be a success. We cannot go into it blithely with Team ZZZ thinking it does not matter. We are going to need Team AAA to negotiate our path. Or rUK will make sure we are a perennial laughing stock, an example if we are not on the Everest of our game.
Having a bunch of woke idiots in ‘charge’ will mean Independence fails. This is possible. Believe it.
Independence is only the start of the race, not the finishing line.
The current SNP are 100% not fit for purpose. Complete non starters.
I think there might be something happening in Dublin next week.
https://tinyurl.com/28j5rn6a
Does this woman risk being arrested and charged with a hate crime.
Post the inevitable collapse of the SNP, I think other parties should pull up the drawbridge for the Tsunami of damascene conversions amongst the careerists in the SNP. We will be raking over the ashes of the SNP demise for years. Case studies will be written for University Politics and History courses. I couldn’t advise a strategy to the SNP to prevent them from going through this humiliation. Other than “Damnatio Memoriae” for Nicola Sturgeon and her acolytes. It’s a ground zero situation and a long rebuild for them. I can’t say it wasn’t deserved.
I Hate. Hate. The SNP.
I despise everything that Sturgeonism stands for.
I despise Humza Yousaf.
I despise Peter Murrell.
Dorothy Devine
Blind faith is a dangerous thing. If you do not believe me just look at the state of the SNP!
You are obviously a disciple of the ‘it will all be fine’, hard of thinking brigade. Fortunately millions of your fellow Scots are not.
I was not allowed a vote in 2014. If I had, I would have voted Yes. Do you think if YES had won, our brave SNP politicians would have simply walked away, ‘joab done’? I can almost guarantee that the 1st thing they would have done would have been to increase their salaries. We dodged a bullet there.
Independence is not dead. For something to die it has to have been alive in the first place-the corpse passed away years ago.
For me, Lazarus is not arriving any time soon (if you believe in that sort of stuff).
A referendum on Independence tomorrow would attract a NO vote for me and I see this continuing for a number of years. Probably until they burn me.
No one is giving me anything positive to vote for or a politician/party to trust. No doubt this is different for you.
A song called ‘we won’t get fooled again’ comes to mind. Some people will.
No matter how much you know divorcing your partner is the right thing to do… you don’t do it if you know you have a shit divorce lawyer.
Right now as it stands, the SNP are the shitest divorce lawyer imaginable. From one of the best under Salmond to THE worst. Gosh. How did that happen…
We need a new lawyer before the divorce. Or we will get taken to the cleaners. Because our lawyer is really their lawyer.
Independence before everything. Everything before independence is nothing.
The wrangles over currency are hot air. Some countries use the US dollar, without a “by your leave”. So that’s sorted. Our maritime boundaries are determined by existing international protocols. That’s them sorted. Land boundaries from Solway to Tweed, immutable. We have a legal system that just needs knocked back into shape. We have a Civil Service. We can examine how much of it we need.
What’s stopping us?
PS After independence there will be a Conservative Party in Scotland, just not Unionist. There won’t be an SNP.
Any reason why ‘The Scottish Party Of Women’ couldn’t also support independence? I’m thinking this might be a job for Joanna Cherry.
We do need to remind people it’s all about sex. Need to get them to realise that the GRRB/self id is a distraction and get them to focus on the GRA 2004 which allows for people to ‘change sex’
Who would you suggest GC women who support independence should vote for?
I look at what’s on offer and I’m reminded of the line from a Pink Floyd song
I got thirteen channels of shit on the T.V. to choose from
And when all the wee, trans-woke grifters discover the SNP is not the golden goose they expected it to be, watch them all flit to labour tout de suite. Au revoir ‘Beth’, yer goose is cooked.
Mac sees the problems that need to be solved and the plans that need to be made.
Antoine Bisset still thinks it can all be done on faith alone.
Soz Antoine, but the Age of Faith gave way to the Age of Reason a couple of centuries ago.
I truly suspect that the SNP are in for the biggest hammering of its life.
Voters are heart and soul sick of what the SNP has become. Fifth columnist deviant grifters they are a pariah party and this by election, which Sturgeon allowed to happen by throwing Margaret Ferrier to the wolves will be the turning point.
So let all of us of a national independence persuasion look forward to the turn around. These grifters need to be eradicated and the tide turned.
Chas , have a look at the alternative – if you can convince yourself that staying under the’altruism’ of Westminster is good for my country then there is little hope for you.
Please don’t bother replying , I generally manage to ignore your input – responding was a mere slip on my part.
@willie says:7 September, 2023 at 9:41 pm
I think you might be right.
Just been taking a wee look at WGD.
Paul is posting about how bad Labour are, and the BTL stalwarts have circled the wagons and are keeping each other strong by endless posting about The Clearances and Thatcher.
I think all of them see the writing on the wall.
@John Main 10:00pm
Re WGD,ironic then that Sturgeon entered politics to oppose Thatcher. When faithful followers went with GRR with religious zeal, they did so with over 70% of the Scottish Public opposing them. If only Sturgeon learned that on the road to Damascus, Saul converted to Paul and not Pauline.
@Stuart MacKay
Just home and got a genuine lol from that, thank you 🙂
@Lorna Campbell (7.52) –
‘It is emanating from the hard left which invariably goes too far in every era and allows the far right to respond with punitive measures.’
This appears to be generally agreed.
I don’t know if this is a generational ‘problem’ but I (at 60 yrs old now) find it extremely difficult to place myself on the Left-Right spectrum. (Just the same as illustrated by Rev a few posts back) It’s too confusing. I just cannot accept that woke madness has emerged from anything remotely to do with ‘socialism’ of any kind. So, if wokeism is ‘left’, does that mean socialists have to conform? I just can’t process that at all.
You’ll have seen Campbell Martin’s latest (can’t remember if it was on Barrhead Boy or maybe Iain Lawson’s blog) where he was talking about the infiltration of left-wing groups. It turns out that, at some of the branch meetings of certain groups, at particular times, it’s quite probable that everyone in attendance was working for the intelligence services. But they would’nt even have known it because they’re not allowed to identify themselves to one another ‘in the field’.
Bizarre as that sounds, it makes sense if you’ve ever been involved with a genuinely ‘left’ group when there isn’t an election or referendum in the offing. They’re like Lonely Hearts’ Clubs for the most part, which isn’t a bad thing in itself, but they don’t get the blood pumping like, say, a knitting bee or a wee singalong or suchlike.
The ‘woke’ stuff is so totally off-the-wall that it just has to have been hatched and reared in California. There’s nowhere else bonkers enough to tolerate such rubbish let alone encourage it, and if they’re encouraging it then they’ll have very good reason, probably based on ‘highly sophisticated’ wargaming scenarios produced by the Pentagon. (That, and large quantities of hard cash.)
The fact that it’s erupted (like a ‘pandemic’ funnily enough) in ‘the West’ and is roundly shunned by ‘less developed’ nations should be a major clue as to the likely origin and motivation behind it, but it appears that enough folk are lazy and gullible enough to swallow the notion that this Vonnegutesque madness represents some kind of human advancement.
But it suits some folk to ascribe it all to ‘the left’ and automatically categorise opponents as belonging to ‘the right’. That seems to be what’s happened in Cork, certainly so far as local and national media coverage is concerned. The obvious corollary on the larger stage(s) is conflation of GC with ‘hard right’. It’s hard to imagine a more grotesque misrepresentation of ‘normal’ objections to wokery but it’s happening more frequently and everyone can see it.
If there’s any solace to be had from Rev’s recent posts, it’s that general awareness of what Stonewall etc have been up to is increasing and support for their champions is diminishing as a direct result. So, we keep resisting, supporting one another, and enlightening up those who’ve managed to avoid it all so far. And if that means we end up with no ‘political’ representation at all? So be it.
Would you report the escaped terrorist to the English police?
He is still at large, and I for one would assist him in his escape from the English establishment.
He is also ex-English Army, which I find baffling.
Wouldn’t it just be terrible if he carried out any of his threats against the English establishment?
https://www.itv.com/news/2023-09-07/manhunt-continues-for-terror-suspect-who-escaped-prison
Free speech is wonderful but if this were my site, I would take down any post that advocates what Ron Clark is saying. This is NOT any kind of forum for such kind of talk, even in jest.
As for you Ron Clark, you really should know better if you’re any kind of friend to Scottish independence.
But no, by the looks of things, you’re a total tucking idiot.
Scotland Cyprus tomorrow, another national football team game where Humza Yousaf, did fuck all to make free to air on television. Despite the channel Viaplay pulling out of the UK market.
We’ll miss all the games, all the old pensioners in the houses that don’t have the channels.
I hate Humza. I HATE him!
Open borders and open jails in Britain it seems… The British people deserve better than this!
Open borders, terrorists walking in and walking out of jail. It’s a disgrace. Britain is a joke. The tories, sicken me.
That Gillian Keegan education secretary. She’s done a Carry Johnson and renovated her office block for £23 million, while the schools are falling apart.
Fucking arseholes. Horrible people.
That Scotland Cyprus match.
One always supports the national team (although I’m a rugby person, not oikball), but come on. It’s hardly compelling telly, and it’s easy to see why the money people in the media would go “meh, nothing in it for us”.
Perhaps it should be on pay tv. If one is interested, pay for it.
It was early, I hadn’t had my bacon roll! Should’ve voted “right now” and get rid of this shower of Bams. Another top article Rev
I still expect a snap GE this year. The Tories are also in free fall and will want to minimise damage before they hit bottom.
That will not save the SNP.
A plethora of Ground Zeros.
The 1931 constitution of the Chinese Soviet Republic accepted secession as legal, with article 14 stating
“The Soviet government of China recognizes the right of self-determination of the national minorities in China, their right to complete separation from China, and to the formation of an independent state for each national minority.”
When the PRC was established that article of the constitution was omitted.
The British and Spanish states also consider themselves unitary, attempts at secession may be possible, both states are democracies after all, but are not recommended.
Effectively, even a democratic movement advocating self determination is skating on thin ice.
After WW1 Bavaria and some Catholic territories were considered ripe for secession from Prussia dominated Germany. A union with what remained of Austria-Hungary was floated.
In the same period minority peoples, including mine, of the Near East were promised by the Powers self determination if they joined in the war with Ottoman Turkey. The Powers seeing no advantage, preferring large «units» to «protect», reneged.
The majority «Arabs» faired little better; lines in the sand chicanery thanks to T.E.Lawrence.
This illusionist trickery still has much life in it as we may observe on Europe’s eastern front.
In Scotland’s case it concerns among many things strategically important, to BritState, lines in the sea.
Those notional lines outweigh any aspirations of the demos.
@Ron Clark says:8 September, 2023 at 12:16 am
which I find baffling
No change there then, eh Ron?
https://archive.ph/MMbVm
Fergus Ewing named MSP of the Year at Holyrood Garden Party and Political Awards
He didn’t have much competition.
Kennedy, who last year completed a review that led to First Minister Humza Yousaf announcing anti-misogyny legislation in this week’s Programme for Government
This should be fun!
If I remember correctly Helena Kennedy was unable to define what a woman was.
Would it be considered a misogynistic hate crime to keep Isla Bryson in a men’s prison?
The UK Gov have ruled out ‘anti-misogyny legislation’ I’m wonder if this Scottish ‘anti-misogyny legislation’ will end up like the Scottish GRR bill?
“England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity” , the famous Irish slogan also applies to Scotland.
The Anglo-America is obviously in some difficulty.
Another scamdemic looks likely to enable election tampering in the US.
If that doesn’t work then perhaps a small war to increase State power.
The war actually began some time ago (11 sept 2001?) albeit a 5th generation war.
I’m optimistic that there will be opportunities.
Stop watching TV.
People here are wondering about the glue which still holds the SNP together over the trans issue and why Westminster is not taking a lead in sorting out the mess,
In Westminster, 45 out of the current crop of 600 MPs Are openly Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual a huge over representation when one adds probably another 8/10 percent still in the closet.
But wait, there is worse in the SNP the figures are 7 out of 35.
Mystery solved but I don’t suppose the readership here will make the connection……or want to make it.
This is the future dear readers as our primary schools indoctrinate our kids into the belief that all types of sexual behaviour are safe or beneficial.
Without this hard core dedicated to the destruction of family values not only in politics but through many public services the
madness of “Trans” would be binned tomorrow.
@TURABDIN says:8 September, 2023 at 8:11 am
Those notional lines outweigh any aspirations of the demos
Too right, but it works both ways.
I have recently educated myself about our recently-ended spell under Brussels rule, largely so that I can disprove the frequent errors and lies that are told about that on here.
It is certainly innarestin to discover that the Common Market accession referendum, which took place well within living memory in 1975, recorded two distinct Scottish regions that were opposed to joining: The Western Isles, and The Shetland Isles. Two distinct and distinctive regions with their own languages, cultures, and history.
Both regions are entitled to feel angry and coerced to this day, and both regions are entitled to consider they should be at least given the option of going their own ways, separate from the rest of Scotland.
Yet that is seldom mentioned or discussed on here, and when it does come up, written off as divisive, Yoon trouble making.
So “this illusionist trickery” is not just a feature of our ruling elites. Colonialism can be shown to exist at all levels, right down to the ordinary Scottish individuals who remain fiercely opposed to the idea that any region of Scotland should be entitled to choose its own destiny.
akenaton says:
I’ve never been able to make the connection between the LGB and the T.
‘7 out of 35’ I thought they had more MSPs than that!
David Martin says:
7 September, 2023 at 1:12 pm
The sad thing is we don’t have the luxury of voting out the SNP, interim Unionist cabal, then back to a re-ivigorated SNP or other indy party. If the next SG is unionist, they will destroy all the good things that remain; publically owned water, the NHS, free tertiary education, more progressive taxation, lower council tax.
**************************************************************************
I think this is the idea, the present SNP would rather pay themselves HUGE salaries than keep mitigating what Alex Salmond put in place to help the poorest and most needy..
As for our water, NHS, these will be handed over to WM in a heartbeat by LABOUR.. But maybe it is no more than we deserve..
After all, we have all accepted every dirty policy this coalition Gov has come out with, without a REAL fight back.. I also refuse to believe a die hard YESSER will vote for Labour. I think ALBA of whom I am a member have missed the boat on this one, by not standing the one person who gave us a referendum, and whom a helluva lot of the public have sympathy for. He might not win. But he needs to be seen to fighting the good fight.. By not standing he is helping LABOUR win even BIGGER instead of maybe just scraping in..
I don’t know PhilM perhaps we should be praising the ingenuity of someone who found a way to escape from the UK jail! 🙂
– Is this fall on the SNP popularity surprising?
Yes
– What is surprising about it?
That it took so long to happen.
Looking retrospectively, it becomes obvious this fall in popularity has been planned and pursued all along since the first poll announced in 2014 a landslide win for the SNP.
The political fraud Sturgeon started the process with her disgusting and undemocratic move to disenfranchise yes voters by claiming in 2015 that a vote for the SNP was not a vote for independence, nor even a referendum. She delivered another huge blow at the end of January 2020 with her pathetic capitulation speech.
Looking retrospectively, it becomes obvious the move to destroy Mr Salmond might have been also strategic to stop him either taking back control of the SNP or leading another party that would decouple yes from the SNP. The same applies to the dirty move they did on Ms Cherry to ban her from Holyrood and catapulting Robertson to the Edinburgh seat.
In my personal opinion, the forced break on pursuing independence, the capitulation speech, the gender crap, the incompetence in government, the financial scandal, the campervan nonsense and everything else are part of one single strategy to finish the SNP off in the upcoming GE.
SNP and Sinn Fein have been at the top of their game since the EU ref. Isn’t it incredibly suspicious that both parties got infested with the lethal gender crap at the same time and that this crap has efficiently frozen their pro-independence politics making them unpopular among their voters?
I think it is.
There was already something off about GE2015. When only a few months back, allegedly and according to official data, the no vote smashed yes by 55% to 45%, you would expect, at least temporarily, a big bounce of vote towards labour, cons and libdems as a show of reassurance of the no vote and to finish off the SNP.
What happened was the precise opposite. Support for yes continued to increase after the referendum and the people of Scotland sent 56 anti-union MPs. In fact, what removed the wheels of the SNP was its leader herself. To me that openly questions two things:
1. if the official result we were given in 2014 was a real reflection of the sentiment of the people in Scotland
2. if Sturgeon cut some kind of deal with the establishment to deliver some form of enhanced devolution.
Looking retrospectively, two things become clear:
1. For the last 9 years there has been an urgency to keep the yes movement coupled to the SNP (because then if you bring down the SNP you bring down the yes movement). The SNP1 and 2 strategy is a testament to this.
2. there has been a relentless attempt to make the SNP unelectable to facilitate the transfer of SNP vote to unionist parties.
It is now 9 years since the 2014 referendum. In my view they have been biting time to create the right conditions to shove their Devo Max con down our throats because:
1. You cannot deliver more devolution and expect it will stop demands for independence when support for independence is above 50% (that is how Mr Salmond left it) and on the rise. You can only deliver it when support has been stabilised under 50% and you have removed the momentum from yes. This is what we Sturgeon and now Yousalf have done.
2. You cannot deliver more devolution with a majority of SNP MPs in Westminster and maintain the coupling of the yes movement to the SNP. Delivering at that point would finish the SNP off as a party of independence, uncoupling it from the yes vote which would go elsewhere. If you are to maintain the coupling, you can only deliver it when Scotland is represented by a majority of Labour + Libdem MPs. What we are seeing is relentless attempts to undermine Alba and simultaneously making the SNP unelectable to facilitate the vote transfer to unionist parties.
Margaret FErrier’s constituency is a beautiful example of this in action. To guarantee this transfer happens this time, they have
1. a Green candidate to ensure the yes vote is divided
2. ensured Ms Ferrier does not stand in the context.
In my opinion they attempted this dirty game already in 2019 and failed: with Mr Hanvey’s seat. But at that time, the local candidate the people knew and liked chose to stand as independent and beat them at their own game. This time they needed Ms Ferrier out of the context. I wonder if the disgusting harassment she was subjected to and the out of proportion punishment she got was their dirty strategy to deter her from standing.
A deal for more devolution would explain why SNP MPs and MSPs, bar a handful, have done SFA to progress independence or to bring Sturgeon to heel. It would also explain why the 660,000 disappeared from the accounts as soon as they got there. Actually, I wonder if they even made it to the accounts at all.
It seems clear to me the political fraud Sturgeon sold Scotland in 2014. The only question for me is if she sold Scotland before or after the referendum took place.
Hopefully historians will be able to unearth that one and give her in Scotland’s history books the harsh treatment she deserves, which is no better than the betrayers who sold Scotland in 1706 in exchange of bribes.
Ruby, I did mention the the figures were for “openly Gay bisexual or lesbian” It is probable that a figure of up to 10% remain closeted.
On your other point the connection is that outright lies and distortions were offered up on the nature and effects of these behaviours
“I never trust a man unless I have his pecker in my pocket” – LBJ
I imagine that a lot of people advance because they have secrets which those who appoint them can use agin them.
It’s how Intelligence agencies work.
IMHO the “rot” set in even before Sturgeon’s rise. The likes of Alex Salmond, from a comfortable background in Britain, are neither ruthless nor cynical enough to probe and exploit the undoubted weaknesses of the UK, nor to secure the absolute commitment to Independence needed within a party dedicated to what is in reality a revolutionary aim. Even the American colonists saw that they needed to be ruthless, but somehow with a vote the UK was going to give up its primary source of physical resources? The SNP needed the machinery (a counter-intelligence service?) to exclude anyone who might have wavered in their commitment to Independence. I suspect that the Alba Party has the same weakness. Independence is a revolutionary aim from the viewpoint of our rulers, and achieving it will be costly. Hoping to reach it by agreement reflects the naivety of a cosseted political class. Look at what was done to Wallace – and then think of how brutal, merciless and rigorous in pursuit of his aims Bruce was. These are difficult lessons, but they need to be absorbed. IMHO if an overwhelming majority (say 55-60%) voted for Independence we would not be allowed to gain it. We, the Scots, pose an existential threat to the viability of England, especially outside the EU. Votes alone will only enable public opinion – not enforce it.
Willie
“I truly suspect that the SNP are in for the biggest hammering of its life. ”
Hmmm not so sure. I am sure that a huge number of SNP members are very, very disappointed with them but the thing they still have going for them is that many believe that the quickest route to indy is still through the SNP if the infiltrators can be removed.
The problem with that is that if everyone holds their nose and votes for them such is the hubris of most of the elected representatives they will simply see that as their achievement and a vindication of their behaviour so far. They are that deluded.
I see no rebellion coming within the party sadly.
If the electorate gives them one final chance, it will merely delay the inevitable clear out.
Johnlm
LBJ Once ordered a smear be put out about an opponent. When his aids pointed out that it was completely untrue he said “I know, but let’s see him deny it.”
I don’t understand why everyone is so downbeat on here. We are having a referendum on the 19 October and we are going to win it.
On another sphere of this wicked world.
G20 meets in «New Delhi», the capital of India or Bharat if Mr Modi has his way. The city was styled «new» by the British to distinguish it from the Mughal city, the Hindustani Dehli.
The moto of the meet is One Earth, One Family, One Future.
It has a familiar cadence, Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer.
Hitler did admire the stolid Lutyens architecture of the new city – made a little less visually soulless by the ever present smoggy light, as well as the heavy handed British imperialism responsible for it.
The president of «Bharat» is a man on a Hindutva mission. Mr Sunak is a «useful» in that respect.
The old biter well and truly bit by the new.
Oh and Please take your litter home. Keep Delhi Clean.
Bahut, bahut, dhanyavaad!
Re baffled
Anyone else struggling to process Douglas Ross’s apparent failure to lay into Scot Government over the arrest of a 59 year old man in the Patrick Harvie “maate” scandal?
Seems to me that if the BBC episode was NOT more scripted nonseness of the type most easily associated with new labour bayonnetting then Ross will have endured much, much, more friendly banter in his propper job without ever (afaik) feeling the need to get some proud lad banged up for 20 years over something said from the sidelines.. and could have used the respect in which he is held (thanks to said job regardless) to better effect both in terms of providing timely & constructive opposition, and in terms of striking back proportionately in the wider war for sane governance & policing.
@Mia says:8 September, 2023 at 9:25 am
the disgusting harassment she was subjected to and the out of proportion punishment she got
She traveled to London while feeling ill in 2020 then got a train home after a positive Covid test.
Not sure if you were one of the posters on here advocating that not even trucks carrying essential supplies should have been allowed to drive across the border during the Covid Years.
As I recall, posters were calling for all essential imports to be offloaded at the border, for transfer to Scottish trucks with Scottish drivers, just in order to keep the “filthy English Covid” out.
Selective memory is a wonderful thing. Ferrier’s punishment is justified within the context of the rules she and her self-serving cadre of elites forced on the rest of us.
I agree that AS should have stood for the by-election though. And he should have campaigned on a platform of using Parliamentary Privilege to spill every last bean he knows, including the alpha-names, if he was elected.
That would have been a magnificent, profile-raising, publicity-generating campaign, promising an explosive parliamentary debut. And it would only have to be for a year or two. He could, if he wished, stand down at the next WM GE.
But what an opportunity squandered.
I wish I could blame it all on Nicola Sturgeon but, the reality is that it is the result of SNP policies for 25 years.
Alex backed Sturgeon because she was also fake left with identity politics / sexual social reform instead of economic reform.
No redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor.
Scottish subservience until after independence instead of assertion of Scottish sovereignty.
Though England has been controlled by right-wing Tory Govts for a long time, compare Scotland with England and the reality is that there is very little difference in the distribution of wealth. Just like Labour, the SNP under Alex and Nicola relied on identity politics equality/woke issues to gain fake “left” credentials.
The SNP embraced the sovereignty of the English Crown in UK Parliament and became Holyrood colonial administrators swearing allegiance to England’s queen. Alex went from calling Holyrood a parish council to pretending it’s the reconvened Parliament of Scotland but asked permission for a referendum just like Nicola: he didn’t assert the sovereign right of a sovereign people.
Even the SNP White Paper vision of independence was business as usual, keeping England’s Empress Elizabeth (“think very carefully”) as head of state. The capitalist EU, Bank of England and No.11 Downing St controlling the Scottish economy via the Pound Sterling. From being neutral we would be part of the USA / England NATO war machine etc.
“I think ALBA of whom I am a member have missed the boat on this one”
If you are referring to Ms Margaret Ferrier’s constituency, I couldn’t disagree more. I think ALBA got it spot on.
There is already a real pro-indy candidate standing in this by-election, which is Ms Collete Walker from the ISP.
If I am not mistaken (and please correct me if I am wrong), she is standing on an abstentionist manifesto, which means that if she wins, she will not be taking the green seat nor swearing allegiance to the crown. In other words, the SNP candidate is the real pro-independence deal. It does not get any better than that.
It stands to the obvious the Greens are fielding their own candidate to stop their core support and a large chunk of the pro-trans movement voting SNP. In other words, they are doing all what they can to diminish the SNP vote to ensure labour wins.
Fielding an Alba candidate in such scenario will only divide that yes vote even more and what is worse, it would directly compete with the real pro-independence candidate the ISP is fielding. It would serve no purpose whatsoever for the independence movement, particularly if they are trying to promote the idea of a single pro-independence candidate to concentrate the vote at the next GE.
Just to make my position crystal clear, I do not consider the SNP in its present form or Scottish Greens as pro-independence parties. Judging them by their actions, they are 100% pro-union because they are actively attacking and undermining the yes movement and they are doing everything in their hand to ensure the soft yes vote transfers from the SNP to labour.
With regards to the privatisation of Scottish Water and the NHS, the legislation to prepare for that was already planted in the ground by Westminster on Sturgeon’s useless watch. As with everything nasty Westminster has leaked out during her tenure, she did SFA to stop it.
If somebody does not fight against something like this when they have control over a majority of anti-union MPs in Westminster and also control a pro-indy majority in Holyrood which could have brought the UK to a standstill on demand, the only possible conclusion you can extract from it is that they enthusiastically support the privatisation.
I do not know about the water, but the Scottish NHS has been relentlessly privatised bit by bit by the back door, all under Sturgeon’s (and now Yousaf’s) watch.
Labour/Libdems may well deliver the final blow on the matter of privatisation, but the tories are the ones who provided the political weapon through legislation and Sturgeon has provided the bullets by doing SFA to throw that political weapon against Scotland’s public services away.
Make no mistake. Privatisation of the NHS and Scottish water will only happen because tories, labour, libdems and SNP are colluding to make it happening against the will of the people of Scotland. It only needs for one of them to stop it.
stuart mctavish says:
8 September, 2023 at 10:13 am
Re baffled
Anyone else struggling to process Douglas Ross’s apparent failure to lay into Scot Government over the arrest of a 59 year old man in the Patrick Harvie “maate” scandal?
No, because the Tories are worthless cowards who no more believe in freedom of speech and civil liberties than their associates in the SNP or Labour do.
The Tories are always scamming, all the time, usually with a stupid little smirk on their fatuous faces.
Remember, this shower of noisome Tory piss has been running (feebly) since 2010, and in all that time they have signally failed to keep perverts out of our primary schools or even conserve the legal definition of “a woman”.
Other things the Tories never talk about include Operation Cerrar. Shhhh!
@Mia
Apologies for the Typo:
were I said
“In other words, the SNP candidate is the real pro-independence deal. It does not get any better than that”
I obviously meant to say
“In other words, the ISP candidate is the real pro-independence deal. It does not get any better than that”
The SNP candidate is, in my personal opinion, a paper candidate brought in to aid with the transfer of vote from the SNP to labour.
JOHN MAIN 09:07
Subsidiarity in administration, an internal «DevoMax»
A notional iScotland might engage with that, especially with regard to the needs of those living beyond the «rift valley»; a Glasgow «city region» too.
Subsidiarity makes the power hungry uneasy, puts them off balance.
Mr and Mrs Cuthbert have the colonial mindset nailed.
“To give an example of what we mean: in a bookshop in Edinburgh last Saturday the sales assistant was concerned that a YES vote would lead to Scotland’s isolation, so damaging life prospects for his nephew and niece. Really? In fact, quite the opposite. The isolation is now. Currently, as part of the UK, we are barred from direct representation in so many organisations and committees. We have no direct representation in Europe or at the United Nations. In past meetings with Enterprise Ireland and the enterprise agency in Flanders in Belgium, these agencies both made it clear that direct representation in European institutions and committees was important to them: and not just at the top table. Academics and business people of small countries have much greater involvement in and benefit from European projects and are brought along with Ministers to mix with their counterparts and represent their country. So it is a myth that Scotland would be isolated. It is the colonial mindset that is brainwashed to regard the present situation as the norm, and that fails to see that what we are just now is isolated,”
Stoker
As promised here is a link to a complete list of all the wings articles, from 8th April 2010 to yesterday, https://www.voices.scot/source/wings-over-scotland/archive/
The link returns a CSV download with each record containing the date, title, the original URL and the archived page URL, for example
2023-09-07,”Ground Zero”,https://wingsoverscotland.com/ground-zero/,https://archive.ph/wASdd
I’ll try to keep this up to date. On the list of articles for each blog hosted on voices, e.g. https://www.voices.scot/source/wings-over-scotland/ you should see an “Archived” link. If it’s not there then you’ll know I’m falling behind. There’s a contact form on the site so you can pester me to get it updated.
The only other site I archive regularly is Grouser Beater, https://www.voices.scot/source/grouse-beater/archive/, but this download is definitely out of date (I’ll get to it soon).
If there are any other sites that anybody wants archived let me know, but it’s a bit of work so it will take a while.
“She traveled to London while feeling ill in 2020 then got a train home after a positive Covid test”
Big deal.
How many tories went to Westminster despite feeling ill and then being confirmed as COVID positive? Why weren’t they prosecuted?
Why wasn’t Charles prosecuted after, knowingly being ill, decided to travel to Scotland with all his entourage and then jump queue to get tested?
What punishment did Cummings got for leaving London while ill and then driving around sick?
How many people feeling ill have ever since traveled to work and back home? At least she was wearing a mask. People now is no longer required to wear a mask.
How many people ever since have traveled to work and back home after testing positive? Goodness, you are no longer even required to have a test done because they don’t longer give a sht if you test positive or not. So what kind of over-hyped and over-rehashed nonsense is this?
Her home is not London. It is Scotland. If you feel ill and you are advised by your bosses at work to go home, you go home, not to a hotel/temporary residence in London where you will have to be completely on your own and potentially dying on your own. Nobody has the fkng right to demand from somebody else to suffer in complete isolation and the humiliation of dying alone in a strange place. That is inhumane and morally wrong. She did what the average person would have done. She certainly did what I would have done.
Where is Rees MOgg’s accountability for negligently forcing MPs to go to London when what would have been appropriate, in the middle of a pandemic, was for the MPs to work remotely? That an MP would travel ill with COVID to work was a predictable risk. So why was he not disciplined for putting everybody at unnecessary risk?
The symptoms for COVID were the same as for any cold/flu. You can even have similar symptoms from an autoimmune disease. Unless you have a positive test to confirm, it could be anything. So claiming she traveled to London “feeling ill” as if this was a huge sin, is nonsense. As a matter of fact, I feel rather ill every Monday when I must face having to go back to a job I hate. But that does not excuse me from having to go to work, does it?
Ground Zero and trans policies.
Being new to this genre of cinema, I have been struck by the shockingly accurate and allegorical parallel between Zombie movies and where Scotland is just now in all aspects of society. See for yourself! ‘Black Summer’ is a good starter for ten.
“I agree that AS should have stood for the by-election though. And he should have campaigned on a platform of using Parliamentary Privilege to spill every last bean he knows, including the alpha-names, if he was elected”
Don’t be absurd. Mr Salmond is not that stupid (and neither are we that gullible). If the crown is actively colluding with the civil service, the PFS, the SGov, judges and the police, and it is actively abusing its power to keep the names of perjurers secret, it stands to the obvious the establishment would never allow him to get that seat.
They will see it as an opportunity to finish him off by using such campaigning claim as an excuse to find, or manufacture, whatever is easier, some kind of legal grievance to send him to prison. As we all saw, they had no problem whatsoever in manufacturing such grievance to send Mr Murray to prison.
John Main,
“ As I recall, posters were calling for all essential imports to be offloaded at the border, for transfer to Scottish trucks with Scottish drivers, just in order to keep the “filthy English Covid” out.”
A few posters did, a tiny minority.
Regarding discussions about regions in Scotland declaring for self determination, you were perhaps absent from class that day but there was debate about differences in international recognition and minimum standards of entities that could be taken seriously.
In my personal view, if any Scottish island or islands thought that they could do a better job of government by themselves, then they should get all the help we can give them.
I have absolutely no problem with Shetland, for example, conducting their own affairs on their own terms.
On the other hand, Joe Bloggs declaring Castlemilk independent and forming a government with his pet hamster and Rottweiler is perhaps a bridge too far, hence the reason for an international minimum standard to be reached.
The UN has already outlined this as has been discussed on many occasions.
But hey ho, the things you miss when you’re not in class, eh.
SNP handbook now available
https://www.openculture.com/2015/12/simple-sabotage-field-manual.html
SNP/scotgov new head of child protection and social services
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/11204531/scots-soft-play-boss-nicked-florida-child-sex-abuse/
indyref 2 is next month isn’t it?
nikki said so and she really really -really- meant it this time
are we there yet
are we there yet
@Mia says:8 September, 2023 at 11:04 am
What a load of whataboutery baloney.
Get your heid around this fact:
She traveled to London while feeling ill in 2020 then got a train home after a positive Covid test
Soz an a that, but during the Covid Years, nobody got a bye for spreading Covid on public transport, just cos they were somebody you liked.
I notice you have dodged my points, as usual, but I’ll raise one of them again.
During the Covid Years, were you one of the ones posting on here in favour of the idea that not even trucks of essential supplies should have been allowed to drive north across the border?
Maybes you want to use the “Sturgeon Defence”, eh?
So how do we separate ourselves from the wokery pretence of it all being Scots laws.
These monarch crown wokery perverted laws coming through the pretendy back door of a english legislated branch office to Scotland,
How do you define if they are (legal as laws in Scotland.)
The Crown and its laws of justice and jurisdiction come under English law parliament laws of “the act of Settlement 1700″
” An Act of parliament intitled ( subject to settling the succession of the Crown) wherein it was enacted and declared that the Regall Government of the kingdom of England, France and Ireland and dominions thereunto belonging should continue to your Majesty.
We must pay attention to the fact that Englands parliament of Westminster was not in a treaty with Ireland until 1800.
That France withdrew and ended that english parliament 1700 Act of Settlement,
The monarch does not succeed as Monarch of Scotland under the Act of Settlement,
Inevitable neither does the english law of the Crown as head of laws, or Courts.
However in the “Act of Settlement” there is no mention of Scotland
The Crown settlement Act 1700 was passed pre- union, in England and does not include Scotland.
In 1707 the Scottish parliament was extinguished from the parliamentary treaty of union with the parliament of England and annexed Wales,
By the agreed terms to treaty once ratified in 1707.
We are self indulgent or self ignorant in perpetuating the Hoax that Westminster has enacted upon Scotland for the past three hundred years .
We are a Colony of England without a treaty and need no permission to leave.
@Breastplate says:8 September, 2023 at 11:33 am
Thanks for your response.
I do miss some classes. The terms of my licensed release agreement restrict my internet access on some days.
Here’s some innarestin facts to illuminate thoughts of what might constitute an essentially self-governing entity:
Population of Greenland 57,000.
Faroe Islands 53,000.
Shetland Islands 24,000.
Orkney Islands 23,000.
Outer Hebrides 27,000, rising to 46,000 if you include the Inner Hebrides.
So, by my reckoning, The Hebrides and the Northern Isles are both in the right ballpark for serious consideration.
Incidentally, the Faroe Islands’ fertility rate is inexplicably high. There must be something about their quality of life that gets them in the mood for breeding.
We in Scotland are dragging Westminster parliament and the Crown around, it is not a legal construction witch includes Scotland.
We actually are not tied to either.
Chic McGregor
“LBJ Once ordered a smear be put out about an opponent. When his aids pointed out that it was completely untrue he said “I know, but let’s see him deny it.”
Sounds like John Main’s modus operandi.
Beats doing any homework.
Ian Brotherhood @ 11.22pm 7th September
I agree with a lot of your comment. I also find it difficult to define the ‘woke’ movement as left wing. Where are the usual concerns about economic inequalities, class issues and the social impact of these, the red meat of left wing/socialist ideas? (Sorry for the pun.) These issues are notably absent from the apparent goals of the trans movement. In fact, the only similarities are the widespread engagement of students and academia.
The young have an established record of being engaged by radical ideas which challenge the established order. It is almost written into youthful behaviour due to a second stage of brain development in which there is an unravelling of synapses to do with behaviour and perceptions.
(The evolutionary purpose can be seen in animals that live in social groups where young adults are programmed to transition from a state of dependency on elders to becoming themselves leaders of their groups. It’s one of those evolutionary purposes that might work in the past in small groups where the few elders might suddenly die off but is problematic in huge, modern, complex, human societies where the elders are very much around and still in charge and mainly long lived. Evolution is tactical not strategic.)
This behaviour in young adults has been used and driven in the recent past by certain of their ‘elders’ to control and manage society at large, notably where in China the Red Guards became a powerful whirlwind set in motion by Mao and the Gang of Four which aimed to completely replace the adults whose communist ideals they felt had become flabby and decadent. The idea was to return Chinese communism to the white heat of youthful ardour and it became intolerant and violent as intended, to turn their world upside down, as Mao tried to recreate the communist fervour of his own youth.
I note your idea, IB, of ‘war gaming’ by motivated planners in powerful positions who, just like Mao, might want to shake up their society in fundamental ways also. He had youthful political cadres to drive his new revolution with their chanted slogans and fanatical intolerance to anything other than the simple core tenets found in Mao’s Little Red Book.
It does seem that this movement might be being driven by many shadowy ‘interests’. Mao had his political cadres but they have ‘influencers’ and celebrity culture which mindlessly propagates their simple but fanatically held beliefs which are antipathetic to the reality accepted by the majority of ordinary people. It is this fundamental acceptance of rational, observable scientific reality by the mass of the public which is under attack. Sowing confusion and dissenting views to challenge this core belief seems to be very much part of the plan, almost literally setting children against their ‘elders’ and their families. You can’t get more fundamentalist than that – to seek to cause generational hostility.
Some of these radical ideas about sexuality might have originally come from ‘the left’ but the way it is being spread and propagated has produced strange alignments. Yes, politicians have been captured but there are incredible amounts of money available to those who wish to promote these ideas and well, we can see how political parties can be persuaded by that.
However, those who want to claim that this is a left wing movement will have to convince me how establishment institutions like the police, judiciary and military have been captured by radical left wing ideas because that will be a first for these ultra conservative bulwarks of the state.
I would suggest that there is something that unites those institutions – or powerful groups within those institutions – with the more expected ‘bohemian’ areas of society which would fall to supposedly tolerant social change and that is actually the one that is fundamental to all humans whether left or right, which is sex.
We are looking for normal political alignments and forget that one crucial basic connection which is sex, particularly male sexuality. Breaking down boundaries and society’s traditional sexual mores can only be seen as a beguiling opportunity to many faceless individuals no matter where they are on the political spectrum or in whatever position within society.
If these trends have been recognised by these ‘war gamers’ as a useful tool to set in motion a possible dystopian future with different drivers of society causing societal behavioural change then you have to admit they have been very clever. If it works, it is one way to change society without having a war or violent revolution.
If you have ‘captured’ the police, military and judiciary then that’s the obvious way to achieve a social revolution from the top down, ensuring control and little resistance. Look at what has been achieved already and all with the tactics of ‘no debate’ de-platforming etc. This movement has crept up on the rest of society, fully-formed, almost wholly by stealth, with links and power already in place in every available part of everyday life.
The Chinese communists eventually called a halt to Mao’s new revolution ( Mao himself in failing health seemed to be in agreement) and members of the Gang of Four were imprisoned but only after it had caused actual destruction to much of Chinese society and had removed, sometimes literally, those elements of middle-aged and ‘middle managers’ that Mao had come to consider inimical to the purity of his revolution.
@Johnlm says:8 September, 2023 at 11:59 am
Good one, a smear about smearing!
And now I have affirmed your existence too.
Awa an merk up yer wee bit calendar an hae a wee dram on me.
Mia.
The succession to the crown does not include Scotland. In its Act of settlement 1700 , but it does name the other Countries individually that it does apply to. England being the main one.
JOHN MAIN
The fecundity of the Faroese might have something to do with…
Tórshavn: current temp 12, Partly sunny.
Kirkwall/Kirkava: current temp 22. Sunny
Snuggle up by a roaring fire and enjoy a plateful of pilot whalemeat….
I’d be happy to give someone a bye for travelling with covid if they had fought all the nonsense and done a done a Bridgen like expose of the crap.
But to accept it all, vote for it all, then come into contact with dozens was daft beyond belief.
John Main
It is surely not a smear if I can produce your own posts in support.
“There’s a welter of contradictory claims, statistics and facts online. I don’t have the time to wade through them.”
John Main @10.54am 17 August 2023
On a slightly different note I found the below quote regarding sabotaging/undermining from the inside, a guide by US intelligence. This can be found on the website http://taxresearch.org.uk/
‘In 1944, the Office of Strategic Services, a US intelligence agency, issued an underground guide for workers living in the Axis powers. It was called the Simple Sabotage Field Manual. It explained how to undermine an organisation from within. Among its recommendations was “Advocate ‘caution’. Be ‘reasonable’ and urge [others] to be ‘reasonable’”. It’s sound advice. By being cautious, reasonable, polite and considered, our major advocacy groups might avoid political trouble. But they fatally sabotage their own objectives. Always and everywhere, the real danger comes not from speaking out and offending power, but from falling into line.’
“She traveled to London while feeling ill in 2020 then got a train home after a positive Covid test”
And?
Charles traveled from London to Scotland with all his entourage feeling ill and then testing positive. Why wasn’t him prosecuted?
Cummings traveled from London feeling ill and then testing positive. Why wasn’t him prosecuted?
Rees Mogg forced an unjustifiable demand on MPs to travel to London in the middle of a pandemic when isolation was forced on anybody else. MPs traveling to London sick was an expected risk. Why wasn’t him disciplined? Why weren’t the risk assessments planned?
By the way, how many people were infected by Margaret Ferrier in that train? If Test and Protect were doing their job properly, that information would have been very easy to obtain. So why did we never hear any of it? That can only be because there was not a single person infected because of her trip.
Margaret Ferrier sought advice in Westminster and was told to go home. Home for Margaret Ferrier was Scotland, not London. So why weren’t those giving her incorrect advice prosecuted?
Who has the right to demand from another person to be ill and potentially die alone in a strange place?
How many members of the tory party traveled to parliament sick and then tested positive? why weren’t they prosecuted?
Why wasn’t Johnson prosecuted for the COVID parties?
Being gay was illegal decades ago. Would you prosecute today somebody for having being gay decades ago? Something so stupid and horrendously unfair would not cross the minds of any sane person. So why would you prosecute and treat so harshly somebody today for having been ill with COVID years ago when NOW you don’t even to have a test, use a mask and you don’t have to isolate or stop going to work if you contract it?
It is the kingdom of the absurd. There is no moral nor logical justification for this which makes it blatantly obvious this was never about COVID. It was, yet again, the establishment abusing its tools to bring a democratically elected representative of the people of Scotland down for the sake of political maneuvering to stop independence.
“were you one of the ones posting on here in favour of the idea that not even trucks of essential supplies should have been allowed to drive north across the border?”
I don’t even remember, to be quite frank. I do not keep notes of what I write. I remember very clearly advocating for a close border and saying that having lockdowns in Scotland to stop spreading the virus while keeping the borders deliberately open to continuously allow more virus to come in was making the lockdowns inefficient and the work of Test and protect worthless. I also remember saying that such incoherent action looked like a dirty political move from Sturgeon because, in my opinion, she needed virus around to justify the lockdowns. And she needed the lockdowns to stop the pro-independence marches.
What do I think now? Well, my views have not changed one bit. And it stands to the obvious, at least to me. If the borders are closed, then it clearly would mean no trucks coming through and no transport coming through. Goods still would have to pass through though, so the logical thing in my mind is to either fumigate the truck and goods and swap drivers, or transfer the fumigated goods to a clean truck with a new driver. If that is what I wrote at the time, that is what I still stand by today.
I see no problem with it. But of course, it would require a functional government, not the brigade of clowns we have had to endure, determined to stop the virus flowing through, not just pretending to do so, and putting in place sufficient and appropriate resources for that to happen. In fact, if that had been enforced, the Margaret Ferrier scenario would have never existed.
So who is really to blame? Who create the unnecessary risk in the first place?
It wasn’t Margaret Ferrier.
Now, how can it be possible that you remember what I wrote years ago better than me when it is only relatively recently that you started to post here?
Did you post here under a different name? Or are you part of a team?
And what is your purpose for storing information from the posters of this site?
Isn’t that akin to stalking?
Is the purpose of this accumulated information to be deployed to intimidate inconvenient and opinionated posters like me who do not tow the line, or is it to be used as an emergency deflector from inconvenient subjects?
What was your purpose using it against me this time, were you trying to scare me into silence or to stop me talking about the potential political collusion between political parties to subvert democracy in Ms Ferrier’s constituency?
There was another poster here who always used bold font. That was Andy Ellis. I (and I assume many of those posting here) have no clue how to do that. So, are you a member of his team?
Are you based on the derelict mill in Fife?
I wonder if I should start compiling a file with your comments too. They might come in handy some day.
What do you think?
To demonstrate you have not succeeded in distracting me from the matter at discussion, here it is, specially written for you to add on to my file:
Subjecting Margaret Ferrier to such a harsh prosecution and harassment when TODAY there is not even requirement to wear a mask in a hospital environment if you have tested positive for COVID, never mind isolating, is disproportionate, it is morally wrong, it is an abuse of power and it proves there is a disgusting political motive behind it. It proves the establishment’s contempt for democracy, it proves the interests of the people of Scotland are the last thing the political establishment is concerned about, and it proves the by-election in Ms Ferrier’s constituency is a complete and utter farce.
Sam.
We were chucked out and extinguished from proceeding into a parliamentary union with the parliament in England in 1707.
The treaty of union is also a myth.
You will find this information in writing on the UK parliament site 2023,
May i suggest a copy being made by all the yes movement before it dissapears,
The Westminster parliament Act of Settlement succession to the Crown 1700, names England, France and Ireland.
But does not mention or include Scotland by name in that Act,
May It be suggested that the yes movement make a copy of this before it also disappears,
WOKERY has served its purpose.
Soros and the other founders have moved on and the movement must collapse because the most committed are the least intelligent individuals in society.
Stay alert and get prepared for the next scam.
Don’t waste time on the Main TrollBot…
It’s programme is set to: ‘ToryWanker’.
Mia,
The Scottish devolved parliament vote was not democratic at all considering that the Scots were presented with that vote while not being in a treaty with Westminster parliament of England.
The hoax is that the Scottish parliament was extinguished in 1707 by the terms agreed to the treaty once ratified,
The 2014 referendum came under the same continued hoax that the pre 1707 Scottish parliament still existed, within the parliamentary union treaty passed 1707,
If our Scottish parliament was extinguish from the treaty by agreeing to the treaty,
How do you maintain the perception of two parliaments joined in union.
Some people in Scotland want the union of two parliaments to be true it would seem.
@ Ian Brotherhood a 11.22pm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Was_Thursday
I’ve still not read this, but it’s clearly not a new tactic.
Red says:
8 September, 2023 at 10:36 am
stuart mctavish says:
8 September, 2023 at 10:13 am
Re baffled
Anyone else struggling to process Douglas Ross’s apparent failure to lay into Scot Government over the arrest of a 59 year old man in the Patrick Harvie “maate” scandal?
No I’m not I understand why he might to reluctant to even mention it when in Tory England this sort of thing is going on:
Gateshead: Hate crime inquiry over transphobic graffiti on High Level Bridge. BBC
This articles fails to mention what the transphobic graffiti said
This is it
https://tinyurl.com/mryazp45
An image shared on X, previously known as Twitter, show the words: “U can’t change sex”, written on the bridge . Pink News
stop wasting time talking to tits –
SCOTLAND SPEAKS videos are very high quality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MDYcepe86I
– not enough people are watching
like/subscribe
Prof Blanchflower –
BOE MPC v economics for real people
– finance v real economy
– london and the city v everyone else
a sober, high level, english guy, is just saying what all the mad left nats have been doing for ages – this country is setup for finance, the banks and the south east
25.00
something about arts/fringe/cancel culture
36.00
Richard Murphy
“you must suffer”
scythian war on commodity prices
interest rates, inflation, recession
trickle up, not what Scotland needs
renewable energy basis of future prosperity
GERS is madeup, make believe, something which doesn’t exist – just make no sense – “crap”
Completely
Rubbish
A
Proximations
– dodgy accountancy, financial flows credited to London
scottish currency – great idea, don’t suffer from london/finance interest rates
move away from finance dominated economics – make stuff again, mixed economies better
55.00
Salmond ends, wise words
lots of good drone footage, looking good, high production values, very professional
for a toxic brand with a tarnished reputation, Salmond seems to easily attract high quality people on his show
tasmina, seems happy enough, and as far as we know unr4ped as yet by Alex
the support for alex across the political divide from english politicians is notable – it’s like “they -know-” what a fitup looks like, and how dirty the players are in this game, for things can happen even to them. Example – Stephen Milligan died having a kinky wank in a travelodge – he “autoasphyxiated”. Such deaths are so embarrassing the family don’t want any fuss made about them. One rumour is that he was “onto something” regarding corrupt arms industry shenanigans – who knows. So, consider this – this guy was an insider, and look what they did to him.
Hmm – the Ruherglen by-election is happening because Margaret Ferrier did not go along with the gender woo woo cult – it is happening because of the SNP not the British state.
John Main,
Agreed, I’m all for decentralisation of government, particularly when governments are corrupt and/or incompetent.
More on the Gateshead hate crime
One local person wrote on social media: “It was a pretty good day until I walked over the High Level Bridge this evening and was sickened by relentless graffiti encouraging ‘woke’ people to jump.” . Pink News
If the graffiti had encouraged others to ‘punch a f*cking terf/kill terfs’ or for ‘terfs to jump’ there would have been no hate crime.
No hate crime because misogyny isn’t a hate crime in Tory England.
Douglas Ross’s party has ruled it out.
Sensible move by Ross to keep it zipped.
Frank Gillougley @ 11:07 am: “Ground Zero and trans policies.Being new to this genre of cinema, I have been struck by the shockingly accurate and allegorical parallel between Zombie movies and where Scotland is just now in all aspects of society.“
—————
The Brad Pitt ‘World War Z’ movie was of course partly filmed around George Square in Glasgow (though minimally visible in the film as it turned out).
There is an interesting analysis of Superhero movies and Zombie movies which refers us back to ancient Greek Culture. The gods of Olympus apparently represented only the public belief system which emphasised rational responsibility and indestructible Form. As Dutch philosopher Dooyeweerd puts it, these Olympian gods “were merely deified cultural powers of Greek society. These gods were represented as invisible and immortal beings endowed with a splendid beauty and a supra-human power.” In light of that observation we can immediately recognise that our current superhero movies feature, as it were, “deified” (and more or less “immortal”) cultural powers of AMERICAN society.
There was however also an earlier and persistent domestic belief-system in Greek thinking which emphasised the complete opposite, ie a deification not of deathless form but of the formless stream of matter from which it was deemed that all life arises and to which it is all doomed to return. We can see how this focus could easily spawn the zombie motif. As Dooyeweerd remarks about that latter Greek view: “Corporeal form can only be maintained at the cost of other living beings, so that the life of the one is the death of the other. So there is an injustice in any fixed form of life which for this reason must be repaid to the horrible fate of death…”.
So, yes, it could be argued that what is happening in Scottish society (and of course far beyond) is a vertiginous pendulum swing from a polarity of idealised and immutable rational form to a polarity mired in the doomed formlessness of irrational mulch.
@Mia says:8 September, 2023 at 12:39 pm
Now, how can it be possible that you remember what I wrote years ago better than me when it is only relatively recently that you started to post here?
Did you post here under a different name? Or are you part of a team?
And what is your purpose for storing information from the posters of this site?
Isn’t that akin to stalking?
Is the purpose of this accumulated information to be deployed to intimidate inconvenient and opinionated posters like me who do not tow the line, or is it to be used as an emergency deflector from inconvenient subjects?
What was your purpose using it against me this time, were you trying to scare me into silence or to stop me talking about the potential political collusion between political parties to subvert democracy in Ms Ferrier’s constituency?
There was another poster here who always used bold font. That was Andy Ellis. I (and I assume many of those posting here) have no clue how to do that. So, are you a member of his team?
Are you based on the derelict mill in Fife?
I wonder if I should start compiling a file with your comments too. They might come in handy some day.
What do you think?
I think that was a knock-out post from you, Mia, and so laugh-out-loud bonkers, it was well worth reposting in bold text.
I’m sorry that the simple fact of my being able to remember stuff that some posters post is such a frightening prospect for you. But I do think that maybes you need to get some perspective. Maybes a couple of weeks howking tatties?
Meantime, here’s something else I remember from the Covid Years, without having to refer to my indexed and cross-linked database of screengrabs and notes [it’s all backed up on secret underwater server farms, so don’t anybody get ideas].
Covid was and is an infectious disease, spread via the air, particularly contagious in confined spaces. Some people who caught Covid then died.
To go into any public space, such as public transport, when Covid Positive was and is a reckless act of selfishness. The perp demotes anybody she may come into contact with to the status of irrelevant collateral damage as she prioritises her own interests above all.
It is entirely right and proper that those who were happy to criminalise wider society for such behaviour should be hoist by their own petard.
Give us the money. Part1 Slavery.
From “The Conversation”.
The economic consultancy, The Brattle Group, was asked to draw up a report estimating the scale of reparations that should be paid for the chattel trade between 1510 to 1870, covering 31 countries that engaged in transatlantic slavery. This would include compensation for loss of life and liberty, uncompensated labour, personal injury, mental pain and anguish and gender-based violence.
The Brattle Report estimated that the UK – which was the biggest slave trading nation up to 1807 and did not abolish slave ownership in the empire until 1834 – should pay a reparations bill of £18.5 trillion. To put that into context, the estimated annual GDP for the UK for 2023 is about £2.5 trillion and the entire worth of the UK – its land, infrastructure and everything in it was estimated by the Office for National Statistics at £10.7 trillion in 2020…
….James Drax was the first – or one of the first – planters in the British empire to move to a workforce of enslaved Africans where the children of slaves were held in perpetuity. His descendant – the Conservative MP for South Dorset, Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, (who prefers to be known as Richard Drax) heads the family that owns the vast Charborough Estate and the Drax Hall Plantation in Barbados.
Although he is a public figure, Richard Drax and his family are very private, not least about their wealth which is locked into a number of trusts. As head of the family, the MP lives in the 17th-century grade 1 listed Charborough House with its 1,500 acres of parkland all tucked away behind the three miles of the “Great Wall of Dorset”.”
“The Westminster parliament Act of Settlement succession to the Crown 1700, names England, France and Ireland.
But does not mentin or include Scotland by name in that Act”
As far as I know, the crowns of Scotland and England were and still are separate and independent, and that is the main clue to Scotland’s real status in this union.
The idea that Scotland has become a region of the Kingdom of England since the Treaty is beyond absurd, but rather convenient for those who have a self-interest in preserving this union even after Scotland becomes independent.
That the two crowns remain separate and Scotland’s crown remains the property of the Scottish people is why Scotland’s crown is here and not locked in some glass cabinet in a London museum or English castle being displayed as another trophy.
If I am not mistaken, what determines the current line of succession to Scotland’s crown is Article II of the Treaty of Union, hence the Crown’s own self-interest in preserving that treaty.
If the treaty ends, Scotland will have to decide the line of succession to its crown. That should be a decision for the people of Scotland (an option being none) and them only.
You will find some pictures around with the late monarch’s coffin with a crown on top. It is described as “the imperial crown”. That is not Scotland’s crown. That is the Kingdom of England’s crown. The “empire” allegedly did not start until after the treaty of Union. It is most telling therefore they are equating the Kingdom of England’s crown to “the imperial crown”. It suggests they see (or want us to see) Scotland as another of the Kingdom of England’s dominions.
The line of succession to Scotland’s crown is, in my personal opinion, one of the main reasons behind the desperate attempts to preserve this union. And, in my view, explains why so many elements controlled by the crown appear to be involved in recent Scottish affairs and why an unelected representative of the crown is currently sitting right in the middle of what should have been a democratically elected Scottish government cabinet, making a complete mockery of democracy.
J Gedd. excellent piece of work, you always see outside the “box”
Has no one in Scotland ever wondered why their are two separate ceremonies for The monarch in the name of Great Britain or one united kingdom?
The Scotland does not “crown” the succession of the monarchs of England to Scotland because Scotland is not part of the english parliament Sovereignty Acts passed in 1700 mentioned in the Acts of settlement.
down.
The Crown of Britain is only the Crown of England succession as wrote
@JGedd (12.12) & crazycat (1.07) –
Thanks for the responses. Much to ponder…
😉
I don’t believe misogyny will become a hate crime in Scotland and I’m wondering if it wasn’t a bit premature to give Labour peer Baroness Helena Kennedy the lifetime achievement award.
“I have loved doing work that retains my strong links with Scotland like the report on misogyny …. being in the First Minister’s Advisory Council on Women and Girls”. Labour peer Baroness Helena Kennedy
Even with my doubts about misogyny becoming a hate crime in Scotland I’m having fun thinking of all the misogynistic hate crimes that I can report to the police. 🙂
I’m also imagining the police cars covered in ‘purple, green & white’ and the police, nhs etc having to wear ‘purple, green & white’ lanyards.
Give us the money Part 1 Slavery.
From “PLANTATION SLAVERY AND LANDOWNERSHIP THE WEST HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS: LEGACIES AND LESSONS”
“Scores of estates in the West Highlands and Islands were acquired by people using the equivalent of well over £100m worth of riches connected to slavery in the Caribbean and North America. Many would go on to be leading figures in the Highland Clearances, evicting thousands of people whose families had lived on their newly procured land for generations.
These are amongst the conclusions of a research paper titled ‘Plantation slavery and landownership in the west Highlands and Islands: legacies and lessons’ published today, by two university academics – both from Hebridean backgrounds. It has been written by Coventry University-based Dr Iain MacKinnon from Skye, and Dr Andrew Mackillop, a senior lecturer in Scottish History at Glasgow University, who is originally from Harris.
It shows how 63 estates were bought by significant beneficiaries of “slavery derived wealth”. The majority (37) changed hands between 1790 and 1855, the main period of the eviction of thousands of people. Almost 1.2m acres were involved covering 33.5 % of the West Highlands and Islands.
It is an independent study, but is being published by Community Land Scotland, the representative body of Scotland’s community landowners such as West Harris, Knoydart and South Uist as part of its discussion paper series on ‘Land and the Common Good’. It comes at a time when Scotland and the rest of Britain struggle with past involvement in the slavery economy. The new paper builds on the work already done by Professor Sir Tom Devine.
It provides the first systematic analysis of the location, size and monetary value of estate purchases financed by directly or indirectly acquired slavery money. This came either from a highly profitable involvement in the slave trade and/or the plantations themselves; through marriage into families of such wealth; or from the compensation paid by the British Government when slavery was abolished in most of the British Empire”
The Brattle Report estimated that the UK – which was the biggest slave trading nation up to 1807 and did not abolish slave ownership in the empire until 1834 – should pay a reparations bill of £18.5 trillion.
Lol, send an invoice then.
@sam says:8 September, 2023 at 1:29 pm
Another knock-out post, Sam.
Please clarify for the alert readers, if it’s not too much trouble. Are you one of the people on the hook for your share of the reparations bill of £18.5 trillion?
Or are you one of the lucky ones with your hand out?
I say lucky because, bleeding obviously, you’ve never been enslaved in your chuff.
Tell you what, with an £18.5 trillion jackpot up for grabs, I feel confident I can magic up a great, great, great, great grandfather who slaved away in Jamaica somewhere. Sure, it’s becoming clearer as I write – I remember my long deid granny talking about him – it’s part of the Main family oral history. He lived near one of the two Jamaican Cullodens – a handy state of affairs, because nobody knows which one.
Don’t you go calling me a liar now! That would be wacism.
BTW, I want my loot in used 50 USD notes.
Is that the same John Main who supports Isntreal, cos’ it’s written in the bible?
JGEDD
You omit in your analysis the influence of Confucianism on Chinese politics.
Although Mao attacked the old ways he himself was steeped in them, even wrote in classical forms, and expected the normative i.e traditional respect and obedience to his new socio-political order.
The young were not dissenting they were conforming to a pattern of new loyalty. Even down to attempting to erase traces of the old ways; a traditional Chinese practice.
However, under centralizing «emperor» Xi that old style conformity may be starting to break down but it is not disappearing.
A new conformity to so called western models as manifest in popular American culture is taking place among the some of the young. It is perversely viewed as freeing and individualistic. A novel opiate for the Chinese, inducing a new dependency.
A culture clash is inevitable. The Chinese have a bad memory of the West’s involvement in their land and Confucianism, however interpreted, in which the individual has social obligations, is a unique cultural code for the collective «good» all have internalized.
The Chinese régime may look at Americanized Taiwan and consider there but for the wisdom of our ancestors we might have gone.
Touched a raw nerve there. Main excitable, irrational.
From LBC interview.
“Coleman Bazelon, the report’s lead author told LBC’s Ali Miraj: “To put this into just a little context as to why these numbers are so large, overall the essence of our analysis is to account for the amount of stolen labour – the time of people who were enslaved – and loss of life due to shortened lifespans and deaths during the Middle Passage [from Africa to the Americas].
“And overall, for all of transatlantic chattel slavery, we estimate 800 million years of harm that needs to be compensated, about 140 million years of harm for the British colonies.”
He added: “It is a lot of money, but it also took four centuries of activity to accumulate harms of that level. And obviously they’re not going to be repaired overnight. But 400 years of enslavement in the Americas has just led to a significant amount of harm.”
The basis of calculation of the amount looks similar to that adopted by Frontier Economics when calculating the effects of health inequalities on the UK economy – loss of days of work through disability, premature death.
That work was done for the Marmot Review of 2010 which was accepted in full by the Conservative government.
Show us the money!
“The Crown of Britain is only the Crown of England succession as wrote”
James Che.
That’s right James, the fake coronation in Scotland was put on to fool Scots (not in the know) that the English monarch is sovereign in Scotland when they are not.
This farce enables the theft of all manner of Scottish assets under the guise that they belong to the crown, basically the English crown and its enablers have been lying to Scots for centuries to steal the country’s (Scotland’s) assets.
Salvo’s main page explains this a bit further, though I’ve no doubt that you’ve already read it James.
https://salvo.scot/scotlands-kidnapping-plunder-and-forced-fake-marriage-or-union/
England’s monarchs have no powers in Scotland that allows them to remove or benefit from Scottish assets.
Margaret Ferrier is quite simply the victim of a political Witch-hunt, as Mia points out.
Regarding masks, hindsight is a wonderful thing, many people now know that wearing a mask to prevent Covid is akin to using a tennis racket as an umbrella.
Many people in the scientific community also knew beforehand that masks were worse than useless.
“Covid was and is an infectious disease, spread via the air, particularly contagious in confined spaces. Some people who caught Covid then died”
You say “spread via the air”. That is known now and accepted now. When did the UK government officially accepted that COVID was airborne?
The WHO did not accept COVID officially as airborne until December 2021. That was over ONE YEAR after Ms Ferrier traveled back to Scotland in that train. So that excuse cannot be applied retrospectively to justify her disproportionate punishment. Because it was disproportionate.
I distinctly remember the UK PM Johnson telling us that the only thing we had to do was to wash our hands singing the Happy Birthday song.
With that recommendation he potentially endangered the lives of the entire population of the UK. Why wasn’t he prosecuted for gross negligence?
Ms Ferrier was wearing a mask, which would be sufficient to contain a non-airborne virus. That with the recommendation given by the PM of washing your hands often and the 2m distancing rule which we must assume was enforced in the train she was traveling in, should have been sufficient to stop transmission of a non-airborne virus. Which was the official knowledge we had at the time.
So, how many people got infected by Margaret Ferrier in that train?
As I said in my comment above, if Test and Protect were doing their job properly, that information should have been quite easy to obtain.
If none were infected, then the punishment is completely out of proportion and clearly raises questions as to its real motives.
Public Transport – even if she remained in London, because she was sent home, she would have to use some form of public transport to go from work to the place where she was staying. As far as I know, teleporting did not exist yet in 2020 and drones were not powerful enough to carry a person through the air. So, does your rule only apply to the public transport in Scotland and when it is convenient for labour to win a by-election?
You say, some people died of COVID. Certainly, but some people also died of flu, of a cold or an unfortunate fall.
Some people have even died because forced lockdowns debilitated their immune system due to lack of exposure and insufficient vitamin D, yet we don’t see Nicola Sturgeon prosecuted for forcing lockdowns on people putting them at risk of dying.
Some people have since died because of the COVID vaccine, yet I don’t see those who enforced the vaccination, and even demanded it to be able to travel, being prosecuted for having endangering the population putting them at risk of sudden death by the vaccine.
The excuse is that the numbers of those affected by this kind of deaths are very small. Well then, how many people died because they were infected in that train by Ms Ferrier?
You say “To go into any public space, such as public transport, when Covid Positive was and is a reckless act of selfishness”
Is it? So how big a reckless act of selfishness from the UK and ScotGov is to stop people from doing Covid tests to check if they are ill, to no longer enforce isolation, distancing rules or using masks even when you “are feeling ill”?
Because that is the situation today.
If you apply retrospectively today’s knowledge of the virus being airborne to the punishment of Ms Ferrier, then you have to apply what is today considered normality with regards to prevention of COVID transmission. You cannot pick and choose and then expect this punishment to be seen as somewhat justified or fair. It was not.
You say in your comment: “it is entirely right and proper that those who were happy to criminalise wider society for such behaviour should be hoist by their own petard”
Right then, when are you going to hoist the UK, Sgov, political parties and the courts by their own petard when, despite having criminalised Ms Ferrier behaviour with a punishment that is harsher than the one given to hard core criminals (for example some rapists in Scotland), those governments have, since then and for quite a while, totally normalised her behaviour today by having no longer any preventative measures in place to stop transmission of COVID in public transport or elsewhere, despite knowing it is airborne. As far as I know, it is perfectly normal today, from a legal perspective, to travel using ANY form of public transport and to anywhere in the UK even if you know you have COVID.
This proves, in my opinion, that Ms Ferrier was the subject of political persecution where, once again, the crown office and courts in Scotland have been serving as convenient political tools to remove dissenters from politics.
All the Ferrier episode demonstrates is how damaged politics, the Law, and Science have become.
Total gaslighting.
Show us the money.
From the Resolution Foundation.
“Three-quarters of UK adults reported in November 2022 that they were trying to cut back on overall spending.
45 per cent of respondents, or 24 million people, are quite worried or very worried about their energy bills over the winter months, but this rises to 63 per cent of workers in the bottom income quintile, and 62 per cent of those paying their energy bills using a pre-payment meter (PPM) (compared with 43 per cent of people who pay energy bills using direct debit).
Almost one-in-five (19 per cent) of people in our survey – or 10 million – are not confident about their finances as a whole over the next few months, but for workers in the bottom income quintile, this rises to 32 per cent, and to 43 per cent for those not working and on benefits.
In November 2022, 28 per cent (up from 9 per cent pre-pandemic) of adults say that they could not afford to eat balanced meals, and 11 per cent or 6 million adults (up from 5 per cent pre-pandemic) reported being hungry in the past month because they lacked enough money to buy food. 23 per cent of those receiving means-tested or disability benefits are severely food insecure this winter, up from 4 per cent pre-pandemic. Similarly, rates of food insecurity are much higher among families with three or more children, single parent families, and among certain non-white ethnic groups.”
Repulicofscotland.
The Act of settlement 1700 is very specific in which Countries the succession of the Crown of England applies to by name,
England, Ireland and France and its dominions in 1700.
Scotland was not part of that Act, the hoax treaty of union came in 1707,
And as Scotland is beginning to access wether the end of the Scottish parliament in 1707, by agreeing to be extinguished from the treaty altogether by the ratification process of both parliaments, was not a “sly, but important get out clause” by those that had doubts of a union between Scotland and England.
Did the Westminster English parliament Act in 1700 extend itself to Scotland?
IF the 1707 Scottish parliament has been extinguished from the treaty, as theUK parliament state in writing on their parliament site in 2023.
Then it cannot,
The Crown in Scotland as head of state has no legal merit,
as you say republicofscotland it is a sham ceremony, but it is not a scam just because “we” in Scotland never get to witness it,
But because it has no legal basis or bearing through any legitimised pross to enter in Scotland other than under the Colony heading.
Reading the proposed new Constitution
Repulicofscotland.
Last sentence, replace pross with word legitimised “process”
Comments not going through in normal timescale,
With this exchange in Westminster this a afternoon, your graphs will be off the scale –
The SNP’s Deidre Brock asked the Leader of the Commons. Penny Mordaunt what she learnt from her trip to Scotland.
Addressing the House of Commons, Mordaunt said: “Well, I have genuinely missed these exchanges where the Honourable Lady blames everyone else except the Scottish Government which is one of the most powerful devolved administrations in this world.
“But she invites me to tell this House what I’ve learned in my very pleasant trips to Scotland over the summer.
“I did learn Scotland has slower economic growth than England, I was shocked to learn Victorian diseases have actually returned to certain cities in Scotland, such as rickets, that Glasgow’s rat problem is now so bad it is precluding bin men actually accessing certain streets as it is too dangerous for them, I discovered that the bill to Scottish taxpayers for the smelting business debacle stands at £32million, I discovered that £33m that was ring-fenced for Scottish farmers has gone AWOL.
“I also learned that the Scottish auditors have only been able to give a qualified sign-off to the SNP’s accounts.
“I toured other parts of the UK as well; in Manchester… I discovered the Manchester police have been forced to issue a crime reference number following a complaint about the SNP giving constituency seats for cash.
“I also learned the Scottish Programme for Government announced this week has a billion pound black hole.”
Enough said?
Mia at 129pm,
I think you are correct. Many folk carelessly talk of ‘the union of the crowns’ of 1603 (James VI and I). But that was simply notional, in that James inherited both the English and Scottish crowns. He did not unite them. It’s like me, if I owned two cars at the same time, nobody would say I had united them, would they. Unionistas like to make out they were united, somehow, by magic or something.
In the treaty of union of 1707, the word ‘country’ does not appear, ever. Throughout reference is made to the Kingdoms of Scotland and England, and how they shall be both be joined to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Really, in essence, it was the United Kingdoms, forming ‘Great Britain.
However, at no point does the treaty state that the crowns of Scotland and England will be joined, and it most certainly does not state that going forward it is only the English crowns that would be worn or indeed, that only the English coronation Oath would be used.
Further, it is impossible to join the crowns of England and Scotland, since they do not represent the same thing. In England, the Monarch is sovereign, whereas in Scotland they are not AND NEVER HAVE BEEN. This is a fundamental aspect of the Scottish constitutional settlement, as set out in the claim of right, and confirmed as essential in all time coming, as a fundamental part of the Union treaty. Page 1 of the treaty to be exact.
So, you are correct. It is just English exceptionalism that we have Charley Windsor wearing a wholly ENGLISH crown, and taking an ENGLISH coronation oath. I mean at his coronation, did he not wear the Edward the confessor crown, named after the ENGLISH king?
I think you are also correct about the treaty of union being all that holds the monarchy in place within Scotland. That is no doubt why Lizzie Windsor decided to INTERFERE in the Scottish independence referendum of 2014 – perfidious Albion at it again!!. No wonder she was reported afterwards by the then Prime Minister, Toryboy David Cameron as ‘purring down the line’ on hearing the result. Indeed, he also said he had never heard anybody happier.
So, Charlie Windsor in all reality in Scotland is an ENGLISH king, on holiday. He has zero status up here. The fact he is also roundly despised due to his terrible treatment of Diana, is just another aspect (let’s never forget Charles was 29 when he met the then 16 year old Diana, ahem…). I’m sure he is a jolly nice chap overall, and all that, and if the English like him, so be it, but he is not our king, and NEVER will be.
But I guess that won’t stop unionistas and England pretending that magically he is.
Show us the money.
From “Disability News Service” 10 Aug 2023.
“A disabled man has had his benefits slashed after an Atos nurse lied about what he told her during an assessment about his pain and suicidal thoughts, and repeatedly under-stated how his health conditions affect his day-to-day life.
The nurse even claimed that Ian Littler, who lives with significant mental distress and long-term health conditions, said that all people were “scum” when he said no such thing during the telephone assessment.
As a result of the assessment report, he had his monthly personal independence payment (PIP) cut by nearly £340 a month.
It is the third time he has had to appeal after an inaccurate assessment report has resulted in his PIP being cut.
Atos has accepted the report was not fit for purpose – after listening to a recording he secretly made of the telephone assessment in April – and is investigating his complaint.
Littler, from Oldham, is calling for the nurse to be sacked and struck off from the nursing register, and he is seeking legal advice.
An Atos PIP client relations officer has told him: “The documentation of the information provided by you which can be heard within the recording, has not been documented accurately and there are inaccuracies in the report.””
Disability News Service has reports of 200 people claiming Atos has lied about their work capacity assessments.
James Che said;
“In 1707 the Scottish parliament was extinguished from the parliamentary treaty of union with the parliament of England and annexed Wales, By the agreed terms to treaty once ratified in 1707.”
James, there were NO terms in the Treaty nor in either of the Acts of Union to extinguish Scotland’s parliament, but not England’s. The inception of the new joint Parliament of Great Britain merely implied the abolition of both old parliaments, with both no longer having any authority to govern anything, and thus served no purpose. And in fact both parliaments ceased to exist, and, yes, that included England’s. But its structures, both physical and organisational, were retained for use by the new GB parliament, which is why it only needed to rename itself. That was perfectly valid and sensible, so long as in its new role it met the terms of the Treaty. Naturally, being the very epicentre of perfidious Albion, it didn’t, and doesn’t.
If there are such abolition terms in the Treaty as you claim, please quote them from the Treaty, and not from the Westminster website.
and;
“If our Scottish parliament was extinguish from the treaty by agreeing to the treaty,
How do you maintain the perception of two parliaments joined in union?”
Simples!
You put the personnel of both into the same building, and call that a Union Parliament. Which is what actually happened.
Bumrush.
The Scottish devolved government is the government of England Westminster by legislation,
The clue to its roots is in the title, ” devolved”
The financial black holes come under the Legislation of Englands parliament of Westminster.
Westminster parliament creating debt for Westminster and underhandedly making on it is a wee parliament of Scotland,
The only connection is stamping the name “Scotland” on it, it could just as well say timbucktoo.
As you have said before James our Scottish parliament was extinguished and the English parliament continued as the parliament of the UK, the creation of our now Holyrood administration is nothing more than an offshoot of Westminster. This probably why English political parties sit in it as well.
There was no 1707 Treaty that united Scotland and England in a union, one simple reason for this is that English sovereignty is utterly incompatible with Scottish sovereignty, that’s why there’s been three hundred years of lies and deceit or as Salvo puts it gaslighting.
England has imposed its uncodified constitution on Scotland and its media enforce this lie that its our constitution when its not.
Every single Scottish MP that’s ever attended Westminster in a political sense has given credence to the lie that we are in a union with England, when we are not. Scots MPs MUST NOT sit in Westminster by doing so they give England’s parliament credibility that we’re in a union when we’re clearly not and never have been.
James Che @ 5.03
It’s 2023 and the Scottish Assembly decides how ‘to manage’ the things that matter most to Scotland – schools, health, living conditions, economy, taxation, police and judiciary. It knows its available funds and really should use them to the best interest of the people.
It’s failed, just as it has failed in making a case for independence – ‘see how well we’re doing for you; with Independence we can do even better!’ Hogwash.
Re Margaret Ferrier, what was she and other Scots MPs doing at Westminster anyway?
Just another day in the life of the settled-in SNP British MPs sworn to serve the UK / English monarch and doing their bit to serve the English Crown’s sovereign power in England’s UK parliament.
…and once the Short money gets cut after the next GE then the SNP are bankrupt.
Form an orderly queue to have the association/whatever Murrel registered them as struck off the register 🙂
My only sympathy here is for the smaller suppliers to the SNP who won’t be getting paid. They should have known better but even so, its bound to send a few more of them to the wall.
Anyone extending credit to the SNP for the next GE has simply got to be dodgy….
Show us the money.
From Disability News Service 3 Aug 2017.
“PIP investigation: 200 cases of dishonesty… and still DWP, Atos and Capita refuse to act”
“Eight months after the investigation began, DNS now has a database of more than 200 cases in which disabled people have described – in varying levels of detail – how assessors lied in their written reports.
But this week, DWP, Atos and Capita all refused to launch an investigation into the claims of widespread dishonesty.
In one of the latest cases passed to DNS, a woman disabled as a result of stage three breast cancer has described how she requested a copy of her assessment report after she was told that she had been turned down for PIP and had been awarded zero points (a claimant needs eight points for the PIP standard rate and 12 for the enhanced rate).
She said she was “utterly shocked” when she read the report because it was “full of complete lies”, including the assessor stating that her daughter takes her shopping every week, when she lives in Northern Ireland and her daughter has lived in England for the last 16 years.
Another claimant said of her PIP assessor: “She lied 11 times on the report despite my sending in a large amount of letters/documents outlining my conditions and support from specialists.
“She asked my carer questions, too, and wrote the opposite of most of the things we told her.”
A third claimant, who stayed in his wheelchair throughout his PIP assessment, was said by his assessor to have got up from the wheelchair and walked about.
He said the report was “just a pack of lies”, and included “results for tests not done” and “test results falsely reported”. He said he planned to report the nurse assessor to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
Another claimant described how her nurse assessor stopped the PIP assessment halfway through, as she said she did not want to cause her any pain or discomfort.
She said: “She never ever asked was I in pain. When I received her report through the DWP, she lied through her teeth from beginning to end. She said that I stopped the assessment. I got 0 points.
“I have osteoarthritis, and have had one hip replaced, I have osteoporosis in my lower back, I have severe bladder problems, and need a pad on 24/7.
“I also told her that I have a growth on my liver, but she failed to mention this at all.””
Show us the money.
Research by Northern Rock Foundation and Trust for London found a sharp impact of austerity on services supporting women suffering domestic violence. Betwen 2009/10 and 2010/11 there was a 31% cut in LA funding for domestic and sexual violence support. In 2011, Women’s Aid turned away 230 women due to lack of provision.
Xaracen,
Do you’re research homework,
1: The Scottish parliament was extinguished in 1707.
You will find this in “WRITING on the UK parliament site” for all the world and globe to read for the last two years at least, so plenty of time for them to have corrected the statement if it was a error.
No point in telling me its not Correct, Tell that to the Great British parliament/ uk parliament that was supposed to join in a union Scotlands 1707 parliament,
2: You find the Westminster parliament acting and operating Solely as the parliament of England in creating a treaty with Ireland in 1800,
3: you will find the parliament of England creating a Commercial treaty with America, info on this and link was provided by Alf Baird.
The evidence is there that the parliament of England continued. And did not extinguish it self.
While the Great British-uk parliament state that the “Scottish parliament wax extinguished”
If You prefer a unionist hoax treaty of union compared to the reality printed by the parliament of Westminster themsevex and recorded historical records then there is nothing more I can say to you on this matter really,
If you need to “not believe” in the intelligence of the UK parliament site with all those civil servants and the records from Westminster treaties that is up to you.
You are entitled to hold a different believe system from the UK government.
Bumsrush,
“It knows its available funds and really should use them to the best interest of the people.”
If I sent you out to the £ shop with 50p you may have a bit of difficulty deciding what to get.
How about we get Westminster’s thieving hands out of Scotland’s pockets and then Scots can blame themselves for the decisions made and England gets to stand on its own two feet for the first time ever.
Be worried, very worried.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66716501
Youtube, gone from vids of your silly pets to Fully Formed Fascist Forum.
Xaracen,
When doing research it is always wise to use the records from those that claim they are the “authority” of Britain and the ones in the know.
And these are the parliament in the know “Westminster” own records
So when they tell me the Scottish parliament was extinguished in 1707,
Not subsumed,
Not joined in parliamentary union with the parliament of England in 1707.
But extinguished. And in writing too.
Then as the supposed other part of the treaty of union thats whom we get our records from, being as the Scottish parliament ceased to exist in 1707 as the other half meant to be in the joined union.
There is nothing that Scotland or Scots can do with Westminster “officially proclamation statement” to the whole world, that the Scottish parliament was extinguished in 1707.
“It is what it is”
Scotlands 1707 parliament did not join in a parliamentary union with Englands parliament in 1707 , because The parliament of Westminster in England says it didn’t.
@Republicofscotland;
We are in a Union, the unitary one that Westminster and its English establishment insist it is and always wanted, and not the dual-kingdom partnership Union that Scotland signed up to.
But almost every aspect of the Union is fraudulent in a way that serves the interests of the English establishment and its friends and sponsors, and to the severe detriment of the Scottish partner it has been comprehensively stitching up and sponging off for centuries.
England’s establishment resolved the incompatibilities of the two sovereignties by trenchantly ignoring the very existence of Scotland’s sovereignty in favour of its own, and did exactly the same with Scotland’s incompatible constitution, breaking a Treaty obligation in the process. It also neutered the authority of the Scots MPs as the sole representatives of the Kingdom of Scotland in the joint governance of both Kingdoms’ territories, by the use of a simple majority voting system that automatically gives England’s (now) 11:1 MP majority virtually unchallengeable voting power in the Commons on any matter.
All of these ploys were and still are entirely unwarranted, and it still hasn’t got through to Scotland’s worthless MPs that maybe something isn’t quite right with the Union.
Since Scotland is a sovereign partner, its MPs are fully entitled to ignore any majority votes by England’s MPs because they literally have no legal, constitutional, or even democratic authority to enforce English decisions on Scotland, or on the Union, or even on England itself, in the Union’s parliament. It’s not England’s parliament, and hasn’t been for centuries, and England isn’t entitled to any special favours in it. But it
getstakes them anyway.England has NO authority over Scotland, England ISN’T the Union, and being only one sovereign partner in a Union of two sovereign partners it is NOT entitled to make UNION decisions on its own, including over its own territory, let alone someone else’s.
Scotland’s MPs are fully justified and fully entitled to raise merry hell on every one of the grounds stated above, and to start a major revolt in Westminster, and it’s long past time they did exactly that.
@James, has it never occurred to you that Westminster, one of the most deeply distrusted entities on the entire planet, might be lying on its own website on a subject that has major political significance to it? That it has a deep, vested interest in maintaining its unwarranted and abusive authority over the Union, and in particular over its precious golden goose, Scotland, a country that it has been exploiting for centuries to its great detriment, and one that the English establishment cannot afford to lose, so dependent it has become on it for all sorts of reasons?
It’s trolling you on multiple levels, and you keep falling for it. Why would you ignore the actual words of the actual Treaty of Union in favour of an ‘interpretation’ by perfidious Albion’s HQ?
That was precisely the point of asking you to quote the actual original Treaty as it was actually agreed, signed and ratified, because it is THE sole authoritative document of the terms of the Union’s existence and operation.
Today the foreign media has been pushing down our throats that its one year since the English queen died and we should all remember her in our own special way.
The English crown is totally different from the the Scottish one, in England the monarch is sovereign (Dieu et mon droit) in Scotland the people are sovereign so there could not have been a union in 1707.
Instead what we have is a very long case of lies and deception (300 plus years) where the English parliament has masqueraded as a British parliament, in order to lay claim to Scotland and later on its multitude of assets, which it has been stealing, draining Scotland of its wealth, wealth that could’ve and still can, be used to build roads, schools, houses, hospitals, basically to give Scots a better standard of life.
There can be no devolved administration in Scotland because there was no union of the crowns, they are utterly incompatible with each other. Some Scots believe that a union exists because they were fed the story of the union at school, or they’ve read it in some book somewhere, English radio and media enforces the notion that the union is real when it isn’t Scots are propagandised every single day in life by the foreign media that broadcasts in Scotland.
So there’s no union, so why would we need to declare independence from something that never existed in the first place, the answer is of course we don’t need to declare independence.
What needs to be done is that we withdraw our MPs from Westminster, and dissolve Holyrood, and start again from scratch with no foreign interference from England.
The Claim of Right which remains in force (is legal) to this day, the English crown has impinged upon this on multiple occasions over the decades/centuries, the English parliament and the crown knows this all too well, and it wouldn’t have a leg to stand on legally wise if we cut all political ties with England and went our own way.
So what’s stopping us from cutting ties with England and enriching our own peoples lives why aren’t the profits from our own assets being used to better our own peoples lives, well the political parties at Holyrood are stopping us, three of the five p major parties are nothing more than branch offices of their English HQs, the other two the SNP and the Greens aren’t interested in cutting ties with England the status quo suits them.
@ TURABDIN at 7.01pm:
Is this a veiled attack on Dr John Campbell, I wonder? I would far sooner trust what he says than any propaganda that emanates from the BBC.
As for YouTube, I don’t have a TV so I find myself visiting it a lot, but it’s a really dreadful site, awash with lies, conspiracy mumbo-jumbo and propaganda of every sort. Because I’ve ‘liked’ and commented on various anti-gender ideology videos, YouTube appears to assume that I’m some sort of right-wing nutjob and insists on filling my page with racist, religious fundamentalist and pro-gun propaganda. There appears to be no way to block content that I wouldn’t dream of looking at in a month of Sundays and which I often find disturbing or downright offensive.
FOI requests prove there was no pandemic in the Scottish borders and elsewhere.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/nhs-foi-there-was-no-pandemic-in-the-scottish-borders
Never forget the ghouls who locked you down and lied to your face for 2 years are now promulgating the climate change hoax.
Cyprus v Scotland
https://crichd.tv/cyprus-vs-scotland-live-streaming
Currently 0-2 in Scotland’s favour.
“We are in a Union,”
Xaracen.
How can Scotland be in a union with England when the sovereignties of both nations are incompatible, why do you think our Scottish honours (crown jewels) still remain in Scotland and have not been whisked away to England.
There could not be a union because in Scotland the people are sovereign and in England its the monarch, of course the foreign media perpetuates the myth that Scotland is in a union with England, it has to, the consequences of the truth being widely known are unthinkable to the English monarchy and the English parliament.
When our nobles sold away our freedom for thirty pieces of silver back in the day, they did not realise, or ignored the fact that the people of Scotland (who had no vote) were/are the sovereign ones and not the nobles, and certainly not the monarch.
I can only imagine how much wealth English monarchs have stolen from Scotland in assets over the centuries, each time impinging on the real sovereigns of Scotland its people. There was no union ergo their could not have been a British parliament that incorporated Scotland, which means the last fifty years of the English parliament, and its corporate buddies stealing our assets from the North sea have also impinged upon the sovereignty of Scots.
The myth of the union must be nurtured by the foreign media and even our own politicians for the status quo is very important to the English crown, its parliament, and sad to say our own politicians.
Every single Scottish MP who has gone to Westminster to take up his or her seat has only added to the myth of the union by taking up their seat and their hefty salary. They all knew the union was/is a lie but still they went, even though they could never change anything, and they never will change anything at Westminster, its all about the privileges they receive.
@RoS 7:30
So what’s stopping 129 Sovereign Scots who think like you forming a new party, standing for election in each constituency, and hopefully forming Hollyrood’s next governing administration?
And from there, what’s stopping these 129 Sovereign Scots from doing all the things you crave: UDI, Republicanism, alignment with BRICS, whatever?
It’s a deadly serious question, RoS, and I would dearly love to hear your answer.
What’s stopping you?
Jeezo, north of 5million Sovereign Scots and you can’t even find 129?
@RoS 8:11
Hate to break this to you, but you should go back to printed, monthly bank statements sent through the post to your home address.
Nothing you receive in print form from a High Street bank is a myth.
Trust me on this. Banks are the ultimate arbiters of reality. If your bank statement shows a salary deposit, then there’s no myth involved.
Soz.
Breastplate, I appreciate that you you are SNP, come Hell or highwater but even so there’s a bit of a difference between 50p to spend and Billions and Billions and Billions of Pounds that the Scottish government is mis-handling.
Look at the priorities that Scotland really has and then look at the money frittered on headline and self aggrandisement projects.
@Xaracen 7:06 pm
Do you have any knowledgeable or reputable source you can link to that supports your claim that WM has no right to make decisions and enact policy that affects England?
Well Main its very interesting and it tells me a lot that you didn’t spout shite about the union being a real thing, maybe even the likes of you can’t perpetuate the lie indefinitely.
The angle that you come in from is one that been well trodden, the simple answer is propaganda, and the fact that our current crop of politicians are quite content to ride the gravy train, even Alba is finding it difficult to get a good foothold through all the lies deceit and propaganda that’s spewed out from the foreign MSM in Scotland every day to keep apathetic Scots compliant, the media is a very powerful tool.
Imagine a mainstream channel that told the truth to Scots about the myth of the union and it was broadcast 24/7 in Scotland, now multiply that umpteen fold and you get what the foreign media is pumping out on a daily basis into Scots and their heads. Why do you think broadcasting will never be devolved to Scotland.
However this doesn’t alter the fact that the union is a myth, social media has given many Scots who use it a window into aspects on Scotland and England with the myth of the union in mind and more folk are learning that the union is just a big fat lie. Scotland’s politicians like those in days gone by don’t want to rock the gravy boat, they are making a good living out of getting elected either to Holyrood or Westminster cutting ties with England in a political sense would see them torn away from the teat that they relish.
Also Holyrood isn’t really our parliament its an offshoot of Westminster, it is stuffed with politicians who answer to their HQS in England, such as Labour, the Tories and the Lib/Dems, these are not Scottish parties but branch offices of the English parties, as the Electoral Commission (another English body) called them (OIM’s) Optional Image Marks.
Scottish MP must not take up their seats at the foreign parliament of Westminster.
Independence told to walk
In favour of a cock in a frock.
Who would have believed it.
The present uk government may not be the most corrupt government in
history,but it is surely the most openly corrupt,the last dregs of
a former empire.
There is right now a majority in favour of scottish independence,i am certain of that…(why the hell would there not be?)
Speaking as a lifelong supporter of independence…this thing that calls itself the snp is an UTTER disgrace…BEGONE… for christ’s sake!
John Main said;
“@Xaracen 7:06 pm
Do you have any knowledgeable or reputable source you can link to that supports your claim that WM has no right to make decisions and enact policy that affects England?”
Now that’s a hell of a sly question, John, but it is completely bogus. I made no such claim. You doctored my ‘claim’ to make a different one of your own. That tells me and the rest of the BTL readers here that you can’t be trusted, and should be ignored as a troublemaker.
sanity,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE6YAjFucdQ
i’ts where you come from and where your going,
ditch the cunt’s,life’s too short!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE6YAjFucdQ
Main at 11.19pm.
Talking to one of his own “names”.
The guy is talking to HIMSELF.
He’s a fuckin lunatic.
“ right on the money ROS @ 0905 pm . The “ propaganda blitz “ pre September 2014 was non stop 24 hrs per day and if I recall one journalist described it as being akin to “ war time levels “ of output . I recall spending hours monitoring the “ propaganda channels “ for weeks & months prior to the vote . ( principally scare stories ) which had the desired effect on female voters who voted for the status quo whilst male voters in the “ main” voted Yes .
Ps oh we will lose Coronation st & Eastenders !!
Myself I preferred “ River City” !
Big fan of David Paisley?
I can’t stop thinking about all the misogynistic hate crimes that I’ll report to the police in the event of misogyny becoming a hate crime. 🙂
Xaracen.
Your debate holds no water, that the Westminster parliament might be lying,
If that were to be held true, it just made the biggest error,
Because the “lie is able to be read as a truth”around the Globe,
The Scottish parliament was extinguished in 1707.
As the lie would no longer be perpertrated on Scotland alone….. but on every other “country” around the world that holds a treaty with them under the hood and title of a united kingdom of Great Britain parliament
While it admits that it is not in a united with parliamentary union with the extinguished Scottish parliament since 1707.
The laugh and hoax is on those that want to maintain and believe in the fallacious lie of being in a union.
It now cannot be retract as a joke or a error after two years advertised to the world. As a proclamation in writing,
It is a novel idea of using ” their” own official public statements and words to every Country means we are not going against the Westminster Government as a authorty, but agreeing with them.
That places Scots and Scotland in agreement with Englands Westminster parliament,
We do not need to use alternatives for independence, we simply take their official statement & words as gospel truth,
No need to attack Scotland for leaving or walking away from the a parliamentary union when the parliament of England has globally announced ” we” Scotland are not included in the union since 1707.
Repulicofscotland.
The monarch of England under the english parliament law, “Act of settlement 1700” pre- attempt at a parliamentary union with Scotland is for themselves to debate,
But you’ re assessment that the present king of England is not king of Scotland is actually backed up by the parliament of Westminster when the proclaim the Scottish parliament was extinguished in 1707,
And therefore so was the articles of the union, as no ( two Countries parliamentary union) took place in 1707 neither did the article to proceed on whom Was to be Monarch overall,
This confirmation is officially publically announced to the world as a proclamation statement on the uk parliament site in 2022 & 2023: for at least two consectcutave years,
Xaracen 11:19
Straight back at you with your own post from 7:06:
“England … is not entitled to make union decisions on its own, including over its own territory”
If you can’t back that up with evidence, the grown up response is to fess up, not reply with a spew of personal insults.
Anyhoo, I’ll go easy on you in future, in acknowledgement of your intellectual fragility.
BTW, hard to quite pin down what Ron is raving about in the wee, small hours, but could be he has you pegged for a figment of my imagination.
A little belated, but well done to the Scottish football team five wins in a row, its a pity Scots can’t watch their progress on terrestrial tv.
Watching the fans on the news sing their hearts out in Larnaca, I paused for thought, and wondered just how many 90 minute, (or in the Rugby World Cup on just now as well) nationals were among those vocal fans.
Not to take anything away from the fans who played their part wonderfully as well, wouldn’t it be great if we could bottle that passion for Scotland that the fans showed last night and make our lacklustre politicians drink it.
Why should Scots use a off shoot of the parliament of England (devolved government sent to Scotland);
To vote for the independence of Scotland, when the UK parliament of Westminster has been announcing to the world in Consecutive years that Scotland has not been connected to a parliamentary treaty union with the English parliament since 1707.
If we were extinguished from the treaty by ratification in 1707, Scotland is already independent from England since 1707.
We are simply come under the title “a Colony of England and annexed Wales,
For the parliament of England in a official acting capacity did not create or negotiate the treaty with Ireland until 1800.
Scotland As a Colony ” out- with and not connected” to a parliamentary union with the Westminster parliament of England as of the ratifications 1707, nor legally obliged to join kingdoms under one Monarch has no legal obligation to carry on as if (“it were” ) in a fallacious treaty.
It is Englands UK parliament proclaiming this, by stating the Scottish parliament did not join in a union but was extinguished in 1707.
I Agree with the UK parliament,….sorry apologies meant to say , Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland……sorry, parliament of Great Britain….. sorry parliament of England and Wales.
When you drive home a goal for your team, the team and supporters are united.
It was almost done in 2014: except it was the wrong goal posts,
You and many others have realised that the goal posts for Scotland keep shifting we will never win a home game while we accept those moving underhand rules by the opposing team,
We play by turning and using their home rule book “that is in writing” against them,
In this, we can pin down their rules on , monarchy, and the extinguished Scottish parliament, treaties, triennial laws, bank of England, Stock holdings in Scotland, where the kingdom and Country of Scotlands borders are, the privy Council of England, opposing Sovereignties of the two countries,etc,
Were all in training so we can produce more than one goal to win.
@John Main;
My argument was perfectly straightforward;
1. England isn’t the Union, and that’s a cast iron fact. The Union is a formal agreement between two sovereign kingdoms for joint governance of both from a shared parliament. That’s what the Treaty was and still is, and it set out most of the basis of that joint governance. Those are well recognised facts.
2. Because both partner kingdoms are equally sovereign, neither has any legitimate authority over the other, and neither is obliged to submit in any way to the other, and nothing in the Treaty makes either kingdom the superior partner. Those are also recognised facts. If you have any difficulty with ‘sovereign’, look it up in a decent dictionary.
3. Just like Scotland, England gave up the right to independent self governance, thus is no longer entitled to make enforceable unilateral decisions any more than Scotland is. And that includes over itself. Those are also facts. If England wants to govern itself without the Scots having any say in that, then England must leave the Union. The same consideration applies to Scotland.
4. Because of point 2, Scotland’s MPs, who formally represent the Scottish kingdom in the Union’s parliament, are not in the least obliged to submit to any majority of the MPs of the other kingdom. That’s a clear conclusion that follows directly from the fact of mutual sovereignty.
If anyone thinks Scotland’s MPs ARE so obliged, they need to show exactly what legal and constitutional provisions established that obligation, and to show that Scotland formally and freely agreed those provisions.
(Standing them on Westminster’s alleged ‘unlimited sovereignty’ is a crock of legal shit, and won’t cut it. Neither will a bland assertion of Democracy, see point 2.)
5. Because of all the previous points, an English MP majority decision cannot on its own be considered a valid Union decision. Valid Union decisions require the approval of both of the Union’s partners, and that needs their two sets of MP votes to be counted separately. That this is never done is the fundamental treachery of Westminster and English establishment governance, because it flagrantly denies the authority of the Scots MPs to treat with England’s MPs as the agents acting on behalf of the sovereign kingdom of Scotland, England’s sole partner in the Union.
6. Because of points 3 and 5, England’s MPs cannot legitimately pass any legislation without the majority approval of the Scots MPs, even if the legislation is exclusively for England. Exactly the same is true of Scotland’s MPs. That England’s MPs have done so on uncountably many occasions is to England’s and Westminster’s disgrace, and the Scots MPs who let them do that are not off the hook!
On the topic of ‘grown-up responses’, deliberately misrepresenting my assertion as you did, was a shabby underhand dodge, and you have yet to apologise for it, so your attempt at holding the moral high ground is laughable.
Xaracen,
I’ve got no doubt that an advocate would slice apart your 6 points above, because they are tendentious at best and poorly argued .
But that’s not the point. You are trying to argue against democracy and 316 years of settled reality. You haven’t a hope.
In truth, both England and Scotland are merely regions of a United Kingdom. And that doesn’t look like it’s going to change any time in the next few hundred years.
I wonder where you can produce or find genuine Scottish MPs from to represent Scotland for Westminster parliament,
Perhaps from the branch office of Westminster sent to Scotland as devolved government from Westminster,
Oh no that can’t be right that would make them MPs of England under Legislation of theScotland Act,
We cannot choose MPs to represent us from our Scottish parliament because it was extinguished in 1707, before those ordinary rich blokes no longer in the extinguished Scottish parliament were chosen.
So our pretend representatives sitting in Scotland at holyrood are in a branch office of Westminsters parliament that had no article “devolved parliament of Scotland”: mentioned as being part of a treaty,
Leaving Westminsters old parliament to rule and run the rest of Great Britain and its dominions.
Representation of Scotland apparently means anyone chosen by the parliament of Westminster. Except Scotland.
Which article of the treaty of union do you suppose? actually states that Scotland is a subsiduary devolved government of England parliaments parliament and things will be with held and reserved to only one parliament of the hoax parliamentary union.
Hope someone realises that if the treaty of union were genuine, ha haa, Westminster severely breached the treaty by sending a partial devolved government to Scotland from Westminster,
Etymology counts.
“In truth, both England and Scotland are merely regions of a United Kingdom.”
There could not have been a union simply because the sovereignty of both nations is utterly incompatible, its as simple as that, in England the monarch is sovereign and in Scotland the people are sovereign, the latter were not consulted or given the opportunity to vote on joining a union, in others words Scots did not give their consent to the union.
This leaves the only truth of the matter that along with some paid off Scottish nobles, and lies and deception from the English Scotland was forcefully and illegally made to appear as though it joined a union with England when it did not.
This truth has been hidden and played down for centuries.
Both parliament agreed ( Scotlands & Englands ) that the Scottish parliament would be extinguished from the treaty if ratified, under their own domestic law,
Of course the Parliament of England can make its own decisions for England on its own, cos theScottish parliament is not in a union with the English parliament,
A union terminology does not apply if only one parliament exist within that treaty.
It takes two to tango you know,
@Xaracen 2:40
So it comes down to you, and possibly also your cat, on one side, and hundreds of thousands of MPs, legal experts, judges, etc etc over 300+ years on the other.
You, and possibly also your cat, are right, and these hundreds of thousands are wrong.
I reckon there cannot be one law or statute I have ever followed that has any true legitimacy then. That must be the same for you too.
Tell the alert readers just how you go about your daily life in the full and certain knowledge that every restriction on your behaviour has no legitimacy. I reckon your life story would make a wonderful and fascinating film.
Or is the harsh reality that you do exactly as you are told like everybody else?
Re your 6 points though. It’s an inescapable conclusion that HR, by allowing Scots to control aspects of Scotland without English majority approval, itself is illegitimate. I’ll remember that for future arguments.
“The Scottish parliament was extinguished in 1707”
Sorry, but I do not think the above is correct.
I have looked in detail at the Records available through the site “Records of the Parliaments of Scotland” and I see nothing about Scotland’s parliament, as an electable and renewable legislative body, having been permanently extinguished.
That particular last parliament from 1707 was adjourned and what was concluded was the SESSION of parliament which started on 3 October 1706.
The very last minutes recorded in that database are from Tuesday 25 March 1707.
Here is the very last speech on that session. This was a speech by Queen Anne’s high commissioner:
—-
“My lords and gentlemen,
The public business of this session being now over it is full time to put an end to it.
I am persuaded that we and our posterity will reap the benefit of the union of the two kingdoms, and I doubt not that as this parliament has had the honour to conclude it, you will, in your several stations, recommend to the people of this nation a grateful sense of her majesty’s goodness and great care for the welfare of her subjects in bringing this important affair to perfection, and that you will promote a universal desire in this kingdom to become one in hearts and affections as we are inseparably joined in interest with our neighbouring nation.
My lords and gentlemen,
I have a very deep sense of the assistance and respect I have met with from you in this session of parliament, and I shall omit no occasion of showing to the outmost of my power the grateful remembrance I have of it”
—-
Please note that it says “The public business of THIS SESSION (my capitals) being now over it is full time to put an end to it”
What ended was the parliament SESSION not parliament itself as an electable legislative body.
Another piece of evidence to sustain this is that the MPs selected to represent Scotland in the first session of Great Britain’s parliament were actually selected from the MPs sitting in that last session of the Parliament of Scotland.
This proves continuity between both parliaments. Therefore Scotland’s MPs in Westminster represent Scotland’s parliament.
The selection of the first round of MPs to be sent to Westminster was done by the MPs of the Parliament of Scotland themselves because they feared that if they had a normal election the people would select anti-union MPs ending the union before starting it.
this shows acknowledgement in 1707 of who had the ultimate power in Scotland – the electorate. If this union has remained standing for 300 years it is only because the people of Scotland have not been given a real opportunity to claim and use that power.
This quote is also in the records for that same day in March 1707:
“Procedure: adjournment
Then the lord chancellor, by order of her majesty’s high commissioner, adjourned the parliament to meet at Edinburgh, 22 April next, and declared the same to be adjourned”
Again, Parliament was declared “adjourned” not “extinguished”.
There are no more records on the “Records of the Parliaments of Scotland” website after that. If you try to do a search via Google for any records of the Parliament for that day nothing comes up.
I have not come across any evidence of this “extinction”. Actually, if you think about it coldly, it is not possible.
Take a look at what happens with Westminster. The name “parliament” is given to a particular collection of MPs elected for a period of usually 5 years.
But each parliament ends (is dissolved) before a general election and a new parliament starts. What remains permanently is the concept of parliament as a democratically electable legislative body.
The UK parliament which started in 2019 is a different parliament to the one formed in 2017 and different to the one formed in 2015. Each one of one has to end so the next can start. The same applies to Scotland. the elected parliament from 1706 may have been dissolved, but Scotland’s Parliament as a legislative entity remains adjourned and awaiting to be reconvened by the people of Scotland.
The UK establishment uses constantly the claim of “parliamentary sovereignty” referring to Westminster. This means, among other things, that a parliament can never be limited by a previous one.
It is obvious why: as a legislative body, it can simply change previous laws passed by a previous parliament and create new ones. This is what happens in a democracy.
In Scotland this impossibility of a parliament being bound by a previous one goes a step further, because sovereignty lies with the Scottish people, not parliament. Because of this, the people of Scotland can end a parliament or simply elect another one. Just as they did in 1997.
Here is another bit of evidence:
Article III of the treaty of union says:
“That the United Kingdom of Great Britain be represented by one and the same Parliament to be stiled The Parliament of Great Britain”
Strictly speaking, installing Holyrood and The Senedd as parliaments was a direct breach of that article and should have therefore ended the Treaty of Union right there and then.
If it did not end it, it is only because Scotland’s MPs chose to look the other way and let it continue with more holes than a sieve.
Evidence that this must have been the case lies in the Scotland Act 1998, section “Part I – The Scottish Parliament, Sub-section “Other Provisions”, number 37 “Acts of Union”.
This is what it says:
“The [1706 c. 11.] Union with Scotland Act 1706 and the [1707 c. 7(S).] Union with England Act 1707 have effect subject to this Act”
This means that the existence of Holryood is a fundamental condition for the Acts of Union to continue.
Remember that it was the people of Scotland who voted for that parliament in 1997. In other words, the people of Scotland have authority over both, its MPs in Westminster and Westminster itself.
Our problem is that our MPs are so concerned about preserving the union (and their bank accounts) that instead of exercising that authority on our behalf, they systematically choose to force us to self-deprecate Scotland’s status in this union claiming, spinelessly and shamefully, that we need to beg “permission” from an entity that is, in reality, subordinated to Scotland and depends on Scotland’s consent to continue acting on Scotland’s behalf.
Please note that that section in the Scotland Act 1998 only refers to “the Acts of Union”. Never to the Treaty of Union. This is because Westminster is a by-product of the Treaty of Union and its subordinate, therefore it has no power to change the Treaty. It can only change domestic legislation – the Acts of Union.
Now you start to see why some of those who claim Scotland was “extinguished” are so insisting that the Treaty does not exist and that the Acts are more important than the international treaty. It is because the Acts are the only thing Westminster has power to change.
Here is another clue: the new Act of Union proposal that is going through the House of Lords. Again, it is an Act, not a treaty because Westminster cannot change that treaty.
I actually wonder if the Treaty of Union is extant at all and the only two things currently cello-taping this union together are the Acts, which is like covering a crater with a few plasters, and the self-interest of our own MPs, which is like placing a few newspaper sheets to cover the crater.
For as long as the supine amoebas in Holyrood insist in undermine that assembly by abiding by the straight jacket which is the Scotland Act, Holyrood is not and will never be Scotland’s parliament. It is simply a colonial administrative unit of Westminster.
Having an unelected representative of the crown sitting in the middle of what should be a democratically elected government cabinet is proof that Holyrood is not even functional as a democratic legislative body, and that separation of powers, essential in a democracy, does not exist in Scotland.
But let’s not forget that if that unelected crown representative is sitting in the cabinet making a mockery of democracy, it is only because the FM has opened the door for them to be there.
For the last 9 years, the only thing which has been stopping Holyrood becoming an actual parliament, the only thing that has been stopping our referendum to be called and the only thing that has stopped this union falling apart, is Sturgeon’s denatured and self-serving SNP.
In other words, they have been feeding us bullshit and actively quashing our democratic rights (while conveniently deflecting their own accountability to Westminster) to preserve both, the union and their comfy seats in the gravy train.
James Che said
“Xaracen, Your debate holds no water, that the Westminster parliament might be lying”
James, really?
A, it wasn’t a debate, it was an assertion of historical and current fact.
B. Westminster asserts strongly and repeatedly that it, as the Parliament of the United Kingdom, is sovereign, and that its sovereignty covers the whole of the UK’s territory, and that its sovereignty is ‘unlimited’.
Those are all flat out lies. But before we get into them, lets get one aspect out of the way to clear the field for the real meat.
From outside the UK, that is from the perspective of other countries across the world, the UK as a state IS sovereign, but only in the sense that the UK is not subject to the authority of any other country in the world. It has no relevance to the rest of this comment.
Internally, however, the UK Parliament has no legitimate sovereignty at all. That is not to say it has no authority, it clearly does, enough for the purposes of governing the UK, but its authority is limited to the provisions made for it in the Treaty, and that authority does not and cannot outrank the sovereign authority of the Scots.
The old English Parliament legally owned the sovereignty of the English Kingdom, but it only did so from 1689, and it obviously didn’t stretch north of the border into Scotland, since it already had its own sovereignty. We fought bloody wars to retain our sovereignty, and we were never going to just give it up.
In 1707 the old English Parliament ceased to exist as such when it was replaced by the Parliament of Great Britain in the same building. There is no evidence of any formal transfer of the English sovereignty of the old parliament to the new one, and the Treaty is completely silent on the matter, so in formal terms England’s sovereignty simply died with its old parliament.
However, England’s establishment appears to have just ‘assumed’ that the new GBP had somehow ‘retained’ England’s sovereignty, but have never provided a proper explanation of how that happened. But even worse, they claim that the sovereignty of the GBP covers Scotland, too, outright denying the continued existence of Scotland’s own sovereignty. England’s establishment has never properly justified that outrageous claim either.
Scotland’s sovereignty has always been vested in its people, and they certainly never transferred their sovereignty to the new GBP, since rioting outside their parliament doesn’t really count as a formal transfer of sovereignty, and neither the Scottish Parliament nor the Scottish monarch owned Scotland’s sovereignty, so no-one, literally no-one, had sufficient authority to take Scotland’s sovereignty away from the Scottish people and confer it upon the new GBP either, so the GBP has no legitimate sovereignty over Scotland either, and Scotland’s people still retain it today.
So, James, where do you think Westminster’s alleged ‘unlimited sovereignty’ over the whole of the UK came from? Is it real, or is it a lie?
From where I’m standing that claim has no worthwhile provenance whatsoever, and cannot ever be substantiated. Therefore it is a lie, and it is easily the biggest and most outrageous whopper of a falsehood ever perpetrated on two entire kingdoms, and given its proven ability to permit grave and serious abuse and barbarity upon the people and country of Scotland in particular, and also on England at times (Brexit), it is one whose falsity must be exposed to the whole world, and for which the Union itself must be extinguished.
You, yourself know perfectly well that the Union is not at all what Westminster claims it to be, so don’t you bloody well sit there and lecture me about the veracity of Westminster’s website!
In terms of your ‘research’, and especially so on historical political matters, one should always look for primary documents, and in the case of the genesis and operation of the Union of Great Britain, the primary documents are unequivocally the Treaty of Union itself and the two Acts of Union. These three formal legal documents between them founded both the Union and its parliament, and set out the fundamental basis of its structure and operation.
Everything about the Union’s operation from 1707 either conforms to those terms, or breaches them. The Treaty allows the UK parliament to change some aspects of the Union, especially on matters of trade and domestic legislation, but other aspects, particularly constitutional ones, are fixed by the Treaty, and are beyond Westminster’s authority to amend.
So, just for your own peace of mind, and as a sanity check to validate any conclusions you have drawn from the UK Gov website, you should verify the website’s assertions by cross-referencing them against the relevant Articles of the Union in the Treaty and the amendments or additions contained in the two Acts of Union. I’d call this due diligence.
That you appear never to have done this, even just to confirm the simple basics of the Union, doesn’t inspire any confidence that you know what you are doing. In particular, your unique belief that the GB parliament was supposed to literally contain the two parliaments of England and Scotland for the purposes of joint governance, has no substantiation whatsoever, and no-one in more than three centuries has ever come up with that idea, and for good reason.
Equally unfounded is your assertion that when Scotland’s old Parliament was abolished, the Treaty it ratified was invalidated, thus Scotland could never have entered into Union with England, and therefore the Union itself is a lie. Does Westminster’s website agree with that or not?
A Scot Abroad said;
“Xaracen, I’ve got no doubt that an advocate would slice apart your 6 points above, because they are tendentious at best and poorly argued.
But that’s not the point. You are trying to argue against democracy and 316 years of settled reality. You haven’t a hope.”
The supposed credentials of the democratic process exercised in the UK Parliament are bogus, because it is inherently unfair to a key body of its voters, due to its mechanism taking no cognisance of the constitutional contexts of the voters who use it.
So, I’m not arguing against democracy, I’m arguing for democracy.
As for your settled reality, it’s a crock of shit, precisely because of that bogus democracy.
As for poorly argued, it beats anything you’ve ever offered.
“Another piece of evidence to sustain this is that the MPs selected to represent Scotland in the first session of Great Britain’s parliament were actually selected from the MPs sitting in that last session of the Parliament of Scotland.”
I don’t often disagree with your comments Mia but the above only proves that the MPs lucrative jobs remained and not the closing of the final session and then stasis.
“The Parliament of Scotland was adjourned and dissolved in 1707 following the ratification of the Treaty of Union between Scotland and England. With the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain on 1 May 1707”
Dissolve meaning:
close down or dismiss (an assembly or official body)
“By agreeing to the Union the Scottish Parliament had also voted for its own extinction.”
https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/legislativescrutiny/act-of-union-1707/overview/end-of-the-old-scottish-parliament/
The parliament we have now at Holyrood isn’t a Scottish parliament but a devolved administration, basically its nothing more than an offshoot of Westminster, and it shows with Westminster parties having branch office parties at it, it was set up to stop the rise of nationalism.
The wee pretendy parliament at Holyrood is all about control, our nobles sought to line their pockets by dissolving our real parliament and they did.
“One of the last acts of the Scottish Parliament was to pay the expenses of the commissioners who had negotiated the Articles of Union.
It also decided to pay those who had participated in the abortive negotiations of 1702-3. Each peer was to receive £1,000 (sterling), and others £500. The payments were to be made from the ‘Equivalent’ funds – money granted to Scotland in compensation for its liability to the English national debt after union.”
The Claim of Right is still active right up to this day and has been ratified by the Westminster parliament, which means there could not have been a union in the first place, because English sovereignty is utterly incompatible with Scottish sovereignty, and say for one fanciful moment there was a union its definitely not a territorial one, so the multiple thefts of Scottish assets by the English monarchy and its parliament would’ve negated any treaty of the union a million times over.
Our nobles lied and deceived our people for financial gain, and the English government played along with it, the people of Scotland had no say whatsoever on the faux treaty and they are the sovereign in Scotland not the nobles, not some English monarch (Queen Anne) and certainly not the English parliament of the day.
On the 12th of May 1999 our Scottish parliament didn’t resume, for Holyrood is an offshoot administration of Westminster, enabled to placate the restless indy masses.
John Main said;
“I reckon there cannot be one law or statute I have ever followed that has any true legitimacy then. That must be the same for you too.”
Funny you should say that; I’ve been saying exactly that for many months now, that much of the legislation of the UK is fraudulent precisely because it should take both partners of the Union to approve legislation in the Union’s parliament, so if only one partner approves it and other rejects it, but it still gets passed anyway, then that is not a genuine Union decision since the Union, which is two partners, didn’t make it.
Both partners used to make their unilateral decisions in their own parliaments for many centuries prior to the Union. If the same partners are entitled to continue making their own unilateral decisions in the Union parliament then what the hell was the bloody point of the Union in the first place?
“the above only proves that the MPs lucrative jobs remained and not the closing of the final session and then stasis”
We are going to have to agree to disagree on this.
Dissolution of that particular parliament (like with any other parliament) would have meant for them having to call a general election.
An election at that time would have risked the people of Scotland selecting a majority of anti-union MPs, putting an end to the union, which is what they (and the crown) needed to avoid at all costs.
It seems they found the way to avoid the election (a fudge, of course): the MPs themselves elected the 45 MPs from the MPs present at that parliament session
If you think about that, the only way they could have done such thing and send those MPs down to Great Britain’s parliament as legitimate MPs representing Scotland is if the first session of the parliament of Great Britain acted, in practical terms, and on the side of Scotland, as the continuation of the last parliament for which those MPs had been legally elected by the people in a general election.
That is why to me the fact they did not call an election to select the 45 MPs is proof the last parliament of Scotland was not “abolished” nor even “dissolved” at all but simply adjourned in order to allow for those MPs to simply CONTINUE as current MPs without having to go through another public election.
Abolishing or dissolving that parliament would mean for those MPs to cease to be MPs unless elected again by the electorate.
Dissolution of that last Scottish parliament must have only happened when the first parliament of Great Britain was dissolved prior to the first GE after the union.
This is not that strange. It is in fact the exact same that happened to the parliament of England. And when you think about it, it is only logic that both parliaments mirrored each other.
In the case of the parliament of England, there was no general election either. The exact same MPs elected for the last parliament of England continued, as they were, in the first parliament of Great Britain. I suspect the reason for this was the same as for Scotland: they feared an anti-union majority should they dissolved parliament and called an election.
The Treaty of union states very clearly in article XXII and with regards to the very first parliament of Great Britain the following:
“that Parliament may continue for such Time only as the present Parliament of England might have continued, if the Union of the two Kingdoms had not; been made, unless sconer dissolved by her Majesty”
If it was a completely de nuovo parliament, it would not “continue” it would start. This to me suggests the first parliament of Great Britain was always designed as a continuation of both parliaments (Scotland and England) to avoid a general election.
In other words, both last parliaments of Scotland and England were, in practice, only effectively dissolved when the first parliament of Great Britain was dissolved.
The only difference between them was that while all elected MPs from the parliament of England continued as they were, only 45 of Scotland’s could join.
This quote is taken from the the minutes of the parliament of Scotland, of 20 Jan 1707:
“Thereafter it was moved that, according to the minutes of 15 January instant, the parliament proceed to consider the manner of electing the representatives for Scotland to the parliament of Great Britain, whereupon a resolve was given in and read in these terms:
Resolved that the 16 peers and 45 commissioners for shires and burghs who are to be the members to the first parliament of Great Britain for and on the part of Scotland be chosen out of this present parliament, and that the members so chosen be the members of the first parliament of Great Britain, if her majesty shall declare on or before 1 May next that it is expedient that the lords and commons of the present parliament of England be the members of the first parliament of Great Britain for and on the part of England”
Please note the last part: “if her majesty….. that is expedient that the lords and commons of the present parliament of England be the members of the first parliament of Great Britain for and on the part of England”. It looks they were purposely mirroring each other: if the same MPs from England’s current parliament session remain in Great Britain’s parliament, then the 45 SCottish MPs will also be selected among the MPs from Scotland’s current parliament session.
“Dissolve meaning: close down or dismiss (an assembly or official body)”
Yes. The Parliament of the UK is dissolved before each general election. But that does not mean the UK parliament, as a permanent legislative entity, is “abolished” or “extinguished”.
A particular parliament (meaning a particular selection of MPs elected through a GE) may “be dismissed” as it happened in 2017, but not the parliament as a legislative entity. That is only adjourned.
I am of the opinion Scotland’s parliament (as a permanent legislative entity) remains adjourned until reconvened again.
“By agreeing to the Union the Scottish Parliament had also voted for its own extinction.”
Sorry, I think this is incorrect and yet another colonialist myth. I have read through every minute in the “REcords of the Pariaments of Scotland” and I have never come across such a thing. As I said above, the last record available says the parliament was ADJOURNED, not “extinguished”.
As per my comment above, I am now of the opinion the Scotland’s last Parliament suffered the exact same faith as England’s last parliament: they continued in practice as the first parliament of Great Britain until this was dissolved.
That website you link to is from Westminster, which we all know has a clear vested interest in continuing to peddle the myth it is sovereign over everything under the sun including itself.
But that entity also has been peddling the “parliamentary sovereignty” as if it was a forever thing when we also know it is not true either. I have read through the records of the first parliament of Great Britain and there is no mention of such a thing even once. In fact we all know the term “parliamentary sovereignty” was adopted in the 19th century from Dicey. That is a whole century after the union commenced.
Westminster cannot have “parliamentary sovereignty” over Scotland because the Scottish parliament could not confer to Westminster what it did not have.
Westminster has been breaching the Treaty of Union right, left and centre for centuries and peddling lies for a long time. Sorry, I do not trust anything that emanates from Westminster. I trust the records of the parliaments of Scotland.
“On the 12th of May 1999 our Scottish parliament didn’t resume, for Holyrood is an offshoot administration of Westminster, enabled to placate the restless indy masses”
On the 12th of May 1999 Scotland’s parliament would have reconvened had those sitting in it ditched the Scotland Act. As it is, and for as long as the amoebas sitting in there continue to abide by such Act, Holyrood is not and will never be Scotland’s reconvened parliament. It is a colonial administrative unit from Westminster.