Here comes a surprise
No voters, Leave voters and Labour/Tory voters are more racist than Yes, Remain, Lib Dem and SNP voters. Who could ever have guessed?
The former groups all agreed that there was a problem with too much immigration in Scotland. The latter groups all disagreed. It’s that stark, folks.
Perhaps the only arguably-unexpected finding was that Labour voters were a lot more hostile to foreigners than Tory ones, recording an anti-immigrant margin of 31 points – more than 2:1 – compared to Tory voters’ somewhat more internationalist 17 points.
(Lib Dems scored minus 4 for racism, and SNP voters minus 8.)
It’s a real mystery.
Women were also significantly more xenophobic than men (opposing immigration by 14 points compared to just 3 among males), older people were much more racist than the young (plus 20 against minus 14), and working-class respondents by an even more dramatic margin of plus 30 compared to minus 18 among the better-off.
Scotland has one of the lowest immigrant population shares in the First World, at just under 7% (roughly half the level in England), and by near-unanimous expert agreement it desperately needs MORE immigration in order to sustain its ageing population. Anybody thinking of posting a comment saying “It’s not racist to think there are too many immigrants in Scotland!”, just ban yourselves now and save us the time.
Sadly it goes to show the influence the likes of the disgusting Express, Mail and Telegraph have in Scotland, even amongst those who don’t read the rags. Not to mention the BBC. I said DON’T Mention the BBC.
Try telling these people we need more young immigrants paying taxes here or in years to come there won’t be enough people in Scotland to pay their pensions.
They look at you with disbelief – and then comes the ‘Aye, well, I’m no racist but…’
I blame the Daily Mail for the higher proportion of women against migrants, I know a heck of a lot of women whose paper of choice is the DM. Reasons given are less sport, not so macho, less politics and more women writers.The cereal eating woman ad had a grain of realism in that some folk would rather not have to think for themselves. And if that’s where they’re getting their news from it will be a hard slog to win them over.
The yoons seem to be apoplectic with rage today on all platforms of social media. Extra bulging eyes and purple faces. What’s happened? Got their arses felt on question time perhaps?
No ,I am not the least bit surprised. We had an enormous poll at the EU referendum that told us exactly this. That is why many English Labour MP’S are flummoxed as to what to do about it. They eventually decided to come down on the side of Brexit by large numbers.
There were a few of principle, but the Party decided it had to try and survive at the next election.
Tories are aware that immigration is necessary , ( as they hold their nose) for the workforce who work in the fields most of the year as here in Perthshire with the fruit growing ,and for other lower skilled jobs.
I also include students at University
Anyone who believes Scotland is ‘full up’ must never have been out of the cities in the vast, empty expanses we have in many areas.
We are needing to build lots of places up, including many ex-fishing villages in the north and some sparsely populated places in even the south-west.
All this will require lots of workers (this is great news, we could have large parts of a country to build, what could possibly be better than that?). We will have some already but we would need a baby boom and some new Scots from the EU and elsewhere if this country is ever to be all it can be and have the infrastructure it needs everywhere in order to achieve that.
We’re talking ports, roads, rail-line, houses, hospitals etc etc etc.
Are English Welsh and NIrish included asome immigrants? That would be 10% of the population and 70% No’s.
Them plus other immigrants would be 17%. Which is quite high.
I had to laugh when Ed “Wrong Brother” Miliband made his statement about having to explain to his sons that their relatives would now be foreigners. Apparently the fact that most of their relatives were Polish or Lithuanian Jews didn’t perturb them.
The same occurred with Magrit Gurn, when she said “we don’t want our relatives to be foreigners”, ignoring the fact that her parents and most of her family aren’t British.
Aye, SLabour. “My socialism extends from Glasgow to Glastonbury, Dundee to Dover.”
Aye – so long as they’re no’ furriners.
Fucking hypcrits.
Nice to know I’m I’m good company, not racist and welcoming; that’s the Scotland we wish to build.
Great questions. Ye’re affy clever.
What the SNP do need to do though, is publish a short easy to read statement of their policy on points-based immigration, and what levels of immigration could be expected, e.g. 10,000 or 100,000 per year as apporpriate, and indeed, how we need it to pay for our pensions in the future, and keep industries turning.
What the Unionists do is give the idea that it will be unlimited – well, it won’t, same as any sensible country.
Scotland needs and welcomes working immigrants.
I would say the demographic who say we have too many read the same kind of daily newspaper.
Maybe to simplistic an answer but they do seem unable to consider Scotland as a country with its own needs.
“Them plus other immigrants would be 17%”
Considering people from the rest of the UK as “immigrants” to Scotland, which is also part of the UK, makes as much sense as considering people from Edinburgh who live in Glasgow as immigrants.
Immigration last year to UK ,over 335,000 primarily from the EU. The Syrians and others trapped in Europe cannot get to the UK which is not part of Schengen.
Of the 80 odd thousand from outside the EU,who were allowed immigration status, two thirds went to London and that Metropolitan area, leaving only 20,000 throughout the rest of the UK.
The EU citizens who made up the bulk are from friendly states and have citizenship within those states. They are not refugees and asylum seekers.
This has been a fear campaign unrivalled since Hitler time and stirred up by the Right Wing media.
“Net migration reached a record high of 336,000 …”
And what is that supposed to mean? What is an immigrant?
Politicians and the media have gone to great lengths to make the answers to those questions very unclear.
Illegal immigrants? For sure they are actually immigrants, but how do they get counted?
Non EU students getting a study visa, coming the the UK, spending money, paying fees – are they immigrants? Seems they are and WM narrowmindedly cuts their numbers.
EU citizens exercising their rights to live and work anywhere in the EU. Are they immigrants? They are probably counted in the above net flow. They shouldn’t be.
Genuine asylum seekers? Can anyone be serious about failing to help poor unfortunates probably suffering directly or indirectly from UK foreign policy? Well, yes. The Tories have ruthlessly turned even children away.
People whose skills can’t be found in the EU, so they come from across the world to fill essential roles. The NHS, for one, relies on them. Immigrants? Yes, for sure.
Politicians and media lump them all together and talk as if migration in its entirety is a bad think. Fakenewspapers in particular spread, what else but fake news about immigrants and migration. Politicians see easy gains by going along with all the crap. Where are the good news stories about the great things immigrants have brought?
I’m an oiler. I go to pubs a lot. Almost every boozer in Scotland has a paper rack which invariably stocks an Express, Mail and Record for the punters to enjoy. And they love it, especially the dumber ones; for a lot of them it’s their only source of ‘news’. We need a free National supplied to every pub for a month, to try and stop being drowned out by Yoonery?
In iScotland, people moving from the rUK to Scotland WILL be immigrants, and the more the merrier – a theme I’m delighted to see going global on ‘tinernet these days from Indy supporters. There’s a whole load want to move from England after Indy to get away from the toxic far-right policies and EU-phobia.
In certain areas, concerns over the level of immigration over a relatively short period of time are understandable. And legitimate.
This doesn’t equate with either racism, or xenophobia, as a matter of course.
Fear of change is understandable, given that change can have negative, as well as positive outcomes. Supply and demand.
For example,
Is despising metro-sexual hipster yuppies racist, for gentrifying your area and pricing your children out of the local property market?
Could have knocked me down wif a feather, so you could.
It’s remarkable how easily the elite direct the blame for austerity onto vulnerable people. With the assistance of the gutter press.
RE Labour – Older and working class people found immigrants (and women) were used by employers to undercut wages. Keir Hardie’s early Labour posters were anti-immigrant for that reason.
I remember when London houses with rooms to let could put up signs “No Irish, No Blacks.”
Anti – discrimination and minimum wage legislation should prevent that now but, outside the EU, what guarantees are there that these standards will survive?
Happily, younger people seem to have shed much of the racist baggage.
Its the economy stupid. If Scotland had an actual devo-max economy and full independence, there would ofcourse be an increase in immigration here.
One sure way the English have invented of driving down immigration, is flouncing oot the EU and then tanking their economy. Migrants follow the jobs. Its what we do, its in our DNA, just ask the US, Australia etc.
That Mags Curran in a space suit is still genius though.
One of the prevailing myths that we have spread and believed is that people in Scotland are more liberal, more tolerant and more open to outsiders. Not true.
there are many such myths about our country which we like to believe in !
I thought people from Edinburgh living in Glasgow were like those well scrubbed young men from Utah, doing a tour of duty?
One more thing the SNP need to do is correlate immigration for Indy Scotland with retirement age. Within the UK they’re already talking about 75 for heaven’s sake. My kids having to work until they’re 75. I’d say a simple table with years across matching the UK retirement expectations, like say
2020, 2025, 2030, 2035, 2040, 2045, 2050, 2055, 2060
and down the ways like
1). Expected retirement age staying in the UK
2). Independent Scotland with no change in policy
3). Indy Scotland with extra 25,000 per year
4). Indy Scotland with extra 50,000 per year
5). Indy Scotland with extra 100,000 per year.
With an expected figure for average age of “immigrant”.
Better not frighten people off with higher figures – they’ll get the picture.
It’s not racist to think there are too many immigrants in Scotland.
I’m working on the basis that Rev doesn’t read this far down in the comments so I should be safe.
“Scotland has one of the lowest immigrant population shares in the First World, at just under 7% (roughly half the level in England)”
I disagree with that statement.
Its true as regards the movement of people from outside the UK&NI
into Scotland – but it does not capture the total movement of
people into Scotland.
The Census 2011 found that 84 out of 100 residents in Scotland
were born in Scotland – some 16% were born outside.
That compares with a figure of 13% (87 out of 100) for England.
So Scotland has had to accept a large migration of people, and all that it entails, pressure on jobs, resources, or acceptance
of differing ideas of culture, law, and language.
I believe it has done so fairly well – see the lack of UKIP
support, and that although racism exists, foreigner is not a
dirty word as it is elsewhere in the UK.
But it is not true to say Scotland has less immigration.
Westminster illegal wars caused the migration crisis into Europe. Bombing Iraq and Syria. Killing and maiming millions of people. Cause 4 million misplaced people for Syria. Syria had 20 million population. Now16Million. People would have stayed in heir own countries instead of having to leave. It is the other countries in Europe that are having to pay to help out. UK/US caused the migration.
The Tories used the situation to try and take the UK out of Europe so they can tax evade. The majority in the UK want to stay in the EU. The Tories will be voted out. Scotland will vote YES and stay in the EU. Brexit will achieve Independence in Scotland.
Considering people from the rest of the UK as “immigrants” to Scotland, which is also part of the UK, makes as much sense as considering people from Edinburgh who live in Glasgow as immigrants.
If you were comparing immigration into Edinburgh with that into Glasgow then it would make sense.
The UK is part of the EU, with freedom of movement, yet when
we consider immigration to the UK we do not exclude people from
the EU in those numbers.
Take the extreme example of 10 million people in Scotland
and if the extra 5 million or so came from the rest of the UK
you would be claiming there is no immigration ?
Tories realise that the Polish au pairs and plumbers they employ will disappear; Labour voters in the Tory dystopia are glad of the lack of competition…
I personally do not understand the reluctance to guarantee EU citizens here their right to stay.
Are you all aware that under section 19 of the EU Charter it would be illegal for any state to carry out a mass expulsion of citizens in any event. There could be no mass return of UK citizens under EU law. I do not know whether this would apply to the UK POST Brexit.
So core support for British Labour Party in Scotland are Kippers? i.e more racist than tories. Great news to end the week.
Go on, Theresa May & David Mundell! Tell Scotland we can’t have a second independence referendum , with the whole EU and world watching. Go on.
Go on. Go on. Scotland dares you! Please, please… pretty please…
O/T completely but I see the hootsmon is running a story quoting the complete roaster that is Ryannair chief exec Michael O’leary claiming that Scotland is an economic basket case ffs.Someone should ask him why the clunking fisted chancellor let Globespan die?It was around the time of Ryannair “flourishing don’t ya know”.
The truth will out as they say…in the meantime keep her neb oot ya flange!
That is quite a surprise i thought the blue tories would be the worst.
But then when you look at some of the Scottish yoon trolls you can see where this result comes from.
2/3 migrants went to London? London voted to Remain, migrants go where there are jobs. London S/E. Most capital cities in the world are multicultural, with many visitors.
London Universities were granted permission for foreign students to stay for two years after graduation. Imperial, Oxbridge, Bath. Scotland was refused permission even through Scotland has been depopulated by Westminster centralist economic policies.
If the foreign students and asylum seekers (wars) were taken out of the equation. Brits abroad who took citizenship for economic reasons. The figures would tally more considering the illegal wars.
Cult crisis
It is racist to blame all immigrants for causing unemployment, deflating wages, causing problems with the NHS, housing etcetera.
Many of the wealthy elite racists wear wee hats or suits on a Sunday preaching about love, baby Jesus and persecution.
Thankfully many of the local churches do actually practice what is preached and welcome people as people.
As for the cause of austerity, wars and such like you will find many of them called Lords, Lady’s Sirs and Dames and can be found in the City of London and Whitehall.
Check him out…
link to imgur.com
I like the phrase ‘New Scots’.
Might include me one day…
So are Yes voters civic nationalists and No voters national chauvinist, largely?
Ideologies, Racism, Discourse: Debates on Immigration and
Ethnic Issues
link to discourses.org
Postcolonialism and Multiculturalism: Between Race and Ethnicity
link to faculty.arts.ubc.ca
@Bob MACK:
“Are you all aware that under section 19 of the EU Charter it would be illegal for any state to carry out a mass expulsion of citizens in any event. There could be no mass return of UK citizens under EU law. I do not know whether this would apply to the UK POST Brexit.”
Strangely, I missed that one. Thanks.
Mind you, even if the EU could send all of us back to the UK, I can’t think our glorious leader would be happy about a very large number of recently expelled, educated, yet unemployed, cosmopolitan, and above all angry Brits arriving all at once.
@Proud Cybernat
Excellent.
@Proud Cybernat
And just what we need too. That’d make a lot of people think “right enough, same happened to me / partner / parent / kids”. A positive blog with just those would be good, totally visual, something like inclusive or inclusivescotland dot wordpress dot com.
link to imgur.com
The next Indy Ref should make sure that both sides are only funded from within Scotland and we should ensure everyone is aware that the London based papers are just mouth pieces for the London establishment.
All wingers need to start NOW and engage with the pro union newspapers and BBC etc by correcting misleading headlines along the lines of the sensible points made last night on BBC QT.
Eventually some of them will realise that at least 50% of Scots don’t agree with their editorial line.
Another great piece from Iain Macwhirter on how to win Indy Ref2
link to iainmacwhirter.wordpress.com
Yes, this does tend to show what we’re up against. The EURef has awoken an evil thing, and unfortunately for us, not all of it is on the Unionist side. Which the Unionist Dead Sea Scrolls (with the occasional help of the letters page of The National, alas) are only too eager to exploit.
Labour though have clearly got themselves in the worst bind on both sides of the border. As I have said before, it is a sad truth that populism is far easiest for the reactionary right to exploit, and Labour’s feeble attempts to “ride the tiger” (as Stu illustrates) are only rendering them into a tasty snack. After all, who needs the tribute act when you can get the real thing?
This vileness can’t be accommodated or appeased by act of focus group. The issues, both moral and economic, need to be confronted upfront. That’s how you win respect and support. I’m glad that the SNP at least have the principles and the balls to be up for the challenge. But it’s a distraction right now that we could well do without.
The census figure for 1951 was 5,096,415. 60 years later, in 2011, it was 5,295,403. An increase of 4% over 50 years, in a country the size of Scotland, doesn’t concern me.
Just a wee point. Don’t know if anyone else has made it.
When we say Labour voters, we actually mean the rump left after a majority have left.
The demographics and views of typical ‘Labour voters’ in 2017, is not the same as it would have been in say the 2010 WM General Election.
Actually the same could be said for the SNP, although in its case many voters are new arrivals.
@ Rev Stuart Campbell, 4;24pm
Exactly the point I continually make. We’re all immigrants, every last one of us.
And there’s me still thinking we all came from Africa!
@yesindyref2 says: 17 February, 2017 at 4:19 pm:
“What the Unionists do is give the idea that it will be unlimited – well, it won’t, same as any sensible country.”
The fact is that a little common sense will show that the immigrants mainly come to find work. Elderly English cadgers excepted, these who sell up expensive city homes for cheaper, or better, Scottish accommodation, free bus passes and the benefits of such as free prescriptions, care at home and cheaper Council Tax. These are often the ones most prone to call scots subsidy junkies.
However I believe these are a minority and broadly speaking immigration is self regulating. In that if there are no better paid jobs in Scotland to attract the immigrant workers they will go where there are well paid jobs.
They will only come to Scotland if there are jobs to attract them. Which, of course, is why there are greater problems in England than Scotland – Scotland’s average wage is quite a bit lower than England’s. It is also why London has by far the biggest immigration problems – higher wages.
I want to add my tuppence into this…
I work in healthcare – clinical. I am surrounded by amazing Clinicians – many of whom are Consultants and Junior Docs from other areas of the world. They keep our NHS going at the moment. They care, are knowledgeable are hardworking and they like it here in Scotland.
I really hope they – and their families – stay on and become ‘New Scots’ as they are a stars and our NHS are better for having them here.
@ Robert
Aye Robert and it is all their own fault for making the UK unequal.
If i was cynical i might think the reason they want to curb EU movement of people is because they have to pay them a good wage and they come with ready made workers rights protection.
And mean old England want some desperate people they can pay peanuts and treat like dirt like the good old days.
I wonder how long before the racist brexit element figures out all they have done is increase outside EU immigration.
It’s noticeable that their is a higher % in the lower income groups.
Because these people are the most disadvantaged, need someone to blame and read stories about ‘immigrants’ getting all this free stuff etc.
What’s needed is community involvement
The thing is the Yoons/Brexitiers aren’t just anti-Immigration they are anti-Emigration. They are reducing our abilities to leave and live in other countries – 28 of them.
As they say about Trumps wall – it will have anti-climb paint on BOTH sides.
Know your place.
WOS archive links now over on O/T.
In 1707 Scotland had around 20% of the UK population.
Had it been allowed to develop normally, Scotland would now have a population of 12 million.
The Labour figure surprises me. I didn’t think it would be the worst. Scotland does not have a high immigration number, in many towns the immigrant population could fit in a church hall (a wee one). A blind bat in a dark room can see we are light on immigration not overburdened.
O/T anyone get these periodical updates from Fact Check ?
Anyway they used last night’s Q/T as an example of their work , they checked assertions made during the programme on , Scotland’s budget , the education attainment gap, the question of a second referendum .
On the first point Scotland’s budget and if it has been reduced , well f/k thats a difficult one ,if it hasn’t what the f/k have the Tories been doing with their Austerity mantra of cut, cut, cut ,have we Magically been spared almost like the passover ,fly a Saltire and you won’t have your budget cut ,
Education as Nicola Sturgeon said the report that the Tory party seem to love quoting is out of date they are using old data .
On a second referendum here they roll out Prof Curtice, well who else ? that well known SNP supporter and Independence champion .
I have had doubts about the Impartiality of this Fact Check lot before ,the same as these independent think tanks often quoted by the Tory party ,i think this another one to add to the Fake news Gang. Total Pish just like 99.99% of the British media.
Liz
I’m not suggesting you’re wrong….
link to discourses.org
This means personal racist attitude shape shared group ideologies. The generation and reproduction of these attitudes starts at the top. The Establishment political and media elite.
Re Proud Cybernats poster of Pakistani born Doctor, think it would be brilliant to do a poster campaign with same and similar stories. I’ll shout if from the rooftops , I would not be here if it wasn’t for an Iraqi born Surgeon coming in on a Sunday to conduct an emergency operation. his Scots born colleagues decided they were going to do an explanatory op on me to confirm a diagnoses and get Mr A to do the big op on the Monday. He immediately came into Hospital when he heard I was poorly and got a surgical team together and sorted me out in a 7-1/2 hour op.
I barely survived, if the op was held over I would not have made it.
The NHS in particular would be decimated if immigrants were no longer welcome. Didn’t Westminster say they were going to deport all the NHS staff post Brexit. Their living in La La Land?
What the political class and the media have done to society in the UK is unforgivable. The rolling omnishambles of division they’ve created is a runaway narrative. It won’t be stopped at this point, it can only run its course to a very bad conclusion.
The Scottish electorate should have no part in the eventual and inevitable end of that car crash.
Immigration is not the full picture.
You have to look at emigration too.
I’m sure Scotland would be better able to sustain our elderly were we not losing 30,000 young people per year to the likes of London.
A new country with all the opportunities that would bring I believe would instantly curtail this flow and possibly even reverse it.
Thinking like this …
link to archive.is
…. might explain a lot, right across Europe and no doubt Scotland too.
“British respondents put the current Muslim population at 15%, three times the 2010 figure, while they overestimated the projected 2020 population by an even greater margin (22%versus an actual projection of 6%).”
While this particular survey looked at people’s perceptions of how many Moslems there were, I have little doubt the same perceptions would apply to say Poles in the UK.
Talking of people who have made their home here I see that English Scots for Independence got a broadside from Jill Stephenson last night
link to commonspace.scot
She is quite nippy isn’t she it?
I love it when the Rev drip feeds us his poll results!
There is no way immigration adversely affects anybodys life here, quite the opposite in fact.
Try asking somebody why exactly immigration is bad and they wont be able to give a reason. ‘Theyre taking our jobs’ no, theyre taking vacancies. ‘Theyre clogging up the NHS’ no, they are mostly young fit and healthy, and its old fat white Brits who are the majority of patients, and its underfunded. Etc etc.
Prejudice may be latent in everybody (theres alot of psychological research been done on this) but the crucial thing is social norms. If it becomes socially acceptable to express racist views then more people will. The behaviour of the media and press and the Westminster political classes in the last decade has been criminally irresponsible in developing the immigration narrative, probably deliberately to deflect peoples anger away from bankers, austerity, and cuts to services.
The SNP have been fantastic at fighting this extremely dangerous process, but theres a limit to what they can do when the whole media is talking about immigration what seems like ALL of the time.
Its so important that we win independence before the whole UK slides into fascism.
I suspect the rise in xenophobia among women is due to all the stories about Syrian immigrants on a rape rampage in Germany, sex grooming gangs in Rotherham, etc. Women see immigration from cultures where women are second class citizens as a threat to their rights in a way that men probably don’t.
Very interesting to see the results laid out like that, albeit not much that especially surprised me. Having said that
“Women were also significantly more xenophobic than men (opposing immigration by 14 points compared to just 3 among males)”
did surprise me a wee bit.
@Glamaig,
It reminds me of the Stan ford experiment in 1971 where 12 highly educated students played the part of prisoners and 12 as convicts. One played the Governor.
At first it was all fun, but when an authority figure ( the student governor)gave the guards encouragement to be harsh, they duly obliged. So much so the experiment had to be abandoned after 6 days because of the levels of abuse being dished out.
Beatings torture deprivation.
Substitute May, Brexit eers and remainers and immigrants for the above, and you get the picture.
Handandshrimp your post and very good link deserves a wider audience ,a very good representation of Scotland in Union by one of their very own Nutters and to think this person might at one time have been involved in the education system is pretty disturbing how many young minds has she infected is there a Cure for this demented behavour ?.
is there a Cure for this demented behaviour ?
Uni’s are ivory towers but the lucky souls that live in them are no different from everyone else. They’re often managed by very high paid tories too. Uni chancellors and vice chancellors are paid around £300k a year, according to the Times Higher Education pay survey. Even BBC Scotland top dogs only get £200k, plus expenses.
I believe an economic strategy of growing the Scottish population to 7.5M , with commitment and a plan to build the infrastructure and support before the peak numbers arrive, would be enriching for our whole country. It probably would deliver double digit economic growth in itself.
@Glamaig
“The behaviour of the media and press and the Westminster political classes in the last decade has been criminally irresponsible in developing the immigration narrative, probably deliberately to deflect peoples anger away from bankers, austerity, and cuts to services.”
That’s exactly it Glamaig.
Now imagine if the media, press and politicians were doing the exact opposite. Stating welcome, we need you, Uk is a great place to live. Do you think things would be different?
The government elected in the UK controls the media and they set the narrative. The rise of UKIP would not have happened if the media ignored them as trolls. They chose instead to give them much media coverage and the result of that is what we have now.
A f’kin disgrace.
I studied Economic History at Edinburgh, many years ago. Stephenson would have been teaching then but I guess still relatively young and junior. She would have been in a different department but I have no recollection of her. If I ever heard her lecture then she made no impression good or bad and I certainly don’t recall anyone ever saying anything about her. The more rabid or eccentric lecturers had “reputations”. It would seem her bile gland is, as far as one can tell, a largely post retirement phenomenon.
As I turn my eye to my own retirement I rather hope it isn’t mandatory.
“Women were also significantly more xenophobic than men (opposing immigration by 14 points compared to just 3 among males)”
“did surprise me a wee bit.”
Not entirely surprised given that women have been fed the ‘Muslims are coming to rape and kill you’ line for quite a while now.
A vivid example is the screaming headline about alleged mass sexual assaults in Frankfurt (in the German tabloid, Bild), which simply did NOT happen. The German police have arrested several suspects on suspicion of falsely reporting made-up crimes:
“Prosecutors are investigating two people for allegedly fabricating an account of a mass sex attack by Arab migrants in Frankfurt.
Claims that a “sex rioting mob” of around 50 men assaulted a group of women over the new year were reported by German tabloid Bild earlier this month.
The report, which suggested the attackers lived at a refugee shelter in central Hasse, was widely re-circulated by right-wing news sites.
In an article since taken down from its website, Bild interviewed a chef who runs a restaurant in Fressgass, a busy shopping district, as well as a 27-year-old woman.
The chef alleged that dozens of Arab men came into his restaurant in, stole his customers’ jackets and sexually assaulted multiple women.
The 27-year-old female told the paper: “They grabbed me under my skirt, between the legs and on my breast – everywhere.”
Yet, police said on Tuesday they believed the allegations were “completely baseless”. One of the purported victims of the alleged attack was not in Frankfurt at the time of the purported crime, they said.
“Interviews with alleged witnesses, guests and employees led to major doubts with the version of events that had been presented,” police told German daily Frankfurter Rundschau.”
link to independent.co.uk
The Irish Times publishes a “New To The Parish” feature about twice a week. Immigrants to Ireland are interviewed, tell how they came to live in Ireland and discuss their lives since moving to Ireland.
I can’t imagine any UK newspaper publishing a similar feature on a regular basis.
Generally speaking, the Irish press is not obsessed with anti-immigrant nonsense (although sometime the ‘Irish’ editions of the British paper try to push an anti-EU, anti-immigrant agenda) and that’s reflected in the public discourse around immigration.
It also helps that most Irish families have at least one member who is (or has been) an immigrant somewhere in the world.
That’s not to say there’s no anti-immigrant sentiment in Ireland or that a significant part of its population don’t think there’s too much immigration.
But there’s no mass media prepared to whip this sentiment up, no political party encouraging and winning votes from it, and no even vaguely credible figures pushing an xenophobic, isolationist agenda in politics or public life.
I would like to see research on how exposure to anti-immigrant stories in newspapers have affected public opinion about immigration in the UK over the past few decades. I’d be very surprised if there was no correlation between increasing anti-immigrant opinion and increased anti-immigration rhetoric in the press.
Thankfully, Scotland still has enough of its own newspapers to help moderate the anti-immigrant views of the right-wing British tabloids.
Jill Stephenson, magine that livin up yer close?
‘Despite what some tabloid newspaper writers might think, it is generally good news if you live in a place where immigrants keep turning up. Affluent countries that have attracted high numbers of immigrants tend to be socially successful countries. The best countries for immigration are not only welcoming to immigrants but are also worth staying in, in that they have affordable housing and transport, good public education and healthcare, and jobs that are well paid’
link to dannydorling.org
This was written in 2009 but is still relevant today;
‘Looking at lifetime (cohort) measures of migration, we can see that net migration levels in the UK are strongly related to past birthrates. People’s migration behaviour as a group appears to be predictable over the course of their lifetimes. Historically, as people in the UK have fewer children, more migrants come. In the past, when people had more children, emigration was greater than immigration…
The current political debate about migration in the UK is often dominated by voices (such as the cross-party group on balanced migration) expressing concerns that migration levels are too high and that the UK population will grow too large. I have another fear. I am afraid that migrants will not come to England and Wales in the numbers we expect…
This in turn requires economic success – there needs to be work here if migrants are to come. It also necessitates the UK maintaining its good reputation abroad, relative to other affluent countries – being seen as socially tolerant, accepting and a safe place to live and work. Certainly migrants will not come simply because the population is ageing…
People in the UK need to understand the potential negative economic and social consequences of reduced migration levels and a declining population. Too little immigration may yet turn out to be a bigger problem for the UK than recent high levels of migration’
link to theguardian.com
George Lakoff 10 years ago discussing the language frameworks of immigration used for various political purposes. He could not have predicted the Trump/Brexit/UKIP calamities but the anti-immigration rhetoric has long roots and is now the dominant discourse. Devoid of facts and rational debate it is socio-economically toxic, self- defeating. The extreme conservative righteousness that is now mainstream and apparently acceptable in UK politics leads to conflict, fear, aggression, suspicion- and that is not Scotland’s destiny.
link to cognitivepolicyworks.com
Here’s what you do first.
You destroy the Trade Unions, make them weak and ineffective so no chance of another “3 day week” with power cuts due to strikes.
You privatise everything in sight including essentials like electricity and gas, water, housing by selling it off, communications, the post office. Well everything you can without uproar. You let the public buy shares in these new private companies at a discount then they become shareholders with a lousy £300 or £3000 quids worth.
When the share price opens at 25% above what you bought them for then they all sell and the big boys mop up everything at less than it’s worth. Easy Peasy.
Nothing left now except the NHS, so you under fund it, keep writing about how badly it is doing and start to privatise bits at a time, it’s a privatisation by stealth.
The 2012 Health and Social Care Act allowed this to happen, any part of the English NHS can be put out to tender.
You hand over welfare assessments to private companies and their mandate is to get as many people of welfare as possible, “had a heart attack? tough shit your fit for work”. Work or DIE!
This is just a creeping result of what has been happening for the last 40 years, they don’t just want our money, they want our soul.
Journey to Yes #3
link to youtube.com
Excellent. Pass on, wide and far.
It’s not racist to be worried about immigration.
Silly over generalisations like this are exactly why people are put off the independence movement.
Steve is worried about immigration because he doesn’t like dark skinned people and thinks they are inferior, he is a racist and is worried about immigration because of this.
Jill however is worried about high levels of immigration because she doesn’t want higher competition for her skills in the labour market, that is not racist, she may be wrong or she may be right but she is not worried about immigration because she inherently thinks she is of a superior race to an immigrant.
Brian thinks, rightly or wrongly, that his government should first and foremost be protecting the borders of his country, he doesn’t think it is sensible for drastically different cultures to mix, does he think of himself as superior to other people because of his skin colour? No, but he does value his culture and wants it to flourish.
Helen has heard a lot about experts who are telling her that immigration is a great thing for her country, however she can’t rid herself of the strange experience of having only Eastern Europeans serve her in restaurants. She wonders why native born people aren’t doing these jobs too and why people have travelled hundreds of miles to do some quite low skilled work in her country. She has never heard of anyone who has gone to Eastern Europe to wait tables. She doesn’t have a bone in her body that regards herself or her ethnicity as being superior to her waitress, but it just strikes her as rather contrary to common sense that waitressing seems to be a job for only immigrants.
Avoiding a mature conversation about immigration is one sure fire way to push regular people into the arms of actual racists.
Okay, let’s do just one.
“It’s not racist to be worried about immigration.”
In Scotland it is. We have a tiny amount and if the number of immigrants falls we’ll all be screwed because we won’t have enough people paying into the system, which a frankly endless avalanche of hard facts shows us immigrants do, as a net balance.
“Jill however is worried about high levels of immigration because she doesn’t want higher competition for her skills in the labour market, that is not racist, she may be wrong or she may be right but she is not worried about immigration because she inherently thinks she is of a superior race to an immigrant.”
Jill should be campaigning for ever-higher university tuition fees, then, so that fewer people get educated to her skill level. She should be agitating for wars, so that there are fewer people around in general to do her job. She should oppose equal rights and pay for women, so that more women stay at home to raise children rather than compete for her job (and also to replace the immigrants we’re throwing out). But I’m guessing Jill wouldn’t dream of doing any of that. So why is she only concerned that FOREIGNERS might compete with her? Answer: because Jill is a racist.
“Brian thinks, rightly or wrongly, that his government should first and foremost be protecting the borders of his country, he doesn’t think it is sensible for drastically different cultures to mix, does he think of himself as superior to other people because of his skin colour? No, but he does value his culture and wants it to flourish.”
Why does Brian see other people’s cultures as a threat to his, particularly when they make up such a small minority of the population, with no more than about 2% of people being from any one “alien” group? Answer: because Brian is a racist.
(I mean, Brian is REALLY a racist. If it was left to Brian we’d all have one giant eyeball and sixteen fucking toes from metaphorically or literally fucking our sisters.)
“Helen has heard a lot about experts who are telling her that immigration is a great thing for her country, however she can’t rid herself of the strange experience of having only Eastern Europeans serve her in restaurants.”
Why does she care? These are hard, menial, usually low-paid jobs, generally filled by immigrants because people born here don’t want to do them. They’re the reason her food isn’t more expensive (and also why it isn’t all tripe and onions). Why is she angry about that? Answer: because Helen just doesn’t like foreign people bringing her her food, because Helen is a racist.
“Avoiding a mature conversation about immigration is one sure fire way to push regular people into the arms of actual racists.”
We’ve done nothing fucking BUT talk about immigration in this country for most of the past decade. Has it made us more tolerant or less as a country? The jury’s hardly out on that one. So we know that the more we talk about immigration the more we hate foreigners. Why is that? Answer: because most of the people who want to talk about immigration are fucking racists and I’m fucking sick of people making excuses for them.
We need more immigrants. Four words, done. What the fuck is there to talk about?
I bumped into a South African (Boer) born surgeon today in Aberdeen, he performed surgery on me a few years back and quite successfully I might add. One of his comments was
“I cant believe Scotland voted Naw in 2014! Now they have a Country that is going the way of Apartheid SA! I thought they might have wanted free of the Brits! You know the kind of people that invented the concentration camp in SA!”
“I’m working on the basis that Rev doesn’t read this far down in the comments so I should be safe.”
UNLUCKY.
Thepnr @ 19:51,
Then in order to dodge the inevitable fallout, the coup-de-grâce is you convince as many as you can that it’s all the fault of poor souls even worse off than they are – the immigrants and the damn foreigners lurking over there somewhere and conspiring to “get” us.
Mirror image on the other side, and it’s back to the 1930’s, folks! And that really worked out well…
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
17 February, 2017 at 4:24 pm
“Considering people from the rest of the UK as “immigrants” to Scotland, which is also part of the UK, makes as much sense as considering people from Edinburgh who live in Glasgow as immigrants.”
Correct – they’re no immigrants. They’re “tourists”
No surprise to see Labour voters are the most racist.
You could also have highlighted Uber British Nationalist Gordon Brown’s ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ bombast.
Fake socialist BritNat Labour MP Tony Benn also said once he was against Scottish independence as he didn’t want to turn his mother into a foreigner.
These old unionist bastards are a curse on humanity.
Sinky @ 17:26,
Thanks for that, I just caught up with it – a superb reference that all pro-indy supporters should read and thoroughly absorb.
@galamcennalath
Another great wee video from Phantom Power films. Loved it.
Looking forward to more, I’m telling you this is a game changer!
I see my youtube subscription has disappeared from phantoms channel again.
Shocking stuff UK spooks.
That’s really interesting, because I have often heard Scots talking about Muslim immigration being a problem. But they almost always mean in England, in a what-I-read-in-the-Daily-Mail white British solidarity kind of way.
Here’s a question – was immigration defined? Some Scots might not be thinking of people from the middle east, but of people from closer to home…
I don’t believe women are inherently more racist than men but I do believe they’re easier to scare and that makes them a project fear target
Older women and older single women are more prone to feeling vulnerable so when the Fearmongers get going with their pension scares or nasty furriner scares it impacts on that group and I do believe these are the vile depths to which project fear plumb to get the result they want
Folk prepared to vote No out of fear should pause and realise who’s causing them to feel like that and why
What kind of people are they who would threaten you to death to make you do as they tell you, not nice ones!
The English government fills you with horrors
The Scottish government offers you hope
Labour MPs challenge Tony Blair over Brexit comments
One senior Labour adviser added: “It should make everyone angry. It’s about Tony Blair and not about the Labour party. If it was about the Labour party, he would have waited another week until the by-elections are out of the way before making an attack on his own party.”
link to archive.is
O/T on BBC alba there are a couple of episodes of Alba 1990s.
In the 1990 episode around 20 mins theres a bit about the poll tax protests and a shot of the Labour leader of Lothian region failing to get money out of the cashline because his account has been frozen for non-payment…
link to bbc.co.uk
seems a very long time ago, alot of stuff I’d forgotten about – its surprising how different 1990 looks.
It’s uncomfortable, but people are quite correct to warn against complacency in our tolerance towards immigrants. There, but for the grace…. and all that.
I’ve posted it a few times now, but I would encourage folks to review the Jane Elliot experiments with school children and the colour of their eyes. She exposes the absurdity and arbitrary nature of racial prejudice by telling the kids that blue eyes are better than brown eyes. It shows how frighteningly easy it is to sew the seeds of division and prejudice, and to paraphrase what she says about turning a cheerful happy-go-lucky schoolkid into a nasty little Nazi in a few lessons. It doesn’t matter whether it’s eye colour, skin colour, religion, nationality, whatever, the mechanism of prejudice presses the same human buttons in all of us – if we let it. It’s all about superiority and having power to belittle people.
If we want to be a tolerant society, and we absolutely do, it begins with NOT tolerating the xenophobic, divisive, racist horshit pedalled by the likes of the Daily Express and the Mail. These are hate spreadsheets, nothing more, and why they remain respected as newspapers is beyond me. If I was King for the day, these rags would be removed from the shelves in newsagents.
I look forward to the day when England at last wakes up to see and recognise its isolation and condemnation from more tolerant societies, and finally asks itself who is responsible for agitating this bigotry and intolerance that pits one man against another. That will be a bad day for the Daily Express, Mail, and BBC, but it will be a very good day for England.
We are a more progressive society here in Scotland. We are more tolerant, and welcoming, but that is a state of affairs we must be conscious to protect and defend every day of the week. The effect of these rags is pernicious; a small drip, drip, drip, of corrosive hatred which slowly gathers potency.
Planet toryboy news, what the fcuk is food insecurity, other than hunger.
link to knorr.com
link to bbc.co.uk
Should you pay to see a GP to ease financial pressure?
2 hours ago
Wonder what the poor are doing tonight.
The Dog Philosopher says:
17 February, 2017 at 5:35 pm
“And there’s me still thinking we all came from Africa!”
A point I had to keep making when people kept saying ‘Obama was the first Afro-American President’. No he wasn’t; George Washington was.
O/T
Noticed a lot of people on other Wings’ threads saying QT last night seemed much more balanced.
I recall (vaguely) tht there was some BBC staffer who wrote for some right-wing blog who was (partially) responsible for audience selection – is that right?
Well, if o – she’s probably had her collar felt and what we saw last night is hopefully the result of a new audience (and panel) selection regime insofar as Scotland is concerned.
If that is so, then I cautiously say, “well done Donalda”. But I await further evidence before I come to any conclusion that the BBC in Scotland has seen the light. A LOT more evidence.
Has anyone asked these anti immigration Scots
….And Then What….?
We stay with the UK… As they said they won’t devolve immigration.
No more immigrants get into Scotland.
…….And Then What…..?
What does the next 20 /30 year’s look like for Scotland???
Do they actually plan to empty it …For what??
If they don’t want it empty how are they going to manage to fill it?
Is there even a plan…Have they thought the demographics through?
Scotland needs new people so if immigration is prevented
….Then What….. Explain!!
Well fucking said, Rev, @9:28pm.
Golden oldies. One BBC QT that wasn’t a yoon fest does not amount to diddly squat.
link to archive.is
link to wingsoverscotland.com
@ Fred at 7.44
Now that she has so helpfully appended her address (street name, not house number) at the end of her letters to The Courier etc, I was able to look it up – having never heard of it.
It’s very, very “naice”. Houses there (all detached) were selling for around £300k in the early years of this century, rising to around £800k ten years later. One was valued at £1.9 million.
I can understand why she might feel threatened by the prospect of more equal distribution, land taxes, etc. No excuse for the intemperate language, of course, but she probably has no idea at all how most people live. She also has/had a fairly serious health problem – she thanked Adam Tomkins for his concern about it, last year. She sometimes “sounds” drunk – could be powerful painkillers.
Right now, I’m able to feel sorry for her, just a wee bit, as a person, though that might change soon enough. Her behaviour, however, is beyond the pale.
link to archive.is
Shock new poll says Scots set to vote yes to independence
‘No’ campaign to offer radical deal as latest figures show 51-49% backing for end of the union”
The Observer, Saturday 6 September 2014 22.02 BST
Then in they piled with their historic The Vow fraud, on the Monday was it?
47% !!!!
How F’n depressing.
Nearly half the population simply don’t have a grip on reality.
Of the other half, nearly a third don’t know.
Meanwhile a over a third of yes voters aren’t in touch with reality either.
I despair.
One of the most damning enditements of Westminster rule is that in 1951 Scotland’s population was 5,095,000 but by 2001 it had FALLEN to 5,062,000 when everywhere else in the entire world there was population growth.
Only once devolution took effect did population grow.
link to en.wikipedia.org
“It’s not racist to be worried about immigration.”
In Scotland it is.
Delighted to see the rev saying it like it is. Sick to the back teeth of hearing fellow Scots say they are worried about immigration.
You live in huntly/oban/kingussie etc for fucks sake. Look around you’re town or city and the problem clearly isn’t immigrants.
The only sensible debate around immigration in Scotland is how we encourage more immigrants to come here, widen the tax base and pay for us to have a pension when we retire.
The alternatives are adding viagra to the water supply or banning contraceptives but even ukip wouldn’t propose something so mental.
Thank fuck you dealt wi that…else it wis gonnae be one of ma really long posts that tore the arse out of that steaming pile of rancid pish presented as: ‘scenarios that I have thought of that disguise racism and rationalise xenophobic attitudes, that I think I’m cleverly presenting in some unique way that no one else has thought of and if only we’ talked’ about it in some ‘mature’ way (that I alone have the definition of) then all ‘yous’ who disagree with ‘me’ would see the light that I’m shinning on this subject matter…which ‘coincidentally’ would divert your eyes from my own ‘personal’ ‘racist and xenophobic’ outlook.
Thank you. It’s an early night for me now.
Sinky says:
17 February, 2017 at 9:55 pm
OMG look at that. Really graphic. Population actually falling slightly right through the 90s. Emigration. Thats Thatchers handiwork. Living through that destruction, I switched from Labour to SNP in the 80s, as our only hope.
@Rev.Stuart Campbell 9.28
‘We need more immigrants. Four words, done. What the fuck is there to talk about?’
Too true.
But we shall receive what England decrees.
When old Jocky Yoon arses are red raw and caked in shite because there are too few able and willing to wipe them I’ll be laughing.
Maybe even if I’m in the same state in the adjoining bed.
Breaking news, US National Guard to be used to roundup Illegals. our Colonial masters may have an idea where you could keep the undesirables, well they did invent Concentration Camps.
English business owners revolting over business rates revaluation where’s Ruth Harrison? , she seems to have some experience in this field.
Even Japan has recognised that as a country with a significantly declining population it will have to encourage at least economic immigration.
link to archive.is
And read the comments below the article to gain some insight into just how difficult that might be.
But they are going to have to bite the bullet.
link to bbc.co.uk
This is my view, Blair is a war criminal, along with his palace of westminster supporters at that time. Not in my name, shame on anyone who uses his rhetoric to free ourselves. Shame on you ………..
re my 10.22
Read the full description under the world service programme.
Then scare the crap out of yourself imagining a Scottish version of konkatsu.
Glad I’m nearly 65.
Mind you, I am guilty of not contributing to the population numbers.
Always justified that by saying there were enough others having excess numbers of children.
Maybe I should have been more active on the demographic front!
All, I believe “immigration” is going to be one of the main topics for Better Together mark-2. There was mention of this earlier this year somewhere.
Glamaig says:
I have always been SNP. However, in the 70s I did think Labour was preferable to the Tories. I lived in safe Labour seats so always registered my true beliefs by voting SNP. If I had found myself in a marginal Tory-Labour seat I would probably have voted Labour.
Labour’s betrayal in 1979 followed by their behaviour in the 80s put me off them totally forever.
Thatcher was a right wing English nationalist Tory. The label on the tin accurately described the contents. She behaved as expected by her English voters. What they wanted was what they got.
Labour in Scotland, on the other hand, failed utterly to deliver in the 80s. They had an absolute mandate to stick up for Scotland and oppose Thatcher by whatever means were necessary. The didn’t. They put their Union before Scotland and proved what was actually inside their tin can. Scottish, they were not. They haven’t changed.
I hate the Tories for what they are. I hate Labour in Scotland for what they aren’t.
Damned Immigrants
link to youtube.com
So Nicola Sturgeon will be chuffed that Camilla Tominey on SKY News Press Review just described her as part of the
Axis of Evil
@Rev Stu 9.28
Well said.
Here is The National’s recent report on the rejection of devolved powers for immigration.
link to archive.is
Fred says:
17 February, 2017 at 7:44 pm
“Jill Stephenson, magine that livin up yer close”?
Fred, ‘up yer close’ is that a euphemism ?
Frankly Fred , I wouldn’t let her near my close cause she real dirty BURDY with that FOWL mouth of hers.
She certainly showed her true colours last night on Twitter…that’s what she gets for sticking her big BEAK in where it was not wanted.
She is like a vulture she SQUAWKS and her fellow cult members just PARROT what she says.
She is CUCKOO for sure and her FLOCK just SWALLOW everything like the BUSTARDS they are.
QT last night fair riled her……sure ruffled her FEATHERS… bet she fell of her PERCH…..pretends to be a wise old OWL but obviously just a silly old GOOSE.
Memo to self : Stop writing these posts as will get labelled annoying cnut.
Dr Jim
This is just typical of the metropolitan media press reviewers on Sky / BBC usually by right wing fanatics and unfortunately this determines the BBC’s political agenda on all current affairs programmes.
Sinky says: @ 9.55
Like most families in Scotland several relations emigrated to England and Australia in the 1970s and 1980s due to lack of job opportunities.
A relation recently did the family tree and found that dozens also left Scotland in 1880s and 1920s.
So as Alex Salmond once said the problem in Scotland is not immigration but emigration of our most educated and/or ambitious sons and daughters.
I’ve told my story before about living in Spain where I owned a restaurant and bar and where more than 90% of my regular customers were English pensioners or retirees
Not one of them considered themselves to be immigrants, as far as they were concerned it was the Spanish who were the foriegners and if it wasn’t for Spaniards Spain would be a far better country
Horrible people those foreigners eh (Which ones)
And this was before Ukip was a thing
link to caltonjock.com
Dr Jim 10.44
To be fair –
someone with a public biography like this is hardly going to be singing ‘Sunshine On Leith’ in the bath.
link to archive.is
“I hate the Tories for what they are. I hate Labour in Scotland for what they aren’t.” Respect to this person who posted this.
Glasgow City Council want to start charging Indy supporters for marching.
The National:
“Tomorrow @ScotNational Indy campaigners face five-figure bill: Council orders activists to pay professional security guards to steward march”
link to twitter.com
Sorry, that’s from an earlier link.
link to discourses.org
I don’t eat out often, but when I have done, the company of which I have been part has sometimes been served by bright young people from Eastern Europe, and we have invariably been very happy to receive pleasant and efficient service from them. I’m quite chuffed actually that we can offer such people decent prospects here, so that they want to come to this great country and help out as they do. Plus pay their fair share into the common kitty into the bargain. An obvious win-win. So what’s the problem?
Don’t recall any talk about immigration at the last indyref, mature or otherwise. This stuff has all appeared only after it was not-so-maturely stoked-up by the usual suspects during and after the EURef. Unlikely cratur, the self-proclaimed “yesser” who now prefers to slavishly echo southern Kippers. Cringe with a side-serving of ordure, more like.
As far as I’m concerned, you can take “Helen” and other racist memes and stuff them where the sun never shines.
That said….
link to faculty.arts.ubc.ca
It was during the first indy ref that I realised how important it was for Scotland to have a completely different debate on immigration. It highlights how decisions made for England are very damaging to our country. When I realised the awful debate coming our way in the EU ref I was annoyed that due to lack of broadcasting control we would be exposed to the debate in an English context. We need our debate now.
@BBC Scotland Tells Lies
Are they going to ask the polis to stop between 7 to 8 thousand folk out for a walk and fine us all or waste polis time and recources policing an event they’ve never had to worry about before
The Polis that you could count on one hand spend more time at these events having a blether and checking out the bikes
I think the Polis will be telling GCC where to go
Unless Frank Mc Aveety would like to present himself as King Canute for the day and haud us back
I’d consider paying something just to see that
QT last night fair riled her……sure ruffled her FEATHERS… bet she fell of her PERCH…..pretends to be a wise old OWL but obviously just a silly old GOOSE.”
It does make you wonder why that ex FibDem guy was so pro YES last night, doesn’t it, out of the blue, a clear YES endorsement of someone like,
link to conservativehome.com
And Mark’s IEA are not exactly Medecins Sans Frontieres ,
link to monbiot.com
As Mark fights the Aussie’s plain fag packet laws
“The evidence out of Australia, who, in their extreme unwisdom in my view, have offered to be the guinea pigs for planet earth on whether this policy works, having had plain packaging or standardised packaging in place for a year over there, the early evidence suggests no change at all on smoking prevalence. And, lo and behold, the black market in cigarettes has jumped markedly.”
Mark’s IEA is rather pro Brexit too,
link to iea.org.uk
So, BBC panel producers may have had a sudden rush of balance to their tory heads but well… and or but, they fif nearly give Professor History Woman an embolism of yoon rage, so swings and roundabouts. I mean I’m not saying with friends like these:D
link to msn.com
Rule Britannia! with sore backs now though.
Dr Jim 11.34pm
And will they start charging the Orange Order for all the Policing that they need for all their Orange Walks???
I saw a bit of research a couple of months ago, it showed a graph of actual immigration and perceived immigration in western countries. The UK wasn’t the worst, but it was pretty high up there, the US was really high in perceptions of the numbers of immigrants. All countries’ people perceived much higher levels of immigrants into their country than was actual reality.
If I find the graph will post it, but we hardly need ask why this is the case. It is all about brain washing.
Oh and yes, I have heard a few women expressing worries about male immigrants, due to their belief that they are more likely to be rapists. The reasoning, if we can call it that, being that the men do not respect the cultural differences, ie women having more ‘freedoms’ in the west.
It always seems that when you speak to parents in Scotland, usually well off, and their kids have flown the nest and therefore the country, they are so chuffed that their offspring have moved away, usually to London, It’s a sign of success! Very strange imo.
@ capella,
watched yer film on kodi. (hidden agenda) . wow it opens yer eyes.
heedtracker
I enjoyed QT last night and thought Mark Littlewood’s input was really important. A tory (well.. lib dem, same diff) but the thing is that independence is in line with some basic tenets of traditional conservative thinking- taking responsibility, enterprise, competition even. I think we saw what someone without a dog in the fight can make of it and I was pretty refreshed by his honest appraisal.
The stuff about population and gdp is important to get out there to counteract dicks like A Neil who want us all to think we’ll be waiting in line behind Albania.
I’ll take that kind of encouragement from pretty much any source. Excellent programme I thought: typical BBC trying to gemme us cybernats by being all impartial though… sneaky bams
I know it’s not quite relevant, but I know of a couple who like to go on cruises. One took them to Japan for a couple of days, when I asked about it on their return, one said, lovely bla bla bla, ‘but there are too many Japanese people’! In Japan I said, too many Japanese people, in Japan?
Oh dear fckg christ I thought, must dash, end of conversation.
@ Big Phil – yes it isn’t hard to guess why Ken Loach was blacklisted by the BBC for so long and why the film (Hidden Agenda) is so hard to get online.
I haven’t tried kodi but will check it out.
Amazon do sell it though.
Lenny hartly
Ruth is busy building her profile- interview in tomorrow’s Telegraph.
Poor old Fluffy left to answer the audience last night while Ruth networks .
Was it Gordon Brown they called Macavity because he always disappeared when there was trouble at mill?
There’s something completely graceless about Ruth Davidsons blatant ambition. Could be the utter contempt she has for the People in Scotland?
Everyone agrees that we need to get all the information OUT THERE. but How can we?
Seriously we are fecked without a media stream of ‘Scotland can be better’ , we all sit and argue about a natonal anthem,yet most of our family and friends know nothing about WOS or whats happening in OUR country. we really do have have a battle and her name is ignorance. We all know it, how can we convey it??
@Capella
Capella, i watched it and I felt sympathy for the people that had to endure that, but the mind boggles. and im ex-army.
@ Big Phil – yes it’s shocking what is done in our name. Westminster rules. I do hope Scotland would never abuse human rights in the casual, arrogant way that Westminster does. Another reason to achieve independence IMO.
Its just wee men thinking that they own us all , and sadly they have Big men enforcing it. One day the big men will see the light. Harris was a pawn. you know what i mean capella.
galamcennalath said:
“Thatcher was a right wing English nationalist Tory”
Yes, indeed . She is reported to have said to Michael Ancram:
“Michael, I am an English nationalist and never you forget it.”
Straight from the horses mouth!
@Capella
NEVER in my name , but i get wot yer saying. Power is there to be used and hopefully money and power doesnt get into our heroes. Im for the wee man and if ye go against the wee man then hopefully Scotland will rise.We’re up against the whole shite circle, they wont (capital WONT) let us go.Propaganda is a powerfull tool, we see shite but its only us that sees it.
@ Heedtracker
“So, BBC panel producers may have had a sudden rush of balance to their tory heads but well… and or but, they fif nearly give Professor History Woman an embolism of yoon rage, so swings and roundabouts. I mean I’m not saying with friends like these:D”
Yep Heedtracker, she QUACKERS and most definitely a bad EGG.
Haters gotta hate and she certainly fits that BILL .
As to Mark well….maybe on a different night …different city…he might not have been so positive re Indy for Scotland…however…as he was…well it certainly brought out the ‘Who is REALLY anti English’ in yon Twit’s TWEET i.e. Professor Jill Goebbels the self appointed Minster of Propaganda for First/Second/Third/Fourth/Fifth/Infinity & Beyond Reich of the ahem Grate …in fact very grating British Empire…a fifth columnist in the Edinburgh division of Der REAL Nasty Party LOL
She no well……she got constant BIRD flu….she would be better to stay in her NEST inside her DUCKdown duvet and leave the debate to those who do not plant such SEEDS of hate….mind you it’s a HOOT reading her mad TWEETS…She be like TWEETY PIE TWEETING…I Tawt I taw a nationalist a cweeping up on me…I did I taw a Nationalist as plain as he could be….
By continually coming back to basics, like choosing to be truthful, in contrast to the Establishment which lies 100%, we have a chance. We just need more people to reject lying and embrace the truth.
“But we are not talking about garden variety lying here — we are talking about the totalitarian lie: lies told, repeatedly, loudly and insistently, in direct confrontation with the indisputable truth. Lies purposefully designed to undermine the very capacity to make truth claims. Orwell was right to warn of this. But here we are.” Jonathan Kirschner.
blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/america-america/#more-2985
@Molly, agree that Ruth Harrison is completely graceless, sat on some poor beast, or weaponry, her naked ambition is unedifying to watch.
Yet another trougher, on the make, at the expense of the public purse. At least Wee Willie is funny.
Just read another disaster looming. Brexit means thousands will lose out on clinical trials, and get the newest drugs much later here.
I posted a few days ago about the European Medical Agency based in London, and regarded as a jewel, is currently being contested by 20 countries for its relocation.
Well done Rev, further up the thread for dealing with the post promoting racist garbage. Saved many of us from escalating blood pressure, I suspect.
As others upthread have said about immigration – my son and his English wife may well come back to Scotland with their English born children. It doesn’t make them immigrants.
If they filled in a Scottish census in 2021, then three out of four would be born in England.
The only reason my son went to England was that the Civil Service Graduate programme meant you had to go to London.
@ Big Phil – I think we have to put our trust in democracy. It’s so easily subverted by the usual suspects. But it’s up to all of us to stay awake and support our freedoms.
I notice GCC is imposing draconian conditions on the Indy march in June. It will cost the organisers approx £30,000 to provide 1 steward per 10 marchers. GCC won’t say whether they impose the same conditions on the Orange Order marches.
GCCs publishes rules make no mention of professional stewards:
link to glasgow.gov.uk
I do hope that the good citizens of Glasgow ensure that those councillors who oppose freedom of assembly and speech are defeated at the ballot box in May.
link to thenational.scot
@
Still Positive
I was gonnae gie a speach there, i’ll simply say ‘we’re all jock tamsons bairns’ peace my friend. (smallaxe you ‘ll agree) .
Capella.
you know and I know that WE know whats right, but HOW do we get it out there. Democracy is what they tell us ‘is’ democracy. , we are fecked unless a majority cant be silenced…. in my view .
manandboy, here’s that link. It’s a very good read and excellent analysis of America ‘right now’.
link to blog.lareviewofbooks.org
Big Phil @ 1.13
Aye, we are all Jock Tamson’s bairns. Regardless of where my grandchildren were born, I love them all the same.
I can get to my grand-children in Surrey faster than I get to my grandchildren in Broughty Ferry.
The bottom line is nearly half of the Scottish population is in its heart racist.
@Still Positive
wits yer point?
Getting the message out? Websites (this one and others), Twitter, Facebook, Phantom films, livestreamed events, marches, rallies, town hall meetings, talks, books, leaflets, billboards, The National, the Wee Blue Book, Youtube channel etc etc.
@ ROCK
NAW WI URNY. seriously are you legit?
capella , you and me and all you mentioned isnt working. if it wasnt for this site i wouldnt know wots happening. i tell my friends but if i didnt know this blog /site i would know nothing.
Robert Peffers,
“The fact is that a little common sense will show that the immigrants mainly come to find work. Elderly English cadgers excepted, these who sell up expensive city homes for cheaper, or better, Scottish accommodation, free bus passes and the benefits of such as free prescriptions, care at home and cheaper Council Tax. These are often the ones most prone to call scots subsidy junkies.”
That is a very racist anti English comment in my view.
I only call for such people not to be given a vote in a referendum on Scottish independence from England.
Apart from that, as far as I am concerned, there is no difference between these elderly No voters and our own British Nationalist elderly No voters.
I’m not a massive fan of saying that anyone who is worried about immigration is a racist.
Nonetheless this gives the lie to the claim by Labourites that SNP supporters are all ‘blood and soil’ nationalists who hate foreigners.
lol.we need tae go NOW. sorry england we tried but yer government are aresholes. seeye. loves ye lots. BigPhil.
RP, if you’re still there, don’t take his bait. (You know who I mean.)
RP, if you’re still there, don’t take his obvious bait. (You know who I mean.)
I think Mark Littlewood on QT just respected the different views in Scotland, he did make a point about us having voted 62% to Remain. So he modified his own views to reflect Scotland, not England and Wales.
In fairness such Liberal views would in the past have been exactly that – Liberal. Maybe there’s hope for them yet!
He was very impressive.
Ruth Davidson goes greetin to the BBC once again, this time complaining about the SG spending £135.000 on the Brexit legal case that actually 62% of Scottish voters asked them to do
Maybe she thinks all Scottish Tories don’t want representation by the Government that many of them voted for and voted remain
But then again the SG don’t represent Scotland in Ruthie and the BBCs world
And the bookies will still give odds on for an Independence win 8/5 now from 5/4
But hey, nobody wants it apparently
Anyway going out early in the morning to purchase a bowler hat and a stick
In GCC world that makes you a professional security person
seemingly
They’ll be threatening us with the army next, then that’ll be a definite win for Indy
Mark Littlewood was nearly alright till he compared Scotland with Portugal in which he was a million miles out
but I think he knew that, he hedged his bets all the way through the show and it was written all over his face
Same with Chakrobarti she didn’t know quite where to put herself, and Mundell….well he was just Mundell, the bearded biscuit fetcher who isn’t part of the Brexit negotiations so important is he
The Secretary of State for the country that doesn’t exist
Now there’s a job eh
Dr Jim,
GCC World is about to change massively for the better, one hopes.
Voters just need to be reminded that the crocked little Stalinist enclave is getting increasingly desperate for a Tory crutch these days.
Like McTermite’s snarly reiteration of the Bain Doctrine on Newsnight Friday evening, they see nothing, learn nothing.
Humans, as a species, migrate.
It’s what we do.
What’s the big deal?
Mark Littlewood on QT.
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.
Do not trust enemies who bring you presents — they could very well be playing a trick.
Remember the story of the Trojan horse.
Nothing more plausible than a plausible rogue!
@Dr Jim
What’s even worse is Tom Gordon’s opening line: “NICOLA Sturgeon spent almost £140,000 of public money on a doomed intervention in the UK Supreme Court “.
“Doomed”. I guess we can do away with QCs and the UKSC and the 11 top judges then, and all the other QCs. Could have saved all that time and money.
Just ask Tom Gordon, he the man.
Paddy Power odds on next Indyref result
Yes 2/5
No 7/4
Just saying
Christ, what a self-congratulatory backslap-fest this is. “Oh, I’m so not racist, unlike those blasted oiks.” I don’t believe the 7% figure. It’s got to be higher. My home town has changed beyond all recognition population-demographics-wise over the last decade or so. Stuff like this is just divisive in the context of reaching out to our fellow Scots to get them to vote Yes. The arch, self-righteous shite here is beyond disgusting. I normally like Wings, but this pompous rubbish just turns my stomach.
“Christ, what a self-congratulatory backslap-fest this is. “Oh, I’m so not racist, unlike those blasted oiks.” I don’t believe the 7% figure. It’s got to be higher.”
Fucksake, would you listen to yourself? “I really really want to be angry about foreigners but the figures don’t give me any justification so the figures must be wrong!”
Massive conspiracy, is it? The Scottish Government, the census bureau, everyone’s in on it, aye? Who’s organised it? The Jews? The Muslims? The Illuminati? The space lizards of the Royal Family? Just anyone who’s brown or has a funny accent? How did they manage to stop the fearless journalists of the Mail and the Express from finding out and revealing the truth? Fuck off.
Well worth reading.
link to blog.lareviewofbooks.org
@ Macart 5:33am Thanks for the Link. Just read it. Scary Stuff. Hopefully Trump wont last 4 years.
Coming out of the EU will lose Scotland £8Billion a year. Gain £200,000 on fishing? Necessary legal representation in the EU court debate.
ECC tried the same draconian fees for the first Indy March. It was nearly cancelled. The Organiser got a necessary permit for £10. Many people in Edinburgh did not realise the March was happening. Otherwise it would have been even bigger. GCC tried the same with the last gathering – George Square. Tommy Sheridan ignored them but followed the rules for stewardship etc. Some of the ignorant Press. Tom Gordon? Lied about it. Wanted special privileges without a pass. Then wrote a rubbish article about lack of access.
Westminster ruined the Oil sector, the fishing sector. Bigger nets now agreed with SNP rep. The quotas are being increased because of conservation.
Now Westminster wants to ruin trade with the EU. Westminster illegal,wars, banking fraud and tax evasion. They go from one disaster to another. Ruining the world economy. Scotland’s economy is nothing like Portugal. Anyone who could access the internet would know that. What a load of nonsense.
Scotland should have had £Billions of funds in Oil revenues alone – £300Billion wasted by Westminster. Scotland is more comparable to Norway/Germany without Westminster disastrous interference. The whisky, food exports. Tourism, digital and other exports. Education and medical achievements. Scottish invention shaped the modern world because of Scotland’s commitment to tertiary education.
A report has shown even more old people have died than could have been expect because of lack of care in England. The Tories draconian measures are killing off the elderly. That should be considered by voters.
‘Paying for things Scotland doesn’t want or need, paying other’s debt’. The money never comes back. Westminster warmongering liars. Blair caused the migration into Europe. Blair and Brown. Malicious liars should be put in jail for killing and maining millions of people and destroying the world economy. Scotland will be gone form this corrupt Union soon. May and Co will not last much longer. Corrupt, greedy fools.
Scottish universities being penalised. Oxbridge, Imperial and Bath Universities being allowed to offer students two year after graduation stay visas. Legitimate people are being denied leave to stay in Scotland. Westminster centralist economic policies depopulated Scotland. Legitimate people are being deported by the Home Office from Scotland. Against the majority wishes and the public interest.
London where 2/3 of migrants go because there are jobs. 3% unemployment because of all the public money invested there, Voted Remain. The EU Ref was a Tory con trick. The Tories committed electoral fraud in 31 constituencies, to ruin the world economy.
Hinkley Point, HS2, Heathrow and Trudent are all a waste of taxpayers money. Disasters waiting to happen. They will all be redundant before they are finished. Chernobyl has just had another cover put over it costing £Billion (EU funded). It will not last 100 years and still not contain the radiation.
If Trump stops the illegal invasions he will be doing the world a favour. If the Americans are busy fighting with each other. They will not be fighting with everyone else. Stalemate. Peace.
Tried to post a link last night.
A real favourite of mine : ‘ Coming Home’
The McCalmans
Says it all = )
Our family is coming home = )
Links
link to alynsmith.eu
Shetlanders flirt with independence after Brexit vote
link to archive.is
link to iainmacwhirter.wordpress.com
link to itisintruthnotforglory.wordpress.com
link to commonspace.scot
Tories In Disarray Over Business Rates
link to phoenix45.org
link to worldoil.com
link to thecanary.co
British consumers battered by Brexit inflation
link to archive.is
link to voxpoliticalonline.com
link to thecanary.co
link to publiclawforeveryone.com
Nana: Good Morning,
Links for breakfast, Thank You.Kettle’s on
Peace Always
Good morning Smallaxe. You feeling ok?
So So Nana but ok thanks
Peace Always xx
Take care Smallaxe, don’t be pushing yourself too much.
But hey I’ve a large tree to be cut down today. Any help appreciated, haha only joking.
Best get my lumberjack shirt on…………
Nana:
We are a Small Axe
link to youtube.com
Peace Always
We
link to foreignpolicymag.files.wordpress.com
Peace Always
Nana
Here’s a link to that moment when the BBC’s Today team cant hide their astonishment that somebody is questioning the BBC’s impartiality.
From about 2.28 in
link to bbc.co.uk
@Mike Cassidy
Wow, they don’t like being called out, do they.
You should put the link on the next thread.
Nana @ 9:04
Thanks for the link to business rates,that story been getting pushed on the BBC,see posh hotel owner,calling for action,same guy got himself removed from the visitscotland websitet because of xenophobic remarks,plus the state of the O&G industry,no wonder his business is suffering….but hey it’s always SNP Baaaad.
Clapper57 says:
18 February, 2017 at 12:59 am
@ Heedtracker
Mark Littlewood was a set up.
Never trust a tory. They’ll get rich and powerful, you’ll be told to kiss their ring and like it. Yes, they do think you’re that stupid. Look at Brexit, Fluffie, Ruthie Babes, all newspapers, everything BBC Scotland farts out day after UKOK day etc…
it’s not just caring for our elderly. Who will pick the fruit and vegetables? Who will staff our Highland hotels and serve the tourists or cook their meals or clean their rooms?
Our eldest, Kiwi born, has worked in a number of Highland Hotels. She could swear fluently in Polish as a result. The locals might try the work but few lasted.
Sorry if this hurts but it’s a reality. Though low wages play a part. Most lived in staff accommodation. For a local looking to build a life, support a family it is not really a viable option. That is the problem. The race to the bottom on wages.
Anyone who has bought a sandwich, a coffee or a beer in London, or stayed in a hotel there recently, knows that the ‘hospitality’ and tourism industries are staffed largely by EU migrants. The last time I came through Heathrow airport, the young woman directing us through the electronic passport gates was clearly such a one….. So will Brexit make any significant difference to the number of migrants? Will the Tories want to trash the skinny latte distribution business? I think not…
…it was the anti immigration figure for Labour voters that gave me pause to think. I wonder once again what Labour stands for when it attracts voters with that mindset.
Have the traditional Labour voters already moved on leaving only “New Labour” / Red Tories behind?
Scottish Labour scream about their “International credentials” and yet their voters reveal little Englander traits. The switch in England from Labour to UKIP is mind blowing!!!
If you value the founding principles of the Labour Party then you would never consider voting for or joining today’s Labour Party…especially not the Scottish Branch (also known as The Ruthie Fan Club)
Labour are now frightened to use the word socialism!
Kezia I have a new sound bite for you “Seats before Society”…it should be quite easy for you.
Kezia and Co would rather align with the Tories for a Right Wing Westminster than have a fairer society in Scotland…better to live in a Tory UK forever than a left of centre Scotland for one day.
Troglodytes post in darkness and refuse to come into the Light!
Peace Always
I’m late to this particular blog post so this may have already been said:
Doesn’t the Labour result on immigration show that their support has melted away to other more (small “l”) liberal parties (SNP/Green various minor socialist) leaving only a hard-core of guys who support them more out of habit than any real belief in what they are supposed to stand for?
stu mac says:
“I’m late”: Better late than never stu I can only agree with you, the support has gone to others who I hope will make better use of it than Labour.
Ps Next time you’re late, bring a note.
Peace Always
Let’s wait until about 10 years after Independence and see how this poll works out then, Rev. It’ll be STARK, alright, to be sure och aye the no but.
But pensions and low real-income levels and all that jazz. I say cancel the state pension and get old ‘people’ working the service sector jobs that Eastern Europeans usually take (two soups!); also, school is a great waste of time so have the kiddies out picking the fruit. And make inheriting property illegal. It should immediately be put under state control upon death, then handed out to yooths by means of a very fair and balanced system.
Smallaxe, suggest me a new name if you please (not ‘cynical onlooker’ arf!).