Here’s to you, Mr Robinson
It’s always interesting to make the news.
But the BBC man seems a little confused.
Interestingly, the Guardian report of Robinson’s comments – due to be made tonight at the first Steve Hewlett Memorial Lecture – completely omits the ostensible point of the speech, but it is mentioned in the Press Gazette’s coverage:
And it’s hard to argue with that. The state broadcaster does indeed have a big trust problem amid large sections of the electorate – most notably Scottish nationalists and Jeremy Corbyn supporters – and for good reason. Some honest dialogue with its critics would be a constructive step.
The Gazette goes on to note that:
And that’s true too. Three of this site’s top 10 most-read articles of all time, including the #1 and #2, are about the BBC, and one of them concerns Robinson himself, over a broadcast which became the focus of great anger from Yes supporters and over which he eventually expressed “regret” almost a year later. (After first sneering about it on an episode of Have I Got News For You.)
What he categorically DIDN’T do was apologise to Salmond over telling a blatant lie about him, despite his claims to that effect earlier today.
His 2015 “apology” in fact saw him refuse to acknowledge the lie – shrugging it off as a mere poor choice of words and blaming TV viewers for misinterpreting them – and to accuse Salmond of “an utterly calculated attempt to put pressure on [the BBC] the week before the referendum” while likening a peaceful anti-BBC protest in Glasgow to “something out of Vladimir Putin’s Russia”. Doesn’t sound very sorry, does it?
But let’s put all that to one side for a moment. Because Robinson’s idea of “engaging” with those who don’t trust the BBC is to, in the next breath, dismiss them as sinister and paranoid conspiracy nutters trying to bully and discredit honest journalists.
Websites can only convince people to disbelieve the news when they can prove, on a regular basis, that it’s not telling the truth. Nobody listens to a ranting loony with no evidence. If we’d just claimed Nick Robinson lied about Alex Salmond not giving him an answer, the post wouldn’t have been read hundreds of thousands of times. It was because we incontrovertibly SHOWED them him doing it that it made people angry.
It’s precisely this sort of commitment to hard journalistic evidence that, in Robinson’s own words, gives readers “the tools to separate what is true and what is important from the torrent of half-facts and opinion“. We retain trust where the BBC has lost it because we don’t lie to people, and unlike them we link to the sources for all our claims.
This site wears the badge of “partisan” proudly. We’ve never pretended to be neutral, never claimed to be balanced in our view of our subject, and certainly no more so than newspapers are. Neither they nor we have any obligation to be so.
But we and others only exist because the organisation which IS bound by a charter to be impartial has repeatedly failed dismally in its legal and professional duty to present both sides of a debate fairly and equally, and thereby created a demand for someone else to provide balance by filling in the gap on one of the sides.
Nor do we “live in a social media bubble”. Would that we did. We live in a world where we’re assailed by a torrent of one-sided propaganda from our opponents every single day whenever we turn on the TV or the radio or walk into a newsagents, against which we’ve learned we can’t rely on the “impartial” national broadcaster to give us a voice.
The BBC instead devotes hours of TV and radio airtime every week to “reviewing the papers”, a practice which by its intrinsic nature and design attributes massively undue weight and prominence to a print media that’s right-wing and 97% anti-independence, while actively excluding the online arena where those with other views – and without the power and reach of billionaire media moguls – are forced to congregate.
(And it does so despite many of the newspapers it relentlessly promotes still having far smaller readerships than sites like this one, even with those advantages.)
But nevertheless, we welcome Nick Robinson’s call for “engagement”. We look forward to seeing some of the more popular websites appearing on “The Papers” on a nightly basis, and to their editors being asked, in the interests of genuine balance, to provide regular comment and analysis alongside those from equally-partisan newspapers like the Telegraph and Sun and Daily Record and Guardian.
(Because the idea that Wings, or The Canary or Skwawkbox or Evolve Politics, is any more biased than the Daily Mail or the Express or Times is self-evidently ludicrous.)
We’re just not going to hold our breath, that’s all.
He’s a journalist he shouldn’t be entering the debate but only unbiasedly reporting on it.
That is the very problem at the heart of MSM they have agendas they work to.
Lookin good in the guerrilla pic Stu 🙂
Did Mr Robinson forget that “mainstream media” also includes, for example, newspapers? The top two newspaper in the UK (by circulation) are the Sun and the Daily Mail. Has he not noticed just how trustworthy these were in their coverage of, say, the EU referendum?
How can he stand there in a straight face and insinuate “mainstream media” is worth trusting?! Only a complete idiot would trust them (a description which, unfortunately, does include large swathes of the population).
It is one thing for Nick Robinson to play to an English audience, but telling the TV license paying public an outright barefaced lie is something quite different altogether.
If I never hear that mans voice ever again, it will be too soon.
By a strange coincidence The New Statesman made an OTT smear attack to discredit The Canary yesterday: “The Canary is running a sexist hate campaign against Laura Kuenssberg for clicks”.
Looks like the rattled old media have officially declared war on new media.
I suspect these are just the first skirmishes in a long bitter media battle “for clicks”.
He is a Tory commentator.
Nick Robinson,liar liar pants on fire.
…gives me the boak, the lying little toad.
YES!!!!
We’re getting under their fucking skin. Deservedly so. We don’t want lies in our media and ESPECIALLY NOT lies that we have to pay for is we want to watch the goggle box.
GIRFUYs you lying MSM GITS. And NO – it;s NOT paranoia. The EVIDENCE of your lies is everywhere for any objective person to see.
London Calling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXQYuLUAbyw&feature=youtu.be
Aye – gone are the days when the population would meekly accept your lying drivel. Changed days, eh? You don’t effing like it when we get our own facts and CHALLENGE you with them, do you, you disgraceful bunch of presstitutes? We are to simply listen to you and accept what you say.
Well, you FUCK RIGHT OFF MSM, you bunch of lying fucking bastards.
Nice one Stu.
I’ve not seen the Alex Salmond piece before.
No wonder the establishment hates him so.
Same reason they ain’t so keen on you midear!
Keep at it. You are in a minority amongst journalists who attempt to present an honest picture of ‘the news’, but you aren’t alone.
So the meeja feels put upon and threatened by folk with opinions on the interwebby. How sad is that?
Is this a case of ‘help me Rhona’? They were supposed to be our ‘guardians’ our watchdogs. They were supposed to speak truth unto power. Not so you’d notice really.
No. No, I won’t be trusting mainstream sources anytime soon. They don’t speak for me. They don’t speak to me. If they don’t represent me, then I see no reason to support them. (shrugs)
Nick (Answer came there none) Robinson is the catalyst for the mistrust of the BBC in Scotland. His blatant bending of Alex Salmond’s response to his questioning in 2014 was the eye opener and turning point for many. Crocodile tears about the BBC being under attack are laughable. Maybe the guilt of realising he has a large part to play in the distrust of the BBC is eating him up.
Usual attempt at deflection by the MSM. Still lying. Yes we are winding them up.
Nick Robinson has a barefaced cheek to try and play the victim card … the astonishing part is 500K Scots read that bile ridden piece of excrement the Daily Mail
I’d rather live inside a social media bubble than a bespeckled baldy dome of metropolitan smugness.
bbc scum. Don’t pay the bbc tax.
Good work again from the Rev.
Let’s not forget how often UKIP were beamed into Scotland via Question Time. They were represented – usually by Farage himself – on 25% (TWENTY FIVE PERCENT!) of Question Time episodes since May 2010. The best UKIP have ever done in a general election is 12.6% of the vote, and for the Scottish Parliament, they’ve managed the heady heights of just 1.1%. Those facts are bad enough, but QT is actually paid for by BBC SCOTLAND!!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/question-time-ukip-nigel-farage_uk_58d95295e4b03787d35ae186
I have respect for journalists like Nick Eardley and James Cook, but the organisation which they work for is institutionally biased and stuffed full of metro-centric old school Tories. And what does Scotland get? Murder and fitba from Jackie Bird.
Bradford millar. I wonder if its’scots’ that read it?
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it” – Upton Sinclair 1932 I think.
FFS Proud Cybernat@ 9.14
Leave off with the diplomatic language and polite euphemisms and come clean. Do you approve of the MSM or not?
I have my doubts about their honesty and impartiality myself, but I can’t be sure where you stand on the issue:)
Big thanks for the link. Seen it awhile back, but wasn’t aware it was on Utube. Good for spreading.
@Proud Cybernat (9.14) –
Hear hear.
It’s a measure of just how arrogant Robinson really is that he feels able to come out with this shite after being caught bang to rights in one of the most blatant examples of bias ever broadcast by the BBC – and that, as they say, is saying something.
It seems Nick Robinson saw a can clearly labelled “Do not open this can, worms can be dangerous”, and couldn’t resist using his can-opener.
Now, yet again, he has bceome the news.
Robinson was caught lying, evidently to damage a cause he personally disagreed with, which is a huge betrayal of the viewers who pay his salary and an abuse of the position he was supposed to uphold.
He lost the right to call himself a journalist after that, as far as I’m concerned.
Nick Robinson and his ilk are modern day William “Lord Haw Haw” Joyce characters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Haw-Haw
“Lord Haw-Haw …….broadcast Nazi propaganda to Britain from Germany during the Second World War. The broadcasts opened with “Germany calling, Germany calling”, spoken in an affected upper-class English accent.”
In the above paragraph substitute:
Nazi with BritNat
Britain with Scotland
Germany with England
The aim then and know however remains the same though:
“Through such broadcasts….attempted to discourage and demoralize … to suppress”
Nick doesn’t like being called out that is all.
@Ian Brotherhood
Speaking as someone living in a bespeckled baldy dome – DON’T KNOCK IT TILL YOU’VE TRIED IT.
What’s obvious is Robinson’s fury at being found out. The golden days of a gullible audience are diminishing and they cannot stand it.
As for the mention of Rhona fairhead, the BBC have been hugely partisan towards the city of London. Had they been anywhere near impartial and investigative over the financial crisis, people would be in no doubt who to blame and outraged to the point of demanding serious reform of the banking system. Yet here we are 10 years on, sailing towards another crisis with the city at the helm.
Back in .2014 the Bank of England actually wrote a paper explaining the fact that banks don’t lend existing money, rather they create it. They were the first central bank to come out and bascially slap down the mainstream of economics about money creation.
This in itself was worthy of huge attention due to the misleading teachings that banks were mere interemediaries. The BBC was silent.
Banks being allowed to create most of the money supply (risk free to themselves) and funnel it into property markets was the main reason for the ridiculous property price inflation experience prior to the collapsing financial bubble.
Any self respecting news agency should have been airing this stuff from morning till night. In the 10 years leading up to the GFC in UK banks were creating more money (and therefore debt) than the government was spending, yet few people realise this ten years on.
We have to tune into programmes like boom bust on RT or the keiser report to understand how the financial system works.
Be in no doubt, the WM govt is a wholly owned subsidiary of the city of London and the BBC is its press office.
@ me at 9:35 pm
oh aye and substitute:
Second World War
With Indy Ref and ever since (although we all know it has been longer than that).
The BBC does what it says on the tin – british broadcasting
Which we all know means Westminster broadcasting.
Any other view can’t reasonably expect to get a word in edgeways and may count on being “demonised”
It’s up to us to point this bias out and get our message across by other means –
Internet media’s not doing too bad and should be strengthened. Traditional means of communication like local meetings, talks and gatherings by focus groups (women for indy, business for Indy etc), musical nights with satirical/traditional sing-songs etc help out enormously with everybody, but particularly with senior citizens.
Big Indy concerts might be another idea. On the other hand,they are costly to organise and tickets may be expensive, unless the event(s) are heavily subsidised (by whom?)
https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2016/12/08/bbc-bias-london-calling/
@Albert Herring –
😉
“He didn’t answer.”
And then, of course, AS gave him an extremely full answer and received an ovation from the foreign correspondents, despite Robinson’s arrogant heckling. What a disgraceful performance from a “journalist”.
In Marvel Comics parlance that was a Biff! Bang! Splat! from the FM.
Memo to Nick: when in hole, stop digging. Don’t fire up the JCB.
And yet Pravdasound4 has only been applying the term “fake news” to social media and stations like RT, whereas the BBC has been manufacturing it since 1922.
One simple action the public broadcaster could take tomorrow – stop giving airtime to newspaper headlines in its so-called ‘paper review’. Instead, stick to broadcasting the BBC’s own assessment of what is relevant, significant ‘news’, not the corporate media’s interpretation (and prejudices) of what their political agendas deem to be newsworthy.
By all means have extended interviews with newspaper journalists where their opinions can be determined and interrogated. But the present paper reviews are adverts for newspapers and their ‘opinions’, given typically without any critical analysis or context.
(And anyway, those skilled in ‘alert readership’ know that the newspaper headlines and initial paragraphs typically don’t give anything like a full insight into all aspects of the issue being covered!)
It may not cure all the BBC’s ills but it would be a good start.
Now that’s the way to scribble Stu
Give em some corkscrew in the scrotum
And he dropped the mike,,,, BOOM!!!
Re. the infamous Salmond/Robinson spat, not only was NR exposed as a liar, but the international press corps actually laughed at him.
The puir wee sowel has never got over it.
There are many many contenders for my favourite article by you Rev, but i’ve got to say that this one is up there with the best of them. Thank you! Can’t wait for the one on Ruth Davidson. 🙂
Well you started it NICK ,
Always like a repeat of a good Movie, NICK when’s the next episode due out ?
Then again the BBC are famous for repeats , every day they push that same SNP bad shit
Do we categorise your work under fiction or is your work in a whole new Section under Horse Shit .
The YES movement will eventually get the truth out, how long can the BBC hide it ? .
Scotland population 5.4million
Unique Monthly readers 3.5million?
Independence support 50%?
Some folk like reading MSM but are not influenced. Or keeping an aye on the nonsense.
What’s even funnier is that Nick Robinson is totally symptomatic of another major problem the BBC has – it does no research. Had Nick taken even a minute before complaining about Wings casting a stern eye on the BBC, he would ahve found this from its about page:
“Wings Over Scotland is a Scottish political website, which focuses particularly on the media – whether mainstream print and broadcast organisations or the online and social-network community – as well as offering its own commentary and analysis.”
So his comment about “to promote their own political agenda” is almost right, just remove the word “political” and he got it, by Nick he got it. The agenda is, Nick you old softy mindless researchless buffoon is this, once again, in case you missed it the first time:
“Wings Over Scotland is a Scottish political website, which focuses particularly on the media – whether mainstream print and broadcast organisations or the online and social-network community – as well as offering its own commentary and analysis.”
It does what it says on the tin. Now, can you say that about your “precious” BBC?
Russell Howard about Uber not reporting sex offenders: “I mean who do they think they are, the BBC?“.
`Fake News` has always been here,
it is just that we now have `alternative news websites` that are forensically analysing the propaganda and misinformation spewed out by the BBC and MSM and not letting them get away with their lies,
Lord Reith would have supported alternative news websites producing meticulous fact based reporting over a corrupt BBC promoting Right Wing/Tory ideologies.
Brilliant piece, Stu, absolutely tore Robinson’s and his ilk’s arses to shreds.
So glad you’re on our side, dude.
ps; just let us know when you need some dough again, mate – we’ll finance your talk for Scotland
Older Wingers will remember a programme called ‘That’s Life’. It used to have a regular spot where a cross-eyed fud called Cyril Fletcher, dressed up like Noel Coward (smoking jacket etc) would talk shite for a couple of minutes, usually from a wee den made-up to look like an Edwardian living-room. He did vaguely vulgar doggerel of a sort which Pam Ayres ‘perfected’.
Anyway, I digress…
Living fossils like Robinson are being given similarly regular gigs on the BBC, and increasing numbers of clued-up viewers are watching it thinking ‘what the actual fuck is this?’, just as many of us did when Cyril The Fletcher would crop up to do his unfunny bit.
Most of us didn’t know that Cyril Fletcher was a top comic actor in his day, and quite the celebrity in the post-war years. On that show he felt like an unwelcome oddity, interrupting unlikely tales from presenters like Kieran Prenderville battling various social injustices, or Esther R explaining that Joe in Durham had sent in a Kodak Instamatic image of his nob because it looked like a King Edward. We didn’t ‘appreciate’ Cyril, and the BBC clearly didn’t consider that maybe, just maybe, the dude’s star was waning.
Robinson and his ilk are on the way out – being ever-so astute, as you’d expect a top BBC churnalist to be, he knows it.
Fuckim.
Harsh, aye, but hey Nick, ma man, that’s life, eh brother?
😉
Wings has never claimed to be impartial.
The BBC is supposed, in fact is contracted to be impartial – let them prove they are impartial. But don’t hold your breath.
They just don’t like this proof they are NOT impartial. Imagine that, we don’t believe them and that is what they don’t like.
All that’s left of a once proud broadcaster.
Lord Reith would not be turning in his grave if he could see the desperate parody this organisation has become. It always did bow to the government in suppressing reality.
A Stonehaven loon, he would have been better to stay at home instead of creating the monster that the BBC has become.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Reith,_1st_Baron_Reith#The_General_Strike
I will have a haggis supper and a dram while I re live these occasions
Alex Salmond v Nick Robinson
Archie Gemmill v Holland
David Narey v Brazil
Faddy v France
Faddy v France
Wallace v England
Bruce v England
Andy Murray v Novak Djokovic 2013 Wimbledon
When Mayhems best pal The Donald called out the BBC on air as being the peddlers of fake news
Time for Nick and the BBC to re-evaluate their approach to The public , Rather than manufacturing and selectively manipulating news they should attempt to report it for a change, The Veil has been lifted, the BBC has been rumbled ,caught red, white ,and blue handed, every one who supports Independence will never trust the BBC again it’s that simple
All trust is gone, everything that emanates from that government organisation , is being questioned and will be treated with the respect it deserves , and that is
Nick has a problem with me then.
When I see what happens around me doesn’t match what he’s reporting – I’m just supposed to accept it. I’m not supposed to be upset that I’m paying for substandard ‘goods’. He forces me to seek elsewhere for more accurate reporting with supporting sources and then disses me for being reasonable. He should resign.
So glad we’ve got you Rev
I remember watching the live broadcast and then seeing Robinson’s/the BBC’s edit later that night.
It was probably the moment I knew we were going to lose the referendum. That they could feel comfortable in standing truth upon its head in plain sight said everything.
Robinson is a paid, practised and perennial liar. But let’s be clear – there is no one left in the world of ‘mainstream journalism’ in Scotland who does not aspire to BE a Robinson, to attain that celebrity status where it does not matter what you say, what contradictions you offer, what lies you proffer. All that is of concern is that they remain in the public eye with a commensurate reward from their state/corporate paymasters for the delivery of their ‘craft’.
On holiday in Italy but keeping up with my favourite site that is Wings.
This isa good piece Rev showing up Nick Robinson for the wee Tory propagandist that he is.
Keep up the good work. Never watch BBC or STV now. They make me sick to my stomach.
What’s a “Nick Robinson?”.
Not even a yesterdays has been.
You are on fire this week!!! Great work
@Rev Stu
“We’re just not going to hold our breath, that’s all.”
That’s very, very, wise, Rev Stu.
Never really thought it appropriate to have the same word for a kind of duck, as for Nick Robinson, but there you go, Nick Robinsion is a Fulica, watch how you pronounce that.
Im sorry Rev. I clicked on the article, but scrolled to the bottom to comment without reading it.
Im certain that your piece is as forensic as usual, but my hatred for the BBC is such, that I simply cant bring myself to read about them.
Robinson belongs to England, resides there and represents an Inperial Westminster elite who would stamp our culture and aspirations out.
The likes of Bird etc. are British establishment stooges, who betray their own.
They are all liars, twisters and purveyors of false news, designed to keep Scotland entrapped.
@paul gerard mccormack says: 28 September, 2017 at 9:13 pm:
“…gives me the boak, the lying little toad.”
Have you ever seen the ignorant, self-centred, self-important wee turd without that painted on sneering expression on his face?
In fairness Nick Robinson DID hit the nail on the head:
‘…we reporters and presenters are at best craven, obeying some diktat from our bosses or the government, or at worst nakedly biased.’
I think that is a fair summation.
Two years ago, Robinson himself spoke out on BBC bias – against Corbyn – in an interview with the Sunday Times.
I presume that’s behind a firewall.
So, because I wouldn’t like Robinson to think I’m biased, here’s a rightwing reporting of his interview.
http://archive.is/JpdYy
Proud Cybernat @ 9.14 pm =)
Succinctly put 🙂
@Bradford Millar says: 28 September, 2017 at 9:23 pm:
” … the astonishing part is 500K Scots read that bile ridden piece of excrement the Daily Mail.”
Aye! Bradford Millar, 500K Scots read it but – here’s a thought for you, how many of that 500K actually believe what they are reading – and you can discount those desperately attempting to convince themselves that they believe it, but if you scratch the surface and do so with knowledge and armed with the facts, you will expose that they do not believe it while claiming they do.
It often comes to such people, like the conversion on the road to Damascus, like, “a flash from the blue”, when you attempt to extract from them their evidence to prove their belief.
It hits them that they do not have any proof and that they have been hiding the truth FROM THEMSELVES for years and a new convert is made instantly. Strangely these types are the most vocal and determined opponents before their conversion.
Read through Wings and you will find lots of comments to the effect, “I voted Labour until I saw the truth and I’ll never vote Labour again”.
Like ex-smokers campaigning against smoking these converts are often the most zealous campaigners against their former addiction. After all, who better to appreciate the evils?
I watched the original press conference with Alex Salmond and Nick Robinson, early on the day on BBC. Later on that day I seen the heavily edited version on BBC which due to the editing of Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of, a massive deceitful propaganda smear was unleashed. In this single act the BBC and Nick Robinson said it all, WE ARE ABOVE THE LAW AND WILL LIE AND CHEAT SCOTLAN AND THE SCOTS, BECAUSE WE ARE THE LONDON ELITE AND WE CAN GET AWAY WITH IT. JIMMY SAVILLE GOT AWAY WITH IT IN THE BBC FOR 40 YEARS. I despair of the English audience who cannot see this for what it is, but telling the TV license paying public outright barefaced lies is beyond the pall. UK Democracy is a TOTAL SHAM it always has been! END LONDON RULE !
Rick Knobinson’s plea for the MSM to ‘engage’ is just another patronising tactic to appear to be the honest broker in the delivery of ‘news’ to the masses.
That set piece photo of him in the Guardian typifies the projection of gravitas and plausibility which he uses to appear trustworthy.
The MSM have their own agenda,and they don’t let the truth or anything else stand in their way in pursuing it.
That Robinson is a sensitive soul, isn’t he?
http://archive.is/olk5L
http://archive.is/0EQUa
Question Time audience full of right wing brexit zoomers in Wolverhampton tonight. A total bunch of racists
Greetings fellow guerrillas!
Hope you’re all not too sad to no longer be referred to as Saboteurs!
Nick Robinson is an irrelevance.
Why does the BBC not report what is happening in Barcelona and how the Spanish government is attempting to frustrate democracy. Is it any wonder people are spurning the BBC and the printed press – they are letting us down.
Listen to this powerful music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eODztQw-u88
Pablo Casals – one of the Finest cellists the world has ever produced playing for Catalonia…
Soc Catala!!!
( I am Catalonia)
Wishing the people of Catalonia peace and strength to get through the next 72 hours.
@Albert Herring says: 28 September, 2017 at 9:54 pm:
“The puir wee sowel has never got over it.”
Nope! And every time he feels the need to re-open that particular can of worms he will find that they are grown bigger and fatter in the closed can.
Now worms in a closed can have only one source of sustenance other worms. Which brings to mind a wee song my wee sister sang when she was about 3-4 years old –
Nae biddy like me, a’biddy hates mi,
A’h think ah’ll gan an eat wurms.
A’biddy wonders hoo A’h thrive.
Oan wurms three times a day.
Mibbies wee Nick jist likes tae eat wurms?
Thir’s nae accoontin fir taste, ye ken.
TheWasp says:
28 September, 2017 at 11:29 pm
Question Time audience full of right wing brexit zoomers in Wolverhampton tonight. A total bunch of racists
And a strange panel too.
Patrick Swayze’s ghost seems to have entered politics.
Haven’t heard all of QT.
Has Catalonia’s referendum been mentioned?
Ian Brotherhood
‘ Has Catalonia’s referendum been mentioned’
Didn’t catch first 15 mins,but nothing after that.
An educated electorate knows where to look for information that is deliberately omitted from a MSM that uses tactics of micro-aggression to erode confidence and self-image and promote the language of exclusion. Micro-insults and micro-invalidations can be used to communicate hostile and derogatory slights to whatever group is being targeted- an insidious instrument of the continuous construction and reconstruction of hierarchies (Piller, Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice).
Scotland’s YES movement, whatever ideological outgroup of the moment- asylum seekers, EU ‘migrants, alternative ‘guerilla’ media and information sites, the feckless poor, the EU Remainers – the linguistic discrimination goes round in a tiresome loop.
‘a divided and squabbling government, an insoluble dilemma, troublingly flawed ’.
The WM cabal have learned no lessons, are delusional about the effects of Brexit and the UK’s place in a globalized world. But others outside this bubble are not and they do report it- accurately and with authority.
‘the crippling fantasies and misconceptions which make it difficult for this Conservative government to limit the economic damage arising from Brexit…the growing sense among our neighbours that the United Kingdom is retreating via its desire to leave the Union into snarling and self-indulgent insularity…Politicians and officials in continental Europe had followed with appalled fascination the self-laceration of the Conservative Party in the days leading up to the Florence speech.
Not a few of them will have wondered whether it will ever be possible rationally and realistically to negotiate with such a divided and unpredictable government. And their doubts have now deepened…
Politically and constitutionally, it makes no sense formally to leave the EU and then attempt to mimic from outside the responsibilities of membership while enjoying fewer of its privileges…
The traditional supporters of the Conservative Party in business and finance on the other hand are becoming increasingly alarmed by the prospect of an abrupt and chaotic British exit. They regard with ill-concealed contempt the claims of Liam Fox and others that the UK will replace whatever loss it suffers in European trade by rapidly enhanced trade with the rest of the world. Mrs. May finds herself torn between two pressing logics, the political and the economic.
The EU’s deep structures are precisely designed to marry up economic and political integration. It is no surprise that leaving the EU creates this insoluble dilemma for the British government…
Even more disconcerting, however, was the Prime Minister’s repetition of the misconception that the UK and its partners were or should be engaged in a joint enterprise: “making a success of Brexit.” Not merely do our European partners feel under no such obligation. They would regard as absurd any suggestion that they should.
The UK has decided to leave because it wishes to abandon the joint decision-making which is central to the EU’s operation. It cannot expect that the Union will regard itself as the guardian of British interests after this abandonment…
The repeated calls of David Davis and the Prime Minister for the EU to show “imagination and flexibility” in the Brexit negotiations are in the minds of our European partners troublingly flawed. It is for the UK to demonstrate imagination and flexibility, not for its 27 partners to negotiate on the British behalf; and these imaginative and flexible proposals need to be realistic, reflecting the fact that the UK needs the European economy, which is at least six times the size of its own, more than said European economy needs the UK
There is no plausible “bespoke arrangement” that will reconcile the conflicting wings of the Conservative Cabinet in even the medium term. There are probably Cabinet members who realize this and for their contrasting reasons would welcome such a collapse of Mrs. May’s aspirations’
http://fedtrust.co.uk/mrs-may-in-florence/
Superb rebuke. Have to say I was genuinely surprised by the readership figures. The Guardian tops the list- who’d have thunk?
I don’t understand how anyone on this site can watch the BBC. For me it’s like watching the cosy, holier than thou sermons of the paedophile priest who abused you and robbed you of your identity. Almost literally.
I value honesty and integrity above all else. I find what the BBC do to be deeply offensive. It saddens me that people are voting away their children’s futures because they have no information sources outwith the msm’s spin and deception. Especially the ones who are “Scotland daft” in almost every other way.
I don’t watch the BBC. When I stray onto it I seldom last more than 5 minutes. Scotland invented television. The BBC have made made it unwatchable for many Scots.
@dakk –
Hoots.
🙂
See when I’ve got anyone who may be listening to BBC rather than watching it…who is the Scottish dude who assists Steven Nolan on R5 Live at this time?
His voice is so familiar…I feel I know his face, but I just can’t get it.
Who is that man!?
IanB
No, QT was QT about it. Strange that.
Now OT
I have been accused of being socialist.
I have been accused of being capitalist.
But in truth (copyright John Curtice) there is no socialist option to vote for and there is no capitalist option either.
What we do have, and all we do have, is an elitist option.
And folk are pig sick of it.
That is all.
There were a lot of delusional Middle English in the audience on QT tonight. Can’t believe the ignorance of many. 🙁
@Black Donald (11.59) –
Hear ye.
Totally.
A bit late but I can agree with a previous post re BBC Question Time tonight, watching on I player just now, Well Gee Wizz. Where did they get this audience, Christ it looks like it’s taking place during the Tory party conference . When only rabid right wing nutters are invited.
Question for those who voted NO are these the people you want to be better together with ? Do these people and their views make you feel happy you voted NO . If so God help us all .
Black Donald says:
“I don’t understand how anyone on this site can watch the BBC. For me it’s like watching the cosy, holier than thou sermons of the paedophile priest who abused you and robbed you of your identity. Almost literally.”
I could liken watching the BBC to many things but never to this. It’s not even remotely comparable as well as being completely inappropriate.
I could say more.
Ah Nick Robinson, I remember it it well. For him to come out spouting of fake news is so funny that I can’t find it it me to laugh.
He works for HMG not the BBC the man is a proven liar as we all saw with the Alex Salmond episode.
Sadly for you Nick Robinson very few are listening to you any more. Personally as far as I’m concerned? You can fuck right off.
@Nick Robinson
I doubt you’d recognise the truth if you tripped over it. Hypocritical, lying, scum-bag about sums you up.
Ethics in Practice: Promoting Ethical Conduct in Public Life
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/336976/2902536_CSPL_EthicsInPractice_acc.pdf
@manandboy
How pathetic is that. Deary me.
Great piece, Rev. That’s Auld Nick been ripped a new one.
Same old batshit, ignorant, ill informed QT audience. I think it’s the same crowd of zoomers travelling round in a coach, it’s like a parody of Alf Garnett.
@Nick Robinson
Do you respect the principle of universal human rights, as your actions suggest otherwise?
I remember watching Alex Salmond’s press conference live but not on the BBC. Can’t remember where. I thought at the time that AS was taking too long with Nick R and I wanted to hear more from the international media.
Sadly and predictably NR delayed and curtailed that. He’s an erse.
Manandboy
I apologise if I caused offence. I was thinking of Jimmy Saville etc. I agree it’s too strong. Just expressing my frustration. Apologies.
Rev, Can you delete please.
Another great WoS read! Imagine this kind of journalism on any British newsstand?
Massed ranks of Beeb gimps like Robinson are merely tory spin doctors, leading a news media industry of tory spin docs.
eg
When a tory creep like Robinson starts using “cult” to label anything not tory, red or blue in Scotland, you know you’re in BBC news territory.
Anyone can be a beeb gimp:D
Watching an English audience on QT is very educational. It does represent the depth of political lack of understanding that seems to be the norm in England – and it gets dafter the further south you go.
It is very significant that Ruth Davidson is never put on QT from Scotland. She would be the object of noisy derision which would destroy the illusion entertained in the rest of UK that she is popular and held in high esteem in Scotland.
Actually I see signs that the establishment is walking away from Ruth at the moment. It has realised she cannot save the union.
Watching Sky papers it seems they are worried about the Independence vote in Catalonia and the crisis a yes vote will cause. I wonder, might this be Scotland’s position in two years time ? Would the Tories send in the army to quell the rebellion ?
Black Donald, apologies accepted. No hard feelings whatsoever.
I am a 76 year old ex serviceman. One of the people previously trusted to give unquestioning support to the British state. They have lied to us. Nick Robinson is one of the main culprits. I will never trust them again. Now I get my news from Wings. I just hope that my old comrades are joining me.
Alex Clark says: at 12:43 am
@manandboy
“How pathetic is that. Deary me.”
How mistaken is that.
I lost any patience I had with the man after the The 2007 Scottish Parliament election using (then radically new) ballot paper that required more than one X against one name came in:
“…confusing ballot papers robbed tens of thousands of people of their chance to vote.”
Which was total and utter cobblers. Those tens of thousands of people HAD the chance to vote. They DID vote – but they wasted it.
They fucked up.
Because they couldn’t be bothered to read, or were too dumb to understand, the very simple instructions printed on the ballot paper and stuck on the posters in the ballot boxes and spelled out in meticulous detail in the millions of leaflets that were shoved through all our doors.
But then you don’t get anywhere telling people they’re thick, do you? It always has to be someone else’s fault.
Wolverhampton, where my Mum was from, and yes you’re all correct educationally sub standard Tory voting Loonies who are also warm hearted lovely people, and yes it’s murder being related to them at the same time
What’s funny though is they all feel sorry for me under the heel of Sturgeon the Witch and why is it that we can’t get rid of her so much so they still offer me sanctuary every time they’re on the phone
No matter how many times I tell them actually we kinda like her a lot up here and I’m even a member of her cult they do believe we’re oppressed, and folks you all know who we have to thank for that don’t you, our lovely impartial BBC and their chums the newspapers
They really do believe they send us money from England and all we’ve got is shortbread and whisky, well nearly
So there are the facts folks half my family are thick as mince who can’t count or spell properly and even though our Scottish half of our family are all better educated in every way possible, we’re still only Scottish
It’s a drawback I struggle to overcome
So there are the facts folks half my family are thick as mince who can’t count or spell properly and even though our Scottish half of our family are all better educated in every way possible, we’re still only Scottish
I dont think people are thick. The great tory BBC triumph is simply that people seem to tend not to think that much and that they let the BBC do their thinking for them. If your life is fine, why not. BBC r4 Today show also does what the papers say segment. Its so tory and so biased, its actually horrifying, that this giant state broadcaster can tell the world its unbiased and balanced but this is how the UK and more importantly England works, for the majority.
Yesterday’s edition of World at One dropped any pretence of being UK news and was all about “England.” It was then followed by this, all about England.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b096g1lg
Iaindubh @ “Auld Pete” 01.14.
Re: Spain sending in the troops to Catalonia to suppress ‘Rebellion’, would WM (in a similar situation) ever send the army North, “Rebellious Scots to crush”? Btw, third verse of the National Anthem! Well I rather think history suggests that of course they would.
John Duncanson @ 02:35,
Naw, John, I think that were it ever to come to that point, UKGov would realise that the game was well and truly up. (Genie out of bottle and all that.)
(Don’t know, but maybe also true in Catalonia, even if the Spanish Gov don’t appear to have realised it yet. In fact, by its extreme over-reaction, possibly even brought it about.)
BBC v SNP is England justifying their suppression of rebellious Scots by proxy. Lies v truth.With total domination of media, which BBC used to enjoy, under threat, they’re trying everything to get rid of Wings & co. We now see so many “clampdowns” on social media as a precursor to silencing the truth.
Nick Robinson is the most devious, corrupt journalist out there, which probably means a peerage at some point.
I never watch BBC. It’s the only way to hurt them.
It is not just SNPBaaaaad that the BBC does.
For a long time now they have been doing EUBaaaaad.
It will give them justification for supporting a walk-out from the negotiations in Brussels.
They have recently started on a new one of UNBaaaaad.
Just search with “UN criticizes UK” and you will see why.
oh come on Rev…
no way you have that much hair!
It doesnt upset me so much, all this BBC nonsense, I think it was Bremner who said ‘British Broadcasting Corporation – clue’s in the title’ or words to that effect.
Know thine enemy.
@bjsalba
Actually you’re right, there was something on during the night on BBC1 I half heard, with someone saying the UN wasn’t up to the job, Myanmar I think it was. Maybe the start of the Beeb putting the UN in its place.
There’s no doubt in my mind that if the BBC covered news fairly and impartially, including the EU, the EU Ref would have been Remain in the UK by a fairly large margin, and Brexit wouldn’t be happening at all. Years ago during the night for instance, they used to have EU bods discussing the news from the EU, fairly and openly, discussing the issues of the day. That disappeared long since. In its place I think we get news from Singapore and Asia.
Then we had Farage wall to wall, and the latest bad news from the EU, bureaucracy, exaggerated reports about the arbitrary power of the Commission (which is basically controlled by the EU Parliament as well as the Council), all that sort of negative vibes, EU bad stuff, no democracy (totally wrong) with no balance the other way. No wonder so many, even in Scotland, are anti-EU and voted Leave.
Now the EU is on its way out of the UK, and I do mean it that way around, what next?
For years the MSM and it’s state propaganda and blatant misinformation went largely unchallenged, this is changing, the new social media has them extremely worried as it cant be controlled by them. They fear it’s influence, and see it as an existential threat, it’s mere existence is an anathema to them.
This is because it poses a threat to the status quo, the BBC and it’s ilk are organs of the state, they are there to maintain the status quo. They will do everything in there power to maintain this.
In there eyes the two cannot coexist, I can see there being a concerted effort by the MSM to try silence the alternative media. They will not succeed.
Supply and demand Nicky boy, you supply lies,we demand the truth,hence wings over Scotland was born
So move on and leave real journalist like the rev to do your job because you can’t.
Sorry for the typo ‘there power’ should of course be ‘their power’.
Robinson turns people off. No viewers no programmes. Overpaid millionaire prima donnas. Out of touch liars.
Burnett came last in election. Councillors get council contracts for their family business firms. Despite repeated warnings they overcharge. £Millions of public money. Millionaire Tories enough is never enough. Tories getting donations from building firms. To fund their candidates. Farming subsidies for £Millionaires pleading poverty. Tories getting donations. An abuse of public money.
Millionaire councillors maintaining higher class sizes cutting additional needs support and cutting education allocation. To line their own pockets with illegal Council remuneration. Official statutuary limit of class sizes should be reduced to 25 (or lower) To stop councils cutting education funds allocation. Using the Law to obstruct lower class sizes and provision.
The corruption of the unionists. Wasting public money like there is no tomorrow. On grotesque projects of no value. That no one wants. They and their cronies tax evade and misuse public money.
Illegal wars, financial fraud and tax evasion,
A Land tax will not bother the landowners. The price of land will go up. It will affect everyone else. Mortgages. Higher house prices, higher food prices higher public spend/allocation. It would affect the poorer. Enforcing the tax Laws cutting tax evasion would bring in more revenues. HMRC not fit for purpose.
The reason the Tories want out of the EU is to tax evade and misuse public money. £Millionaires getting remuneration out of other people’s misery.
@Phronesis says: 28 September, 2017 at 11:49 pm:
“An educated electorate knows where to look for information that is deliberately omitted from a MSM that uses tactics of micro-aggression to erode confidence and self-image and promote the language of exclusion.”
http://fedtrust.co.uk/mrs-may-in-florence/
Great post, Phronesis, by chance I read it while listening to Garry Robertson & Hayley Millar this wet and miserable Scottish morn.
Their BBC extensive dirty attack upon the Scottish NHS, Scottish Government, SNP and Scotland in general was a really sickening start to the day.
However, it was a masterclass of all that is bad and despicable about unionism, unionists and the BBC employees in particular.
The first point that is clear is that when the BBC trot out their spokesperson we can guarantee that spokesperson will come with a very, very British/English, (and usually Thames Estuary), accent.
The BBC stuff is now spread on so very thick that it has become comical, predictable and quite obviously failing in its intended purpose.
Beware the Northern Powerhouse which will be rammed down our throats and encourage our youngsters to seek work down south thereby reducing our ability to gain Indy. Now more than ever we need a fair and balanced media across all platforms.
Aye @Robert Peffers say at 7:38 am I also caught that on Radio Shortbread.
“Their BBC extensive dirty attack upon the Scottish NHS, Scottish Government, SNP and Scotland in general was a really sickening start to the day.”
Also Miles Briggs allowed to claim Westminster lifting pay cap on nurses and now Scots Gov following suit” with no challenge from Garry R.
Yet they get arsey when called out as BritNat Propagandists.
@Still Positive says: 29 September, 2017 at 12:12 am:
“There were a lot of delusional Middle English in the audience on QT tonight. Can’t believe the ignorance of many.”
Well, Still Positive, don’t you know being delusional is the very first requirement of being numbered among the, “Middle Class English”, strata of the long discredited traditional, “English Class System”.
Such a system cannot operate unless it relies upon blind ignorance and this was brilliantly illustrated by the sketch by the Two Ronnies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2k1iRD2f-c
Then contrast it with this sketch:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JSahEDRjvw
Links
http://newsnet.scot/archive/article-depression-dont-look-away-read/
https://scottovoce.wordpress.com/2017/09/28/leaving-the-circus/
http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/davidson-despair-deepens-as-latest.html
https://itisintruthnotforglory.wordpress.com/2017/09/28/the-return-of-brother-lee-love/
http://tarffadvertiser.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/corbyn-just-another-english-imperialist.html
http://www.ericjoyce.co.uk/2017/09/nick-robinson-doesnt-have-wings/
Macron’s Vision for Europe Sets a Very High Bar
https://www.scer.scot/database/ident-3479
The House of Lords Delegated Powers Committee has published an excoriating report on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill
See here
https://twitter.com/ProfMarkElliott/status/913392829384347649
@CameronB Brodie says: 29 September, 2017 at 12:49 am:
“@Nick Robinson
Do you respect the principle of universal human rights, as your actions suggest otherwise?”
The plain truth, Cameron, is that Nick Robinson, being totally unprincipled, cannot conceivably respect any particular principle.
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/uk-press-coverage-eu-referendum
https://audioboom.com/posts/6318420-brexit-forensics-cars-and-the-customs-union
https://www.thecanary.co/discovery/2017/09/28/theresa-mays-government-faces-court-action-time-allegedly-breaking-international-law/
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/09/28/why-the-bank-of-englands-independence-is-just-a-charade-2/
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/government-and-public-sector/news/89351/excl-tories-were-not-prepared-snap-election-says
The UK’s political crisis
http://www.coppolacomment.com/2017/09/the-uks-political-crisis.html?m=1
https://zelo-street.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/terrorists-nicked-far-right-silent.html
Twitter, With Accounts Linked to Russia, to Face Congress Over Role in Election
http://archive.is/2cTk6
Jockanese Wind Talker
Gary Robertson is Brit hack with a Scottish accent, nothing more.
Revealed: How gold takes the shine off Britain’s trade figures
http://archive.is/rafvD
http://www.insider.co.uk/news/britain-told-brexit-will-make-11241484
The greatest mistake everybody…is making is that they all assume that the EU is a given. That is a big mistake”.
video here
https://twitter.com/ProSyn/status/913593426104348672
MPs in the 2017 Parliament who are related to current or former Members of the House of Commons.
https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN04809
@ Bradford Millat/ Mr Peffers.
The actual printed circulation of the DM is under 100k . Its online clicks that boost the numbers. But online the Mail is really just a variant of Hello or OK. Its all “celebrity” gossip.
So how many of the 1/2 million who read it ever read anything about politics? Perhaps its political influence is being overestimated.
Great impact Stu. Let them go down with there lies.
The more folk who see them for what they are the better.
Greet links Nana!
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2017
Davidson’s despair deepens as latest batch of subsamples shows the SNP ahead across the board.
So what are all the beeb gimps in Pacific Quay going to do about it?
BBC England pretends Scotland no longer exists but that’s hardly an option for BBC Scotland gimp network, or is it:D
Prog liberal England’s The Grauniad’s Scotland coverage is very simple too. You voted NO 2014, you no longer exist but if we have to report something from our Scotland region, and we actually don’t, its going to be SNP bad and stuff like this,
Ryanair ordered to tell passengers of options after flights cancelled
Aviation regulator tells airline to explain by 5pm Friday how it will reroute 400,000 people affected by scrapped flights
Passengers disembark from a Ryanair plane
Ryanair is to scrap 18,000 flights between November and March. Photograph: Claude Paris/AP
Jill Treanor, Severin Carrell and Rob Davies
That took three Graun liggers too.
@Still Positive says: 29 September, 2017 at 12:53 am:
“I remember watching Alex Salmond’s press conference live but not on the BBC. Can’t remember where.”
If I remember correctly, Still Positive, the BBC carried, (relayed), the Scottish Government’s press conference live. However, The BBC had no control over what was shown live as it was not a BBC run show.
Which, of course, was why wee Nick was sitting among the invited international press audience that the SG Press Conference was called to inform with the SG’s views. This was precisely because the BBC, or indeed the entire English/UK MSM were not allowing the SG’s views and actions to be propagated.
Thus the hurriedly edited version put out just minutes later on the same BBC news channels with the Nick Robinson, never to be forgotten, faux pas, “and he didn’t answer”.
How bloody stupid was that? The BBC showing the live international press conference and following it up with a cack handed edited version minutes later on the same BBC channels.
Someone’s BBC head had to roll for that daft gaffe and that head was Wee Nick’s. Which was why he was subsequently, “promoted sideways”, to his present BBC post.
Anywhere else but the BBC and he would have been out on his ear.
So instead of being grateful to still be a BBC employee the wee shit now adds grievance to his already flawed on-screen presence.
@Dave McEwan Hill says: 29 September, 2017 at 1:14 am:
” … Actually I see signs that the establishment is walking away from Ruth at the moment. It has realised she cannot save the union.”
I may well be wrong, Dave McEwan Hill, but it is my opinion that nothing can now save the union but you are correct in that from Theresa downwards there are definite signs of the Establishment backing down on the UKExit thing.
Which back down itself will see the unions, both EU & UK at the very least being renegotiated and not for the good of the Westminster Establishment.
The bbc and britnat newspapers have, for decades, been indulging in an incestuous British nationalist, British establishment relationship. We are now seeing, more clearly than ever before, the grotesque results of inbreeding.
Scotland must rid itself of this ugly, disfunctioning union with England.
Unity and unionism ain’t necessarily the same thing, though the UK meeja and their political affiliation du jour would claim otherwise. The establishment and their media screwed up big time.
The media are corporately and politically compromised (Leveson kinda made that abundantly clear in his inquiry). There isn’t a mainstream title out there that doesn’t wear their affiliation on their sleeve and as for broadcast media?
From the BBC charter: “To reflect, represent and serve the diverse communities of all of the United Kingdom’s nations and regions and, in doing so, support the creative economy across the United Kingdom: the BBC should reflect the diversity of the United Kingdom both in its output and services. In doing so, the BBC should accurately and authentically represent and portray the lives of the people of the United Kingdom today, and raise awareness of the different cultures and alternative viewpoints that make up its society. It should ensure that it provides output and services that meet the needs of the United Kingdom’s nations, regions and communities. The BBC should bring people together for shared experiences and help contribute to the social cohesion and wellbeing of the United Kingdom. In commissioning and delivering output the BBC should invest in the creative economies of each of the nations and contribute to their development.”
Their words, yes? Anyone around here feeling particularly represented or accurately reflected by our public broadcaster then? No? Yes, I think its pretty stange too bearing in mind at the last official outing we numbered 45% of a nation’s electorate. So either no one has read the beebs charter at PQ. They have read it, but don’t understand it. Or… they simply ignore it in favour of whatever.
Point being: Broadcast or print, you most definitely do NOT feel that you get what you see on the tin. You don’t get public watchdogs (except when it is the political or corporate interest of others to inform the public). You don’t have the fourth estate speaking truth unto power. Not everyone gets represented (who knew?), and the only societal cohesion being promoted is between political ineterests and their voting factions.
The rest of society? We’re the bit in the middle that either gets victimized by the media, or nakedly manipulated to suit whoever’s agenda. Nick Robinson is NOT a stupid person, but he and a great many of his peers, seemingly believe that most of the rest of us are. They certainly act like it.
Now back to the screw up and a mahoosive elephant in the room.
When you have spent several years and a great deal of effort undermining trust in institutions and societal demographics to suit your own agenda, or the agenda of your political ideology of choice. When you and your peers invest in the journalism of division and sub division to suit… whatever. When you have all the mega bucks soapboxes of our society singing from the same hym sheet. Is it really so surprising when your tactic has proven successful beyond your wildest dreams? Vested interest wanted division and then sub division in order to manipulate the vote and opinion of demographics. Personally, I’d say their narrative of division and undermining of trust went too far at this point. But being a simple consumer, what do I know?
The UK political scene and society we see today? Our mainstream meeja should definitely take a collective bow. Well done them.
RepublicOfScotland exposes how the BBC use dodgy maths to enhance their viewer ratings here
http://republicofscotland.com/wordpress/?p=373
The true (non-enhanced) rating for the statement “I trust the BBC” is 5.9 out of 10. This is very telling considering that a score of 5 means equal levels of trust and mistrust of the BBC.
BBC Scotlands disgraceful manipulation of a UK wide RCN report, to attack the Scottish Government should be investigated by Stuart.
We had the farcical interview by Gary Robertson of the Tory Miles Briggs, who got away with talking absolute guff.
Example being, when asked by Gary Robertson asked Briggs where would Scotland recruit from, being that the UK are leaving the EU, Briggs stated that they could recruit from the rest of the UK, then Gary Robertson stated that as England is already short of nurses by 40,000, Briggs casually answered that England can recruit from Scotland!, Gary Robertson didn’t bother picking up on that stupidity.
Just to remind that the RCN report is UK wide, where health care in England is a lot lot worse than Scotland, but the BBC in Scotland chose to use the report to attack the Scottish Government
We always go on about reaching out to non Wings people.
The Canary? New European? Novara Media? Skwawbox? Evolve Politics? Westmonster? you say!!
No such thing as bad publicity!
Imagine a prick like Robinson and the BBC giving us a helping hand!!
Nice one Rev!!
Media is nakedly biased. The Daily Mail has an editorial position as does the Times as does the Mirror as does the BBC. These editorial prisms colour everything that is viewed through them.
The BBC was, and still is, opposed to Scottish independence and the SNP. That is unlikely to change, I see no change at all under Donalda. The prospect of the BBC engaging with the disaffected is interesting but I will believe it when I see it. I suspect it will be like Johann Lamont’s constant references to having a dialogue with the Scottish people. This appeared to amount to little more than a quick chat with some Labour activists that reaffirmed the belief that those that voted SNP were a shower of ingrates and should be ignored.
I look forward to being ignored by the BBC and continuing to rely on Wings and others for serious analysis of what is being said by politicians.
Last nights Question Time maybe opened a few eyes here in Jockland , it managed to show a side of this Union that is not the benevolent benefactor it wants to portray , the caring sharing union , by heck this was the nasty side on full view .
Ayesha Hazarika even if she favours labour was taking no prisoners she had the look and manner of a feisty scots lass and wasnt taking any pish from a male dominated bunch of loonies .
Those interested in the actual RCN UK wide survey
you can find it here
http://www.rcn.org.uk/professional-development/publications/pub-006415
My old boss used to say, turn things around for a bit of perspective
The alternate title could of course be.
BBC wages war on independent political forums.
Excellent Rev. thanks for that. I watched the original question and answer at the time and was disgusted by the report at teatime in which Robinson made his ” he didn’t answer” remark. This was as clear as could be that the BBC was an anti Scottish media. I have never listened to a word Robinson has had to say since. After all if you know from the evidence of your own eyes and ears, that he lied in a particular case why would you believe anything else that he ever has to say ?
The UK political scene and society we see today? Our mainstream meeja should definitely take a collective bow. Well done them.
Its not new though, tory beeb attack propaganda.
Where to start…BBC certainly played a deciding role in defeating the miners and Scargill. That was an extraordinary display of tory propaganda and changed the UK completely.
They got Thatcher in and then kept her there. They went to war in the Falklands, committing and gambling a huge amount of Thatcher’s future in winning that war. They keep the royals at the forefront of everything, British and world wide. They barely stomached the red tories and when they decided Crash Gordo’s one eyed Scottish idiot’s time was up, it really was.
They ofcourse destroyed the first Scots ref and every hour of every day in BBC Scotland is devoted to destroying Scottish democracy completely.
Lets not go in to the BBC and Orange Hitler, shall we. Imagine a not tory BBC and the latest Orange Hitler/Teresa/UK,US special relationship, with Bombardier and US protectionist catastrofuck?
BBC r4 Today gimps this morn never even mention any of this very real world tory Brexit Bombardier horror.
The BBC has been a Westminster funded, (not directly licence payer funded), supposedly independent, corporation for almost 96 years.
It was claimed to be founded to directly avoid the situation prevalent in the USA where there was a free-for-all with frequencies of neighbouring stations fighting for supremacy on the same, or overlapping frequencies.
That was, of course, untrue. It was quite obviously the opportunity for the Westminster Establishment to control radio broadcasting. This is still apparent today for he who pays the piper calls the tune.
Perhaps that is translated as he who pays the broadcaster calls the tune-in. It is BBC projected lie that the licence payer funds an independent BBC.
The BBC is funded by a directly agreed grant from HM Government and the Licence fee has no effect upon the level of that grant. In fact the size of the licence fee is made by a different Westminster committee. The licence fee cash goes directly into HM Treasury but is officially collected by the BBC but actually that job is farmed out by the BBC to a former debt collecting agency who obviously operate, as does the BBC, as a profit making operation.
Not to mention that Westminster also controlled the heads of both the BBC and the BBC Trust. The BBC Trust has now been done away with.
Wiki has this to say:-
As you can see even Westminster, (as a whole), can see that the ruling party at any particular time is using the BBC as the State Broadcaster and, to a lesser extent, the wealthy owners of the supposedly independent broadcasters with their right wing views get support from the blue/red/yellow tory/unionist political parties.
The entire life of the BBC has thus been as the Westminster Government’s state broadcasters.
Worth reading about Ayesha Hazarika on Question Time.
http://archive.is/o4Dp2
And there’s even a link to part of it.
But that’s for adults only!
Well said, once again.
Robinson: “Our critics now see their attacks as a key part of their political strategy. In order to succeed they need to convince people not to believe ‘the news’.”
He seems to have forgotten the given wisdom : Never Believe Anything You Read in a Newspaper . I was “convinced” of that from a very early age, it was one of the most helpful things my father told me.
Keep it up, Wings.
What I’m trying to understand is any MSM online not hyperlinking to anything.
Even the most innocuous story “a report/ study by…” never has a link to the origin or btl comments. In this day and age it’s just a given to look for links.
It’s ubiquitous. In MSM world though, the lack is an anachronism.
The lazy misreporting (that’s pretty much a modern euphemism for lies) is also endemic. It’s even in the most banal news, not just the BBC it’s everywhere; To the extent I have to treat them all as nothing more than a ‘man-in-the-pub’ rumour mill, then do my own investigating and cross-checking with others online, just to verify if a cat really was stuck up a bloody tree.
Suppose that gives me the answer really. It’s just lazy, shite reporting churnalism for it’s own sake. People aren’t buying into that? Shock horror.
The MSM and especially the BBC have been tasked to maintain the hegemony of WM (the effective parliament of England after EVEL) over Scotland. It’s top priority at present is to bring down the SNP, they are working tirelessly to achieve their goal.
. It’s top priority at present is to bring down the SNP, they are working tirelessly to achieve their goal.
But they’re an almost insanely creepy outfit though. Yesterday morning and today, BBC r4 Today gimps gave Hugh Hefner a lovely BBC send off to the next world. The guy was an appalling reprobate, making millions off of the backs of naked young women and the pervs that buy that kind of stuff.
Who else has made a fortune just like Hefner, oh yes, Ruper fucking Murdoch. Its probably not a coincidence then, that BBC tory gimpery was so nice to a truly disgusting character like Hef.
Funnily enough I dont blame the MSM so much.
Its the people that fall for their shit that I blame. In a world where most people are a click away from sources of info and other points of view it takes a certain species of weak minded moron to fall for it.
O/Tish
I heard a few minutes of the 5 live question time follow up programme last night, it was only on in the background, and i was doing something else. The sound was only a brexit britnat drone, then two Scottish voices stood out amongst the English Nazis. The two guys featured must have said “we Britons” about half a dozen times each, both said that the SNP was ruining Scotland, and accused Celtic of being a nationalist supported team, although their support couldn’t chose if they were Irish or Scottish nationalists. The two fuds then both proudly proclaimed they were proud to be British, loved the butchers apron, and were proud Supporters of Sevco 2012. No questions were put to these people,they were just allowed to rant, then thanked for their insightful contributions.The copresenters were Stephen(irishbritnat)Nolan and that Scottish political correspondent Ian somebody,who had no comment at all to make about their Scottish callers.
The BBC are Anti Scottish and Anti Scotland no doubt now. A rotten british nationalist organization that needs to be expunged from Scotland for good, much like the union and corrupt, devious Westminster/Whitehall establishment hegemony that it so clearly works for. Odious chancers no wonder Jimmy Savile had such a free rein to do as he pleased whilst working for them-they knew and did nothing about him.
The BBC used to be something to be proud of – excellent drama, science and current affairs progs. One only had to experience broadcasting in the US to appreciate that. But now the BBC is openly and blatantly biased. I guess that in terms of time allocation, at least when averaged across the UK as a whole, there is some degree of evenness in coverage of the different political standpoints in the country. It has to do that after all, to meet the most basic requirements of the Charter. However, the content is wildly partisan. In its emphasis, nuance, headlining, and selective omission, the BBC, and BBC Scotland in particular, are strongly pro-unionist and seek to set the agenda rather than objectively reporting events. I can no longer bear to listen to the BBC news – it is just too transparently slanted.
Yet Mr R seems to think that he, and the BBC in general, are the sole purveyors of ‘the truth’. Thank goodness for sites such as Wings, and how patronising of Mr R to assume that we are not intelligent enough to evaluate information for ourselves.
I am bemused, also, that Mr R and Ms K have chosen this time to play the victim. In the past many BBC journalists showed real bravery in reporting from the front lines of conflicts. Even today Nicola Sturgeon and Dianne Abott experience threats and hostility orders of magnitude beyond anything our cosseted reporters encounter.
Odious chancers no wonder Jimmy Savile had such a free rein to do as he pleased whilst working for them-they knew and did nothing about him.
Its hardly new. Look at Edward Heath. If his alleged crimes are true, its almost certain that his security and spooks knew all about him.
I can’t imagine Kate Adie asking for a bodyguard if asked to report on a UK party conference.
mike cassidy
Thanks for the lInk to QT last night.
Absolutely APPALLED that Dumblebore didn’t intervene and cut off the obnoxious, arrogant
loud mouthed prat who was heckling Ms. Hazarika.
Is he showing racist traits now?
———
Encouraging to read the latest opinion polls; apparently Tories are out canvassing in Stirlingshire as of last week – what do they know about the future???
Reports are that the SNP could take back 11 seats at the next election – whenever that might be… sooner than we think?
———
I read today reports of a trade war between UK and USA.
How’s that going to work for us supposedly to be ‘first in the queue’ for trade deals post-Brexit, Theresa?
It’s as we said all along, we might be first in the queue but it will be on Trump’s terms, “America first”. Which bit of that doesn’t she understand.
Also, re N. Korea dread to think that it will be “AMERICA FIRST” for that decision too.
Scotland was warned about what would happen to the NHS and other services but in 2014 they chose to ignore that warning and voted to remain being run by the same people who are causing the problems Scotland now faces
Today we have the usual phone in to the BBC with the peoples complaints about the things going wrong that they voted for
Every time we have these phone ins about this stuff it’s overloaded with political motivation for making the call or just downright ignorance about how the system works
There is however one thread throughout all these calls which is consistent and that’s the great Scottish moan on the theme of “Sumdy should dae sumthin” or “It’s the Scottish governments fault”
The Scottish government the SNP warned constantly against voting for Better Together and voting for FOR Independence in order that Scotland could make it’s own choices on how and where it spends it’s money and not on just the management of the percentage of what we raise in Scotland being given back to us
Scotland chose to vote for being governed by England and their government but now the same people want to blame the SNP for their own voting mistake either by design or ignorance
So the people who voted Better Together and STILL HOLD TO THAT VIEW don’t care about Scotland, they’re still doing politics for themselves and not for all
Now we have Brexit and funnily enough the SNP and even all the rest of the parties in Scotland warned us about this too and you know what, Scotland’s not paying attention again so the BBC will have themselves a great time once again with their politically motivated phone ins for the politically motivated and the uninformed ignorant
Of course we do have a percentage of “Couldn’t give a monkeys” population too, but again they’ll all have the same thing in common
“Sumdy needs tae dae sumthin”
But it’s never us is it, just “Sumdy else”
The problem the likes of Mr Robinson have is they do not like their version of ‘the truth’ being questioned. They have for generations controlled the information and the interpretation of it. They try to resolve this by claiming all other non main outlets are effectively fake news and group every one of them together.
Their only problem is that those reading these online sites are not always as stupid as as they believe and are capable of drawing their own conclusions. The ones that can’t are invited to be part of the QT audience.
Deliberate omissions, lies, mendacity, twisting the truth, pro British nationalist narrative, anti SNP and many other things-thats the true face of the BBC.
Very recently had to do a wee audio job transcribing a radio interview (not from so-called BBC) about North Sea oil broadcast in 1975. Sorry I can’t link or post it for copyright reasons.
I might mention the content sometime on another thread when it’s on topic, but it is the presentation I want to mention here.
The interviewer is respectful, lets the interviewee answer, perhaps with a supplementary question being put when the answer is finished. No hectoring, badgering, interruptiing or putting his own viewpoint.
In complete contrast to the situation today where interviewers often do most of the talking, usually right over the top of what is being said. They get on radio or television and immediately think they are a “personality”, imagining themselves as a Paxman or a Robin Day, in spite of their own limited talents or abilities.
Who cares what the presenters think?
‘Alternative news sites are waging a “guerrilla war” against the BBC’
Which is really code for,
‘Alternative news sites are using truth and facts against the BBC’
Nick Robinson has been caught not with his pants down, but with a rather large pile of smoldering ash directly behind his surprisingly warm rear.
Nick:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rU8YU3loeQ
The job of the BBC is to promote and protect the British state, at home, abroad, and in the colonies.
They are never going to be impartial, and certainly won’t allow anything which threatens their UKOK to be allowed a voice.
Their problem is, their Union is becoming ever harder to defend. Its sell by date has literally expired. There is nothing left but trashing their opposition with a mix of fake news, propaganda, and when appropriate, simple omission.
Only Indy will change this. All we can do is try to open the eyes of the gullible. Which is happening, and that’s what Robinson’s type don’t like.
@Nick Robinson
I find your dishonesty appalling, as you must surely be aware that cults, such as British nationalism, depend on totalised modes of thought and historical knowledge. Scottish nationalists simply lack the infrastructure to do what the BBC does on a dayly basis, that is, promote a totalised and inaccurate history of ‘Britain’.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02757200802320876
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09692290.2010.517971
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249285927_Rethinking_Cultural_Competence_What_Can_We_Learn_from_Levinas
And so it goes on great deal said about subject only want to add I would rather trust Wings than bbc
@Nana, 8.05am
Consortium News has been doing a ‘Rev Stu’ on some of the content of the New York Times and Washington Post. Here’s Robert Parry’s view of that NYT smear about Twitter and “Russian links”
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/28/the-slimy-business-of-russia-gate/
Since we’re not getting the full picture from the biased BBC,
what do you guys think about starting a protest campaign by encouraging folk to switch to a Black & White TV (tax) Licence ?
(Shades optional)
BBC are just continual anti-Scotland propagandist machine. Scotland must have its own positive Scotland channel, only fair in a democracy you would think ?
Still referendum in 2019 with or without London’s blessing, Catalonia will show what to expect on Sunday.
@TheWasp (10.12) –
Wish I’d heard that bit, sounds interesting. The Scottish voices which end up on national stations are, of course, the most important ones in propaganda terms. R5 Live, especially at weekends, regularly features such reactionaries. Their tendency to exaggerate typical Yoon rhetoric makes them slightly easier to identify than, say, the ones who have a hotline to CallK and suchlike.
I *think* that Scottish dude who ‘helps’ Nolan is Ian Watson.
And so it goes on great deal said about subject only want to add I would rather trust Wings than bbc
He won though in 2014, frauds like Nic and his thousands and thousands of fellow BBC attack propagandists.
Its hard to believe that we’ll all be voting in the UKOK 2020 general election, where all kinds of Britnats will be vying for power in Scotland, all to keep up their relentless struggle to stamp out Scottish democracy.
Its what the majority of Scots voted for though, now we’ve lost our EU citizenship, Brexit bites hard, The Vow was fcuk all.
There’s been a great deal of UKOK propaganda work and several years of it all so far, for BBC UKOK propagandist to be getting along with. They all must be doing something right.
Graun yesterday. Scots voted to be run and owned by the tories, in another country, tories red and blue.
Conservative leadership
Theresa May will fight and win next election, says Damian Green
Green claims May will have ‘big record of achievement’ by 2022 and says voters will start searching for alternatives to Labour
Damian Green said of May: ‘She’s warm, has a sense of humour, she’s good company and she is, as has been observed, fantastically hardworking and conscientious.’ Photograph: Niklas Halle’N/AFP/Getty
Jessica Elgot Political reporter
@Nick Robinson
Do you acknowledge it’s your moral and ethical flexibility that has helped you climb the grease pole?
https://wehearyou.acecqa.gov.au/2014/07/10/what-does-it-mean-to-be-culturally-competent/
Knowledge & the Cult of Experts
http://www.lifelearningmagazine.com/0302/knowledge_and_the_cult_of_experts.htm
https://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/388/706
Reluctant nationalist , that’s the clip I had in mind where the reporter displays a total lack of nous while considering himself more important than any news story .
He behaved very stupidly , totally unprofessionally and made himself look a right haddie in the process.
Meg merrilees, meant to say thank you for the Catalonian link .May it all work out well !
http://www.facebook.com/assembleanacionalcatalana/videos/1469497173099188/?hc_ref=ARRw2pvRdvAIljEP24Yv2gugZHihJrLTutN4Ku3QkD2ryYH7_eB49w3y_E9_djxhMtw&fref=gs&dti=520164458118370&hc_location=group
@heedtracker
“It’s hard to believe that we’ll all be voting in the UKOK 2020 general election…”
British nationalists will be delighted you think that.
British nationalists will be delighted you think that.
Britnats care what I think:D
Tis true though, that near on decade of continued UKOK rule, that’s all been sold to Scotland as a really great thing by massed ranks of beeb gimps, will celebrated by the May 2020 GE, unless…
First real UKOK big impact on all Scots will be the ones that like to nip back and fore to Europe for their hols, 2019, when our UK union jack and EU flag stamped passports will mean jack shit on the continent.
Presumably teamGB are going to have to start recalling all our passports and driving licences, to get that EU flag off them and leaving only a union jack.
All Brits do love their fleg over everything don’t they.
Friday, 29 March 2019
“What do you mean I have to apply for a fackin visa?”
sorry to return to last nights all england QT . even Peter Hitchens was showing up the two cheeks of the same arse political system in the south we are constantly presented with , ridiculed both of them to the obvious dismay of most in the cheap seats .
Ayesha Hazarika showed the subtle difference between scots and the other inhabitants of this island, and she wasnt apologising for being there ,as a lot of scots are inclined to do , and why should she , we have every bloody right as much as anyone else we are not visitors , even if a lot of people in the south treat everyone who dosent speak like them as foreigners,
This lot in the south forget scots played a big part in the development of the modern world and yet are treated like dummies , just look at the shambles engulfing public services down there , and we are the stupid ones who cant run a bath without permission .Aye off the knees time ,and Mayhem can go splash pish in another direction.
If I were a more sardonic man, I’d say it was having the desirable positive attitude to Israel (no doubt influenced by his Jewish lineage) that has helped Nick climb the greasy pole at the BBC.
@Reluctant Nationalist
For that ‘sardonic’ slur and its implications you ought to be banned from here.
Ottomanboi
There’s only one boss here, the Rev., but I’d agree with you.
Oh look who took the bait. *faints from shock*
Thank FCUK its Friday, in teamGB.
Have to hand it the British, they do like a nice wee trolling.
http://archive.is/nxgkZ
From Spain to Iraq, states have to see that suppressing secession won’t work
Simon Jenkins
“Britain went to war for Bosnia and Kosovo to secede from Yugoslavia and Serbia respectively. It would be happy if Northern Ireland voted to secede and re-join the Republic of Ireland, yet it fanatically opposed Scottish independence. Secession is a concept riddled with double standards.”
Its nice that old tories like this, think its all over, in their Scotland region.
@CameronB Brodie
In the light of this nasty ‘Scottish Dawn’ issue, we need to be seen to have clean hands.
Such comments are more suited to the Spectator.
Reluctant Nationalis
So far you have indicated a racist appreciation of ethnicity and now express view which have clear anti-Semitic overtones. Sure your not the intellectual branch of the Scottish Defense League?
If any nationalist, reluctant or not, wishes to stir up racial hatred on this site with remarks, sardonic or otherwise, I would be tempted not to accept any further postings from that sly individual.
That’s very flattering that you think I’m the intellectual branch of anything, Cameron. Thank you.
Ottomanboi – Scottish Dawn? Fuck you, you little prick.
OT.
Why the feck is Katie Hopkins having a speaking tour of Scottish Schools?
What bright spark organised / allowed that???
Mark Fletcher says:
29 September, 2017 at 12:47 pm
If any nationalist, reluctant or not, wishes to stir up racial hatred on this site with remarks, sardonic or otherwise, I would be tempted not to accept any further postings from that sly individual.
Dont be just tempted though. Politics draws all kinds of ghastly characters like this one so contact and complain to the WoS mods.
But keep in mind, another YESer Lochside says I’m a dilettante prick and wants me off WoS btl. I dont mind, free speech and all that:D
Infiltration of the lowest kind in politics isn’t new. Just ask,
Cllr Scott Arthur?
@ProfScottThinks
Thousands in Lothian at risk of being left without a doctor – good stuff from Scotsman.
At what point is someone in the BBC going to PROVE they’re not biaised. That’s all they have to do and since they claim to be squeaky clean, it shouldn’t be a problem, should it?
Nick Robinson et. al bunch of chancers
https://caltonjock.com/2017/09/29/tales-from-the-backside-lies-spies-and-naked-thighs-news-and-current-affairs-through-the-medium-that-is-the-most-corrupt-corporation-in-the-world-the-bbc/
To be fair to Nick, his “subject” for a speech given as some memorial lecture to a BBC journalist on the BBC, he is going to reiterate his belief that he is somehow an honest broker and “respected” journalist. Sadly for him he is a major part of the problem. The BBC has no one to be accountable to and certain parties took advantage of that. When you think back to “respectable” journalists like Frost, Day and Pilger they never would bend to the will of the masters at the BBC as happens today. That Nick’s gaffe over Salmond destroyed not Salmond’s reputation but his own was classic over-confidence that nobody would catch him. They did. As a result he will never be the level of a David Frost and his is the example that will always be hauled out of how the BBC lied to and continues to mislead people.
Reluctant Nationalist
That you looking to stir up discord and disharmony? Why would you wish to do so? Am I perhaps getting too close to the heart of British nationalism i.e racist bigotry.
@mike Cassidy: thanks for that link to Ayesha Hazarika on QT, a programme I haven’t seen for years, which may have significantly increased my life-span.
She certainly wasn’t taking any sheet from that sneering, misogynistic Nazi in what was an impressive performance but Dimblebum’s non-intervention was as craven as it was disgraceful.
I actually think England is going mad. The BBC has given a platform to racists and bigots for so long now that I think that country has reached a tipping point.
Dr Jim @10.32: “Sumdy needs tae dae sumthin”. Your comments describe perfectly the hard-of-thinking citizens I hear every day who blame the only government which actually tries to look after everyone in Scotland on a shoe-string budget.
I’m reminded of the Homer Simpson episode where he had to take action himself to solve a local problem. “Can’t someone else do it?” he wailed. Eventually he took charge of waste disposal in Springfield and bankrupted the council.
Our Scottish self-loathers make Homer look like an intellectual, mind you.
Breeks
“Why the feck is Katie Hopkins having a speaking tour of Scottish Schools?
What bright spark organised / allowed that???”
Some cunning indy supporter I hope. 😉
It is now very obvious that ” BBC ” is now entirely EBC as per output
out with the ” branch office devolved , unionist managed propaganda”. Any
previous ” sop” to Scotland from the London output has entirely ceased.
Scotland and any mention of our country now is being completely ” airbrushed” from
Network state controlled output. The sole exception allowed will be any perceived anti Scottish/ Scottish gov. ” story” or agenda.
Broadcasting in Scotland should be brought under Holyrood control . Perhaps a ” mass campaign of non payment of ” propaganda tax” should be initiated?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-northern-ireland-border-guy-verhofstadt-single-market-customs-union-european-parliament-a7972596.html
Taking the mic-turate…
https://imgur.com/a/xKrrp
Someone should make sure that the joke Katie Hopkins made about Scottish life expectancy on twitter just after the awful bin lorry incident is vividly projected on a board behind her for her whole speech.
Jaba talks pish in Spanish too…
BBC Lies v Spanish Ayes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GpIqPzV1nc
Robinson has a bloody cheek to try to defend the machinations of the BBC especially after the antics of the world’s oldest propaganda machine in the run up to the 2014 indyref.
What Robinson’s really irked at is that social media has given people a alternative view and voice on matters, that didn’t exist just a few decades ago.
We don’t now have to take the word of the BBC, or Britnat news rags as gospel. You’re own excellent blog has shown that the unionist media as a whole can never be trusted, more so on matters relating to Scotland.
The only dialogue I want so see with the BBC, is the dismantling and reshaping of it to suit Scots needs, after we win indyref2.
Its not clear how this Katie Hopkins lurking around your kids’ school enterprise works.
Can anybody approach a school with the offer to give a talk on ‘something’?
Its not clear yet whether any state school anywhere has agreed to introduce “how to rip Katie Hopkins a new one” opportunities for their pupils.
But it does raise the question.
Has she inadvertently highlighted the potential opportunity for the likes of wee ginger dug to speak to our pupils in Scotland?
SPANISH REPRESSION OF DEMOCRACY IN CATALONIA – ONLINE @ THE BBC? NOT A WORD.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk/home/world
Be in no doubt, the BBC is a major enemy of Democracy.
Proud Cybernat
Good show, that was fast. 😉
Forget BBC Nick Robinson for a moment.
BBC Jockland TV is preparing a piece from Catalonia for transmission to an unsuspecting mortified Scotland on this evening’s Flagship TV BBC Reporting Scotland. 🙂
NHS Scotland placed on Red Alert from 6:30pm onwards.
https://twitter.com/CatalansForYes/status/913503014849310720
It’s the “pretending to be neutral” part that’s so repugnant.
The BBC can’t just admit they’re partisan because manipulating political opinion has to be done under the radar to be effective. So Robinson & Co (Keunssburg, etc) are stuck with this absurd charade of claiming “political impartiality” whilst everyone knows they aren’t. In recent years they’ve been forced to cover up this lie with another one: that “public trust in the BBC has never been higher”.
For example, see this propaganda piece in today’s Guardian: “Laura Kuenssberg: BBC titan who would ‘die in a ditch for impartiality'”. If she was truly impartial they wouldn’t need to convince people of her integrity.
@Jack Murphy 2:28pm
Glad I won’t be watching. I can just picture it though: bbc Scottish Cringe merchant just happens to find a couple of folk who think Catalonia parliament should get on with its day job. And if it doesn’t everyone will die in another civil war.
Evil separatists! Know your place!
Disappointed you group the Guardian with the Telegraph, Sun and Record.
@Reluctant Nationalist
You seem to have found your intellectual level.
When it comes to writing about Scotland the Guardian is just as British nationalist as the Telegraph, Sun & Record.
The great thing about the whole episode with Nick Robinson, was that he showed to the whole world what a bunch of lying bastards the BBC and their presenters are. And that will never be forgotten.
I do not find Nick Robinson to be a credible commentator and that is down to one person – Nick Robinson.
Reporters describe what is happening and journalists masturbate over it. No wonder the Bear from Bo’ Selecta! needs glasses. Ouanqueuer.
The reason for Nick Robinsons diatribe with his attack on news from socila media is fairly obvious I would have thought.
The established propaganda units are losing the battle with those like Wings and the Canary. They are losing this “Guerrilla War” and don’t they know it.
I won’t cry many tears for the proven liar “he did not answer” Robinson nor his totally discredited employer the BBC. Both are paying the price for their duplicity in recent years.
Alex Clark says:
29 September, 2017 at 3:05 pm
As matter of interest; has anyone ever ‘won’ a war against a Guerrilla army?
Dan Huil @ 14:53,
As a former Graun reader, Dan, I have to agree.
It had some columnists who had principles and stuck by them, John Harris and George Monbiot spring immediately to mind. Many others evidently saw it as their party-political duty to rubbish the very idea of Scottish autonomy, Martin Kettle being the worst by a long way. As for its Scotland Editor and Labour fanboy Sevvy, he is more of a joke than anything, but it’s just another version of the same old English Establishment pish.
Nick Robinson is a Tory…wysiwyg!
He resolutely does unionism’s job at the BBC which, as we have officially been told, is the protector of the UK constitutional status quo. It is rather naïve to think that presenters in an organization with such a ‘brief’ would give ‘politically subversive’ views a hearing, unless to do mischief.
Plainly we are a thorn in the Mother of Democracy’s side.
It’s astonishing, and sickening, to hear lefty-liberal-aren’t-nationalists-nasty journos and commentators desperately denying their openly British nationalist outlook when attacking the independence movement in Scotland.
Hypocritical doesn’t cover half of it.
All you need to know aboot Her Majesties Propagandist BBC employee Tricky Nicky Nob..inson is this:
“Robinson was the President of the Oxford University Conservative Association during his time as a student”.
So it is natural that he will choose to look after his own.
And that he was allowed a platform to do so.
Also if were are now in the realm of “Guerrilla Media” as espoused by Her Majesties Propagandist BBCs Tricky Nicky Nob..inson
Then WoS is the Dirty Great Silver Backed Daddy of them all.
🙂
Keep shining a light on their mendacious activities Stu.
@Liam
Don’t know in general. In one case, as in Wales, guerilla warfare was very successful against the English King, but when the guerillas attempted to meet the English on normal ground on their terms, they were basically annihilated. Hence why Wales is not independent.
Potted history in a sentence!
Mike Cassidy @ 2.14
Katie Hopkins and school visits.
I should imagine she might have to go through a police disclosure check which is the usual procedure for anyone who is involved with children
Do I not recall that during the indyref, shortly before he came up to tell the restless northern natives how to behave, former President of the Oxford University Conservative Association Auld Nick had a cosy little fireside chat with the then PM, David Cameron?
No doubt they discussed the critical importance for the indyref of BBC correspondents like him being impeccably impartial and neutral…
@ Otto Manboi
I have no intellectual level. But I’ll try to learn from your musings on such subjects as how western states can learn a thing or two from the enlightened history of arab nations about how they can be less obsessed with homosexuals and cultural conditioning. And how to disguise a thought such as ‘I don’t understand all these pointless, sterile gays and wish I was somewhere sensible in the Levant where they just behead them’ by writing something sagely like ‘who plays with concepts of freedom and choice plays with scalding philisophical coals’. Ahhh. Yes. I think I could even mimic the skywards-pointing wagging finger.
O/T New leader of Ukip Henry Bolton , a non entity leading a non entity party .
Brilliant stuff from WGD:
https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2017/09/29/taking-the-jackie-baillie-out-of-labour/#respond
More fun:
http://www.thenational.scot/news/15566986._Latest_Jackie_Baillie_pish__email_claims_its_first_Scottish_Labour_scalp/
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1885990955050776&id=1565368627113012
Have to be honest…laughed out loud at this…!!
Nick Robinson seems to misunderstand what Wings is, it is not a news site. I don’t come here expecting to be informed about the salient news stories of the day.
Racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic. What a lovely disposition.
@Reluctant Nationalist
Very drole. We’ve never met and rather unlikely to but already you have confected a totemic ‘hate figure’. A very slippery path to paranoia.
Ever been to ‘the Levant’? Outside your comfort zone? Promise, your head will not leave your shoulders effendi! ;->
@RJS
I used to think he could be a balanced journo, and took pains with research hoping he’d become accurate in his reporting. All I wanted was accurate and bias, didn’t care if any ended up supporting Indy, just balance and truth. His articles did usually cover “both sides”, and even at times had the pro-Indy part at the top (not headline), or at the bottom, or even the strapline – the things a lot of people look at while skipping the rest of the article.
But I think someone posted on a thread a link to a photo of him and others in a bar in Edinburgh, and googling around as was my wont, I found a twitter thread with him and them discussing what angle they’d put on some news item. Thing is, it hadn’t actually happened yet. That was when I gave up on him.
Only one @Liam says at 3:10 pm
“As matter of interest; has anyone ever ‘won’ a war against a Guerrilla army?”
Commonwealth Armed Forces are the only ones to win a guerrilla warfare campaign on the ground of the enemies choosing.
Malay Emergency 1948 – 1960.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency
A campaign of aggressive patrolling and ambushing of enemy combatants combined with “winning hearts and minds” of the civilian population.
Brexit means Brexit
Strong and stable
And now folks we have “Deep and special” in reference to the EU
EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE I am not a Maybot
Nobody’s ever beaten the Afghans they just go up into the mountains and come right back down to fight again
O/T
Lesley Riddoch is a the Burgh hall in Dunoon tonight expressing her thoughts about a possible Nordic future for Scotland and then over for a chat to the Forward Shop
I hope to have her on my Roundabout show for a minute or two on the online Argyll Independent Radio sometime after 7 PM.
Legerwood 3.35.
I would presume that – if any school took up her offer.
Its the offer itself that interests me.
Can anybody announce they are going on a school tour?
Is this just a publicity stunt hoping to receive an offer or two? Her twitter feed certainly indicates its a fishing expedition.
There is a charity set up by Robert Peston which does this sort of thing.
http://www.speakers4schools.org/about-us/
In Scotland, who decides who can be invited?
And, given the voting age in Scotland for Holyrood and referenda, would this not be fertile territory for the public speaker supporters of independence.
I’m genuinely curious about this whole idea.
That non entity leading a non entity party will still get more BBC airtime and support from the BBC than Scotland’s democratically elected Government will@ ronnie anderson says 3:53
Henry fae Bolton sounds like a comic Neo Nazi character fae the Fast Show or the like 🙂
I live in England I phone into lbc but of late they are not answering my calls they let the phone ring and ring for ages and then the operater comes on and says there is no reply their other tactic is to answer my call and then say hang on and leave you hanging on and on till eventually you hang up and during all this time they are still asking for people to phone ln they do not like the truth so I am banned not officially of course but banned I wonder if this is fraud on their part ??? I am thinking of complaining to the police I mean it is like advertlslng goods for sale but not having the goods if any of you listen to Ibc you may have heard me on I am Blair from Camberley
@David McEwan Hill
Nordic future? even the word sends creepy shivers down the spine.
Besides the Nordic states are clannish, rich, anglophile and consider Scotland’s place is in ‘England’.
Never found them the least sympathetic. Never has a wrong tree been so well barked up…
Personally, I don’t really care what anyone thinks of me. However, I do appreciate a good idea when I see one.
The Nordic social model: Sustainable prosperity and welfare?
Why is the Nordic social model so successful economically? And how has it been able to meet the new environmental challenges? Ten Nordic researchers provide some answers in a new pamphlet.
https://www.forskningsradet.no/en/Newsarticle/The_Nordic_social_model_Sustainable_prosperity_and_welfare/1253964904388&p=
Labour Press Officer Stephen Low told to piss off by Richard Leonard’s campaign team.
http://www.thenational.scot/news/15566986._Latest_Jackie_Baillie_pish__email_claims_its_first_Scottish_Labour_scalp/
I do not not think it is right what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinian people killing them and stealing their land does that make me anti Semitic ??? It does not matter what the two peoples are called wrong is wrong
Like the Highland Clans used to do @Dr Jim says at 4:22 pm
“Nobody’s ever beaten the Afghans they just go up into the mountains and come right back down to fight again.”
Then Monk and Wade built the Military Road network which still exists.
And then the current Fort George was built by Colonel William Skinner in 1747 to replace the one built in 1727 that the Jacobites destroyed during the ’45 it cost more than £200,000 at the time.
This show exactly how much the English were prepared to spend to subdue Scotland (before oil was even known about).
It is open to the public (Historic Scotland) and well worth a visit as it is one of the few surviving examples of 18th Century bastioned defence military architecture regardless of political views on it’s existence.
yesindyref2 @ 16:18,
I’m assuming you were referring to Sevvy? He made a stab at covering both sides but it always seemed contrived to me. During campaigns he always seemed to be fawning around Labour people, and rarely in the company of any of the others.
I had more hopes for wee Libby, but she seems to have concluded, at least for now, that it’s way more productive (in both senses of the word) to raise a kid instead. Which seems like good judgement to me, and not only at a personal level. Not having to serve the paper’s current anti-indy establishment line will likely preserve her journalistic reputation into the bargain.
https://ac.els-cdn.com/S2212567115013015/1-s2.0-S2212567115013015-main.pdf?_tid=8368be3e-a52e-11e7-8763-00000aacb35f&acdnat=1506700665_8720a2d9a41089b2f67449b6644a46ab
The Nordic Model: Is it Sustainable and Exportable?
http://www.ceres21.org/media/UserMedia/Nordic%20model_original%2020110309.pdf
Utopia sustained: The Nordic model of social democracy
http://www.fabians.org.uk/utopia-sustained-the-nordic-model-of-social-democracy/
@Dr Jim
I think two of the greatest military strategists : Alexander and Gehngis beat or assimilated the Afghans.
@RJS
Yes, that’s the one. He did read btl, and reply, give him that, and got information from there as well. I did get a laugh though, I’d been digging around (abour March 2012) and found a survey of the SNP membership which showed over 50% in favour of full NATO, not just the Partners for Peace. He duly wrote an article about this, only for dorice to point out the survey was 3 years old. Still, I did apologise btl as I had made the same mistake, didn’t check the date and so misled him. Gave me a laugh all the same 🙂
Blair Paterson
Anti-semitism is when you discriminate against the Jewish faith. Objection to Zionism and Israeli apartheid is not the same as anti-Semitism, despite what the Tory media would have you believe.
Link
http://www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/news/item/what-jewish-socialists-are-saying-to-the-labour-partys-chakrabarti-inquiry
@ Sinky 4.49 Unison membership paying for Low to work for the Labour party , the Scottish membership of this union should be demanding a enquiry , if Low cant do his job in the union why is he doing another job outwith the union at the costs of the membership .
mike cassidy @ 4.30
I think the head teacher might decide – prompted by one of the class teachers who may suggest a speaker because they fit in with a project that a class or classes are doing.
But the head would probably run it past someone in the local education department.
There is still the issue of disclosure though. I have vague memories of a fuss about this a few years ago by writers I think who felt it would stop them going into schools to give talks.
As far as politicians are concerned they definitely have to get permission. Remember the fuss a few years ago when Mr Salmond turned up at a school. Can’t remember the details, just the fuss which may have been totally manufactured by the usual suspects.
As to M&s Hopkins, she should not be allowed anywhere near a school.
I’d quite like to visit Iran, Otto. Very sympathetic to their fight against interference from America and Israel.
I’d like to sit in a street cafe and watch the world go by with a few glasses of whisky.
I think it’s great.
Decades and centuries from now, I reckon people will recognise social media at the 20th/21st Century as a step change in our collective development.
The BBC is just the modern equivalent of the Monks and religious orders of the Middle Ages who feared literacy in the population for the threat it posed to their hegemony and control of closely guarded texts and scriptures.
But for now, beware the BBC. Disingenuous grievances like this from Robinson reflect a BBC and wider Establishment increasingly aware that its broadcast propaganda is seeing diminishing returns and a loss of control, and the more people who now switch off the BBC, the closer we come to the next stage of subjugation and pacification by media, where the “Establishment” moves to box in and shut down the unregulated voices who, for now, enjoy the liberties and unrestricted access of the Internet.
We already have the snoopers charter so the Establishment can hack your devices and eavesdrop on your conversations, and they are already trying to smear the integrity of bloggers and wildcard journalists who ski off piste. Fake accounts, trolls, defamations, we have the Rev being sued, Craig Murray being sued, Andy Wightman being sued,.. Whatever the Establishment cannot control, it will attempt to noisily discredit and then quietly destroy.
I pray that Scotland can break free, and stay free, and as soon as practicable, be BBC free too.
It’s not duds the likes of Katie Hopkins who should be given an audience with our school children, it’s the technocrats. Here kids, this is how you set up a domain, this is how you encrypt your data, this is how you hide your online identity, this is how you scan for surveillance and malware, – this is how you defend your 21st Century liberties.
Look at the language they use. Our proper journalists are “bloggers”. Their journalists are frauds and liars, but portrayed as victims when heckled. We are CyberNats, guerrillas, pesky Nationalists, subversives and wreckers, even though it is us who value truth, evidence, proof, collective knowledge and ever wider communication and inclusiveness with people from all over.
The “Establishment” on the other hand seeks to propagate hatred and mistrust, the “us and them” mentality, manipulates the truth and hides certain issues wholesale, then commends their trolls and mouthpieces with honours, privileges, respectability, awards, accolades, wealth and celebrity, but beneath the pomp and gloss, everything is grubby, dishonest and stinks.
Keep your BBC and all it’s propagandising monkeys. It is tainted, soiled and unfit for purpose. Modern Scotland deserves something much better.
@CameronB Brodie
The worrying trend in these countries is the rise of neo-nazi and pagan racist ideology. In the 1930s the four principle Nordic states brought in eugenic laws and compulsory sterilsation, the latter particularly in Sweden. Hitler admired the methodology; Nordic ultra-noir indeed. They can keep their ideas.
Abulhaq @ 4.42
I have always understood the reference to the Nordic model to be about how to organise ourselves better.
Not to mimick for good or ill their society.
As for clannish???
Well that was our system before this feudal one was imposed upon us….so I would think it’s perfectly proper to take a good and honest (by which I mean not through a British prism)l look at the Clan system and the tribe system to see if we can cherry pick the good ideas for how Scotland is to be run.
I have read some good and positive stuff about the clan system and the American Indian tribe system.
I think we could learn from and update not forgetting that humans are tribal and that we are recent descendants of an actual clan system.
He (Robinson) just doesn’t get it. At first I though it was duplicity, but then I realised he (like many in the media) just doesn’t have any self awareness.
Also, Cameron, anti-semitism is misused to describe discrimination against Jews, as semites are those who speak the semitic languages, of which the vast majority are Arabic. Palestinians are semites, for example.
Although considering I’m allegedly anti-islamic, as well as anti-jew, that would indeed make me a total anti-semite. The complete package.
I will not rest until the entire middle east lies in ruins. That you will no doubt infer.
@CameronB Brodie
There is a long history of anti-semitism on the left. A classic of the type was Karl Marx himself.
The book Revolutionary Yiddishland (a history of Jewish radicalism) by Alain Brossat &Sylvie Klingberg is worth a read.
For many, some reluctantly, a Jewish state was the only safe haven from prejudice.
Abulhaq
All true but times are different now, as we now have a global framework of human rights supported by international law. This ‘regime’ is obviously under considerable challenge from the Anglo-American New Right, so the future is uncertain. However, Scottish independence would help bolster the principle of universal human rights, IMHO.
Reluctant Nationalist
I made a similar point in the run-up to the indiref re. Semitic peoples. That does not excuse the anti-Jewish and anti-Islamic overtones of your earlier comments, IMHO.
You do appreciate what Salafism is?
Reluctant Nationalist@ 5.17
You may enjoy a trip to Iran I wouldn’t be sitting in a pavement cafe drinking whisky though.
The polis over there are a wee bit hard on street drinkers I understand.
Abulhaq
I pointed to substantial evidence of Marx’s anti-Semitism and support of Zionism, during the indyref. His father converted from Judaism to Protestantism, in light of the anti-Semitic default position in central Europe, at that time.
Abulhaq @ 5:24pm
All true but times are different now, as we now have a global framework of human rights supported by international law. This ‘regime’ is obviously under considerable challenge from the Anglo-American New Right, so the future is uncertain. However, Scottish independence would help bolster the principle of universal human rights, IMHO.
Reluctant Nationalist
I made a similar point in the run-up to the indiref re. Semitic peoples. That does not excuse the anti-Jewish and anti-Islamic overtones of your earlier comments, IMHO.
You do appreciate what Salafism is?
Black market whisky in Iran. 72 Euros.
Churchill illegally took Iran’s Oil in the 1950’s. The CIA and MI5 undermined the Gov. When the PM wanted some back. The PM was discredited and put in jail. Unrest and uprising. The West re-instated the unpopular deposed Shah.
Israel Gov caused terror in Palestine. To take over land. Illegal settlements. An apartheid State. The secret Balfour agreement 1917. Lloyd George, Balfour and Lord Rothschild. They promised the Arabs autonomy and the vote after they fought as allies 1WW. Reneged upon the promises.
The Westminster Gov supports apartheid states and absolute despot monarchies in the Middle East. Illegal wars. Costing £Trns.
Persia – Iran
@ Cameron
Do you think that I think all arabs are ISIS? I’ve been calling that gang Takfiris since before they became the official replacement for al-Quaeda. I’m a wordly man, I’ll have you know.
@ Jason Smoothpiece
Jesus! Thanks for the warning. But maybe they’d let me off if I wore my T-shirt with the picture of Mohammed on it, though. Show that I’m making an effort.
Sorry, but I find all this foreign policy stuff, “Nordic” or otherwise, rather premature and even just a tad self-indulgent, given we are not yet in any position as citizens of a proper country to decide what it might be. Getting ahead of ourselves, in short.
For me the touchstone is always: will this convert anyone who previously voted “no” to want and vote “yes” next time?
If not, what’s the point, actually?
**Catalonia latest*** the Spanish courts order Google to shut down apps, links and maps that show Catalonian people where to go to vote.
Waging war against the bbc?
All I want from the bbc is fair and truthful coverage of Scottish new and affairs.
Currently the bbc in Scotland does not provide such a service!
Andy-B @ 18:13,
That disgraceful situation being the obvious exception to my previous posting!
Reluctant Nationalist
” I’m a wordly man, I’ll have you know”
I will accept that, though it does not address the prejudiced evident in your previous comments, IMHO.
Once had a whisky in Saudi Arabia. Cost me an arm and a leg.
Sorry.
But seriously, we should all be closely watching events in Catalonia this weekend. Let’s hope the people can vote in peace.
So basically speaking a thread about Robinson, who provably lied about Salmond “he didn’t answer the question”, and the BBC in general, has been derailed into discussing Zionism, anti-zionism, Iran and Muslims next, probably a bit of homphobia and some anti-English to come, the odd sexist remark later on, and what do we have?
Something Robinson and pals can use against Wings.
Well done.
Henry Bolton.
WTF is this guy even doing in UKIP?
Below is just a sample of what this ex-soldier and police officer claims to have done.
•Commander of a multinational strategic intelligence unit in Bosnia
•Head of International Police in Central Croatia
•Liaison officer to the Serbian Internal Security Forces in Kosovo during the war
•Humanitarian crisis management adviser to the Office of the Albanian Prime Minister
•War crimes investigations and exhumations of suspected war crimes victims
•United Nations District Governor and Head of Local Government in Kosovo
•Head of Regional Ceasefire Operations, Skopje, Macedonia
•Strategic Border Management Adviser to the Macedonian government
•Transnational Organised Crime Adviser to the Macedonian Minister of Interior
•Expert Advisor on reform of the Georgian State Border Guard Command and Control
•Head of border strategies, programmes and projects across the 57 member states of the Organisation for Security & Cooperation in Europe
•Coalition Stabilisation Leader (‘Supported Civilian Commander’) for the coalition forces in Musa Qala and Now Zad Districts, Northern Helmand
•EU Common Security & Defence Policy Crisis Response Team, Libya
•Strategic and Operational Planner, EU Common Security & Defence Policy, Brussels
•Head of the EU Crisis Response Team in Ukraine
http://archive.is/cUjGc
Robert J. Sutherland
We are in the middle of an information war. I’m just trying to help folk to an alternative outlook to that presented by the corporate media and the BBC. No offense meant or taken. I’ll get myself away back to OT though. 😉
The BBC in hardhitting mode. It goes like this :BBC says
Scottish NHS is shite.
Why cannot the Scottish Government attract more staff?
Scottish Education is shite.
Why cannot the Scottish Government attract more staff.
Perhaps the answer is to realise BBC is shite.
Fallon wants to start a world war.
26 of the 28 NATO members have no nuclear weapons.
Brexit means nuclear goes. Muddled up Fallon. Mucks up.
yesindyref2
I do not feel I’ve provided any ammunition against the cause. Sorry if you feel differently.
The Catalonia news is awful. They’re not going to forgive or forget this in a hurry.
@ Cameron – there’s no excuse. I am what I am. If you were a tea leaf-reading kind of guy, would you see ‘diversity training’ at a re-education centre in my future if I carry on like this? If so, put in a good word for me so I don’t end up in Room 101. I don’t think I could take being made to have sex with beautiful ladies, which is my biggest fear.
Anyway, that’s more than enough of this derail. Fin.
Robinson wrote: “In order to succeed they [alternative news sites] need to convince people not to believe ‘the news’.”
He’s got it the wrong way round. For Robinson to succeed he needs to convince people to believe ‘the news’.
He’s failing miserably to do so, thus his whingeing article.
They’re rattled.
CameronB Brodie @ 18:39,
I wasn’t directing my comment to anyone in particular, Cam, just observing a general tendency for people to lose focus and start riding their favourite hobbyhorse instead. (Foreign policy being one obvious such, given the amount of human-induced misery going on around the globe.)
As indyref2 also said.
But likewise no offence taken or intended!
Getting back on topic.
Dear Mr. Robinson,
You are so full of self importance and entitlement you think you have the answer to the problem.
In fact Mr. Robinson you and the rest of your ilk is that you are the problem.
Yours etc.,
TV Licence Payer (Ex)
bbc can’t be trusted to cover Scottish news honestly or impartially, their bias against Scottish independence is endemic and systemic.
Scotland needs its own national broadcaster, a broadcaster independent of the Scottish government that fearlessly challenges the Scottish Government, but also highlights the positive policiess and initiatives that the Scottish Government .
bbc fulfills the role of an external propaganda machine, if Nick can’t see that, he should not be in the job he in as he has no journalistic savvy!
ronnie anderson says:
29 September, 2017 at 3:53 pm
O/T New leader of Ukip Henry Bolton , a non entity leading a non entity party .
A grand total of 12000 people cast votes in the UKIP leadership contest, yes that ONE TENTH the number of SNP members. And they have zero MPs and virtually no councillors left. Yet they get huge BBC coverage.
And it seems very odd that someone with a CV as good as Bolton’s should bother with such a minor outfit.
RCN is a Union and of the nurses who could be bothered to reply to the survey the number looks to have been around 1500 who state unhappiness of one type or another leaving many thousands of nurses who did not reply to any survey
Not by any means suggesting there aren’t challenges within all our services but it should be borne in mind the FM just offered a lifting of the pay cap making negotiations possible for the services to increase pay and the RCN is campaigning for their share knowing full well the media will ramp it up more if it means sticking it to the SNP
The Scottish government can’t manufacture ready made people to fill vacant positions if those people don’t exist or don’t want to because they’d rather do something else and it isn’t money because that’s there
The media and opposition say just because Scotland is better than everywhere else is no excuse, well yes it is
Scottish government manages the whole budget but doesn’t control the block grant (oh how I hate that phrase “grant”)
It’s our Feckin money not a gift or benevolent hand out
Scotland voted against Independence despite every warning by the SNP to the contrary
So Scotland got what it voted for a shortage of cash as doled out by the Tories and soon Brexit when even more shortages of staff and money will occur
Better together nurses eh, You YES yet!
Watched the National News tonight with story about the state of the NHS nursing in the UK . Scottish news repeated the same story almost word for word about the Scottish NHS.
Think this tale of woe was manufactured in England.
There have been nursing shortages for as long as I can remember.
What troubles me as much as anything about Robinson and his BBC employers is that even now they don’t seem to appreciate, or at least publicly recognise, the reputational damage that this one man caused to himself and the broadcaster.
The BBC actually seems to exemplify the Union itself. Jealous of its monolithic centralised command and apparently impervious to learn anything from past experience or respond to the legitimate concerns of the Scottish public who pay (however indirectly as it may be) for its upkeep.
Because the BBC itself shelters behind a near-absolute freedom of information blackout (oh, the bitter irony!), and given its near-legendary unwillingness to concede the slightest error to any innocent complainer, it positively invites mistrust. Yet it seems entirely blind and deaf to the consequences for itself.
Was any internal action ever taken over Robinson’s maladroit intervention during indyref1? Was he applauded as a hero defender of the Union or censured for a shameful lapse of professionalism? For shame, we will likely never know.
“We’re just not going to hold our breath, that’s all.”
The BBC is and always has been Scotland’s enemy number one.
Scotland will not be able to become independent as long as the BBC is there.
Our top priority should be the complete destruction of the BBC in Scotland.
By completely destroying its credibility by awakening the public to its lies.
O/T Anyone heard of Scottish Dawn? Neo nazi group emerged earlier this year and now banned by Amber Rudd. Take a look at their flag in this BBC item. Looks like a shoddy attempt to smear the SNP.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-41440467
Sorry, meant to post archived link:
http://archive.is/t4xyg
Why would anyone with half a brain, consider trusting the BBC’s (glaringly obvious) conservative employees, like Robinson, above grassroots organisations or democratically elected representatives?
Well, we don’t in general, but then they only need to fool enough of the type of people, who think that everything on TV is great, and all celebrities and reporters are smashing fellows, and the SNP will take away ‘Strictly’ and it’s all the young people’s fault.
As if..things were better in the old days.
The reason that the rich get richer-
.. is because stupid or deliberately uneducated people mistakenly trust wealthy expensively educated people to be natural benefactors.
Scotland is trying to break the mould, they hate us for it.
Re. the BBC’s inability to change. I see this as a result of the BBC’s Charter commitment to defend BritNat ideology Robert. The BBC is not particularly concerned with the truth, as it is primarily a vehicle of BritNat imperialism.
Overcoming Behavioral and Institutional Inertia
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDRS/Resources/477365-1327504426766/8389626-1327510418796/Chapter-8.pdf
Capella , the Alloa march had the camera’s and I think hey were questioned by a reporter from the bbbc – the response was singularly English accented.
Capella
Clearly a smear campaign by Rudd etc
The OO promised ‘direct action’ if Scotland became independent:
He said: “The Orange Lodge would become a paramilitary force, if you like. It obviously implies a recourse to arms … we’d have a group of people who would be pro union.”
This was some years back, they apologised and said it was only at some hypothetical time in the future if Scotland became independent! As if that makes it OK.
I wonder why they are not on the banned terrorist list?
@Capella
Interesting take on Scottish Dawn in this article. Won’t archive.
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/3kk8z5/scotlands-extreme-right-wingers-are-now-backing-independence
@Jockanese Wind Talker
And the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, though the methods there as we are finding out in the courts here were less ‘nice’ than in the Malayan Emergency.
The Kenyan govt gives Mau Mau veterans a war pension. I’m pretty sure the Malaysian govt doesn’t do the same for Communist veterans there.
Incidentally the Indian govt gives a war pension to INLA veterans. The INLA if you recall is the Indian army which allied itself with the Japanese and fought with them in Burma to try and liberate India from Britain. Not guerrillas but interesting nevertheless.
@ Dorothy Devine – what has Alloa done to deserve that! Our young people need to know that these neo-nazis are vile and possibly agents provocateurs creating false flag operations.
How much responsibility does the BBC have for propagating the rise of right wing politicians such as Marine le Pen, Geert Wilders, Nigel Farage and the AfD.
A clip from QT shows Ayesha Hazarike having to deal with an obvious right wing plant in the audience. Holds her ground though!
https://twitter.com/bbcquestiontime/status/913531779620810753
High time people in the BBC woke up.
The reporting of the Scottish Dawn thing is distinctly suspicious. Doesn’t say how many there are and tries to sneak in a link to Yes while saying they are far right.
Gives them oxygen.
Why wasn’t the DR making a story about the OO, who threatened real violence in the past if Scotland became independent.
Not sure why it took the Ferret 9 months to come up with this, they could have just joined and found out.
The Communist Party in the US only kept going because there were so many FBI agents in it to see what it was doing!
@ Alex Clark – interesting read. This development reeks of secret black ops to me. An obvious attempt to smear the SNP and the Indy movement by promoting a vile doppelganger.
The link with the US Alt-Right confirms. Also the involvement of UKIP confirms it. They are vehemently against Scottish independence.
Who would believe these people would be crawling out of the woodwork after a hysterical anti-immigrant referendum campaign? Well most of us on WoS probably!
Propagandist complains that other propagandists exist.
The proscription by WM included the usual suspects from NI troubles, ETA and then a whole swath of mostly muslim qroups. The sikhs were de-proscribed.
Only now have right wing groups been proscribed. The first being National Action.
Read the attached and be wary!
http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN00815.
The summary links to a pdf download.
Orange Lodge should be banned period.
Spain’s heavy handed approach could actually help Catalonia vote Yes for Independence. If they do vote Yes in Catalonia surely Nicola should announce the new Scottish Independence referendum for 2019 and just go for it, strike while the anti-Scots are floundering with Brexit. Surely a yes result will be supported by Europe, a Europe that knows we voted to remain and claims they would be happy for us to stay.
IMHO, the independence movement needs to understand itself better, if it hopes to stop the BBC and the BUM linking us with fasist wanks.
https://www.tutor2u.net/politics/reference/cultural-nationalism
Cultural Nationalism in India
https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/cultural-nationalism-in-india-2332-0915-1000165.pdf
Civic Nationalism & Ethnic Nationalism
https://msu.edu/user/hillrr/161lec16.htm
P.S. I see Cultural nationalism as both a powerful string in our bow and as a means to an end. Not necessarily an end in itself.
Dr Jim and starlaw
Nurses
Some info on nurses
As of March 2017 there was a total of 162,598 people working in NHS Scotland and nurses make up about 42% of the workforce, around 68,200. Just over 3000 nurses responded to the online survey.
Current staffing levels are: From ISD Scotland workforce report to March 2017
• There were 59,798.6 WTE nursing and midwifery staff in post, representing an increase of
0.7% in the last year (426.2 WTE). Following a reduction in staff during 2012, the WTE has
risen by 5.9% (3,331.3 WTE), representing 5 years of consecutive growth. While the number of staff continues to increase, the annual rate of growth has slowed down in the last 2 years.
• Nursing and midwifery vacancies have increased by 27.5% since March 2016 to 2,818.9 WTE.
Of these vacancies, 670.6 WTE were vacant for 3 months or more, an increase of 227.5 WTE
since 31 March 2016. The total number of vacancies is the highest ever reported by ISD but
this is partly due to improved recording.
……….
Since 2012 the number of places for Student nurses and student midwives has risen year on year and is now around 3300. Student nurses and midwives get their university fees paid for them unlike their counterparts in England. The bursary is £6578. For student nurses with dependants there is a dependents allowance, single parents allowance and childcare allowance. This was increased for 2017-18 to £3640 for spouse or cohabiting partner and £3640 for the first child where there is no dependent husband or wife and £557 for each other dependant child
In addition the Scottish Government set up a scheme to try to attract qualified nurses back into nursing. This has been running for a couple of years and appears to have been successful.
The Scottish Government has also paid the nurses their 1% pay rise each year unlike the Westminster Government. The result is that nurses in Scotland are paid more, although not by much, than their counterparts in BHS England.
So quite a bit has been done to try to keep numbers up. Pay, however, has clearly been an issue when it comes to attracting people into nursing and retaining them once they are in.
Bank and agency costs keep creeping up so as well as trying to fill vacancies and boost numbers generally this might help to reduce these costs. But in some respects it may be a case of running fast to stand still.
P.P.S. Though British nationalism can also claim to be ‘cultural’, Britain’s colonial identity is intrinsically fascistic in nature. The Establishment has always employed patriotism to manipulate loyalty and obedience to a racist, expansionist, war-machine. True story.
@Legerwood
Knew some of that but you have provided lots more good information
Thanks.
OT … an interesting short piece on the Irish border.
I find this statement awesome ….
” There are about 275 land border crossings between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, compared to 137 crossings on the entirety of the EU’s eastern border from Finland to Greece. “
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/eu-affairs/20170925STO84610/brexit-the-impact-on-ireland
It looks like the EU will insist that NI stays in the single market and customs union. How the UK deals with the relationship between NI and mainland Britain will be the UK’s problem!
Reunification or a border between NI and Britain? The DUP will like neither. May’s ‘partnership’ with the DUP may not survive the realities of Brexit. Another GE anyone?
“A racist, expansionist, war-machine.”
Yes, Cameron, that’s the Good Old British Empire for you: the greatest land-grab in history.
Makes Nick “Asbestos Pants” Robinson all hot and bothered, I’m sure.
Legerwood @ 9.48
These are the “gold” posts , thank you
Over the years many post great nuggets of info but I’m sure there are folk like me who struggle to log them all.
I was wondering if some of you whiz kids , BDTT types, ( sorry to name you Brian but you post PC knowledgeable stuff , there others too ) have any thoughts on storage to a central file?
Maybe a Dropbox type thing.
Post is saved as a PDF or JPEG then stored ?
Easy then to share on FB , Twitter etc
I was thinking an area that we can access …… Ach I realise it could be a huge admin hassle ?
Ach well it was a thought.
Just feel we need every “Truth Nugget” to be out there & the easier it is for the 100s reading this blog to share it can help the situation.
What’s wrong with the folk in Scotland, if we don’t go for a referendum on Independence before 2021 then we can forget it. Catalonia has never been a country but they at least are going the extra mile to try and be one, will the same passion and fervour be seen all over Scotland I seriously doubt it.
In the 70s, every time the support for Independence increased, the Tartan army or whatever its name was, would turn up and damage a post box or some other symbol of the state. Just at the time when there would be least need.
Seems there is a new ‘tartan army”.
In the 70s, whenever the support for Independence increased, the ‘Tartan Army’, or whatever it was called, would turn up and set fire to a postbox or some other symbol of the state. Just when it would be least needed.
Seems we have another ‘tartan army’.
They are just too obvious for these days.
I was in Spain a fortnight ago, and on the itv 6pm big english news the article about the Scottish Dawn clowns was the lead. It featured in short report about the rise of the extremist right, and showed footage of the ” march” in Alloa, along with a piece to camera by the reporter who had compiled the article.
I wasn’t in the town that particular day, but by all reports the marchers, or should I say assemblers, were chased by the locals and had to run for the station after a short gathering, with no march, at the top of the high street
@ Brian Powell @ TheWasp – exactly. And Nick Robinson wonders why nobody trusts the media. When the media stops manufacturing lies and broadcasting it as “news”, then we might begin to start to trust them.
But it would take a Truth and Reconciliation commission before most of us would listen the the BBC again. I just want our licence fee money spent on an independent Scottish media service, like any other normal country.
O/T but a wee laugh to start your weekend with a swing, courtesy of Guy Verhofstadt at a talk he gave at the LSE yesterday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh8fDLOAki8
(If you are interested, the LSE’s own full-length livestreamed version can be found at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzBi8VLWUgg
His actual speech begins at time marker ~57:00 in from the start.)
@Capella
Scottish Dawn was covered by #scotnight a couple of weeks ago.
Clear as day, a false-flag.
@Robert J. Sutherland who mentioned Guy Verhofstedt
Did anyone realise that the EU parliament, with M Verhofstedt as President, is about to propose a motion that NI remains within the EU and that the border between ireland and GB is placed in the irish sea?
https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2017/09/29/giving-brexit-a-shove/
Scottish Dawn was covered by #scotnight a couple of weeks ago.
Clear as day, a false-flag.
Werent they on Hans Gruber’s release demand list in Die Hard? We’ll blow up the Yakatomi building unless you release 9 members of the New Provo Front, Liberty Quebec, nine members of the Scottish Dawn, wtf:D
If Scottish Dawn is just another UK spook creepout, its not that great a choice but Die Hard is though. Do all the nice but dim ruperts sit watching it and then come up with the same for their Scotland region though? Probably.
ben madigan @ 11.32
Did he say anything about Scotland?
@ Brian Powell who voiced concerns about the orange order. You are quite right to be worried.
The orange order is already a pseudo-military force
https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/the-orange-order-a-pseudo-military-organization/
many of the DUP MPs, members of the Stormont Assembly in Belfast are members of the orange order. I hardly need say they are at present busy propping up the Westminster Government
https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/orange-order-vs-the-state-conflict-of-interest/
@ Rock
Our top priority should be the complete destruction of the BBC in Scotland.
By completely destroying its credibility by awakening the public to its lies.
I rarely agree with you on anything but, I do agree that our primary mission ahead of the next referendum is to destroy the credibility of the BBC as well as any other outlets distorting Scotland’s news on behalf of the Union – particularly in the eyes of the undecided and NO voters
Stu has gone a long way toward that end but, others must step up to the breach in case anything untoward happens to him and others like him in the future.
Disseminating as widely as possible the material he and others have worked on over the last few years and making sure it is always available is a sensible precautionary step.
Expanding on his and others work and facilitating the growth of that work amongst the undecided and No voters, is a mandatory step forward in freeing our family, friends and neighbours from the BBC and it’s ilk’s influence and bringing them around to our way of thinking where independence is concerned.
That work can be carried out now, ahead of and in anticipation of Indyref2.
I’ve hid a few malts so apologies in advance fir no making any sense 😉
Looks like planet toryboy’s going to get its BBC gimp network to graft even harder, at keeping the tory creep show alive and saving this ghastly fucking union. Is a massive tit like Nic R really up for it? Maybe a Lordship might be just the ticket. Jim Naughty says he deserves one for all the SNP bad work he does. Arise Lord Naughty.
http://www.tribunemagazine.org/2017/09/tory-membership-slump-puts-party-in-crisis/
The only picture I remember featuring Scottish Dawn was festooned with Union Jacks.
Also, long time indy supporter Ted Christopher wrote a great wee song called ‘Scottish Dawn’ about the imagined thoughts a Scottish soldier in the Wars of Independence may have had just before battle. I wonder what he makes of it all?
The orange order is already a pseudo-military force
A lot of countries have these kinds of Orange Order outfits though, small pseudo military scout groups basically. What sets the OO apart clearly is that they’re left alone by UK media, until they’re required.
BBC Scotland and bizarrely the Guardian make a great fuss over the OO, when needed, all to scare Scots in to believing that they are something other than glorified Scout groups.
@Still Positive who asked
“Did he say anything about Scotland?”
I could find nothing about scotland in the EU proposal –
that is why I focussed on ireland and the DUP in my post
if there had been anything to report about Scotland I would have mentioned it and commented.
Lack of mention worries me a great deal.
Acceptance of the proposal by the EU parliament could really push things forward on brexit or stall them completely – depending on the UK’s response
In any case i really think, as I’ve said before, Scotland needs to get its skates on and up its game.
Let’s hope some announcement about Indyref2 is made at the upcoming SNP conference –
otherwise as M Barnier is fond of saying “the clock is ticking” – and not in our favour
William Wallace says:
29 September, 2017 at 11:53 pm
@ Rock
By the way Mr Wallace, Rock talks nothing but pish, a word that is currently banned in Holyrood debate but in Rock’s case its fine.
So glad I don’t pay the BBC to feed me propaganda. Would be interesting to have the BBC funded by voluntary subscription only. Then we’d see just how beloved it is. My guess is they couldn’t survive 5 minutes on the free market. This is why they need to keep the government happy. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you should be the BBC motto.
ben madigan @ 23:32,
Thanks for the link.
One detail is incorrect – Verhofstadt is not (and never has been) President of the European Parliament. (It’s currently Antonio Tajani.)
He is the Parliament’s representative in the Brexit negotiations, though, and thus of some significance, since the Parliament has to formally approve any agreement reached.
Indeed, the notion of an all-Ireland free trade area is logical, though it really does put a fox in the henhouse of May’s wee helpers, the DUP. You know, the only ones in NI who voted for Brexit. (Heh, heh.)
My, oh my, what a guddle. You really couldn’t make any of this up!
@ heedtracker
Normally eh wid agree wi ya. On this occasion however, he is right.
William Wallace says:
30 September, 2017 at 12:42 am
@ heedtracker
Normally eh wid agree wi ya. On this occasion however, he is right.
Nah he’s full of it Mr Wallace. Fact is, have you ever met a Scot who thinks that BBC Scotland is not also full of it too? I’ve not.
BBC is far more than a clussterfuck of propagandists in Pacific Quay for example. They’ve been monstering Scotland and Scottish democracy since the invention of tv.
Rock’s a chancer that insults our intelligence. I however how much more respect, people know when they are being lied to, and some Scots like it that way.
@Robert J. Sutherland – many thanks for pointing out my mistake, your helpful tip was much appreciated – have now corrected the error
the EU proposal is a neat move – we’ll see what happens in the UK when it’s passed as it seems it will be
@ Heed
Eh ken wha Rock is. 8000 national readers and ah that pish. Eh hiv been here fae the start. Eh hiv watched fowk come and go. The message this time fae him is true.
Wiv work tae dae. Let’s get on wi it. 😉
Heedie,
So that makes SNP the second largest party in the UK by membership. Nae bad.
William Wallace says:
Yes and he detests the National because its the direct antithesis of what BBC Scotland led media gimps tell us about Scotland, that maybe Scotland’s more than just a BBC Scotland style drug ravaged battle field and Holyrood’s a joke.
And your average Scottish haha newsroom liggers and gimps can no longer that Scotland the shithole news is what sells papers. But they do say that still.
@CameronB Brodie
Not directoed at you, sorry about that.
Pished as a fart, soryy if this isnt readaible.
I’ve noticed a bit of a trend in recent weeks in the MSM, since the June election actually (when Teresa rattled off some threats to ‘regulate’ the internet) – and I think Auld Nick’s latest outburst needs to be understood in the wider context of the public opinion campaign all the BBC hacks are curently waging on behalf of her Maj’s government.
There’s been a general chorus of ‘oh isn’t social media bad’ and ‘poor victimised Laura and Nick’, and now its building up to become ‘Social Media recruits Scottish Nationalist TERRORISTS!!!’… and I think we can all see where this is going.
This recent media narrative against ‘fake news’ all fits in with Teresa’s plans to ‘cleanse’ the internet and save us from the evil clutches of free speech and democracy, and I’m pretty sure within a couple of years this site will cease to function – one way or the other (and let’s all hope it’s because of the other). Along with any other site the government thinks is ‘dangerously’ radical (ie. critical of the government).
I remember first noticing the BBC behaved like this in the build up to the Iraq war – prepping the public bit-by-bit to swallow what would initially be (rightly) seen as utter madness, until it slowly became acceptable… and then inevitable, and then even morally righteous.
But believe it or not, the BBC has ALWAYS been like this. I’ve also been doing some digging into deeper BBC history, so for those of you that are interested in a long read about the BBC’s historic warfare against the UK population’s political interests, check out my new website: http://www.bunnys-bbc-critiques.com
I’m going to write more along these lines (maybe shorter pieces!), and do my statistical analyses. I have several DVDs of May – June BBC news broadcasts to churn through, but I think there shall be some interesting results once I’ve collated the data and written up the findings on just how biased the main news broadcasts are. I have a number of things I’m going to look at, it’s just a labour-intensive case of harvesting data from the broadcasts (the stats is the easy bit).
One important thing is I think we need to show the BBC holds all grassroots political movements in the same contempt – some of this is apparant even to the unionist No-voters (ie. the monstering of Corbyn), so it’s one way we can get in under the radar and expose what the BBC actually is to everyone, not just other Yes voters. Once its credibility is gone, then its power is gone too.
Words cannot express how much I hate the BBC, so I have tried to be academic and neutral throughout. With a bit of historical distance, their motivations and modus operandi become crystal clear.
yesindyref2
None taken, just making sure. 😉
Bunny Daft at 0149am,
Thanks for your very important post. I have had a quick look at your site, and the essay on the general strike, and how the BBC operated. It is extremely interesting. You should contact REVSTU direct, as he may (and I absolutely do not speak for him) be interested in highlighting your work, brining it to a wider audience – especially where it relates to Scotland.
Not sure if you are from or based in Scotland, but on here, REV STU and others such as G A Ponsonby (see the DVD ‘London calling – how the BBC stole the referendum’) have been highlighting the truly shameful political/anti Scottish independence bias of the BBC since before the independence referendum.
It is a long catalogue of shameful, craven, deliberate misleading omission and blatant propaganda from our so-called ‘neutral broadcaster. In the last two weeks of the independence referendum of 2014, the bias of the BBC and MSM against Scottish independence, the Scottish Government and in person, the First Minister of Scotland, became open, blatant and overt – a classic example being the behaviour of the BBC’s Nick Robinson.
News sites such as this one exist purely because the BBC have repeatedly shown, especially in Scotland, that they are effectively paid liars (although I do believe many of the people in the BBC are unaware of how the news items they read have been manipulated) operating on behalf of the London Westminster establishment. They simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth, where Scotland, and ESPECIALLY Scottish independence are concerned.
http://www.londoncalling.scot
YOUTUBE Link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXQYuLUAbyw
Links
https://blogs.gov.scot/international/2017/09/29/from-edinburgh-to-london-and-brussels-for-brexit-discussions/
http://www.alynsmith.eu/scotland_in_europe_update_29th_september_2017
http://indyref2.scot/crying-crisis
https://petewishart.wordpress.com/2017/09/29/me-and-jeremy-corbyn/
https://randompublicjournal.com/2017/09/28/barcelona-standoff-spain-is-not-getting-its-way/
http://www.holyrood.com/articles/news/jean-claude-juncker-brexit-talks-need-%E2%80%98miracle%E2%80%99
https://scottovoce.wordpress.com/2017/09/27/the-straitjacket-of-devolution/
Proud group of Scots watching as our @TriciaMarwick addresses thousands at the final rally for Catalonia. Amazing. Cherish Democracy.
https://twitter.com/CllrJLinden/status/913859146650406914
http://www.businessforscotland.com/scotland-the-brief/
Rent rises could offset Highland Council debt caused by universal credit
http://archive.is/8OWiT
http://www.scottishlegal.com/2017/09/29/blog-no-not-proven-did-not-come-first/
http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/tfn-news/parents-plan-to-picket-katie-hopkins-school-tour
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/only-catalans-can-set-the-ne-plus-ultra-to-their-independence-aspirations-1.3238294
http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/tfn-news/death-knell-sounded-for-universal-credit-as-tory-mps-rebel
http://evolvepolitics.com/tory-campaigners-say-party-is-facing-oblivion-after-membership-plummets-to-100000-lower-than-lib-dems/
HS2 contractor Carillion in fresh profit warning as it reports £1.15bn loss
http://archive.is/wKkyr
yesindyref2 says:
30 September, 2017 at 1:38 am
@CameronB Brodie
“Not directoed at you, sorry about that.
Pished as a fart, soryy if this isnt readaible.”
You mean Jackie Baillied as a fart ?
EU leaders promise action after Tallinn brainstorming
https://euobserver.com/political/139226
Rona Fairhead’s record should disqualify her from public office
http://archive.is/iRgBN
https://www.thecanary.co/discovery/2017/09/29/tories-handing-buckets-cash-oil-giants-cost-taxpayer-beggars-belief/
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/get-out-lt-general-rains-hell-on-air-force-academy-after-racist-messages-were-left-on-black-cadets-rooms/
Good morning Nana x ~
Cheers for de linkables.
Radio’s on.
Morning Cactus. Looks like it’s going to be a nice day here, sun’s out and grass needs cutting.
“But believe it or not, the BBC has ALWAYS been like this.”
Don’t worry, I believe you, Bunny Daft @1.49.
And Lord Reith’s favourite chaps were Mussolin and Hitler, lest we forget.
@ Nana – Very pleased to see Tricia Marwick in Barcelona to support Catalan Democracy. Something else the BBC probably hasn’t mentioned.
https://twitter.com/CllrJLinden/status/913859146650406914
@Capella
Paul Monaghan and Margaret Ferrier are there also, you can see some video clips on their twitter account.
People rattling keys at Barcelona #CatalonianReferendum rally this evening. I asked why? Answer: “We have the keys of the polling stations” lol
https://twitter.com/_paulmonaghan?lang=en
https://twitter.com/MargaretFerrier?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Robinson should watch Marr’s interview of Noam Chomsky. Chomsky reveals the truth to him about institutional bias. A truth that Marr has quckly since forgotten.
So much to read this morning – so little time! with Nana’s links, the SNP MPs in Barcelona and Bunny Daft’s critique of the BBC it is going to take a lot of reading.
Oh well, what else is a sunny Saturday for.
http://www.bunnys-bbc-critiques.com/
@Bunny Daft
According to Reith he refused the Archbishops broadcast because if he allowed it against the wishes of Gov it would have given Churchill ammunition to persuade Gov to take full control of the BBC,
https://tinyurl.com/h5e93zp
@ Robert Louis – yeah, I’ve seen the London Calling documentary. It was the final straw that made me decide I’d get doing some of my own research into this horrible organisation. I’m a big admirer of the Rev and the whole team at indyref2.scot, particularly G A Ponsonby! Once I get a bit more written (a ‘portfolio’, I suppose), I’ll maybe make some proposals about drafting something more focused that packs a bigger punch for a website like this, and see what the Rev and the rest of them think. For now, I just need to get more groundwork done.
@ Tinto Chiel – lol, I guess it’s not so much of a surprise to be honest! 🙂 What surprised me was that even in 1926, people were saying the SAME thing (“I want my license fee back”) about the BBC as they do today. It’s like its partisan tactics are forgotten by every proceding generation, and this isolating of the different groups it’s attacked over time makes them more vulnerable to suggestions that their complaints were/are in their own heads. The systematic nature of the attacks over time is the significant pattern that should be the undoing of the BBC.
@Scot Finlayson – yep, I’ve read this BBC history article before. It sounds like spin. If the BBC does the government’s notional de-facto bidding anyway, whether or not it is nominally independent isn’t really important. In fact, Reith was clever in explaining to Baldwin (who was the less hawkish and more strategic of the two Tories) that the pretence of independence was a mutual bonus for both parties: the government gets to pretend to be less manipulative and more democratic, and the BBC gets to stake the moral high-ground with its pretence of impartiality. If Churchill had got his way, the BBC would not have gone on to enjoy the trust and credibility it now demands from the UK populace.
Out of interest, do you guys reckon it would be the statistical analysis or the historical articles that would be more effective at demonstrating the nature of the beast?? What would you be more interested in reading?
From Phantom Power
Exclusive interview with writer Liz Castro on Catalonia’s historic independence referendum. Liz gives her insight into the history and politics behind the vote including Catalonia’s complex relationship with Spain, the rise of the independence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgbZZrrIHDo&feature=youtu.be
Also @Bunny Daft says 12:29 pm
Prof Robertson at
https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/
is very good.
I see the usual desperate suspects are demanding indyref be announced as soon as possible.
Events in Catalonia will NOT influence our campaign timing, as they are NOT LINKED IN ANY MEANINGFUL WAY.
We are a COUNTRY, Catalonia is a REGION within a Country.
Our campaign path is clearly marked out, and if folk like Rock, Colin A, old pete and Ben Madigan do not know what it is by now, then they are clearly not paying attention or not interested.
Nicola’s summer statement was genius, it removed ANY GOOD REASON for unionists to DEFLECT away from the disaster of brexit and fill the media with anti Scottish indy’jackie baillie’ talk instead.
At a stroke, Ruth Davidson went from prominent media mouthpiece, to irrelevent non entity with nothing else to say.
Focus has been fully on brexit ever since, and when the full nightmare is exposed and sinks in by next year around this time, THEN the SG will strike and announce a referendum as per the legal mandate currently tucked away in their back pocket.
It will be pretty hard to convince Scots that staying on the good ship brexit is better than being independent and forging our own way in the world.
The WM mooted 2 year transitional deal, is a last desperate attempt to keep Scotland.
They know there will be a referendum, so they want to punt brexit 2 years down the line so as to delay the impact enough for their bullshit to work again.
Naming a referendum date now is tactically crazy.
geeo @ 16:09:
That is very well put, and restless as I may be, I have to agree.
But it cuts both ways. It doesn’t help then for SNP figures – mostly from the WM or ex-WM contingent it would seem – to indulge themselves by “thinking out loud” that maybe IR2 ought to be put off “for a fresh mandate at the next Holyrood election in 2021”. Or sometime, mebbe, whenever.
That apparent lack of determination, or fortitude or whatever it is, we don’t need. It turns the clever wait for the right moment you describe into an abject switherathon, and thereby undermines it completely.
Robert J. Sutherland
That apparent lack of determination, or fortitude or….flying a kite to see which way the wind blows?
CameronB Brodie 16:51,
Same thing, Cameron, same damn thing.
I’ve said this before, but in rather more words:
history is never made by kite-flyers.
@ Nana – another great link. The Liz Castro interview conveys more information in 30 mins than anything I’ve seen or heard from the BBC. Great contribution form Phantom Power.
One last day to go.
CameronB Brodie,
“Britain’s colonial identity is intrinsically fascistic in nature.”
That is precisely why the term “British” is toxic and hated by the majority of countries in the world and those people of Scotland with at least half a brain.
In my humble opinion, it is madness for a certain apparent independence supporter to take the geographical meaning of the word and keep on insisting that the Irish and Scots will be “British” until Judgement Day.
@Capella
A wee bit more info re the Catalonia vote tomorrow
Around thirty MPs and MEPs of different political tendencies from 17 countries have been invited by the Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia (Diplocat)
including Joanna Cherry and Douglas Chapman
http://www.diplocat.cat/en/activities/80-exchanges/international-visitors/1376-an-international-parliamentary-delegation-to-follow-sunday-s-referendum-in-catalonia
William Wallace,
“I rarely agree with you on anything but, I do agree that our primary mission ahead of the next referendum is to destroy the credibility of the BBC as well as any other outlets distorting Scotland’s news on behalf of the Union – particularly in the eyes of the undecided and NO voters”
Nobody has to agree with what I post but at least you have the decency to acknowledge something you do agree with and.
Unlike the Guardian reader with a Slovene (ex?)girlfriend.
Like Labour attacking the SNP for the sake of attacking, as you will have noticed in your exchange with him.
William Wallace,
“Stu has gone a long way toward that end but, others must step up to the breach in case anything untoward happens to him and others like him in the future.”
A genuine “independence supporting” paper would be publishing the Rev. Stuart Campbell’s articles as front page headline news.
Unlike the fake “independence supporting” The National whose only purpose is to milk gullible independence supporters.
But Scots have a reputation for being wise with their money, only 8,000 have fallen for it.
The inside word from The National, apparently, is that the pretendy adverse marketing carried out on Wings by a certain poster is doing wonders for the increasing circulation of The National.
Good work, chap or chapess.
Bunny Daft,
Thanks for that interesting exposé of the BBC during the 1920’s. I must say that the parallels with today were very striking.
Further links led me onward to another (and personally very familiar) episode in the history of UK broadcasting, ie. the story of pirate radio during the 1960s.
For those too young to know, it was an irreverent and refreshing broadcasting alternative which in its heyday reached a massive audience of (largely) young people, until the UKGov of the day stifled it and funnelled the tattered remnants into the newly-created and cringingly awful BBC Radio1.
The pirates were essentially commercially-driven, but the 60’s music scene in the UK would never have happened without them, it’s fair to say. The stuffy BBC had nothing to offer, and before their arrival the only alternative was dear old Radio Luxembourg in the evening.
But the Labour UKGov of the day couldn’t tolerate any competition whatever to the state broadcaster, so the notorious Marine, &c., Broadcasting (Offences) Act 1967* was eventually enacted.
And the grandiously-entitled “Minister of Posts and Telecommunications” who drove it assidously through Westminster? None other than one Rt. Hon. Anthony Wedgwood-Benn. He later carefully cultivated an image as avuncular pipe-smoking leftist “man of the people” “Tony Benn”, but those who saw him operate then, when he had real power, saw another person entirely, an authoritarian defender of the Establishment and the BBC state broadcaster monopoly. I for one was never fooled by his later makeover and manoeuverings.
So a word to the wise, young folk. Watch out for self-declared lefties like him. More likely than not to be sharp-elbowed self-promoters who merely provide an alternative facet of the Establishment for those who don’t like the Tory version.
T’was ever thus.
*(See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine,_%26c.,_Broadcasting_(Offences)_Act_1967
for more details.)
the BBC is licking the goverment arse because of the charter. I’m hoping things will change when the charter is signed
BBc is licking the govermetn arse becasue of it charter when sigend it might change
If Mr Robinson had watched yesterday’s news unfold, he would have seen a vague mention of ‘clashes’ on the BBC’s home page, while the independant websites were showing images of riot police hitting ordinary people who wanted to vote.
And that is just the latest example of why people are finding their news elsewhere.