Wings Over Scotland

That’s a keeper, Chris.

The superlatives just keep on coming!

So true, how these barstewards will strip everything to the bone with incredible shelfeshness.

British Politics is about to show Maggie as being to soft & caring.

OMFG , what has the 2014 NO vote done?

Vulture capitalists right enough

The sky over London is darkening with all the carrion crows and vultures circling overhead. Lovely clear bright air up here though. Let’s keep it that way.

Excellent summary Chris.

Every single member of the cabinet should be in jail. Without exception, each and every one has previous convictions, a record of shady deals, corruption, releasing state secrets, colluding with foreign security agents, against UK interests, fiddling expenses, being sacked whilst in office or a ‘normal’ job, multiple, multiple times.

And then on top of all that we have the clown prime minster, a man with NO democratic mandate, a man repeatedly sacked from multiple jobs, over and over again, a man who lied in pretty much every single job he has had, a man so immersed in corruption and serial lying, he likely no longer knows what the truth really is.

Hey, gobs*te, do-nothing Tory, Davidson, these are YOUR people. Enjoy.

I fully expect the mainstream media to point these FACTS out, at each and every turn ,and in every single interview with them. Not.

Oh my, Chris, that’s a lot of work.

Amazing!

As the ravening raptors gather we are so past the talking stage.
link to thenational.scot
To paraphrase a Johnsonism…Fuck Brexit!

When they run out of corpses to feed on, watch them turn on each other.

It would be great to watch if the repercussions weren’t so dire. How many are waiting to stab Johnson in the back as soon as they get the chance? Just imagine what PM Patel would be like.

The Anlgo-American New Right in Britain, spearheaded by none less than Enoch Powell, found strong allies among the social Darwinism fostered by Britain’s class system.

Brexit: Evolution or Revolution?

Full Professor at Sciences Po CERI, Christian Lequesne specialises on actors and practices of Foreign Policies in the EU, French european policy, as well as foreign services in the world. He is part of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) project called “The UK in a Changing Europe.” Christian Lequesne answers Four Questions on Brexit in an interview by Corinne Deloy (CERI).

How can we explain that the British, or should we say the English, are pulling back into their glorious past and thus going against the trend of the world’s evolution, and that the Conservatives are defending national sovereignty at the expense of the economic liberalism they have always embodied?

link to sciencespo.fr

And if that French stuff isn’t to your taste, here’s some good-old British stuff.

Brexit has its roots in the British Empire – so how do
we explain it to the young?
The EU referendum is the last throes of Empire
working its way out of our systems.

BY SALLY TOMLINSON AND DANNY DORLING
link to geog.ox.ac.uk

Make England Great Again – surely.

If, perchance, an Autumn Westminster general election is called it ought to be, for Scotland, an independence GE. A majority of seats, a majority of the electoral vote and that’s it, done!
The diversionary, temporising contexts of ‘is it legal, is it constitutional, is it democratic’, no more.
We need to drive a tank through these ‘death eaters’.

Re CameronB Brodie @8:41am

The tomlinson and dorling article is an interesting read. Short, accessible and informative.

Recommended because it neatly captures the delusions of superiority required to conquer and sustain an empire, and how those delusions still exist deep in the conciousness of British people.

Thanks, Cameron.

Up the bloody Khyber. 🙁

Perhaps related to the Ministry of all the Talents

In englands glory days

So the Moggy pontificates that all we common people be referred to as esquire.

Well here’s a wee message to The Moggy, from now on you will be referred to as, “Hey you”, as befits an elected servant of the people.

You are not the master and we the servants – you are appointed by us as our servant and it is time you knew your place.

Alister Jackdaw isn’t important enough to perch wi’ the vultures.

Is what my 9:28 was meant to say.

David P
You’re welcome and thank you for clicking. Please share.

Populist referendum: Was ‘Brexit’ an expression of nativist and
anti-elitist sentiment?

Abstract

Was the outcome of the United Kingdom’s ‘Brexit’ referendum to leave the European Union a visible and consequential manifestation of right-wing populism? After all, skepticism in the UK towards the EU predates the recent rise of European right wing populism. Original survey data show, however, that the interaction of nativist sentiment and anti-elitist attitudes, the cocktail of right-wing populism, led to widespread support for Brexit, even while controlling for other factors.

Although hostility to immigrants was an important factor, nativists were particularly prone to vote ‘leave’; if they also did not trust political elites, a crucial element of populism. Further underscoring this explanation is the conditional effect of anti-elite sentiment. The relationship between anti-elite sentiment and support for leaving the EU only exists among those with high nativist sentiment; among those low in nativist sentiment, anti-elite feelings did not increase support for Brexit.

Keywords
Brexit, populism, public opinion, referendum voting

link to journals.sagepub.com

Hahaha Just imagine all the shittings!!!

Where’s a golden eagle when you need one? 😀 😀

The tweet linked-to below has a clip from the ‘Portillo & Guests’ episode where indy was discussed. McLeish and Michael Fry were two of the guests.

It’s only 14 mins or so and the full version isn’t on YT. BBC say it ‘isn’t available’.

Did anyone happen to make a copy?

I don’t remember ever seeing it here on Wings but it’s hard to imagine it was missed. Truly toe-curling stuff but it exposes the attitudes we’ve been discussing, shows just how the ‘vultures’ view us Scots.

link to twitter.com

Great work Chris – as always!

How can anyone now doubt the dramatic swing to the right in Westminster Politics. The inward focused arrogance and the insulting behaviour towards other European Nations is appalling.

I hate to even consider the future of Scotland under these people if we do not achieve Independence.

It doesn’t take a spy satellite to see that Johnson, Trump and Farage, the Leave Vote team, featuring Dominic Cummings, and a very large wad of money from the US and Russia, not to mention Cambridge Analytica and/or its replacement, have come together to radically change how the UK is governed, and in a very bad way.

Right now, we are only seeing the beginning, but it’s enough to work out where the UK is heading. The Brexit avalanche is still powering its way downhill with no sign of stopping. Yet many have their heads in the sand, hoping perhaps that Brexit will all blow over soon, or have bought into the Johnson phenomenon and actually believe his totally false promises of a glorious new Britain – in 2050. Talk about pie in the sky?

As for Scotland’s No voters, wearing their ‘we’re British’ sunglasses, time is running out. The UK Titanic is sinking slowly but surely, and before it goes under, they will be forced to choose between saving themselves and jumping ship, or going under.

IndyTime is upon us. Scotland will soon be Independent at last. The Scottish government has done its best to save Brexit Britain, but the Tories and the Brexiters are having none of it. Scotland has no choice now but to leave the stricken ship behind. England is ten times the size of Scotland by population. They’re big enough to take care of themselves. They want Johnson and the rest. Let them have them.

Casting off. All aboard.

Political Cartoon at its finest. Manx Radio this morning playing s sound clip of the Trump saying what a great guy esquire Pfeffel is and that they have started work on a trade deal together. This as we know is breaking EU agreements which state that no new trade agreements should be discussed until after brexit is concluded. Add to the 37 billion of so esquire Pfeffel has promised for a railway linking yorkshire with Manchester airport and other recent spending commitments have no doubt despite yesterday’s denials that there will be a GE before October 31, this will run down the clock so that a haed deal brexit cannot be avoided despite the best endeavours of Parliament.
Hope every body has a good day at Campbelltown , hope the ructions in AUOB and potential weather does not have an adverse impact on attendence.

Here’s one for those who deny racism played a significant role in producing the full-English Brexit. I’m certainly not unconcerned about the plight of the ‘white’ working-class, I’m just aware they were primed and ‘gamed’ by the seamier side of the Establishment (see austerity and the Maybot’s “hostile environment”).

Social Darwinism sought to strengthen Britain through “scientific racism”. This lot simply want to take us back to the social Darwinism of the “Golden Age” of late 19th century imperialism, when folk with ‘dark complexions’ new their place.

N.B. Eurosceptiscism is a central component of contemporary English/British nationalism. It is largely absent in Scottish ‘nationalism’.

Britain After Brexit: A Nation Divided

Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin

Robert Ford is professor of political science at the University of Manchester. Matthew Goodwin is professor of politics at the University of Kent and senior visiting fellow at Chatham House. They are coauthors of Revolt of the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Britain (2014).

On 23 June 2016, the United Kingdom voted 52 to 48 percent to leave the European Union.i The vote for “Brexit” sent shockwaves around the world, rocking financial markets and rekindling global debates about the power of populism and nationalism, as well as the long-term viability of the EU. Aside from calling attention to challenges to mainstream liberal democracy and international integration, the vote for Brexit also highlights the deepening political divides that cut across traditional party lines in Britain and now threaten to further destabilize an already crumbling two-party system.

On one level, the shocking result served as a powerful reminder of the sheer force of Britain’s entrenched Euroskeptic tradition and of the acrimonious splits among the country’s political elite over Britain’s relationship with Europe. But on a deeper level, Brexit should also be seen as a symptom of longer-term social changes that have quietly been reshaping public opinion, political behavior, and party competition in Britain as well as in other Western democracies….

link to research.manchester.ac.uk

Johnson and his Brexiters want to leave the EU at no cost to themselves. They still want their cake and eat it at the same time. They want to leave those aspects of being in the EU they don’t like, but to keep the parts they do like. They want stuff without having to pay for it. This is Brexit’s fundamental fantasy. This is the British mentality – superior, arrogant, entitled, contemptuous. Oh, and angry and perplexed when other nations don’t bend the knee in deference to England and its upper classes.

“Boris Johnson tells Merkel EU must abandon backstop if it wants Brexit deal
Boris Johnson has had a telephone call with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. According to the Downing Street read-out, Merkel got exactly the same message about how the backstop must go that Emmanuel Macron received. (See 12.38pm.) A Number 10 spokesman said:

The PM today received a call of congratulations from German chancellor Angela Merkel. They agreed to continue to strengthen our bilateral relationship, and to work together closely on foreign policy and security issues.

On Brexit, the PM said that he would be energetic in reaching out as much as possible to try to achieve a deal, but he reiterated the message he delivered in the House of Commons yesterday: parliament has rejected the withdrawal agreement three times and so the UK must fully prepare for the alternative – which is to leave without a deal on October 31.

He said the only solution that would allow us to make progress on a deal is to abolish the backstop. The PM and chancellor agreed to stay in contact.”

Colonel Ruth Davidson, must be absolutely livid for a second time (First Fluffy sacked) as Boris bypasses her loyal unionist minion Scots Tory MP’s, and appoints Worcester MP Robin Walker, an Englishman as Under secretary at the Scotland office.

Davidson and the Scottish Tory branch office are becoming more irrelevant by the day in Scotland.

Ermine Vermin Annabel MacNicoll Goldie, Baroness Goldie, has jumped at the chance to serve under Boris, proving that Tories have that need to implement or help push forward far right policies, they can’t help themselves.

The appointment of Robin Walker to the Scotland Office is a crystal clear statement by Johnson that he regards Scotland as having no formal rights nor even an informal right to consideration. It shows that the warnings many of us have made regarding the Tory ambition to scrap the Scottish Parliament were not unrealistic.

In his blog James Kelly points out that the argument that Johnson merely wanted to appoint someone who won’t lose their seat overlooks the fact that Scottish peers have often filled posts in the SO in the past and one could have been chosen this time.

People who were soft No voters in 2014 and still haven’t switched ought to start reading the signs about where this degenerate government of ultra rightists would take Scotland.

Bring back John Major!!!!

That lot do not have the patience to be vultures, and that will be their undoing.

Robin Walker tweets that he’s delighted to be made minister for the union. He doesn’t even mention the name Scotland in his tweet. He does however use the now almost obligatory phrase “the precious union”. They clearly have no idea how ridiculous that term sounds to Scots.

I’d bet that almost no one in Scotland has any idea of what life is like in Eton. And I’d bet that almost no Etonian has any idea of what life in Scotland is like. Except perhaps for the salmon fishing, the grouse shooting, deer stalking, whisky and oil. And more oil. Much more oil. Lots and lots of oil.

Haggerty, on the BBC the “nationalists” are worried by Swinson.

Haggerty, Swinson is the Tories pal. She votes with them, she sides with them. Haggerty obviously ok with that.

Shereen …. oh Boris ( not Johnson) comes to Glasgow on Monday. Let’s see what he offers us.?

Us? Shereen who are you referring too? The state broadcaster? The middle classes of Newton Mearns?

“Us” I think doesn’t include my family, friends or me.

Ruth Davidson is LIVID at Boris apparently. Read the front page of The Times – fascinating. It explains that Mundell is one of the group of four most trusted advisors and that she refers to him as her ‘work husband’ and has asked him to officiate at her wedding.
The article goes on to say that Mundell was so confident that he would be staying in the job that he hadn’t packed up his stuff and had to watch it be removed in black bin liners.
Karma.

Boris may be many things but he aint daft. He is surrounding himself with loyal people and Davidson and Mundell, and all the other Scottish Tories, with their ‘Operation Arse’ to try and prevent his premiership, have proven where their loyalty lies and it is not to Boris.
By making himself Minister for the Union he is basically saying I’m in charge now and Annabel Goldie will be my Scottish Advisor now, thank you.

The ‘Ruth for First Minister’ dream has vanished and she knows it. Boris thinks he won’t need the Scottish tories or the DUP.
Wouldn’t be surprised if he establishes Direct Rule in N.I. and puts the border in the Irish Sea.

Fantastic cartoon – and clever word play. Double ace!!

CameronB Brodie says:

the full-English Brexit was largely rejected in Scotland. I’ve no proof, but I suspect that most Scots who voted to leave the EU, support the yoonyawn.

I agree. That demographic of better off, older, ‘British’, Tory exists throughout the UK and would largely vote Leave. I think in England another group of non urban disaffected working class voters also voted Leave. That didn’t happen in Scotland to anything like the same extent.

Angela Haggerty opportunist Scot:

The cringe is strong in this one, because of her lack of education and self embarrassment at the sound and accent of her own voice she tries extra hard to speak English (grammatically like Willie Miller) which makes her sound embarrassingly more silly than if she just relied on natural intelligence

But that unfortunately is something one can’t learn

Willie Miller however is intelligent so doesn’t care about his lack of grammar

See the difference, it’s not how you sound, it’s who you are and Willie doesn’t cringe

Watched report with Trump talking about trade deal being done with so called ‘Great Britain’ but curiously he added the following :

“And some people remember a word you don’t hear too much is the word England – which is a piece of it. But with the UK we could do much much more trade. And we expect to do that okay.”

So “”And some people remember a word you don’t hear too much is the word England”….England ?….make of that what you will…really weird thing to say….who prompted dumbass to add this little gem….laughable when one thinks how much this idiot goes on about his “Scattish” mother yet so easily trolls and dismisses Scotland…wow money and power wrapped up in corruption really is everything to them……this was not a throwaway statement there was definitely something behind this…yes I know he speaks a lot of sheeite but this WAS oh so very much a calculated statement….but WHO prompted him to make it ?

Johnson probably wants to even ditch Alister Jack after a wee while and make Robin Walker the Secretary of State. Which would mean he would be the Worcester SoS.

I just watched the Portillo chaired debate on Scottish Independence.
A truly English viewpoint and McLeish made me feel sick with his grovelling sychofantic behaviour.
Once again the “subsidised Scots myth” went unchallenged.

One speaker in Scotland’s corner. The rest mocking the very idea that the English would even miss them.

The arrogance that nuclear WMD would remain in Scotland typified the whole debate.

Afternoon Bob Mack, good shout…

The film “The Dark Crystal ” exemplifies the forces now in charge. Howvever there is no good side to these particular monsters running the country. What we see is what we get. All bad.

Here’s the tory top table
link to youtube.com

ps Anne Widdecombe makes a guest appearance 🙂

So Boris is coming to Glasgow on Monday….perhaps a wee gathering to welcome him with the chant of “send him back” a la Trumpetistas might deliver Scotland’s message to him!

.
Mr Cairns,

Your work always makes me smile. It always makes me think about politics and life.

Also…

Your pictures paint ten thousand words.

I would like to buy you a pint one day for all the good works you do.

Thank you.

Al.

I’m not simply bumping my gums when highlighting the social Darwinism that is now in cabinet. I do know a bit about how scientific racism and biological determinism shaped the social sciences, eventually leading to eugenics and the holocaust. Subsequently, I think this government is definitely shaping up to be a lot more regressive than Thatcher. The thing is, Thatcher wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she wasn’t born into privilege. I don’t think she was a social Darwinist, more an aspiring, middle-class, psychopath. She knew fuck all about the economics of liberal democracy, that’s for sure.

Social Darwinism in Anglophone Academic Journals:
A Contribution to the History of the Term

Abstract

This essay is a partial history of the term “Social Darwinism”. Using large electronic databases, it is shown that the use of the term in leading Anglophone academic journals was rare up to the 1940s. Citations of the term were generally disapproving of the racist or imperialist ideologies with which it was associated.

Neither Herbert Spencer nor William Graham Sumner were described as Social Darwinists in this early literature. Talcott Parsons (1932, 1934, 1937) extended the meaning of the term to describe any extensive use of ideas from biology in the social sciences. Subsequently, Richard Hofstadter (1944) gave the use of the term a huge boost, in the context of a global anti-fascist war.

….During the Second World War the use if the term “Social Darwinism” increased to unprecedented levels. In the context of the Allied war effort against fascism, Hoftstadter’s (1944) classic critique of “Social Darwinism” downplayed the previous association of the term with militarism and accented its other connotations.

Hofstadter also added impetus the argument of Parsons that the social sciences should sever all links with biology. He also portrayed Spencer and Sumner as leading “Social Darwinists”, and the description stuck. He lumped together all sorts of views under the vaguely defined label “Social Darwinism” and failed to note the crucial differences in both analysis and orientation between Darwinism and Spencerism.

In contrast to the period before 1940, the term “Social Darwinism” was no longer prominently associated with the advocacy of war. It was more prominently used to connote competition, racism and the use of biology in social science. These results are consistent with the revisionist accounts of Bannister (1979), Donald Bellomy (1984), and others. They support the verdict that the label of “Social Darwinism” has harbored a number of myths. The label associated Darwinism with a number of particular ideological propositions that do not follow logically from this scientific theory. Such misinterpretations were aided by the limited assimilation of Darwinian theory prior to the First World War (Bowler, 1983, 1988).

Instead, if rarely, the term was originally and principally applied by anarchists, socialists and pacifists to varied political views that they opposed (Bannister, 1979). By the 1940s, widespread political sentiments, from anarchists such as Kropotkin, through liberal free traders such as Spencer and Sumner, to more militant nationalists, and racists such as Haeckel, were all conflated together under the single, misleading label of Social Darwinism.

A theoretical position cannot itself be completely evaluated
simply in terms of the political views of its proponents. On the contrary, no matter how distasteful (or attractive) the political views of individuals proposing a theoretical analysis, this has no bearing on whether the theoretical explanation of cause and effect is actually true or false. The choice of priorities for scientific research is partly and unavoidably a political decision. But the scientific evaluation of scientific theories or results is not.

Not only have multiple insights been rejected on the grounds of the obnoxious political views (perceived or actual) of their proponents, but also a whole tradition of attempting to apply Darwinian ideas to social science, or to gain insight from biology concerning the human condition, has been consigned to obscurity. This is despite the fact that the political views of many of the promoters of evolutionary ideas in the social sciences – Kropotkin, Ritchie,
Veblen and Ward included – were far from individualist or conservative. All have been casualties of the ongoing campaign against “Social Darwinism”, and the attempt to remove any discussion of biology from social science.

link to ecpr.eu

I’m green with jealousy. my Gove as an owl was crap compared to your Gove as a vulture.

The indy movement is lucky to have you Chris.

Capella 12.40pm. I think every man and his dog knows that ofcom and their ilk are just westminster Quangos/mouthpieces.

Beware of Boris the Johnson!

They will try to extract and he will drink your essence…

link to youtube.com