Have you ever seen the rain?
The BBC lunchtime weather forecast of 15 October 1987 is now fondly looked back on as a moment of shared national doh-what-are-we-like? comedy, in the same vein as a Morecambe and Wise Christmas show or something.
But the reality was very dramatically different.
Despite Michael Fish’s calm-bordering-on-patronising assurance to a worried viewer that there would be no hurricane in Britain that evening, history records that there was. The storm was in fact so violent that 19 people lost their lives, amid chaos that saw hospitals and old people’s homes evacuated, blocks of flats collapsing, ferries forced aground in the Channel, and BBC and ITV both being decamped into hastily-arranged emergency studios to report the news via visibly shell-shocked presenters.
The ’87 hurricane is the most infamous and serious example of a UK weather forecast going wrong, but of course it happens on an almost daily basis. Weather is inherently and inescapably unpredictable, and you could fill streets full of libraries with accounts of sodden barbecues that were promised glorious sunshine, or perplexed skiers stood on bone-dry Cairngorm mountainsides.
Still, if the forecast says 25 Celsius, the reality might be anywhere from a bracingly windy 18C to a swelteringly humid 30C but you can generally be pretty confident about leaving the snow chains off your car. If it predicts torrential downpours all afternoon, then even if it looks clear as you’re preparing to leave the house in the morning you’d be a fool to go out without at least a folded-up rain poncho in your pocket.
And as Unionists continue to squeal that GERS figures must be a reliable guide to an independent Scotland’s future finances because they’re published by the Scottish Government (albeit produced from UK government figures that themselves are in large part guesswork) or because they were referenced – with repeated qualifiers – a couple of times in the 670-page White Paper, it’s worth keeping that in mind.
The weather forecast is a standing joke in British culture, yet is still broadcast at the end of every news bulletin with a straight face. And the reason is that while it will often be spectacularly at odds with what actually happens in any given location at any given time, it’s all we’ve got and it’s a bit better than nothing.
It’s just that you’d be a real idiot to invest it with any more precision than that.
Neatly done Rev. 🙂
great analogy Stu.
They’re all Hurricane Bawbag as far as I’m concerned.
The weather forecasts recently have often been happening the next day, whereas GERS estimates didn’t really happen yesterday.
It’s a bit worse then that though really. Can you imagine if the BBC had a vested interest in the UK’s perception of upcoming weather? If the BBC held stock in the Plastic Castle Mould industry the gulf stream would be carrying in the Shara desert by lunch time.
I’m not sure this comparison really holds water.
Perhaps if the MET office had some nefarious reason for wanting people to stay inside, and their forecasts over-predicted the likelihood of rain …
A very good example in this month’s Scotbuzz.
http://scot-buzz.co.uk/suddenly-going-wrong-nicola-queen-scots/
So basically if:
No hurricane = Hurricane.
Then obviously it stands to reason:
Big Mad Mental GERs ‘Black Hole’= Massive Budget Surplus
Basically after nearly 30 years it is still a fact that the BBC says one thing then obviously the opposite is true.
Simple’s as the Meerkat says.
Neatly done Stu 🙂
I do hope that Blair McDougall finally “gets it”, though I’m not holding my breath!
Estimates made in good faith are better than nothing. Estimates which are manipulated are anything but.
theferret.scot/economic-figures-manipulated-gdp-statistics/
The night of The Big Blow of 87 I was living on a narrowboat on the Regent Canal (beside Kings X station) and was rocked steadily into the best night’s sleep of my life. The morning, that was different…
On the BBC website, the weather forecast for Fort William last Saturday, from 13.00 to 15.00 hrs, was for heavy rain. There was not a drop.
@David McCann 1.32
Seriously, that link should come with a health warning.
What utter diatribe!!!
Strictly speaking, it WASN’T a HURRICANE, but a violent storm which was the tail end of one.
23 degrees.
Scotland raises £54Billion and spends £56Billion. The rest of the ‘deficit’ is Westminster mismanagement because of Westminster policies. It could be eradicated by a Scottish Gov.
The rest of the UK raises less pro rata in taxes but borrows and spends more. £461Billion. Pro rata £42Billion. Borrows and spends more £75Billion plus a £20Billion black hole
Charges Scotland nearly £4Billion in payment on the rest of the UK debt. £1Billion on Trident, £3Billion in tax evasion, £4Billion+ lost in Oil revenues. Osborne taxing the Oil sector at 60/80% when the price had fallen 75%. Total £13Billion.
Scotland is going one way. England another. It is just a matter of time.
Mrs May must be a fan of Michael Fish – if her forecasts for the UK are anything to go by. She is super-confident that the future of Brexit Britain is bright, while the leaders of the G20 are forecasting a very gloomy and even stormy picture.
To be fair to Mrs May, she can hardly be expected to tell the truth. In fact, the future for what’s left of the UK looks so bad, what with the debt levels and the loss of Scotland’s Aid payments to Westminster, it is unlikely that Mrs May will ever tell the truth again to the people of England.
David McCann @ 1.32pm
John McGurk, author of the article which you kindly linked is, of course, a former Editor of the Daily Telegraph and a twat who, during his Editorship of Scotland on Sunday and The Scotsman, back in the good old days of oor Andra Neil as Lord High Everything, ovrsaw the start of these organs’s slide into irrelevancy.
He is, therefore, hardly an unbiased commentator where the FM, the SNP and the Scottish Government is concerned. He also works for a publication which is very supportive of the UKK business sector.
Another one of the continuing parcel of rogues which holds back Scotland.
David McCann says:
6 September, 2016 at 1:32 pm
A very good example in this month’s Scotbuzz.
Is this “The Scotsman” new format instead of printing.
Ex Scotsman one and all.”Chumps of Business & Enterprise”
My Arse. Bitter Yoons
Love the title.
I play “Have you ever seen the rain” as intro music for my mates band coming on stage along with Albert Hammonds “It never rains in Sunny California”.
The lyric is pretty apt..feel free to substitute any Union/country/Brexiteers/Independent State below :
Got on a board a west bound 747
Didn’t think before deciding what to do
All that talk of opportunities, TV breaks and movies
Rang true, sure rang true.
Seems it never rains in Southern California
Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California
But girl, don’t they warn ya
It pours man it pours.
Out of work, I’m out of my head
Out of self respect I’m out of bread
I’m under loved I’m under fed
I wanna go home
It never rains in California
But girl don’t they warn ya, it pours, man it pours.
Will you tell the folks back home I nearly made it
Had offers but don’t know which one to take
Please don’t tell them how you found me
Don’t tell them how you found me
Give me a break, give me a break!
From Bob Dylan: [Scotland’s state in the so-called united kingdom?]
“Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
And where have you been my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
Oh, what did you see, my blue eyed son?
And what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder that roared out a warnin’
I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
I heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
Oh, what did you meet my blue-eyed son ?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded in hatred
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
And what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
And what’ll you do now my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are a many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
And the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell and speak it and think it and breathe it
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it
And I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singing
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.”
Aye the storm warnings are all flying in the media were doomed.
But it’s always nice where they are init!
Has Nicola spoken yet?
Shurley this is the one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4flAZEgtjs
O/T
Claim of Rights for Scotland. Patrick Grady SNP MP. House of Commons. 2:30PM
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/ba37eb23-8a35-4205-be5b-09dad10f5c0d
So basically, at the end of the day, when I’m shutting down for the night I should really be filing all references to GERS in the same file folder as BBC weather forecasts, currently labelled “Laugh for today!” 🙂
In defence of the greatest public broadcaster in the known universe, ever, BBC South East has since “evolved” from Micheal Fish in the 80’s to Georgina Burnett in, whatever this decade’s called. Who cares what the weather’s like, when Georgina’s doing the BBC weather forecasterising.
@Petra
Thanks for link: Will rerun it asap.
Geez! typical that two things happening at the same time.
Nicola just winding up her speech at Holyrood.
Outrageous that there is no TV coverage of the Scottish government’s legislative programme for the next parliament.
Must be that the Anglo centic BBC Scotland producers’ kids haven’t gone back to their Anglo centric schools yet.
However it means that the message will be filtered through the London based right wing newspaper headlines.
FGS are they going to let bl**dy Gove stand there pontificating about how sh*tty we are?
Someone better stand up and knock all of that cr*p on the head. One point after another.
Ruth Davidson’s turned into a louder version of Kezia Dugdale
with a depth of intellect you could’nt drown in if your head was held down in it
Weather Girl job?
But hopefully where you are
Sinky it’s ok you can watch Yes Minister or the house of horrors
Next Tweet ?
Just in case anyone has missed this afternoon’s Scottish parly
re scotgov programme for government
https://twitter.com/PeatWorrier/status/773152739836760064
?
“And here is the GERS where you are…”
Neat comparison, Rev.
O/T
Hi,
Just a quick email to say that the ‘Peep the Beeb’ campaign is now live on Indigogo. If you’d like to make a small contribution to help reach the campaign target fund of £1550.00 then you can contribute here:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/peep-the-beeb#/
The campaign target is £1270 but I have built in £280 for any unexpected costs. As stated in the campaign, any funds left over after all campaign costs are accounted for will be donated to food banks across Scotland. The campaign is short, only 11 days.
This campaign is just one smallbut important step to us THE PEOPLE taking on the hegemony of the BBC in Scotland. This campaign will alert people all over the country to the misinformation and disinformation broadcast by the mouthpiece of the Tory party.
Thanks for any support you may be able to give.
Petra @ 3.00m
Managed about 3 mins of Gove – total lies. He’s f**ked English schools where 2 of my grand-children live.
All SNP bad – no mention of the 8years of Lab/Lib coalition.
O/T Stumbled across this gem as I switched from BBC News to Parliament channel to try to hear the rest of our First Minister’s statement:
The Finance Bill debate in HOC the hounorable Rob Marris ,Labour Wolverhampton SW speaking on VAT being paid on policing and fire services in Scotland “The SNP have made their bed and they should lie in it.They were warned that this would be the situation and that would be the financial effect and having an enquiry into something they knew would happen and has happened and may be an adverse financial effect. That’s what you get with devolution.You make your decisions and you live with them and they should’nt as they are seeking through a mechanism here indirectly be looking for another bung from the English taxpayer when they are already getting shed loads of money under the Barnet formula and I support that but frankly some people can push their luck a bit and in this regard having known in advance.”
LABOUR ARE PURE DEAD BRILLIANT TORIES.
A small crack in the dam perhaps?
http://www.comresglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Brexit-Identity_Tables_300816_18-34break.pdf
table 4,
Only 6% of scottish respondents feel more in common with the UK whilst 26% feel less than the did before. That figure might not be properly adjusted to the Scottish Brexit result and might also include foreign and EU nationals. Will be interesting to see how it reflects the next time there’s a survey on how British/Scottish we feel.
The thing about VAT is, apparently, that the exclusions are based on names of organisations. So one way it might have been avoided, and still might, is by retaining nominal regional divisions solely for tax reasons. The obvious way it should be tackled is by adding the names of the unified scottish services to the list of exclusions but the Treasury were being dicks about it.
Partick Harvie being arrogant and positive about, well nothing really except he knows better than everybody else, but I can’t remeber what
Willie Rennie doing stand up and laughing at his own jokes
@Famous 15
Heh, they’re still banging that drum are they? Easy to fix.
We leave, we take our share and they can get on with their perfect isolation.
Scots, as usual, painted the perennial beggar with our hand out. No recognition of our contributions or that we are valued in any way shape or form by the honourable ‘members’. That is, right up until there is a real threat we may leave. At this point?
Please stay. We love you. The greatest family of nations. Scots at the forefront of ‘British’ politics…. etc. Bullshit!
These people are serial abusers and users. Their collective political erectile disfunction gives way impotent xenophobic hate rage and partner abuse. Well, to put it in the coloquial… its time for them to shit or get off the pot.
Hand over FFR and a federal UK constitution, leaving us to 90% of our own devices, or show us the door if we are such a drag on the UK.
Strangely, I suspect they’ll simply stick with the same serial abuse from a distance, or have their ever obliging branch managers do it for them. A parliament tarred with greed, cowardice, arrogance and ignorance. The Hallmarks of the serial abuser.
You’ve written some unbelievably desperate articles trying to convince your followers not to take any notice of GERS.
But this, this is beyond all measures of desperation. I take it you must be having some trouble elsewhere to come up with this utter drivel.
(you could have at least added in a wee “map skewed wrongly to make Scotland look too wee” rant)
Rev, I don’t like the analogy. The only thing manipulated for the weather forecast is the map. GERS on the other hand, is pure Whitehall manipulation.
Heedtracker
“whatever this decade’s called.”
the oneses? 🙂
The Scottish Government should emphasize separately the GERS Spending by the SG and the Westminster spending on behalf of Scotland.
Westminster should then have to justify its figures in a way it has never had to up until now. It should be Mundell who answers on behalf of the UK Treasury.
Just had a look at Georgina Burnett Heedtracker,
never seen her before, I take she does the weather where…eh you are?
Times are changing, reports Independent.
Come gather round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/new-zealander-s-keen-to-ditch-the-queen-and-seek-independent-state-when-she-passes-away-new-poll-a7228141.html
Colin Rippey says:
6 September, 2016 at 3:43 pm
You’ve written some unbelievably desperate articles trying to convince your followers not to take any notice of GERS
Oh Kevin, Kev, kevrage, get off your cringing yoon knees man. Scotland will be an independent nation state despite and because of cringers and yoons like you.
When, is another question Kev.
There is of course no good reason that the GERS figures couldn’t be a near accurate assessment of Scotland’s real fiscal position. They apparently managed this just fine in the first 21 years of the 20th century – but then it was far too clear that Scotland was and is a net contributor.
With the technology available to Whitehall / Treasury this should be the proverbial piece of p*ss. Indeed it should also be equally possible to identify the true position of Scotland BEFORE the imposition of WM ‘allocations’, debt charges, and monies spent ‘on behalf’ of Scotland.
My view remains exactly as it was in the run up to 2014. If it was totally clear that Scotland was a basket-case the figures would have been trumpeted from the rooftops and be the headline story in the Corporate Media for the ENTIRE campaign.
The silence from the Treasury remains damning.
Anyone interested in what the Scottish government’s plans are for Scotland ( no NOT the imaginary ones dreamt up by the leetle tankette driver and her mates 😉 ) can read them here.
http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0050/00505210.pdf
Extra credit for the reference to The Day Today.
jdman says:
6 September, 2016 at 3:54 pm
Just had a look at Georgina Burnett Heedtracker,
never seen her before, I take she does the weather where…eh you are?
I go back and fore every 2-3 weeks with work. Its a kind of culture shock though. Well it always was but when get you get into London and south east from jockystan and see how its booming beyond Scotland in UKOK union wildests of dreams, it really is a completely different country.
And you want to hear merry olde London moan about Brexit too. They’re only ones that had that the Remain sense to not be suckered by BoJO and GovE, they tell you.
@Colin Rippey.
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Just finished watching Claim of Rights for Scotland debate led by Patrick Grady SNP MP. Furious on being lectured at by Gove but calmed down by the end and realised this man will be the one who will probably lead the next Better Together campaign.
It was therefore useful to hear the rhetoric emanating from him as this is the substace of what we will be responding to and comprehensively dismissing in many future IndyRef2 debates.
Bring it on.
The silence from the Treasury remains damning.
Scotland is a strong and integral part of the United Kingdom explain our imperial masters over and over, after the ongoing BBC Scotland led media GERS blitz, screaming Scotland’s a basket case, there’s no oil left, suck on some delicious fiscal transfers from England, and forget about your EU citizenship being ripped up in front of you, by your NOT xenophobic tory chums in the south, generous chums in the south .
Confused.com
Colin Rippey says at 3:43 pm
“(you could have at least added in a wee “map skewed wrongly to make Scotland look too wee” rant)”
BBC do that already as the land mass of Scotland is one third of England and the same area when territorial waters are included.
Now that GERS has been comprehensively debunked we might as well have some fun and take the piss out of it whenever we can. The nearer to IndyRef2 the higher the GERS figure. I predict the eve of IndyRef2 will see our “deficit” as one approaching £31.6 trillion-guzzillions.
Breastplate says:
6 September, 2016 at 4:10 pm
@Colin Rippey.
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Kevin’s a very tory, very unionist kind of guy. But he’s an old yoonster hand now so he’ll probably come back with the Lord Darling of House Flipping For Stacks of Free Sucka Tax Payer cash, ofcourse we could be an independent country, but why would you?
orri says:
6 September, 2016 at 3:37 pm
The thing about VAT is, apparently, that the exclusions are based on names of organisations. So one way it might have been avoided, and still might, is by retaining nominal regional divisions solely for tax reasons. The obvious way it should be tackled is by adding the names of the unified scottish services to the list of exclusions but the Treasury were being dicks about it.
=====================================================
So can we just not call them Stathclyde Polis for VAT purposes and then claim the VAT back? No need to rebrand the polis cars etc., just change the organisation name doing the VAT reclaiming.
I know nothing about VAT as may be clear with that suggestion!
‘The Great Storm’ (England) 1987 killed 18 people, gusted to 135mph and brought down millions of trees. Scotland’s Hurricane LowQ 1968 killed 20 people, gusted to 140mph, included tornadoes, destroyed 300 homes and damaged 70,000 others. I don’t have all the data, so I can’t say overall which storm deserves the ‘Great Storm’ title! But Hurricane LowQ certainly deserves a lot more mention than it ever gets from south of the border. Independence now please!
heedtracker says:
6 September, 2016 at 4:05 pm
jdman says:
6 September, 2016 at 3:54 pm
Just had a look at Georgina Burnett Heedtracker,
never seen her before, I take she does the weather where…eh you are?
Apparently the weather where you are follows this … or so I am told! 😀
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhL57cjN8xY
@Breastplate
@heedtracker
Should Scotland be an independent country?
I seem to recall we asked this question not that long ago and the people of Scotland (yes, the people of Scotland) voted 55.3% No to that question.
Newsflash!
Apparently oor wee professor Tomkins is blaming the POOR for the poverty they are in!
James Dornan SNP ?@glasgowcathcart 12m12 minutes ago Edinburgh, Scotland
Well done @ClareAdamsonSNP on calling out @ProfTomkins for blaming the poor for their poverty. #PfG
Just got round to watching the Claim of Right….has anyone noticed that Goves FLY is open…nearly fell of my seat laughing! Sorry for being off topic just wanted to share my hilarity. 🙂
Ripple: “I seem to recall… “
… that you have a very short memory.
Hi Heedtracker,
I only ask that question as I have NEVER received a direct answer from a Nawbag to it.
It seems to send them scuttling away like the creepy crawly lickspittles that they are.
On real time weather – forecast said searing sunshine. Where is it?
If only England is enjoying it, surely that’s the best reason to stay in the UK?
As John Young says above on the Claim of Rights for Scotland debate on Parliament TV (started at 2.30pm), this was an excellent seminar on how Better Together are going to approach the IndyRef 2 debate.
Michael Gove is an impressive speaker but a political spiv nonetheless, touting a series of lies and half-truths, as he did in EuroRef, and, generally bashing the SNP.
None of the SNP representatives could match him or decisively counter his arguments. Nor did they take as much care with their appearance as he did. The SNP still underestimate what you have to do when you appear on TV.
Aided by Ian Davidson MP Lab, Gove presented the Tory fiction with assurance and authority. He makes lies and false accusations sound so credible.
Every SNP politician MUST LEARN OFF BY HEART the answers to the Tory Jibes, including:-
*The sovereign will of the Scottish people in IndyRef14 must be respected.
*The Indy14 result must stand for a generation/lifetime.
*Lord Smith has declared the Vow as fulfilled.
*The SNP is on the wane, with the Tories increasing in Scotland under their supercharged and most popular Scottish politician, Ruth Davidson.
*Why should the UK listen to a party (SNP)in decline in Scotland
*Holyrood is the most powerful devolved parliament in the world.
*The SNP are guilty of dereliction of duty in not using the extensive new powers they have to alleviate suffering in Scotland and grow the Scottish economy.
*The Scottish Government/SNP must forget the Constitution and ‘concentrate on the day job’ (which is to clean up after the Tories during 6 years of Austerity).
*It would be mad to leave the UK (big market) to join the EU (smaller market)
Are you listening, Scottish Government and the 56 MP’s?
Claim of Rights for Scotland:
Well I reckon this just became a platform for people like Gove, Ian Murray and that wee ignorant gnaff Alberto Costa to run the SNP’s performance RIGHT down to the ground. Unbelievable.
Tory Costa was even complaining that he didn’t get a vote in IndyRef1 due to him being a Scot living in England.
Thank goodness for Deirdre Brock SNP MP (Australian).
I mentioned recently that I reckon that the SNP should have been holding training seminars to acquaint its 120,000 members with the type of information we have ‘learned’ on here (and more).
Add to that they should be holding courses / workshops to prepare their MPs for the usual onslaught … Scottish Parliament the most powerfully devolved in the World, SNP doing nothing with the many powers they have been given and everthing is going to the dogs in Scotland such as our educational system / standards etc, etc, etc. It was he**ish and to be honest I think that MANY who post on here would have done a better job.
I just ask myself why someone didn’t make a list of their numerous complaints during this debate and come right back at them kicking every bl**dy myth into the long grass. Short version or longwinded. Better still go on the attack (in a civilised fashion) and point out how bad things are in England versus Scotland.
All I can hope for was that was some kind of Constitutional ‘Hansard’ excercise to get this noted officially right now because it’s going to be used in the near future.
@ Rippey
“I seem to recall we asked this question not that long ago and the people of Scotland (yes, the people of Scotland) voted 55.3% No to that question.”
…on the basis that this was, according to the Nawbags, the best way to secure Scotland’s future in the EU.
There – fixed that for you.
I won’t be stripped of my EU citizenship for a bunch of lying Brexit Together fuckers. IndyRef#2 NOW!!
Will try this again.
Quote from the above.
And as Unionists continue to squeal that GERS figures must be a reliable guide to an independent Scotland’s future finances because they’re published by the Scottish Government (albeit produced from UK government figures that themselves are in large part guesswork)
Not according to P&J from the reply I got from them the GERS figures are from the Scottish Government mind you I never believe them.
Thank you for your email in relation to the content of the P&J today re: the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (Gers) figures.
I’m afraid you are incorrect to state that these are Westminster’s financial figures. As the name suggests these are figures taken from the Scottish Government and a snapshot of the Scottish economy, however they started out.
The SNP have utilised these figures consistently to give an overview of its progress and were used heavily in the White Paper on a proposed referendum for independence.
The P&J’s job is to highlight and seek reaction to those figures and it is up to you, the reader, to determine whether they are good or not. We carry many positive stories about the SNP (The First Minister’s front page pledge to save Kinloss springs to mind) but we are also there to scrutinise Government decisions.
While Westminster mismanagement runs up £13Billion on Scotland. Scotland can’t borrow and spend the same as England and NI. The rest of the UK raises £461Billion (pro rata £42Billion) borrows and spends (£75Billion + £20Billion black hole) – 25% = £556Billion. NI (2 million) raises £28Billion and gets another 50% ( £14Billion) = £42Billion – Norwegian levels of funding. Scotland has to manage on what it raises £54Billion, not with another 25% + £13Billion. Spending £67Billion.
Westminster is running fraudulent Accounts. False accounting. If they were presented in private or public practice they would be put in jail.
Colin Rippey says:
6 September, 2016 at 4:34 pm
@Breastplate
@heedtracker
Should Scotland be an independent country?
I seem to recall we asked this question not that long ago and the people of Scotland (yes, the people of Scotland) voted 55.3% No to that question.
Did they Kevin? Or did they NO to full independence and YES to The Vow? Devo-max, federal UK, home rule, staying in the EU, while not upsetting England who will never speak to us again, let alone trade, and with England still making big decisions for Scotland, like war n shit?
Kevin youre a business man, why cant Scotland have that devo-max The Vow promise?
And you cant say, ah but it was a once in lifetime, or a generation, pending the lengthening of either, which ever’s the longest, because that’s also an amazing yoon super power, deciding what that once muttered aside, once in a generation, probably means a generation of royals, but you will.
Sinky at 4017
Comparative Land Masses in Square Miles:-
England 50,346
Scotland 30,918
Wales 8,016
NI 5,345
This makes Scotland 3/5 the size of England NOT 1/3
If britnats think the union with England is so beneficial to Scotland you’d think they’d be happy about IndyRef2 giving them an opportunity to be proven right. Yet britnats are scared of IndyRef2. Why? They say the people of Scotland don’t want another referendum. This, on the “evidence” of a poll of 1000 people, as opposed to the evidence of the Holyrood and Westminster elections post-IndyRef1 where millions of people expressed an opinion. Again, IndyRef2 would provide them an opportunity to be proven right. Yet britnats remain scared of another referendum. Again, why? Is it because they know they have treated the people of Scotland abominably since IndyRef1?
@Colin Rippey,
You know what the result was in 2014, so do I and so does everyone here. That was not the question but of course you also know that.
Just so as you’re up to speed, people have changed their minds and Yes is now the majority. Don’t believe me? Let’s have referendum to prove it.
@manandboy 4:45pm
Jings! We’ve had 14 referendums? That whisky was stronger than I thought.
Michael Gove is just a nasty little liar. He is finished. Even the Tories treat him like a pariah. How anyone could rate him. As for Albert Costa. A joke. Ian Murray.
Dan Huil,
My thoughts exactly
Dan Huil said:-
If britnats think the union with England is so beneficial to Scotland you’d think they’d be happy about IndyRef2 giving them an opportunity to be proven right.
Conversely if the “Scottish Subsidy Junkies” meme is correct, why are the Tories not jumping at the chance to “get rid of Scotland”? They could cut taxes, increase spending and reduce the size of the deficit all at the same time! It would surely the ultimate vote-winner of all time?
It is another beautiful day here but I will blame the SNP for that and the resulting increase in skin cancer because I know the Brit Nats like the Ripper will.
The day only spoiled by blind braying Brit Nats.
Who’s this Lord Smith.. Not heard a peep for two years, thought he’d need to engage etc..would anyone know or care if he didn’t even exist?
A sham of a lord, like every fucking one of them.
@Iain More 5:07pm
And their brave boys in their britnat flying machines guzzling oil and dumping aviation fumes onto us all.
indian summer spring to mind to anyone, last I looked out window it was raining.
I’m no economist right off the bat, but I had a look at the UK Governments actual deficit figures and as near as I could work it out Scotlands deficit is 2.2Billion with the other 12.8Billion assignable used as infrastructure support and spend for the rest of the UK, which is in line with the UKs Pooling and Sharing policy
I think the general idea is that this policy helps Scotland because it creates balance in the poorer areas of England and devolved economies, which benefits Scotland…they say
Except going on what ..they say.. that would mean the UK are claiming to be putting in over 100Billion for the pooling and the sharing…That’s not right… surely
In other words what I think what they’re saying is without Scotlands money Wales and Northern Ireland would sink like a stone and the good old UK of England does not want to bale them out on it’s own because Scotland and London are already subsidising poorer areas of England
So it’s Scotland and London who appear to make money but not so much anywhere else
Again I’m not an economist I only got as far as Simultaneous Equations and Trig in school then I was gubbed
so I’m sure somebody will be along in a minute to completely rubbish everything I’ve looked at, but that’s OK I’m not an economist so wont be in the least offended
I figure if the dog food guy can come to conclusions without a degree or experience of Governmental economics so can I, AND I have’nt wasted anybody’s time looking at a graph I just made up
A friend of a friend of mine, who runs the ‘YouSay’ polling and marketing firm, has just conducted a telephone survey in which 68% of those who agreed to take part said they would vote Yes in a new independence referendum. In answer to a question about the EU, 61% said they would prefer to stay in the EU as against leaving the EU as an independent Scotland.
There you go, it’s that easy.
Every poll result is just given in the media as the figures, without proof. Why would anyone believe Unionist backed polls?
Was wondering where you were going with that weather vain REV
BTW I’m pretty sure Lord Smith had a stroke, about a year ago. That’s all I know
Bob Dylan: Subterranean homesick Blues.
Keep a clean nose. Watch the plain clothes. You don’ t need a weatherman. To know which way the wind blows.
Peace Always
Andy Murray/Grigor Dimitrov level of toryboy spanking here, in usual miserable as sin rancid The Graun’s Scottish comment section. The best make it look easy:D
TheScotsGrey 4h ago
Very tired of the SNP using public funds to buy window dressing for their poor policies. The SNP are brilliant! England is so grim!
Meanwhile, people who actually know what they are doing gather this stuff called “data” and do this thing called “analysis”.
The SNP are completely failing the poor by making a mess of the education system. The attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged Scottish children is growing. And England is so grim! but the poorest children in Scotland perform worse than the poorest in England, and the gap in cognitive development between children from less well-off backgrounds and others is bigger in Scotland than in England.
http://orca.cf.ac.uk/48973/1/chris%20taylor.pdf
TheGreatBaldo TheScotsGrey 3h ago
The conclusion of that report you’ve linked to…
“There would seem to be three main conclusions from this analysis. The ?rst is that there is no single national ‘success story’, suggesting one education system in the UK is ‘better’ than another.
It then added the difference between London and elsewhere maybe due to the high number of immigrants concentrated in London…
Which leads us to their 2nd conclusion…
there is still a considerable need for further ‘home international’ analyses that utilise genuinely comparative and longitudinal data.
So the report you linked to concludes – there is no evidence of a success story and even if there was, a lot more research would be required before folk could say definitively why.
On other words, anyone can cherry pick stats to suit their argument without fear of contradiction.
Your one of the more lucid Unionists ScotsGrey, but this wasn’t your best effort.
Even allowing for the historic legacy of academic under achievement in deindustrialised areas, Scotland still has one of the best education system in the world…it isn’t failing.
You might argue it’s slipped down the global PISA ranking, but that was more to do with the progress made by the like of China and Eastern Asian nations – who hot house their children – something I think no one wants to see standardised in the UK
Problem with the ‘Education is failing’ argument is it simply doesn’t match the (at time ludicrously overblown) rhetoric. Folk see happy kids, getting good grades and none the chaos unleashed down south by ‘Free Schools’.
That’s not to say the SNP gets a free pass, but it’s certainly helped by it’s critics going OTT.
Ditto the Health Service in Scotland, not perfect – no Health service ever is, but it’s satisfaction stats are astronomic (compared to England).
Outwith political nerds and anoraks, most folk come to their judgement on their lived experience, and most folks day to day experience of the NHS in Scotland is that it works and works well.
So even when/if you’re right, most folk won’t believe you
Today, Michael Gove, representing the UK Gov, effectively said to all Scots, ‘Look, stop complaining about those chains and shackles. Just get on with the work I’ve told you to do. Now pick up that shovel and clear up the mess that me and my friends have made.’
But he wouldn’t see it that way. To him, only England has the right to be independent in the UK.
Claim of Right debate – a chance for Westminster to tell us how awful we are and how lucky we have a wonderful, considerate neighbour!
Michael Gove and that weasel Da Costa prancing about with smirking faces – ugh!
I agree that Gove’s speech is a textbook example of the general misinformation being spread around to obscure the truth. He didn’t say much about the Claim of Right tho, it all was all an SNP BAAD attack! All party politics.
Dierdre Brock – brilliant. Brought the debate back the the actual subject.
Interesting fact:
stated in Westminster by the current chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs committee during a debate in the house on May 22, 1997:
“the ultimate Sovereignty of the Scottish and Welsh people is a fact. Whatever the niceites of international law, Scotland and Wales can claim the right to self determination if that is what they want.” …so let’s get on with it!
PS: Cherry @ 4.39 pm clocked:
Michael Gove’s fly clearly visible as open at 14.48 and 38 seconds.
They know what GERS is well enough.They supplied info for it between 1997 and 2010. It was designed by a Tory to score against ALL the other parties,I think that must include Labour,since in 1992 when it was dreamed up, they had most of the MPs in Scotland.The Tories got wiped out in Scotland in ’97. Seems that every party that points to GERS and says Scotland is useless gets wiped out at election time.
It was so cold the Unionist politician had his hand in his own pocket…!
Westminster will hold Scotland until it bleeds it dry…look at their track record. Unfortunately unlike the rest of the Empire we still permit our wealth to be drained.
“The union” is a partnership were one partner surrenders their income and receives some pocket money. The bully also buys boy toys that are not needed but demands you pay a share of the debt.
…remind me why normally sane Scots not only argue to remain in that relationship – they try to tell us that it is good for us.
Going back to the weather theme…that is not rain, they are pissing on us.
….I feel better now (saved a visit to the dark room)
What a songwriter Dylan was, so profound, and gets better with age. I sometimes have Dylan days, playing nothing else, so it’s a proper tribute to his genius.
We should be proud of our Scottish gov’t today. 14 Bills! The vast majority of which are to do with improving lives. If only they would get on with the day job, though!
Compare and contrast to the utter bullshit being peddled in WM, the complete void since 23 June, and its shameful.
I read a very good critique of the 15 pages produced by Japan about Brexit. The first thing to point out, is that its far more substantial than anything the UK has produced on the subject
Conclusion was that the Japanese are, and will not fool around so UK can expect to lose the car industry, which supports 140k workers. They will easily relocate to EU countries, where there are existing plants.
This is the car industry that Davis often refers to as the ‘indigenous’ car industry, like the moron he is.
Re fewer poor children going to uni in Scotland: in April I volunteered to check it all out for my branch.
I got all the info on Audit Scotland in less than 2 hours.
A sizeable number of Scottish teenagers go to college to get an HND then bypass the clearing system because their college has an arrangement with a university that if they pass the HND they are guaranteed a place.
That is how they manipulate the stats. There are actually more pupils from disadvantaged areas going to uni and it is rising faster in Scotland & Wales (I think). There was an article in the Times Educational Supplement (TES) a few months ago. Sorry not got time to look for it.
Re those weasels Costa and Gove: when we are independent we should deny them a Scottish/European passport for their duplicity.
Colin Ripley:
Anagrams of!
Prince ploy I (last digit i capitalised)
Gaius Plinius Seconudus
:Plini the elder,AD23-AD79
Commanding Officer of Army and Navy!
Would make you:C.O. Plini Prey,but I doubt if you could be C.O. unless it was in charge of the stationery cupboard.
I can but try.
PEACE ALWAYS ALLWAYS!
Rippey*
My mistake dear Prince!
Peace & Princes 🙂
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/08/22/ignore-the-media-tantrum-this-is-the-best-thing-to-happen-to-britain-in-decades/ 2.48 mins. in snp video.
“voted Labour” “why”? “cos I am Conservative” SHEESH!!
Westminster gave Nissan £2Billion for car production plant. in the NE of England. Gave North of England £2Billion (each?) for two coal plants. (Near Clegg’s constituency) Then banned coal production in the UK. Banned wind turbines in England. Coal is now imported. Destroyed the Oil & Gas industry. More Oil & Gas in now imported. Refused permission for a CCS at Longannet in Fife. Scotland pays to put energy on the grid. It is paid for in England. Scotland pays a higher cost for fuel and energy. It is colder. Despite being near the source. Scotland is in surplus with fuel and energy.
The university education figures leave out the 20% mature students – from deprived backgrounds? 25% of students from school, 20% mature students, 15% EU students (reciprocal) % ? Foreign students. They pay the full whack. The rest wealthy students from elsewhere getting a subsidised (by Scottish taxpayers) education. The main qualifications for Uni in Scotland should be Scottish Highers. Scottish students now get a more affordable Ioan. Labour/Unionists were means testing loans on household income. Stopping Scottish students getting a loan to go to University.
Branson, (Medical) Johnston kid got a subsidised education in Scotland. Half of the students in St Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen 50% are wealthy students from elsewhere using ‘A’ levels to get into Scottish Uni’s.
The SNP are letting students from deprived areas go to Uni with lower qualifications. Students can go to Uni into second year, after College. HNC/HND. Scotland has one of the best education system in the world.
Westminster have stopped overseas students in Scotland getting a visa to work for two years. Oxbridge, Bath and Inperial College London are being allowed to do it. To encourage foreign students. One rule for them. Oxbridge is funded 2000 to 1 of other Universities.
“Brexit inspires kin of Jewish refugees who escaped Nazis to reclaim German citizenship. 1949 German law allows anyone stripped of citizenship by the Nazis to get it back, including descendants.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/brexit-germany-citizenship-1.3748944
Who would have believed it? Perhaps they fear a new breed of Nazis?
2, that’s TWO, days to get The IndyApp funded.
It’s not glam like the flags, doesn’t give you endless dissection of our corrupt media like Wings, but this might just be
THE MOST IMPORTANT CROWDFUNDER THIS YEAR!!!
So come on folks, if you haven’t already and you can afford to, throw as much cash as you can at this great project before it’s too late
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-nyr-indy-app-appeal–2#/
Let’s give ourselves the tools to win #indyref2
Still Positive 7.08pm
“”That is how they manipulate the stats. There are actually more pupils from disadvantaged areas going to uni and it is rising faster in Scotland & Wales (I think). There was an article in the Times Educational Supplement (TES) a few months ago. Sorry not got time to look for it.””
There was an article in the TES in October 2015, if I remember correctly, which looked at the stats and showed that over the last 10 years the percentage of students from disadvantaged backgrounds going to Uni had risen from 7% to 15%. Perhaps that is the article you are thinking about.
Ot I was listening to lbc today they were talking about the protesters at London airport the black lives matter group they say a third runway would cause more air pollution and that it was racists because it was mostly blacks who lived there I phoned in and said if that is the case was it also racist to to have trident and all British nuclear weapons based in Scotland ?and do Scots lives matter ?needless to say I never got on air
O/T
Some unreported facts on oil income
http://oilandgasuk.co.uk/knowledgecentre/economic-contribution.cfm
Apparently the petitions committee in the house of horrors don’t have to offer for debate any petition they don’t like , if they find even the most tenuous link to a previous debate they will dismiss the petition it doesn’t matter if it’s 10000 or 10 million who have signed it , it’s a cross party committee of unionists so what’s the chances of anything put forward by the jocks being considered so as ever we are unceremoniously as in EVIL ,we are being deprived the privilege of taking part in the English parliament doesn’t that make you feel better together now ? .
The latest one was for MPs to sit on a Saturday and this to be considered a normal working day the way NHS England say the junior doctors should treat it as in the new imposed contract, I know this for the time being only affects doctors in England but shit seems to travel under this Tory mob of crooks cheats and liars I can’t think of anything that has improved since this bunch came to power courtesy of or very good friends in the Labour and Unionist party. Well done chaps we will remember.
That is how they manipulate the stats. There are actually more pupils from disadvantaged areas going to uni and it is rising faster in Scotland & Wales (I think). There was an article in the Times Educational Supplement (TES) a few months ago. Sorry not got time to look for it.”
Uni entrants from deprived families are higher in England but there is no increase in students like this being accepted into the top English unis like Oxbridge. There is no comparable exclusive intake policy at Scottish universities.
Almost none of the Russell group have increased their intake of prospective students from deprived homes.
http://russellgroup.ac.uk/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/number-of-poor-students-attending-uks-leading-universities-falls-despite-millions-spent-to-encourage-a6879771.html
It is complete and utter classic UKOK bullshit to compare, contrast and then attack SNP no uni fee policy, on the basis of increase intake in England, via usual tory BBC Scotland UKOK roasters.
Russell group uni’s only accept public school applicants by a vast majority. Russell group uni’s are one of the main drivers behind uni fees in England. Why not? £9k a year is cheap compared to private school fees, its cash on the nose and its going to go up, for obvious reasons.
Legerwood @ 7.39
Thanks, that rings a bell.
The watchdog for university access has given the green light to universities to increase tuition fees in England to £9,250.
https://archive.is/lFT45
Blair: ” I phoned in and said if that is the case was it also racist to to have trident and all British nuclear weapons based in Scotland ?and do Scots lives matter”
That’s cos you ain’t effnik, mate, innit?
Mind you, we’re warned independence turns us into foreigners overnight, so I guess then we would be effnik.
The point I was trying to make is entrance to uni in England is through clearing. In Scotland pupils go either through clearing or direct to uni via an arrangement with their college. If the latter, they are not included in the clearing numbers.
So, as usual, they are not comparing like with like and omit the facts to suit an agenda.
Pretty much the same as the “disappearing” college places – comparing apples and pears.
Doubt if Heathrow will be extended. May and Hammond have their constituencies there.
Anywhere but Heathrow. It takes a day and a night to get through. May was in charge of immigration. There were queues so long, they had to let folk through. Chaos. May cut the staff and appointed a new head. She blamed them. The Head resigned and call her out.
call me dave says:
6 September, 2016 at 8:32 pm
The watchdog for university access has given the green light to universities to increase tuition fees in England to £9,250.
And Teresa Thatcher’s grammar school roll out plan slips out. Class and social exclusion, its toryboy heaven now for teamGB. It’s weird how toryboy Westminster always flash giant policy stuff at their media chums, via the side of a folder what they carry past cameras.
Graun
Tuesday 6 September 2016 20.08 BST
Government will publish plan to end ban on new grammar schools in weeks
Policy – revealed after civil servant is photographed with memo – is likely to trigger ideological battle in parliament
Valerie at 653pm,
Japan does indeed look like it will be a serious problem for brexiteers. In the North East of England, in Sunderland, the Nissan car plant is huge, supporting thousands of skilled jobs locally, but also many more thousands in supply chain and ancillary services. It would literally kill Sunderland if Nissan pulled out.
The DFDS ferry from Newcastle carries Nissan cars across to the EU, so I can only assume if Nissan goes then that would have a knock on effect for the ferry to ijmuiden – perhaps a less frequent service or even becoming non-economic altogether, with the damaging effects that would have on the Port of Tyne, docker jobs and support services.
What some of the deluded brexiteers do not seem to realise, is that from the day of the referendum result, if not for months before, EVERY Government in the EU will have been meeting Nissan and Honda, offering them all kinds of sweet deals to relocate their car plants to mainland EU. That is how the world works. Poland, France, Germany, Spain, all would love to have Nissan and Honda.
‘Here Mr.Honda, we have a car plant built for you, just outside munich, with high speed freight rail links, direct access to high speed, uncongested, autobahns, a massive car production infrastructure, large numbers of experienced highly skilled multilingual staff, with key supplier services and companies ready to go. Need offices? No problem, we have a new business park next door, with uber fast broadband fibre links, with its own rail and tram stop, we can let you have them free for ten years, right in the middle of the EU, etc..etc..’
It is hard headed, pragmatic, bottom-line business, and the CEO of either car company would be sacked if they did not do it when brexit happens.
Brexit truly is the stupidest idea known to humanity. The supposed advantages it offers do not exist, unless the UK literally jettisons key parts of the UK economy. What is truly sickening however, is that those in the Tory party who will make it happen, are all so rich they will never feel any of the damaging effects.
Aye, CCR (creedence) called it best, here’s another couple of excellent songs about the rain:
I can’t stand the rain played by Eruption
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDJIg4EonOU
Rain, Beautiful Rain by Ladysmith Black Mambazo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9U2hPgp-ZA
il pleut.
mr thms says:
That link is a cracker, the video can be downloaded and it should be put on social media. Shows how badly Scotland has been robbed in our oil and gas fields.
Yoon culture, red and blue tory, is very weird sometimes, ref 2 is off says rancid The Graun but they are brtnats are furious
This dude was never off the box 2014, raging at Scots to vote NO, now he’s even angries “Paul Mason attacks Sturgeon for dithering between #IndyRef2 & working with the Tories on #Brexit.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMrAEBOpzbk
Historywoman ?@2351onthelist 3h3 hours ago
Historywoman Retweeted David Eyles
Never said a truer word.Historywoman added,
David Eyles @Drystonesonnet
@PD_Politics @Planet_Pedro @Alan_Cochrane @reactionlife She is using indyref as a distraction away from her own domestic ineptitude.
The Graun says “Sturgeon shelves plan for quick second Scottish independence referendum”
with rancid’s comment section even more furious, from
Bob_Helpful 1h ago
so the utopian dream that was independent Scotland was built on the house of cards that is oil prices all along.
to,
ID2237674 55m ago
the sooner these parasites f*** off the better.
and finally,
rdwes1 54m ago
Sturgeon is a typical Narcissist who is unable to understand the word no… France and Spain have already told her she won’t be allowed into the EU but in typical Narcissistic fashion she she ignores reality and carries on regardless…
There should indeed be another referendum – asap – and this time the whole of the UK should be given a vote so that we can send this blood sucking band of nationalists on their way… It would be interesting to see how quickly Brussels wouldn’t go running with an open cheque book to start dolling out the readies to bankroll the SNP and all its electoral bribes?
The Scotland’s oil routine doesn’t wash anymore.
The SNP is popular only because of London’s cheque book largesse – once that’s gone and reality sinks in Sturgeon and the SNP will be gone faster than Cameron…”
So, this is one very confused member of the blood sucking band of nationalists. Why are the yoons of Scotland and some of our chums in the south so angry:D
Headtracker
Mason is just trying to deflect from the death of labour in England–he is in denial.
Can someone confirm whether it is true, that the Scottish Government is no longer preparing legislation for an independence referendum. They had previously said they were.
If that is the case, then I think you can kiss independence goodbye. If they won’t push for it in the current circumstances, allowing brexit to happen to Scotland, then I doubt they ever will.
What a thoroughly depressing few weeks this has been.
Robert Louise: “Can someone confirm whether it is true, that the Scottish Government is no longer preparing legislation for an independence referendum.”
Untrue. Exactly the opposite is happening. They announced this very day that the process has begun.
Robert Louis.
Waht is your source.
I read this
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/politics/scottish-politics/279809/014pe0709coa_story_15/
@ Grousey.
Snap.
A group of Polish workers arrived at my office today, all brothers with family in Scotland, here over eight years, fully documented.
They asked if I would write the preface for their website to “tell Scottish people we are experienced craftsmen”
But they added …
“We’d rather you did not tell them we are from Poland. We are very worried with what is happening.”
How sad is that? – In Scotland, my Scotland!
Sturgeon’s speech in full.
http://www.scottishparliament.tv/Archive/Index/0f5c4b21-bacc-4cf0-be17-efe2fe0ff76e?categoryId=868151bf-2fca-45f9-91db-20f1adf74aaf&parentCategoryClicked=False&pageNumber=1&orderByField=ScheduledStart&queryOrder=DESC
Heedtracker at 8:54PM.
Aye Heedie, The Tory party at its best.
Thuggery and buggery.
Hamish100 says:
6 September, 2016 at 9:46 pm
Headtracker
Mason is just trying to deflect from the death of labour in England–he is in denial.
He’s trying to get our brains to be verily washed indeed, that the SNP have let us down and so we must vote them out, and vote SLab.
That Mason ham act just shows how the morality of britnat propaganda is so grotesque. He was never off SKY news 2014, raging away vote NO at us and filling his pockets too. This flip is just the lowest you can get britnat wise, this evening:D
Anyway they have so much to lose in Scotland. Its an ogoing struggle but they nearly lost control of Scotland to people like you and me, the voters 2014. The whole of the UKOK establishment are shitting themselves at what Scottish democracy can do to teamGEnglandB established elitist order and their strike back is only just beginning. If it is all over, proud Scots buts will die old and happy in their British beds, but its not over and they know it.
Which explains all the yoon rage.
Robert Louis @ 9.17pm
When the first results were coming in about 1am, to fill a space, one of the commentators mentioned the Nissan plant in Sunderland, so I could barely believe the result.
I remember about a week or so before the ref Corbyn was in Scotland and I thought he shouldn’t be wasting his time up here as all 5 party leaders in Scotland were in favour as well as opinion polls consistently showed Remain in the lead.
I remember shouting at the TV he should be in the North of England to persuade them.
I just hope all NE politicians did their best to tell people jobs were at risk and why.
Trouble is, many voters don’t trust MPs, often with good reason.
The people will suffer but politicians are well-cushioned from the terrible effects.
If you all really want independence then I would urge you to support The IndyApp appeal.
As tartanpigsy says it could be THE MOST IMPORTANT CROWDFUNDER THIS YEAR!!!
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-nyr-indy-app-appeal–2#/
Do you want independence? Then let’s get this done.
Robert Louis at 9.52
I don’t know where you get the depressing bit from. This has been a great few weeks with Nicola running rings round Theresa May and covering all corners to make sure that our independence referendum is completely viable.
Sorry – screwed up the link somehow:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-nyr-indy-app-appeal–2/x/101819#/
A wee diversion: http://wp.me/p4fd9j-9t9
Robert Louis @9:52
Robert
Every silver lining has a cloud!
When on door shuts, another slams in your face!
What is the difference between an optimist and a pessimist…experience!
We all have bad days:-)
Try to think about that feeing when we win…ignore the propaganda. We are winning it is just a matter of time. I know you have waited a long time…just a little bit more
Yep, I’d say it’s been a good month for the Indy movement.
Reams of Tory drivel being unwound in a quite sad, predictable motion.
No damage done to our spirits whatsoever.
A few radges went in the huff for a bit too.
Was at a meeting tonight re a proposal by Lanarkshire health board to temporarily relocate the orthopaedic department to Wishaw General and Hairmyres.
Turns out that the decision has already been made on this by the health board and only the Scottish Parliament can stop it going ahead.
Monklands has already lost 3 departments and it really looks like another is being lined up to disappear. Lots of ” management speak “in the information being bandied about by the health board.
If you are in the catchment area for Monklands General please get involved in the campaign.
Protest this Sunday 2:00 pm -main entrance Monklands Hospital
call me dave 10.02pm
Wow. A lot of impressive goodies packed in there and that’s just the first year.
Just think how much better it would be if both hands were controlling all the levers.
Are you Scottish?..Still voting labour?..tory?..lib dem?..
Get out of thier box…You know it mkes sense.
la cabina,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKkfGG9q32c
Thanks call me dave, excellent stuff from the FM and SG…have passed around as per, to as many as possible… 🙂
gerry parker @10.54
The trouble with those Health Boards is that they are all stuffed with (usually) Labour Cooncillors and various placemen all determined to put a spanner in the works of the SNP.
Same where I live – every time there is an election Jackie Baillie starts rumours the Vale of Leven is to close and JaBa saves it from the bad SNP.
Anyone know how long they serve on Health Boards? Seems ripe for reform.
Been thinking it through, and what I reckon it will more likely be 2019 or 2020 before we see a second referendum, but it will happen in this term. There is time to prepare for it.
It will take another 2 years to find out what sort of EU deal we are going to get for starters, and if the UK remains in the single market or not.
Unfortunately due to the oil price fall, the deficit as shown by GERS has the *appearance* of being too high right now for a smooth transition. Even when allowing for all the savings we would make.
I think Nicola will gain credibility by saying she could have went for a quick referendum, but she waited until we were on more solid ground as the onshore economy improves. So it is clear we aren’t dependent on oil. If the oil price improves that is a genuine bonus.
And I don’t think a second referendum will be automatically linked to rejoining the EU. That has the risk of diving the vote. The EU issue will be left to parties elected in the first Holyrood elections after independence. So the SNP may propose re-joining, but people will have the choice to vote for anyone else.
Fast-track membership would likely be on the plate for Scotland at that point. There is no way we would be treated as a completely new member.
Channel 4 News weasel words from Jon Snow re. Nicola Sturgeon’s £500 million package to ‘aid the ailing economy’….man they’re at it from all sides!..Good old English bleeding heart Liberals in Grauniad, Channel 4 new,s all Scot-haters and Jockophobes one and all.
It’s incredible how underneath all that urbanity and modernity, there still beats the brutal heart of English atavistic hatred of our very existence stretching all the way back to Butcher Cumberland, Cromwell and Edward the 1st. Yes great cannon fodder: ‘There is no mischief if they fall’ said James Wolfe, English General who helped slaughter Jacobite highlanders at Culloden and used the same race of fighters to take Quebec and Canada for the Brits 11 years later.
Dupes, cannon fodder, colonial monkeys and willing mercenaries for English gold right enough….when will we end this endless humiliation of our nation?
It was nice to see Anas Sarwar and Adam Tomkins agreeing with each other on Scotland tonight
That’ll be a real vote winner for Labour Hee Hee Hee
And the “Journalist” commentators view “The SNP are very good managers”
Over on 2016 the BBC flagship shit program they actually ended up praising the FM and the SNP
Who’da thunk eh
The conclusion overall was really nobody could find anything to complain about except Sarwar and Tomkins moaning about Indy ref
@Grousebeater
The Tories keep insisting we are one country if that were the case Scots would be Effnik
We just need to be a colour they don’t like to accept us as such
What about blue with white streaks, will that qualify us?
Agree with X-sticks – the IndyApp could be a vital tool in the coming struggle. They still need 4k, so get on over there wingers
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-nyr-indy-app-appeal–2/x/101819#/
. . . and like X-Sticks I somehow screwed up the link as well
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-nyr-indy-app-appeal–2#/
Quick off topic question for any of the iScot peeps. I renewed my subscription on the 20th August (inc passport holder).
Will I miss the September edition before everything is processed?
Lochside
Aye that’s us right enough. Very hard to take.
Btw anyone know our latest GERS status. I need to get the grass cut.
Scotland’s world cup qualifying campaign has started and it provides an opportunity for conversations with football-loving unionists. As the matches come round we could point out the honking great irony in our group.
Our opponents are : England (no explanation required ) Slovakia (gained independence 1993), Slovenia (gained independence 1991) , Lithuania (gained independence 1991) and Malta (gained independence 1964)
We could then ask them to list the qualities and abilities that the good people of those countries have that the people of Scotland don’t have .
another guid reason fur no paying yer telly licence.
Far right likes it but couple of tory flamers double up in,
Kevin Hague Retweeted
Iain Martin ?@iainmartin1 2h
Nicola Sturgeon sensibly runs away from second Scottish independence referendum. (My latest for Reaction)
Toryboy’s reaction is scorn pouring. Well it was nice being an European citizen for a while but it is a toryboy world, we just live in it and its likely Teresa Thatcher will never actually leave the EU anyway.
So on the day BBC Scotland ongoing Project Fearing actually won ref 2, with red and blue tory’s continuing rage at SNP Scots.gov to hike tax, far right toryboy’s cant wait to get stuck in. Impatient bunch.
Andrew Neil Retweeted
Coffee House ?@SpecCoffeeHouse 8h8 hours ago
Nicola Sturgeon takes another tiny and cautious step towards Scottish independence: http://specc.ie/2c1j0dr
“In April, SNP ministers will be able to set income tax levels anywhere they want. We already know that Sturgeon intends to use this opportunity to refuse to implement George Osborne’s planned tax cut for higher income earners.
This is significant because it will mean that for the first time since the 18th century, Scots will be taxed more than their counterparts in England who are doing exactly the same job for the same wages.
Yet this was waved away in a single sentence by Sturgeon who merely acknowledged that there would be a budget bill some time this year.”
Cant think why Lord Smith, Prof T etc “gave” Scotland tax devo for their The Vow fraud.
Maybe there’s a pill you can take to become a toryboy gimp like Kevin or Ian, for example, or a lobotomy.
What
tartanpigsy says:
1, that’s ONE, day to get The IndyApp funded.
It’s not glam like the flags, doesn’t give you endless dissection of our corrupt media like Wings, but this might just be
THE MOST IMPORTANT CROWDFUNDER THIS YEAR!!!
So come on folks, if you haven’t already and you can afford to, throw as much cash as you can at this great project before it’s too late
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-nyr-indy-app-appeal–2#/
Let’s give ourselves the tools to win #indyref2
@Euan Whazermy 11.40
maybe that they all have smaller populations than Scotland except Slovenia which has over taken Scotland this last 10 years?
Maybe they have all done well from independence despite their lack of oil?
Maybe because the BBC thought independence for them was a good idea?
Maybe because they all have a seat at the top table in Europe, unlike Scotland
where does one stop?
@handandshrimp
You will receive your September issue any day now.
Just wondering like, but the folk who are telling us that Scotland would be soooo much worse off had we been independent. Would that be the same folk who said that Scotland’s economy would be safe in times of economic hardship because of the broad shoulders of the UK government?
That would be the self same folk who said that with the UK pensions would be safe, job prospects secured, in fact that there would be better job prospects. Orders would flow to the Clyde, the UKs triple A credit rating would remain solid, that we’d be guaranteed to remain members of the EU and the single market. The same folk who set their own deficit reduction targets, whilst promising continued political and economic stability and growth. How’s meeting that latest deficit reduction coming along by the by? Sterling looked a wee mite shaky after that Brexit result to be sure and markets lost a fair chunk of change. The chancellor has apparently predicted a ‘fiscal reset’ as of the autumn budget t’boot. (sounds a tad ominous)
These self same folk also promised a devolution settlement with a no detriment clause. They then proceeded to put together a settlement which proposed a not insubstantial detriment to the Scottish budget which has NOT been settled, merely put in stasis for five years and is yet to be revisited and resolved. The same bods who currently have a £1.6tr debt and black hole deficit of what? £60 odd bn or thereabouts?
As for their ability to accurately cost and prioritize projects in this very ‘uncertain’ period? Well as an example of their expertise in this area, I’m not sure the leap from initial costings around £100bn to the current bandied figure of £205bn on Trident 2 went down well with home nations struggling to deal with the ongoing government austerity measures.
Anyroads I’m wondering. If the economic predictions of these bods have proven to be so wildly inaccurate over the past two years since making all of those assurances to the electorate, just what credence should be given to any claim they make about an independent Scotland that never happened?
They don’t seem the most confident or reliable of management, now do they?
Hi Cactus
Assuming that was the Rev’s inference I was going to post a link to CCR’s ‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain’, one of Fogerty’s best of many great hits he penned IMO.
However, since you brought up CCR, I will instead post a link to a very influential number from, Scotland’s own, Marmalade (McAleese and Robertson) from 1967.
It should be noted that in a year which has a claim to being the apex of pop in the UK, no less than Jimi Hendrix said this was the best release of the year.
Albeit in a flower power idiom it has an incredibly rich underbelly due to the unusual usage of two base guitars.
It should also be noted that Status Quo had their first hit some months later with a very similar look and feel number ‘Matchstick Men’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6SKrp4rwFQ
This, along with so many things Scottish has been written out of history.
Indeed another Marmalade mega hit which became an anthem of Vietnam vets was also confined to that special dustbin of history reserved for all things Scottish until it was resurrected by the internet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79NiN7ISW7E
It is indicative of the time that Scots had two number ones in the USA in the 60s before they ever had one in the UK.
Even Lulu’s winning Eurovision song never made number one in the UK.
What chance that for an English winner?
The online Brexiters are getting REALLY wound up about unelected, Remainer Theresa May being totally dismissive of the Australian points system for controlling immigration (what many millions thought they were getting when they voted) and are demanding to know what she’s planning to do. Demanding that she puts a stop to free movement of labour ASAP.
She of course will try and drag this out for as long as she can, saying as little as she can, such as right through the 2 year negotiation period, especially as she’s finding herself between a rock and a hard place already: Brexiters versus the Japanese Government. However for ‘as long as’ may not be acceptable to the Brexiters. Some are threatening all sorts of ‘action’ if she doesn’t get a move on. If she has to show her hand when she triggers Article 50 and it’s in line with Brexiters demands this could be the absolute watershed moment for us. Can you imagine how horrified the staunch, Scottish (non Indy) EU supporters / sitting on the fencers will feel when they see the Japanese preparing to pull out? Could push us right into absolute Indy winnable figures and all thanks to the English Brexiters and of course the Japanese. Just thinking too that they could relocate their business to an Independent Scotland. Shipping their cars from Rosythe. That would be a right smack on the melt for Westminster
And to give you a bit of a laugh they are all fighting amongst themselves (big time now) with the Brexiters saying “f*ck the Japs” (previously f*ck the Germans) and “that’s it if they pull out we’ll stop buying their cars!” Someone had to point out that they’d be no cars to buy. God you couldn’t make it up. Blind leading the blind.
Good post Macart. I was also thinking too, once again following the debate yesterday, that all you ever get out of them is that the SNP have been endowed with fabulous new powers, tax-raising, but don’t use them. Isn’t it strange that in the ‘Better Together’ Union the Scots have to raise taxes, higher than England, to deal with the austerity cuts wielded by England?
@Petra
Ayup, that’s Kezia’s big plan especially. Her idea of yoozing the poowerrs isn’t to further democracy in Scotland or benefit the population by enhancing their economy, but as a system of double tax to ‘offset’ the hardships imposed by central government.
The obvious question being, as you point out. Why should a devolved legislature be required to protect its population from hardships imposed by a central government? That vision of a UK going forward painted by Better Together not quite as billed it appears. Who knew?
But then that vision has catastrophically stalled on every level as each pledge and assurance made two years ago has failed when confronted with time and real terms application. It doesn’t matter whether it was social justice, societal cohesion, the devolution settlement, the economy, political practice, the list of pledges and assurances failed or discarded out of hand in the past two years has resulted in a UK quite different from the one promised.
Which brings me back to my own question.
Just what credence should be given to any claim they make about an independent Scotland that never happened? Seems to any reasonable person surely, that the UK government and those who managed the Better Together campaign, have proven beyond any doubt by this point that their willingness and/or ability to deliver on pledges and assurances is to all intents and purposes entirely worthless.
A majority in the North of England voted out of the EU. Only London voted to stay in. In the rest of the UK. The majority in the North of England vote Tory or UKIP. London vote 50/50. Tory/Labour, There are more Labour MP’s in London than Tory.
The Tories will lose shed loads of voters. Big time. This chaos was enacted to keep the Tories in power. It will do the exact opposite. Another three years of chaos. Then more chaos. Unless Scotland votes out of the unfair, unequal Union, The Westminster crooks have not honoured it for years. Unless Scotland votes for Independence. The Tories committed electoral fraud in 29 seats. There could be another GE.
Not only are the Westminster crooks dumping the £13Billion ‘deficit’ of mismanagement on Scotland but Scotland is not allowed to borrow. Westminster in the rest of the UK are raising less taxes and borrowing and spending what they like. (25%) Scotland are losing comparable (£13Billion) – 25% to spend on what is needed. A double whammy £26Billion is the cost of the Union to Scotland. When Scotland was supposed to be treated equally.
The Westminster crooks are fraudulently accounting and acting illegally breaking the (International) Law. Not only breaking and not not honouring promises. The Westminster/Unionist crooks are only in Government to line their own pockets. Syphoning off public money for their associates. Tax evading. They are despicable. Liars. Plus the money they have taken out of Scotland previously illegally and secretly. They have lied and kept it secret under the Official Secrets Act. The McCrone Report and Thatcher.
Next the Council elections. The Unionist/Green councils are wasting £Millions/Billions of public money on grotesque projects and then claiming there is not enough for essential services. May 2017. Vote SNP/SNP.
Nicola has to pass the legislation for a second Referedum through the Scottish Parliament So folk in Scotland can vote on it. Not act illegally. What are some folk on.
Parading Tomkins/Sawar will not do the Tories any good. Tomkins the next Tory leader in Scotland? A total switch off. Nil points. Even more votes lost. The 2nd rate rejects. SNP/SNP.
@Cadogan Endogan 12.48
Sorry Cadogan , I hadn’t noticed my post was ambiguous but I see now that it was! It could even have looked pro union!
I simply meant it’s an opportunity to ask if they can do it then why should we be any different?
@heedtracker says: 7 Septemeber, 2016 at 12:10 am:
” … Maybe there’s a pill you can take to become a toryboy gimp like Kevin or Ian, for example, or a lobotomy.”
Ach! Dinna be daft, heedtracker.
Toryboy gimps canna ever hae a lobotomy – tae hae a lobotomy ye need tae first hae a brain tae labotomise.
It can be argued that it is the settled will of the sovereign people of Scotland that Scotland will Remain in the EU.
Nobody in the UK has the authority to countermand this. Especially as the UK parliament neglected to ensure that the EU referendum really was advisory by putting in a clause to that effect.
My long post yesterday morning explained how there are two options to ensure that this result is implemented:
A: Remain in the 1706 Union with England that formed the UK, and find a way to continue with full membership of the EU, even while England and Wales exit.
B: Become an independent sovereign state that is a member of the EU, inheriting the full status of the former UK.
The first option depends on political will in Europe and Westminster, and is unlikely.
The second option, due to the Vienna Convention on the Operation of Treaties, can only work if Article 50 has NOT been invoked when the decision is taken for Scotland to be independent.
Given all of this, does invoking article 50 effectively countermand the will of the people of Scotland by closing off option B?
Actually, would it countermand it anyway, as the Article 50 negotiations are unlikely to allow time to discuss ways for parts of the departing state to remain in the EU?
If it might, that could explain some of the dithering from Downing St.
I’m looking forward to Nicola’s statement on the EU today. That article in the rancid Graun is terrible.
Links
http://www.scottishhumanrights.com/news/latestnews/timebar
https://caltonjock.com/2016/04/25/snp-government-achievements-the-list-and-it-is-long/
https://grayinglasgowblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/06/a-day-online-with-the-rule-britannia-mob-that-proves-my-point/
https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/9235/61-scots-back-fully-renewable-powered-future-report-finds
Indy climber Lindsay Jarret needs a convertible bed to help ease breathing problems. Here’s the fundraiser for anyone wanting to donate.
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/norrie-hunter?utm_id=66&utm_term=DM5GQY3P4
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/the-tory-brexit-squad-just-announced.html?m=1
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/09/06/shocking-reality-tory-benefit-cuts-exposed-new-report/
http://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_the_uk_governments_brexit_strategy_what_we_know_so_far7108
The Guardian is destroying itself. Declining readership. No one buys into it. No one reads it. A background noise. The public will not buy a pack of lies. The MSM are destroying themselves. A load of total incompetent liars. Most of them can’t count. Or walk and talk at the same time. But like greedy politicians. Sell themselves to the highest bidder. There is now an alternative ‘news’ sector. The Internet.
Thanks Stu for all you do.
https://theintercept.com/2016/09/06/nsa-menwith-hill-targeted-killing-surveillance/
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/09/06/5-explosive-secret-intelligence-memos-syria-everyone-must-read-video/
https://tompride.wordpress.com/2016/09/06/david-cameron-accuses-theresa-may-of-stitch-up-demands-general-election-by-december/
https://spidercatweb.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/keith-vaz-csa-coverup/
As Nicola said yesterday, the battle lines are well and truly
drawn in the Scottish parliament. The SNP, the government of the people v the Devious Tories.
Make no mistake this is a serious battle that must be won. You may think it would be easy, it certainly should be, but if EBC this morning is anything to go by, where everything in Scotland is bad,and allowing Jackson Carlaw vent his spleen without contradiction. Exerts of both Ruth the Mooth and Willie Rennie rambling on.
There is a war in place for minds which we must win. I hope the SG really get stuck into the Tories, BBC and the rest of the media, as we should, in any way we can at every turn.
The SNP have not, in anyway backed off Indy2, they are looking for a best case scenario for winning, that looks like developing quickly.The Unionists have no vision and meekly accept Scotland’s fate within this long term occupation of all that is Scottish.
We cannot fail, we must win. But it is going to be a big job. But I am convinced we can do it this time, if a monumental effort is put in.
We can rest after the job is done.
On yon radio thingy this am at 9.
Time for the Scottish Government to stop talking about Independence and get on with the day job?
Teeth gnashing time.
Aye, Lochside. I heard Channel 4 and its reference to Scotland and ‘its ailing economy’. Quite precisely scripted, quite calculated, quite deliberate.
At the same time a MSM narrative is being developed that Brexit now affords ‘Britain’ a wealth of opportunities for economic growth. Yet this northern subset of Britain is destined for permanent penury regardless. England’s (Britain’s) economy never shall ail.
For the MSM ‘journalists’ who parrot this kind of absurdity, there is no apparent anomaly, no requirement to deploy their critical faculties in posing the most basic questions. It’s only Scotland, after all.
I sit here on the train now and 4 people around me are reading through the Daily Mail owned Metro. In Metro world, Scotland ails too. Are the passengers reading critically or just absorbing information passively? The fact that we aren’t independent would suggest a majority still do the latter.
“You may think it would be easy, it certainly should be, but if EBC this morning is anything to go by, where everything in Scotland is bad,and allowing Jackson Carlaw vent his spleen without contradiction.”
Which is why everyone and their granny should chuck a few spare quid (if you have it) in to the Peep the Beeb Campaign here:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/peep-the-beeb#/
The BBC might control the airwaves but we control the streets. Lets stick it to them.
Getting on with the day job rather than obsessing with Indy Ref2 being discussed on BBC Radio Scotland Morning Call at 9 a.m.
Call Kaye 0500 92 95 00. Text 80295.
Email morningcallscotland@bbc.co.uk
Call Kaye will be on Nicolas speech yesterday, focus on Indy2 prospects. “Should she be getting on with her day job instead” asks Kaye.
This will turn out to be another case of EBC propaganda, we all know how it works. I will listen to hear just how bad they gets, and will note the outnumbered Yes callers, versus the howling anti SNP chosen ones.
The EBC IS the enemy of Scotland, there is no doubt about that.
CallKaye is the Daily Mail of radio.
Double Jackson Carlaw on shortbread this morning with two sound bites to spoil my dovering and a promise of an SNP Spokesperson to come after 08:OOhrs. Must have been in the shower by that time. 🙁
Funny that… it used to be SNP first up and the opposition got in later, maybe Aunties changed tactics.
Australia has told WM that it’ll be over two years to sort out a trading deal and only after Brexit goes through. Oh and the European single market is Australia’s main priority and must come first.
Eating my porridge with relish this morning in anticipation of tuning in on the Scottish Affairs Committee today in Westminster:
Brexit and how it will affect Scotland
Cactus:
Try “Homeless” by Ladysmith Black Mambazo!
Beautiful
Peace,Love and Ladysmith
Don’t listen to the BBC. That is supporting the nonsense. No listeners – no programme.. Stop scratching the sore. It is just keeps festering. Just annoying.
Nana:
I was late finishing my paper round this morning.
Good morning,
Reading your Links
Peace,Love and The evening Citizen
Day job?!?!
So they missed the first twenty five minutes of a twentynine minute speech on the upcoming programme for government then?
They’re not very observant or attentive are they?
Mr thms @8.04.
That was a great link. Looks like one that could be photocopied and left around as some are inclined to do. 🙂 Every time someone says there’s no oil left I’ll refer them to this.
http://oilandgasuk.co.uk/knowledgecentre/economic-contribution.cfm
( copied and pasted..not sure if it’ll work)
Oh well, we have McTernan on EBC, who would have thought it.
FFS people, listen to the pish coming from your radio right now…’Off the table…on with the day job…’
That’s today’s message – watch how it seeps into discourse and will pop-up in everyday conversation. Insidious cynical filth. Help stop it.
Please get Proud Cybernat’s appeal sorted so he can stop worrying about it and get the stickers out there asap. (If this was a WOS appeal it would be raised in five minutes flat.)
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/peep-the-beeb#/
Sent text to yon number for call Kaye.
Will be interesting if they read it out and what they say..
Nicola Sturgeon is getting on with the day job. She is implementing improvements to public services. Any government suffers some setbacks on these.
She is also standing up for the settled will of the people of Scotland to remain in the EU. Nobody in the UK has the authority to countermand that.
Meindevon says:
Mr thms @8.04.
“That was a great link.”
To quote …
“The industry paid £2.2 billion in production tax in 2014/15”
…. Scotland’s share was £1.8 according to last years’s GERS.
As the Rev pointed out the other day, this is much less than Norway receives from oil and gas.
It would seem that the first thing an iScottish government should do it copy Norway’s handling of its oil!
Thanks to the phenomenal energy of the YES movement and having a majority of independence MPs and MSPs who seem to be quite competent at their day jobs,we in Scotland, are now seeing the wood and the trees.
An educational campaign that hasn’t stopped is now re-energised and has enabled us to understand the nuance of economic arguments for Scotland’s independence but more than that,it is deliberative democracy that is winning.
Scotland is now thinking and talking as an autonomous country and that’s the most important step towards independence.Are we really going to march in support of UKOK and it’s one nation imperialism that has given us the kind of society that can only function if it excludes the majority?
UKOK is a sham, decades of deceitful proclamations about Scotland’s relevance in the world are now falling on deaf ears- Its all being lost in translation and Scotland hears something quite different.
Training Day says:
“Aye, Lochside. I heard Channel 4 and its reference to Scotland and ‘its ailing economy’. Quite precisely scripted, quite calculated, quite deliberate.”
And what was even more depressing was a Keiser Report I saw when visiting a neighbour last week which focused on Scotland’s £15 billion black hole caused by the fall in the price of oil. When two of the sharpest economic minds (he and Stacy Herbert) parp out this stuff, you can only shake your head in disbelief.
When I used to watch it, I found C4 news little better than the other channels. Behind the avuncular and usually fair Jon Snow you had the usual anti-SG attack dogs like Gary Gibbon, KG-M and she of the strange hair, Cathy Newman.
If we have an supposedly ailing economy with a £15 billion deficit, what does it say about how the UK economy is run with a debt of £1.6 trillion? That’s something that needs to be said again and again.
@ian brotherhood. Thanks for the link. My blood pressure was rising listening to that radio programme so I had to do something constructive – £20 sent to the proud cybernat BBC campaign.
On the issue of the eternal arguments over the “too poor” label I think the best way forward is to keep it simple on such radio shows – and just to say that Scotland wouldn’t be like Greece without the sun – it would be like Norway but with the whisky. Nobody could argue with that – and puts the focus back on mismanagement, exploitation and lies of successive Westminster govts to keep us down. We are a resource wealthy country. Some sad unionists can’t comprehend that their lords and masters could lie to them.
EBC CALL KAY AKA WE HATE NICOLA! And Scotland. A disgrace of a broadcasting propaganda unit stuffed with anti Scottish wannabes selected and promoted by Londinium gangsters. The copper coin and fear is their only common denominator. Spineless unthinking morons and that is their positive attributes. IMO
Call Kaye is truly amazing. Somebody even mentioned the Darien scheme that led to the Union in the first place. It reminded me that some things never change.
Following the Union which cost the English money to pay off the Scottish nobles to establish the Union, England was in no financial position to carry on as normal.
The solution——raise taxes in Scotland. In effect, the Scottish people paid for a measure they utterly opposed. ; The Union, and their own servitude. It has continued to this day with the Scottish people paying to keep Merry old England afloat.
Such has become our lot in life.
The ‘deficit’ is caused by Westminster mismanagement. Destroying the Oil sector. Taxing it at 60/80% when the price had fallen 75%. Total incompetence by Osbourne. Losing £4Billion+ a year (£20Billion). Scotland can’t put a tax on ‘loss leading’ drink £1Billion, Scotland pays nearly £4Billion on money it doesn’t borrow or spend, tax evasion £3Billion, Trident £1Billion = £13Billion.
Far from an ailing economy Scotland raises more in taxes (pro rata) than the rest of the UK. The rest of the UK raises £461Billion (pro rata) £42Billion. It borrows £75Billion + £20Billion blackhole – £95Billion nearly 25%. Scotland can’t borrow so can’t borrow a comparable £13Billion for what is needed. A double rammy. Westminster rule costs Scotland £26Billion a year.
Scotland raises £54Billion. It would gave been £4Billion more with the Oil revenues. Spends £56Billion. The rest of the UK raises pro rata £42Billion borrows and spends over 25% more £13Billion – £55Billion.
Colin Rippey says:
@Breastplate
@heedtracker
Should Scotland be an independent country?
I seem to recall we asked this question not that long ago and the people of Scotland (yes, the people of Scotland) voted 55.3% No to that question.
What does Colin Rippey say yes or no???
The FM is absolutely correct to focus on the “wider perspective” as well as the ” day job” . The severe and in all probability critical future implications for both the Scottish and interlinked UK economies post Brexit could well entail rapidly diminishing funding for required ” day job” expenditure. The propagandists have already duped the population into believing that ” Brexit has already happened” and ” everything is rosy in the garden”. Hopefully the Holyrood government can eventually ” get the message across” to the Scottish electorate of the absolute necessity of Independence and the retention of access to the single market as the preferential option for Scotland.
Oh these heady “post truth days”.
MSM/BBC etc. don’t care if what is churned out is untrue, ambiguous or just denial by omission.
These are the points which will be played on a loop and repeatedly printed in headlines from now until May 2017 in the hope it is absorbed into the public’s conciousness and reflected at the local elections.
They will repeat verbatim that there is “No appetite for second ‘divisive, argument of the past’ IndyRef2 when the SNP should be concentrating on the day job.
There will be no accurate opinion poll to demonstrate this ‘lack of appetite’.
They will state that the Police, Fire, SNHS, Education, Infrastructure failing while poverty and inequality are rising all under 10 years of SNP governance.
There will be no mention of Westminster’s austerity agenda removing Billions via Barnet consequential reductions.
There will be no comparison with Police, Fire, NHS, Education, failing Infrastructure, poverty or inequality in rUK.
Councils like Aberdeen City and Glasgow require this narrative to be pushed hard (don’t blame us it is all the fault of the SNP at Holyrood) if they are to hold on to their places at the trough by their fingernails.
The MSM/BBC/C4, the dead tree press and the likes of UKOKaye will be only too happy to oblige in pushing this narrative.
Scotland not being treated equally within the Union as per Union settlement. Westminster breaking the Law again.
Call Kaye:….I tried to get on…but was told I ‘probably wouldn’t… and didn’t ….but I haven’t for a long time due to disagreeing with Kaye before. Then I had to wait through half an hour of McTernan’s ‘logic’ of how can Scotland survive on a £15 billion ‘debt’ yet apparently UK can on £1.6 TRILLION? A lone individual struggled to make himself heard through Kaye’s usual interruptions, making the UK debt point, to silence, but to no avail.
Then we had the usual suspects: two women who thought ‘Sturgeon’ ‘did well’ on the day of Brexit, but predictably fucked it all up apparently by sticking to the task of holding the useless Westminster ‘GOV’ to account! But the scum on the top of a barrel of propaganda shite masquerading as a talk show, was the Orangeman from N.I. ffs braying about Scotland not keeping its ‘head above water’ oil running out…Darien scheme bankrupting us etc. etc. they stopped him short before he went on to say how the Queen would be bereft of a purr if we ‘separated’.
By now incandescent with rage….I realised yet again…not for the first time…that we are experienceing a cold, calculated and brutal assault on the senses of all in Scotland to normalise the following derogatory narrative: one of SNP monomania about Independence led by ‘Sturgeon’, who is gradually being traduced and reduced sufficently to an absent and culpable leader figure bent on Indy , an idea that has passed its sell by date, and which as a possibility is an absurd distraction, after all the oil has run out, we are poor and need England’s broad shoulders, its powerful ‘can do’ attitude, combined with the racist meme of all foreigners are inferior, dangerous and we can do better together.
All the UKIP poison; the 17 newspapers; the media’s portrayal of SLAB, Tories and LibDems as viable and legitimate political opposition..when plain commonsense tells you they are a bottom of the bill, end of the pier, a punch and judy act with about as much conviction and political principal.
But it worked last time. And if…and it is a big if…those people lining up on Call Kaye and subsequent BBC shows are actual people..voters…then we have a real fight on our hands. These people are angry…angry in a cognitive dissonant way….they hate, in an unconscious way, that their contradictory beliefs are being challenged..not just by YES, but by events that are proving their deepest beliefs to be so wrong. The fight has started..it’s going to be bloodier and dirty than ever before.. the BBC have posted notice that we don’t matter and we must challenge them.
But how?…no more pussyfooting and sotto voce…stickers, posters, yes. But mass action: demos outside BBC, letter writing to our MPs and MSPs and a mass petition by ourselves, not any commercial outfit. We must break through the white noise of lies being visited hour by hour by the BBC. Finally: Ponsonby’s film about the BBC’s corrupt coverage of the REF. must receive maximum coverage amongst don’t knows…the seed must be planted in their minds most of all…or we are lost.
The Yoons don’t even realise the thing they should be more concerned about is how the “Scottish Media party” have so much influence over them without standing for election
The reporting of the news is completely a thing of the past and the Scottish Media party can get away with exactly what it wants to now and even dim Yoons should get that
They’ll be reporting the weakness in our space defences and shortage of Alien deterrents again before the end of the day
None of them ever ask themselves the question honestly that if Independence is such a doom laden prospect and will lead to Scotlands inevitable bankruptcy why is Nicola Sturgeon
so desperately keen to make herself and her party unemployed for ever
Even the Yoons admit the FM is clever so why on earth is she being so stupid
And the answer folks is…We don’t care we’re just Yoons and that’s it, UK forever and we’ll all die to keep it going whatever the outcome because we can always blame somebody else for their decisions but if we actally make a decision ourselves we’ve got nobody to blame
Gutless cowards and sectarian bigots and always have been
Evidence means nothing to them
Facts mean nothing to them You might as well give a seat to the Orange Order in Holyrood next to Ruthie
Turn off the radio and punch yourself in the face it’s less painfull
@Lochside –
Good on ye for even trying. You must have a lot more patience than most.
Must’ve heard you on before…and come to think of it, whatever happened to ‘Morag’ who used to call-in quite regularly and was brilliant? Was she perhaps just that wee bit too erudite?
Robert Peffers says:
7 September, 2016 at 7:36 am
@heedtracker says: 7 Septemeber, 2016 at 12:10 am:
If they invent a machine that zaps your brain into rule Britannia tory boy, red or blue zealotry, like BBC gimps of Pacific Quay or Kevrage, or Dunc, or Dr Scott Thinks, or Severin and Libby McSpanner, I’d be tempted, just to be able to switch on the car radio and not want to pull it out and throw it out the window, as toryboy Nic Robinson wheezes rule toryboy Britannia BBC r4 style over their airwaves.
Tis all relative. Here in Aberdeen, a mad gurning tory fuckwit like Wullie Young’s busily destroying a once beautiful city centre, with just one more SLab white elephant monstrosity, £100+ million and counting, only Wullie and they yoons want it, and ofcourse neo fascist Voice of The North Press and Journal.
Then just finished coffee time read of coverage of the now widespread sex slavery in the now destroyed middle east , girls and women, sold en mass, just to eat, as the great toryboys of Westminster, like that creep Gove yesterday or Crash Gordon and Bomber Blair rage at Scotland to “stay with us,” for safer, securer, faster bettertogether change.
@ Smallaxe dey you get many tips on yer paper round lol. Evening all
There is only one word to describe this mornings KayE propaganda show – disgusting.
It was interesting to see last night’s Tory/Labour Old Pals Act with Sarwar and Tomkins.
We are going to be deluged with this ‘Day Job’ nonsense continuously ad infinitum.
If they think that Scotland doesn’t want another Referendum why do Fat Bob, The Dug and Wee Wullie keep going on about it. All that demonstrates is the fact that they are absolutely terrified of the result should REF2 materialise as they know damn well what the result will be this time.
Lochside 10.36
But how?…no more pussyfooting and sotto voce…stickers, posters, yes. But mass action: demos outside BBC, letter writing to our MPs and MSPs and a mass petition by ourselves, not any commercial outfit. We must break through the white noise of lies being visited hour by hour by the BBC.
Public presence in numbers that can’t be swept under the carpet is what is needed – and often. I was on the recent ‘All Under One Banner’ march in Glasgow, and it was both impressive and pathetic. Yes, it made a stirring spectacle and stopped some traffic briefly on a Glasgow Saturday morning – but beside the marches in Catalonia and even the football crowds later that afternoon it looked frankly pathetic.
The YES movement needs massive presence at a series of well-organised and marshalled national events. Everyone needs to get off their asses and take to the streets at least once a month, not in their thousands but in their tens of thousands. The SNP has 125,000 members. If even just a tenth of them (still accompanied by the usual madcap array of Bikers for Yes, flaming bagpipers and the radical Left) turned up for the next Indy rally it would change public perceptions.
So – maybe we should be going to our local SNP branch meetings and getting this message across? We need the numbers on the streets, regularly – I really believe this will do more than anything else to change public perceptions in this country.
. . . and as a postscript to the above, maybe if we can’t be bothered getting off our collective ass then we don’t deserve our independence.
And remember – the IndyApp fundraiser is still short of £3,900 with just 21 hours to go. This app could take social networking to the next level and make the organisation of both well-planned and spontaneous (eg flashmob) events SO MUCH EASIER this time around.
The ‘Indy App’ is a networking tool that will allow all the autonomous grass-root groups around Scotland to work together and share resources, experience and campaigning ideas. It will allow mentoring and mutual support among pro-indy activists, encourage new groups to form and dormant groups to reform. It has been designed to encourage activist participation through increased membership of each of the local groups that make up the backbone of our grass-root Yes movement.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-nyr-indy-app-appeal–2#/
O/T
Cactus & Chick McGregor et al
Can’t link But try YouTube
Marmalade,Cousin Norman (Dean Ford and not the Gaylords)
this is an invitation to Paula Rose’s little home on O/T
CCR:Bad Moon Rising,(rising for the “Union” 🙂
And,LBNLeast my late great friend Frankie Miller,we used to drink in the Ashfield Club most Sundays.”A Bottle of Whisky”
Lay Peacefully Frankie my friend.
Peace,Love and Music
Here’s the thing about establishment politicians and their media.
They haven’t earned the right to be listened to in a long time.
When they stop lying to the public or manipulating them for personal and electoral gain, they’ll get a hearing. When they hold up their hands and own responsibility for their failures, instead of scapgoating and alienating the public they’ll get a hearing. When they stop deliberately fomenting needless division and hatred among their own population for short term political gain, they’ll get a hearing.
When their politicians deliver on their pledges made to the Scottish electorate they’ll get a hearing. In short, when they stop deliberately visiting harm upon their own electorate is the benchmark.
But a hearing is all they’ll have earned.
Until that time, they have nothing to say I want to hear.
@Ian Brotherhood…..aye Ian, the last time was a couple of years ago..but I ranted a wee bit. ‘Morag’from Dundee and ‘George’ of Inverurie were the calm and , as you said erudite, contributors, that I failed to emulate. Unfortunately, even Morag has stopped phoning or being allowed on. Although, I have heard her a couple of times on the Jeremy Vine (puke) show..he likes her apparently….a Scotch oddity no doubt, to add a piquancy to his ‘show’.
George however, remains resolute and popped up the other day…effective but outnumbered as ever.
@galamcennalath
Big Oil is making billions out of our oil through obscenely generous contracts with UK Gov,
Big Oil does not want these contracts cancelled,which could/would happen if Scotland took control of our own assets,
Big Oil has destroyed countries just to manipulate profit,
usually through the promotion of a civil war in the country,
don`t know how far they will go to protect their thieving our oil.
Lochside, ScotsRenewables and others.
There was an idea mooted on Wings some time ago regarding billboard posters.
Anyone know if that’s still a possibility?
Massive, snappy, informative “Are you Yes yet?” style posters to debunk the lies, half truths and denials by omission in prominent positions could work.
Think of it as the opposite of the Dead Tree Press Headlines you see every day (i.e. not full of shit).
@ ronnie anderson:
Not for me ronnie,the idea is,I stand in my local Newsagents,
and Tip off the customers,Dont Buy That Lying rag.
Peace,Love and Tips 🙂
Is Fany May getting on with the day job. No she fucking isint. She’s running around like a headless chicken trying make the uk independent.
What is the deficit of other similar sized country’s to Scotland
Just noticed that “Former British PM Tony Blair’s name appears in corruption case targeting former Romanian PM”.
Aye, but Labour’s the party of the working man don’t you know.
And the Blairite’s still don’t understand why they are not trusted and unelectable in Scotland.
Robert Peffers:
I replied to your kind epistle to myself on “Junkies,Tramps and
Thieves”
Please see.
Smallaxe says:
3 September, 2016 at 2:11 pm
Robert Peffers:
Peace,Love and History Lessons.:-)
The Second Brexit Vote
Here’s our man trying to get a motion accepted at Westminster’s House of Gothic Horrors on a Second Referendum for Brexit.
You need only give it a few minutes to witness the slew of interruptions and jeering from colonial minds stopping him from getting heard, let alone discussing Scotland’s angle.
http://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/cb2f33f6-f9fe-463e-a6d5-40eca4b614c0
This is brilliantly done …
https://mobile.twitter.com/rosscolquhoun/status/773195414656913408/video/1
…. The Yoons are terrified of IndyRef2. And so they should be!
call me dave said at 8:32 pm last night:-
“The watchdog for university access has given the green light to universities to increase tuition fees in England to £9,250.
https://archive.is/lFT45 ”
Another interesting fact— NHS Dental Fees England are higher than in Scotland.
Root Canal treatment anyone?
Dental England:-
£53.90
http://tinyurl.com/mpbxrk5
Dental Scotland:-
£39.56
http://tinyurl.com/hfc264j
Jockanese Wind Talker says:
Jockanese Wind Talker
7 September, 2016 at 11:13 am
Lochside, ScotsRenewables and others.
There was an idea mooted on Wings some time ago regarding billboard posters.
Anyone know if that’s still a possibility?
Agree 100% – billboards are a great idea as a way to oppose the lying headlines. High profile, every day in every city.
Kaye Adams, propagandist, with a Masters in Economics and Politics is not a daft wee wummin or is she? Seems she’ll stop at nothing to get Nicola Sturgeon out and Kezia Dugdale in to do the ”day job”.
Kezia who continues to say ”we are the Party representing the majority of people in Scotland who want to stay in the UK and the EU”. If she can do that she should be applying for Obama’s job.
A little taster of Scot Kaye Adams’s brainwashing techniques. Shameful.
http://ponsonbypost.com/index.php/news/71-bbc-scotland-question-time-and-kaye-adams
@ Jockanese Wind Talker
I proposed billboards/posters a couple of months back ,but on a more personal level to entice the BBC to take court action against myself ie
I dont pay a TV Licence Fee to be told Lies by the British Broadcast Corperation.
Ur you ready tae take me tae Court BBC.
ronnie anderson.
or something to that effect & hopefully the BBC would challenge me , on the other side of the coin ,if they did’nt the Billboard message stays up & more People start to question why they are paying a TV Licence.
Fucked if they Do Fucked if they Dont.
I believe that a high profile campaign to point out the propaganda and the lies in BBC/MSM could open the eyes of folk less informed than those here.
As pointed out previously once you’ve seen the truth it is impossible to unsee it.
This in theory should also increase numbers at Indy marches and rallies.
Either that or a high profile individual spearheading a “Don’t Pay the Propaganda Tax” campaign as per Tommy Sheridan and the Poll Tax.
That would have to get attention and in turn make folk question the MSM/BBC output.
Ahh,a trip down ‘memory lane’ on the Rev’s twitter account,old photo’s of Glasgow,pretty grim,wingers of a certain age can remember them,hard times….but at that time there was hope,always the expectancy that things would get better and they did….for a while.
So what happened ?
Pretty simple,elected politicians mostly Labour changed,they went on ‘the make’,on ‘the take’ they went from peace loving,equality seeking,socialists,to war mongerers,only interested in themselves and their bank balance,in short they were corrupted.
Where are we now ?
We have the children/grandchildren of these same people,now defending them….(so,so misguided)…in their,let’s be polite,naivety and despite their heart rendering pleas,their wailing’s,for their long lost,corrupted party,the truth is,they are simply defenders of the indefensible….the tory’s and the UKOK super wealthy,all via the MSM/BBC.
Unless Scotland becomes Independant,the sickening inequality we see today,will not only remain,but will get worse,any defenders of the super wealthy and who continue to peddle their lies have moved,in my opinion,to a position of beneath contempt,they bring shame,not on themselves, but on the genuine honest people,that brought us such hope back then,before the wide scaled corruption took hold.
In this day and age,when the information is all there,right in front of them,when the truth is,shining right at them,in their faces,there is no excuse,if they continue to ignore it,to be blinded,continue to blame Scotland’s people,the voters,they could be lost,to the tory’s forever,but rather luckily for them,they have right now, another,unexpected opportunity to reconsiders their postion and to change their mind.
I advise them to look again,at these old pictures,except not in terms of the past,but in terms of the future…this could be our future,it is a bleak landscape,that I have no desire to revisit it,neither do I want any of my children or grandchildren to experience the harsh reality of it.
In the Yes movement and in WoS,there is still hope,there is still a steely determination,to raise the expectation levels again,to defend Scotland’s people,to defend democracy,to defend truth and to fight for social equality.
It is not too late for others,I hold out my hand,it is the hand of friendship and hope it will be accepted in the spirit,that it is offered,welcome back,welcome to Scotland.
#nottoolate
@ ScotsRenewables says:
7 September, 2016 at 12:40 pm
Jockanese Wind Talker says:
7 September, 2016 at 11:13 am
Lochside, ScotsRenewables and others.
There was an idea mooted on Wings some time ago regarding billboard posters.
Anyone know if that’s still a possibility?
Agree 100% – billboards are a great idea as a way to oppose the lying headlines. High profile, every day in every city.
……………………………………………..
I’m all for this too. We could go round and round the garden on here talking to each other (or ourselves). We know who the enemy is: the name of their game. We know that no television channel or newspaper (read by the brainwashed) is going to have a brain storm and start telling the truth.
It’s basically down to US.
We have to start posting flyers through letter boxes or take to the streets with banners, placards and billboards to combat the lies.
We should get together and list a number of key issues that we want to ‘clarify’, work on / refine the format (ensure it’s 100% correct and legal) and get them printed off as placards / banners or pasted onto billboards.
Compare Scottish figures with English .. GERS, NHS, education etc.
How many newspapers are owned / controlled by the Scots; McCrone; stolen seas; depopulation and so on.
I wonder if this is something that Stu would be interested in?
……………………………
Terry said earlier (at 9:58 am) …. ”just to say that Scotland wouldn’t be like Greece without the sun – it would be like Norway but with the whisky.”…
As an example you could have a billboard / placard stating
”Don’t listen to media lies.
Scotland wouldn’t be poor like Greece without the sun.
With Independence it could be RICH like Norway with whisky.
Check out Youtube Cameron-Brexit on Marr Show June 2016 … 14 minutes in.”
……………………………
Or ”The Unionists (or media) are lying to you. An Independent Scotland could be as rich as Norway.
Check out Youtube Cameron-Brexit on Marr Show June 2016 … 14 minutes in.”
………………………………..
”Westminster has stolen 6000 sq mls of Scottish seas and 7 oil wells.
Check out Stolen Seas on Youtube.”
……………………………………………..
Scotland could have been one of the richest countries in the World. Facts suppressed by Westminster.
Check out McCrone Report on Youtube.
……………………………………………..
Meanwhile please support causes such as Proud Cybernats:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/peep-the-beeb#/
And: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-nyr-indy-app-appeal–2#/
@ Chic McGregor says at 1:27 am …. ”This, along with so many things Scottish has been written out of history. Indeed another Marmalade mega hit which became an anthem of Vietnam vets was also confined to that special dustbin of history reserved for all things Scottish until it was resurrected by the internet.”
Thanks for posting the Marmalade videos Chic. What a group! And yeah just another example of the Scots being ‘written off’. Seems that we’re always appreciated further afield. Hope you don’t mind me posting one of the Vietnam vet versions. You can clearly see how they ‘adopted’ this Scottish song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOtab0BKOGY
@ Angus Gother says at 7:38 am … ” It can be argued that it is the settled will of the sovereign people of Scotland that Scotland will Remain in the EU. Nobody in the UK has the authority to countermand this. Especially as the UK parliament neglected to ensure that the EU referendum really was advisory by putting in a clause to that effect …..
Really good informative posts Angus. Could you elaborate on this a bit more? Are you saying that Nicola Sturgeon would have to set a date before Article 50 is triggered or that Scotland would have to be Independent before A50 was triggered? If it’s the latter we don’t have a great deal of time. Ha, ha. Mmmhh!
”The second option, due to the Vienna Convention on the Operation of Treaties, can only work if Article 50 has NOT been invoked when the decision is taken for Scotland to be independent.”
@ Angus Gotherer and Robert Peffers
If EU Ref wasn’t advisory
If will of Scots people is Sovereign
and if WM can’t over rule Acts etc. of SG
Then all SG has to do is ratify Scotland’s 62% remain vote in EU Ref via Act or Bill (this would easily pass).
Surely legally that’s that we’re not leaving the EU and WM can’t do anything about it.
Too simple??
Back in.
Hey@Chic McGregor ~
Cheers for them Marmalade videos. I’ve seen/heard ‘Reflections’ before, but had never checked out ‘I See the Rain.’ See what you mean about the double bass guitars, excellent deep sound.
Also, credit for the creedence goes firstly to @call me dave yesterday early afternoon 🙂
Hey@Smallaxe
You betcha, I’ve seen and been ‘Homeless’ before. I had the pleasure to see Joseph and the guys performing live at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall, together with their Ladies Ladysmith Black Mambazo. They guys know their peace.
Yebo!
There has been much talk lately in these commemts of getting the message over by means of Billboards and Bus Advertising.
That’s all well and good but is expensive. I acknowledge that with more than 120k Members The SNP is not exactly short of money but surely we should concentrate on getting the maximum value for money when selecting the various avenues available for campaigning.
I agree with the proposals for stickers and beer mats. Mention has been made of the mess stickers can make and the difficulty of removing them but it is possible to get stickers with an adhesive which is not permanent and allows removal without leaving any residue.
However, with > 120k members surely the most economic and easy way to get the message over is by means of street stalls.
With that number of members it should be possible to arrange for street stalls to be set up at weekends in all the main high footfall shopping areas throughout Scotland.
The stalls could be stocked with badges, stickers, flags, balloons and all the other SNP/Independence materials which are normally distributed for free – these would attract kids who would drag their parents to the stalls.
Copies of the WBBs both Blue and Black and printouts of selected Wings articles could also be made available.
Additionally the stalls could stock SNP/Independence items for sale.
Membership Application Forms should also be made available.
This method of distribution of materials would be far more cost effective than blanket shoving of stuff through letterboxes as most people just bin unsolicited stuff.
It is essential that those manning the stalls should not approach and annoy people aggressively but should adopt a relatively passive but friendly and cooperative attitude.
@ gus1940 says at 6:05 pm …. ”with > 120k members surely the most economic and easy way to get the message over is by means of street stalls.”
Yeah really good idea Gus. Great so see so many people making an effort to do something about combating the propaganda machine and in your case making it family friendly / fun. This would also hopefully dispel the myth that we’re a bunch of nasty cranks.
gus 1940 we are the best at this – the very best.
@ gus1940 (6:05pm)
I have a similar idea as yours but it’s not connected in anyway to the SNP nor should it be. It would be completely WOS orientated and driven, giving us much more freedom to operate and promote WOS and the idea of Scottish independence at the same time.
A Wings Over Scotland roadshow travelling around the country to different towns and cities raising awareness and recruiting.
We could have whatever suits each venue such as stall(s), activities, music, whatever.
These swally rally’s are all very well and they serve a purpose perfectly but instead of expecting folk to make arrangements and travel from all over the country why don’t we get organised and take the show to them?
Just another idea which has been reverberating around my cranial cavity for a wee while.
Aweright Stoker ~
We could crowdfund a tour, come mobile roadshow..
Yip, that’s the very idea Cactus. Take the show to the people and promote Indy and WOS awareness. Even if we just focused our first roadshow on our cities then we could look at a town tour for the next one. Hope you’re well!