Just your imagination
Posted on
September 28, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
From a ridiculous piece by Hadley Freeman in today’s Guardian:
Actually, we’re pretty sure it isn’t and we can.
While we were compiling Kezia’s Greatest Hits, though, we also stumbled across this, which is our very favourite. It’s from almost exactly a year ago:
How things change, eh readers?
Kez D – the absolute epitome of cognitive dissonance.
She’s a lot of things but she’s not a Trump, with his racism and monstrous bullying ego. A bit wide of the mark, surely?
“She’s a lot of things but she’s not a Trump, with his racism and monstrous bullying ego. A bit wide of the mark, surely?”
*weary sigh* If the quote being referenced had mentioned racism and bullying egos you might have had a point. But as it didn’t, and absolutely nobody is accusing her of being racist, it seems a fairly silly thing to say.
Oh look it’s the Branch manager of the ultra autonomously autonomous North Britain Branch of the London Labour party.
In fact she is SO autonomous that she by passes voting in Holyrood votes … votes against her dear leader’s wishes in the N.E.C. (NOT the wee pretendy Scottish version but the full blown London version) … claims she will raise the 50p tax rate on people earning over £150. ( no I did NOT make a mistake there she really did say £150) 😀
link to twitter.com
So Hadley doesn’t keep up with local current affairs then, must only have an international brief, but even then must be aware that oor Kez is the leader of the most powerful devolved political party in the world and she didnt get that by being nicey nice but insists “she has better political nous than someone (JC) who had been at the forefront (or at least the back benches of the most powerful parliament in the world) of politics for decades.
I was going to say you cannae make it up but sadly the MSM prove me wrong every single day
Pathetic. The Labour/Unionists are finished. Lies, lies, regurgitated lies. A recycle to oblivion.
The Tory/Unionists tried to ruin the Scottish Oil sector by high taxes 60% to 80% when the price had fallen 75%. Losing thousands of jobs. It is now 40% from Jan 2016. Osbourne was one of the worst Chancellor ever.
Now fracked Gas is being imported into Britain against the majority wishes,and the public interest. How much tax does fracked Gas generate. None? A British industry has been ruined by Westminster, with no alternative. Now fracked Gas is being imported to help the US economy.
Westminster unionist policies are ruining the British economy and putting up the balance of payments deficit and the debt. Enough is never enough for these greedy millionaire politicians and their associates illegally I lining their pockets with £Billions of public money. They are a disgrace.
Not a national treasure.
For goodness sake is there no end to the idiocy. 50p tax rate on those earning over £150 a week? What on earth. It just gets worse and worse.
Vote SNP/SNP May 2017
Please
Fuckin Hell!
I know your all picking at poor Kez. And certainly there is plenty of ammunition.
But it does seem a bit like kicking a puppy.
“Gordon, the only thing that matters is what I said in the last 5 minutes. Everything I said before is just like a zero percent credit card offer; subject to change anyway. I’ve been changing my position as events happen very consistently.”
Bonkers logic from a party of desperate Unionists for whom events have not only passed them but swept them aside.
Labour’s north British accounting unit (aka Scottish Labour) is now a completely irrelevant political party/branch office.
With all this criticism Kezia Dugdale might begin to get an inferiority complex about not being able to her job.
The only part of the paragraph which relates to KD is the denial. The rest is, as justifiably and politely pointed out but rudely and petulantly objected to, wide of the mark. Kezia, for all her faults and the bad hand she is trying to play, nothing at all like Trump in any respect except that common to humanity – and politicians of all hues.
Anagach says:
28 September, 2016 at 2:16 pm
I know your all picking at poor Kez. And certainly there is plenty of ammunition.
But it does seem a bit like kicking a puppy.
……………
Don’t be fooled by the “Puppy Dog Eyes” Even Chucky had big blue peepers.
Ably aided and abetted by the MSN and Westminster, they are all enemies of our country. Show none of them any sympathy and hit them where it hurts every time.
SNP x 2 next May.
I object to the Trump being called the Donald. I’ve been called that and worse for years. Even loyalist knuckle draggers on the Hootsmon online comments used to call me that, as well as a Toilet wa’ in the Swallygate.
At least the Trumpet was a creative capitalist and built a couple of class gowf courses in memory of his mammy. Wot has Labour done for us?
“Kezia, for all her faults and the bad hand she is trying to play, nothing at all like Trump”
FFS. I’m not saying she’s like Trump. I’m saying she fits Freeman’s description, which she does. Are you trying to tell me you’ve never seen Kezia Dugdale shouting all over someone and telling a far more experienced woman that she could do a better job than her?
Oh good grief, it’s the same old song.
You deserve some sort of award for reading through Hadley Freeman’s lunacy. I couldn’t do it, thats for sure.
Then she tumbled all the way down the rabbit hole into Labour land where all the flowers are red ones and all the babies could read and where no one ever waited in A&E
And new grown up shoes and a desk were all for her to always have, ever and ever again
The Absolute End
Kez D – the absolute epitome of cognitive dissonance.
Kez has made her world a cognitive shambles, I am truly worried for her mental health.
[…] Wings Over Scotland Just your imagination From a ridiculous piece by Hadley Freeman in today’s Guardian: Actually, we’re […]
Her thinking seems to be, I don’t care what you ask, I will just speak constant absolute nonsense, and everything in my head will be as it should be, me in slow motion, skipping through a field of pretty flowers when I was five years old.
Always hard to watch Kez in action. Gender studies and politics must be a tricky issue to even try to study these days, especially with likes of BBC Scotland giving Kez such a lovely time. Trump has massive right wing USA media backing, Kez has massive UK right wing media backing in Scotland and so on. eg very tory Courier says vote Dugdale, she’s crushed er, her boss, 7 nil.
link to archive.is
Kezia Dugdale completes 7-0 Labour conference victory over Jeremy Corbyn
Attempts by Jeremy Corbyn to water down autonomy for Scottish Labour have been brutally shot down by his party’s conference.
It means the re-elected UK boss has now suffered seven defeats to his counterpart Kezia Dugdale in a running war over influence in the make up of the party’s ruling body, the National Executive Committee.
Keir Hardie, Ramsay MacDonald, John Smith, Donald Dewar, Jack McConnell, Wendy Alexander, Ian Gray, Johann Lamont, Eggie Murphy, Kezia Dugdale. It’s like evolution in reverse.
That last video is brilliant. I can’t believe in the space of a year, she’s not managed to think of a better excuse for U-turning on her opinion of Corbyn than “he’s just won a massive mandate”. I mean, what on EARTH does the size of his mandate from Labour party members have to do with his ability or inability to win over members of the general public?
What a laughable excuse for a politician.
Some Sunday through the week when it’s dark at dinner time is when we’ll get any sense out of Ms Dugdale. Her amateurish diversionary tactics score 10/10 for squirm value.
Part of me can’t help feeling sorry for her like I do for anyone who’s out of their depth and doesn’t know it. There’s a bigger part though that thinks she’s not only an embarrassment to Labour but to Scottish politics in general. Oops maybe she’s not the only candidate for that.
Excrutiatingly bad and even ” badder”, pardon the grammar!
A choir of Kezia`s comic cuts. I should feel bad for someone being so hopeless and hapless. Nope. She`s simply a unionist fly on the windscreen.
Greannach says:
“It’s like evolution in reverse.”
🙂 very good! Back in the sea as everyone other than Tory MPs might say.
Certainly in terms of objectives, political ability, and principles you are probably just about right!
So this is where she learned her talking skills from.
link to youtube.com
Dave Greig wrote:
“Part of me can’t help feeling sorry for her like I do for anyone who’s out of their depth and doesn’t know it.”
Dave, those who can’t swim are encouraged to stick to the shallow end of the pool and goodness knows they don’t come any shallower than Dippy Dug. If non-swimmers venture into the deep end chances are they’ll drown. No sympathy whatsoever!
_____
Dunks wrote:
“Don’t be fooled by the “Puppy Dog Eyes” Even Chucky had big blue peepers.”
LOL, aye, and clowns are responsible for coulrophobia.
Brewer has stopped dying his hair. Carrel is getting older. Davidson hasn’t changed. Not much has changed at all. Still sprouting nonsense. Gary Smith leaves a lot to be desired. No not David Porter.
Labour trying to take SNP policies. No chance. Corbyn praising GCC neglect and corruption. No mention of Dugdale.
Now Alex Findley. Pathetic. BBC Politics. Nonsense.
Vote SNP/SNP May 2017
Please.
Puir wee soul. Jist no wyse !
Greannach says:
“It’s like evolution in reverse.”
Ooft, good one.
Ooooh Meeeow!
Ta for the laugh!
OT RANT
Apologies for mentioning footie but why didn’t Gordon Strachan not just tell the Brit Nat Press and Media hacks to GTF when asking about the other one game in charge manager.
Our effin Media isn’t even trying to be informative anymore when I have to go online to find out what the effin Scotland Squad is.
She gets paid a lot of our money too.
Is there a way thatl list MP’s can be monitored by a department of the Scottish Government to ensure they are performing to an acceptable standard?
After all if our MSP is not performing well we have the option of not voting for them at the next election. Not so for list MSP’s.
Chairman Jim Ratcliffe, one of Britain’s richest men, argues that as the North Sea is unable to keep supplying the base ingredients to make chemicals, shale gas will be an important future energy resource.
“There simply is insufficient raw material (oil and gas) coming out of the North Sea to run Grangemouth so we’re talking about 10,000 jobs in total that depend on that facility,” Ratcliffe told BBC Radio Scotland.
“So were it not for the shale gas that we’re bringing in from the U.S., Grangemouth would have closed three years ago,” he said referring to the petrochemicals hub to the west of Edinburgh.
Or, to put it another way :-
Chairman Jim Ratcliffe, one of the Tories closest allies, argues, falsely, that as the North Sea is unable to keep supplying forever the base ingredients TO MAKE CHEMICALS, shale gas will be an important FUTURE ENERGY RESOURCE, just so long as the massive oilfields off the West Coast are kept quiet.
10,000, 50,000, 150,000 jobs, pick a number, anyone will do, will be lost if I dont get my way and make an absolute fortune here at Grangemouth. And you know what, I’ll even close this plant rather than give in to the environmentalists, who, by the way are absolutely spot on about their concerns that fracking will inevitably destroy the whisky industry, the bottled water industry, the salmon fishing industry – it just goes on and on. It’s an absolute nightmare for families with children, and of course for property values. But we are going to deny all of that and assure everyone , meaning we’ll lie to everybody. And then we’ll bribe those who are not gullible twats. Why are you waving your hands?
What do you mean it was a live mic…..
In a nutshell….
link to thenational.scot
I kinda feel sorry for Kezia as she seems to try really hard to do her job, but there’s NO way I could stay in my job if I was as incompetent as she is!
Surprisingly, when I started to read the Hadley Freeman excerpt I was expecting the Rev to refer to Ruth Davidson, not oor Kez! – just goes to show how poor both the other parties’ leaders are!
Thank goodness for Nicola.
Anyone know how much Kezia Dugdale is paid, can’t find it but maybe not looking in the right places online.
I am just not sure what this Freeman guy is trying to say? Is he saying female politicians are more polite? Is he saying they’re less arrogant? I mean wtf difference does it make what gender they are? Why is he making this an issue, albeit hypothetical in his bizarre view.
A twat is a twat is a twat, no matter what their gender.
A younger Kez goes for her Uni interview ( courtesy of the late , great Vic Wood.)
link to youtube.com
Grangemouth INEOS should be nationalised.
@Artyhetty
Her tax returns have been published.
Looks like the Patrick Harvey band are dancing to the unionist tunes again good old dependable pals worthy of our support don’t yah think.
@ manandboy – Actually he (Jim Ratcliffe) provides the best argument for the recovery of the North Sea oil industry. As a diminishing resource which is vital to the entire economy (plastics, fertilisers, chemicals, synthetics etc etc) the price will inevitably increase.
Eventually, Saudi will stop flooding the market in its efforts to destroy the Russian and Iranian economies – with the added bonus of killing off the Venezuelan economy and helping the UK attack the Scottish economy.
If he continues to blackmail the Scottish Government, then, as a strategic resource, we should certainly take the Grangemouth plant into public ownership. The case seems very strong.
@Artyhetty
Hadley Freeman is female,
and i have no idea what point she is trying to make,
but it does sound misandrist.
I think the reverse lobotomy in US went wrong.
O/T
Common Space leads with a lie about the SNP and the Conference today. I have just unsubscribed. Been coming for some time – a bit like the Sunday Herald under its present editor.
Jim Ratcliffe should be given credit for showing faith in Scotland by investing heavily in he Grangemouth plant and also investing in a fleet of new ships (six I think) to bring the feedstock over from the US.
It is a pity that the nimby anti-fracking lobby are allowed to get away with spreading all sorts of utter nonsense that unchecked may compromise the future prosperity of Scotland.
See if the folk thought the returning Olympians were that Great Britinish why did hundreds of Union flags have to be handed out to them to wave to the cameras (none of their own?)
Just an observation
Never trust a man who can’t button his shirt up correctly.
Neil Findlay on Brewer’s BBC Two Hour Extravaganza today standing in the stairwell at Holyrood was invited to summarise his thoughts on Corbyn’s hour long speech to LabConf.
He asserted, but didn’t have the figures (!), that Labour Membership in Scotland, had risen from 15,000 to a strangely accurate sounding 24,000, since Corbyn ascended the throne the first time, and that although there wasn’t a breakdown of Scottish voting figures in Lead 2 campaign, their telephone polls showed that the So Called Scottish Labour Party members voted 60-40 in favour of King Corbyn.
I find it difficult to contemplate that this man, who stood in the leadership election,does not have Party Membership figures at his fingertips.
Of course , either he does, and they are much much lower than he attempts (lies) to falsely convey, or incredibly, he doesn’t have the membership stats, which would be quite a remarkable oversight/ laziness on his part.
Some observers may have thought him a bumbling devious fool. But not I.
Corbyn joked that the hall was full to overflowing, despite Virgin insisting there were 800 empty seats.
Uproarious laughter from the room. He was on a roll.
Education, the NHS, nationalising the Railways, congratulations to the Mayors elect of Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham.
No mention of Kezia and the absolute coo’s arse she made in the SGE Up Here.
No Trident, no foreign policy, no Brexit.
Local Authorities in England would scrap ALEO’s and public services would be delivered by public servants; no zero hours contracts, scrap Tory attacks on unions, Employment rights, and drive out the tax evaders.
Scotland got mentioned three times.
Bill Shankly quote about working as a team towards a common goal, whether in football or life. Glasgow Council’s £15 million scheme to pump prime New Businesses, and oh, apparently Corbyn campaigned from Aberdeen to Cornwall supporting a Remain vote during Brexit.I must have blinked.
The cameras dutifully panned the audience throughout the 5000 bursts of nigh orgasmic ‘spontaneous’ applause.
No Kezia, no Murray, no Baillie, no Findlay (well he was fumbling with his shirt buttons and his mouth in Edinburgh at the time), no Big Pieman McAveety of ALEO/PFI Glasgow City Tammany Hall, no Umanna, No Tristram Hunt, no Kinnock, no Benn, no Kendall, no Cooper; I doubt that any of the 170 odd New Labour diehards were present.
Scotland no longer exists in Corbyn’s eyes.
Oh, I forgot. Labour has ‘won’ three LA by-elections Up Here. (Loud cheers from one section.)
Brewer sat in the studio with Severin Carrell of the Guardian, and one of the ‘Fucking Useless’ Failures, ex Neo Conservative New Labour Blairite Tom Harris, who is now a PR Consultant, or some such fluff, Humming and Hawing.
Well, nobody’s watching except anoraks and old fogies like me.
We must be free of England very very soon.
The Labour Party is riven in two.
Corbyn will destroy Dugdale and her wee core of Blairite zombies; of that I have no doubt.
Sorry for the length of this.
Corbyn is not in the slightest bit bothered that New Labour MPs Up Here were slung out on their arses.
In fact, he barely acknowledges that Scotland exists.
@Dave McEwan Hill
Yes! “Common Space” told a big fat “Unpleasant” “LIE”!!about the “SNP”
All the punctuation marks and capitals in tribute to the Express who couldn’t have lied any better and thanks to Doug Daniel for pointing it out
Rancid The Graun lovs Kez too but not today, its a very hard push for fracking in their Scotland region from rancid The Graun. Presumably their cunning plan’s to get such an unpopular thing like fracking going that it’ll help get SNP out of Scots.gov.
Very stinky, UKOK rancid Graun style.
link to archive.is
The British billionaire hoping to become the country’s biggest fracker said Labour’s ban would be a spurned opportunity. According to Ratcliffe, a fracking boom would breathe new life into towns suffering from post-industrial decay by bringing jobs and locally-distributed royalties.
“I’m from the north and there are parts of the north that are not happy places,” said the Manchester-born businessman, whose personal fortune is estimated at more than £3bn.
He added that some towns that once thrived on industries such as coal or steel were now “a bit grim” and needed a dose of shale gas.
@Clive Scott
Fracking is not needed in Scotland, we are surrounded by oil and gas, we only need to be free of Westminster, and its “deterrent” on the Clyde.
No namby pamby schtick, just the facts.
Kezia has exactly the same arrogance and ignorance as Trump and the same brass neck to think she can display political genius when she is so out of her depths she cannot even see it and keeps making the same mistakes again and again. I was prepared to give her a chance until I heard her on Brewer in April 2015 when she ‘listened very carefully’ (a familiar phrase of hers) and still heard the wrong thing and even when questioned further persisted she was right. From then on things have just got worse and worse with kezia’s blunders. She was annoyed someone at lab conf questioned her authority as labours leader in Scotland but has put the boot in at every turn to JC and continues to do so.
The strong winds in the Firth of Forth which prevented the INEOS tanker from docking demonstrate the excellent case for wind and wave power.
Re; Scot Finlayson@6.11
Ah, I see. I see what you mean. Perhaps she was trying to provoke, and/or, patronise, either way, she makes little sense given it is 2016, and things have moved on apace regards gender issues in politics. It’s about what, either sincerity and honesty, or lies and fabrication, and how successful someone is at conning the voters, or not.
@ Clive Scott Scotland gets nothing in tax from Ratcliffe the non dom, 2 of 8 proposed ships built in China , the ships aren’t specifically built to transport Shale Gas to Scotland , but to Europe & wherever else they need gas transported , so no Applause for Ratcliffe .
@ ronnie anderson – no tax Ratcliffe? – the Guardian article Heedtracker links to says Mr Ratcliffe has a personal fortune of £3 billion. Reward enough I would say. Besides, he’s sure to get a seat in the Lords and an ermine trimmed, red velvet cloak to keep him warm.
Robert Graham,
“Looks like the Patrick Harvey band are dancing to the unionist tunes again good old dependable pals worthy of our support don’t yah think.”
Some of us had been warning about the Greens long before the election:
“The Greens could most certainly not be relied upon.
They would hold an SNP government to ransom on every issue, let alone on referendum.”
Unfortunately there are Green and Socialist activists posting on this site, who are more interested in gaining support for their parties than independence, who managed to convince independence supporters to give their list votes to the Greens or Rise.
The National heavily promoted the Greens and Rise.
Follow Ken500’s advice for the council elections next year:
“Vote SNP/SNP May 2017
Please”
Osbourne one of the worst Chancellor in history. Osbourne taxed the Scottish Oil sector at 80% to 60% when the price had fallen 75% trying to destroy the industry to stop Scottish Independence. Losing thousands of jobs. Losing Scotland £Billions. The tax is now 40% since Jan 2016.
Fracked Gas is being imported. How much tax is paid? Nil. The Tories have tried to destroy the Oil industry. Now importing fracked Gas to benefit the US economy. Absolute badness. Madness.
Putting up the balance of payment deficit and the debt. Against the majority wishes and the public interest.
Vote SNP/SNP May 2017
Please
Tired of people suggesting she’s nice but just a bit dim. Absolute bollocks.
She’s a deeply dishonest careerist undeserving of respect or sympathy.
It may be reaching the point where this relentless criticism of Kez is counter-productive. Sure, she isn’t the sharpest tool in the box, and all we educated armchair experts can smugly laugh at her. But maybe we are going too far.
Many of the voters are none too bright ( look who they vote for! ), and many people in society feel that they are victims of smart asses. However much fun we derive by shooting fish in a barrel, perhaps we should tone it down. Her own party will knife her soon enough. Left where she is, she is doing some of our work for us. Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake.
I am beginning to get feedback that people are feeling sorry for her. Not a good thing at all.
The Tories have banned wind turbines in England. Banned coal production in the UK. Refused permission for CCS at Longannet and Peterhead. Despite investment being made. Refused permission for the opportunities of EU Renewable grants in Scotland. The Tories refuse to invest in solar, wind and wave power.
They are building Hinkley nuclear power station. A complete waste of public money (£ Billions) which will be obsolete by the time it is built. The Tories are flying nuclear waste around the world and dumping it in Scotland.
Vote SNP/SNP May 2017
Please
OT
But if the EU are willing to play trade-deal hardball with African countries,
what will those Brexit negotiations be like?!
link to archive.is
OT Giving Greens the ‘ 2nd’ vote worked out well: “But the Tories, Greens and Lib Dems united behind Labour”, defeating the SG, as the BBC put it, on a Health issue.
Juan P,
“Tired of people suggesting she’s nice but just a bit dim. Absolute bollocks.
She’s a deeply dishonest careerist undeserving of respect or sympathy.”
Agree 100%.
I think they should build an extra two of those ginormous ruin the view from the golf course wind turbines. One each for Ratcliffe and Trump so we can collectively ram them up their arses or down their throats or maybe up their nostrils, I am not fussy which hole we stick them in.
It is going to windy tonight!
An even more OT Rant coming
I wonder if Stanning has discovered that Scotland is a Nation and not an effin Region yet? GRRRRRRRR!
Ratcliffe invested in Grangemouth for 1 single reason – it will grow his company profit. Ratcliffe could not give a shit about Grangemouth beyond its profit line. Period. If he is importing shale gas he is doing it solely because the US has a glut of it and it is cheaper than buying it from the North Sea.
The reason the Grangemouth workers were prepared to strike in the past was that he was refusing to honor the TUPE terms that were part and parcel of his deal to buy the plant from BP. The entire workforce have had to endure a loss of their working T&C’s and future pension benefits – all so Ineos can make more profit at their expense.
Hell, he even threatened to close the entire plant if the unions did not back down. He is the modern day equivalent of the Victorian factory owner.
Criticising the ‘leader’ of the branch office in Scotland is perfectly legitimate, she is contradictory, unprofessional and completely dishonest. That has to be repeatedly called out, she is not a credible politician.
We can’t pander to the ‘feelings’ of those who are unwilling to see the nonsense of her position with regard her own party, the pretence of ‘autonomy’, who won’t even admit that she has u-turned in the midst of u-turning on a daily basis…this is not a mature person and she cannot be allowed to continue deceiving voters with her disingenuous rhetoric.
We either want mature and intelligent and truthful people in our political parties or we don’t, it’s that simple.
“Feeling sorry’ for people is a cop out, imo, Kezia Dugdale fought for this ‘position’ and she now has to ‘step up’ and either be a conviction politician or as she so clearly demonstrates: a careerist who will only follow where she sees her interests lie, that is not someone who can be trusted with decisions that affect people’s life’s.
She’s not a ‘wee lassie’ that got hersel’ intae a bit a bother and needs a ‘break’ she’s an adult woman spouting pish and she needs to have that reflected back at her until she understands that people are not ‘stupid’ and will no longer tolerate such abject doublespeak with no substance just because she’s a Labour politico.
No sympathy for her ‘position’ every sympathy for those too blinded by tribal loyalties and feel threatened by change, unfortunately those are the very people that Dugdale and her ilk exploit to maintain her/their career/s. Those that feel that way are easily led by fools promising the impossible: tae take them back tae a time that never was, ‘we never had it so good’ under any Labour administration, they sold out their principle’s for a slice of power and a lucrative future for themselves alone.
They are quite simply not to be trusted and Dugdale is chief amongst the worst of them in this regard. You cannot trust a word that comes out of her mouth.
End.
People were warned not to vote No in IndyRef. People were warned not to to vote Green. The Unionist/Green No Party are just out to cause trouble and muck up the Scottish economy in every way possible. Just out to line their and their associates pockets with public money. Against the majority interest and the public interest. Despicable.
Vote SNP/SNP May 2017
Please
Fracking;
List of companies
link to frack-off.org.uk
How many of the CEOs and major shareholders would live in fracking zones and drink the water, breathe the air?
link to frack-off.org.uk
link to theguardian.com
What happens when you fail to disclose/ recognise the effects of fracking-
‘On 17 April 2012, an independent scientific report concluded that Cuadrilla’s drilling had caused the two minor earthquakes in Lancashire, and that the deformation had been the result of the first tremor.
In September 2012, the Guardian revealed that Cuadrilla had broken the conditions of its planning permission by drilling beyond an agreed time limit and beyond a cut-off date put in place to protect wintering birds.
The cessation of drilling is another blow to Cuadrilla, which has so far invested more than £100m in the UK over the past three years but has so far fracked at only site. It was forced to shut down its fracking operations at the nearby Preese Hall site in May 2011 after two small tremors, later found to be caused by their operations
link to theguardian.com
A report by NIMBYs, environmentalist naysayers, a vocal minority (aka scientific researchers)
‘ Fracking produces enormous volumes of toxic wastewater—often containing cancer causing and even radioactive material. Once brought to the surface, this toxic waste poses hazards for drinking water, air quality and public safety
As evidenced by the data in this report, fracking is causing extensive damage to the environment and public health in states across the country. States as disparate as Colorado, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Texas suffer from air pollution, water pollution, habitat disruption and water depletion caused by widespread fracking.
Wherever fracking has occurred, it has left its mark on the environment and our well-being…In states where fracking is already underway, an immediate moratorium is in order. In all other states, banning fracking is the prudent and necessary course to protect the environment and public health’
link to environmentamerica.org
The same group of American environmentalist naysayers have produced a recent report containing a number of useful factoids that environmentalist naysayers here can refer to;
link to environmentamericacenter.org
Scotland now being swamped with Britnat BBC says vote Kez stuff but
link to archive.is
Rancid quite likes JC now, after all their monstering but Scotland gets a one word mention. Bettertogether than nothing. At least Graun liggers noticed JC doesn’t give a flying fcuk about his Scotland region.
“The humanitarian catastrophe in Syria, though, was barely mentioned. Scotland was ignored…
Blah blah bleh.
There is a long way still to go. Success is far from certain. But at least Labour is at base camp.”
@davidb
My reaction too.
Much crowing by Unionists over the ‘defeat’ of the SG, or the SNP as they and the BBC put it, on the Health debate.
The message is Labour gathered support from the Tories, LibDems and Greens. I’m counting Greens with the Unionists now.
Kezia is 35 years old. She is not a wee lassie, despite all her ridiculous soulful shrinking violet poses for the camera. She is all she’s ever going to be, a complete political laughing stock.
Having said that Kezia, stay where you are. You’re a a cog in the works, rolling us inexorably towards an Independent Scotland. You are a facilitator for our freedom. Don’t ever leave till your work is done.
Anagach says:
28 September, 2016 at 2:16 pm
“But it does seem a bit like kicking a puppy”
It may seem like that to you Anagach but she most certainly is not acting like one.
She is showing interview after interview that her unionist position is not for the better of Scotland or the Scottish people, it never was. It is for the betterment of her political party within the UK context. Never mind Scotland or the Scottish people, what she ‘gets up every morning is to fight for her party (Labour party) to regain power in Westminster’ (taken from her interview with Gordon Brewer). Even on one of those debates above she openly said that she would reject the mandate given by the people of Scotland to the FM for independence: a ‘puppy’ openly rejecting democracy? I don’t think so.
After two democratic referendums with remain victory on 2 unions which are increasingly looking incompatible, after the long queue of broken promises on which her party sold the NO vote to indiref1 and after it turned out that the wonderful ‘UK union’ promised during indiref1 by her party evaporated quicker than boiling water, this ‘puppy’ is openly refusing to the Scottish people the right to decide which union they prefer to remain in and for no other reason than because it is not convenient for her beloved labour party to regain power in the UK.
She fights every day for UK labour to gain power from the Tories, because they are nasty. Nasty they may be but in Scotland, Kezia supports the tories against the government democratically elected by the people of Scotland.
Appearances are deceiving. She is no puppy. Wolf dressed as lamb more like it.
Dear heck – what a scary collection of loon interviews and moments. She really thinks she’s ‘leader of the Scottish Labour party’. She really isn’t – she’s just a poor swimmer drowning in a sea of her own excrement.
Yeah, let’s all feel sorry for a Yoon MSP that is actively holding Scotland back and destroying our children’s future.
‘I really really want Scotland to be an Independent country, honestly I do, but not if it means Kezza will burst into tears.’ WTF. Really?
@K1 (8.45) –
🙂 Hear hear indeed. Soo-perb.
@Clive Scott (6.15) –
Unless you’re here merely to troll, you have seriously misjudged the mood in Scotland re ‘fracking’.
The ‘NIMBY’ acronym is not appropriate. It should be ‘NION’ i.e. ‘Not In Our Nation’.
Please be aware of that when you next decide to lecture a readership possessing a reading-age somewhat higher than that of the average Daily Mail buyer.
just noticed this wee snippet from the BBC website
‘The SNP narrowly avoided a defeat over tax reform a week ago only after Labour leader Kezia Dugdale’s vote did not register.’
Really? The system was tested. She forgot to vote.
My last thought/rant for the day.
Well today we have had confirmation if any was needed that the Yoon Tories have acquired a new colour and it is GREEN!
Treacherous chancer bastards!
No attempt to be constructive in opposition – just another shower of treacherous Yoon Cunts!
Dippy Dug:
Let me make it clear that I have clearly said, that Own Smith is the better leader under Jeremy the Enemy, as he is the one who could not be elected Prime Minister, unless every Labour supporter is united by Smith, while SLab can do their own thing with the new autonomy, that it has always had, and it can have a different view on Trident, before Westminster Labour says, “who gives a Sh** what you think”, you will do as we tell you!
Now that this has been cleared up, can we discuss something other than me and politics on your politics show?
The deluded woman suggested that she will be right behind
Corbyn this week, as he had 60% of the members votes?
This is equal to 1 person in 100 of the UK electorate, and she takes that as a massive endorsement?
Do you think she knows that Corbyn already a 60% mandate from the Labour Party Members in last year’s leadership election?
It didn’t stop her stabbing him in the back anyway!
Another howler, she wants SLab to be more transparent, but she won’t confirm that she voted against Corbyn, as she had promised to do, and she won’t confirm how many members SLab has, and she won’t say what funds are generated by SLab and by how much they are subsidised by London Labour???
Do you get more transparent than that, as I can see right through her and her London centric party!
Dippy also boasts that as there is no Scottish talent in SLab, her good self included, she won 72% of the SLab leadership vote.
Pity she didn’t admit that equals 7,000 votes in a country with a population of 5,500,000.
1 person in 800 likes Dippy’s faux politics, and it doesn’t include her parents! lol
Effijy @ 9.58pm
“”The deluded woman suggested that she will be right behind
Corbyn this week, as he had 60% of the members votes?
This is equal to 1 person in 100 of the UK electorate, and she takes that as a massive endorsement?
Do you think she knows that Corbyn already a 60% mandate from the Labour Party Members in last year’s leadership election?
It didn’t stop her stabbing him in the back anyway!””
If you are basing your comments on the final clip in this selection then it was filmed one year ago as the text preceding it makes clear. Therefore she was speaking about Mr Corbyn’s first victory in becoming leader.
A few posters seem to have missed this salient point.
Thankfully the ‘poor wee Kezia’ meme is nearly at an end. The sexist take on her ‘oh diddums’ mask of leadership has been finally blown away to reveal a steely calculating, deeply unpleasant careerist…who is… a dumbkoff. But one who has been protected by the Imperialist media, until now..possibly.
Never underestimate the curve balls that the same media will serve up to protect her faltering pinball politicking. ‘Nats savage poor Kez’ etc. Compare and contrast Ruthie’s pr of action woman mounting everything in sight..decisive and opinionated. Kezia is doing the same now..but in her owm winsome manner.
And it’s all pish…Are Wullie Rennie and Fluffy Mundell going to get similar PR training courtesy of the Henry Jackson Society?….God forbid.
A perfect and timely description of Kezia Dugdale provided, unwittingly, by Hadley Freeman and pertinently noted by Stuart.I read this as nowt to do with American politicians and everything to do with the unimaginable yet real leader of the Labour Party in Scotland.Enough said already about someone who deserves no sympathy whatsoever.
Bit of a PR disaster for INEOS with the fracked gas ship having trouble berthing at Grangemouth due to high winds in the Forth.This ship is carrying highly flammable gas and seems to be at the mercy of the stormy weather.
There was a near miss in 1999 off the coast of Thurso, when the SS Multibank Ascania, a Cypriot registered chemical tanker, en route to Teeside, developed a fire in the engine room and lost all power, during gale force winds in the Pentlandite Firth.The tanker started drifting towards Dounreay Nuclear Power Station ( closed for decommissioning in 1994 ) , with 1800 tonnes of vinyl acetate monomer, a highly flammable gas.Dounreay was still full of nuclear junk.The Scapa Tugboat managed to tow the tanker to Scapa Flow, once the storms had abated…a lucky escape.
How many more gas ships are we to expect? I want neither American nor Scottish fracked gas…not a case of NIMBY and more a case of not in ANYONE’S backyard because of the catastrophic consequences on the land, people and wildlife.
She’s a Trumpet!
‘I understand your question,but,never mind the quality,feel the width’.
#notrightinthehead
the new Statesman says she’s a winner!!!
link to newstatesman.com
Feeling sorry for Kezia? Get a grip people. She’s an opportunistic, conniving, careerist, completely devoid of any conviction.
Lets not forget she was rejected by the SNP before she became George Foulkes’s protege. Many of us will remember her when she was his pet flamer on the Hootsman website, where she would do her best as Fifi le Bonbon to pour petrol on a thread, simply so her boss could complain in parliament about the behaviour of the vile Cybernats.
She saw her chance when Slab were reduced to a very shallow pool of talent. She got to where she is today by standing on the shoulders of less able bottom feeders.
Mocking derision is what finished off Wendy Alexander. Why should we let up with Kezia? I’m loathe to say it, but Kezia isn’t even close to being of the same calibre as Wendy. I’m pretty sure that ever the opportunist, Kezia has her eyes on an ermine goonie.
Rock at 7.59
More of the same old tiresome rubbish. The National is a newsppaer not an SNP pamphlet and it gave lots of cover to independence supporting persons, by far the most from the SNP. That is perfectly acceptable.It did not in fact heavily promote the Greens but it carried and still carries articles from Patrick Harvey which is also perfectly acceptable. The last time I looked we lived in a democracy and the Greens have valid points to make. It’s called politics. They are not at all likely to give unconditional support to the SNP – otherwise what would be the point voting for them. They will extract whatever benefit from the significant position they are now in in the Scottish parliament. They are unlikely just to roll over and they certainly made that point last week and today. They are however unreliable friends I suspect – some of them – on the independence issue. How many would stick by their commitment for independence if the UK had the possibility of a Green government?
I’m a lurker, have been for a long time. I admit that I have been, at times enervated by expositions of the inadequacies of our Scottish political representatives. There is no doubt that there are aspects of the Scottish People’s will (within limits of popular polling) that are not being considered by ostensibly valid commentators (MSM). If that is really the case then why fight it? Why waste energy on it? Your energy should be concentrated on the positive aspects of the project of Scottish Independence, not on the inadequacies of those who choose to oppose it!
Yes Kezia Dugale is a sad example of what goes for “opposition” in these times, but spare yourselves from the effort of expressing that. Does no good!
On another point – INEOS are importing gas. Fracked it may be, but not in this land. Where it was fracked is of no consequence to me. They have to suffer the problems that process incurs, not us. Presumably there is profit to be made from the processing of that gas, and presumably there ought to be tax advantage to be gained for Scotland from that activity, that being the case why not?? And if the future requires more, then let it come from anywhere but Scotland!
Finally, I would commend all contributors to this site to continue your support, but would urge you all to consider the value of being more positive and stop the wasteful put-downs that frankly do not advance our case.
davidb at 8.15
Good point. I have suspected the same
Just a wee reminder, from an ‘impartial’ source:
‘The Scottish Labour Party is registered as an Accounting Unit (AU) of the Labour Party with the Electoral Commission and is therefore not a separately registered political party under the terms of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. As such Scottish Labour does not have a “party leader”, although Kezia Dugdale is currently leading the Scottish division of the UK party. At party conferences she appears under the title “Leader of the Labour Party in Scotland”.’ (my bold)
Source: link to en.wikipedia.org
Poor Findlay there on Newsnicht, canny even button his shirt correctly for the day job.
I support The Scottish Government in the moratorium on fracking, however moving hundreds of ship loads of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) goes on around the world every day without problems.
Even in the Firth of Forth it is nothing new, as almost every week a tanker leaves Mossmorran Gas Terminal in Fife loaded with up to 60,000 tonnes of LPG from the North Sea. This has gone on for twenty five years with no problems.
It often happens that strong wind slows up berthing of these large ships but that is quite normal.
They are not, as some have said “bobbing about at the mercy of the weather”.
I speak as a former navigating officer on tankers.
I don’t want fracking, but don’t make up dangers on LPG transport where none exists.
Dave McEwan Hill says:
28 September, 2016 at 10:36 pm
Rock at 7.59
More of the same old tiresome rubbish. The National is a newsppaer not an SNP pamphlet and it gave lots of cover to independence supporting persons,
Its really more that they gave the impression that they were pro Scottish independence and they’re clearly not. Well not clearly, is wrong isnt it Dave. Like how they gave RISE massive coverage at the last GE and then dropped them like the proverbial hot tattie Dave. And the vile Scottish separatist impression was that this was a rather dirty trick to take votes off of the SNP and just generally put middle class Scotland off of independence, or at least Scottish independence where the fringe left like RISE might have had power. Fair enough all 37 newspapers here and ofcourse the BBC, C4 etc gave RISE, the Greens massive boosterisations, which may have worked too, as SNP lost majority.
Do you see the problem now Dave? Probably not.
Juan P says:
at 8:10 pm
“Tired of people suggesting she’s nice but just a bit dim. Absolute bollocks.
She’s a deeply dishonest careerist undeserving of respect or sympathy.”
Indeed
==============================================
Say what you will about the owner of Grangemouth, i’m sure he couldn’t give a flying anyhoo, but a newly independent nation, floating on hydrocarbons might just want to inherit a fully functioning refinery and all the associated industry that comes with it.
As it stands. He da man.
It’s a tad hypocritical to bring up the problems facing producer nation peoples that are brought on by us importing.
You don’t need to look to far for examples.
@One_Scot
That’s not what was said.
OT I read a typical herald article yesterday which predicted the SG target for folk cycling to work would fall miserably short of the ambitious 2020 target of 10%.
It is currently languishing between 2 and 3%. Typical SNP bad fare and the kicker is- they are probably right and the target will not be met.
The piece basked in how unrealistic the target was- a total failure. Buried in there is the figure for Edinburgh- 10%. A big, busy, dirty old city filled with cars and buses and taxis and trams and 10% of journeys to work are made by bike. It would probably be more if the bus service wasnae as guide as it is.
This is the mindset we are faced with- print press release with zero research and absolutely nae interest in furthering knowledge or debate.
So Edinburgh is doing okay – how did it reach that figure? How is it planning on increasing it? (New Cross town major cycleway). What is the figure for Glasgow? Dundee? Aberdeen?
What are those councils doing to try and reach the target? What could they be doing?
It’s a piece on cycling but it could be anything- as far as I’m concerned those carping from the sidelines with zero positive input and without the wit or ability to actually further these issues can get in the fucking sea. We don’t need them.
I have had enough of this waste of data, time, energy to last a lifetime. It is this dead matter that is holding us back.
The press devote countless column inches to Jim radcliffe and his fracking circus- when was the last time the press devoted that space to actually investigating our real energy position and trying to plot the way forward?
I don’t like using the word ‘hate’ but as a former herald reader I just cannot stand what that paper has become. Ian Bell will be seeing all his erstwhile colleagues in the next world and I think he will tear them a new one
defo
Jim Radcliffe is probably easier to deal with than most of the yoons we are up against because he does not give a monkeys about the UK or Scotland or England or the union jack or any kind of political agenda. He cares about money and only money.
If ceding Scotland to Albania meant he still turned a buck he would throw his weight behind it. I am more disturbed by those businesses who would destroy us to keep us British.
We have to engage with characters like this before indy- but he can have zero influence on policy as he would destroy our country to make money. My own view is that we need to avoid the mistakes of the past with the Atlantic and Clyde fields- a new nationalised oil and gas company as soon as we become independent. Funded by public bonds perhaps.
Tam Jardine @ 11.13
After more than 30 years I stopped buying the Herald after Ian Bell died as it wasn’t worth it.
Far too anti-Scottish and does not reflect the views of a huge section of society.
If you want to bang a nail in you get yourself a big hammer
Independence voters allowed newspapers and Blog sites to kid everybody on they should get other little hammers and that would be better (The Greens)the notion being that the SNP would win and anyway too much power and all that
Really really bad idea wasn’t it and lots of us were shouted at for saying it, but we were right
We needed full power for the SNP to do what we want, get Independence, it’s our fault we hamstrung them
Newspapers exist to make money, your money, just like any other business so they make a flavour that they think will sell and punt it and just like heroin the effect gets less and less but you keep paying hoping it will get better
But it wont
@ Fireproofjim 10:56
Thank you for helping to inform, enlighten and reassure me about the safety record of these tankers around the world…you obviously know what you’re talking about in what must be a highly skilled and complex job.
@heedtracker –
re ‘The National’
Even if you’re even half as cynical as you sometimes pretend to be (?!), whatever happened to ‘friends close/enemies closer’?
‘The National’, whether people like it or not, is a real ‘thing’ available 6 days a week. No other daily even pretends to be pro-indy.
I don’t understand your stance.
Tam Jardine @11.32
The model for a national oil company is just across the North Sea in Norway. It is called Statoil and we could have had the same but Britoil was sold off at a knock down price to BP by Maggie Thatcher’s gang.
There is still time with the huge fields west of Shetland which await development.
@Brian Powell
From the BBC website: “In a statement issued later, a Scottish government spokeswoman said: “The government has ensured that all proposals from NHS boards for any major change to services go through a proper engagement and consultation process, supported by the Scottish Health Council.”
Labour, LibDem, Conservatives – and the Greens, complain about too much centralisation of power in Holyrood, devolve power, put decions on a more local basis, yet they complain about the SNP Government not stepping in and taking power back into their hands.
It’s not so much the Greens are “Unionists”, as that they’re stark staring bonkers going against their own beliefs, about local democracy and citizen empowerment.
link to greens.scot
heedtracker at 10.58
Utter demonstrable bullshit. Not worth arguing with you about it.
Fireproofjim
Exactly. How do we get the licences? How does the SG proceed- it cannot be impossible otherwise they (we) would not own Prestwick.
Renewable energy has simply meant we buy energy that is renewable rather than any kind of windfall for the people.
How to make the abundant resources we are blessed with actually benefit directly the people? Foreign ownership of everything cannot be the answer. Statoil cannot succeed according to the current neoliberal doctrine and yet it does.
Interesting article here on fracking INEOS and Jim Ratcliffe
link to feasta.org
Irish view of fracking in “North Britain”
Ian Brotherhood says:
28 September, 2016 at 11:40 pm
@heedtracker –
re ‘The National’
Even if you’re even half as cynical as you sometimes pretend to be (?!), whatever happened to ‘friends close/enemies closer’?
‘The National’, whether people like it or not, is a real ‘thing’ available 6 days a week. No other daily even pretends to be pro-indy.
I don’t understand your stance.
Its because there are 37 Scottish UKOK newspapers all monstering Scotland and Scottish democracy and the one that says its pro independence says its wants to be balanced and fair, out of the 37 and the broadcasters.
37 v 1, and the 1 wants to be neutral, or as Dave says “The National is a newspaper not an SNP pamphlet” and that’s exactly what the Torygraph says and the Times and the Press and Journal and so on. It didnt launch that way either.
Ian Botherhood
I buy the National and would agree with much of what you say. The Sunday Herald on the other hand spiked the SNP perfectly just before the Scottish election and for that they can never be forgiven.
It is worth bearing in mind that not a single Yoon will ever complain about the express getting behind their cause- they take every ounce of support they can without the debate we endlessly have on here.
Dave McEwan Hill says:
28 September, 2016 at 11:48 pm
heedtracker at 10.58
Utter demonstrable bullshit. Not worth arguing with you about it.
There’s not much to argue about Dave. Its done. Last Scottish GE, The National gave massive coverage to tiny groups like RISE because…
Its clearly part of the ongoing anti SNP media campaign that’s moved or widened the scope of attack from a straight SLab v SNP fight and for obvious reasons, its failed.
So our media chums rope in all kinds of small groups, RISE, the Greens etc last GE. how did that work out in our D’Hondt set up and what are the Greens now doing at every opportunity they get in Holyrood?
The National did not give “massive” coverage to RISE. But it did cover RISE and the Scottish Greens, both pro Independence groups.
If any papers are responsible for the distribution of votes then I would say it’s the other 37.
Dead Parrot sketch on Monty Python comes to mind,or Black Knight.
Where are Jackie Bailly of the Unionist Labour Party and Tank Ruth Davidson of the Bullshit Tory party. Skulking together in Tory wonderland. Tea at Harrods with some arms dealer maybe.
I am surprised that so many wingers seem so keen to believe the American media given their experience with the media here in Scotland
Donald Trump does not have massive right wing support because the Republican old boys club do not want him as President The American Chamber of Commerce are agai st him because he proposed wall will reduce ILLEGAL immigration thereby reducing the number of low wage workers available to American businesses
The Koch brothers aka the puppet masters of American Republicanism were quoted as saying they were going to support Clinton
Trump is far from being a good President but he is winning support at the grass roots level and if the choice is him or HRC I know who I would choose
Has the world gone mad I thougt that you looked up to political leaders not looked and shuddered thinking what has happened, Brexit and all they can do is try to be king of the play school sand pit.
Tam.
No doubt your right. It’s business.
All I really wanted to do was flag up the actuality of our refining capability. It’s best that’s kept to the fore, rather than how we might wish things to be.
We nearly lost it.
Best not to have to take it out of mothball’s, come the happy day.
Listened to Corbyns speech. Must vote labour. NOT.
Ruth and her railroading “Queen Kong” act reminds me of Trump much more than Kezia.
Interesting few days. First thing, in conversation with taxi driver to Heathrow yesterday, completely without prompting from myself, he said he never watches BBC news anymore, it’s biased and rubbish! He watches Al Jezeera! Obviously we got round to Indy and I told him how I thought the BBC and Westminster lied and made false promises about Indy and he said he had no doubt it was true. He was Labour born and bred and he was disgusted with them now. There is hope for us down here if Devonians are starting to think like us.
Then I’m in conversation tonight with a top American environmental geologist/lawyer re fracking. He was telling me how Scotland had just received the shale gas from America ( of course thanks to this site I knew that!). I managed to ask his opinion re fracking and he was pretty positive about it saying it had come a long way in a few years, although we were interrupted and never got to talk as much as I would have liked on the subject.
Lastly, he told me that today opec had agreed to slow down oil production and it had already increased by 6per cent a barrel. ( if I remember correctly, busy, noisy surroundings). Good news!
Given the way the BBC are now turning on Dugdale I think its inevitable she is going to be replaced after the local elections.
Problem with fracking, and indeed further oil extraction, is that is puts more CO2 into the atmosphere.
If we put the same investment and research into renewables, which by all accounts are about to take off big time, then we would all be better off for it, and the remains fossil fuel can be left where it is.
Why place our bets on Hydrocarbons with a dirty shelf life when we should be backing the endless promise of renewables?
Is it just my computer or is there a problem with Wings just now? Things keep vanishing as I type them and the machine reports that Wings has gone AWOL.
Queen Kong. Lololol
@Breeks says: 29 September, 2016 at 6:49 am:
“Problem with fracking, and indeed further oil extraction, is that is puts more CO2 into the atmosphere … “
Only if you burn the stuff, Breeks.
There are a great many bi-products we depend upon that are extracted from fossil deposits. We do not only use them as fossil fuels.
” … and the remains fossil fuel can be left where it.”
Indeed we should abandon fossil fuel use but that doesn’t mean we should abandon extracting fossil resources that we can use for other things than as fuel.
@Meindevon
Shortbread radio reporting a 5% increase almost overnight.
But caution is the watchword. 🙂 Well it’s a bonus init!
Oil rallies after Opec ministers announce output cut
link to archive.is
Links
link to indyref2.scot
link to johnfinnie.scot
link to arcofprosperity.org
link to autonomyscotland.org
It’s not the Oil price. It’s the Tory tax that have halted production. Osbourne put it up 11% (£2Billion) to 80% (the Westminster Treasury took 50% of production and then taxed the rest). The price fell and Osbourne only eventually took the tax down to 60%. Where it had been before he increased it in 2011. Trying to destroy the Oil sector to stop Independence.
The tax is now 40% since Jan 2016. Still a deterrent to production and investment. May Thatcher like most Tories probably doesn’t know. Too ignorant and incompetent. Too busy making £Billions from the public purse for her and her associates and killing innocent people. A charlatan and a liar.
Now Fracked Gas us being imported which pays no tax. Against the majority wishes and the public interest. Helping the US economy but putting up the balance of payment deficit and the debt. Radcliffe is another lying Non Dom who pays no tax but is making £Million/Billions from the public purse. A total charlatan. The refinery at Grangemouth was invested in mainly for the Scottish Oil sector.
The Tories have stopped investment in renewables. Solar, wind and wave. They have banned onshore wind turbines in England. They have banned coal production in the UK. They have stopped investment in CCS at Longannet in Fife and Peterhead. They have stopped Scotland having the opportunity to bid for EU renewable grants because of Westminster indecision.
The Tories are building a nuclear station at Hinkley Point which will be obsolete by the time it is finished, and cost £Billions over budget. The most dangerous and expensive. Two tidal barrages would be less expensive, safer and produce more fuel and energy. Labour cancelled a tidal barrage at the Humber because it was too expensive. £9Billion. Much less, safer and more productive than Hinkley Point. The Tories are flying nuclear waste around the world and dumping it in Scotland. It is illegal to fly batteries around. Amazon just got fined £Millions for doing that.
Scotland exports 25% of fuel and energy production. Pays more because it is colder despite being nearer the source. People is Scotland are charged to put it in the grid. Consumers in the rest of the UK are not.
Dugsdale is for the chop. Troughing doesn’t cut it anymore. Useless.
link to thetimes.co.uk
link to thirdforcenews.org.uk
link to thecanary.co
link to opendemocracy.net
link to euractiv.com
link to thecanary.co
link to politics.co.uk
Not read this, posting as it may be of interest
Professor Sionaidh Douglas-Scott has written a briefing on the Article50 lawsuit for the Brexit Committee
link to parliament.scot
Nana:
Good morning,just in time for coffee, as usual
Peace Always
OPEC reaches deal to cut oil output first time in 8 years link to rt.com
RT article says the Saudis are getting desperate. They’re losing billions and fighting war in Yemen so have abandoned the high output policy. To be ratified in November.
@Smallaxe
Good morning. Message for you in off topic.
The Saudis sold over their Oil rights in a share dealing initiative to raise money. Now invested in shares. Without Oil production, there is no other industry. Countries in the Middle East are trying to diversify Into business and tourism to produce more revenues. Their economic structure could have to change to diversify. Emancipation? Universal suffrage.
Radio shortbread has David Hunter Schneider Electric on to discuss the latest oil news
Not Scottish oil likely to rise to >$60 per barrel he suggests but early days and concerns over out of date infrastructure in an aging oil field etc etc.
Right off to work… I’m sure the news will be bad news for Scotland by lunch time!
link to archive.is
Can’t watch Kez. Literally cannot for the risk of throwing a computer through a window, or hysterical hybrid laughing, crying, vicarious embarrassment, wishing to shoot myself, and given my age…..the consequence of poor pelvic floor muscle control.
UK government still notching up all that respect and admiration that they think is their due.
From FT.
‘Foreign policy is a serious business, the more so in an age of global upheaval and rising disorder. Mr Johnson looks more comfortable in the role of court jester than thoughtful policymaker. He prefers the broad brush to irksome detail. His Italian opposite number Paolo Gentiloni was left baffled when Mr Johnson proposed a post-Brexit grand bargain: Italy would back open access to the EU for London’s financial industry and Britain would continue to drink lots of Italian prosecco.
Perhaps if the government drank less prosecco they might do better.
OT Chris Law reported to be detained questioned over his campaign.
The campaign against the SNP MPs goes far beyond the newspaper and BBC bias.
An observation. There was a time when Labour sounded like a UK party. Now, like the Tories, they come across as an E&W party.
And also like the Tories, their Scottish branches seem rather lost and pointless in 2016 Scotland. Never openly willing to push a London line, yet not empowered to actually take a relevant Scottish position.
Fair enough if they chose to be left behind.
Capella says:
29 September, 2016 at 12:36 am
The National did not give “massive” coverage to RISE. But it did cover RISE and the Scottish Greens, both pro Independence groups.
If any papers are responsible for the distribution of votes then I would say it’s the other 37.
Yes, which they used to attack SNP. Yesterday’s National front page banner headline, SNP MP called Natalie McGarry charged with embezzling, with lots of front page info on embezzling of SNP MP McGarry. This was a great scoop for the National. Also they had a great thing on how “The game is up for North Sea oil etc” Some game.
Brian Powell says at 9:04 am
Regardless of rights/wrongs, innocence/guilt as all are innocent until proven guilty:
I fear these examples will be used to counter all arguments of council corruption in administrations like Glasgow CC etc. during Local Elections next year.
I also suspect that hearings/court appearances will be scheduled just prior to May 2017 elections to keep these fresh in the mind of the electorate.
These cases will be heard sooner and with a lot more coverage than that given to Labour Councillor/MP Marie Rimmer’s ongoing trial for assault.
Morning all & Noel in particular! Should be reading my National but the weather is too grim. Blue sky coming up though.
In the 1970’s it was estimated that the value of whisky in bond exceeded that of the British gold reserves. That of course was before Broon’s disastrous gold-sale.
Tam Jardine last night.
It is not possible for the Scottish Government to buy (or sell) exploration licences as Westminster keeps all such powers.
You understand.that this is only for our own good as we would not know how to handle such things and would just squander any wealth accruing from worthless, not Scottish oil.
The Tories have done their usual. Taxed Scottish North Sea production out of existent when prices have fallen. Now at 40%. Losing thousands of jobs, and £Billions of production.
Fracked Gas is now being imported to benefit the US economy. Putting up the deficit. Balance of payments deficit and the debt. Fracked Gas is not taxed. There are £Billions of public money being invested in the fracking industry which is not taxed but subsidised.
What could have been but still can be!..
link to neatorama.com
“Denmark is a small nation geographically – roughly half the size of Maine – with a population of about 5.5 million, so that has to be taken into account when comparing it to larger and more populous countries. Still, the Danes’ accomplishments are startling. Remember that in 1973 Denmark was 99% dependent on foreign oil? Today they produce enough energy to cover all their own needs and sell the extra to other countries, the only European nation to do so. And their energy conservation programs have been so successful that over the last 30 years, even with extensive modernization and a 7% increase in population, their annual energy use has remained basically the same”
A SNP MP gets charged with embezzlement, from an Association’s chaotic accounts. For absolutely no personal benefit. The opposite in fact.
Tories committed electoral fraud in 31 constituencies. No action appears to be undertaken. Swept under the carpet. Labour MP commit fraud with impunity. Westminster Unionist criminals commit electoral fraud, lie, cheat, embezzle, molest children, commit drink/drug offences. They illegally kill and maim million of innocent people, commit banking fraud and tax evade. Break the Ministerial Code. Nothing is done about it. Kept secret under the Official Secrets Act.
O/T
Aileen McHarg: Brexit, Article 50 and the Acts of Union
link to archive.is
Nana
Many thanks for some excellent links today!
A final throw of the dice: link to wp.me
Anybody in need of a good laugh should make their way to The Scotsman on-line where they will find an incredible article by Tom Peterkin in which he sings the praise of Dugdale.
It is topped by an amazing headline which starts ‘Kez Shines—–‘
OT I see the daily stranger carries the front page headline Fraud cops probe third SNP MP, the story’s about Chris Law.
O/T again [sorry]
link to scottovoce.wordpress.com
Councils given extra money for childcare which they don’t provide and then blame the snp
link to archive.is
Aberdeen labour incompetence
link to m.facebook.com
link to politico.eu
Could it be that the various allegations of fraud etc are being reported differently, depending on whether the suspect is SNP or other?
See Alexander Burnett example. The Daily Record says he has been “reported” but is not being “investigated”. They also point out that it is the SNP who have reported him. Finally, his colleagues are allowed to respond:
” A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives said: “The SNP tried the Electoral Commission first, was told it’d gone to the wrong place, and is now trying the police.
“It’s clear the Nationalists are engaged in a nothing more than a politically motivated fishing expedition.”
It is “under consideration”, not “investigation”.
A police spokeswoman confirmed: “Police Scotland has received a complaint in relation to election expenses and it is under consideration.”
link to archive.is
Re;heedtracker@9.24am
Agree, the National front page yesterday was appalling. Not sure what they are trying to do, but I am keeping a close eye, have said before, their front pages are becoming irrelevant to anything serious in regard to what is happening in Scotland or further afield. You look at the other rags, usually SNP bad, and the National is doing nothing much to counter this.
Yesterday the Scotsman actually had a bit on their front page about the Scotgov being non too happy about fracked gas being shipped into Grangemouth. The National? Not a dicky bird, at least not on the front page.
Will continue with it for now, but likely to save my money if it carries on the way it is. I don’t think the McGarry front page was a good move, and unionists will be rubbing their hands together at that, undecided will be saying ‘they are all the same these politicians’ so will turn off and watch the great british fck off again.
Should have added – compare with treatment of Chris Law case by same paper:
link to archive.is
I see that Glenn Campbell is on BBC News Channel reporting from Westminster.
He has been down there for several weeks so is it too much to hope that PQ has finally been cleansed of one of their leading unionist lackeys.
With Catriona Renton already sent south that’s 2 down but plenty to go.
From the national
link to archive.is
Re today’s Chris Law story what about the guy who did a tour of 100 Scottish Towns accompanied by an IrnBru Crate and a busload of supporters (Unpaid of course) to provide an audience for the wall to wall TV and print media coverage of his antics?
I would be interested to know how the finances of that little lot fit in with Election Law.
Artyhetty says:
29 September, 2016 at 11:07 am
Re;heedtracker@9.24am
I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone what papers they should and shouldn’t buy. If only because they dont like it. Just ask Dave and Capella up there.
Yesterday’s National front page monstering of Natalie McGarry was no different from any of the rest of the UKOK tory BBC led media freak show, or say the torygraph here, always a friend to progressive liberal democracy everywhere. Natalie’s clearly guilty as sin right, and that SNP eh? just another bunch of crooks right? but the National’s not an SNP pamphlet right?
link to archive.is
There are all kinds of reasons for our hard core conservative media to go after MP’s like McGarry, as we all know. But has she actually convicted yet, what happened to innocent until etc?
The National can get tae France, basically.
I don’t know how to do links but after seeing this on RT copied this for you to see.
Melting Greenland ice could expose Cold War waste.
We will never see this on BBC
@Nana
Thanks for that SCFF link, I was hoping she’d come up with an article. She was undecided at the start of the Ref and when SCFF started up, but, like Christine Bell who was still undecided when Salmond quoted her in Holyrood, came to YES after a time. McHarg was one who argued while still neutral that Scotland could hold a referendum without having to get permission from Westminster. She’s also one of the few Constitutional / Law experts that took the Act of Union into consideration for that and other matters.
“SNP given bloody nose over NHS downgrade proposals”
Puts paid to the notion that Scotland is a one party state even if it is a meaningless vote..
I had some time on my hands yesterday while the wife was shopping and as it was raining visited the local library to read the newspapers.
Boy, it’s a while since I’ve read the letters pages. SNP Bad, plus some. Its nasty stuff as well!
Brexit and May’s failures really has brought out the worst in the press and its right wing readers. Divert attention away from their failures, attack the SNP instead. Job done.
OT Re Fraudulent activity….
Here’s a reminder of the antics of the former Labour MP for Inverclyde. He did manage to turn a majority into a crushing defeat at the last GE.
Almost £3000 for a kitchen!
link to archive.is
@ Nana says: at 10:11 am
Aileen McHarg: Brexit, Article 50 and the Acts of Union
Excellent link very important development:
I also caught the Dugdale protected on GMS one too.
@gus1940 🙂
Tom Peterkin: Kez shines but still has to overcome the Jez factor
link to archive.is
If MPs break the law they should face the consequences. However what we have is a concerted effort by the Unionist press to smear. It seems vexatious in its constant attempts to bring the SNP down. Any supposed misdemeanour is reported as a yet another example of SNP troubles. Any good performance in Parliament or to a wider audience by an MP or MSP is immediately negated by going after them personally. Joanna Cherry and John Nicolson come to mind.
Remember only one as yet has even been charged. There seems to be a full time MSM campaign trying to uncover anything to discredit them. Roden made it his mission when at the Mail to keep this stuff on the front page. No doubt Kezia will be using as much as possible to try to smear come the Council elections.
Yet the LibDem MSP escapes front page coverage, the Tory Election fraud is consigned to the memory of a few Twitter users and so it goes on. I fear these council elections will be very dirty indeed, Slab are not going to give up their last fiefdom easily.
The front page of the National yesterday was brave and correct.
What they are trying to do is be a newspaper not a propaganda sheet. Many appear to have ignored the fact that the SNP actually also reported McGarry to the police. Not sure what they were trying to do but I’ll keep a close eye,eh?
A lot of the comment about the National on here reminds me of the classic idiotic Fffffoulkesism. When assailed by the record of the SNP doing something well his response was “But they are doing it deliberately”
So the National every day fills its pages up with journalists, columnists and politicians promoting independence. Not sure what they are trying to do but they are probably doing it deliberately. I’ll keep a close eye.
OT
Here’s another resource to keep an eye on, the Scottish Global Forum – link to scottishglobalforum.net
It’s a bit quiet, I was reminded of it by a NATO article in the Herald. Mixed bag of people on and around it, David Martin MEP but also Alyn Smith MEP. Could be a resource for Indy Ref 2, though if it is balanced I doubt the media would report it. The Herald announced the formation of SCFF back in whatever, 2012-13, but then never referred to articles on it and deleted any of my postings referring to it, even by name or quotation. Not neccessarily straight away, but as part of their “tidying up”. Right.
I see it’s (SGF) a partner now of link to globalarctic.org
The Arctic could become militarily contested, or aggressively exploited, the north-east passage economically important, and is likely to become increasingly important with icecap melting, and one for which the UK seems singularly unprepared. Norway is much better prepared, not surprisingly perhaps as it’s closer. iScotland would do well to become more involved politically and militarily with the Nordic nations, including NORDEFCO as I’ve previously boringly posted!
‘Not sure what they are trying to do but they are probably doing it deliberately’
Probably generating cash, just a guess though.
I read Hadley Freeman’s article earlier today and my first thought was “Does she not remember Thatcher?” Perhaps she’s too young for personal recollection of Mrs T but you’d think a highly-paid opinion journalist would have some sense of recent history.
Regarding the many and various snipers at the Greens and the National – grow up.
Natalie McGarry MP has been charged with a criminal offence of defrauding £30k from an independence campaign group – that has to be front page news in an independence supporting Scottish newspaper. Those desperate to defend her or scream about another Yoon conspiracy should perhaps note it was Women For Independence who reported her to the police, and only after Ms McGarry refused to even speak to her collegaues about the missing monies.
As far as the Greens’ voting against the SNP in Parliament goes, as far as I am aware the motion was nothing to do with independence. Greens are solid on Scottish independence but that does not give the SNP carte blanche on other matters – a simple fact that seems to confuse an awful lot of contributors here.
SNP 1&2 for Holyrood failed as a strategy, but we have a majority for independence in the Scottish Parliament. For the second term in a row. That’s a massive achievement to build on, working to increase its breadth and diversity instead of fulminating about how the SNP were cheated.
Many of the arguments advanced by the Greens in 2014 – e.g. working towards a Scottish currency, focusing on a written constitution rather than an SNP prospectus for Government – are now being actively discussed by the SNP. Even Alex Salmond has admitted the white paper may have been a mistake, or at least far too prescriptive and detailed.
That’s fine. Alex learned from his experience and Nicola’s seems to be doing the same; a more open and healthy discussion will benefit us all. The SNP does not have a monopoly on ideas about independence, nor should it. Winning independence for Scotland will mean building a broad coalition and working with each other. Some of the comments on here – like those suggesting boycotts of the National and complaining about perfidious Greens posting on this very site(!) – is redolent of the kind of idiotic sectarian tribalist mindset so characteristic of the Labour Party in recent decades, and one of the key factors in its ultimate fall. Self-defeating doesn’t even begin to cover it.
We’re all building towards a second referendum. The SNP will NEVER win independence for Scotland on its own. Burning bridges with your allies is not smart politics. Think on, guys.
A lot of the comment about the National on here reminds me of the classic idiotic Fffffoulkesism. When assailed by the record of the SNP doing something well his response was “But they are doing it deliberately”
That’s deep insight Dave. Two thingees here. No newspaper’s above and beyond criticism. And, above all else, there would be no Scottish independence without people like Natalie McGarry actually going out and standing for election. There certainly wouldn’t be a National, feeding off their efforts.
Maybe try focusing on what exactly your “brave and correct” stuff actually means. It certainly doesnt mean a few chancers at their desk tops in newsrooms.
McGarry’s my MP & I have my own views on not getting what I voted for & the length of time this business has taken to come to a head. The National can hardly ignore this sorry business, this isn’t something that can be conveniently swept under the carpet.
@ Scotty Dog, interesting Danish info’, most folks however know a bit about Denmark & nothing at all about Maine! 🙂
At the recent local hustings for Depute Leader, Angus Robertson was very clear that the media were absolutely out to get the new MPs, make no mistake. They are going through each and every one.
I hope the Chris Law thing is booted out quickly.
At FMQs, have to say Ruth just sounded stupid alleging Sturgeon is happy to use fracked gas from USA. Nothing the SG can do nothing about Ineos importing gas, and does it mean we should import nothing?
She was also glaringly wrong that fracking would come to England IF THE COMMUNITIES agree.
Blatant fecking lie. The local communities don’t want it, and WM are saying they will bring in powers to override local decisions.
With Brexit, you can bet this will happen shortly.
The communities around the Flyde area have been active for years, and have fought tooth and nail, and now face the threat of WM.
It’s disgusting.
Wasn’t Kezia Dugdale contribution to FMQs today just inspiring? A reflection of her brilliant leadership.
Re the Arctic
Might be a good idea to tiptoe up there.
link to archive.is
And check out the beautiful propaganda film.
I wonder who this was being screened to.
link to youtube.com
Nana says at 10:45 am
Aberdeen labour incompetence
link to m.facebook.com
No doubt Aberdeen City Council “forgot to include this” rather than intentionally not including them to protect their mates in the building trade from having to make these contributions.
Wullie Young always reminds me on Quahogs Mayor West (both in looks and actions).
link to en.wikipedia.org
The fictional Mayor wasted council money on a solid gold statue!
Who says the truth is stranger than fiction 🙂
@Dr Ew
I can’t disagree with any of your post, and admit I was critical of Ross Greer reported behaviour prior to election. However, I’ve made a point of listening to Greer when he speaks, and he seems a bright young man. His comments are researched and measured. So fair play to him. I know Andy Wightman can’t be touched for expertise on land matters.
I suppose responding as a SNP member, my hope is that the Greens don’t object just for the sake of grandstanding, and that knots are worked out behind the scenes, as good political allies should do.
I have no doubt Nicola stands by her word of working collaboratively, and I have heard her give credit to the Greens on Carer allowances.
OT
Re Chris Law, Spirit of Independence was registered as a campaign with the Electoral Commission. It does not appear in the list of Reported Spending, but “Eleven registered campaigners have confirmed that they did not spend over £10,000 on campaigning in the regulated period.”
In view of Law’s saying he spent £30,000 apparently, perhaps someone reported him, perhaps to the EC, and the police would check to see if spending was before or after the regulated period of 3 months or whatever it was. Either that or the latest fundraiser raised £10,404, but then after deductions he would have got less.
That’s my guess, but a lot of the spending would have been before, getting the Green Goddess going and painted, and then on the road. My son had a look, no idea if he took his socket set and torque wrench along!
FMQ’s
Big Ruthy staggers to her feet, swinging the not inconsiderable shooders menacingly. My god she needs more exercise or less fodder. With her rid jaikit and short dark hair she looked like a plook wi a blackheed ready to erupt. She then spews some Tory propaganda re money for the priveledged and SNP VERY VERY BAAAD. CAMERA SCANS THE CLONES BEHIND HER. My god are they all related? Wouldn’t like to see her trying to mount the poor old buffalo or come to think of it the tank.
Re The National front page yesterday. I think we would all agree that the Daily Mail is a Tory paper, yes? Why then am I looking at Google Images at the following headlines on their front page?
Enough Is Enough, Mr Cameron!
Is That It Then, Mr Cameron?
Cameron’s EU Deal Is A Joke
Exposed: Cameron’s EU Sham
Police Probe Tory Scandal
Pull The Other One, Dave
Tory Day Of Treachery
Civil War Engulfs Tories
You get the point. The McGarry case was quite rightly prominent, it’s a big story whether we like it or not. Hopefully she will be found innocent. But maybe The National should be confident enough in its own skin to do a front page that is unpopular and challenging, otherwise it would stand accused of just being an unquestioning cheerleader for the independence cause.
The Brexit ripples continue.
link to archive.is
Even the Welsh Whisky Industry (NOT A TYPO) is uncertain!
link to archive.is
I have to laugh at all this defending newspapers stuff while vilifying others
Newspapers are a commercial business they’re not in it for truth and justice, we’re not reading a DC Comic where the old man with a press card stuck in his hat is trying to report the right news in the face of a takeover by an evil Lex Luthor news corporation
Newspapers don’t care what the public think they only care about what they want to make you think and thereby sell more newspapers
Sales of newspapers have never been lower ever so they will do or say whatever it takes to make their business survive and the hell with any other consideration
It’s pretty simple what flavour is popular, “Minty” right let’s bang it out there until we need “Choc chip” and then change to that flavour
Newspapers don’t try to reflect the mood of the nation they try to create it “Daily Mail” “Express” “Telegraph” prime examples of it because if everybody was actually those types of people we really would be wearing uniforms with armbands and shooting folk in the streets but we’re not but these newspapers are saying to people “It’s good to think this way” so the folk buy more of the stuff they THINK reflects their views
I personally don’t believe any paper supports any position out of concern for the public it says it serves, I believe some exist to serve the elite the rich and the powerful become more powerful and the rest earn their coin any way they can
Mike Cassidy
With respect to the Welsh I’ve tasted Welsh Whisky and I’m absolutely confident it must have been the same stuff Americans gave to the Sioux and the Cheyenne and other Indigenous peoples to get them to hand over their property to the US
The very thought of it makes flames jump oot ma mooth
The thing we should all bear in mind re Natalie McGarry is that if she is found guilty the only people she has wronged are those from the independence movement….not the general taxpayer like the various MPs found guilty of expenses frauds etc.,
The people with the right to be outraged if a crime has taken place are we in the independence movement.
The National may not be perfect but it is a bloody sight better than all the rest and anyone who wants an Infependence supporting paper in a wasteland of lies should buy it.
@Dr Jim
The Penderyn whisky is drinkable. Its maturation is supervised by your namesake Dr Jim Swan.
link to justsomestuff.net.
He is also consultant to the newish distillery on Islay, Kilchoman. I have met him there and chatted with him.
On the other hand English whisky is vile. The only whisky I have ever spat out!
Hopefully things shall improve with both countries efforts.
What the National is saying with its front page is “we are not like the other newspapers that continually cover up and neglect to report the misdemeanours of those we support”. Brave and correct
But maybe The National should be confident enough in its own skin to do a front page that is unpopular and challenging, otherwise it would stand accused of just being an unquestioning cheerleader for the independence cause.”
But that’s its sales pitch.
National support on here explains how its a newspaper full of pro independence stuff. Nice but then yesterday’s newsstand’s were all raging away at the not yet convicted monster. Why should the National not pile on.
Its all a muddle of UK hackdom proportions. They are only human. No one wants an unquestioning cheerleader, like me. Natalie McGarry has been hounded by the tory BBC UK media since the start and you can see why, after such a resounding defeat of the last SLab UKOK delight that is Mags Curran, angry, entitled Mags.
So if it was me in the National, yes I would have reported this monster of an embezzler (alleged) too, maybe on page 7 or page 10. If only to do the balanced, “confident enough in its own skin” thing.
Its all about sales though, for hacks and its all about Scottish democracy, for the SNP MP’s they’re clearly out to get.
Dave McEwan Hill says:
29 September, 2016 at 2:26 pm
What the National is saying with its front page is “we are not like the other newspapers that continually cover up and neglect to report the misdemeanours of those we support”. Brave and correct
If the National was saying they’re NOT like other newspapers with that banner McGarry bad headline what’s the point of it then, when every other newspaper did exactly the same McGarry charged headline yesterday?
Buy the National, we’re new and different, brave and correct, and exactly the same as the tory rags all around us. Oh yes.
BBC cuts cause a stink…
link to imgur.com
@Dr Ew 12.47pm
I don’t agree. I feel that the Greens got an increased vote at the Holyrood elections on a false ticket!
The Green,s allegiance is to the Greens. They only support Independence because it suits them to do so at this time. The English Greens do not support Scottish Independence.
Quite a few on here spent many days calling to split the Indy vote and give our second vote to the Greens.
We would have had a much stronger Scottish Government, in my view, if we had ignored them.
I hope we ignore them at the council elections.
I meet different nationalities weekly and yesterday a Dutch couple mentioned the quality of the BBC.
One of them said its not what the BBC say about Scotland, it’s what they so obviously leave out and they prefer to use social media to get a more “unbiased” view!
‘Stuck’ with using my IPad. Very frustrating to say the least.
Nana I hear that Ben Emmerson QC, the 4th Chairman of the Committee looking into historical child abuse in England and Wales, has been suspended (or in other cases walked out). I wonder what’s going on there? Who are the Committee members? Are some of them ‘plants’ determined to stymie this? Do you have any info on this?
The National: I’ll keep on reading and buying the ONLY newspaper in Scotland that publishes full and unadulterated articles by Nicola Sturgeon, Alex Salmond et al. The ONLY online newspaper to get the truth out there: Out there meaning WORLDWIDE. If the protagonists of The National spent the same amount of time and energy castigating our real enemies such as the Express, the filth they publish every day, we might get somewhere. Better still get out there, as some of us are doing, and battle with them online. Typical Scottish ‘cutting your nose off to spite your face’ OR is it something more sinister than that?
Kezia Dugdale: The SNP’s greatest ‘asset’ in Holyrood.
Corbyn: Quite telling that most of the Blairites didn’t attend the Conference. Highlights that the Party will never be united. Big split on the way? Blairites plus Lib-dems?
Fracking: ‘They’ can’t wait to get their claws into our country … countryside. … to boost the diminishing Treasury coffers and line individual pockets. I mentioned previously that someone (does anyone know who he is?) spoke at the GG venue and outlined that Westminster is doing it’s utmost to prevent our renewable energy sector from succeeding because it’ll be FAR more lucrative for us than the oil industry. He said that the hundreds of billions this would bring to Scotland would make the last 40 years of oil revenue look like ‘coppers.’
In turn of course their, Westminster’s, actions relate to a concerted effort to prevent us from getting our Independence due to that great big so-called financial ‘hole’ we’re in. The big black ‘GDP’ hole that can be filled in / reduced if we allow them to frack (banned in other countries). Frack our whisky, salmon and tourist industry into oblivion. Irreversibly destroy our beautiful country, the air that we breathe and the water that we drink. Aye right! Over my dead body.
OT.
TODAY. First Minister’s Questions.
Now Archived in Scottish Parliament TV:-
link to tinyurl.com
O/T alert!
BBC Scotland politics website – link to bbc.co.uk
states that Chris Law ” is the third of the 56 SNP MPs elected in last year’s general election to be under investigation by the police”.
And then untruthfully includes Michelle Thomson as one of the three: “….there is an ongoing police investigation into property deals said to have involved Edinburgh West MP Michelle Thomson before she was elected to the House of Commons.”
Complaint made to BBC – please make your own.
How to contact BBC Scotland.
Darlington is top of the page,and Pacific Quay half way down.
Archived:-
link to archive.is
Getting rid of Sterrheid in this constituency took a lot of hard work. I’m not pre-judging McGarry but Sterrheid’s return isn’t an impossibility due to this business. SNP candidates have to be like Caesar’s wife! Yes the media were out to get them but they were surely well warned?
Today’s National is excellent. Superb “Steel’s Back” front page and inside Mr Gupta of Liberty House could not be more fulsome in his praise for the Scottish Government. Why praise the paper for that? Well, I’m just going out on a limb here and guessing those comments do not appear in any other newspaper!
@Jack Murphy
BBC Scotland …Branch office. 🙂
The National. Bought every edition My choice.
@Iain at 3.22
Now Severin Carrell today in The Guardian makes the accusation that Michelle Thomson has been questioned by detectives. Is this true?
“Now Severin Carrell today in The Guardian makes the accusation that Michelle Thomson has been questioned by detectives. Is this true?”
Unless it was changed, it never said that. It chose its words carefully to IMPLY she was caught up in the investigation without actually saying it.
Ah BBC, that reminds me. I often have BBC on in the background when I’m working, pretending to muyself I’m working or whatever at night, and happened to catch hard Talk. Where a Russian guy was being grilled. Noticeably in reasonably straight news items, there are allegations that the Russians did this or that, but in the Hard Talk interview the word “alleged” was completey and utterly missing, so it was a question as a straight statement of fact, kind of like “Why did you shoot down that airliner?” (not an actual example, though close).
During the Ref a pal of mine was a NO as I expected, I talked about bias and he knew papers were biased but was surprised when I told him so was the BBC. He paid attention from then and became a YES, strong one too.
I think the trick with the BBC is not to tell people not to watch it, that’s useless they won’t, I think the key thing is to ask them to watch it more closely, and see and hear for themselves the difference between what people say, and what the BBC says they said.
Then they will realise for themselves, which is the best way as it’s their own decision then, not persuasion by someone else. Just my 2p worth.
Used properly I think the BBC is the best recruiting agent for YES of all – it’s everywhere. It was in the early 70s when it was pointed out to me how bad it was, and realised for myself, that I first thought of Indy for Scotland and became a supporter.
Yes! It’s sad and disappointing that MPs sent from Scotland are under investigation. No one is perfect and these things happen.
Dr Ew is correct. We can not afford to alienate a single voter or Allie.
So think before you post. We can all swear. We can write in derogatory terms about the other partys. But if you want to change their voters alliance. Then slagging of their party leader is not the way to do it.
So let’s be a bit more professional and remember that every yoon is a potential yes voter. Oops unionist.
More news about ‘not’ Scotlands gas & oil.
Maersk begins production well drilling at Culzean field
link to archive.is
link to bbc.co.uk
1 hour ago
The subject of three SNP MPs being investigated by the police has been raised at Holyrood.
Scottish Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser asked Nicola Sturgeon whether the police had adequate resources: “Given the number of the first minister’s Westminster colleagues now helping the police with their inquiries, is the first minister confident that Police Scotland has the resources to deal with this upsurge in their workload?”
National will have front page mug shots of all three tomorrow.
O/T
Mrs May had a private meeting with Mr Murdoch when she was in New York
link to theguardian.com
………
heedtracker says:
29 September, 2016 at 4:09 pm
We expect SNP representatives to live up to much higher standards of public life than any UKOK miscreant not only because the pro Unionist newspapers will use anything to discredit the Scottish self determination movement.
To date none of the allegations relate to misuse of public funds which is the main modus operandi of Lab / Lib Dem / Con Westminster and Holyrood troughers or due to tax evasion or cash for honours etc by Better Together and unionist party donors.
Nicola was in good form at PMQs as Tories were put down when Scottish Police being the only UK force liable for VAT was raised and Labour were utterly shredded over their proposals to close NHS departments whilst in office.
call me dave says:
29 September, 2016 at 4:08 pm
More news about ‘not’ Scotlands gas & oil.
Maersk begins production well drilling at Culzean field
link to archive.is
I can only assume that oor wee Ruthie either has not seen this news or she has and decided that the BBC were LYING and dismissed it as bias. What other possible excuse for her to claim Scotland will have to rely on ENGLISH gas during FMQ’s? 😀
Arbroath 1320
England relies on Russian gas, Saudi oil, French electricity, French & Canadian rail stock, Japanese, Indian, German, American cars.
Further to Legerwood’s post, some detail from the Guardian article on Theresa May’s visit to the UN and her meeting with Rupert Murdoch.
“Theresa May had a private meeting with Rupert Murdoch during a flying visit to New York last week, in which she made her maiden speech to the UN as prime minister.
May met the media mogul, who owns the Times and the Sun newspapers, as well as Sky in the UK, on a trip that lasted less than 36 hours. The meeting, less than three months after she was appointed prime minister, is notable given her previous reputation for keeping the media at arm’s length.
A supporter of the remain camp during the EU referendum, May kept a relatively low profile throughout the campaign. Murdoch has made little secret of his antipathy towards Brussels.
Rupert Murdoch hurt by ‘closeness’ of Wendi Deng and Tony Blair, editor reveals.
When asked by the journalist Anthony Hilton why he was so opposed to the EU, Murdoch is said to have replied: “When I go into Downing Street, they do what I say; when I go to Brussels, they take no notice.”
His meetings with British leaders became public when he told an influential committee of MPs that he “often entered Downing Street by the back door”.
Can someone also point out to the Tories that the Laggan and Tomore gas fields off our west coast which have recently come on stream will supply the energy needs of two million homes for several decades.
There may be trouble ahead. 😉
link to youtube.com
It doth appear that certain Tory politicians are non too happy with some other Tory politicians. 😛
link to thecanary.co
And we thought the Labour Civil war was fun to watch.
Order for huge quantities of our other National drink and truck load of popcorn just phoned in. 😀
sinky says:
29 September, 2016 at 4:33 pm
heedtracker says:
29 September, 2016 at 4:09 pm
Got that BBC Scotland 3 in a row hello thing via BBC Politics Show on Facebook. “Like” all kinds of facebook things and stuff like that one pops up. Its Ligger Neil’s show though, so its very tory and they really hate the SNP that crew. Which is why that very nasty little BBC Scotland thing popped up, in my timeline. BBC seemed to have eased off on the JC monstering though. Very odd bunch of tory twits.
And is it any different from National’s front page? who cares. Also Alex Salmond’s got a well paid column and vid thing in neo-fascist Voice of the North Press and Journal, local neo-fascism for local neo-fascists. That’s a joke. P&J’s read by lots of YESers too.
@Robert Kerr
I owned a restaurant and bar in Spain Robert where most of my customers were English pensioners and I promise you I couldn’t give the stuff away on free tasters
And you know what pensioners are like if they think something’s free they’re having it,
I had Welsh friends who were really proud of it, and so they should be because it’s a start into making a Welsh product but it will be a long time before they come close to a first choice off the shelf whisky
Biggest sellers Grouse and Bells neither of which is great but for the price folk want to pay for the effect they want to achieve they remain the popular preference of the ordinary blended whisky drinker
I myself don’t drink but the smell and taste of a good Scottish single malt is unsurpassable, although if we do a hard Brexit all EU protections on Scottish branded goods goes out the window and we could have the flavour of Scottish whisky from Luton or Scunthorpe with a picture of a wee red suited Guardsman in a bearskin hat exported to replace our own world famous brands and there’ll be sod all we can do about it
How about Killie pies direct from Bedfordshire Britain or the taste of Arbroath smokies from Devonshire Britain
Noticed all the Union flags on produce in our supermarkets lately, even on all the Scottish produce Union Flags keep appearing Frasers pies produced in Scotland with “British Meat” and a wee Union flag, I’ve even seen Kippers with a wee Union Flag on, Morrisons don’t sell fresh fish from Scotland, it’s Norwegian Haddock or Cod they even sell Brook Trout form the Lake district
Coincidence?
Ruth Davidson makes a very good Tory Branch Manager. She has the same arrogant bearing of her London HQ employers ; displays the same contempt towards Scottish people ; and shows no respect to the offices of the Scottish Parliament and Government. She represents the Tory Cabinet in Westminster and gives them a presence in Holyrood.
Sums devolution up.
@Petra
I’m hearing another of the lawyers has resigned. Some will do all they can to undermine the enquiry.
Regarding Emmerson here’s a few tweets I spotted
Tom Symonds ?@BBCTomSymonds · 19h19 hours ago
BBC understands more than one complaint was made against Ben Emmerson. He has refused to comment about his suspension.
#IICSA inquiry has suspended its Counsel Ben Emmerson QC after becoming ‘very concerned about aspects of his leadership of the Counsel Team
Seen eksewhere
if Jay has got rid and is appointing her OWN counsel that can only be a good thing.
Despite what u hear / read in the media re #csainquiry work IS underway, survivors ARE engaging, police ARE investigating
Kezia Dugdale disnae soon vurrae bricht, fur ah legal-mineit yin.
Thoan National is ultimately USA owned, so its freedom is curtailed. Its foonin, came fae a bloke thit isnae oan sicht onnae mair.
Heedtracker – yursell in ithurrs oan here, seem tae waant ah Scoattish independent newspaper. Fitbaa fans in punk rockers, could dae thurr ane publications, sah thurr ye go. Mak, yurr ane news.
@Petra
Forgot to link the statement
link to iicsa.org.uk
The National does not support independence, never did, never will.
Its only purpose is to milk gullible independence supporters, who are in my view more stupid than those who vote Scottish Labour in the belief that it stands for them.
Or are paid by The National to lobby here on their behalf.
Why has there never been an article written by the Rev. Stuart Campbell in The National?
Rock says:
29 September, 2016 at 5:27 pm
Why has there never been an article written by the Rev. Stuart Campbell in The National?
There is a very simple and easy answer to your question Rock. Why don’t you write to them and ask them?
You could even suggest the Winged mastermind as a weekly contributor if you like. 😉
Vambomarbeleye@4.07pm
This isn’t your blog. Don’t be so patronising.
Union Jackie stuns…
link to imgur.com
If you like the National then buy it, reccomend it and leave read copies in canteens, Drs’ surgeries, hairdressers etc.
If you don’t like it then don’t buy it.
Simple enough.
As for the airhead, I think there has been an accident with the cavity wall insulation.
Saddest site in the world, one lone labour guy in Airdrie town centre trying to get people to speak to him, I watched him for a while, wonder where he was from, I felt so sorry I was going to point out he was standing in completely the wrong place, if actually meeting anyone was his aim, or perhaps like his female friend who was trying to hide behind a lamppost, solitude was their goal.
Suppose that is the fate of labour, the guest no one wants, but turns up anyway out of a mistaken sense they are still relevant and hip. Standing alone trying to join the conversation, not realising they are just an embarrassment. As I said sad.
“Britain can enjoy trade with the European Union that is “at least as free” as it is now despite Brexit, Liam Fox has claimed.”
Liam Fox is a deluded idiot. This we all already know.
The problem is, he and his fellow fools at WM feel empowered to make decisions which will profoundly effect Scotland yet they have no mandate whatsoever. They speak only for a small minority in this country. It can’t continue!
link to archive.is
Arbroath1320,
“Rock says:
29 September, 2016 at 5:27 pm
Why has there never been an article written by the Rev. Stuart Campbell in The National?
There is a very simple and easy answer to your question Rock. Why don’t you write to them and ask them?
You could even suggest the Winged mastermind as a weekly contributor if you like. ?”
Like the vast majority of independence supporters, I have long known the answer: The National doesn’t support independence at all, never did. The Rev. Stuart Campbell supports independence 100%.
It is the gullible independence supporters who buy it who should be asking the question and getting a credible answer.
Like the gullible Scottish Labour supporters who vote for it believing that it will save them from the Tories.
@legerwood 4:09
Guardian article on May and Murdoch is now archived
link to archive.is
Best to do it that way. Gets rid of the click bait and reduces their income further.
Dr Ew
“We’re all building towards a second referendum. The SNP will NEVER win independence for Scotland on its own. Burning bridges with your allies is not smart politics. Think on, guys”
I liked your post as usual Dr Ew. There does need to be a grown up realisation on both sides that the 2 parties are competitors with much in common.
I don’t really understand the need for both- SNP are committed to green energy and I would much rather the 2 parties merged and the SNP had an even more ambitious green agenda than they do. I feel like someone committed to green policies- am I not?
Anyway- this merge hasn’t happened so they compete. And with competition for votes comes things green MSPs do the SNP won’t like. And there are things SNP do the Greens won’t like and oppose.
Whilst they remain 2 separate entities there is bound to be disagreements, even vitriol. Otherwise they would just be the same party.
I get you don’t like people traducing the Greens here but without merging how can it be otherwise?
Your comment made me laugh- are the greens not burning bridges by helping defeat the SNP in Holyrood? This is all inevitable- no-one voted for your party to be like a mini-me in Holyrood!
What I want to know from you- what concrete proposals are the Greens making right now that they can get through with SNP support?
Anyway- keep posting Dr. As you say- let’s not burn any bridges on here
“Or are paid by The National to lobby here on their behalf.”
Oooh, that really hurts.
Specially as I’m STILL waiting for my cheque.
Its time Rock got a reality check. The National and Sinday Herald are clearly pro Indy newspapers but not SNP Pravda type outlets. Even the Daily Mail in English editions has stories unfavorable to the Tories but unionist press in Scotland works to an SNP bad agenda at all times.
The Titanic took 2hrs and 40 minutes to sink after striking the iceberg on that fateful night of April 11, at 2340 hrs 104 years ago.
The first lifeboat was not launched until an hour had passed. Inaction floating on a sea of incredulity – ‘the Titanic can’t sink’. The Captain couldn’t think clearly.
For Titanic think United Kingdom ; for iceberg think Brexit.
Now think inaction floating on a sea of incredulity.
Now think of passengers trying to work out how to get off the ship. Companies leaving the UK.
The UK will ‘sink’ – politically and economically .
But how long will it take?
Well said groggy. I see the other one’s bangin’ on again. Yawn. Scroll past.
Edit froggy…
@manandboy
Excellent analogy, but with one wee flaw 🙂
The UK government spotted the iceberg miles off and chose to steer straight towards it!
If there’s one thing poor people can afford it’s principles
that’s why they try hard so hard to keep them it’s all they’ve got
Rich folk?…. Well..
sinky says:
29 September, 2016 at 6:47 pm
Its time Rock got a reality check. The National and Sinday Herald are clearly pro Indy newspapers but not SNP Pravda type outlets. Even the Daily Mail in English editions has stories unfavorable to the Tories but unionist press in Scotland works to an SNP bad agenda at all times.”
So logic dictates, business logic dictates, an SNP backing newspaper. BBC Scotland have no qualms with their endless UKOK vote anyone but SNP pravda stuff. And we have no choice to pay that lot, if we want a tv.
Mak, yurr ane news.
You mean market an all new and exciting pro Conservative newspaper, with massive pro UK stuff, call it the Daily Timesograph, then have front page banner headlines with latest the red and blue tory crook splash, for the Brave and correctness of British journalism.
I am absolutely furious at the Chris Law slur. You have the authorities doing nothing about proven Tory election fraud across numerous constituencies down in England, while you have the police here investigating absolute nonsense about Chris!
It is way beyond time Michelle Thomson was returned to the fold. Never should have been suspended in the first place.
Dr Jim at 4.55 you say you don’t drink, and it is very good advice to shut up on a subject on which you know nothing. I was given a bottle of Penderyn after giving a speech in Swansea. I had every possible prejudice against it but am forced to admit it is actually a good malt, better than just decent – bearing comparison with many middle ranking Scottish malts.
That doddering expats in Spain who prefer Grouse to malt did not rate it does not surprise me. I hope the industry one day grows and prospers in an independent Wales.
Good old PQ.
Douglas Fraser couldn’t have done a better job in downplaying the good news from OPEC and the oil price rise
Fat Boab displaying her more than ample cleavage on daytime TV at today’s FMQs – has she no respect for our parliament?
Manandboy @ 6.53
Don’t know so much about thinking Titanic.
If use you ” just-your-imaginagion ” (see what I did there) and wonder if the Tories believe the reports of all the new oil and gas that are doing the rounds,espically the one saying that the world’s biggest oil field has been discovered west of Lewis.
Whether it’s true or not if they do believe it?
Then getting rid , ” apparently ” reluctantly of any obligations to Europe makes perfect sense.
The breixteers would be right Westminster wouldn’t need Europe.
What they would need is control of Scotland.
Now I know that’s a bit far fetched but it’s still more sane than the guff the current government are all trying to claim dictated their actions.
I do believe Murdoch is the devil sent here to work with demons like Blair
link to thecanary.co
I think the hinkley deal was signed today
link to energydesk.greenpeace.org
link to archive.is
Severin Carrell of the Graun joins the fray, Chris Law, Natalie McGarry, Michelle Thomson, it’s a UKOK gotcha.
Looking forward to tomorrow’s the National’s front page banner headline, huge pic of Law and “LAW HELD OVER ALLEGED OFFENCES!”
If the National don’t do to Law what they did to McGarry yesterday, well that would be a thing wouldn’t it.
The hypocracy of Ruth Davidson knows no bounds. Osbourne tried to destroy theScottish Oil sector. Taxing it at 60% to 80% when the price had fallen 75%. Losing thousands of jobs and £Billions in Scotland. To try and stop Scottish Independence?
Fracked US Gas is being imported into Scotland. This will benefit the US economy. Fracked Gas is not taxed but given £Billions of investment. Putting up the UK balance of payment deficit and the debt.
Complete and utter madness. Just like the Hinkley Nuclear Station. By the time it is finished it will be obsolete. £Billion of taxpayers money will be wasted. The Tories are a danger to society.
Why are SNP politicians being charged. When Unionists politicians commit every crime in the book with impunity. It is swept under the carpet.
link to caltonjock.com
@ Craig Murray – agree. See the different treatment in the Daily Record of Chris Law and Alexander Burnett.
link to archive.is
link to archive.is
Don’t know about the whisky, “de gustibus nil disputandum”.
Correction, tomorrow’s The National front page banner headline will ofcourse be,
Looking forward to tomorrow’s the National’s front page banner headline, huge pic of Law and “LAW HELD OVER ALLEGED FRAUD OFFENCES!”
Accuracy is all in teamGB hackdom, brave, correct, accurate.
Sorry to dive in (as usual) just to make you aware:
Live Independence
Livestreaming “Back for the Future” with Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp & Jeane Freeman STARTING NOW
link to tinyurl.com
Heedtracker at 7.34
A direct lie from the hardline unionist Severin. He says that Michelle Thomson resigned from the SNP after being detained by the police. A complete lie – she should sue.
Poor Rock. Don’t laugh at him.
He is a sad obsessive, with a tiny repetitive vocabulary. Gullible and stupid seem to be the only adjectives he knows, judging by the frequency with which he uses them.
For sensible National readers his boring and endless insults are just water of a duck’s back. Every movement such as ours attracts a few odd ones.
Why are SNP politicians being charged. When Unionists politicians commit every crime in the book with impunity. It is swept under the carpet.
Clearly someone or some outfit is going through the backgrounds of every single SNP MP. Anything that looks even remotely off, is then reported to the Police. Who knows, it may be the Police what are taking a fine tooth comb and investigating them.
The Greens will NEVER win Ibdependence on their own. Burning bridges with your allies in politics is not a smart move. Think on guys.
Craig Murray says:
29 September, 2016 at 7:42 pm
Heedtracker at 7.34
A direct lie from the hardline unionist Severin. He says that Michelle Thomson resigned from the SNP after being detained by the police. A complete lie – she should sue.
She should. Carrell’s gone mad with Britnat blood lust, or he’s going for a job at the Record because he’s clearly a tabloid hack at heart, as in his “held” “detained for questioning” hyperbole. What next, Law on the lam with his moll etc.
Bancon Contractors are a shambles. Allegedly losing money hand over fist. Getting local gov contracts. Without declaring an interest? Allegedly over charging. Despite repeated warnings. The Staff are allegedly trying to cover it up and sort it out, without the Authorities knowing.
Independence live with Jeane freeman just now have a wee look might lift yer spirits folks
“If the National don’t do to Law what they did to McGarry yesterday, well that would be a thing wouldn’t it.”
—–
Not really, as McGarry has actually been charged with an offence.
Since the SNP 56 arrived at Westminster 32 have been accused of some wrong doing or other
One MP was even accused of non re-embursement of the price of a fish supper
Another one was over an amount of £2.49p
Both of these cases and others of a similar type made the papers
Tony Blair can cause the blowing up of half a continent and the killing of thousands, have millions spent on proving him guilty, have a whole report that says he is and still the media value his opinion and hold the front page in case he wants to blow his nose
Double standards doesn’t even come close as to how sick and depraved Westminster is and how equally cowardly and vile every single “Journalist” in the whole of the UK is
Principles eh, I’ll sell you one for 40 quid
Craig Murray at 7.42
She could have sued Tom Gordon last week for virtually the same distortion in the Sunday Herald
People in the North East of England are all lazy flat capped whippet breeders
People in Liverpool are all thieves
Folk from Yorkshire are thick mean pigeon fanciers
People from the South West are all dense straw munching carrot eaters
Blacks are all murderers
Pakistanis all live ten to a room and claim all the benefits
Is it any wonder the people of England are confused about who they’re supposed to hate next when this is an example of the English government run media designed to divide and rule by demonisation
If the English “Journalistic” media can confuse 55 million people into turning on themselves why shouldn’t they keep right on doing it in Scotland when it’s proven to be doing the job just fine for years
headtracker
Agree with your posts.
Headtracker
It seems anyone can make an allegation however malicious about the SNP MP’s which the police will no doubt have to investigate with the resultant headlines. It would be a problem to make accusations against the Scotland’s non-SNP MP’s as there aren’t that many and 2 out of the 3 have clouds over their heads with one under investigation regarding overspending on his campaign.
Everything sweet – good xx
BBC Question Time again with no SNP rep but UKIP and right winger Rod Liddle plus Tory MP make a balanced programme
The National front page tomorrow – since everyone was asking about it!
link to twitter.com
Interesting comments from Alyn Smith MEP and David Martin MEP.
link to twitter.com
link to youtube.com
No idea how the McGarry thing will turn out but I imagine Michelle Thompson will rejoin the SNP ranks in the not too distant future. The somewhat relaxed approach by the SNP hierarchy would suggest that there not much to the Chris Laws thing either.
Of course the Yoons have complained about umpteen of the SNP MPs but other than McGarry nothing has had any substance and we should remember that the McGarry complaint came from within not without.
To be honest, I can’t remember the names of the MPs jailed for the expenses scandals. The endemic corruption that afflicted the main parties had a temporary impact on them and then was forgotten. Despite the moats and duck houses and all that, the Tories have a majority.
The SNP contingent are hard working and committed. The other parties will have their Allerdyce moments over the coming years and their moment in the limelight. The SNP and the independence just need to get the shoulder to the wheel and push on.
Still baffled by the antipathy to the National. It has a circulation of what 20,000? Most if not all will be independence supporters. I read it and I find much there that is encouraging and useful. It has not undermined or subverted my vote, far from it. It is the Torquils and Severins that are running incessant anti SNP and anti-independence campaigns not the National.
McDuff says:
29 September, 2016 at 9:54 pm
headtracker
Agree with your posts.
We’re being taken for mugs, yesterday, today and tomorrow.
link to energydesk.greenpeace.org
Wealthy owners
At least 16 of the 100 largest pay-outs under the single payment scheme last year went to entities owned or run by people featured in the Sunday Times Rich List, Energydesk found.
The group – which includes billionaires like Sir James Dyson and the Duke of Westminster, alongside others, like Lord Iveagh of the Guinness family – received £13.4m in total farm subsidies last year, of which £10.6m came from the single payment scheme alone.
Other recipients in the Top 100 include wealthy foreign owners not featured in the UK Rich List – including the internationally famous racehorse breeding operation Juddmonte Farms, owned by Prince Khalid Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
On the deputy leadership vote, I am struggling. I like all of them and every time I make a choice I think “but then again…”
Arrrgh
Still, a nice place to be compared to the awful debacle that was the Labour leadership bloodletting.
Anyone voted yet?
“Britain leaving the EU would be another… ‘false freedom’ which would impose ‘real bonds’ on people in Scotland…”
“This genuine freedom (of movement) is and has always been the fundamental argument in favour of our United Kingdom.”
David Mundell, Secretary of State for Scotland 22.3.2016
Still baffled by the antipathy to the National.
For not the last time, their front page banner headline yesterday made McGarry and the SNP look terrible and/but she’s not been found guilty yet. What will they do to her and the SNP if she is a convicted embezzler and fraudster?
OK?
So if its wrong to query why that crew did this, on a media and politics blog like WoS, whatever next:D
IMHO
There is a anti Scottish cabal which is run by agents of the Westminster/establishment elite whose sole job is to create uncertainty, fear and doubts in the Scottish population. This is accomplished by outright lying, ignoring unhelpful facts and figures spreading lies and misinformation.
This circus is controlled via HMG agencies pulling the strings of their front men in various state security departments as fits their objective. EBC, MSM, ITV, special branch and the many zero hour contractors up to Brillo level and above. Hence all the minuscule false stories which blow up regularly then evaporate into the aether over a short period. And the serious unionist misdemeanours which never see the light of day they just miraculously evaporate.
Who are the cabal of anti Scotland agents? The Scottish conservative and unionist party, the Scottish Labour Party and the Scottish liberal democrat party. This is well understood by the head haunchoes of each group. These groups are directed and financed from Londinium dark ops command.
The state agencies official and secret services are controlled by HMG UNDERWORLD characters.. a web of lies deciet and if necessary violence in protection of the crown, that is their main function in life and they have the law and law makers covering their backs.
Ruth, Kez and wee Wullie are the face of unionism in Scotland but they are only foot soldiers in this game. Front men, decoys cannon fodder with big egos and are prepared to sell their soles for cash and a stoat fur in the big House of Lords and a mention in the media now and again. Most importantly they dae as their telt no matter how stupid in makes them look, they have taken the queens shilling. They don’t want the queens ire.
@heedtracker –
I’ve asked this question before, of ‘Rock’, but I can’t remember if you expressed any opinion at the time:
Would you prefer that The National didn’t exist?
Question Time is particularly horrible tonight – utterly disgusting audience member equating socialist ‘Leftist’ views with Mental Disorder. Cue loud guffawing from audience and members of the panel.
This was after a wee snidey segment on reporting Scotland where yet again they repeated the three SNP MPs smear segueing into Murdo’s snark at FMQ.
The BBC is out of control.
Give a rest the wild and exaggerated attacks on the National.
It is not perfect , nor is it an SNP pamphlet, but at least it is a lone voice generally on our side of the argument.
I cannot understand the blind hatred of Rock and heedtracker for our only supporter on newsstands which would otherwise be dominated by the Express or Mail.
If it is so bad why don’t you just set up your own paper. Or at least give us a break from your constant whining. It is tedious.
@flower of Scotland
It’s not your blog ether.
I unfortunately have friends and family that are no voters.
Ripping the pish out of their political partys and all they stand for is not going to change them into yes voters.
On the assumption that you are male (apologies) if you are not. Insulting a woman will not get you into her knickers. Same principle.
Craig Murray: “who prefer Grouse to malt”
I’ve heard good things about Graigievar too. 🙂
Vambomarbeleye
That’s one mysterious moniker. Does it have any meaning?
Ian Brotherhood says:
29 September, 2016 at 11:02 pm
@heedtracker –
Would you prefer that The National didn’t exist?
I dont care either way. 37 titles to choose from in Scotland. It was a shock seeing their McGarry front page yesterday but what can you do? Not buy it if you dont like it.
Just watching BBC Question Time that’s entirely and completely English. Scotland’s got an entirely tory anti Scottish democracy BBC Scotland that is for the most part Anglo-eccentric. The National gave the impression that it was going to be different. Well they are, they really stood out on the SNP bad newsstands of Scotland, which was maybe the whole point. Its all about sales.
She’s not been found guilty yet but she’s been made to look front page guilty as sin by The National. And so did the SNP.
@ grouse Beater
It’s the name of a character in some of the music done by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Just my wee bit to keep his memory alive.
ScottishPsyche et al
The BBC is the enemy of Scotland. It always will be. It cannot be anything else.
Those that work for the BBC, are working against Scotland. They know it, yet they still do it.
Further to the above regards the BBC, Davidson, Dugdale and Rennie are also working against Scotland. They are Unionists and thus will not and cannot put Scotland first. They are also the enemies of Scotland.
Ian Brotherhood says:
29 September, 2016 at 11:02 pm
@heedtracker –
Without pointing out the obvious, again, the only way yoon culture can really kill Scottish independence dead, is getting the SNP out of government in Scotland and getting them out of Westminster.
All the pompous bullshit that vile seps can come up with will mean absolutely fcuk all if and when the red and blue tories, from the BBC to the whoever it is running the National, do finally succeed.
The National McGarry the embezzler front page was as good a warning as any.
@heedtracker –
Okay, received.
Not ‘understood’, but received.
We differ.
Fair do’s.
Handandshrimp @ 10.40
Re SNP Deputy leadership: my advice is to read/watch everything you can and go to any hustings near you if you can. I know some of them are livestreamed if you can’t.
I was at a hustings in Dumbarton last Thursday and it was excellent although it didn’t really change my mind from what I had read before: it merely confirmed my decision.
I said to a friend (and posted here about it) that Angus Robertson seemed to me to have a cross between desperation and a sense of entitlement and she agreed.
However, my son voted for him first and showed Angus who immediately roped him in for a photo – I was also taking a photo and Angus was quite insistent I joined them with an aide offering to take my camera. I politely declined as it would have been totally hypocritical on my part.
For what it is worth my vote is as follows according to my priorities for the next few years:
1st: Alyn Smith – Europe, 1st priority.
2nd: Chris McEleny – Local government 2nd priority.
3rd: Tommy Sheppard – new member, wants a shake-up.
4th: Angus Robertson – has a high enough profile as leader in Westminster.
PS Chris is an impressive speaker. He told us he was 30 and I confirmed that when I spoke to him at the end of the hustings. He thought I meant he looked older but it was more to do with his maturity and I am sure he will go far in the SNP.
Sorry for the long post.
FFS
Could QT be any more right wing? Good on Bonnie Greer and Richard Burgon, because I’d have trouble just sitting in that room.
I seriously can’t believe how panelists still get away with blaming immigrants for ‘driving down wages’. Its never shitty employment practices by their fellow Brits.
What an ugly character Priti Patel is, Rod Liddle and Steven Wolfe, just as you would expect.
Maybe people should start thinking about Scotland remaining in this Union, and what it would look like. How many like me, for the first time in their lives, think they might leave Scotland, if we don’t gain independence?
Just been reading a lot of stuff on Twitter and boy… isn’t BBCQT facinating tonight … NOT. 😉
No seriously it is facinating … apparently. I never knew the BBC bused in their audiences, except in Scotland of course, but they have outdone themselves tonight.
I really do think they should have renamed their programme, at least for tonight. I think Xenophobia rools UK would have been a better title for tonight’s programme.
Unionist tactic (GCHQ & MI5 backed) is to knock SNP MPs down one at a time – women are the most vulnerable – and that reduces the SNP’s majority allowing repugnant Ruthie and airhead Kezia to vote down SNP policy.
Wee Willie is only there for comic relief; he takes our eye and ear off the dreaded harpies.
The almost universally unelected opposition don’t need any policies. Fear, smear and blackmail will do it.
They can hold the SNP to ransom, as they did over the one-off £500 million grant forcibly stuck on a useless and vastly disruptive tram system.
Not very pleasant hearing Scottish accents holding your elected administration to ransom. Not pleasant at all.
You sit cross armed fuming, imagining sticking them like pigs.
scotspine says:
at 11:23 pm
“The BBC is the enemy of Scotland. It always will be. It cannot be anything else.”
Sorry, but I think you will find that they are the enemy of the people.
Not restricted by geography, their spin knows no bounds.
I’d go as far as to say that they are the greatest propaganda machine the world has ever known.
And have been from day 1. Just not so many plummy sounding patronising voices nowadays.
Plenty shills like Brillo for that sort of thing.
If in doubt, watch how they deal with the US bombing civilians in Somalia today. It’s off the front page already. Pushed a click away, it’ll be shoved into a dark corned.
Contrast how the Russian Allepo story is hanging around the front page like a bad smell.
As Dumbartons finest chimed, “Same as it ever was”.
The National no more
“What an ugly character Priti Patel”
Doesn’t matter she was born in London. She is the daughter of Ugandan immigrants.
Anybody not pasty white and cockney growling over how to control migration needs a mirror stuck in their face.
Valerie@ 11.50
Agree 100% Valerie.Really uncomfortable viewing on tonights BBCQT,will never understand why Scotland voted to stay in this union in 2014.If and when there is another referendum and its another NO vote I will consider leaving Scotland,which breaks my heart.
Off topic, but just seen a trailer for the BBC of Neil (sweep my hair back ) Oliver fronting a new program investigating Scotlands links and participation with the Klu Klux Klan,WTF, is it just me being paranoid or is fear factor two on defcon 5 already ?
I am sure there will be truth in the article but do we really need to demonise our nation with this shit.
The UK empire has and will always have way more to answer for than our nation but you don’t see the BBC doing programs on their nefarious actions.
Anyone really want to know how bad BBCQT was earlier tonight then here is the Winged Wonder’s thoughts: 😉
link to twitter.com
When even our glorious Winged one can not watch the full episode of Xenophobia for Dummies then you know it was really, really, REALLY bad! 😀
I have been for a independent Scotland for 55 years. It broke my heart in 2014. We have another chance hopefully. Now it’s all or nothing. I would love to see it happen in my life time. We have been given a second chance. Every vote counts.
English Question Time again, and I lasted 29 minutes this time.
In the last parliament, Lib Dems had around half of the MP’s that the SNP have this time around, and yet the LD’s had a representative on almost every show, while SNP MP’s are now a rare luxury!
EBC spend less on Scottish Productions per licence payer in the UK, than in any other area, less than Wales which has half our population.
EBC Dimbebly picks the guests on the panel and the audience and the questions, all to suit keeping the plebs in their place.
He interrupts and cuts short anything that might be a negative against his Tory pay masters.
The Q-Time show generally has a journalist on it, which again means another Tory supporter, or at least a onal pro union rep.
Tonight’s journalist, from the Murdoch owned Sun and Times newspapers, and Sky News, revealed, by his actions, that PM May’s New York meeting with Murdoch must have reached agreement that Labour and SNP must be driven into the ground with all his media might.
His reward will be revealed later, but not announced.
It terrifies me that Murdoch seems to have called each and every election correctly in the last 40 years.
That ability to filter, and distort political reality, via his media outlets, means that any UK party hoping to form a government, must agree to anything that he requires.
Corbyn, to his credit, knows all about Murdoch, and has spoken against him.
For that reason alone, Corbyn will never be allowed to win an election.
Scotland can look forward to yet another Tory Government that they didn’t vote for in the 2020 GE, and the Labour vote will be so low, partly due to Tory controlled propaganda channels, that only the Tories could win the 2025 general election.
Scots, particularly Labour and Green supporters, please recognise that the North British Colony will be little better than Aleppo come an alternative government in 2030, and that might well be UKIP’s?
All votes must be for Independence and Independence only until Scotland is free and has it’s own diversity of parties.
Nana says:7:24pm,I do think the Hinckley deal was signed today
Dear Smallaxe,
The Government has responded to the petition you signed – “Switch to the Renewable Plan B for Hinkley C – fit for the 21st Century”.
Government responded:
The Government is committed to providing secure, affordable and clean energy to UK families and businesses, now and for the future through a mix of low-carbon technologies.
The Government is committed to providing secure, affordable and clean energy, now and for the future. We need to replace our ageing infrastructure with low-carbon, reliable energy sources; and aim to do so through a mix of technologies and energy supplies, diversifying supply and reducing reliance on any one energy source. Keeping the lights on is non-negotiable.
The Government is clear that nuclear will be an important part of the future generation mix; a transition to a low carbon economy is key to our long term economic and environmental prosperity and, looking at the full costs to consumers, nuclear is both cost-competitive and low carbon. It is the only proven, large scale, low-carbon technology which provides base load supply. Currently, the UK has eight power stations which generate around 20% of electricity in the UK. Almost all of these existing power stations are due to close by 2030, and it is important we start to take action now to replace these.
Following a review of the Hinkley Point C project, the Government has decided to proceed with the first new nuclear power station for a generation, subject to a number of conditions being accepted. Hinkley Point C will kick start a new era of nuclear power – building on Britain’s strong nuclear legacy – and help ensure the UK benefits from a diverse future energy mix designed to give consumers reliable and affordable low carbon energy. It will provide 7% of Britain’s electricity needs for 60 years. UK-based businesses will benefit from more than 60% of the £18 billion value of the project, and 26,000 jobs and apprenticeships will be created.
The Government is already committed to the renewable energy sector where it has a proven track record – nearly £52 billion has been invested since 2010. The average annual investment has more than doubled in the last 5 years, with an average of £9 billion invested each year in UK-based renewables. Annual support for renewable technologies will more than double, to over £10 billion, in 2020-21.
Since 2010, the UK has more than trebled its renewable electricity capacity. Renewables’ share of generation increased by 6 percentage points on 2014 to a record 25% in 2015. For the first time, renewable sources provided more power over the year than coal. We are on track to comfortably exceed our ambition of delivering 30% of the UK’s electricity from renewables in 2020-21.
In addition:
• solar PV has had rapid deployment over the past 5 years, with over 99% of the UKs capacity deployed since 2010 and almost 40% of the capacity (3.7GW) was installed in 2015
• bio energy generation was 30% higher in 2015 compared to 2014
• overall, wind generation was 26% higher than in 2014 and installed capacity 7.0% higher
Renewables, such as wind farms, are intermittent and this is why the Government supports a balanced energy policy comprising a mix of sources, such as gas, nuclear and renewables. With increased use of renewable energy, intermittency will become more of an issue and it is something we are planning for very carefully. We are seeking to keep energy bills down by not over incentivising technologies under low carbon incentive schemes. Furthermore, we are encouraging industry to drive down development costs, which is why the Contracts for Difference (CfD) strike price reduces over time.
As costs continue to fall, we will scale back support from sectors and redirect support to technologies where it is needed most. Onshore wind and solar costs have already fallen and so we have reduced support in those areas.
The Government is committed to providing investors with certainty and reducing risks for future investors. We are doing this whilst seeking to control costs that fall on consumers and ensuring that the Government’s other energy policy objectives, particularly on security of supply and climate change, are met.
The Government is clear that the transition to a low carbon economy is key to our long term economic and environmental prosperity; nuclear is part of that generation mix. Looking at the full costs to consumers, nuclear is cost-competitive and low carbon. Importantly it can provide continuous power, irrespective of whether the wind is blowing or the sun shining.
Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
#andrew gordon 12:02am
“Off topic, but just seen a trailer for the BBC of Neil (sweep my hair back ) Oliver fronting a new program investigating Scotlands links and participation with the Klu Klux Klan”
According to Wikipedia..
link to en.wikipedia.org
“The second and third incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan made frequent references to America’s “Anglo-Saxon” blood”
Will be interesting to hear the explanation for that conundrum.
Smallaxe @ 12.29
I know you are just delivering the message so I will not shoot the messenger.
Aye right.
@ defo
Im not really interested in whether BBC is the enemy of “The people”.
The people of England and Wales can look after themselves. We dont matter to them.
This is about The BBC versus democracy in Scotland.
The BBC IS the enemy of Scotland in this context.
@Vambomarbeleye
I have lots of family and friends who are Unionists. I try to gently show them, that there could be a better Scotland if we were Independent.
I’ve voted SNP all my voting life. So that,s 52 years. When I joined it was a bit right of centre and I was and am a bit left of centre. However the party contained people of all persuasions. Tory, Libdem, Labour and Green. The common idea was Independence and was called the Scottish National Party.
That’s why I don’t see any point in breakaway parties splitting the vote. The Unionists just love that!
Sorry for O/T here but for those who have come across BBC/SKY/MSM “reporting” from/about Aleppo in Syria you may find this wee video a bit of an eye opener.
Every news outlet’s favourite “saviours of Syria” the White Helmets may not be so fantastic an organisation as our media try to make us all believe.
link to youtube.com
“The NHS: How bad will it get.”
No mention of NHS Scotland, full of spin, and the big lie…
“Nor is it an England-only problem. The pressures are being felt in the rest of the UK too.”
link to bbc.co.uk
Blow for rebel group of Labour councils as veteran leader moots fresh split
link to archive.is
It’s Goodnight from me to coin a phrase.
Wooo, that was fun, night all!
link to archive.is
Anyone see/hear Cockburn on ITV “Scotland Tonight”.
What an arrogant FART of a man, manners of a pig (sorry, real pigs), oozing sweat like a dirty old man. Who ever voted in any election for this excuse for a human being need their heads examined.
Felt sorry for the interviewer & that is saying something. Reckon she was saying under her breath, ” Shut your effing mouth for God’s sake”.
@ Flower of Scotland
Could not agree more. The goal is independence and madness to split the vote. I am sure that after independence politics in Scotland will change. Where the Tory labour and liberal will be god knows.
The other Sunday I was talking to a young lady communist. She is young but of voting age. Spoke to her about wings. Yes she goes onto the site but is put off by homophobic comments. Now for the life of me I can’t say that I have ever seen any. So told her not to be shy about commenting herself. Pointed out that grey beards like myself have had our day. She is the future and the torch has to be past on.
Tinnitus is bugging me which is why I’m still awake.
Vambombarbely @ 4.46
Hope you managed to get some sleep.
In answer to your point about homophobic comments,I am afraid they are definitely some that slip in here and there.
Especially the casual kind,mostly when referring to,Ruthie,or Dugdale.
As an example of what I mean by casual,and without having a go cause I am really not interested in an argument,but trying to illustrate where a new reader could get that kind of impression.
Farther up the thread you you’re self remarked that you don’t get into a Woman’s knickers by insulting her.
You stated that you were assuming that you were talking to another man.
Can you in all honesty say that that remark wasn’t Misogynistic?
Fair enough if you don’t think so , but woman ….many of them ……do and have had a life time of picking up on that stuff.
Partly because of how casually and how often it’s done,also because of how often they would have to point it out it is usually let slide.
Again nobody so far said anything about it.
So a young woman who,if they were not prepared to put up with that kind of comment being made or not being addressed IMHO is not going to want to engage with Wing’s.
My daughter’s certainly wouldn’t and they couldn’t by any of the imagination be called sensitive,but rather strong confident young woman.
So I think is fair to say the same could be said for anyone sensitive to casually insulting someone’s orientation,so the young Lady you were talking to definitely has a point.
HandandShrimp – I voted for Alyn Smith as he’s our MEP , seems to be held in some regard in EU parly, and I think will have been laying a lot of the groundwork for our indy entry/remaining in the EU. Not that I don’t think very highly of Tommy Shepard, I do and he’s my MP, or Angus Robertson, but I think that Alyn has the edge by being already in the EU parly set up, and making him Depute, gives credence to our sincerity on the EU.
I actually think, given the Brexit scenario, we should probably have 2 deputes, a UK and Brexit one.
Has that helped, or hindered your decision? ?
TJenny, I’d vote for Mike Russell or somebody like that if he was available, I want somebody combative while our FM remains dignified & a stateswoman and isn’t she good at that.
Maybe Eck will just do the rough stuff anyway.
@ Vambom, buy yer ain knickers!
@ Heedbanger, anent your disapproval of rich guys getting big EU farming subsidies. As usual, I don’t exactly follow your train of thought. The subsidies exist to provide the consumer with cheap food & these guys are obviously in the business of producing cheap food & lots of it! Don’t you want cheap food? EU subsidies are threatened by Brexit big time, we could end up with our farmers completely fucked & knitting barbed-wire jumpers for the tourists. That’s the bigger issue!
Farming is an industry & Scotland’s is very successful under the present set-up. Economies of scale make food production more efficient & that’s the name of the game. Whether large units should be sub-divided is a valid land issue but will it produce more food? Maybe you don’t care how much food costs? you’re certainly a tight bastard when it comes to paying 60p for the National, a paper you claim you don’t buy the bore the arse of everybody dissecting it!
Fred’s off to the Hielans to look at sheep so don’t bother your arse replying!
Fancy that
13 September 2014
Deutsche Bank has compared a possible Yes vote in the Scottish independence referendum to the mistakes which led to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
30 September 2016
Deutsche Bank is under the most pressure a major lender has faced since the financial crisis.
Its woes have been exacerbated by recent sharp falls in the share price – down another 6.7% in the US on Thursday – following a report that trading clients had withdrawn excess cash and positions held in the bank.
Fred’s off to the Hielans to look at sheep so don’t bother your arse replying!
Just scream blasphemer Fred.
Fred 8.29
Just so you’re clear I didn’t make the points I did to have anyone insult Vambombarbely.
But rather to avoid giving examples from other’s who were not in the conversation.
Also to point out that people do notice even when they don’t say anything and it does matter.
Much the same way as they notice goading.
Mostly they just form an opinion,taking account of the information to hand.
Aggressive Internet interaction and the need to urgently find sheep ect…… Thing’s like that.
Arbroath1320 says at 1:53 am
What always seemed suspicious to me is the cleanliness of the white helmets ambulance in the now infamous photo with the wee shell shocked lad sitting in the back of it.
If they are truly working their arses off providing primary trauma care in the worst urban warfare environment since Stalingrad why did it look like it was straight out the wrapper?
No dust, no old staining etc. and I doubt Aleppo still has the mains water required to keep it that clean.
Also any VT I see of them 90% of the time their white helmets are immaculate.
Now compare this with military BFAs (battlefield ambulances) in VT from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine, Central Africa etc. and you will see the difference.
Neil Oliver is an archaeologist, not a historian. Somebody must have thought it would be a good idea to represent Scots as violent white-supremecists. Neil’s your man.
Good to see there’s plenty cash at BBC to produce Scottish historicals.
Rev Stu or fellow wingers, I’m trying to convince a soft no, but they won’t come here directly.
Does anyone have the source for the yearly travel expenses “table” from the “Expressway to Lietown” post?
Ta muchly
Capella @ 9.12
Is it a programme Neil Oliver’s doing I thought it was a book?
Sorry I have only read a couple of these. Been up most of the night coughing, doing a damn fine impersonation of Louis Armstrong this morning
Links
link to auldacquaintance.wordpress.com
oils-spiking-report-opec-reached-deal
link to archive.is
link to evolvepolitics.com
link to blacktrianglecampaign.org
Nissan sets ‘hard Brexit’ compensation condition for new UK investment
link to archive.is
link to energydesk.greenpeace.org
link to thejusticegap.com
Britain-don-t-blame-the-eu-for-your-economic-problems-cer-says
link to archive.is
@ Liz g – see
andrew gordon 12:02 am
Off topic, but just seen a trailer for the BBC of Neil (sweep my hair back ) Oliver fronting a new program investigating Scotlands links and participation with the Klu Klux Klan,WTF, is it just me being paranoid or is fear factor two on defcon 5 already ?
I checked out Ku Klux Klan on Wiki yesterday and searched for Scottish refertences. Happily none except in D.W Griffiths’ film “Birth of a Nation”:
“The Birth of a Nation
Movie poster for The Birth of a Nation. It has been widely noted for inspiring revival of the Ku Klux Klan.
Director D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation glorified the original Klan. His film was based on the book and play The Clansman and the book The Leopard’s Spots, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr.
Much of the modern Klan’s iconography, including the standardized white costume and the lighted cross, are derived from the film. Its imagery was based on Dixon’s romanticized concept of old England and Scotland, as portrayed in the novels and poetry of Sir Walter Scott. “
Better check out Wiki before some serious editing happens!
link to en.wikipedia.org
It’s also worth reading the Wiki entry on Birth of a Nation:
link to en.wikipedia.org
It’ll be interesting to see how BBC Oliver manages to spin that into an anti-indeopendence narrative.
Re the KKK and Scotland,
recently a Good Moaning Scotland propaganda piece had a American woman historian and racial discrimination campaigner on, she was from Tennessee and was discussing the fact that town buildings were flying the confederate flag, Quick as a flash the state propaganda agent using his best BBC training said ” of course we have to discuss the similarity’s with the Scottish flag” and try as he might the woman didn’t understand what the fool was on about, I blame the production team, surely they should tell all gests, ” by the way if we can get some SNP bad in, no matter how ridiculous just run with it”.
Anyhow given that Scott’s have had a amazing impact on the democratic advancement of America, the fact that one of the McCord brothers, who were born in America to American parents, who owned the Citizen newspaper was involved in the first incarnation of the KKK before it got all fire raising in later decade and incarnations.
In fact is that not racist of the BBC? Imagine if I said second or third generation Asians in the UK should be constantly reminded of the actions of their grandparents, or I went up to a young German chap and berated him about the first world war and Bismarck’s Reinsurance Treaty? well he would think me a fool, or a deranged madman.
For Garry at the BBC Google flags with diagonal crosses.
Keith fae Leith For MPs expenses claims go to
link to parliament.uk
Good article by Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp in The National
link to thenational.scot
On BBC GMS now … remember the British Lager Louts booing Alex Salmond at Gleneagles and some folk complain about the Yanks.
Looking back to the images at the start of the thread I can’t understand why Kezia can’t see what a fool she is making of herself.
Putting yourself in her shoes would you put your family in a situation where they have to watch you destroying your credibility for the sake of the lost cause that Labour have become.
The head falling to the side while trying to grin and make a point. I’m not trying to be cruel but she now doesn’t only sound stupid she is beginning to look stupid. No one can sustain the amount of denigration she receives daily without realising it’s time to worry about their health.
Nana:
Good morning,thank for links as usual.
Hope you’re feeling better soon
Peace Always
Andrew McLean @9:59
Maybe the American woman should have said
“but Scotlands Labour controlled cities allow the Orange Order to march through the streets. Possibly the equivalent of the KKK marching down 5th Avenue”
For those wondering how The National would deal with the Chris Law allegatuons – here’s the article. I’ve archived it to spare Rock’s and Heedtracker’s feelings:
link to archive.is
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon backs Dundee MP Chris Law over police cash probe
For those wondering how The National would deal with the Chris Law allegations – here’s the article. I’ve archived it to spare Rock’s and Heedtracker’s feelings:
link to archive.is
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon backs Dundee MP Chris Law over police cash probe
Damned with mad praise. Its interesting how this bollox grabs the tory Courier too.
link to archive.is
And so far, she has had little reward. Labour lost 14 seats in the 2016 Scottish parliament elections, and not just to the auld enemy, the SNP, but a seemingly decrepit one, the Tories. She backed the losing candidate in the recent Labour leadership contest, Owen Smith.
Yet Dugdale has firm fans within Scottish Labour,
Nana@9:32
Nissan’s statement not only makes it clear to the UK what may happen but it also sends out a message to other EU countries of the consequences of leaving. Not sure if companies could trust the UK government to make good on any compensation if Nissan did stay.
‘
They must know what liars run this Union!
Capella says:
30 September, 2016 at 10:42 am
For those wondering how The National would deal with the Chris Law allegations – here’s the article. I’ve archived it to spare Rock’s and Heedtracker’s feelings:
I dont have feelings Capella.
Or, how it works UKOK style,
Scott Arthur ?@DrScottThinks 18h18 hours ago
Cut his pony tail off as punishment!
SNP MP Chris Law questioned over financial dealings –
This subtle change is the National deleting SNP, from the smaller headline, “SNP MP accused of embezzlement etc.” Front page photo of McGarry under photo of Sturgeon is just a non association coincidence ofcourse.
Scott Arthur Retweeted
Gr_eme ?@talkstough Sep 27
Why would a newspaper make this subtle change? To avoid association? Surely not.
(Even if she is an ‘independent’ MP she was elected as SNP)
It is possible to over estimate the IQ of SLab activists.
Scott Arthur ?@DrScottThinks Sep 28
You gotta wonder why Rev Campbell spends so much time waging personal attacks on Kezia Dugdale.
BJ, do you know you could be on to something there!
The KKK dates from December 24, 1865 The current orange order actually dates from 1825, the older bodies that formed it being disbanded. The first OO walk in Glasgow was 1821, so really quite recent not really ancient tradition?
So anyone wanting to contact the KKK and saying they have a right to march in “people of colour” areas as its tradition and anyway they are not actually anti “people of colour” and the cross burning thing and hanging blokes from trees is actually a religious right? Now Red Neck Americans are crazy about tradition, but for all their tobacco chewing, gun toting, cousin marrying ways, I don’t think even they would “Buy That For A Dollar”
Ok I don’t get it? what’s with the sheep thing, why are sheep blasphemers? why would you need to find one in a hurry? why would you feel the need to stare at one? Is it something like “the men who stare at goats”?
Is it a ruminant search for the golden fleece of Scottish politics? A new secret society the Baaad’s?
Come on guys spill the mint sauce!
Explaining the Scottish origins of the ‘fiery cross’ (Crann Tara).
link to cranntara.scot
link to en.wikipedia.org
Westminster Tories invested £2Billion in Nissan in the north of England for electric cars. Where are they?
Westminster Tories invested £2Billion (each?) in two coal plants near Clegg’s – Sheffield constituency. The Tories gave now banned Coal reduction in the UK.
The Tories have tried to destroy the Scottish Oil sector with high tax when the Oil price is low. Losing thousands of jobs and £Billions in Scotland,
Now importing frack US Gas to aid the US economy. Not taxed but hugh investments have been made. Against the majority wishes and the public interest.
Why are SNP politicians being investigated and charged while Unionists are not. The Tories committed electoral fraud in 31 constituencies. Westminster Unionist politicians have committed, fraud, embezzlement, illegal killed and maimed millions of innocent people, molested children, broken the Ministerial code, tax evaded and committed banking fraud. It is swept under the carpet and hidden under the Official Secrets Act. Westminster Unionists are sanctioning and starving the vulnerable and abusing public money, not providing essential services.
Ollie’s no’ happy…
link to imgur.com
The BBC love sticking folk on telly with some letters after their name and declaring them official experts on stuff they actually have no expertise in (Neil Oliver Kevin Hague)
I’m not a medical doctor but if I went on the telly and started diagnosing folks illnesses I’d be quite rightly arrested, how come it’s OK for these guys
A note on history: How many times is history rewritten from differing points of view to make it as irrelevant as a Davie Crocket story or the Bible or worst of all a……….. David Torrance book
Think of our poor schoolkids in the future, what the hell are they going to be listening to and told is the truth
Brian,Peter of Bruys (1117–1131), who burned crosses in protest of the veneration of crosses?
Burnt future
To All is Jeremy Corbin’s Labour is likely to win the next General Election 16%
To All is Theresa May’s Conservatives are likely to win the next General Election 65%
Labour voters, are you likely to win the next General election 16% yes
Labour voters, are the conservatives likely to win the next General election 50% yes.
Kezia, rides Scotland to her doom!
even Labour don’t think labour can win,
@ HandandShrimp says at 10:40 pm …. ”On the deputy leadership vote, I am struggling. I like all of them and every time I make a choice I think “but then again…” Arrrgh. Still, a nice place to be compared to the awful debacle that was the Labour leadership bloodletting. Anyone voted yet?”
It’s a difficult one HandandShrimp as they are all excellent candidates. Following a great deal of deliberation however I’ve voted for Tommy Sheppard, in the main, because he can see that there’s a great need to ‘pull’ Holyrood, the members / supporters together. There’s a ‘gap’, chasm in fact, between Holyrood and members with Holyrood not connecting and utilising the passion and energy of supporters. A good example is watching many people on here striving to ascertain helpful data: Data that could be supplied by Holyrood.
Tommy Sheppard also has ‘time’ on his side with Alyn Smith being caught up in Brussels (out of the country a great deal) and Angus Robertson having to focus on Westminster. Both jobs extremely important and time-consuming in their own right.
Tommy Sheppard also has ‘links’ to Labour (appointed Assistant General Secretary of Scottish Labour under John Smith), a thorough knowledge of Unions / Local Councils, experience of organising / running events such as the Stand comedy clubs in Scotland and England and contacts which could prove to be helpful when organising future events.
He’s also a brilliant orator / spokesperson. An all-rounder in fact. Hope that helps.
Tommy’s Maiden Speech … no need for visual cues.
link to youtube.com
Tommy sorting Nick Robinson out.
link to youtube.com
Awe thurr rid-tied, leathurr-blousinnt labour wans, pinin fur yoan labour shite.
Heedtracker – wull yuv nae dout, git ah bee-in-yurr-bunnet, aboot thoan National. Rev. Stuart Campbell creatit thurr fine thing, sah disnae need ah Scoattish Independence newspaper. Yursell, Rock in ithurrs dae. Yuv moadurn desk-toap publishing, sah set tae in huv us sleverin ower yurr coantent.
Loard ah yoan fuckin flees, isnae an oapshin.
Andrew McLean @ 11.24
Can’t speak for anyone else Andrew,I was only pointed out that to post a comment in an agitated manor and announce that one is rushing off to find sheep,could , potentially say something pretty disturbing about one. Dont you think?
# Not Judging you / Judging you
OT but important I think.
Nicola Sturgeon quoted as saying Brexit will probably end in a constitutional wrangle before Supreme Court judges…
link to archive.is
Ever since I read it, there’s been a tiny but persistent alarm bell ringing.
Sorry. I’m going to be pedantic again about sovereignty, and some of you don’t like it, but like it or not it is vital to get it right.
Scottish sovereignty, as defined and acknowledged in the 14th Century is a popular sovereignty. That means it’s power is drawn from the people. For arguments sake, let me call that red sovereignty, red because it comes from the blood of the people.
English sovereignty is divine. The power is drawn from God, channeled through the monarch, and from there through parliament down to the people. Because it is divine and pure, let me call that white sovereignty.
People are making the assumption that when it comes to sovereignty and Holyrood, that somehow we have red sovereignty mixing with white sovereignty, and that Holyrood is blessed with some kind of pink sovereign amalgamate. I think that presumption is wrong. I think this is a big fundamental error. Sovereignty is an absolute condition. It is the top of the tree; it is the affirmation that nobody rules higher. As such, all you can do with two absolutes is share sovereignty, you cannot mix it. There is simply no such thing as pink sovereignty.
Why does this matter? Because both our MP’s and MSP’s swear fealty to H M the Queen, and that oath is quite simply incompatible with Scottish sovereignty. It is an act which submits that red sovereignty as the lesser sovereign power before a greater white sovereignty, and that is simply irreconcilelable with red sovereignty actually being sovereign. See the problem?
Why does THIS matter? It matters because it turns off the tap on Scottish sovereignty before it even gets to Holyrood. Whatever power Holyrood wields, it cannot be red sovereignty if allegiance has been pledged to a superior, it cannot be pink sovereignty because the two are incompatible polar opposites, which only leaves white sovereignty. “We pledge our allegiance to the monarch who serves God”. Holyrood is thus empowered by a sovereignty from God which is incompatible with Scottish sovereignty wielded by us.
So what does THIS matter? Well, it isn’t just the misty eyed contemplation of ancient manuscripts. Why this matters is because if Nicola Sturgeon does take a constitutional case about Brexit to the judges in the U.K. Supreme Court, there is an issue about whether Holyrood administers any Scottish sovereignty and can act on behalf of Scottish sovereign interests, or whether it is simply a super committee set up and empowered by the white sovereignty of Westminster.
Scotland might very well be entitled to call together a sovereign parliament, but there could be a question mark about whether the Holyrood legislature is actually it.
In a way, it is the same AXA judgement revisited. If the Supreme Court cannot overrule the popular sovereignty of Scotland’s people, then what jurisdiction does a devolved parliament empowered by Westminster’s sovereignty have to claim it is the voice of Scotland’s red sovereignty? Case dismissed m’Ludd.
This means we could have the winning constitutional debate about Scotland’s power to choose its sovereign option, more than sufficient to deliver independence in Europe, only for the case to be lost on the obscure technicality of whether or not Holyrood’s government is legit or merely an instrument of Westminster and not competent to represent the sovereign voice of Scotland in a constitutional argument.
A true representative for Scotland’s red sovereignty is someone chosen by us to be our spokesperson, which IS Holyrood, but who must first forsake all other sovereignties, and therein lies the problem. It is unclear where that places those elected to Holyrood but who could not take their seat until they swore their oath to Queen Bess. There is a big inconsistency which needs careful attention before we head to the Supreme Court. We should have a painfully explicit understanding about what Holyrood technically is and is not, before we invest all of our expectations in its capacity.
Yes, it is pedantic I know. But supreme Courts are pedantic by nature and we might only get one crack at this. If we have to appeal a case thrown out on some technicality, we may be doing so outside of Europe.
It becomes ever more evident that the Unionist media are employing an old tactic of running public opinion up “blind alleys”. They never reach a conclusion ,but hope that suggestion takes you to where they want you to go.
An example of this was Duncan Hothersall on twitter stating categorically that the SNP lied about Labour voting for the fiscal Charter to save £30 billion.in cuts.
What he did not mention was that up until the week of the vote, Labours position was to vote for the legislation.
With two days till the vote. John McDonnel and probably Corbyn decided to oppose the Tory measures, and brought in a three line whip to ensure compliance from Labour.
In the event 21 Labour MP’S failed to attend to vote and the measure was carried.
Lies, deception, slight of hand. That is all they have
Re the deputy leader vote, I have chosen Alyn Smith with second preference the great Mr Shepherd.
A small technical nitpick it’s ‘Depute Leader’ John Swinny is the Deputy leader as was pointed out to me recently.
I agree with a previous post it’s got to be Tommy Shepherd just for his media savvy approach and plans for a good shake up that might just see a better fight back against this tide of propaganda we are being subjected to at present, I would be happy to see all four share the position surely if this is going to be last chance for some time if we don’t win it should be all guns blazing, why not all four?
@petra
I voted for Tommy too and that’s not a bad reflection of the other candidates. They are all impressive,but my reasons for pretty much the same as yours.
The SNP has come in for some unfair stick recently about its engagement with its membership. I think we need to remember how much that membership has increased over the past two years – a nice problem to have but a challenge nonetheless – in addition to running the party and the country!
Yes some restructuring obviously has to take place but Rome wasn’t built in a day and there may be the smal issue of another referendum to fight!
With the above in mind I think Tommy is probably the best candidate. He’s also in Edinburgh and we need to change Edinburgh’s mind. He also mentioned recently in an interview with Derek Bateman about actively engaging with the older population about independence and I like that.
I had a really hard job picking the candidate for Depute. I swithered and changed my mind a few times. Went to a hustings and was very impressed by all.
I voted Tommy too, but will be happy with any of the candidates.
pity there couldn’t be 3 depute leaders – 1 for Scotland, 1 for Westminster and 1 for Europe – so each front is covered by a capable person, that can focus the full weight of his attention there
Dr Scott Arthur thinks Wings is being unfair to Kezia Dugdale by mounting personal attacks on her
The man’s completely wrong most of Wings folk just love Kezia and the way in which she leads the “Autonomous” Labour party Number 9 regional branch in Scotland to it’s total and complete destruction and we want her to keep up the good work for a long time
Even with Alex Rowleys big knife hovering between her shoulder blades
‘re.comments on this programme with wee Neillie the tonsurial tosser presenting guff about the KKK.
If anyone still doubts that the British Government is overtly running a dirty tricks campaign against us..then that is it.
Many of Scots and Ulster Scots immigrants settled in the Southern States before the Civil war and brought their traditions with them..such ad music,legends and their fighting abilities. However the KKK were formed by ex confederate soldiers of diverse origins who based their fucked up ideology on Walter Scott novels and stole the idea of clans and fiery crosses from these books, which were very popular in the US at the time.
Many slave estates were named after these novels e.g Waverley. The slave owners were predominantly of English descent, but not all. The KKK themselves saw themselves as protectors of ‘Anglo Saxon’values..demonstrating their confused ideas of their lineages.
The only verifiable connection with Scottish culture is the Confederate battle flag..selected for its connotations of warlike Scotland and only for that.It’s connection with racism came post war. One last point: only one in four of the confederate troops had slaves and as many of the Scottish diaspora in West Virginia, Tennessee and Pensylvania fought against the South…proving that the picture was not..if you pardon the bad pun black and white.
A few links for afternoon reading
link to indyref2.scot?
link to arcofprosperity.org
link to itisintruthnotforglory.wordpress.com
link to rt.com
@Petra at 12.05pm
Thanks for the Tommy Shepperd links.
Particularly liked the one of our “friend” Nick Robinson being put in his place regarding Scotland’s economy and so called increased deficit from the recent GERs figures.
Tommy put Nick properly in his place by stating that these are not figures for an Independent Scotland but of figures for Scotland as being part of the U.K. which is running up huge deficits, is in an economic mess and this is having the same effect on Scotland’s economics.
This is the reality of GERs which cannot give an economic case for an Independent Scotland only for an economic case for Scotland as part of the U.K. Which as we see is a disaster for Scotland’s current economy.
The Confederate Battle Flag was designed by William Porcher Miles, of French decent,
this is his letter to General Beauregard August 27,1861 explaining his inspiration for the design,
link to tinyurl.com
absolutely no connection to Scotland and our flag,
the KKK of the 20thC was for White `Anglo Saxon` Protestant supremacy.
I’ve also been having a hard time deciding on my choice for Depute, but finally came down for Sheppard because I think his ideas on re-shaping local groups is needed, particularly in view of the increased Membership. We must involve more people at ground level, as we are never going to defeat the ‘propaganda’ machine on their terms.
I also think that we could have had all four to share aspects of the job – missed opportunity, I reckon.
O/T Derek Bateman marks the Green’s Holyrood report card.
link to derekbateman.scot
Business for Scotland on Hinckly Point folly
link to businessforscotland.co.uk
Sinky says:
30 September, 2016 at 1:30 pm
O/T Derek Bateman marks the Green’s Holyrood report card.
Its hard to believe he was naive enough to think the Greens would not pile in with red and blue tories, to get Sturgeon in particular.
From,
“Bold is the word Harvie uses when he talks about pushing the SNP beyond their comfort zone. At the same time, he is clear that the Greens favour constructive opposition…’ Interesting. He is quoted thus: ‘we’ll be able to do more if people have that sense of boldness and elect a parliament with a good strong group of Green MSPs.’
Well, I agree it’s bold – voting with the Tories to back Anas Sarwar and Kezia Dugdale could hardly be anything else when you tell people you’re a radical. And it’s certainly keeping the SNP on their toes. In or out of their comfort zone.
Can’t help but wonder though at those thousands of nationalists lured into handing their second vote to the Greens because they were told they were blood brothers and soul sisters when it appears they may be more like false friends.”
To, Dr NO! who’s a very happy red tory yoonster,
Scott Arthur Retweeted
Scott Arthur ?@DrScottThinks 18h18 hours ago
SNP NHS Cuts: Nicola Sturgeon thinks a quango should be allowed to ride roughshod over the sovereign will of the Scottish Parliament.
Scott Arthur Retweeted
Scott Arthur ?@DrScottThinks 18h
SNP NHS Cuts: Nicola Sturgeon thinks a quango should be allowed to ride roughshod over the sovereign will of the Scottish Parliament.
Capella @ 09:37
If you think Neil Oliver’s programme is a fear smear, wait till you see hereditary broadcaster Dan Snow’s twenty-six part series on how Nicola Sturgeon set up Stalin’s network of gulags.
Sinky @ 1.30
Oooft! Derek Bateman, nailed it. As usual.
Depute Leader – what a pain. To be honest if there was any option that said “any of the above”, I’d tick that to register my full support for the winner, and forget the whole darned thing.
First note, I thought Angus Robertson came across as arrogant, sense of entitlement is a better description. I even said the coming across as arrogant to his face privately afterwards. But I don’t think it is that, as Leader of the Commons he’s often in contact with Sturgeon and knows what’s going on, and he just thinks he’s the best, the safest, likely to be the most supportive, and takes that very seriously.
So with him fully back in the running I looked for possible factors to check up for each candidate and these are the most important for me.
1). Committment to Independence – all of them
2). When they think Indy Ref 2 might happen – I think sooner than later, within the next 2 years
3). Might they get distracted by some personal crusade?
4). How would they come across on TV, could they be railroaded into some disastrous opinion or rant?
4). I’m in it for Indy, not the SNP, so how soon would reorganisation bear fruit, and is it happening anyway? I think yes it is.
5). Could a depute leader make a difference to branches which have their own democracy? Perhaps.
My conclusion is that I either vote for Angus as a safe and experienced pair of hands, ready for Indy Ref 2 already, or take my choice of the other 3 who all have their own merits.
I haven’t decided yet.
Robert Graham says at 12:36 pm
and others,
I agree Tommy Shepherd seems the obvious choice he has previously identified the problem faced from the media.
I also think he can reign in any disconnect between The Membership and the Elected Members MP/MSP/Council (whether actual or perceived).
The SNP need to not fall into the “entitlement trap” that BLiS are still stuck in.
But it is also pleasingly apparent that the SNP unlike BLiS, The Fib Dems & The Ruth Davidson “No Surrender to Referendums” Party have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to having an intelligent and articulate talent pool to chose executive office from.
Lochside
A good few years ago now, I heard the claim of ‘The South is Celtic the North is English’ for the USA often, particularly in
one newsgroup with a majority of ex pats in it.
I decided to test this theory using the, then new, surname map for the USA compiled from telephone user data.
I entered surnames which were common and were typical of Scots, Irish, Welsh and English.
The result surprised me. If anything, the concentration of Celtic surnames was in the North, particularly the New England area paradoxically, where even more surprisingly, the English surnames I used were not concentrated.
Here is an example. I did about 30 surnames of each group.
Me again, that means Angus is 1st or 4th for me I guess, and it does make it easier, as now I can rank the other 3 in order and leave the big decision to last!
With the Tory Party Conference starting Sunday, I wonder who will be the first to pronounce Brexit as Brexshit.
As for “the bone picker and hair flicker” and the KKK.
Apologies as I can’t remember which Winger came up with that name for N.O. to credit them.
Well it appears BBC must trumpeted across the land:
Although modern Scotland is officially less racist post-Brexit when compared to the rest of N.O.s Glorious Britannia, historically Scotland are connected to the worstest (no typo) racists ever!!
Wonder if he’ll do one all about the British Union of Facist’s establishment connections and how some of their members joined the British Free Corps Waffen SS Unit in WWII (probably not enough Scotland Baaaad in it for him though).
I’m sure he can make some up to fit his Imperial Masters agenda if the price is right.
George Galloway ‘to stand for Natalie McGarry’s seat’ as he announces plan for Westminster return
link to archive.is
@Chic
My own rare surname which is possibly Devon ??? in origin is most common in the world in Canada I think, Nova Scotia, but in the UK most common perhaps in Devon and Wales, with the usual travel to work drift elsewhere.
My conclusion is we went to sea, whether voluntary or in chains, no idea. We may have been deported and some escaped 🙂
@ Nana at 9:30am ….
link to evolvepolitics.com
Nana I hope Nicola questions Ruth Davidson about this at the next FMQ’s. The Scots have a right to know what Westminster is planning to do with the NHS (as if we didn’t know already) as it impacts on us.
……………
@ Nana says at 1:12 pm …. link to rt.com
No worry! Great stuff, eh? STILL going on!
Mysterious Fatal Shooting Aboard Jinxed British Nuclear Submarine H.M.S ASTUTE 2011
youtu.be/DOYDyC3wnsI
NuclearInformation An inquest into a fatal shooting …..police investigating the incident were so shocked by binge drinking among the crew that they wrote to military authorities …. discovered that “significant” numbers of the crew were intent on getting “drunk out of their minds” during the visit … Donovan had drunk 20 pints of cider and lager, cocktails and double vodkas in the 48 hours before he was put on a guard duty with a gun, but that his drink intake was not out of the ordinary among the crew….consuming alcohol over an extended period until they passed out and then returned to duty after five or six hours.”
Update: ‘Coroner recommends random alcohol testing for Navy crews.’
The coroner investigating the fatal shooting on board HMS Astute in Southampton in April 2011 will recommend that there should be random breath testing for Royal Navy personnel on duty to prevent similar incidents happening again ….. will also recommend a review of alcohol allowances on board ships and submarines, work to tackle the culture of binge drinking in the Navy.
……………
@ Effijy says at 12:13 am …. ”The Q-Time show generally has a journalist on it, which again means another Tory supporter, or at least a onal pro union rep. Tonight’s journalist, from the Murdoch owned Sun and Times newspapers, and Sky News, revealed, by his actions, that PM May’s New York meeting with Murdoch must have reached agreement that Labour and SNP must be driven into the ground with all his media might. His reward will be revealed later, but not announced. It terrifies me that Murdoch seems to have called each and every election correctly in the last 40 years. That ability to filter, and distort political reality, via his media outlets, means that any UK party hoping to form a government, must agree to anything that he requires.”
Yeah it’s absolutely frightening when you think of the power that Murdoch has. He could make or break our next attempt to get Independence.
On a positive note he’s mentioned on numerous occasions that Scotland should be Independent. I’ve read of his love for Scotland and his loathing for England and a number of English politicians. I wonder what he thinks of Theresa May?
His paternal, Murdoch, ancestors (great x 5) including his grandparents, Patrick Murdoch (b. 1850) and Annie Brown (b. 1856) were Scottish. Patrick and Annie married in Scotland and emigrated to Australia where they had Rupert Murdoch’s father. His grandfather died when Keith (Rupert) was 9 and his grandmother died when he was 14. They both had an great impact on him growing up. His childhood home in Australia, Cruden Farm, was named after Cruden in Scotland where his grandparents had lived and got married. His knowledge of Scottish history is second to none and one wonders what stories he learned sitting on his granny’s knee? He’ll also be VERY aware of how rich Scotland is and how Westminster has been ripping us off.
The love of his life, third wife Anna Torv (father Estonian), whom he was married to for 32 years was born and brought up in Glasgow. Her family emigrated to Australia where she met and married Rupert Murdoch when she was 23. They’ve got three children. Son named Lachlan. How Scottish can you get? They also seemingly spent a great deal of time in Scotland as a family.
One of his two luxury yachts is named Rosehearty as is his home in New York. Rosehearty was the birth place of his great-grandfather, the Rev James Murdoch, who was a Church of Scotland minister.
There’s no doubt that Rupert Murdoch loves Scotland. The question is how much?
The idea that we can pick one out of the four candidates is past its sell by date.
As others have also noted, one party, with three distant and distinct European operations centres, each with major challenges ahead, really needs a good departmental deputy-head in each. Three makes sense – one makes no sense at all.
I rest my case.
@ Call me dave says at 3:19 pm …. ”George Galloway ‘to stand for Natalie McGarry’s seat’ as he announces plan for Westminster return.”
link to archive.is
I’ve been waiting on that one. Next up Galloway for Leader.
@ Liz g
A very good reply and I will take your comments on board.
I have in the past said that the party leaders should just be referred to by their given names. I really don’t see the point of thinking up exotic names for them. It gives them more importance than they deserve.
Personally I am quite proud of the sexual diversity of the Scottish Parliament. I am from a time when two men getting caught could recieve potentialy a life prison sentence. So we have moved on in my life time. As I have said a persons sexuality should not come into the equation or the conversation.
Keep posting Liz you have very valid points.
There does seem to be a rather unpleasant blood and soil tone coming into Yoon discourse more and more. There are undoubtedly links between the Deep South and Scotland via the slave trade and the Confederate army, of which the Irish-Scots made up a significant proportion. A friend’s daughter did a school exchange with a school in Georgia and the students there were very aware of their ancestry. The tenuous links with the KKK are something I had heard suggested before.
However if this is going to be some kind of attempt to suggest that Independence seeking Scots have ingrained racist leanings then Mr Oliver and the BBC should think again. The yoon MSM and Twitterati have used every smear they can think of including low intelligence, poor education, Nazi leanings and now, it seems, overt racism.
They should be very careful what they are doing. The racial intolerance in the UK at present is not coming from Scotland and the Independence movement.
Scot Finlayson @1.22: fascinating document, thanks, particularly for someone who has a weird interest in Scots heraldry. As you say, no mention of our ancient flag.
TEST
Posted a comment re: Galloway but it didn’t show up so will try again:
I see that some links didn’t show up on my last post. Also correction. Anna Torv, Scot, was Keith Rupert Murdoch’s second wife, not third.
……….
‘Mysterious Fatal Shooting Aboard Jinxed British Nuclear Submarine H.M.S ASTUTE .’
link to youtube.com
link to nuclearinfo.org
My comment re Gallowy must be in moderation as it contains a Youtube link.
Apologies in advance as comment will no doubt show 2 or 3 times once Rev Stu has approved it.
The Non Dom tax evader Barclay Brothers who live in splendid isolation, on an island off the coast, milking the UK tax system for all it’s worth. They want Britain out of the EU and the vulnerable dying on the streets. For some greedy multimillionaires enough is never enough. What has it got to do with them? They don’t like foreigners or football. The terraces are empty. Just like their island.
The KKK don’t like themselves. Neither do anyone else. Or Mr Oliver. Another audience failure. Another collossal waste of public money. BBC £2Billion for nonsense. £1/2Million salaries for a few hours occupation.
Anyone who claims that nuclear power is a clean fuel is either delusional or a very greedy con artist.
Mining Uranium ore is an exceptionally dirty business and uses lots of fossil fuels. The work removes vast quantities of Uranium bearing materiel and so it is a fossil fuel intensive operation.
It also releases a lot of radioactive Radon Gas into the atmosphere and leaves behind large quantities of, still radioactive, waste in big spoil heaps, (bings).
That basic materiel is then milled to extract a tiny resource of Uranium and that milling is also fossil fuel intensive work. Then the Uranium ore is processed into pellets which again uses fossil fuels and the transportation of the stuff at each stage uses even more fossil fuels.
All that before the stuff is transported around the World to whatever country has built, using more fossil fuels, a nuclear powered plant or a nuclear powered machine of any type.
Meanwhile, back at the original source of the ore, those spoil heaps are leaching out still radioactive, and water soluble, Heavy Metal contaminants into local watercourses and thus into local domestic water supplies.
Meanwhile, back at the site of the new nuclear reactor, they are still using fossil fuelled power to insert the radioactive pellets into the rods that they will eventually insert into the new reactors core.
So to date they have a legacy of atmospheric Radon Gas, radioactive spoil heaps, contaminated water courses, water tables and domestic water supplies. Not to mention all the CO2 they generated just to get this far.
Then we have the multiple problems of refuelling, treating the spent fuel, then storing and monitoring it for many thousands of years.
Not to mention all the fossil fuels used transporting those radioactive spent fuels, reprocessing of those spent fuels and shifting them around the planet to where ever the various processes are carried out.
But, of course, the process is also a continuous one as the next refuelling of the original reactor will require new ores extraction, new milling of the raw materials, new spoil heaps, new manufacture of pellets that will be put in rods and inserted in the reactor and the use of even more fossil fuels to transport the new, and the spent fuels, around the globe once again.
Get this right, we are still using fossil fuels to transport people to monitor the very first lot of radioactive waste they put into the very first nuclear reactor that was built in this, (dis)United Kingdom.
Nuclear power is, without doubt, the most dirty, polluting and dangerous fuel this old World is ever likely to suffer.
@ScottishPsyche
Well the Yoons will rely on historical ignorance to throw their smears. Not many of the present day Yoons know that the Victorian UKOK Govt had to pay to the US Fed Govt a tidy sum in compensation for the Brit UKOK Govts closet support of the CSA during the American Civil War.
Oh and Nathan Bedford Forest resigned his Grand Wizardship of the KKK and recanted his views on certain topics.
@Ken Sewell says: 28 September, 2016 at 10:37 pm:
“I’m a lurker, have been for a long time. I admit that I have been for some time … “
Aye! Micht weel bi time ye stoappit lurkin aboot then, Ken.
Please let us hear from you more often in future.
Very well said that man.
BBC doing a KKK smear job on Scotland’s really sad. Why not a major BBC history blockbuster on the Scots that built the USA and Canada, even have that Oliver git ponse and posture round the whole North American continent, trying to think up all kinds of ways to weewee all over Scots there?
Capella,
“For those wondering how The National would deal with the Chris Law allegations – here’s the article. I’ve archived it to spare Rock’s and Heedtracker’s feelings:
“First Minister Nicola Sturgeon backs Dundee MP Chris Law over police cash probe”
And you think that headline looks good for the SNP or is neutral?
It is a thouroughly “SNP Bad” headline associating Nicola Sturgeon with alleged wrongdoing by an SNP MP.
Gullible independence supporters can buy The National if they want to.
But it does not support independence, never has and never will.
It is a cash cow for The Herald’s owners. Buy The National and The Sunday Herald if you want to keep The Herald alive.
Great comment Robert Peffers@5.18 about the Nuclear industry.
Copied to my notes, along with your other great comments, to use as ammunition. Thanks.
heedtracker,
“Sinky says:
O/T Derek Bateman marks the Green’s Holyrood report card.
Its hard to believe he was naive enough to think the Greens would not pile in with red and blue tories, to get Sturgeon in particular.”
Is that the same Derek Bateman who, during the independence referendum kept on insisting that the BBC was not deliberately biased?
Is that the same Derek Bateman who, during the independence referendum kept on insisting that the BBC was not deliberately biased?
The independent future of Scotland’s a journey we’re all on Rock. A lot can happen and lot can be said.
Programe on world service in the wee hours of this morning. It was about the third biggest nuclear accident. It was in the Uralis in the late fiftys. Caused by high grade nuclear waste exploding. One of the Russian scientist eventually defected. When he tried to tell the truth. He was poo pooed by the establishment scientist in England. Why! Because England was in the process of developing its own neuclear industry and had had a accident.
At some point Europe should think about fasing out neuclear power. The stuff even with the tightest controls is too dangerous.
With Englands plans we must hope that Scotland is blest with southerly winds.
Wrong way to go freedom of the press wise. Where will it all end?
link to bbc.co.uk
Vambomarbeleye I was talking to a guy in the Isle of Man one day, I asked him what he did for a living, Nuclear Scientist he said, working on ways to store Nuclear Wate at Sellafield, I asked him about safety, he laughed and said they expect a Big Bang one day as she waste is higly unstable.
Rock at 3.56
Gonnie gie’s a break from your utter infantile pish. I find myself laughing out loud now
@ Rock – I buy The National for its support of a range of great independence supporting writers and relevant articles. Alex Salmond recommended buying The National as one way of progressing the Independence movement after 2014.
Of course, Alex Salmond could be an undercover agent for the British Establishment luring we innocent fools into his trap. But so far his mask hasn’t slipped.
You are under no obligation to buy or read it though.
@Lenny Hartley
When I lived on the IOM in the 70’s it was common knowledge that if there was an explosion at Sellafield then the whole of Douglas would be blown away. The harbour had huge fuel depot right at the heart of it. Because of where it was situated it was thought that the fuel depot would explode which would wipe Douglas off the map. 🙁
Vambombarbely @ 3.24 pm
Reply to your post on off topic.
She is SOOOOOOO full of SH1TE!!!!!! It is painful to listen to ?
@ Scott Finlayson & Chic McGregor:Sorry for late reply on Confederate Battle flag. You are right Scott regarding the original flag, but as your article states it was not the author’s choice. More importantly there were several designs after 1861.
The one I referred to is the one developed by 1863. Described thus’ In 1863, during the session in which the Confederate Congress was voting on the 2nd National Flag, William G. Swan of Tennessee’s second congressional district wished to substitute it in the following language:
“That the flag of the Confederate States shall be as follows:
A red field with a Saint Andrew’s cross of blue edged with white and emblazoned with stars.”
I visited the Confederacy Museum in Richmond Virginia many years ago and was advised by staff there that Southerners were aware of the connection between the Scottish saltire and the ‘Stars and bars’. Major Rogers, also a confederate officer was quoted as linking the Scottish saltire in urging the Confederate gov. to adopt it.
As I stated, it had no racialist connotations at the time .It was a battle flag symbolising the Confederacy’s fight to sedeed. It was highjacked by the successive white racists of all origins in the States later on.
Chic, you may well be correct. Present day Scottish diaspora in the States is widespread. But if you go into the Appalachian mountains area of Virginia etc. you will find that there are many Scots and Ulster Scots names there. I was welcomed as a lost ancestor when I visited and people were keen to tell me their Scots ancestry. In Virginia, you can drive through Alexandria, Dumfries and Midlothioan all in the one trip.
@Liz, a phone call to tell me the sheep were in ma gairden up north necessitated a hurried departure for a fencing encounter! Nothin sinister honest!