Holiday Relief
Posted on
June 17, 2025 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’re thinking of just handing over Wings to Grok for the summer so we can spend all our time feeding the swans, readers. Here’s what the Twitter artificial intelligence bot said when we asked it to assess today’s National front page.
Sounds about right to us. We’re off for a walk.
It’s all about visions for Swinney.
Blurred vision that is.
There is nothing about HOW independent statehood will be realised … because he’s never given it a moment’s thought.
So true.
‘Holiday Relief’ ‘We’re off for a wa*k.’ ‘Sounds about right to us.’
“In a proposed keynote speech, Swinney said: “It is only by taking charge of our own destiny, with our own hand on the tiller, that we are better able to ride the waves of change, that we are better able to shape our own future.”
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Just like he did with the ferries?
Swinney…not waving, but drowning.
Being against the coming war, will be a vote winner for the snp, since it will destroy the electoral coalition that the Labour Party has built up.
‘Sitcom punchline’indeed. Perfect analogy.
«VISION….modern, dynamic and forward looking» …flatliningly dull AI text for sure.
Its all in the training.
YOU THINK SWINNEY BORING?
link to newstatesman.com
«a stable sensible England»
Brilliant parody.!!!
Sorted enjoy your walk Stu.
John Swinney up there in the charisma stakes with Blair Jenkins……….remember him……lol…
A bowl of cold porridge has more charisma.
And remember, whatever you do, don’t mention the war.
I, for one, welcome Grok over Scotland as our new overlord.
It was far more useful and positive to talk about the evils of nuclear waste dumping on the last thread. This is about putting Scotland into the waste.
John – bless him! – is either fibbing or deluded (or both!)
Impressive AI summary that. Are you sure you didn’t write it Stu?
I’ve got to say I’m feeling bereft today. I had great expectations for Walter White look-alike John Swinney but reading that National headline is like being punched in the guts by John L. Sullivan.
I was looking to an independent Scotland that was autarkic, sluggish and so backwards-looking that I had high future hopes of being a warlord.
Who will speak for me now?
I’m not angry though John, just deeply disappointed, frankly…
Within reach?
I wish.
Depends how long his arms are I suppose.
The national online today reports that another block of student flats has been approved.
When will somebody tell the local councils to permanently stop this when the site could be used to build homes for permanent residents mainly native Scots.
Is this a Glasgow clearance.
I believe this could gain wide support.
An attempt by Redactable John to avoid being Jilted John.
Has he ever delivered anything noteworthy?
“Reach” sounds very subjective.
He’s building a sandcastle.
Grok, might even get into conversation with our people, what a thought. A real AI wanting to communicate and discuss whats going on in politics it might just be the force for people to stand up and take notice.
You do realise that you’ve gifted JK (no, not the Harry Potter one) with his next slur piece?
It’ll be all about how the deluded masses are now paying for Grok journalism.
Unlike the deluded masses who are still thinking SNP are the only game in town.
Pretty sure that Venn diagram will have no intersection.
” Swinney continued: “Today, you’ve heard something of my answer, something of my ambition for Scotland.
“It is a vision of a country that is fair, wealthier, more at peace with itself than the Scotland of today, a Scotland that is modern, dynamic and forward looking, living in anticipation of what more can be done, what else can be achieved, moving forward as one, moving forward with hope and with self-belief.
“Such a Scotland is within reach, I have no doubt. But if we want it, we have to work for it, we have to vote for it, we have to actively, purposefully, and I hope joyfully, make it happen.” ”
link to thenational.scot
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How to talk without actually saying anything.
Today’s word contender:- WAFFLE
“Waffle is language without meaning; blathering, babbling, droning. Its usage does vary, however it generally refers to speaking or writing in a vague, trivial, or nonsensical manner without making any clear or important points. This can occur during presentations, essays, or casual conversations, often to fill time or when the speaker lacks substantial material.”
Sums it up fairly for me I think…
The Timothy Leary of Scottish politics. Take the trip to Caledon.
What does this colonial conference tell us?
What we see is precisely as Fanon suggested: the dominant national party seeks only ‘to make a friendly agreement with colonialism’; in elections it is forced to ‘depend on slogans’ because there is no plan to liberate the people; and so the party leaves the matter of independence ‘to future events’.
And in respect to the contrast (between the SNP) with Salvo and Liberation Scotland, Fanon would have this to say:
“when the intellectual elements have carried out a prolonged analysis of the true nature of colonialism and of the international situation, they will begin to criticize their party’s lack of ideology and the poverty of its tactics and strategy. They begin to question their leaders ceaselessly on crucial points: ‘What is nationalism? What is its meaning? Independence for what? And in the first place, how do you propose to achieve it?'”
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
How to run a successful Colony.
Page One.
Chapter one.
1.Eliminate the intelligentsia.
2. Control all communication.
3. Play each tribe off one another.
4. Bribe, blackmail, torture all native leaders
5. Send in a small contingent of infantry. With bright uniforms and flags.
6. Get the natives to work on plantations. After you’ve removed them from the land in the first place.
7. Paint everything White.
8. Build a cricket ground.
9. Get a knighthood.
10. Thank god.
Hi Alf, was listening to Craig Murray, Sara Salyers and yourself on Randy Credico radio talk show, well done all of you you done us proud. I would have preferred the presenter to be a bit more serious, I posted it on here but I don’t think anyone took any notice.
Yes 100%, I see Indyscotnews now offers the audio in program entitled: ‘WBAI New York: ‘Live On The Fly’ with Randy Credico — The Decolonisation of Scotland’
“preferred the presenter to be a bit more serious”
Hmmm. Not with a name like Randy Credico. That handle will never allow its bearer to go through life being serious.
How does a citizen of the largest and most successful colonisation effort ever in the history of the world feel about decolonisation anyway? Unless he has Cherokee ancestry or somesuch, wouldn’t he have to sail back to whichever European country his ancestors hailed from? Abandoning his home, career, country, nationality and heritage when he went.
It must be hard to be serious about decolonisation when you are carrying that amount of historical baggage.
Is he fully subscribed to the decolonisation for thee, but not for me trope? That would work.
783 times. I confess, I may have missed a few as I am not on here every day. Most people go to the butcher’s for their mince. I find it difficult to believe that some read your ‘links’ for theirs!
He can’t even get the Saltire up on public buildings never mind Scottish Independence. And who could forget he desecrated the flag when he marched to ‘End conversion therapy.’
It’s a shame he doesn’t want to end Scotland’s transgender state. Being a country yet self identifying as British.
BELL END.
HOW TO SPOT «ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE», marked tendency to phrasal repetition. The AI algorithm having no consciousness hasn’t a clue what the phrases actually mean, just dishes them up when prompted.
So many contemporary politicians share the characteristic.
First they ignore you…
Then you laugh at them…
Then you win.
Nah.
It’s them that’s supposed to laugh at you.
You’ll never reach Step 3 if you’re doing Step 2 all wrong.
Step two is all that is required dude.
Ola , Prickly Pal!
Here is the reality the SNP mantra is 2050 before we think about Independence again and when we look back, I hope people remember that voting SNP 1&2 caused Scotland demise. For those of us who aren’t fucking stupid and even people like myself who does have a low IQ, it isn’t hard to see what mantra in 2050 is going to be all about, if the SNP still exist it will be we can’t be Independent we don’t have any industry our ports are owned by someone else all our natural resources have done everything is failing its easy to stay in the Union.
It isn’t hard to see this so called Indy in 2025 is all being forced upon us by the MI5 & CIA and their government but whats the benefits to the ("Tractor" - Ed)s in the SNP.
Even if the SNP replaced this moron they’d only replace him by another moron our only option is to rid ourselves of the SNP entirely. I’m not joking I’d vote for reform before I’d vote SNP for me and my country the SNP is Scotland’s biggest threat.
I’ll be honest I wish Humza Yousaf would return, this Swinney I can’t bare to watch this guy.
How’s the Salmond case coming along?
Indeed, or that of sneaky Pete and the 600 grand?
Plea deal for Murrell done and dusted (all to keep Saint Nic out of jail). He will pleaded guilty and cop a suspended sentence, so nothing “awkward” will emerge from a not guilty plea and a trial.
And yet the cult will gorge on this cold wattery porridge as if they were attending a banquet of the finest cuisine with the REDACTOR being head chef
It never ceases to amaze me how many apparently normal educated people can be conned by the glib insincere promises and statements of these lying chancers , it is no wonder there are so many people being ripped off and conned by nefarious scumbags , this CLOWN and his entourage of sturgeon and useless deviants and perverts have had 11 years to come up with a credible route to independence YET all they can UTTER is that we are within touching distance
The TRUTH is that anyone who votes for these Fuckwits is actually the enemy of independence , they are NOT supporters of independence for Scotland they are supporters and activists for a political party who have governed Scotland woefully and incompetently for 11 years and are using the MANTRA of independence to remain tied to the financial gains that TALKING about independence brings
Loyalty can be impressive and admired but it can also be ABUSED and MISUSED by persons for their own financial benefit, it can be hard for people to recognise that they have been used and conned when they have so much invested in their belief of something,but reality hits hard when you finally emerge from the fog, unfortunately the EVIDENCE of their lies and corruption could not be more visible after 11 years so what will it take for the remaining deluded to AWAKEN
I don’t think that Swinney’s I have a dream speech will knock Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s speech off top spot.
Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp talking a lot of sense in an email this evening. He says that SNP need to refocus on independence and hold a Citizens Convention.
What he doesn’t say is anything about working with all the other independence parties/groups. Sigh.
Wouldn’t a truly representative Scottish Citizen’s Convention reflect Scottish society at large – 52% opposed to Indy?
That being the case, it’s obvious why the SNP aren’t interested.
Why should the SNP (which has, sadly, run Holyrood the last decade and more) share the podium with parties and movements (Believe in Scotland, Alba, Salvo-Liberation, ISP, I4I, Scotia, New Scotland Party, etc.) that poll 0% and have next to no support? Why should the (electoral) elephant bother with a bunch of no-hope, loser, mosquito parties?
“Orkney Islands Council has accepted it must remain part of the UK – after spending two years exploring opportunities for greater autonomy.
Officials looked into various models for “alternative governance”.
These included changing their status in the UK or even potentially becoming a self-governing territory of Norway.
A report to councillors concluded the proposals were too difficult and too expensive and members agreed to investigate a single authority model to reform how public services are delivered instead.”
link to bbc.co.uk
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There doesn’t seem to be any mention of the population wishes to either leave or stay.
agent x……
Well, we must all wait with bated breath to see what “post colonialism” tells us !
It will be MOST interesting to see what Fanon, Cesaire and Mickey Mouse have said about this shocking development !
How much has the Scotland 2050 thing cost and who is paying for it?
Reading some of Iain Lawson’s blog articles today showed what quality of thinking and personality is missing from the SNP.
But it was also cheering to read his blog – I could hear his voice and see his smile. It helps to lift the gloom and encourages me to carry on trying to help our cause.
I PDF’ed most of his articles in the period after Iain died. I go back to them from time to time to sharpen my memory on certain things. “A man who could not be bought”. I’ll aye think well of the man anyway that is certain. Well worth Scottish nationalists downloading articles from this excellent site while it is still up there.
What is wrong with this British Labour government,
Starving kids, freezing pensioners, allowing the mass rape of young girls, assisted killing the elderly and vulnerable and now murdering babies.
And all the woke middle class uni educated activists care about are getting men into women and girls safe spaces.
This vote on Abortion – did the SNP go AWOL? There’s no record of them voting at all. WTF?
link to votes.parliament.uk
The legislation only applies to England and Wales. It always used to be SNP policy not to vote in cases like that.
Crazycat @ 23.12.
I believe that policy was effectively jettisioned back in 2015 when Ms Sturgeon forced the then PM Mr Cameron to pause his England & Wales Foxhunting Bill amendment, which would have brought the restriction on the number of dogs permitted to be used into line with the Scottish Bill.
Ms Sturgeon made it plain at that time that she was prepared to instruct SNP MPs in Westminster to vote on matters which concerned only England, Wales & where relevant, Northern Ireland.
Off Topic;
Hardly surprising that our SNP led devolved administration (was never a government) have declined to have an inquiry into our Glasgow grooming gangs scandal.
Perhaps it wasn’t quite white enough to justify one.
‘The world’s most embarrassing relaunch’ by Robin McAlpine | 16 Jun 2025
“So anyway, we have learned loads here. Mainly that if you are invited to be the stuffed shirt made to listen to a Swinney speech you should find a friend with norovirus and spend time with them.”
link to robinmcalpine.org
A daeless Swinney and his hot-air speechwriter seems an easy target, however Robin and certain other seemingly pro-indy intellectuals within the movement appear to have completely missed the big news for the independence movement these last few weeks, e.g.:
Liberation.Scot petition to the UN and presence there last week of Ambassador Murray in New York; the SSRG conference in Dunfermline and especially the session on decolonisation and self-determination, and; the SSRG speech of Professor Robert Black KC confirming Scotland’s Colonial Status.
In addition, the new Liberate Scotland strategy for Holyrood 2026 will offer serious independence supporters a reason to vote.
Robin et al. has missed all of this? Or chooses to ignore?
That is interesting, Alf. I generally agree with what Robin says and I hadn’t noticed theses striking omissions. Can someone in Liberation and Liberate speak to him to find out the reason?
Though Robin isn’t the only big name in our cause who is silent on these matters.
Perhaps Robin is aware that the highly vaunted “approach to the UN” has been completely rebuffed at the first hurdle? One retired Professor giving a speech on the history of the Union in the 1700’s is also not big news for the independence campaign, as you should know as a retired Professor yourself. Big news would be Alba riding at 40% in the polls and promising to use the list vote as a plebiscite on independence, with the promise to declare UDI if the U.K. Government refused to negotiate.
“…completely missed the big news for the independence movement…”
It seems unlikely McAlpine missed the news of the Liberation.Scot petition to the UN – and if he didn’t miss it then he chooses to ignore it, for now at least.
I wonder if the concept of Scotland being a colony is outside McAlpine’s frame of reference; an out-of-context reality the current state of his conscious awareness is unable or, more likely, perhaps, unwilling – for whatever reason – to accept.
When I first came across your papers and book, Doun-Hauden I immediately recognised the truth underpinning your assertion that the union is a hoax and that Scotland is essentially a colony and the Scots an oppressed people.
It all seemed so obvious once it was pointed out to me.
Maybe Robin realises it is all a load of shite. Unlike the fantasists on here!
“the union is a hoax and that Scotland is essentially a colony and the Scots an oppressed people”
Haud oan there. You forgot that we’re living in fear and that somebody keeps taking our stuff.
“certain other seemingly pro-indy intellectuals within the movement”
Would this be a good opportunity to deploy “goitrous”?
I can’t remember who it was criticised “goitrous academics”. Maybe Memmi. Fanon?
Hey, check me out! I’m well on the way to memorising all their names
“the highly vaunted “approach to the UN” has been completely rebuffed at the first hurdle”
No, Aidan, it has not, it is merely awaiting due process. If that rebuff exists, then cite the bloody thing! Date, author, text!
As for “One retired Professor giving a speech on the history of the Union in the 1700’s is also not big news for the independence campaign”, it certainly is big news, because it is the first time ever that a King’s Counsel has broken ranks and spelled out in detail and in public why and how the United Kingdom as it currently exists is a fundamentally fraudulent and abusive entity.
Maybe you’d like to refute his assertions in detail, Aidan?
“Robin et al. has missed all of this? Or chooses to ignore?”
Very good point, Alf. Always nice to see you being criticised on this platform; we concern when they’re disinterested.
Salvo/Liberation Scotland’s quiet progress reminds me of the early days of Wings over Scotland.
I wonder if Alf will be at Holyrood tomorrow, meeting 12.15, to protest and meet FH with regard to ferries fiasco.
sam…
What an odd thing to wonder about !
Surely the SNP members will start to see they are being lied to!?
its taking them lomng enough!
Right now, I’m reckoning they could replace Honest John Swinney with Steven Pressley and they would definitely be getting someone with more charisma. It makes me shudder to think how much more soul destroying this could still become!
Nah !
Elvis Presley is the one we need to shake things up !
Rob my choice would be Peppa Pig who has a lot more voter appeal and is certainly brighter than any of the current bin of refuse in the SNP.
Nah.
I understand where you’re coming from, but there’s too much of the gammon about her.
Swinney’s version of a future Scotland is continued Colonisation for nothing in his ideology suggests consultation of the people in Scotland, or the right to self determination,
And I will always have a on going issue with how the the faux Scottish devolved government under the auspices and legistive Statues of of Englands government and Crown of England that have been able to use the devolved government sent to Scotland as the handiest tool in their box to control Scotland and therefore retain its hold on Colonisation of the people in Scotland.
The numpties that sit in faux parliament like Swinney and associated political parties are puppets, of their masters, nothing else,
Despensing false Scots laws, and double sets of laws over people in Scotland.
The Scottish parliament is one of those instances where pigs might fly and westminster made sure it provided the wings for it to happen,
It is with out doubt a serious breach in one of the main articles to the treaty of union.
One and the ” SAME”parliament of the created and invented state of Great Britain,
And I am not sure why WE in Scotland are fearful of mentioning this, However we Should do a lot more on calling this fake unbilical cord to Westminster out, if we wish to be decolonised.to self govern and retain the right to self determination.
And the Swinney’s sarwars and usless people would have no seat or say at all over the people of Scotland.
These people are in there as a tools to take the strength and sovereignty away from the people in Scotland and continue selling Scotlands territory off to highest bidders without legal authority of a real genuine Scottish parliament and real Scots laws to do so.
All that is wrong with the down sizing, selling off of Scotland and weakening position of Scotland derives from this colonial controlled umbilical cord leading away from the borders of Scotland.
The people have yet to recognise the weakest colonial link in the chain is the breaches of the treaty of union no matter how old , globalists yooniests tell and attempt to divert you to other wise believe.
They have alteria moves for doing so..
Perhaps the people in Scotland should reconsider the Scottish Constitution, the Scottish Crown and the misfit of one “united kingdom” and their Sovereignty being above that of the Crown of England sitting in the faux Scottish devolved parliament sent to Scotland passing faux Scots laws. that would end Colonialism of Scottish people.
And not pin their hopes on only one plan (a), because if Scotland is not a Colony in Englands side of the treaty of union then Scotland is the other half of a mutual voluntary union andcan pause or withdraw from a treaty that has been breached.
“Scotland should reconsider … the Scottish Crown”
Seconded.
Let’s hear your ideas for the new Kingdom of Scotland.
Shame that Nova Scotia is already taken, but we have one or two academics we can get on the case to help us out.
We have three years to get this up and running before Scotland’s most famous grandson, Donald of Orange, will be looking for a new gig.
[Perhaps, if the rumours he wants to be “King Over The Water” turn out to be false]
The Scottish devolved-government from Westminster under the crown of England cannot pass Scots Laws.
And the first minster nor those political parties tools in that ( devolved ) parliament do not hold sovereignty of Scotland in their hands,
I remember a SNP member arguing with my Spouse and I in 2015 that it was important issue on their agenda for the SNP to make the Scottish devolved parliament a Sovereign parliament,
We Argued in return that the devolved parliament and Crown were not Sovereign under the Scottish Constitution over the Scots.
If we have no care here in Scotland to hold to account the 1707 treaty of union articles, terms and conditions then we cannot complain to loudly about being Colonised .
Due to our voluntary acceptance and willingness to be Colonised.
Unfortunately that conversation we held with the SNP member in 2015 let us realise that the SNPs agenda was, for the purpose of Changing the Scottish Sovereignty of the people constitution, to that like England’s whereby the parliament and Crown would become Sovereign in Scotland.
Totally oblivious to the Scots,
It is one of the main reasons I am opposed to the devolved second parliament but in Scotland from sent from Westminster parliament gaining that superiority over Scotland and the Scots.
A genuine Scottish parliament I have no objection too.
We must never allow the Snp and other political parties in the devolved Scottish parliament to make that parliament the same as Englands Westminster parliament whereby it holds the ultimate Sovereignty over the Country and the people of Scotland,
That is devious, underhand and certainly not for the good of the Scots Constitution, we would be heading for full Colonisation under and along with the Scotland Act, which controls the devolved parliament sent to Scotland.from England,
Stealing Scottish Sovereignty.
Some good news. The Scottish Languages Bill has passed: 112 votes for, 0 against, 0 abstentions.
Scots and Gaelic BOTH recognised as official languages.
sarah..
Why is this “good news” ?
In the real world 1.5 BILLION people are currently learning
English to improve their incomes, lifestyle and prospects…
But we “Scots” are much too clever to fall for an “English” trick ! Aren’t we ?
Lets all head for our caves and gibber away to each other in Gaelic and “scots”……
The reason a colonized people remain confused about their identity is because they are not taught thair ain mither tongue.
Oor langage is wha we’re. Withoot it a fowk wad be makkit something ither. E.g. British/English, not Scottish.
Peoples in self-determination conflict are always linguistically divided.
Language is a human right, tho Scots are aye deprived o lairnin thair ain langage, as a ‘colonial procedure’.
A few observations on what is obviously a contentious subject.
Anybody want to bet that several tens of millions of taxpayer’s pounds will now be spent writing the Scots language equivalent of words such as “Police”, “Ambulance”, “Exit”, “Push”, “Pull”, etc. on things such as vehicles, doors, etc? Plus of course adding Scots translations to every ScotGov document. All while desperately needed public services are slashed.
Anybody want to report on how the language purity police are getting on in that eastern European country now into its fourth year of war? As I recall, some people trying to force other people to speak a different language is part of why it all kicked off.
Anybody care to ponder on why, despite the constant harping on about why we should all speak and write Scots, the number of regular contributors who seem to be able to do so can be counted on the fingers of three fingers? Lots of fine talk, but scarcely anybody who can walk the walk.
I can’t think of anything more likely to turn ordinary Scots off Indy than them discovering they are going to be browbeaten into becoming familiar with a language most of them are completely uninterested in.
1,5 BILLION learning English or rather American, reading great literature? Wharton, Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, Baldwin……’phew!
Or more likely chewing on the junk banalities of media Globish
The propagandists for «English» need to come down from the imperialist high horse for on the ground the terrain is significantly less featureless.
Remember one hundred years ago English was of less practical use than French (diplomacy) or German (science), it was the destruction of Europe during the Hitler war and America’s dominance of the West thereafter that provided English with its useful «mount».
Modern Hebrew was constructed from various sources including the liturgical language of the synagogue, should its speakers slough their identity and babble like the herd?
1.5B people wipe their arses with their hands for lack of toilet paper
what’s your point, caller?
and 67.84 % of all statistics are made up on the spot
maybe learning chinese is the way to improve your prospects
tit
@ Confused says: 18 June, 2025 at 6:42 pm
Haha, who cares.
The key takeaway is that whatever it was, it wasn’t in Scots.
The point is :
the anglos will have 3 months to learn 500 Scots words
– if not, then they get deported.
To Rwanda.
All they have to do to get back into blighty is pay those lovely boatmen about 5000USD, and across the channel they can ask for asylum and be given citizenship tests. You can make lots of friends on the way over too.
ottomanboi –
The use of Hebrew as the national tongue, an ancient language no one spoke, was a deliberate choice of the issy founders. Everyone over there actually spoke Yiddish, a kind of broken German, but with a lot of good words, like “chutzpah” or “shlomiel” or “putz”.
Again, the trick in play was to create this “ancient” history for a gang of people who were never there, not even 3000 years ago.
It gave them some trouble as they had to find people who could speak both. Oddly, Elie Wiesel was one.
@ TURABDIN says: 18 June, 2025 at 6:37 pm
“Modern Hebrew was constructed from various sources including the liturgical language of the synagogue, should its speakers slough their identity and babble like the herd?”
Whoops! Bad example. Plenty on Wings BTL want the “problem” of Hebrew and its speakers finally solved.
I put the number of Sovereign Scots who aren’t remotely interested in learning what to them is an irrelevant language in the millions.
People won’t be forced to adopt unfamiliar speech. They will strongly resent and push back against those who try to force them.
It’s entirely characteristic of the folly and irrelevance of ScotGov to the daily lives of most Scots that when given the choice of doing something that might improve our lives, or forcing something deeply divisive like this on us, they choose the latter every time.
They have learned nothing from the gender woowoo farrago. There seems to be no way to stop them wazzing money up the wall.
Close down HR, chuck the lot of them on the dole, turn the place into dormitories for boat people. Spend the tax revenues thus saved on something we actually want and actually need.
“The figures from the 2022 Census showed 130,161 people in Scotland had some Gaelic skills – an increase of 43,105 people from 2011.
The statistics also suggested 2.4 million people in Scotland had some skills in Scots in 2022 – an increase of more than 515,000 on 2011.”
Source: a current BBC news story.
Scotland’s total population is currently around 5.54 million.
Based on the figures above less than a quarter of 1% (0.23%) of people in Scotland have some Gaelic compared with 43.3% who claim some skills in Scots – that’s getting close to the 50% plus figure of Scots who support their nation’s independence and its withdrawal from a hoax union.
These numbers mean more people in Scotland speak Scots by a factor of 187 than speak the Gaelic.
I wonder if there’s some correlation between the percentage of Scots speakers in Scotland and those fowk who support Scottish independence.
@ Confused says: 18 June, 2025 at 7:25 pm
“the anglos will have 3 months to learn 500 Scots words”
Weird or what? The Scots language enthusiast is once again posting in English, supposedly the language of the liar and whiner.
Tell us true, Confused. Do you reckon you could learn 500 Scots words in 3 months? Nae fibbing noo!
How’s about you respond saying:
“I guarantee I could learn 500 Scots words in 3 months on my honour as a proud antisemite and an enthusiastic adopter of the gas chambers final solution for people who persist in disagreeing with me.”
But all in Scots.
Nae swicking noo!
@ Northcode says: 18 June, 2025 at 8:45 pm
I saw that story on the BBC. I wondered if somebody would choose to quote from it, given the usual ridicule that is heaped on anybody referring to the BBC for Scottish facts-based reporting.
“43.3% who claim some skills in Scots – that’s getting close to the 50% plus figure of Scots who support their nation’s independence and its withdrawal from a hoax union”
43.3% is a lot closer to 48%, which is the true figure for Indy support.
Still, we could argue about that all night.
The big question is – why aren’t you posting in Scots? Remember – English is the language of liars and whiners. And you want everybody to read and write in Scots.
So why do you chicken out and resort to English every time you have something important to say?
Why don’t you lead from the front and post in Scots?
Ar what cost (millions) to pander to the less than 1% Gaelic speakers. More speak Klingon than Gaelic in Scotland.
A genuine question. Can any WoS historians/archivists please point me in the direction of a contributor’s succinct and damning list of the Scottish Government’s corruptions and failures from November 14 2014 when Alex Salmond stood down until the present day.
I’d be grateful. I do recall having read some. But it would take me forever to find as i am not tech savvy.
link to scottishconservatives.com
Ok it’s from the toooaaries but even if half is true its pretty bloody damning
Perhaps the most damning failure is the national party elite (still) not understanding what independence means: it means decolonisation.
Which helps explain why they are unable to find the only remedy – liberation.
link to salvo-cor.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com
Sven,
The grooming/ organised rape gangs are very similar in nature to cannabals, that hunt and prey on the same human race, they stem from.
James Cheyne @ 17.06.
And I start to fear that the more articulate and cunning of them, like scum on a manky pond, rise to the top of our political parties, James.
On a different note, it’s nice to see you re emerging on Wings BTL and I truly hope it’s reflective of things starting to settle down a wee bit in your life. My best wishes and thoughts remain with you.
Many thanks, Agent x
All the whining bastards on wings are english bastards.
– that is my hypothesis.
Whining is not ordinary complaining about bad things, it’s entitled self centred bullshit from the usual narcissists
e.g. an englishman will whine that he couldn’t get “a full english breakfast” on HOLIDAY IN PORTUGAL; and if he does find a place that does it (union jack in the window), he will still whine because :
“ooh, lass, they don’t make it proper, with LARD … ”
which is why “fuck you john bull” is so popular these days.
“the english are a civilised, well loved people”
link to archive.ph
link to archive.ph
“respected around the world for their good humour and generosity”
@Confused says: 18 June, 2025 at 7:35 pm
No, nothing coming through!
Why aren’t you posting in Scots, Confused?
Seriously!
Why aren’t you posting in Scots, Confused?
Why are you permanently stuck posting in the language of the whiners?
There has to be a point, surely, when even the thickest thicko starts to realise, ever so thickly, that he has backed a loser.
Why aren’t you posting in Scots, Confused?
Prick
Why aren’t you posting in Scots, Bob?
‘Why aren’t you posting in Scots, Confused?’ I think perhaps he’s a mighty warrior on the interweb, but in real life a wee timorous beastie.
“e.g. an englishman will whine that he couldn’t get “a full english breakfast” on HOLIDAY IN PORTUGAL”
Actually, this Englishman (and all the various successful, well-educated, cultured people I tend to socialise with) prefers some couvert, followed by a bowl of Bulhao clams with crusty, rustic bread – then rounded off by a generous plate of grilled sardines, all washed down with a chilled bottle of Soalheiro.
Let’s face it though “Confused”, you’d know fuck all about any of that though, right? Doubt you’ve even got a Passport, you philistine cretin.
O/T
Swinney the ninney and precious kate refused to meet with nurse peggie ay follyrood today
Terrible
“It will just add to the usual crap, hot air and stinking filth coming south across the border, boom boom!”
A witticism worthy o’ the arrogance displayed by thon Inglis wha shared it on a previous thread and on a website that’s, presumably, maistly visited by Scots.
But wait. Mibbe this isnae the routine casually tossed intae the postin’ mix throw-away anti-Scots racism it appears tae be.
Am thinkin’ it micht juist be the random sparkings o’ a brain-deid simpleton’s confused neurons searchin’ in vain fir synapses that still function’.
If thon’s the case then the poster might be forgiven its ill-conseedert attempt at humour as it canna be held responsible fir the uncontrollable fits and spasms o’ a diseased brain.
Perhaps compassion fir the intellectually impaired is a mair appropriate response than anger or indeed despair. Despair at hou little humanity’s intelligence, baith emotional and intellectual, has progressed these past million years.
Wirds paint pictures in the mind. Whit kind o’ pictures dae wirds like ‘stinking’ and ‘filth’ paint whin applied tae an entire people dae ye think?
But it’s all just harmless unionist banter… right?
The sooner Scotland’s ‘mutually beneficial’ union with England is ended the better it will be… for the Scots onywey.
Northcode…
Why aren’t you posting in Scots Northcode ?
Your English is appalling !
Ma Englis isna too bad, tho Englis is niver ma mither tongue.
The first thing a liberated people grasp is their ‘rusted tongue’ (Fanon); which suggests the belated and limited Scottish Languages Act passed yesterday might suggest oor leeberation isna faur awa!
Tho oor colonial administration is clearly biased in favour of the minority Gaelic language over the Scots language spoken by maist Scots as divide and rule of the people continues under another dominant (i.e. English) culture and value system which depends on de-basing the colonised.
“Ma Englis isna too bad, tho Englis is niver ma mither tongue.”
Mine isna tae bad aither, Alf. An like you it’s no at aw ma mither tongue.
And even though my English isn’t too bad… it’s beginning to feel more and more alien every time I sit masel doun tae write in it.
Scots words keep popping into ma heid aw the time noo.
“…oor leeberation isna faur awa!”
I’m thinking, perhaps feeling is the more accurate word, the Scottish volkgiest – the national spirit of Scotland and the Scots – is beginning to awaken.
@ Alf Baird says: 19 June, 2025 at 9:27 am
“biased in favour of the minority Gaelic language over the Scots language spoken by maist Scots”
Whoops! Either an outbreak of goitrousness in the halls of academia, or your grasp of your mither tongue isn’t as firm as you would like to pretend.
Maist Scots spik English. They are the majority.
Mair Scots spik Scots than spik Gaelic. These are both minorities, with the first minority very much larger than the second.
To be true and ungoitrous, you should have written:
“biased in favour of the minority Gaelic language over the Scots language spoken by mair Scots”
Happy to sort this out for you, Alf.
“volkgiest”
There’s still time for you to make it big on the comedy circuit, Northcode.
@Baird
You’re speaking English, though I’d agree it is bad and terribly misspelt.
Honestly, it’s like explaining to a 9 year old that Santa doesn’t really exist… and you consider yourself an academic?
You wonder why very few people take you seriously, or this latest UN wheeze. Credibility is the issue.
“And even though my English isn’t too bad… it’s beginning to feel more and more alien”
Deid richt Northcode.
The colonized in the process of reclaiming his sovereignty and rediscovering his culture and language finds that: “suddenly the language of the ruling power is felt to burn your lips” (Fanon).
And, as Bono reminds us: “culture is always upstream of politics”.
Yesterday’s Scottish Languages Act (passed even by a colonial administration and its ‘retarded nationalists’!) reflects the inalienable force of Scottish culture as it finally begins to push the colonizer and his enforced alien language, culture and dubious values oot the door….
“And even though my English isn’t too bad… it’s beginning to feel more and more alien”
Aye Northcode, as a colonised people re-identify with their customs and traditions and begin to question their ‘acquired’ identity through assimilation, “suddenly the language of the ruling power is felt to burn your lips” (Fanon).
What we appear to be witnessing is the reality in a decolonising society, that “culture is always ahead of politics” (Bono).
Our colonial administration belatedly passing a Scottish Languages Act, the latter still heavily deficient in regard to Scots language medium provision, signals the awakening and cultural renewal of a doun-hauden (i.e. oppressed) people.
“the language of the ruling power is felt to burn your lips”
That’s a great excuse to have in hand for the Xmas Party season.
If things get a bit frisky with the admin lassies in the stationary cupboard after a few refreshments, and a couple of days later the wife is suspiciously asking you about the cold sores you are sprouting, just say you’ve been forced to over indulge in the language of the ruling power, just to hold onto your job.
For anybody intending to give that excuse a try, mind to report back on how it went down.
I was listening to “In Our Time” in the car the other morning on the way to work: they were discussing “The Brus” by John Barbour which is well worth a listen. Apparently Barbour’s 14th century 14,000 line octosyllabic chivalric account of the life of the Bruce and Sir James Douglas was written in what the author himself describes as (wait for it) English.
“A! Fredome is a noble thing
Fredome mays man to haiff liking.
Fredome all solace to man giffis,
He levys at es that frely levys.
A noble hart may haiff nane es
Na ellys nocht that may him ples
Gyff fredome failyhe, for fre liking
Is yharnt our all other thing.
Na he that ay has levyt fre
May nocht knaw weill the propyrté
The angyr na the wrechyt dome
That is couplt to foule thyrldome,
Bot gyff he had assayit it.
Than all perquer he suld it wyt,
And suld think fredome mar to prys
Than all the gold in warld that is.”
Alf is going to have a fit.
A, freedom is a noble thing right enough.
I wonder what Barbour and those who penned the Declaration of Arbroath would think of their descendants who are too frit to put an X on a piece of paper?
There is a level of irony you are missing Northcode (tune up those synapses!) – the ‘boom boom’ was there to indicate the joke is knowingly crass but hopefully might raise a wry smile or eyebrow because of that, even if only in casual remembrance of Basil Brush.
And the thing is, the resort to base insults is something I learned here as a kind of lingua franca, though obviously in reverse e.g. Confused’s desire to gas, bomb, even eat the ‘Anglos’ (the latter, a noble offer to rid the world of, in his words, us ‘vermin’), is quite legendary and puts my risible efforts to shame.
You cannot necessarily be expected to have noticed that I support Scottish independence and therefore by default am not a unionist. I came here originally because of that. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the site has deepened that support.
If you’re a genuine supporter of the Kingdom of Scotland returning to self-governing status, then that means you’re also a supporter of the Kingdom of England obtaining self-governing status.
As the KoE has ten times more political representation than the KoS in this “equal” UK Union, then to progress your wonts, are you putting ten times the effort into btl commentary on a site pushing for the KoE’s independence?
If so, I’d be interested to have a link so I and others can check out and read your activity and the vibe of such a site.
I’ll be intrigued to read how the denizens of the KoE plan to make a successful green and pleasant land when they jettison the scrounging Scots and are then free to make serious hay with their own (not so) impressive resources…
(Old stats so may not be 100% accurate but it gives the gist.)
KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND WITH ONLY 9% OF THE UK POPULATION HAS:
32% of the land area.
61% of the sea area.
90% of the fresh water.
65% of the natural gas production
96.5% of the crude oil production.
47% of the open cast coal production
81% of the untapped coal reserves
62% of the timber production
46% of the total forest area
92% of the hydro electric production
40% of the wind wave and solar energy production
60% of the fish landings
30% of the beef herd
20% of the sheep herd
9% of the dairy herd
10% of the pig herd
15% if the cereal holdings
20% of the potato holdings
90% of the whisky industry
70% of gin production
KINGDOM OF ENGLAND WITH 91% OF THE UK POPULATION ONLY HAS:
68% of the land area.
39% of the sea area.
10% of the fresh water.
35% of the natural gas production
3.5% of the crude oil production.
53% of the open cast coal production
19% of the untapped coal reserves
38% of the timber production
54% of the total forest area
8% of the hydro electric production
60% of the wind wave and solar energy production
40% of the fish landings
70% of the beef herd
80% of the sheep herd
91% of the dairy herd
90% of the pig herd
85% if the cereal holdings
80% of the potato holdings
10% of the whisky industry
30% of gin production
@Dan you have a very bizarre view of the main industries that drive the economy across the U.K. Why have you listed for the example the potato crop, which in any case is a heavily subsidised industry, and not professional services, which on its own is larger than almost every other country in the worlds entire economy?
@ Aidan
Hmm, so you’re unable or unwilling to even consider looking at things through anything other than the current status quo economic lens then.
You may have noticed that our economy isn’t really going that well due to boom and bust policies foisted on to us over decades by our governments that serve corporate interests more than our ain folk.
The whole point of a political reset across the British Isles would be a chance to do things differently than the current shitfest.
We are in the main lazy and unproductive, with little manufacturing industries and retained skillsets left, and that situation is getting worse as more and more businesses in what’s left of our industries go to the wall.
A couple of recent examples being Grangemouth refinery and Alexander Dennis buses.
It’s an utterly farcical situation when we could be way more productive and self-sufficient and boosting our own economy whilst making use of the diverse resources that are in our geographic area.
That would be more environmentally sustainable too, as for example we could be building proper houses using the stone and slate we have here. The village where I live was built over 250 years ago using stone quarried from a hillside a mile away, slate sourced 3 miles away, and timber from local forests, the sand for the mortar came from sandbanks deposited by the river a mile away, they built a lime kiln on the edge of the proposed village too.
The houses still stand strong and straight like the day they were built, and aside from some dumb arseholes cement pointing them at some point probably post WW2 instead using lime mortar, little other than some basic general maintenance has been needed to keep them looking good.
So long-lasting housing built with locally sourced materials that will last centuries, instead we get overpriced modern shitboxes built with often imported tat materials that will be lucky to be in a decent state after the 30 year mortgage is paid off.
We could be making sensible cars instead of importing what have become effectively disposable vehicles due to ridiculously and needlessly complex design and form over function.
My pal’s run garages and recycle yards so see firsthand the design faults that render a vehicle uneconomic to repair and end its days in the crusher.
Importing wind turbine bases from China when we could be fabricating them ourselves. One of my welder pals was welding up new missile launch tubes which will be a far more technical task than knocking out wind turbine bases, so no good reason other than your economic bullshit model that we couldn’t be buying in the steel stock and making them here, instead of shipping 5 built bases at a time on a ship from China with 20 voyages back and forth across multiple continents burning bunker fuel.
So many other things could be done differently if the blinkers were taken off and folk with vision allowed to play a part in creating a better society for more people.
But it is becoming evermore obvious that the political “intellectuals” haven’t got a fucking clue how to build or maintain pretty much anything, and some say there’s nothing going on when all around them things are going to rack and ruin.
“All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing”… Ergo, they ain’t actually good people…
Anyway, can’t respond as gotta go and test rally car after building and installing a fresh engine and transmission.
Lots of sound ideas in Dan’s latest post.
We should be using our local resources to make our own steel too, exporting the surplus to boost our balance of payments.
It’s going to take some major political and economic shocks to focus our leaders on their real priorities. The Climate woowoo needs to go, as does all of the rafts of inhibiting legislation enforced by the ECHR.
I think we can all see the political and economic shocks heading our way. Just listen to the news. ScotGov can’t or won’t though, as this week’s ludicrously pointless pissing about with Scots and Gaelic language legislation shows.
They all need to go into history’s dustbin. I predict the Hollyrood virtue signalling talking shop, hoaching with entitled adolescents and troughing eejits, won’t survive in its present form beyond 2030.
I’m not sure what kind of reset you have in mind, but in general jobs in the UK’s professional services sector are highly paid, highly productive, highly skilled and are safe. Do we really want to turn our back on this sector, which is the envy of the world, to do more things like potato farming? It’s also not true that we don’t make anything, we make cars, aircraft, pharmacutical products etc. and we’re actually very good at it.
@ Aidan
If the UK is so great then why does it have to import so much stuff and [eople when there are so many unemployed people in a resource rich geographic area?
Would it not be better to have our own folk leading productive lives by being trained and employed in our own industries to produce the stuff we need rather than having to have our taxes pay folk to sit unemployed and getting stoned at home whilst giving the work and socio-economic benefits of that productive work to some far-flung land.
And if all these immigrants are such a great benefit to our society, then they surely must be a great loss to the society of their homelands which they left.
You seem to have taken a fixation to tatties rather than considering the collective potential of all the diverse resources listed in my post.
Aye we may make cars, but as I said, they are generally all pieces of disposable over-engineered form over function crap.
You’ll get a fine for using your phone in a car but it’s jist fine to be distracted by a full on oem fitment infotainment touch screen system sitting in the dash. It’s a fucking car meant to get you from A to B, not a fucking luxury penthouse filled with gadget most folk won’t have the attention or brain capacity to bother to know what they do or how to use them.
Maybe spec up the Ghia Plus model with a robotic arm to wank the driver off to pass the time of the journey. Obviously make it programmable so the choice of a swift or long duration orgasm is possible depending on mindset and journey time, because you’re worth it. Who knows, it might even reduce road rage if folk are stuck in a state of post orgasm contentment, or just stuck to their seats with congealed fanny juice or jizz.
No wonder folk require driving assistance aids to keep the car from skidding off the road or driving into something when they have so much distraction going on in the vehicle and the attention span of a goldfish.
I see it every time I go out on the road in car, motorbike, or bicycle, it’s unreal the amount of folk who are all over the road and positioned in completely inappropriate positions of the highway.
Even with all this gadgetry we have a majority of twats that can’t even reverse off the road into a parking space when they have a far better view of the road, instead driving in nose first leaving the high back ends of their vehicles obscuring visual splays for any other person trying to rejoin the road. Then they have to try to reverse back onto the road where there could be traffic with a compromised visual field themselves. That’s humanity right their, a bunch of fucking lazy selfish numbskulls.
You’re defo onto something with the robotic wank arm, Dan.
I hope you’ll still remember us and continue to post on here when you’re famous and rich beyond your wildest dreams.
@Dan – the unemployment rate is 4.6% in the U.K. and which is both low historically and low by international standards. 3% unemployment is generally considered to be full employment, so we aren’t too far off that. Of course it would be better if everyone who could work, did work, but equally isn’t true that we have vast numbers of people on the sidelines willing and able to work in the resource linked sectors you describe.
Much like the USA, we import things because we’re a wealthy company where people have disposal incomes to spend on things that are made abroad. Of course we could embrace a Trump-style protectionist agenda aimed at ensuring we only buy things that are made in this country, but do you think that would make us better or worse off?
Lastly – re modern cars being overly complex, it’s a viewpoint I can understand but I don’t see what relevance it has to macroeconomics. I get the sense that you’re someone who enjoys doing practical activities and working outside on the land, which is great I’m not knocking that at all, but equally you must recognise that this isn’t the only “proper work” and that the U.K. and Scotlands professional services and knowledge industries provide well paid employment and significant exchequer receipts to fund public services.
I would think Urdu,Punjabi and Arabic are the second most spoken languages in Scotland after English,
then Polish.
Was down the East coast ,North Berwick to St Abbs, last weekend,full of posh English immigrants being attended to by exploited Asian and African immigrants,
East coast of Scotland is becoming the last bastion of the Victorian English Empire.
“Scot”
“Was down the East coast ,North Berwick to St Abbs, last weekend,full of posh English immigrants being attended to by exploited Asian and African immigrants”
You’re making up stories again, aren’t you ?
Naughty boy !
No, he isn’t. I know exactly what he’s talking about. It’s the same on the Fife coast.
@ Anthem
Aye, much the same around my rural area with increasing numbers of white flighter “refugees” from England. There’s a lot of new housing getting built and have wondered about the demographics of just who is buying it up. “Affordable” shitbox housing starting at around 250k must be great for the bankers…
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
There’s also a noticeable number of younger black folk arriving too. But I am not sure if these new coloured folk are just seasonal workers here to pick fruit and broccoli to replace the previous EU citizens that used to do this work.
I know Scotland has a serious demographic problem, and the current system and policies just seems to be perpetuating the issue.
“exploited Asian and African immigrants”
Ach, but they love being exploited. Who are we to deny them their heart’s desire?
Several hundred new immigrants, desperate to get their hands on some of that exploitation, will have risked life and limb and spent all of their worldly wealth to come here today.
Just as several hundreds did yesterday, and several hundreds will tomorrow.
These boys (and girls, but mostly boys) can never get their fill of the exploitation we send their way. In fact, I’m certain we will run out of opportunities to exploit them long before we ever run out of would-be exploitees desperate to be exploited.
Make an immigrant happy today and every day. Exploit them dreadfully until they laugh, sing and dance with happiness at their great good fortune.
“I would think Urdu,Punjabi and Arabic are the second most spoken languages in Scotland after English,”
Naw, Scots langage is seicont maist spak langage in Scotlan – 1.6 million Scots language speakers according to the 2011 census.
A considerable achievement considering Scots bairns are aye preventit by oor colonial admeenistrators fae lairnin thay’re ain mither tongue in ‘Scottis’ schuils.
ODASAI-FÀNAIS ALBANNACH 2025
A Hàil, Fosgail an doras…
Fosgail saitse an spàil-fhànais, a Hàil…
Cha chreid mi gum fosgail, a Dhàibhidh…
An gabh mi an t-òran dhut? —
Dàidh-saidh, Dàidh-saidh,
Gibhmidh iu ransair dubh…
Àidhm thàbh cràidh-saidh,
Òl fairda lobh ubh iù…
Obair mhath, Fearghas
cleabhair gàidh, iù!
THE LANGUAGE OF MY ANCESTORS is aramaic/syriac a semitic language related to hebrew and arabic once spoken as a lingua franca of trade, culture and religion from the Levant to central China. It was via aramaic/syriac that the intellectual library of the so called classical world survived through the medium of translation when the original texts were probably lost or corrupted. Through the efforts of translators in Baghdad the Arabized peoples got a head start over Europe in the field of the sciences and philosophy.
You would need to be an specialist academic these days to know about that. We are a minority people in our own homeland where few speak «their language».
I shall leave it to the bright to join the dots and make the image of what happens when you’re very ability of self expression has to be according to another’s mindset.
The creation of Modern Hebrew almost single handedly by Eliezer ben Yehuda in the late 19c is unique. Hebrew had been stopped in its natural development by political events. Jews largely ethnically cleansed from «Eretz Yisrael» spoke the languages of the countries they live in (and had lived in centuries before the forced diaspora) and Judaized them, hence the regional varieties of Yiddish, the Spanish based Ladino used in the Ottoman empire, varieties of Judeo-Arabic etc Hebrew, with some Aramaic, was for worship and religious matters only.
Scots and Gaelic, particularly the former, were also stopped in their developmental tracks by politics. Again the bright might join the dots and recognize something familiar.
Sven.
I apologise for not responding to your post yesterday due to being busy, things are beginning to function a little bit better day by day, thanks for asking Sven,
I was having difficulty trying to decide wether to continue living where I am or not, so thought clearing everything out, I mean everything, would create a clean slate, and a clearer mind, and then decorate the empty house , a lot of running back an too to recycling centre, then make a decision,
Started the painting and decorating yesterday. And keeping busy,
Re- rape gangs topic, there does seem to be a lot of protection for these gangs from the top of society across the board,
We just need to think of Ceryl Smith, Epstein, jimmy Savell, and rumours of many others at the top of Society that were covered and are still being covered up,
Why would’nt you want a national enquiry unless you have something to hide, and it goes without saying that nobody is above the law. Unless you are high up in society apparently.
Perhaps starting an enquiry at the top would unravel those being protected below at the next level. That of course would include police, judges, councillors, children’s homes, etc,
The inbetweeners of society that are the barrier that are protection level for the top level and let the lower level of society of with light sentences when caught.
It has not passed unnoticed that the churches and children’s homes had a lot of child sex abuse cases that came to light in the past that had been covered up,
It seems that religion and children’s homes are connected once again, and that the middle class inbetweeners like police, councillors, children homes, social workers etc are still doing the cover up participation role,
There has been a systematic problem with predators of very young children in Britain for many many years,
Inviting trans-men that self identify as women to gain access into these children and women’s spaces just seemed to be another layer of possible abuse that came from the top of society,
The elite, cough cough, talk of a great reset of society.
I totally agree.
We should start with them at the top, and the rest of the societies and humans around the world would be able to start living better lives.
The reality is and I’ve constantly been saying it for years, that the democracy deniers are the SNP and Scottish government not Westminster.
The decision the SNP has made, sorry John Swinney has made about Scotland in the Union above and beyond 20250 is the clearest message yet and that the SNP has decided it’s more important to safe the Union than achieve Independence.
At the next Holyrood election, the Indy movement should be saying that the SNP has decided to sacrifice Independence to safe the Union these aren’t the actions of a nationalist party.
John Swinney deliberately sacrificed the 38 Westminster MP’s by not providing the plebiscite the party and Scottish government had stood on for years and have promising Independence as if it’s something we would be grateful for, only for it to be denied again with the same old rhetoric.
Swinney’s at it again, as I believe he’s going to deliberately make the SNP lose next year’s election and then he’ll retire leaving us with another plant who’ll take us into 2030 with more false promises.
Let’s remember Swinney has done his time as a politician so he’s not bothered. What we do know is he isn’t working for the SNP or the Scottish government his time as leader was to saving the Union at the behest of the UKG and he isn’t bothered about betraying Scotland or its people, and like Sturgeon he’s happy for us to know it.
Its simple we can either fight for Scotland next year by destroying the SNP or we can allow Scotland to be destroyed by the SNP, it’s that simple. The question is whose side are you on?
100% yes.
I agree with you regards SNP and the Scottish government are democracy deniers, however it pays not to disconnect the Devolved Scottish government to Westminster government for the Scotland Act for the devolved government in Scotland come under the laws of Westminster and is regulated and over seen by Westminster,
Every piece of legislation or law that the Scottish government sets forward has to be confirmed or approved by Westminster and the Crown resting in Westminster parliament,
And a decision can be approved or disapproved over everything the devolved government does under those Westminster statues and legislation and that stem root.
If it were independent Scotland government from the legal ties of the (Scotland act) and therefore the treaty of union then there would be no united kingdoms in theory.
So the people in the devolved Government sent to Scotland take there approval or disapproval for every move they make from south of the border as puppets , including democracy. Hence Westminsters “refusal of independence for Scotland” always comes from the Westminster source and the crown of England.
The devolved Scottish government is a Colonial Government in Scotland meant to manage the local population and the SNP and other parties interned there are in management positions of the devolved government sent to Scotland under the auspices of Westminster Acts, statues and legislation,
They do democracy as they are advised to do,
There is no disconnect between the Westminster parliament form of democracy and the devolved Scottish government form of democracy for Scotland,
And one obvious pointer to this being a reality is that it is Westminster parliament, politicians and the Crown that always refuse independence of Scotland,
Now is not the time, may spring to mind.
“it is Westminster parliament, politicians and the Crown that always refuse independence of Scotland”
You should have been in Scotland in 2014, James.
We had a referendum on Indy and a majority voted against it.
Nothing whatsoever to do with the Westminster parliament, politicians and the Crown.
All the work of a majority of Scottish voters.
I’m so sorry to hear that you missed the entire thing. It was a big event at the time.
Nothing to do with whatsoever with Westminster parliament, where you in 2014 Hatey McHateface?
As I recall David Cameron was a tory sitting in Westminster doh,
As were the other better together team that thought it ok to do purdah in the newspapers.
Additionally the vote count was undertaken by a tory franchise.
I see the SNP sex pest, and messenger of other people’s children: homosexual nonse – Derek Mackay – wants Flamimgo land.
We don’t want Flamingo land at Loch Lomond. But it comes as no surprise that Mackay is involved. He’ll be hoping to groom some of the young boys with candy floss and free trips to the rugby.
Hands off our Loch Lomond national park Mackay. And the children!
I did not miss the the referendum vote, I only missed the tranporting of the referendum votes through the night,
On a statistical basis, presumably around 45% of those involved in the transportation and counting process were supporters of independence. It is hard to believe that any significant or deliberate interference with the result could have taken place without hundreds of occurrences being observed and reported by them.
They weren’t.
Alex Salmond himself never questioned the validity of the count.
Lloyd Quinan on Through a Scottish Prism recently was saying that he knows several Returning Officers who would like to spill the beans about “irregularities” at the referendum count but dare not do so.
Following presentation well worth pondering:
« Andy Anderson, Democratic Socialist Federation Education Officer, introduces the “Dunoon Unit Report: The Postal Ballot at the Scottish Independence Referendum” and discusses the background to the decision of the DSF to do this study and draw up this report. “We are now convinced that the Postal Ballot (PB) at the Scottish Referendum was compromised by a UK Government agency, and consequently that the ballot result is not democratically valid.”»
link to gobha-uisge.blogspot.com
You are a factchecker from the Samuel Goldwyn school
‘Don’t confuse me with facts – I’ve made my mind up’
Dan,
I notice the influx of people demographical changes here where I live too.
Aye I was here in 2014 noting purdah and transporting the votes through the night , in both case connected to Westminster,
Including David Cameron from Westminster parliament negotiating with Alex Salmond over the referendum,
And recall that it was a tory that had the franchise for counting those votes of the referendum,
There were no registered tories party in Scotland in 2014 as far as I am aware. They are registered south of the border.
Yoons out in force on here again the day.
Something’s spooking them, what on earth can it be….
As usual James their exceptionalism hates for anyone to disagree or disprove their PISH
James says:
19 June, 2025 at 5:40 pm
Yoons out in force on here again the day.
Something’s spooking them, what on earth can it be….
————————————————-
I am sure you can tell everyone!
Logic would dictate that Scottish self determination “spooks” them.
Losing control over valuable resources wouldn’t be a good look for Westminster.
That’s an interesting comment, Bip, on the very day WM has published new guidance on how it will consider fresh North Sea oil and gas development applications.
Here’s what the BBC says about it:
“it takes the brakes off future developments within existing licence areas”
I know. That’s the BBC and as we all know on Wings, it only ever lies about Scotland. And it uses the language of the liar too – English. Still, other news sources are available and guess what – they are reporting the same story.
It’s tricky to fit this latest development into the box labelled “losing control over valuable resources”, but by all means, you give it your best shot.
Do you know what spooks a lot of blokes? Implants.
Meant to say thanks for the welcome back, James. I was only gone for a long weekend more or less but the sentiment was appreciated.
Volksgiest – a German loanword that refers to a unique national ‘spirit’ possessed collectively by each people or nation.
Fowkgaist: A Scots word meaning the unique collective spirit possessed by the people of Scotland and their nation.
(A juist made up the word Fowkgaist fae ‘fowk’ meaning people and ‘gaist’ meaning ghost or speerit – as in the ‘spirit of the people’ – the noo and am no fir lendin’ it oot tae ony ither fowk but the Scots.)
Usage: … and sae the Fowkgaist o’ the Scots waukent and leukit aboot and seen hou its people haed been makkit sairy in ther herts and hou they wis sair treatit and sae rysyn tae a great anger did makkit a michtie broon stinckett keech and spreid it ower the ingles that haed sair offendit its beloved fowk.
Aren’t words braw? Especially Scots words.
@ Northcode says: 19 June, 2025 at 7:50 pm
“Volksgiest – a German loanword that refers to a unique national ‘spirit’ possessed collectively by each people or nation”
Jeezo Northcode, get a grip.
It’s Volksgeist. Why the hell do you think I was laughing at your earlier post?
Maybe you should have another long weekend off rather than making up your imaginary words.
As I said….totally spooked!
Breastplate says:
19 June, 2025 at 7:21 pm
Logic would dictate that Scottish self determination “spooks” them.
Losing control over valuable resources wouldn’t be a good look for Westminster.
————————————————
Scottish self determination under the SNP certainly spooks me – and there is not another independence party that doesn’t spook me,
What “valuable resources” does the Scottish government actually OWN?
And there’s nothing spooks you about the Uni-Parties running the UK and the trajectory they are dragging us all on?
What are you an “agent” for, change for the better or just delivering more of the same shit status quo that serves next to nobody unfortunate enough to be living in this skipfire of a political union.
If England is so fucking great then why are so many leaving it and heading up here to a place you try to portray as a useless backward disaster.
Dan says:
19 June, 2025 at 9:07 pm
And there’s nothing spooks you about the Uni-Parties running the UK and the trajectory they are dragging us all on?
————————————————-
Did i say that?
————————————————
What are you an “agent” for, change for the better or just delivering more of the same shit status quo that serves next to nobody unfortunate enough to be living in this skipfire of a political union.
—————————————————-
Agent x is just a user name – nothing sinister.
————————————————–
If England is so fucking great then why are so many leaving it and heading up here to a place you try to portray as a useless backward disaster.
—————————————————
I don’t remember mentioning that.
But as a aside – have you ever been to England?
Away to your bed Dan !
With a bit of luck you might wake up sober tomorrow !
A correction:
I don’t want to make a big thing out of my mistake so I’ll keep this correction short in the hope that we can all get over it as quickly as possible and begin the healing process.
The word Volksgeist is spelled wrong in TWO of my comments on this thread – very very sloppy.
But thanks to a vigilant reader who spotted my mistake and who very kindly brought it to my attention I am given this opportunity to make the following correction.
Here goes. Let’s hope I don’t mess it up.
Volksg(ie)st is incorrect and should read Volksg(ei)st.
Worse still – I think I missed an ‘s’ out in one version by writing Volkgiest instead of Volksgeist.
And so I repeat for the avoidence of any confusion
Volksgiestis wrong, as isVolkgiest, and should always read Volksgeist with an s after the k and the e before the i.There… sorted.
My sincere apologies for any distress my sloppy rendering of the word
VolkgiestVolksgeist might have caused.On the plus side we now all know of the word Volksgeist and what it means… so not a total disaster then.
Although I’ll probably never use the word Volksgeist again favouring instead a new word I created that’s more fitting for the Scots.
Sorry, I couldn’t really follow the detail in your post.
It defo had a vibe though, a kind of oppressive, colonialist aura of untruth that permeated it from end to end.
Please re-submit the entire post, written in oor auld familiar mither tongue, Scots. Then all should become clear.
here is word for Northcode :
anglo-frei
And here is a word for BASTARD TAX MOAN which describes him
FUCKWIT
Here’s a quote from something I read this morning on the subject of assisted suicide:
“some might argue that the demographic profile of this country, and similar countries in our late stage civilisation, necessitates coercive assisted suicide”
What are you? 74, maybe 75 now? How many years since you contributed anything useful to society? How many decades in fact?
Tone it down, there’s a good chap. You can’t afford to be drawing attention to yourself like this.
Tell the truth bastard tax you didn’t read it you got your nurse to read it and explain the words to you, social services for greedy bastard tax avoiders
Fit happened tae yer CAPS LOCK key?
Hae ye worn it oot?
FRANKIE BOYLE is taking in 20 asylum seekers this weekend in solidarity (no one say “grooming gang” FGS)
link to archive.ph
– he will tell them jokes about paedophiles and women not wanting to have sex with him
The asylum seekers will say : “you sold out years ago and -paedophile- has no shock value anymore, but lucky for you, all of us want to have sex with you” (it’s not a request)
– some may even give up their asylum dreams. Some mistake him for an imam.
At the protest will be banners with slogans :
NO TO ANGLOPHOBIA – the english in Scotland are not little englander ethoracial supremacist sttler colnials
– ENGLISH ARE WELCOME HERE (just don’t feed them after midnight)
All very funny, Confused, but just imagine how much funnier you would be writing in Scots.
I’ve been thinking about what you wrote yesterday. Here’s some homework for you – translate this into Scots for us:
And I will learn five hundred words,
And I will learn five hundred more,
To be the man that learns one thousand words.
Lord! Such a tedious bore.
I’m still working on the rest. Are there Scots words for lots of “da da diddy dum da”s?
“Lord! Such a tedious bore.”
Aye, yir aw that.
Prick.
Cleanup on aisle 1.
Now please!
His mammie’s hame at 10.
Fergus Ewing stands as independent candidate in 2026
Tenruh
Fergus Ewing should become the 4th Independent elected to Holyrood since 1999. His is the sort of profile needed. The Margo Mcdonald/Denis Canavan type profile. Good luck to Fergus.
Its taken him long enough (since 2015!) to figure out the SNP leadership has been co-opted by the colonial / administrative Power.
Hopefully Fergus will be standing as an I4I coalition candidate with Liberate Scotland otherwise he is wasting his and Scotland’s time.
The I4I approach:
“Declaration of Independence (UDI): Once elected with a majority, the coalition intends to declare independence unilaterally, citing democratic legitimacy and the mandate of the Scottish people.”
link to barrheadboy.com
When Fergus Ewing is bailing out of the SNP, why, other than being brainwashed in the cult, is anyone else staying?
Another case of “I didn’t leave the SNP… the SNP left me!”
@Alf Baird 10:03am
The purpose of being an Independent Candidate is surely that you don’t have a party or organisation impose policy or anything else onto you. Coincidentally today is the last day of a discounted price on the big button marked £120k for a communication and media strategy for me being Independent Candidate. Compare that to the Fergus Ewing news today. Headline news all day. Fergus will be the 4th Independent Candidate elected since 1999. I don’t see anybody in I4I getting elected in 2026 but of course I wish them well. Like me they are just not visible enough. As my wife gently pointed out, it’s my money as well. So the only decision left for me is to continue with the formation of 30 policies or not. In the hope that they are used by others. Decision time on that after my holiday.
I am going to have to make this comments in separate posts, and you are going to have to glue the pieces together as it keeps getting moderated and disappears.
First I will have to change the usage of one particular country/word to a type of coating food, hopefully you will understand,
…………………………………………………..
Mrs Johnson prior to being married. 2009 joined the conservative party, and was their campaign manager.
She has a interesting geneology and background crossing parties.
However she was present in 2012 when john whittingdale launched “conservative friends for ruskelene”
Which later became known as Westminster ruskelene Forum.
It is reported it closed its doors as recently as 2022 ,
Mrs johnson as campaign manager held many events for this group in London and conservative headquarters.
There were many interesting people in the Westminter ruskelene forum such as mr rifkind, caroline nokes.
Mr Straw, and other mps,
Enjoying in investment feeding and dining with ruskelene, in return for this new friendship across the table quite often ruskelene parties would bestow gifts of sizable amount to the party across the table, conservatives.
Even relatively new members like mr sunak enjoye these gifts.
They were a contented and happily connected bunch of party goers at that table, many conversations and ideas were shared back and forth, many relationships began to grow, in fact some became more sustainable and married after their affairs, it was still exciting and inspiring in the year 2014
Perhaps given the initial info some here may be encouraged to do some research on the group mentioned
However the intelligence committee did a investigation around these new ruskelene friends and found they were not so friendly because they had started interfering in political matters.
Infact they released a report on the matter in 2020,
It was reported in many well known news outlets.
Mr johnstone admmited that their friends had interfered in stuff they had no business being connected too back in 2014 on a public broadcast around 2020.
I hope you can fit the story line together, it had to be done this way, because it kept getting moderated and disappeared.
But the connections to ruskelene interference in 2014 have to be jigsawed together by yourselfs as I am not allowed to post them without cenorship.
There’s a sign that hangs on the wall of the retirement home in The Simpsons.
It says “Thank you for not discussing the outside world”.
I’ve seen a number of people get frustrated over the censorship rules that has thrown their comments into moderation, myself included.
It’s regrettable that we can’t properly discuss topical, albeit controversial subjects, here on this forum and it’s ripple effect on our society from the integrity and honesty (or lack thereof) of the actions of our politicians, representatives, institutions and the impact of our goal for self determination.
Censorship is rarely a good idea.
Sure, Bip.
If only we had more cheerleading for poot and more bigging up of the lassie torturing tunnel skulkers on here, Indy would be just about in the bag.
You could always start your own site, or just go vent your poison on CM.
[Maybe you already do]
Breastplate,
Aye At what point does a censorship country make a regime change to a dictatorship country.
Although where there is a will, there is a way.
Even if you have to skirt around certain phrases and words in a kind of conversation salad to get there,
“Although where there is a will, there is a way”
Naw. That’s gullibility reinforced by the lucky accident of having spent your entire life in a mostly safe, largely decent, majority law-abiding, democracy.
Although to listen to most of you, nobody would ever know it.
Just this week, Saudi Arabia executed some awkward boy for an “offensive” tweet. Iran will kill your teenage daughter for being lippy to the law enforcement thugs. Over in Orcland, just you seriously try to stand for office with a UDI policy in opposition to the pootmeister. By the time you have spent a decade in solitary, you’ll be glad when they finally poison you.
None of you lot’s feet would even touch the ground in a real dictatorship.
Get a feckin grip.
There were many reasons why the Scottish referendum did not work out for the scottish people in that year, some not so obvious,
The most obvious reasons are known and accepted by all sane folk tho’ James. Primarily, not enough Scots (whether native born or of the whole demos) were convinced enough by the cost/benefit analysis that the risks of independence were outweighed by the potential benefits.
It really IS that simple. There are of course other contributing factors, primarily at least in my view as someone who was still living in England at the time and thus not entitled to vote, was that the Yes campaign never really laid a glove on Project Fear.
The happy-clappy relentless positivity of the campaign had some merit, and obviously played well in some quarters, but it ultimately meant we were fighting with one hand tied behind our back.
Those touting outlandish conspiracy theories about vote rigging, the MSM being overwhelmingly hostile and people being allowed to vote who once flew over Scotland or ate some shortbread at Hogmanay need to gie their heids a wee wobble and clam doon.
We lost because we bottled it. Hopefully more and more of those who voted No, or just couldn’t be arsed to vote at all are now repenting at their leisure.
Not that the current state of Scottish politics exactly gives one any hope that the early days of our new nation will actually be any better. Perhaps the best we can hope for is that folk will be convinced that the alternative of Reform governed UK will be even worse?
It’d be a sad indictment of the Scottish people’s appetite for independence, but in the end I’d take that over remaining shackled to the corpse of the British nationalist experiment.
The happy-clappy relentless positivity of the campaign had some merit, and obviously played well in some quarters, but it ultimately meant we were fighting with one hand tied behind our back.
THIS from Mr Progressive the franchise FANNY who would EAGERLY bestow our constitutional birthright on any fuckwit arriving from anywhere who has lived here or visited here for more than 10 mins, our arsehole politicians tell us we should be eternally grateful that these “New Scots” have chosen oor wee country to come and live here, it is only reasonable that we should allow these new Scots who give us the beneficence of their presence that we bow to their demands and accept their religions, cultures and beliefs, after all these new Scots are the only ones procreating because successive governments liebour and tories have PENALISED oor young folk from having larger families, and eventually these new Scots will outnumber indigenous SCOTS
Andy,
“outlandish conspiracy theories about vote rigging”.
The British secret services, I’m sure you will agree, exist specifically to protect and counter any threat to the British State.
If you do agree, which any sane person would have to, not because it’s guesswork but because they explicitly say so on their websites.
It is not controversial at all, to say so.
So, if you allow this credo to stand, we can move on.
The next question, in this instance, might be, is Scottish independence a threat to the British State?
The answer might be yes or no.
Again, sane people would come to the conclusion that, yes, Scottish independence is an existential threat to the British State, and for good reason.
That might bring us back to the raison d’etre of the British Security Services, if they identified a threat to the British State, would they act on it or would they not?
Now, even before, presenting any evidence, what would a reasonable and logical conclusion be, in regards whether the the British State would protect itself or not?
I think it would be more outlandish to believe that there was no interference in our referendum by the very people tasked to stop it.
When Alex Salmond wangled a referendum out of David Cameron, the British State hadn’t identified any actual or credible threat, on the contrary, it was seen as an affirmation, as a large Unionist percentage was expected.
This quickly turned to panic as it became clear it was a miscalculation.
In essence, in regards to interference in our referendum, it boils down to this: could they, would they?
‘LONDON CALLING: HOW THE BBC STOLE THE REFERENDUM’
by GA PONSONBY
KINDLE £1.99
Review 21 May 2015 —
Verified Purchase
« GA Ponsonby’s “LONDON CALLING: How the BBC stole the Referendum” is now assuredly key reading for any truly informed assessment of the deeply unsettling extent of cynical black propaganda perpetrated by the British State on the Scottish population during the Referendum campaign. To its everlasting discredit, BBC Scotland news management persistently connived within the dark heart of it all, relentlessly and insidiously poisoning the waters of discourse.
GA Ponsonby’s devastating volume marshall’s painstaking research, including copious screenshots of BBC Scotland website’s shrewdly massaged headlines. It irrefutably documents Pacific Quay’s unforgivably malign role in calculatedly distorting and undermining the greatest and noblest democratic transaction thus far in Scotland’s long history.
The BBC Scotland news management coterie must not now be allowed to, as it were, fade back into our livingroom wallpaper, and so avoid the searing public censure they have worked so assiduously to merit. Nor, paramountly, must they be carelessly granted leave to perpetrate such sordid perfidy during any Scottish election or referendum to come.
It is far from over. We must gain urgent release from this Labour-contrived structurally-Unionist oxygen-starving head-grip. To our democratic peril do we longer ignore BBC Scotland’s strongarm as it stealthily throttles our corporate throat, while mendacious mind-games are smilingly whispered in our ear. Scottish broadcasting must be “patriated” forthwith.
Via the internet, the truth has set us free thus far. Now, GA Ponsonby’s “LONDON CALLING: How the BBC stole the Referendum” is one man’s heroic endeavour to get vital additional verity (for some, the facts will astonish) into the public domain in book form, hastening our exhilarating advance towards the goal of a just society in Scotland.
Do buy this book. Ponder it. Publicise it. Help dispel the residual naivety out there which still trusts BBC Scotland to speak political truth. »
@twatbynametwatbynature 8.50pm
See, there you go again, hyperbolising and catastrophising to back up the threadbare nature of what passes for your argument. The relatively open franchise used in the Scottish independence referendum corresponds exactly with that used in virtually every other self determination held since 1945 tough bud.
The simple fact that you and all the other blood and soil bigots won’t engage with is why Scotland alone, out of every other historical and constitutional precedent of holding self determination referendums, is uniquely incapable of summoning up a majority in favour of their own independence.
Insisting it was because “we wuz robbed”, or “the meeja dun it” is about as convincing as blaming space lizards or the WEF. Nobody normal is buying the regressive particularist nationalism espoused by you and others here, still less in the movement generally or the whole of the Scottish electorate.
We weren’t robbed. It’s a pathetic cop out it disguise a collective failure of political balls AMONGST the indigenous Scots and the movement promoting independence to tell not ask for their self determination. Few other peoples have enjoyed the freedoms and advantages that Scots have and yet still decided that the rank status quo of their current political arrangements was safer and less troublesome than the risks and opportunities of securing our own independence by the simple expedient of putting an “x” in a box.
Nobody is jailing our political leaders or beating up our grannies in the street or seizing ballot boxes as the Spanish state did to the Catalans. They must consider us a craven and unworthy bunch of independentistas: I have a lot more sympathy for their views than those of indigenous bigots within our own movement.
If that’s the kind of folks who would be in control of the newly independent Scottish nation, no wonder many “soft No” voters, whether indigenous or New Scots prefer the status quo.
@Breastplate 9.51 pm
Could they? Yes. Would they? Probably not, because the overwhelming likelihood is that it would be discovered.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Fill yer boots mate.
If you really think the secret services are (whether independently or at the instruction of their political masters) waging a campaign to spike the guns of the independence movement, the problem you have is why didn’t they stop 2014 happening at all? If they are that powerful and that influential surely it would have been far safer to have ensured it never happened in the first place.
The somewhat fervid imaginings of the nuttier fringes of the movement to account for the failure of the 2014 referendum, and the political búrach since then, just don’t add up. Their a conspiracy theory acting a fig leaf for the collective lack of political courage and acumen of those directing the movement. It’s easier to attribute our own failures to malign outside influence than accept the sad reality.
The old saw is apposite because it’s so often correct: “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.”
Andy,
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”
My post explained logically and reasonably why it is in no way extraordinary.
“why didn’t they stop 2014 happening at all?”
Also explained in my post.
“Could they? Yes. Would they? Probably not, because the overwhelming likelihood is that it would be discovered.”
Believing that the British Secret Services wouldn’t do their job because they might get caught is an incredibly weak argument but of course, you are entitled to believe what makes you feel comfortable. Let’s agree to disagree and let others consider the logic behind each of our conclusions.
Aye, Breastplate. I’m sure Andy is “correct” (at least in his own mind) and there’s nowt to be concerned aboot…
link to en.wikipedia.org
As for his “Nobody is jailing our political leaders“… So what was aw the Alex Salmond, Craig Murray, Mark Hirst, etc stuff aboot then. And howz that “justice” for Mr Salmond progressing from within the very system that created the injustice.
@Dan
Last time I checked the prime movers in the attempted jailing of Big Eck were some of those closest to him not the British nationalist state. I know it’s probably easier for the hard of thinking to parrot outlandish conspiracy theories than stick to unpalatable truths, but such is life.
Sadly our own movement, just like any other mass movement, contains its leavening of moon howling fringe nutters. Craig Murray was I’d agree treated unduly harshly with a prison sentence, but was largely the author of his own downfall.
Perhaps the collective outrage at the failings of the current devolutionary system and the elements of the Scottish judicial, political and civil service systems which are embedded within it and serve its purposes, will be translated in to enough righteous anger on the part of voters that they’ll grow a pair and vote for change.
We can but hope. Mind you as a number of people have pointed out, do we really fancy our chances post independence if it was directed by those currently at the helm?
I know I don’t, which is why I think lots of folk agree with Rev Stu: the SNP must be destroyed altogether or at the very least hamstrung so that it can’t try to direct the whole movement but accepts that it is only one part of it. The current electoral arithmetic doesn’t exactly look encouraging for those of us who want to see that happen, but who knows.
A week is a long time in politics sometimes, and we have until 2026 so there is that…
Make your mind up will you slippery Eellis boy, and have you not get anything better in your wording armoury for a rebuke than to spout the tired old conspiracy theory pish.
Have you really never heard of keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Why would we want the NuSNP destroyed if they are genuine Scottish Nationalists…
The reason is of course because the Party has been infiltrated and captured so aren’t genuine Scottish Nationalists at all, and are therefore British Nationalists.
FFS, did you even read or recall any of Stuart’s many informative articles detailing the fitting up of Salmond and who was behind it.
A conspiracy theory is no longer a theory when enough evidence is available to prove to all intents and purposes that a group conspired to take a course of action.
Do a search of Crown Agent David Harvie for this site and it will produce plenty of detailed articles and btl commentary on the matter.
Here’s one from 2021 for starters.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
The 2014 referendunm was rigged.
Alongside a toon cooncil franchise and 24/7 interference by a foreign media system….
worse than a shooting range at a carny
no exit poll = rigged. Exit polls are the early warning system for fiddling, why remove it?
mixing the postal votes back in with the normal ones – so no separate count could be made. Why do we need that?
no photography – I mean, if people snapped their filled in ballot with their hand and passport next to it, uploaded it to social media, then you have created an audit trail. Can’t have that.
“THE Scottish Government has launched a “milestone” report which aims to put disabled people’s experiences and concerns at the centre of policymaking.”
link to thenational.scot
——————————————
“The plan – which has been in the making since 2016”
Nine years – no rush then!
Somebody had better check the small print.
It could well be that at ScotGov, a “disabled” person is somebody trapped in the wrong body and denied their human right to fantasy affirming genital hackery.
The disabled will be “sorted” when assisted dying comes in.
We are all equal in the grave. Equality at the bottom.
That’s not really dark humour, just a statement of fact. From what I hear of that bill, it is having all the “safety features” ripped out, then rammed thru parly.
Mobile gas vans, right enough. Though they will have to remove the catalytic converters, else they will be there all day.
– just a thought : is “being English” considered a disability? (- an “antisocial personality disorder”? Or a “narcissistic psychosis”?)
A while ago, civil rights activists in the US tried to have “blackness” defined as a disability, the point being any black person could now get access to a whole raft of federal aid programs. Programs for da yout, right enough.
If being English did become a disability, then our oppressors become a protected category under civil rights legislation; it will become a “hate crime” to notice their behaviour and “hate speech” to make jokes about – the royal family being paedos, churchill a fat drunk, bobby moore a thief … we would have to start talking in code, about “morriss dancers” and “flatlanders”.
Chilling.
You could start talking in Scots.
Where are you with learning your 500 words?
Into double figures yet?
Ah hae ma doots.
“Nine years – no rush then!”
The SNP leadership has been content to run a colonial administration for almost 20 years yet they still don’t seem to understand that independence means decolonization.
And they appear not to have noticed that the decolonization process has begun without them, or rather in spite of them:
link to liberation.scot
Why would any one argue that a law abiding mostly safe country should follow and back slide to other countries level , into a none safe mostly censorship Country, with no democracy.
Is that what your aim is on here?
Is that what you favour, your kind of democracy.
Sometimes you wonder who is commenting and from where.
On you go “James”…since you’re so keen on openness and making sure of the bona fides of those commenting, you can set an example by posting under your real identity.
After all, if you have nothing to hide, there’s nothing to prevent everyone knowing who you are, right…?
Mr Ellis.
I do not know how to change the workings of someone elses old techno equipment that was gifted to me, I am not techno savvy,
And why would you want to remove safety valves that may protect women anyway,
I am finding your automatic reaction of, defensive comments regards those that would have skin in the game to maintain the status quo of a union that (may ) have interfered in the referendum interesting though,
as it has been your consistant first stance over a long period of time on wings.
Re a majority of votes needed from the Scots in a referendum,
First you would require Scots to be the majority indiginous population in there Country, not a ethnic minority.
This influx of non indiginous people that change the results of the outcome of voting results has taken place in Scotland for repeaded years, and is now being implemented in England to change the future native population voting results,
In fact it is being suggested and reported at the moment across news outlets that there were specific reasons why a certain newbe influx population were not arrested for racist rape gangs against white children and women,
Because they influence the results and outcome of votes to certain political parties.
There are many factors and outside influences besides those that wish to retain the status quo of hanging on to Scotland, that decide wether a vote is successful or not,
And it is probably a narrow train of thought to presume the only factor in the loss of the Scottish referendum was the ethnic minority people of Scotland bottled it.
@”James”
Yes, I recall you making a similar excuse before with respect to inheriting someone else’s old IT. I’m not sure how that prevents you putting your own name in the name and email boxes here, not am I particularly convinced that posting under your own name would damage the safety valve you seem to need, whether because you’re female or for some other reason.
You misinterpret my opposition to a minority of nativist cranks in here – who represent a tiny minority of the movement – as supporting the status quo. you’re entitled to your (erroneous) views of course, just as I and others are entitled to call you out for them.
Native born or indigenous Scots account for more than 80% of the population. They’re not an ethnic minority. Those fixating on the sub BNP “we wuz robbed” and “we’re being swamped” narratives are more to be pitied than scorned of course, but there’s plenty of evidence that the overwhelming majority of ordinary Scots do both as the failure of the regressive nativist agenda to gain any traction amply demonstrates.
The fact that you think > 80% constitutes an ethnic minority in Scotland suggests you need to go back and revisit your old arithmetic lessons James.
The mask has slipped.
Or somebody else has logged into his desk.
That’s a dangerous spill on the floor there, James.
You better erect a “CAUTION WEET FLAIR” sign.
Can’t have some fragile auld biddy ganging erse o’er tit, can we.
Result in the Cromarty Firth by-election [Highland Council]:
Stage 1: Conservatives 48, Labour 77, Alba 91, Greens 92, LibDems 290, Reform 348, Independent 368, Independent 503, SNP 568.
Stage 9: SNP 812, Independent 1211.
Turnout 24.7%.
Total votes 2410. Reform was knocked out at stage 7 with 396 votes.
Having no inside information, it looks to me as if Labour and Conservative voters both went Reform instead. Though with 75% staying at home, it is difficult to come to any firm conclusion.
sarah…
Tell us all when you have the latest news….
The Cromarty Firth by-election [Highland Council] is absolutely vital in the decolonization process !
“Cromarty Firth will be set as a beacon for all black, enslaved people” Fanon
“Cromarty Firth is too bloody cold for me !” Cesaire
“Where the fuck is Cromarty Firth ! ” Memmi
Scotland still to vote on their Assisted Killing bill,
Brought forward by LibDem Liam McArthur who is funded by shadowy charity Dignity in Dying.
80,000 killed in Canada since they introduced their version in 2016.
Gaslit to the gas chamber.
PHARMACIES ARE STOCKED with medicaments with fatal potential, check out those small print contraindications. Doctors, whose forte is supposed to be healing, ought not to be roped into to this neither should they be prolonging the natural death process through misguided attempts at medicalization.
Why it is necessary to get the state involved in such a highly personal matter eludes me, indeed the less the state apparatus is involved in such concerns of the body the wiser.
The state might nowadays may be attempting to be all seeing but it is certainly not all knowing.
Humans are complex organisms with a brain whose potential for influencing that organism, for good or ill, is known but little understood by those whose world is limited by the nostrums of the pharmaceutical industry.
Nicola Sturgeon was poison from the start, before she even became leader of the SNP we met here in Edinburgh on her grant tour, I’ve still got the t-shirt.
During the meeting she gave on here grand tour and 15yr old boy stood up and asked her when would the next referendum be, her reply was, we had a referendum we lost it wouldn’t be fair on the other side if we had another.
I was taken back by her comments as was my wife, as we were travel back to England, we were talking about what she had said and our opinion was, she had decided there wouldn’t be another referendum. I don’t know how many times I’ve told this story and it falls on death ears and yet it’s extremely important to listen to because this happened on the 29.10.14 at the corn exchange in Edinburgh and the room was full and yet she was making it perfectly clear Independence was off the table and yet it seemed like we were the only one’s listening to her.
My wife is from Yorkshire and she never classes herself as English and I was born in Scotland at the time we were both members of the SNP and we left in 2015 after the Westminster election when the SNP won over 50+ seats and we left because the SNP campaign stood on a ticket of lets make Westminster work for Scotland, we said at the time she killed any continuing momentum on Independence and her goal seems to be devolution.
Its now 2025 and still people cling to the Idea of Independence and that the SNP will delivery it, I have been saying since 2015 to people the SNP are democracy deniers and they will not listen. I am not an educated man by any means but I’ll tell you that the meeting that John Swinney will have today with his membership will be fruitless with a lot of promise without the substance and yet people will walk away saying Independence is on when in fact there isn’t a plan to achieve it and Swinney make it perfectly clear.
Nicola Sturgeon stopped Independence and John Swinney is burying it, I said the other day we can either destroy the SNP or allow the SNP to destroy Scotland for me this is the most important message and we should be shouting it out loud and clear, it fell on death ears.
I’ve stated that there is a lot of people who claim to want Independence and make a living out of it and the reality is for these so-called soft Indy supporters if Independence never happens it suites them and the SNP fine.
The majority of the Scottish people stopped independence. Sturgeon took the situation to implement her Sexual fantasy. The wet dream flag wavers and disgruntled Jacobite nutcases, encouraged by the party, kept the gravy boat afloat. The stupid Scottish government have sunk their own boat. Their total inadequacy as a governing body is laid bare for anyone to see.
Look there’s a squirrel!!
This is very sad to hear, 100%Yes – and infuriating. Why oh why did the good yins in the 56 MPs not fight this attitude? There were enough of them, surely?
I wish this site weren’t cluttered with nay-sayers and trouble-makers. It used to be full of people who were all on the same side no matter what. We need a widely-read site that will help our cause and make a difference in 2026. The clock is running.
@sarah
The issue surely is that not enough of the 56 were in fact “good yins”. I still cannot for the life of me understand why folk like Joanna Cherry, Angus McNeil, Ash Regan & others insisted on staying within the SNP when it was evident to every dog in the street that the party was beyond saving.
History will not be kind to them in my view. Not only did they fail to halt the Sturgeonite cabal in the the SNP, they failed to “do the right thing” and deliver a coup de grace when it might have made some impact when Alex Salmond set up Alba.
Sadly 2025 isn’t 2012-14. The days of the large, gaudy, inclusive indyref1 “big tent” are long gone. It’s more like a bunch of ferrets fighting inside a sack now.
The bruising decade after 2014 has made it a big ask for many of us to think about working together with those in the SNP who contributed to putting Alex Salmond in to an early grave and who are responsible for derailing the movement we love in the name of wedge issues like extreme trans rights activism.
I’m not sure it’s possible to put the old band back together, not indeed am I sure it would be worth the effort even if we could.
Perhaps we don’t all need to like each other, still less agree on detailed policy platforms.
What we do need is an agreement amongst all pro-independence parties that we won’t tolerate Westminster being given a veto on our self determination.
Enough and more than enough of milquetoast nationalism and those who are content to accept that our independence is only possible with the gracious permission and agreement of the British nationalist state. Such people aren’t our friends, not are they nationalists or supporters of independence in any meaningful sense.
There is nothing stopping our movement coalescing around the single over-arching principle of making the 2026 elections a plebiscite on independence.
Those who refuse to sign up to that principle need to be made to justify their moral cowardice.
Sarah,
This wings over Scotland site is good and does a braw job on exposing the attitude from others towards Scots and Scotland in general,
It may not be obvious at first but it often sways folks thinking when they see the bias and antagoism for themselves.
It akin to an advertisement of what the Scottish people are up against with the continued constant verbal an mental oppression that in itself imply’s the colonial mind still trying to control the narrative
Of Scots,
What is needed is more Scottish people to comment on here and not be feared by the onslaught trying to suppress or bully their conversations, so they stop commenting,
I am recently bereaved and up to my eyes with work, but I believe that people have the right to self determination peacefully and without threat of the colonial suppression and oppression that is often displayed even on here.
So Post or comment whenever there is a gap in my heavy work schedule. And encourage others in Scotland to do the same,
If no one talks then you stop having a voice , become invisible as a nation and lose democracy.
More “nothing going on” in Scotland…
link to isp.scot
Re “Nothing Going On In Scotland”exposed by ISP I find it eye watering the amount of money given to private companies by successive governments, what happened to private enterprise and capitalism espoused by the greedy bastards as being the best form of competition for the economy
What happened to the thatcher mantra that if a company wasn’t successful and profitable it should be allowed to fail, why are taxpayers through government subsides and bailouts supporting these failed enterprises whilst at the same time the directors and CEO’s who are responsible for operating the business successfully are drawing huge salaries for their obvious failures
Scottish enterprise is THREATENING to reclaim up to £11 million pounds, WHY ONLY £11 million when they have given much much more to a firm who had already planned redundancies and closures
And what has happened with the millions of pounds given to the aluminium smelter and the guarantees given to the companies creditors
One of the reasons I vehemently support direct democracy is the inclusion of a formation of a citizens assembly group to oversee the actions of our politicians in correctly utilising our tax contributions, how they are used , who they are given too , what they are used for ,what benefits are gained by the population from the entities receiving the handouts or investment
Out tax money seems to be given away freely to entities with minimal benefit to the wider population
I was reading that the SG were intending challenging the result of the SC court decision which would mean that FWS would then have to beg for funds to defend the decision , it should be that any politician willing to challenge the SC decision must do it on an individual legal basis and provide their own funding for the challenge
Haha, good one.
You would vehemently support a citizen’s assembly until the penny dropped that a truly representative assembly would have the same majority opposed to Indy as Scottish society has.
And it would have the same bias towards entitled hand outs, and the same aversion to doing the hard graft to earn them.
And the icing on the cake – it would be thoroughly “colonised” with Atlanticist views and deadlocked over trans, human rights, bairns not bombs and the “desperate plight” of the boat people.
You look in your mirror and imagine a Citizen’s Assembly made up of clones of yourself. That ain’t gonna happen.
Scot Finlayson,
I am surmising that the present set of SNP members are the no voters and unionist voters.
Labour and the SNP want to make the devolved Scottish parliament a Sovereign parliament like Englands, that would (by theft) take away the Sovereignty of the Scottish people which has stood as part of the Scottish constitution for hundreds of years.
And this is something I have to repeat also.
There is no independent thought towards Scotland being decolonised from the SNP, if anything they are trying harder than England to capture the Scottish nation. Then perhaps sell it to the highest bidder for cash,
(Sorry) they are already doing that,
In England I have a bridge to sell you,
In Scotland they repeatedly sell the people and country for gold. Wether its 1706/1707 or 2025.
Yes James, in postcolonial literature a colonized people are indeed ‘procured’; and in the case of Scots we hiv been bocht an selt mony times ower, and this will continue to be oor fate until such time as we reclaim our sovereignty, and yes, our liberation from colonial oppression.
“Slavery was not abolished, it evolved into colonization” (Nadine Gordimer).
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Link posted for the 792nd time. Only 208 to go before the magic number. This will probably be achieved in late August/early September. What joy! Together with a quote from an entirely different source. Wow. It!s a pity that very few have heard of her or are remotely interested.
Mornin aw. A howp ye aw hae a guid day the lot o’ ye. Aye, e’en ye unionists tae despite yer wrang thinkin ower Scottish independence.
Whit kin a tell ye? A wis raised in the magnanimit tradition o’ the ancient Latins an a bear nae ill taewart ony man wumman wean or beast.
Here, a’ve juist haed a thocht. A micht preach a lengthy sermon on the morra’s Sabbath. A feel thon lang deid thrawn auld meenister’s gaist tryin’ tae get a haud o’ me agin.
A wunner whit he’ll be tellin us aw aboot this time. Mair fire an brimstane maist leikely. He’s no a fan o thon unionists tho a kin tell ye that – but a’ll dae ma verra best tae temper his wrath. Ach he micht no be bathert tae talk aboot thaim at aw sic is ther Irrelevancie.
Defo a synergy there, NC.
A sermon on irrelevancy, written in Scots.
Looking forwards to it already
Prick.
Codeman!
Perhaps you and “puir auld alf ” should get a cave together somewhere !
Just think ! You could sit and gibber away to each other all day long !
What bliss !
I wonder how long it took you to write that drivel? On the plus side, Alfie boy will be pleased. Did I not see a recent post from you stating that you were leaving Wings in the huff? It is unfortunate that you are unable to adhere to your declaration of intent.
Evidence, perhaps, of the fallacy of UDI.
It’s a big unfriendly world out there!
Discuss
Ask a Scot this question: do you like Scotland being subservient?
I don’t think a Unionist Scot would like to realise this truth but once they did see it, they would probably stop being Unionist. A Scot knows they are part of a different and distinct culture. They don’t want it to disappear and be disregarded.
David McHutchon on Wednesday’s Prism was saying this. Talk to Unionists on the doorsteps on this theme – they feel Scottish at heart, not British.
A more interesting question for Scots, perhaps, sarah;
As a Scot, are you comfortable with the Scottish MPs’ acceptance that their decisions may be constantly overruled by England’s MPs despite the complete absence of any requirement for such acceptance under the Treaty of Union?
@xaracen
Where does it say in the Treaties of Union that Scots MPs could overturn the decisions of the whole UK parliament, or that if a majority of them had a contrary view on any particular subject they could except themselves or enact something different?
Doubtless if the parties to the treaties had envisaged a situation more analogous to the post 1867 Austo-Hungarian “Ausgleich” they could have made it so. Indeed, if Scots unionists had any backbone at any point over the past century or so they could have demanded something similar and probably achieved some form of dominion status with Holyrood being responsible for everything other than defence and foreign affairs.
Sadly too many would rather be smaller fish in the big Westminster pond than bigger fish in the smaller Holyrood pond.
A people so lacking in ambition and political backbone that they won’t demand devo-max are perhaps unlikely to stir themselves to go for the full-fat alternative of independence.
It’s called sovereignty, Andy, and neither party to the Treaty gave their sovereignty up, or agreed to subordinate their sovereignty to the other party. In particular, Scotland’s sovereignty belongs to Scotland’s people, and they weren’t even asked to give up or demote their sovereignty to any foreign country.
Not only that, but no-one involved in negotiating, agreeing, signing and ratifying the Treaty had sufficient legitimate authority to force the Scots or their formal representatives to subordinate themselves to England’s MPs within the Union’s new parliament.
Nor was there any agreement to the use of a flat voting system in the new British parliament, the first parliament on these islands to govern two distinct sovereign territories together instead of the usual single sovereignty such as the two former parliaments did.
Disagree? Then provide the text of the sovereign Scots’ formal agreement to that subordination in the Treaty!
So what? The actions of people who fashioned the Treaties 300 years ago have SFA to do with our proximate condition, or how we’re going to move from the current cul-de-sac to the sunny uplands of independence. Nobody sane cares about the early modern history of it or thinks it will be instrumental in getting from where we are now to where we need to be. The Scotland of 300 years ago wasn’t a democracy.
The international community – because they are what matters when it comes to recognition of an independent state – really doesn’t care about our colourful history, or the minutiae of 300 year old Scottish and English history, any more than it cares about 300 year old Slovene history, or the partitions of Poland. It cares about the here and now.
Even in the unlikely event the UN accepts Scotland as a non self governing territory….so what? It won’t gift us independence we were too timorous to take when it was within our grasp in 2014, or indeed in 2026 or 20XX.
It’s overwhelmingly likely that if the fringe nutters succeed in diverting the energy of the movement towards tilting at the windmill of “Scotland as colony”, then independence will be delayed for much longer than if half that energy had been expended on just persuading more people to grow a pair and accept that the risks of indy are less than the risks of staying in the union, and the potential benefits of independence are greater than those of remaining part of the UK.
Sovereignty does indeed rest with the people. The right to self determination is absolute, but it isn’t unlimited or automatic. The UN won’t gift it to us, nor will it intervene to force the pace when it doesn’t see a clear an unambiguous majority voting in favour.
What do you mean “so what”? It’s an ongoing constitutional and democratic crime, Andy, that’s what; an illegal exertion of authority by England’s MPs over Scotland’s MPs and over Scotland that they have simply never been entitled to, and which is directly and intentionally abusive to the entire Scottish sovereign half of the Union.
“The Scotland of 300 years ago wasn’t a democracy.”
Neither is the UK of today, Andy. It just pretends to be. That democracy starts in the House of Commons, but it’s already thoroughly broken because it routinely ignores Scotland’s still extant sovereignty and still extant and Treaty-guaranteed constitution. The Treaty did NOT give England any form of authority at all over Scotland. It gave formal governance authority over Scotland to the new British parliament, not to England’s MPs. And it provided it in the form of Scotland’s own MPs, who, under the Treaty, are the sole formal representatives of the entire Scottish sovereign half of the Union, and they alone provide the British parliament with all of its authority over Scotland. No Scots MPs, no authority over Scotland.
If they vote NO to a bill or other matter, then it cannot be applied to Scotland, and England’s MPs cannot pass any Union legislation on their own, because they do NOT and CANNOT represent the Union on their own!
Ergo, the UK governance authority is fundamentally and criminally fraudulent every time England’s MPs overrule Scotland’s MPs.
Your statement about the actions of people 300 years ago is therefore false, Andy, because their actions have everything to do with today, precisely because they did NOT give England or her MPs any authority over Scotland’s MPs, nor over Scotland itself.
Sovereignty still has currency today in the UK and all across the world. It is the trenchant abuse of democracy and the resultant abuse of Scotland’s sovereignty in Westminster today that prevents Scotland from properly benefitting from its own natural wealth, and independence is all about restoring that sovereignty to its proper owners so that their country can start repairing the damage that Westminster’s English establishment has done to it over the centuries.
So what does it mean, Xaracen, every time you conform with a law fraudulently and criminally passed by WM?
Or do you delight in breaking every one?
You constantly duck this issue. What use is your thesis to any Sovereign Scot if in practical terms, it makes not one teeny tiny bit of difference?
The point, Hatey, is the one that I made perfectly clearly, but which you and others relentlessly overlook and never address; that England’s MPs are not legitimately entitled to overrule Scotland’s MPs on any matter of Union governance.
I have explained in very simple terms why that is the case, and that it means that Westminster’s governance of the Union is fraudulent and unconstitutional, thus unlawful. Therefore Scotland’s people are fully entitled to bring the Union to an end, without any need for Westminster’s agreement or permission.
It should also be a matter for the courts to investigate, confirm and enforce the ending of the Union, and that in turn means that Scotland’s people are not required to vote for the Union’s demise; it should be ended because it is a criminal endeavour, and as such it does not require a democratic vote to have its demise enforced; the courts will do so on their own.
Breaking new ground there, Xaracen, big respect.
We are fully entitled to bring the Union to an end and we don’t have to vote to bring it to an end either.
What’s your preferred suggestion then, osmosis? How about acupuncture?
Maybe we could end the Union with the power of positive thinking.
Oh but wait! The courts are going to do it for us! Sure, tennis or squash
@xaracen 9.54pm
The point, Hatey, is the one that I made perfectly clearly, but which you and others relentlessly overlook and never address; that England’s MPs are not legitimately entitled to overrule Scotland’s MPs on any matter of Union governance.
Utter tosh. Of course they are. If Scots MPs or the people who elected them at any point over the last 300 years had been so outraged at the prospect of being “on the wrong side” of any vote they felt was contrary to some particularist Scottish interest, they would doubtless have done something about it. The only thing most of them were worried about, most of the time was preserving things they thought were central (which few modern Scots really give a toss about) namely Presbyterianism and the Scottish legal system.
There has never been any real prospect – or indeed appetite on EITHER side to convert the union into an Austro-Hungarian style condominium, or even allowing Scotland to have the kind of relationship Bavaria had in the Wilhelmine German Empire between 1871 and 1918.
The Scottish governing elites, then latterly the Scottish electorate when it came to include the masses, have never shown any interest in bringing about a situation where Scottish MPs could be the tail that wagged the Westminster dog, or simply absent themselves from Westminster for certain votes. It’s telling that it was Cameron who bounced “EVEL” proposals on to the commons in the immediate aftermath of the defeat of indyref1.
The proximate excuse for that of course was that it was OK to exclude Scottish MPs from voting on policies which only concerned England and Wales because we already had our own devolved parliament which (rightly) excluded involvement of English and Welsh MPs on matters of devolved competence.
I have explained in very simple terms why that is the case, and that it means that Westminster’s governance of the Union is fraudulent and unconstitutional, thus unlawful.
No, you’ve made lots of assertions with no legal, constitutional or academic background. You’re asking us to believe that in 300 year none of the minds in either Scotland or the rest of the UK have ever been capable of demonstrating the fraudulent, unconstitutional and unlawful nature of the matters you’re discussing. You are of course entitled to make such claims, just as we are all entitled to stand around, point and laugh at your inanities.
Come back to us with some clear and unambiguous support for this from recognised experts in their relevant fields and we might be more inclined to take you and the other usual suspects remotely seriously.
It should also be a matter for the courts to investigate, confirm and enforce the ending of the Union, and that in turn means that Scotland’s people are not required to vote for the Union’s demise; it should be ended because it is a criminal endeavour, and as such it does not require a democratic vote to have its demise enforced; the courts will do so on their own.
So why haven’t you and the others who share your delusion tested it in court? More to the point why hasn’t anyone else in over 300 years? Why do you think you and others are more likely to have the right of it whereas all the subject matter experts in 300 years have never managed to do it?
Is it perhaps because you’re talking a load of all bollocks?
I think we all know which is more likely. The fact you and others don’t have the resources either intellectually, academically or financially to cash the cheques your ideology is writing is all to obvious to the overwhelming majority of the movement and Scots voters in general.
@Andy Ellis;
“Of course they are.” (that England’s MPs are entitled to overrule Scotland’s MPs.)
The utter tosh is all yours, Andy!
England is no more entitled to overrule Scotland than Scotland is to overrule England!
Scotland’s sovereignty was and is exactly as important to Scotland as England’s sovereignty was and is to England! The same is true of their constitutions. Neither of those kingdoms gave up their sovereignty in 1707, neither of them gave up their constitution, and neither of them agreed to be governed by the other, and nothing in the Treaty or Acts of Union says otherwise. That is a fundamental, verifiable, and verified, fact, and is precisely why England is NOT entitled to overrule Scotland, because England never had the formal authority to do so in the first place, and Scotland never formally agreed to accept it in the second place!
You have asserted that England’s MPs are of course entitled to overrule Scotland’s MPs. Very well, Andy, demonstrate Scotland’s agreement for that in the Treaty, or absent that agreement state the formal source of England’s true legitimate higher authority! If it’s not in the Treaty then it isn’t relevant, because it was never agreed, signed or ratified. That authority clearly didn’t exist prior to 1707, so you’ll need to explain how it came about anyway.
I don’t care what other countries did or didn’t do. They aren’t relevant to the British union.
And you can stuff your insulting dog/tail analogy. It is meaningless. The two kingdoms are sovereign equals under the dictionary, constitutionally, and under the law. The Kingdom of Scotland is still legally a sovereign entity today, for reasons I have spelled out and which you have failed to refute. You simply ignored them or denied them, but you didn’t refute them.
“You’re asking us to believe that in 300 year none of the minds in either Scotland or the rest of the UK have ever been capable of demonstrating the fraudulent, unconstitutional and unlawful nature of the matters you’re discussing.”
I’m asking no such thing. You just made that up. I’ve never asserted any such thing. But you don’t get to pretend that Scotland’s sovereign people were happy with the British parliament’s governance arrangements for three hundred years. There were riots and revolutions, and many Scots were killed, imprisoned, exiled or transported as slaves to other countries. We had around 600 military camps imposed all around Scotland, in an attempt to keep the unruly Scots under control. In addition there was at least one attempt in the early days of the Union to have the Treaty resiled in the British parliament, and a later attempt was undertaken in 2014. Maybe you remember that one?
You also don’t get to pretend that the Scots’ obvious lack of power in the British parliament was and is equivalent to comfortable acceptance, either.
None of that sounds much like acceptance to me.
“So why haven’t you and the others who share your delusion tested it in court? More to the point why hasn’t anyone else in over 300 years?”
Primarily we lack the money; I certainly do, or I might have been seriously tempted. And the truth isn’t as widely known about in legal circles as it should be, though that is clearly beginning to change. Maybe you could ask Professor Robert Black KC about it. Despite having accepted the alleged authenticity of Westminster governance for 59 out his 60 years practicing law, he seems to have taken an interest in that authenticity, and having now examined it properly, he has come to the firm conclusion that Westminster’s governance of the Union is anything but authentic.
That may be the first serious crack in the Union’s legal and constitutional dam.
Alf Baird.
Slavery was not abolished, it evolved into colonisation,
That is true Alf, in fact Slavery is step 1 in the procedure to all colonised people and nations.then the come the invented laws attached to faux treaties to maintain the slavery status of the colonised.
Would you just listen to this: who knew that Scotland’s “slavery” is commensurate and akin to the 1950s subjugation of Apartheid South Africa…
I mean apart from anything else, statements like these go beyond hilariously pathetic grievances; they’re actually bloody offensive.
“Moonhowlers” indeed.
I’m afraid for the hard of thinking such hyperbole is de rigeur. See also Ms Goldberg and her recent false equivalence of living in the USA as a black person with citizens of Iran. Such low information tub thumping is (of course) a gift to the more unsavoury sections of the far right, MAGA and “old style” nationalists in places like Hungary, Poland and elsewhere.
They can now can tar everyone to the left of them with the woke brush because too many “mainstream” politicians and members of the general public have been too afraid to call such language out for the idiocy it so undoubtedly is.
Indeed Andy. It’s like they’re all trying to outdo each other in the stupidity stakes; one ever more idiotic claim trumps the next…
Morons one and all, I’m afraid.
When «slavery» goes digital the wise pull the plug. although those cuddly providers may already have conceived of that possibility.
«We’re there 24/7 from birthing module to end of life disposal centre».
That was Cromwell’s way. Cumberland couldn’t be arsed – he just killed everyone.
It’s the branding that turns my stomach.
And the chopping off of the feet of runaways.
And the lopping of thieve’s hands.
And the cutting out of the tongues of those spreading seditious speech.
And those Scots boys who look too long at one of the coloniser’s ladies. You can guess the part of them that gets chopped.
Honestly, sometimes I can hardly bear to finish my Hight Street shop for all the Scots slaves I see.
A MUST READ…..
link to archive.is
PUNCHY!
ANY system which creates a psychological dependency might be termed a species of «slavery».
In the contemporary world whips and chains have been replaced by more enduring means of capture and compliance and we submit to them every day.
Once the UN declare that Scotland should be Independent and UDI is declared, who will form the Scottish Government?
SUCH a scenario would be a critical test of how democratic a Scottish state would be.
Democracy MAX, would be very good thing, assuming «fredom & saorsa» still survive in the bold Scots dna….
I have no idea what your reply means.
Who will be the President of the Democratic Republic of Scotland (DROS)? And who will form the Government from the elected Independent candidates?
@ agent x
Being less «conventional», one might endeavour to think outside the strictures of the westminster/parliamentary box.
Democracy, which means direct rule by the people as you may know is not concerned with «agencies», surrogates, cliques or even mps, it is what the demos choose to make of it, a blank form carved in any shape one might choose,providing vested interests are kept well away, it signals participation and accountability.
True democracies therefore tend to turbulence, there is no such creature as a «stable» democracy.
The last thing an iScotland would need is more homely «stability», more procedure and process politics.
Have a good evening!
So basically you have no idea what you are talking about and no answer to my simple questions.
Who will be the President of the Democratic Republic of Scotland (DROS)? And who will form the Government from the elected Independent candidates?
Will it be President Swinney or someone else from the powerful Independent movement?
Do you not think that the answers to these questions are important?
Oh for god’s sake «None of the Above»….okay?
Agent x,
It does not follow that Turabdin is talking nonsense because you don’t understand what he is saying.
You’ve already failed to understand an earlier comment I’ve made, (I’m extremely sorry that I can’t draw pictures for you) but there’s a pattern forming, which leads me to ask a multiple choice question.
Are you, by any chance, a thick Unionist?
Answer A) Yes
B) Absolutely
C) Knuckledraggers R us
D) I don’t understand the question (again)
Knuckle draggers is my insult, Bips.
If you intend to try to gatecrash the smart set on Wings BTL, put the work in to come up with something original.
Aye, right, John.
When did you coin the phrase?
True democracies are only possible with a mono cultural demos. It is only with a shared outlook that all citizens will accept the legitimacy and reasonableness of views they do not themselves share and will thus submit to the will of the majority, even when it is not their own, personal will.
Multi cultural groups can only be held together by a strongman. An emperor, tsar or tyrant. As soon as the centre weakens, the state will balkanise.
All of this is so prevalent over all of human history that only the congenital eejit or the bad actor would argue to the contrary.
So, given the seemingly unstoppable journey within western countries to multiculturalism, the death of true democracy is preordained. Dictatorship will happen.
Or many of the countries we know today will fragment. This will obviously include the UK, but only somebody lacking imagination can insist that fragmentation will occur along the arbitrary lines we draw to mark the borders of Scotland, England, etc.
Islam is an aggressive and expansionist creed. It works assiduously to achieve critical mass in England, Scotland, France and many other European countries. When they make their bid for supremacy, they will redraw boundaries and borders where it suits them.
And who will in charge of Ireland or Wales and come to think of it, who will be in charge in England when there is no longer be a created state of a united kingdom of great Britain and N Ireland,
These changes would not just have an effect on Scotland,
But would have a ramification affect around the world,
I could imagine some panicking going on in the new one world government agenda and all the other attached unelected officials worries,
There would be other countries of course seeing a kink of light shining through with new possibilities and a that could see a way forward to those countries being suppressed by globalism just now,
Many countries are not happy with the amount of control and the enforced asylum seekers wrecking their countries and abusing their nations peoples, and the new poverty and austerity they are enduring,
It will not all be one sided you realise.
I suppose the would have to arrange or instigate WW3 to totally divert and occupy the cannon fodder and take back ultimate control of of energy, food land acquisition over all the nations,
Oh wait…
It is questionable which country at the moment will break out first,
It may not be Scotland, the people have had enough of the unelected’s ideology around the world.
The world is divided between those who live and those who think about living.
«Systems» much prefer the latter, so much easier to manipulate.
So Trump kicks ass.
People all over the world must be wondering – is it the German half of his ancestry that makes him what he is?
Or the Scots?
I’m tending towards the view that when future historians write the definitive account of which individuals most contributed towards nailing the coffin of Scottish Indy firmly shut, Trump will be jockeying for pole position. Perhaps even knocking Sturgeon off the top spot.
And if these same historians conclude he was far more of a mammie’s boy in character, that really will go down as one of history’s greatest ironies.
When historians write about Scotland it will come under the heading;
The period of Small Ugly Females 2015-2025.
The students will refer to it as the SUF period. A time when Scotland came close to being a big girls blouse.
And some historians will argue that Patrick Harvie belongs in this category.
I admire your confidence that historians of the future will see 2025 as the end of the SUF period and the start of the collective Scottish growing of pairs.
I see no evidence that your confidence is well placed.
Rev Stu usually has his finger on the pulse. He predicts tumbleweed until the 2030’s. I’m with him on this, but I guess we’ll get a reality check in May 2026.
Tories claim there is no longer a treaty of union, it has evaporated into the ether,
That Scotland and England agreed on a merger between separate states to become a union.
That hilariosly funny, because if that international merger cannot be extant or exist if the agreement to merge and the terms, conditions and articles of that merger no longer exist. They have all just disappeared into the ether,
Opps, the devolved government where tories sit along side SNP and Labour are not real,.. nor was the 2014 referendum to remain as one union under the 1707 united kingdom.
What a daft question to ask the Scots,
Only Englands politicians could be that daft and stupid to claim that there no longer is a treaty of union with England but do you want to stay in the union with England anyway,
Scotland do you want to vote on a devolved government.
Opps, we shouldn’t of asked you that, because there is no treaty of union between our two countries, to base that on.
Sorry, please forgive us for being so colonising in our thoughts and actions.
For Scotland to be voluntary subsumed or merged with England there has to be a valid contractual based agreement with the terms, condition and articles set out.
England claims that happened in 1707 with the international recognised treaty of union, are they now claiming that does not exist. That it exspired at some point, would England like to provide a date of when that happened.
The original contractual agreement of the treaty of union between Scotland and England states the words “Forever after”
Obviously England does not know how to subsume a country under legal merger terminology.
So if Englands politicians want Scotland to remain with all legally connotations as a united kingdom of Great- Britain of two separate states and kingdoms they have to agree to all the conditions, terms and articles of the 1707 international treaty of union that they agreed to.
And that agreement states it is a ” Union” of two kingdom,S not a merger.
Old parchment treaties like that beween Scotland and England in their entire form as original today in the present time or they do not,
If they do not according to the tories, Scotland does not need to ask Westminster for any permission to leave the treaty of union that no longer exists.
If the treaty of union should (suddenly exist) because they realise their error then the terms, conditions and article also exist.
Which means the royal burroughs, the ‘private rights for the evident utility of the Scottish people’ etc have to be reinstated,
The private rights for the evident utility of the Scottish people, is a extremely important article of the treaty of union in this modern day and age, very important,
Because it covers the interference of the devolved governments “Hate Crime bill”.
It also would cover hate crime against transgender issues and related to privacy of the Scottish people
Along with the privacy rights of digital technology or government interference on how your children are educated,
It is an article of the treaty of UNION that was not to be changed or altered.
If there is no treaty of union anymore in the tories heads and Westminsters heads then we are still able to tell the devolved government where to stick its new faux laws over the Scottish peoples privacy rights.
Vellum trumps parchment for long-term preservation of the Ancient Guff.
See what I did there with “trump”?
Since the treaty of union is such an important historical/political document. Probably the most important document ever written within these Islands.
It should be taught as part of the curriculum in every school in Scotland.
Then, everyone will understand what’s going on with this disgraceful farce of a union.
Then, we can have a vote, or just leave.
“Sign the bloody petition!”
Says Peter A Bell in his article today. He walked the Bannockburn march yesterday and listened to some speeches but didn’t get a slot himself in which he would have explained the desperate need to make the 2026 election the way to get real action on leaving the Union. We need the candidates to commit to a manifesto for independence which details the 6 steps to take. Simple.
http://www.manifestoforindependence.scot has the petition. “Sign the bloody petition” and tell your family and friends to do so as well. It can’t hurt and it might help.
A whole 328 people did the AUOB Indy march yesterday.
Only 328.
That should give some understanding of the lack of support “Sarah” and Peter Bell enjoy.
Yup, 576 people signing a petition. That’s me convinced.
Good grief.
No wonder the movement is stuck up a cul-de-sac.
There is a certain irony and political lesson to be learned from a situation when for years someone tells everyone they are wrong and that their ideas are just unworkable cunning plans leading to nowhere… Only for them to then launch their own cunning plan and expect everyone they pissed off over the years to support it.
@Dan
I have no doubt that the usual suspects in here are deaf to any reasonable argument, so I have no illusions that I (or anyone else) is going to be able to convince them of the folly of their cunning plans.
Every dog in the street knows that there were and remain plenty of dyed in the wool unionists in Scotland who will never under any circumstances accept either the wisdom or validity of Scottish independence under ANY circumstances.
Back in the a950’s when the National Covenant gained over 2 million signatures in favour of what we’d now regard as very limited devolution, around half of Scots still voted Tory.
Times change.
The $64,000 question now is whether we’re going to have to wait decades for any progress on independence, or whether we can hurry things along.
You and your wee coterie of fantasists are free to campaign for cunning plans that will lead to independence without recourse to troublesome things like referendums or gaining a plebiscitary election.
Hell, who knows….maybe you’re all right and me and others are wrong and we’ll be wafted to the sunny uplands of independence on the back of petitions and convincing the UN we’re a colony.
I still reckon that much more of a long shot – and potentially going to take far longer – than conventional means. But by all means….fill yer boots mate.
Get back to us and let us know when that 576 signature manifesto reaches more than a couple of million and/or when the UN declares us a colony and sends the UN forces in to expel the Auld Enemy when they refuse to play ball.
I’ve not interest in trying to educate pork. You just have to accept that some people are beyond reason.
PLebiscitary elections aren’t a cunning plan. They’re something that could produce a pro-independence majority within a few year, never mind the decades all the unicorns and rainbows of the “we wuz robbed” brigade will entail. Such folk are more to be pitied than scorned. There’s a wee won’t about yon as my granny used to say.
@ Andy
Your post started out reasonable, then drops into the usual tired old pish.
GO AND FUCK YOURSELF with again punting the idea that I am some sort of fantasist. You’ve tried that line with me multiple times, and I’ve called you out on it yet you persist, so you’ve either got obvious memory issues or you’re just a trolling prick.
For years all the stalwarts of btl could see what you were up to, and fuck knows why Stu continued to let you get away with it, but as btl engagement wanes further I guess the trolls’ content helps boost the site’s stats.
Go find a single post where I have promoted or supported Salvos approach or any other non-democratic approaches for returning Scotland to self-governing status.
I’ve consistently tried to focus on and nail down the specifics of delivering the plebiscite routes and ways to progress campaigning for it.
You purport to being supportive of that route yet you and every other egotistical my way or the highway type including Stu refuse to commit to agreeing a strategy and way forward which would allow activists to begin to convey the message in amongst the wider electorate in their respective areas.
With only 570 clicking an online petition, it’s fairly clear that internet floated cunning plans simply ain’t got the reach and aren’t going anywhere fast.
Proper campaigning takes hard graft and local knowledge and engagement. Knocking out reams of blogs on the internet won’t be enough.
So as things stand it looks like it will be the same shit for the 3rd Scottish election in a row then, because the big egos and narcissists will not resolve their differences and get behind a broadly aligned strategy.
Ask most of them to name credible candidates in Scottish constituencies, and you will likely get a blank. Because for all their supposed political brilliance and connections they haven’t got a fucking scooby about what is actually going on in the locales and who might be worth supporting and promoting, because they still think the car crash of Party Politics is the only way forward even though voter turnouts continue to show ongoing disengagement of voters.
It’s been clear to me for years now that zero help will be forthcoming or can be relied upon on a national scale by pretty much all the Indy bloggers, and that is why non-party affiliated local candidates with a local support networks has potential.
It may have been preferable if more had got behind ISP, but Alba’s creation effectively kyboshed that, so independents like I4I may well be the way to go. Even Fergus Ewing looks to be going the independent candidate route, so presumably that means there is some validity and merit to the changing circumstances and what I have been saying for years.
I get it that a big vain ego would struggle to let itself commit to a route or support a candidate in case it didn’t work out, and they’d have to deal with the hurty feelz of failure and embarrassment of being wrong.
Things not working out exactly as you want is something that most other well-balanced humans deal with day in, day out, as they have the depth of character and ability to reach compromises with others and try to make the best of things in their work and lives. But at least these folk make the effort and try, rather than being paralysed into doing nothing by fear of failure.
Sarah no matter what route or what action anyone suggested to forward independence for Scotland the fake independence supporter Franchise Fanny and his fellow yoonionists would never support or speak positively about them
Their actions and attendance on this site is only to undermine and demean any suggestion or argument for independence, they think they can persuade people that staying tied to a corrupt and incompetent reviled shower of fuckwits is better than taking the hard road to independence
They are so stupid that they settle for the ongoing corruption and incompetence of successive tory and liebour governments whilst trying to undermine our fight for independence with no sense of irony that they should be doing the same, they like to quote the stupidity and incompetence of the Scum Nonce Party as if we are not aware of it and are not taking steps to remove the problem,NOT one of them has produced any positive benefits to remaining in the union because WE know there isn’t any, the only thing they can do is rubbish and ridicule the current shower of fuckwits and clowns without realising that THEIR option (the union) has far more of them
The Franchise Fanny likes to raise the subject of a plebiscite election as if it hasn’t been talked about and suggested for years, as if HE is the only one who has raised it, it was promoted before he decided to take his WHITE FLIGHT action with his family to Scotland, but then again the Franchise Fanny wasn’t fussed about indy then
@ twathater says: 22 June, 2025 at 6:24 pm
“staying tied to a corrupt and incompetent reviled shower of fuckwits is better than taking the hard road to independence”
That’s ambiguous, TH. To whom do you refer – WM or HR?
“NOT one of them has produced any positive benefits to remaining in the union because WE know there isn’t any”
Of course there are some positive benefits. In summary, they are the same positive benefits the die-hard Indy supporters are forever greetin and gurnin about when they pine to get back into the EU and under the warm, cosy comfort blanket of allowing foreigners to make all the hard decisions while we Scots sit on the sidelines enjoying the luxury of endless complaining without any responsibility.
Government is difficult, TH, even though plenty of posters on here seem to believe it’s easy. Indy is hamstrung by having very few people who look to have any aptitude or appetite for governing. HR is all the evidence we need to prove that point.
“Franchise Fanny”
What are you, TH, 12 YO?
When are any of you going to twig that it’s only in the primary school playground that the kids believe they’ve won an argument because they called their opponent an offensive name?
Do you want to be taken seriously and have your arguments treated with respect?
Then learn to act like an adult.
There is a lot of fun to be had with the politicians immature but domineering contradictory thinking.
There is a lot of fun to be had with the posters immature but domineering contradictory thinking.
Thoughts on a wet Scottish Sunday.
Zen and the Art of Scottish Independence .
SOLARIS SCOTLAND
House perpetually
raining inside with
denizens oblivious.
SOLÀRAS ALBA
Sìor-uisge am broinn
an taighe gun fhor aig
luchd-còmhnaidh air.
Englands Westminster parliamentary political parties, nor the version of those parties sent into Scotland and or employed under Westminster statues and legislation of Englands Westminster parliament invading into Scotland would have no authority to be in Scotland in any form if the original international 1707 treaty of union between Scotland and England has expired.
The Scotland Act by the Westminster parliament of England of which mentions that Scotland cannot alter the treaty of union,
Would also apply to England as a treaty of “union” between the two Countries.
However Westminster parliament of England has actually colonised the 1707 treaty of union itself.
Changed the terms , conditions and articles to be used it as a limited and resourceful and financial benefit to England,
And have slowly but surely altered texts, words, applied amendments, and repeals over and of Scotland side of that mutual voluntary union between the two states,
Thus colonising the country and the people of Scotland not by annexation, or by subsuming or via a merger, but by colonising the international recognised 1707 treaty of union as if only England was in a 1707 treaty of union with England,
Westminster parliament of England is the school boy sitting in your classroom bullying you to give up your homework so he can claim it as his own work,
Do the 77th get double bubble on Sundays?
Naw James, it’s just that most ordinary, mainstream independence supporters are gainfully employed at other times and unlike you aren’t sitting around in their keks in their mammies spare room eating Frosties from the box and trying to make sure they don’t get their keyboard too gummed up when they’re watching their “other” favourite webpages.
That right, aye?
Concern troll.
“Concern troll” = someone with a job….
Who knew eh?
Update, for accuracy. 579 people have heard about the Manifesto for Independence and signed to show they like a clear route to leaving the Union when they see one.
What person who wishes Scotland to cease to be subservient would not sign it?
So with 4,283,300 on the electoral roll as of Dec. 2024, all you need is another 2,141,074 to reach 50% Sarah.
From memory the national covenant in the 1950’s managed to garner around 2 million signatories. I wonder how long it’ll take the Manifesto to reach the same giddy heights?
I suspect like many I won’t be holding my breath.
Perhaps when Scotland could still fairly claim to have the best educational system in the world, more Scots could read and write
It’s defo interesting how well educated we all were, back in the days of what some would describe as “peak colonisation”.
It’s also interesting to observe how poorly Scottish education has fared since we started to elect the SNP to run it.
Will Scotland’s educational attainments start to improve once pupils are diverted onto the study of a language currently unfamiliar to the majority of Scots? I refer, of course, to the Scots language.
Ah hae ma doots.
“13.Professor Michael Keating, Director of the Centre on Constitutional Change at Edinburgh University, told us [Commons Select Committee] that there are both historic and contemporary questions around whether the UK “is a unitary state, in which the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty is the be all and end all of the constitution, or whether it is a union in which sovereignty is shared.”17 He said that the historic ambiguity in the UK constitution goes back at least to the Acts of Union 1707.18 This ambiguity was brought to the fore in MacCormick v. Lord Advocate in the Court of Session in 1953, where the Lord President’s judgement said “the principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law”.19
14.The judgement went on to note that that the Act of Union 1707 extinguished the parliaments of England and Scotland and brought a new Parliament of Great Britain into existence, and the court opined that it was difficult to see why the new parliament should inherit characteristics of the English but none of the Scottish Parliament.20 Professor Keating said that when the “multinational nature of the United Kingdom was given an institutional expression” with the creation of devolved institutions in 1998, this gave rise to a view of the UK constitution as one of a union of diversity where the division of power means “we must rethink what is meant by Westminster sovereignty”.”
link to publications.parliament.uk
For those interested.
UN Special Committee on Decolonization (C-24).
You have to listen to the Speaker form UK.
link to webtv.un.org
Which speaker/time do you refer to, 100%Yes?
The first speaker, what a dipstick. I loved how the native Malvinas said he had Scottish descendants.
Alf, I can’t wait to see you and the team speak for Scotland.
Fit happened tae Northcode’s promised sabbath sermon, tae be written entirely in Scots?
Ah wis looking forwards tae that. Noo ah’ll jist hae to read the Short Story in the Sunday Post an hae an early nicht.
@Hatey McHateface 6:34pm
If you want sleeping material look at the property for sale Church of Scotland you won’t reach the end. Multiple reasons for that during the illegal Covid shutdown of religious venues according to the Scottish Courts. At least the Nicola Sturgeon shutdown
@Hatey McHateface 6:34pm
If you want sleeping material read the Church of Scotland property for sale you won’t be able to reach the end. Never mind a sermon The shutdown of religious venues during Covid was illegal as determined by Scottish Courts. Never mind reparations for the slave trade. Holyrood killed the White Christian culture of our country by illegal action. But then they killed thousands of pensioners during Covid. The right to bare arms is the ultimate destination in these circumstances.
Cut off in my prime by the cat jumping up on my phone. So the Covid shutdown did many things. And most of them illegal. We await the Public Inquiry findings on the £1 billion 4th needless shutdown and the impact on thousands of pensioners sent to Care Homes without testing. I suspect nobody will be held accountable. But the Christian Church was in trouble before Covid. Welcome to the World of Hijabs for your Grandchildren. Holyrood has handed the keys over to a different culture.
“Holyrood has handed the keys over to a different culture”
Sure. That was obvious the day they made yon boy FM, no doubt to rub the faces of their opponents (and many of their supporters too) in diversity. And to hell with our culture, tradition, glorious history and everything else uniquely Scottish that they chose to trash. That abomination is something proud, patriotic Scots are not going to forget.
But the west still has a couple of dogs in the fight, even if they are not strictly speaking (in terms of religion) “our” dogs.
They are certainly more aligned with our values than the people they are fighting and so by extension, they are on our side.
How does it go again? My enemy’s enemy is my friend. Never a truer word.
“Holyrood has handed the keys over to a different culture.”
‘Cultural obliteration’ follows loss of sovereignty (Fanon). Which means ‘Independence is a cultural emotion’, requiring the recovery of national culture.
It wid be nice tae hae oor verra ain Scots cultur ‘repaired and restored’ alang wi the soveraintie o’ oor people.
Is it is only through struggle, whether psychological or physical or both, that the oppressed can change themselves and their predicament?
This man thought so:
If it hasn’t already done so let’s hope the endurance of the Scots in their toleration of their oppression is nearing its limit.
I believe the greatest struggle facing the Scots, both individually and as a people, is psychological in nature. There can be no doubt that three centuries of generational oppression has taken its toll upon them – whether they are aware of it or not.
I wouldn’t believe thon Douglass boy, Northcode.
He writes in English, the whiny tongue of the lying, colonialist oppressor.
He has even been lying to you about his name! His real name is Frederick.
link to brodies.com
See hou a’ve learnt thaim wha caw thersels unionists oan here hou tae speik a wee bit o’ the the Scots tongue – some o’ thaim hivna grespit the true feelin o’ oor braw leid yit but mind ther ingles an ther mooths, comin fae the Anglo-Saxon tradition and no the Latin tradition, canna makkit the richt shapes tae speik it yit.
But with a bit more work some might eventually be able to make a passing attempt at pretending to be Scottish – none of them are quite there yet, though.
Northcode re-discovering yet again the pointlessness of trying to points score in Scots.
Nobody can work out what he’s banging on about!
And so, once again, to get his point over he has to revert to the King’s English in his second paragraph.
Do you know what you have here, Northcode? A false equivalence. There is no one-to-one relationship between speaking English and unionism.
But if there is, it’s a sweet irony that you’re damned by every post in English you make.
Le meas is miadh. Your forbearance. Every so often recalibration of rampant rhetoric is required. Below is a therapeutic extract from the online site of DSL:
DSL
Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid
« SCOTS AN OUTLINE HISTORY: ORIGINS
The first speakers of the Old English ancestor of Scots arrived in what is now southern Scotland in the sixth century CE. These people were descendants of Germanic invaders who had arrived in the south-east of what is now England from the early fifth century. Their variety of Old English is known as Old Northumbrian, a northern sub-dialect of Old Anglian, the Old English dialect spoken over a wide territory stretching from the English Midlands to the Scottish Lowlands. The area that these first Old English speakers occupied, in what was later to become Scotland, is characterised by place-names with early Old English elements. This area consists of a wide swathe of what is now south-eastern and southern Scotland, with less extensive settlements along the Solway and, perhaps rather later, in Kyle in mid-Ayrshire.
EARLY PREDOMINANCE OF GAELIC
Before the twelfth century the English-speaking part of Scotland was limited to these south-eastern and southern areas (except perhaps for the royal court of King Malcolm III and his queen, Margaret, a princess of the ancient royal house of Wessex, whom he married about 1070). By contrast, there is good chronicle and place-name evidence that by the tenth and eleventh centuries the Gaelic language was socially dominant throughout much of Scotland, including the English-speaking south-east. In origin Gaelic was the native language of the Scots of Alba, the kingdom centred north of the Forth and Clyde, whose kings in the tenth and eleventh centuries also gained dominion of the more southerly parts of what was to become an expanded Scottish kingdom. »
“there is good chronicle and place-name evidence that by the tenth and eleventh centuries the Gaelic language was socially dominant throughout much of Scotland, including the English-speaking south-east. In origin Gaelic was the native language of the Scots of Alba, the kingdom centred north of the Forth and Clyde, whose kings in the tenth and eleventh centuries also gained dominion of the more southerly parts of what was to become an expanded Scottish kingdom”
Oh dear!
Gaelic speaking. Alf isn’t going to like that one little bit
And a monarchy too! Cue urgent repudiation of the Ancient Guff from the republicans.
Or just a flat denial of the historical facts, to be replaced by more comfortable, alternative “facts”. That always works too.
I see you have attracted a dubious ‘friend’ there Fearghas, which would tend to suggest, as I believe, that I am on the right track in my analyses of the archaeological and historical record concerning the ‘peoples’ of Scotland.
Sometimes rampant logical fallacies, like Fallacies of Accent, need to be corrected by showing the whole picture instead of just a carefully selected part of it.
There… sorted
With respect, Northcode, the points disputed by me here are:
1) your over-the-top disjunction between so-called “Scots” and English, which are in reality very closely related – with a closely affinity indeed than either has to any other language, and
2) your airbrushing from history of Gaelic, our historical ‘lingua Scotica’ / ‘lingua Scotorum’ — ie the actual language of the founding Scots.
One might mischievously suggest that in terms of language, Gaelic is full independence while the “Scots” spectrum is more like 50 shades of devolution.
So here then is another recalibrating quote:
« Today, minority groups often rally behind a linguistic banner — French for the French-Canadians, Basque for the Basques. Whether the same may be assumed in the case of Scotland the Nation, centuries ago, is another question. Was ‘Scottis’ the accepted, homogeneous literary language of Scotland in earlier times? Once the historical dimension to the question is opened up and one looks at origins, it becomes clear that the answers is ‘No’. The dialect known as ‘Scottis’ has no claim to be the original national tongue. In fact, if there were any politico-linguistic ‘treachery’, it was that which resulted in ‘Scottis’ gaining dominance over the native Gaelic. At the end of the thirteenth century Malcolm Canmore and David I had intentionally ‘driven back Gaelic to (virtually) the present Highland line’. Scots originated in Northumbrian English and only grew later into proud distinctiveness, because of the positive sociolinguistic forces inherent in nationhood. Unsurprisingly, therefore, lowland Scottish writers from the fourteenth century until the seventeenth almost always claim to be composing in ‘Inglis’ and seek their poetic origins south of the border. Dunbar eulogises his master, Chaucer, in ‘The Goldyn Targe’, posing the rhetorical question ‘Was thou noucht of oure *Inglisch* all the lycht,/ Surmounting eviry tong terrestriall,/ Alls fer as Mayes morow dois mydnycht?’ Only in two instances do the writers of that time call their language ’Scottis’. The limitations of the nationalist claims made in this way by Gavin Douglas and James VI will be discussed later. » (THE MERCAT ANTHOLOGY OF EARLY SCOTTISH LITERATURE 1375-1707, Edited by R.D.S. Jack and P.A.T. Rozendaal, Mercat Press, 1997.)
“Sometimes blah blah be corrected by showing blah blah”
Not sometimes, but every time, you have to explain yourself in the King’s English.
Nuff said.
I don’t detect much in the way of respect emanating from your comment… so let’s not bother with that particular form of polite English passive aggressive pish.
Anither thing. Hiv ye no heard o’ paragraphs?
Paragraphs are a wonderful writing tool. They can be used in both English and Scots.
The thing about not using paragraphs is that nobody can be bothered reading your pish if you can’t be bothered using paragraphs to make the reading of your pish easier to read.
I use lots of paragraphs so folk can more easily read aw ma pish that a scribble doun here.
The verra fact that yer comments are maistly wan giant paragraph make me dout the verite o’ yer argument – no that a usually ever read yer stuff yont the first sentence o’ yer massive paragraphs onyway.
I might be wrong – and I absolutely don’t care if I am – but I get the same vibe from you as I get from Sven. I think yer baith anti-Scots (anti-lowland Scots anyway ye snobs) and are at it on here.
Anyway – your ‘points’.
1: “…so-called “Scots”
Your first ‘point’ starts by questioning the validity – but more importantly attempts to subtly ridicule the Scots leid – of the Scots language when its validity has been established and accepted by every other nation on Earth.
Recognised by every other nation on planet Earth except England, of course – God forbid us uppity jocks should start to remember we are a separate people and nation from the English and England, and with oor verra ain language tae eh?
Respect?
I’m not feeling much in the way of a ‘respect’ vibe so far; so consider your first point as having received the answer it fully deserves.
Your second point.
2: “…your airbrushing from history of Gaelic…”
I had nothing to do with your Gaelic being ‘airbrushed’ from history. That was the English – Scots was banned and airbrushed too – I feel your pain; but strangely not much in the way of respect.
Right, both points answered in full.
I might be wrong – and I absolutely don’t care if I am – but I get the same vibe from you as I get from Sven. I think yer baith anti-Scots (anti-lowland Scots anyway ye snobs) and are at it on here. But that’s just my view; as ever each should reach their own.
I’ve been too polite to mention my misgivings about you before but… fuck it. The verra sight o’ yer giant paragraph has pissed me off and has led me to the belief you’re a unionist at heart.
And now onward to the paraphrasing o’ Shakespeare as a declaration of my intent.
Ma leash has been slipped, somebody in the distance has cawd oot ‘havoc’ in a wee faint voice, a hiv eaten ma breakfast/lunch/dinner aff the fluir, a hiv haed a piss up against a tree, and noo a’m a big auld dug o’ war – war o’ the words onyway.
Too bad, Fearghas. You’ve failed Northcode’s ideological purity tests and now you must be reclassified yoon.
You too Sven.
You both seem to be members of the intelligentsia, which clearly means you’re smarter than he is. That seems to be what has tipped him over the edge.
woof woof woof
Northcode, a peace-token, with respect and paragraphs…
About a year ago I picked up for £4 in a second hand bookshop (in Pitlochry or Aberfeldy?) a copy of George Buchanan’s ‘JEPHTHAH AND THE BAPTIST: TRANSLATIT FRAE LATIN IN SCOTS’ by Robert Garioch Sutherland (Oliver and Boyd, 1959). Amazingly it was signed in blue pen by ROBERT GARIOCH himself. Here for interest in Garioch’s style is the first page of his PREFACE:
“A MEMORIAL WINNOCK in Aberdeen University, burst, I’m tellt, wi a boomb, used to schaw George Buchanan groupit thegither wi Arthur Johnston, Thomas Ruddiman and Dr Melvin: the twa former being the poets, the twa latter the scholars wha keepit alive the tradition o interpreting them. Nou the important thing here is that baith in Ruddiman (d. 1757) and in Melvin (d. 1853) the study o Buchanan, side-for-side wi Horace and Virgil as a classical Latin writer was combined wi thochts o pruvin what Scots can dae, baith in itsel and as a medium for classical wark.
Sae, in the decade eftir the Union, Ruddiman brocht out his editions o Buchanan and o Gavin Douglas’ Aeneid, wi the object o schawin that a Scot cud be a great makar and that a classic micht be written in Scots.
“Melvin, umquhile Rector o Aberdeen Grammar Schule, was the last in a lang line o the auld Scottish Latinists-men wha spoke Scots, wrote in Latin, and haunnlit English as a fremmit tongue, wha, in keeping wi the peculiar Scottish tradition o literary criticism, prelectit on Buchanan wi muckle fervour and by their skeelie analysis o his warks garred ilka generation luke upon poetry as a makar’s weill-wrocht wark, naething in the nature o rhapsodical whigmaleerie being likely to impress them. True til his type, Melvin was weill acquent wi Scots, and helpit Jamieson wi the twa-volume supplement to the Dictionary.
“D. Masson (Memories of Two Cities) discryves Melvin’s admiration for Buchanan, whase Psalms were amang the bukes read in his schule, and tells hou the pupils mindit aa throu their lives thae douce lessons in poetics. He tells forbye hou Melvin, wantan to illustrate a passage in Horace, wad mak ready use o som parallel passage frae Burns. This wad come naiterally til a Scottish Latinist o the auld schule, and Melvin wad think naething o’d; but already in his day the Scottish men o ingyne, nae langer citizens o Europe, as Buchanan and the lave had been as a matter o course, were lukan til England, blate o their fancied provincialism: the mycelium o this dry-rot was creepan throu the haill fabric o Scottish culture. Masson tells hou he and a section o ither laddies at Melvin’s schule (the maist forrit-lukan section, as it turned out) wad be startlit to hear their Rector “suddenly quoting Scotch.” It wad seem that they thocht it wasna juist the thing. The rot has gaed on for a hunner years sinsyne.
“Thae Scottish Latinists, sae lang as they were able, keepit alive the memory o Scots as ane o the classic tongues, and makars wha had sat in their schules, and in the Humanity class rooms, were aye ettlin to translate in Scots the pairts o Virgil left untranslatit by Gavin Douglas.”
I’m disappointed, NC, I expected your dog to bark in Scots.
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh
I accept your peace token and am persuaded it is given in good faith and with respect.
I greatly appreciate your much improved paragraphing and I read your comment with interest.
I know of Buchanan and his work and I’m also aware of Garioch’s translation of Buchanan’s ‘Jephthah and the Baptist’ tragedy although I haven’t yet had the opportunity of reading it.
The particular style of Scots used by Garioch is closer to my own preference than other styles I have seen.
Thank’s for sharing the first page of Garioch’s preface. I enjoyed reading Scots in his style.
“Amazingly it was signed in blue pen by ROBERT GARIOCH himself.”
A lucky find indeed.
By the way, if you maintain this level of paragraph separation in your comments I will happily read them in full.
The archaeological and historical record confirms that Gaelic was the language of the Dalriada Scots of Argyll and which originated in Ireland. The Gaelic lobby seek to alter this fact to suggest Gaelic is somehow indigenous to Scotland.
The Picts occupied almost all of Pictland, which subsequently became known as Scotland.
The ‘merger’ (i.e. rather takeover) of Pictland by the Scots/Gaels led to some Gaelic language dominance for a period in parts of ‘Scotland’ (i.e. Pictland) post 800s and in areas that were never Gaelic speaking. Dominant forces usually impose their language on those conquered and this is nothing new.
However, it may be argued that the Scots language is and remains the only language created and developed in Scotland by the fowk wha aye bide here, an whit’s spake by maist Scots the day as weel, despite it no bein lairnt in schuils rin by oor colonial maisters.
Hence the linguistic oppression (i.e. doun-hauden) of Scots continues…..
Alf, do you hold that the Picts spoke a proto-Germanic language?
@Alf
I think it’s fairly widely accepted that the Picts spoke a Brythonic language, as did the inhabitants of much of southern and SW Scotland. Even after Gaelic supplanted Pictish and became dominant broadly north of the Forth/Clyde valleys, Brythonic speakers remained in the Southern uplands reportedly as late as the early middle ages.
Although SE Scotland became old english speaking when the Anglo-Saxons arrived, Hatey is right that Gaelic was widely spoken even in the Lothians and SW Scotland in the early middle ages it was the language of court and the Canmore dynasty.
Scots was never as dominant as you assert: it’s an a-historical and anachronistic take you’ve confected to support your threadbare nativist political agenda. Early medieval Scotland was always a multi ethnic and multi-linguistic polity, encompassing Galic, Brythonic, Early English and Norse speakers.
The main linguistic point about the Picts, whom the archaeological record tells us occupied most of what we know today as Scotland, is that they did not speak Gaelic.
Another factor here is that most of the former Pictish areas and peoples, over time, became Scots language speaking – and this linguistic reality stretches from the Borders to the Northern Isles including all the more populated East coast areas.
The Picts did not disappear. They were re-named ‘Scots’ post the formation of ‘Scotland’ and, for a period, subject to a Scots/Gaelic elite. Much like some ‘Scots’ have now become ‘Brits’, the Pictish identity and culture was made subordinate.
Such is the power of language and cultural assimilation in altering a peoples identity.
I’ll try again, Alf. Do you believe that the language which the Picts spoke developed into Scots?
If we consider Scots-speaking communities throughout Scotland it does appear that descendants of the Picts did help develop and speak the Scots language. Most of the places where Pictish communities lived eventually spoke Scots, less so Gaelic.
@Fearghas
I’m sure this has been pointed out to Alf before: the colonialism goose sauce serves equally well for the gander. Scots speakers effectively colonised Gaelic, Brythonic and Norse speaking areas of the multi-lingual medieval Scottish polity/state.
Cumbric/Brythonic clung on in SW Scotland until the 12th century and there are reports of Cumbric speakers in the southern uplands as late as the 14th century. Gaelic was spoken in parts of the lowlands until the 15th century.
Although there are claims Scandinavian languages persisted in the Western Isles in to the late 18th and early 19th centuries, they’re though to have largely disappeared from the isles by the late 1700’s. The last native Norn speaker in Shetland didn’t die until around 1850.
Finally of course, when Gaelic was declining in the highlands the last native speakers in much of its former range such as Angus and Perthshire died out in living memory.
Alf has also never satisfactorily (at least that I’ve seen) explained what “version” or dialect of Scots we’re talking about or going to teach/disseminate? Will there be one standardised version of Scots, or will those in the NE be taught Doric, those in Ayrshire be taught Lallans, those in the SE be taught….something else? Perhaps we can have a standards authority like the Academie Fraincais for French?
Wouldn’t we then just have the same situation for Scots as for English vis a vis there being a “received pronunciation” / BBC English and various dialects? Many other European languages have had the same decisions about which version/dialect becomes that of the educated elite, government, bureaucracy, law and education.
Alf and many proponents of the Scots language appear happy with the colonial past of Scots displacing other native languages, whilst bridling at standard English which is what most Scots actually speak.
“Scots displacing other native languages” ?
Hardly. Lets looks at the facts:
Gaelic came from Ireland.
Norse from Scandinavia.
English from England.
Which leaves the Scots language as oor only language that was actually developed in Scotland by Scots. All the other languages brought in from elsewhere displaced Scots to some extent (i.e. Linguistic Imperialism), particularly the latter which is still trying to extinguish Scots (i.e. linguicide).
“Linguicide”
Loving it, Alf.
BTW, what’s the Scots for linguicide? That’s surely gonna be the first question every alert reader will ask.
“linguicide” (death of a language due to natural or political causes) is derived from the Latin ‘lingua’, meaning tongue.
Sure, Alf, and perhaps “cide” is derived from the Humous for “yellow, tunnel skulking, helpless lassie mutilator”, but that’s all irrelevant.
I asked what’s the Scots for “ linguicide “.
It’s a fundamental disqualifier for the free adoption of any language if it lacks the words, syntax, semantics and other necessities to represent the concepts people wish to read and write about.
Without these we might as well bark like Northcode.
It is well established that English (and other languages) use many words from various languages.
The essential thing for us to understand is the Anglicisation of Scots and its effects.
Just as we had “the Gaelicisation of Pictavia” (Clarkson, 2016, ‘The Picts: A History’)
And mair Gaelicisation tae come oor wey, nae dout.
‘Divide and rule’ is the way of the colonizer.
My fault Alf for not making my last question tight enough.
However unlikely the prospect that you might one day become ‘Language Czar’ of an independent Scotland, you can appreciate that I as a Gaelic proponent find no cheer in that imaginary future. In the meantime I do remain seriously worried by your influence in linguistic matters over those who justifiably value your expertise in other fields.
I’m sorry. I find it difficult to forgive your interminable obfuscation. You assert that:
« Gaelic came from Ireland. Norse from Scandinavia. English from England. Which leaves the Scots language as oor only language that was actually developed in Scotland by Scots. »
Yet you well know that in direct contradiction, the authoritative DSL (Dictionaries of the Scots Language) site states that:
« The first speakers of the Old English ancestor of Scots arrived in what is now southern Scotland in the sixth century CE. These people were descendants of Germanic invaders who had arrived in the south-east of what is now England from the early fifth century. Their variety of Old English is known as Old Northumbrian, a northern sub-dialect of Old Anglian, the Old English dialect spoken over a wide territory stretching from the English Midlands to the Scottish Lowlands. The area that these first Old English speakers occupied, in what was later to become Scotland, is characterised by place-names with early Old English elements. This area consists of a wide swathe of what is now south-eastern and southern Scotland, with less extensive settlements along the Solway and, perhaps rather later, in Kyle in mid-Ayrshire. »
I suggest the following litmus test for folk. They should try searching out the etymology of random Scots words and note what percentage are from historical English. (Of course as we well know, many words are also from French, Flemish Norse etc — and from Gaelic.)
Here’s an interesting example – the stereotypical “BRAW”. One dictionary suggested a Norse derivation. My own conviction is that it is more likely from Gaelic “Brèagha” (which has amazingly similar range of usage). Current Scottish pronunciation is not so close, but I would think older Lowland Gaelic was closer. The sound file below of the term as pronounced by three current Irish dialects seems a clincher (though words can be borrowed both directions of course).
Cf BRAW and BREÁ
link to teanglann.ie
Significantly, you persistently mention the Picts in your posts, despite academic research confirming their language was very close to Gaelic and having no link whatsoever to Scots. For Pictish to have any connection with the latter it would need to have been some kind of proto-Germanic. You carefully evade that question, and instead talk of DNA and continuous territorial occupation.
In that light I therefore put it to you once again that for you the bond between Pictish and Scots is not necessarily LINGUISTIC at all. That’s where all your bobbing and weaving comes in. The link for you is actually BLOODLINE. For you the Picts were indigenous. That’s the key. In your mind they lost their original indigenous language to murderous invading Gaels (from whom you recoil as a foreign bloodline). Happily however down through the centuries the ongoing East Scotland inhabitants of Pictish DNA birthed from within their bloodline a new indigenous language — “Oor Mither Tung”. Please correct me.
We have to consider the realities of the time, and over time, Fearghas, as well as how languages develop.
All languages are influenced by other tongues to some extent and the Gaelic and Scots languages are no different. The Scots language that has been developed by Scots within Scotland may in part be derived from ‘Old English’ (which is not the ‘standard’ English of today) however Scots was also influenced over the last millennium and more by the people here who spoke it, as well as by cultural, trade and travel interactions with other countries (the near continent being closer to Scotland’s east coast), much as all language and culture is influenced.
The key difference between Gaelic and Scots is that the former language was introduced to Scotland via migration from Ireland, whereas Scots was and has been developed by Scots within Scotland.
Moreover, Gaelic was ‘forced’ on much of Pictavia after the ‘takeover’ of the Picts to whom Gaelic was a foreign tongue, and the creation of a ‘Scotland’ out of what was Pictland; ‘conversely’, the Scots language developed naturally, also through cultural and trading/travel discourse as well as through periods of conflict as well as long periods of relative peace.
It is also the case that the Scots language was developed and widely spoken throughout most of the former Pictish areas, which further suggests significant cultural differences.
@Fherghas (passim)
Good to see you shining a light on Alt’s obfuscations and attempts to re-write history. The fact he so confidently asserts as fact things which are either simply factually incorrect or at best dubious takes on the early medieval history of Scotland does tend to make you wonder both why he is so attached to his faulty analysis and whether you can trust anything else he says (particularly WRT his obsession with post-colonial theory)!
Alf, thanks for posting. I have just sent you a reply which frustratingly has gone into moderation. That fate also befell a post to NORTHCODE two days ago (plus a slightly shorter resend version yesterday). They contained the first page of Robert Garioch’s translation of Buchanan’s PROLOGUE to JEPHTHAH (as distinct from the PREFACE by Garioch which I successfully posted a few days ago.) Apologies.
I can only speak from experience. I worked in the Western Isles. Never heard Gaelic spoke in the shops. I heard Gaelic spoke on the radio usually when a mistake was made. I decided to ban the use of Gaelic on safety grounds. When you are dealing with high voltage power systems failure, everybody needs to know what’s happening. Of course that makes me a raging Unionist. Actually that Gaelic team won the best team award in the entire Scottish Hydro. Awarded by the Chairman of Scottish Hydro. It should be still up in Stornoway Battery Point Power Station. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Gaels have ripped it off. What did I think of the Gaels the best engineering team I have worked with.
What “high voltage power” you personally had to be able to go to the Western Isles and ban their language. “On safety grounds”. That’s the clincher. Who could argue with that? It’s one of the perennials against bilingual road signs. Of course up until remarkably recently in Lewis Gaelic was banned simply “on school grounds” (if you follow my little joke). Reminds me of trying to get bilingual education started for our kids when they were young. An activist came up from Wales for a meeting. Advised us to go for full-on Gaelic-medium schools rather than “Gaelic Units” in anglophone schools. Recounted the wry story of a “bilingual” school in Wales where the headmistress came out to the playground, called all the kids together and announced: “This is something very important so I’m going to say it in English!”.
Ah ken that heidmistress.
It wis Northcode’s mammie.
@Fearghus 12:4pm
I am guessing you have never had to look after the safety and welfare of 100 men. I took that decision with their safety in mind. Responsibility lands on the few. When my daughter graduated from Vet Equine School I said anywhere in the World, she chose a holiday in the Western Isles. Of course. I am raging Unionist hell bent on the subjugation of the Gaelic language. You don’t even know who your friends are. BTW is that plaque still up there? If it is testimony to my management of the situation.
“Illuminating” (if you will excuse a docile parting pun). Peace to you. I wish you only well.
I feel no connection to Gaelic – none at all.
Gaelic might as well be Martian for aw the relevance to Scotland and Scottish Independence it hauds fir me.
Contrair tae thon Gaelic, houiver, a canna git fowk telt eneuch juist hou guid it feels tae speik an wryte Scots.
Aw Scottis fowk sud gie hit a whirl – espeicially whin communin wi Ingles; tae see the leuk oan ther confuised befundered faces is wan o leevins mickle pleisurs.
And it seems my own attitude toward Gaelic holds true for most Scots.
According to official figures 43% (it’s probably a lot higher) of Scots say they speak at least some Scots as opposed to the miniscule one quarter of 1% (it’s probably a lot lower) who claim to have some Gaelic.
Gaelic gets a lot more attention than it deserves – considering hardly anybody speaks it in Scotland – from the Scottish Government.
The reason being, of course, is that promoting a language barely spoken in Scotland over the actual language common to the indigenous Scots in great numbers fosters division among the people and aids in the fragmentation and suppression of the independence movement.
I’m surprised the Scots hivna been telt by the Inglis that Klingon is wan o’ ther Scottish heritage languages anaw.
Yes Northcode, it seems certain that the Scots language is the main target of discrimination here, whilst Gaelic spoken by a very small minority is highly favoured, thereby allowing the colonizer to ‘divide the tribes’ (Cesaire). This is because it is oor Scots mither tongue that gies maist o us oor ‘national consciousness’, a key factor in any independence movement. Meantime a dominant Anglo cultural assimilation process continues unabated.
The role of the colonizer in terms of language oppression is well established in postcolonial theory, much as Albert Memmi explained thus:
“..the colonized’s mother tongue, that which is sustained by his feelings, emotions and dreams, that in which his tenderness and wonder are expressed, thus which holds the greatest emotional impact, is precisely the one that is least valued. It has no stature in the country or in the concert of peoples. If he wants a job, make a place for himself, exist in the community and the world, he must first bow to the language of his masters. In the linguistic conflict within the colonized, his mother tongue is that which is crushed. He himself sets about discarding this infirm language, hiding it from sight of strangers.”
Alf, The IRONY of all this is both astounding and desolating. Despite all your valued Hauden-Doun insights, you seem entirely incapable of appreciating that the glaringly obvious reason Gaelic is so excruciatingly near extinction is precisely because of the relentless COLONIALIST extermination implemented by the Scottish Government prior to the Union and the English/ British Government thereafter. And as for “mither tongues”, please let me here honour at least once those countless overlooked mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers etc who managed despite every impediment to pass on to the following generation Gaelic, the historic and ongoing “Lingua Scottorum” (Language of the Scots).
We can observe that the following was written almost exactly a century BEFORE the Act of Union. Let us note moreover that the writer clearly considered themselves to be writing in “Inglische”, and was explicitly promoting the cause of “Inglische”. There is a linguistic complexity here. So with all due respect can we perhaps be wary of perpetrating a simplistic “mither tongue” myth which redacts from Scottish history the relentless linguicide inflicted on Gaelic, and erases all Gaelic-speaking motherhood from Scottish identity –
“THE QUHILK DAY it being understand that the ignorance and incivilitie of the saidis Ilis hes daylie incressit be the negligence of gaid educatioun and instructioun of the youth in the knowledge of God and good lettres: FOR remeid quhairof it is enactit that everie gentilman or yeaman within the saidis Ilandis or ony of thame having children maill or famell and being in goodis worth thriescoir ky, sall putt at the leist thair eldest sone or, having na childrene maill, thair eldest dochtir to the scuillis in the lawland and interteny and bring thame up thair quhill thay may be found able sufficientlie to speik, read and wryte Inglische.”
(Statutes of Icolmkill,1609)(Collectanea de Rebus Albanicus pp119-20)
“Thairfor that they shall send thair bairnis being past the age of nyne yeiris to the Scollis in the Lawlandis, to the effect thay may be instructit and trayned to wryte and reid and to speake Inglische; and that nane of thair bairnis sall be served air [heir] unto thame, nor acknawlegeit nor reid as tennentis to his Majestie unles thay can wryte, reid, and speik Inglische.” (Act of Privy Council of Scotland 1616)(Collectanea de Rebus Albanicus p 121)
“Forasmekle as the kingis Majestie having a speciall care and regaird that the trew religioun be advanced and establisheit in all the pairtis of this kingdome, and that all his Majesties subjectis, especiallie the youth, be exercised and trained up in civilitie, godliness, knowledge and learning, that the vulgar Inglishe toung be universallie plantit, and the Irishe language, which is one of the chief and principall causis of the continwance of barbarities and incivilite amongis the inhabitantis of the Iles and Heylandis, may be abolisheit and removit…” (Act of Privy Council of Scotland 1616)
“…the colonized’s mother tongue, that which is sustained by his feelings, emotions and dreams, that in which his tenderness and wonder are expressed, thus which holds the greatest emotional impact…”
Aye, Alf. And as the online DSL tells us:
“Perhaps above all the Scots lexicon displays a far larger number of words, meanings of words, and expressions not current in Standard English than any of the English dialects can muster, derived from the language’s distinctive linguistic history.”
Here’s the last verse o’ a wee poem a scribbled doun a whiles back.
A think it isnae bad conseederin a’m no a poet an a wis juist playin aboot wi Scots wirds a fund oan the DSL at the time – sumthin’ onybody kin dae an hae a wee bit fun daein it tae.
Fae banie skult ill-scance’t ey accurse’t
Leukt fearsum oot tae sloak hits drouth
Abandoun’t skaims tae haud Scots doun
Ther makkirs fearfu rin deleerit grue…
Hurrit hame tae safer grund
I do like the sentiment those few lines o’ Scots express tho.
Fearghas, the reality is you have never been able to explain “the glaringly obvious” fact that the Scottish Government heavily favours in terms of policy and and funds the now considerable and lucrative Gaelic language lobby, whilst the Scots language receives hee-haw.
@ Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh
I’m afraid that to Professor Baird, and his alter ego Northcode, the small number of native Gaelic speakers is evidence of Gaelic’s gross, institutional over-encouragement.
Just as the huge number of speakers of Scots is proof of the crippling oppression and non-stop harassment of anybody daring to ever defy the banishment acts and exercise their “mither tung”.
Once you take all of that on board, you perhaps do start to wonder if Professor Baird’s alleged superior knowledge of ferry design and construction is all it’s cracked up to be.
As for Northcode, he admits to living in fear and thus will probably say anything.
Alf, I sympathise with your handout grievances. However, given your inveterate and vocal animosity towards Gaelic per se, your complaints of “Divide and Rule” rather lose their edge for me. It seems to me that if there is indeed any such process at work you have inadvertently allowed yourself to become an influential part of it. You come across as wanting Gaelic gone full stop.
“a canna git fowk telt eneuch juist hou guid it feels tae speik an wryte Scots”
Just as you cannot even tell them that unless you say it or write it in the King’s English.
As in paragraphs 1, 5, 6, 7 and 8 of your post.
Leaving you paragraphs 2, 3, 4 and 9 with some Scots.
Whoops! The majority of your post is in English, and I don’t even have to lie about it to prove it.
BTW. Your promised sermon in Scots is a week overdue. Are we all to make do with the Sunday Post Short Story again this week?
@Fearghas
Alf exposed as a proponent of colonialism….as long as it’s *his kind* of colonialism.
There’s a shocker!