Kezia Dugdale Fact Check, Part 680
It’s the holidays, so the papers are desperate to fill space and the political parties are all trying to help out by sending them helpful press releases which can be slotted directly onto pages, titled “PARTY X CONTINUES TO SUPPORT POLICY Z WHICH IT HAS ALWAYS SUPPORTED. ALSO, THE OTHER PARTIES ARE BAD”.
Scottish Labour’s contribution is a piece in most papers today reiterating their demand for the Scottish Government to hike the top rate of income tax – a policy on which Labour stood at the last Westminster and Holyrood elections and which was quite stupendously comprehensively rejected by voters, but which Labour inexplicably feel the SNP should implement anyway.
And that’s all very well and good, because Kezia Dugdale gets paid the best part of £80,000 a year by taxpayers and she’s got to say something all day to justify it. The trouble, as we’ve noted at great length on this site, is that so many of the things she says aren’t actually true.
For example, today’s article says this:
Unfortunately, it only takes until the next paragraph to find out it’s wrong.
We could also quibble with the term “super-rich” being defined as anyone who was on £150,000 a year (the threshold for the top tax bracket) – it’s a very handsome salary indeed, but we’d prefer to save “super-rich” for the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo or JK Rowling who earn that much in a day, rather than someone who’s on less than twice what Kezia Dugdale gets without even being elected – but we’ll let that one slide.
The more interesting bit came next.
Because it turns out that’s only true until you check the small print.
In fact the average basic-rate taxpayer has, according to the figures, seen their income rise much more sharply than their wealthier counterpart – by 15% over the period rather than 9%. (And remember, that excludes people who used to be basic-rate payers but have done so well they’ve moved into a higher bracket.) In percentage terms the gap is narrowing, not widening.
Of course, in absolute terms 9% of £150,000 is considerably more than 15% of £28,000. (To be precise it’s a £13,500 increase over the seven-year period compared to a £4,200 one.) In that sense only, the gap HAS increased. But unless Dugdale is proposing hiking the minimum wage to £100 an hour there’s not much anyone can do about that.
That, though, is a highly misleading measure. The arithmetic of the situation is that a lower wage increased by a higher percentage is in real terms catching up on the higher wage, not falling further behind.
To illustrate, let’s take the two average salaries and apply a 1% annual rise to the top-rate worker on £150K and a 2% annual rise to the basic-rate worker (we’ll bump them to £30K a year to make the sums simpler).
We start, then, with Worker A on five times Worker B’s salary (before tax). But after 25 years of those increases we end up with:
Worker A: £192,000
Worker B: £49,000
Worker A is now only 3.9 times as wealthy as Worker B, rather than five times. The gap has in any meaningful sense narrowed, even though in absolute pound terms it’s now £143,000 rather than £120,000.
So not only have more people moved into the higher tax bracket – which one might reasonably suppose Labour would regard as a good thing – but the collective wealth of the nation has in reality been redistributed (albeit slowly) in favour of those workers still in the lower bracket. After another 25 years we’ll be at:
Worker A: £247,000
Worker B: £81,000
Which will be a ratio of just 3 to 1 compared to our 5-to-1 start point. If we continue the process for long enough, clearly the two workers will eventually be getting paid the same. (And if we carry on still further, Worker B becomes richer than Worker A.)
It therefore makes no logical sense to say the gap is widening, when the end point is the two lines meeting and crossing over. Indeed, the exact opposite is the truth. We wish that wasn’t the conclusion of quite so many Kezia Dugdale Fact Checks.
.
Previous Kezia Dugdale Fact Checks: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]
To be fair , Rev , it is Easter so Kezia is trying to resurrect her moribund party .
Jeez, basic arithmetic – whatever will you think of next Wings?
So basically:
Tories – Your taxes are too high
Labour – Your taxes are too low
Libdems – Wheeeeeee!
All of them – SNP should do what we say and by the way, you’re still bad regardless.
SNP and Greens – *shrugs and sighs*
All nonsense of course. However it is better than nothing I suppose when you have nothing else in your locker.
Simple process. Take a story, any story, think how you can try to turn it into SNP bad by any means fair or foul.
This of course demands great concentration whilst you blithely ignore that the Tory government are at the same time turning the UK into one of the most rigid heartless countries on the planet. ( for a supposedly developed nation ) that is.
How to switch off from that to vilify a Scottish government that actually tries to protect the disadvantaged in society is some feat of mental dexterity. But then again Unionists seem quite accomplished at that very thing.
Awe naw Kez, you’ve been letting Jackie Baillie dae the sums again. Flaming Nora.
With the rising from the dead of this Labour policy I assume a second rising from the dead can be expected any day now. I refer, of course, to the Federalism of this “great” *cough* United *choke* Kingdom.
All puns in this post are purely intentional. 😀
Does it really matter what Dugdale says, or thinks? I’d be surprised if she’s still there by the end of next month. To be replaced by another daftie.
Aye Marie Clark, after every other arithmetical cock-up they still insist on using Jackie B’s, ‘Idiots Guide to Primary School Arithmetic’, LOL. They never learn – thank goodness.
Auld Rock
Ach! What more can you expect when the party ammo magazine is almost empty except for an old pair of boxing gloves and a well chewed gum-shield. When the party calculator is Jackie Baillie’s Abacus and the party stationary is a yellow sticky-notepad and a big box of undelivered Indyref1 leaflets printed in London.
BTW: For history buffs, and those who were taught that Scots came from Ireland, I left the link below on the tail-end of the last topic. It may be an eye opener for some.
It is a stunning 1 hour documentary on Roman Scotland. That kills off a good few historic myths. Well worth a view.
link to youtube.com
Sadly, blatant lying is the accepted norm for all parties & politicians except of course the snp who are attacked mercilessly for the most trivial of transgressions. Kezia Dugdale is just doing what unionists do. She probably sees how successful Lyin’ Ruth has been (well, compared to her) Hopefully labour get wiped out at the local elections to send them into further turmoil & chaos.
Sorry for going O/T so early folks but just in case anyone hasn’t heard there is a threat of strike action at Holyrood!
link to archive.is
“Macart says:
17 April, 2017 at 1:11 pm
So basically:
Tories – Your taxes are too high
Labour – Your taxes are too low
Libdems – Wheeeeeee!
All of them – SNP should do what we say and by the way, you’re still bad regardless.
SNP and Greens – *shrugs and sighs*”
Ahem, the Greens are with Labour on your taxes are too low.
The SNP are on their own on this issue.
If the scots came from Ireland, then , where did the irish come from, and where did the people come from that the irish came from, does it matter anyway, its just a bit of curiosity, it has no real relevence to anything, we are what we are, and that cannot be changed by anything, and for what its worth…. who really cares !
David Caledonia says:
17 April, 2017 at 1:56 pm
If the scots came from Ireland, then , where did the irish come from, and where did the people come from that the irish came from
Well as the Scots came from Ireland then it quite naturally follows that the Irish came from Scotland … OBVIOUSLY! 😀
The people that the Irish came from came from God’s country … OBVIOUSLY! 😀
Meanwhile back in the London Media Swamp an alleged journalist in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday stated (no laughing at the back) that ‘Theresa May is one of the most popular Prime Ministers with which the nation has been blessed’ or words to that effect.
And the moment the SNP ever agreed to Kezza’s demand then red and blue Tories would be shouting from the rooftops, “Scotland highest taxed place in the UK and even the whole of the whole wide world. Ever!”
(Note: I didn’t include the orange Tories there because they would still be shouting “Wheeeeeee!!”)
Long story short, the Nazis pulled the same walkout shit in the Reichstag on their rise to power. Only difference is they had enough seats to be pivotal in any decisions being made.
@george wood
Aye, they were and are critical of the tax plan, but backed the budget eventually.
At least on the income tax issue, Kezia wants the opposite from Ruth! Although clearly Kezia is numerically challenged.
Well, perhaps they aren’t opposites because both want the SNP to make a mistake.
Talking of Kezia almost always backing up Ruth these days, will they both walkout of Holyrood together when ScotRef is called?
Can’t see the point. Surely they will have to resign which would mean by-elections in the constituency seats. Tories have 7.
Rev, you are applying common sense and
Proven Arithmetic to grumblings from pretend
Scottish Labour Party, who pretend to be a Socialist party.
Jackie Baillie:
The Squawker the size of a Hippopotamus
is equal to the Squawkers in the other Westminster sides.
Pie charts R Us!
galamcennalath says:
17 April, 2017 at 2:38 pm
Talking of Kezia almost always backing up Ruth these days, will they both walkout of Holyrood together when ScotRef is called?
Can’t see the point. Surely they will have to resign which would mean by-elections in the constituency seats. Tories have 7.
Now wouldn’t that just round off a pleasant afternoon in the near future. 🙂
I don’t know if they would have to resign but do hope that is the case and she hasn’t quite grasped that simple point … yet! 🙂
The possibility of 7 new M.S.P.’s, some not even Tories has me all a slavering at the mooth. 😀 Sadly we’d just have a load of replacement Tory Listers though. The up side of this would of course we’d finally be shot of rent a gob Fraser!
Please … please …. PLEASE someone confirm that when the Tories walkout of Holyrood they MUST resign! I would LOVE to see how BBC/SKY/MSM would cover that story … oops I forgot it would be another “A big boy made me do it then ran away … SNP BAAAD!”
[…] Wings Over Scotland Kezia Dugdale Fact Check, Part 680 It’s the holidays, so the papers are desperate to fill space and the political […]
@David Caledonia says: 17 April, 2017 at 1:56 pm:
“If the scots came from Ireland, then , where did the irish come from.”
The Ice Ages wiped everyone out, (if there was anyone to begin with). The Irish came from the same places as the rest of the Britons. When the last Ice-Age saw the ice retreat we know there was a low rich land we now call, “Doggerland”, in what is now the North Sea.
We also know that there was a rocky ridge that held back the cold Polar waters and that the ridge breached and slowly flooded the rich low Doggerland that connected to mainland Europe.
The nearest bit of Doggerland, (it now lies under the North Sea), is just around 25 miles from an archaeological dig at a large Stone Age settlement at Howick in the North of England.
This shows that the previously claimed Stone Age Hunter-Gatherers were concurrent with the early farmers who had settlements. At Howick genetic tests of nearby English Peoples astonishingly found a female, living just a few miles from the dig, was a direct descendant of a Stone-Age person whose remains were found at the Dig.
Doggerland, and not the English Channel, was the link between Britain and the European Mainland.
Most Britons are descended from the former residents of Doggerland who obviously would have moved from the rich plains to the higher, now mountainous, area that was then almost impenetrable Great Caledonian Forest and in the Greenwood Forests that covered what became England. We know that back then the main superhighways were the waterways and seas and the land was forest.
@Arbroath1320 says:
17 April, 2017 at 2:02 pm
@David Caledonia
============================
I don’t think anyone ever taught that “Scots came from Ireland” as that implies a pretty empty place until Scots invaders came along, which is of course nonsense. What is true is the peoples of our country adopted the name “Scots” which was once applied to Irish, or a grouping of the Irish, some of whom did come to what is now Scotland in ancient times. That coming of course was part of a long time interchange of peoples, at a period when the best transport was by water, that went on between Ireland and Scotland for centuries. Along with already existing peoples on the West coast and islands of Scotland they formed a grouping that may have been known as Dalriada. They later merged with Picts and Britons (and others) to form Scotland. That’s far from the whole story but the name “Scots” gradually came to be accepted by and applied to this emerging nation. Of originally some of these peoples, Scots, Picts, etc. never called themselves by the names we now apply to them, these being names given to them by others.
So according to slab eejits when a political party gets elected or wins an election they should implement slabber policy.
Has anybody explained to the poor things that is not how it works and that if they want their policies implemented they have to win an election first.
It is as if they think they won or that they can not come to terms with the fact they are irrelevant.
We slabbers demand…. Scotland – get lost eejits nobody cares what you think.
Once labours trouncing in May can we maybe just ignore labour and lib dems pronouncements and attack the tories full stop.
Doubters will join us.
@Arbroath1320 says: 17 April, 2017 at 2:02 pm:
“Well as the Scots came from Ireland then it quite naturally follows that the Irish came from Scotland … OBVIOUSLY!
The people that the Irish came from came from God’s country … OBVIOUSLY! “
Believe it or not you are probably correct, Arbroath1320.
Very recent Archaeological digs on some Scottish sea stacks and, hard to land on, uninhabited islands off the Scottish coast have found that artefacts dug up there predate similar artefacts found in Ireland.
This indicated one of two things. Either you are correct and the Irish did come from what became Scotland or, much more logically and likely, the tribe known as the Scots inhabited the costal areas around what we now call the Irish Sea.
Think of it like this – if the land was rough and forested, and mainly impenetrable, (and most of the earliest signs of habitation are certainly on sea shores), the water was far easier to navigate than cutting your way through dense forest.
So the early settlers in Britain would have spread inwards from the shores. The early Stone-Age farmers must have cleared forest in order to graze animals and plant crops.
@gus1940 says: 17 April, 2017 at 2:12 pm:
“Meanwhile back in the London Media Swamp an alleged journalist in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday stated (no laughing at the back) that ‘Theresa May is one of the most popular Prime Ministers with which the nation has been blessed’
Yeah! Well! gus1940, I see that as being like, “The Curate’s Egg”, – ‘Good in parts’, and few of the good parts are outside the deep south of England.
Robert Peffers says:
17 April, 2017 at 3:16 pm
@Arbroath1320 says: 17 April, 2017 at 2:02 pm:
“Well as the Scots came from Ireland then it quite naturally follows that the Irish came from Scotland … OBVIOUSLY!
The people that the Irish came from came from God’s country … OBVIOUSLY! “
Believe it or not you are probably correct, Arbroath1320.
WHIT?
You can NOT be SERIOUS Robert.
You mean when I put up attempted funny remarks I’m actually being SERIOUS! Well I never.
*walks away shaking head heading for Darkened Room* 😀
Sadly Kezia’s party is no longer a significant a player in Scotland. Even when they were they did little for us north British anyway.
Hopefully a real Scottish Labour will appear in an independent Scotland. We need sensible opposition to make government accountable. I say this as an SNP supporter.
To stir the mix a wee bit further, some well known Irish names have Spanish origins, EG Boyle. These settlers occupied small Islands on the north west coast and had nothing to do with the Armada wrecks. My Great Grandmother was Spanish and how she got from Spain to Donegal is a Mystery to me.
So now it seems Lloyds bank is off to Berlin. Brexit is wonderful isn’t it. Interestingly, they also looked at moving to Dublin – you know that city in the little independent country, Ireland, with a population about that of Scotland, but that is WITHIN the EU.
How much economic damage will the morons in Westminster do before the people of England wake up.
Following up on my wee link earlier re Ruthie threatening to take her ba’ and walk oot of Holyrood. Someone on Twitter has just pointed out that they may be contravening Code of Conduct for MSPs – Volume 3, Section 7: General Conduct and Conduct in the Chamber or in Committee.
7.1 Members of the Scottish Parliament are accountable to the Scottish electorate who will expect them to carry out their Parliamentary duties in an appropriate manner consistent with the standing of the Parliament and not to engage in any activity as a member that would bring the Parliament into disrepute.
link to parliament.scot
When God created the world on the day he finished he populated Scotland with Scots to go forth and colonise the rest of the world spreading peace and love, and we have been loving ever since.
In the beginning, The Lord God Almighty, sitting on His throne on high, turned to His mate, the Archangel Gabriel and said “Gabby, today I’m going to create Scotland. I will make it a country of dark beautiful mountains, purple glens and rich green forests. I will give it clear swift flowing rivers and I will fill them with salmon. The land shall be lush and fertile, on which the people shall grow barley to brew into an amber nectar that will be much sought after the world over. Underneath the land I shall lay rich seams of coal.In the waters around the shores there will be an abundance of fish and beneath the sea bed there will be vast deposits of oil and gas”.
“Excuse me Sire”, interrupted the Archangel Gabriel, “Don’t you think you are being a bit too generous to these Scots”?”Not really”, replied the Lord, “wait ’til you see the neighbours I’m giving them”.
@stu mac says: 17 April, 2017 at 3:02 pm
“I don’t think anyone ever taught that “Scots came from Ireland” as that implies a pretty empty place until Scots invaders came along”
Sorry to say but they did teach that, or at least never made it plain what the truth was.
” … That coming of course was part of a long time interchange of peoples, at a period when the best transport was by water,”
That’s pretty much it, Stu Mac, except quite recent digs on very difficult to get to Sea Stacks and steep rocky islands off Scottish shores have established that artefacts there pre-date those in Ireland. Which could indicate the early movement was from the main island to the island of Ireland.
Anyway the consensus seems to be that the tribe known as the Scots were distributed all around the Irish Sea. Factually the shortest distance, even today, is less than 25 miles between the two countries at its shortest point.
” … grouping that may have been known as Dalriada. They later merged with Picts”
I think the term, “Picts”, was coined by the Romans as a generic term for the many northern tribes.
Tories say the referendum is baaad so they try to turn the local elections into a referendum on the referendum.
Tories accuse the Scottish government of wanting to create a constitutional crisis and then threaten to walk out of Holyrood en masse thereby creating a [small] constitutional crisis.
@starlaw says:17 April, 2017 at 3:28 pm:
“To stir the mix a wee bit further, some well known Irish names have Spanish origins, EG Boyle. These settlers occupied small Islands on the north west coast and had nothing to do with the Armada wrecks. My Great Grandmother was Spanish and how she got from Spain to Donegal is a Mystery to me.”
Mibbies she wis jist a guid sweemer, starlaw?
All Get ma coat!
I suppose the real question is….Can this so called walk out delay the referendum and delay it long enough to dragg us out of Europe?
That seems to be the focus…..Take us out before we can vote,they must think that they have the best chance of keeping?us if they take us out..Or is it just to do what damage they can to the competition for London.
Oh to have a government that you knew was on the side of your country no matter if you agree with their policies or not.
Rather than having to try and work out how and where the government will suppress the country’s potential next,and often be powerless to do anything about it.
Effijy says:
17 April, 2017 at 2:43 pm
The Squawker the size of a Hippopotamus
is equal to the Squawkers in the other Westminster sides.
——————
Get it right!
The Squawker the size of a Hippopotamus
is equal to the sum of the Squawkers in the other Westminster sides.
If Kezia feels that people should be paying more tax, I would hope that she’s leading by example when it comes to her own income? There is after all nothing stopping her from working out how much extra tax she should be paying, and then sending a cheque made payable to “Scottish Consolidated Fund” to the Treasury for the appropriate amount!
”Arbroath1320 says:
17 April, 2017 at 3:56 pm
Following up on my wee link earlier re Ruthie threatening to take her ba’ and walk oot of Holyrood. Someone on Twitter has just pointed out that they may be contravening Code of Conduct for MSPs – Volume 3, Section 7: General Conduct and Conduct in the Chamber or in Committee.
7.1 Members of the Scottish Parliament are accountable to the Scottish electorate who will expect them to carry out their Parliamentary duties in an appropriate manner consistent with the standing of the Parliament and not to engage in any activity as a member that would bring the Parliament into disrepute.”
Surely no one is expecting the tories are bothered about what their constituents think? They don’t in the day to day things so what on earth makes anyone think they’ll worry about the rules!!!
HMRCs High Net Worth Unit deals with the tax affairs of the wealthiest people in the UK. There’s around 6000. To qualifiy they have to be worth over £20 million.
People on under £200,000 are not seen as rich comparision.
Re a threatened Tory walkout: would anybody notice or care since very few people in Scotland actually voted Tory? Has anyone apart from Ms Davidson actually got a constituency?
If the Tories did actually walk out Liz, and it is a MASSIVE “if” here by the way, then all that would happen would be the majority for the independence referendum would be bigger. Still spoilt little kiddies and their toys in their prams and what not eh? 😀
To be honest Sheryl no we are not. It is only poor wee Ruthie that appears all bothered about it … apparently! 😀
I very much doubt anyone would care if they walked out AAD. Unfortunately they have 7 constituency M.S.P.’s but by walking out and provided section 7.1 mentioned above holds true then we could, I believe, possibly be looking at 7 by-elections.
I’m just drooling at the prospect of wee Ruthie being voted out in a by-election. 😀
With regard to when the English might
Realise that Beexit is already costing them jobs
and them understanding that their standard of living
Will fall for at least another ten years, on top of
The 10 austerity years that we have,and are currently
Enduring, the answer in never !
Although obvious to all Johnny Foreigners
It will not be allowed to register with the UK Media.
It reminds me of a documentary about early English
Settlers trying to colonise a new and remote region
Of Australia. They would regularly shoot and kill
Any native Aboriginies that they came across before the
Settlers finally died of hunger and dehydration.
It never occurred to them to befriend the Aboriginies as they had
Obviously found food and water in that area for the last few thousand
Years.
They just couldn’t find themselves admitting that a black, non Christian
in a far off land could possibly be as cleaver as they were.
Some things just never change!
Th Tories walk out. Then they should be sacked and new elections run.
They should also be required to forfeit all benefits accrued.
I mean if I got up and walked out of my job just because I did not like / agree with, I’m sure my employers would expect me to do the same.
Polscot,brilliant… and to think that we thought the big man up there made us special?
Th Tories walk out. Then they should be sacked and new elections run.
They should also be required to forfeit all benefits accrued.
I mean if I got up and walked out of my job just because I did not like / agree with, I’m sure my employers would expect me to do the same.
Polscot,brilliant… and to think that we thought the big man up there made us special?
Polscot, your post took the first six days and on the seventh his nibs up there had a handful of mud and shit left over so he tore the clouds open and threw it down and called it englandshire.
So how does Labour stack up in terms of what they promised when they were last in power and how things actually turned out –
link to youtube.com
Makes you wonder what they did on the eighth day –
link to youtube.com
Pantomime or circus – I can’t decide. Fortunately I won’t have to that much longer.
Leave Kezia be, it’s like mocking the afflicted!
@Liz g says: 17 April, 2017 at 4:40 pm:
“I suppose the real question is….Can this so called walk out delay the referendum and delay it long enough to dragg us out of Europe?”
Why should any Indy supporter worry about that rabble walking out?
I just hope that Nicola and the SNP, and of course, Patrick Harvey and the Greens, will have already lined up a range of things to debate, vote upon and get through parliament while the entire Tory party are, in effect, abstaining.
Far as I know it is not against the rules for anyone to miss a session and it’s not like primary school where the members have to get a note from their Mummy or Daddy.
The other parties should take full advantage of the walk out and get on with the business of parliament.
As an aside – here’s a clip of that, “Proud Scot”, Brewer interviewing Fiona Hyslop.
link to youtube.com
Note the very first few seconds of that proud Scot Brewers introduction.
Now the fact is there are two such bodies of water in Scotland – One is a small trout fishing lake on the Raith Estate in Kirkcaldy.
The other is, “The Lake of Menteith”, which is located on the Carse of Stirling. However I much prefer its real Scottish name, “Loch Inchmahome”.
So really, there is actually really only one lake in Scotland – on the Raith Estate and I think that was man made anyway.
Auntie is going full bung on the “unfair” Turkey ref.
And not even a blush ?
@Robert Peffers
Indeed, also excavations at Dalriada show continuous occupation void of sudden changes indicative of invasion and consistent with it being a member of a maritime culture of the West of Britain down to Brittany and even Northern Spain.
They may well have had cultural and family links with people in Ireland that didn’t make them Irish or that before the Kingdom of Alba such concepts as ‘Irish’ or ‘Scottish’ did not exist. Tribe or clan was all.
We just need to remember we are one of the oldest countries in Europe. We were one long before England became England. In The Last Kingdom when the Brothers say they going to raid the Scots they meant it, there were no longer the Picts, the Scotti, the Strathclyde Britons etc and had not been for at least 150 years when that was set. England was still split, down the middle by the Danelaw and into Wessex and Mercia etc too.
Well what do you know … it looks like Brexit Broken Britain could be on the verge of losing the European Banking Authority and European Medical Agency within weeks … apparently.
I can hardly wait for the next PMQ’s when Dr. Phillipa Whitford gets to ask her question about the EMA all over again. I wonder what Mayhem’s answer will be this time! 😀
link to huffingtonpost.co.uk?
O/T
Robert Peffers.
I have Spanish connections too.
My maternal Grandfather lived in Liverpool and was called Costello.
Apparently the Costello family had come over, at some point, from the Galway area where the Spanish had been shipwrecked, come ashore and settled.
(Supposedly from the Armada? – but maybe that’s romantic, Irish blarney!)
While all the talk is on the Scots and Picts and relative geographical belongings, see the conjectured map based on Ptolomy that places a people called Cruithne right bang center in the middle of Ulster, Gaels among you will appreciate the name. Oh and It’s early. Think on and behave.
pic.twitter.com/c1KaaB2FEd
a work in progress
recent historical revision,
interestingly, the caledonians and the meaetae are not mentioned in early historical records when they are the only tribes mentioned by the romans?
potted history
these tribes, mannan, katones, verturions, fib, fotla, ce, circenn, etc are the tuatha de dana mentioned in the irish book of invasions. they invaded ireland and defeated the fir bolge(selgovae) and the fir dommnians(iron age invaders) in 500 bce,
the north of ireland was a “cruithne” province which streched to included argyll
(see latest work about ptolemys map of ireland linking the volunti with the verturions (fortrui)
these irish cruthne were slowly over run by the o neils in ireland eventually being subjugated circa 500 ad
it was at this point that the O Neils under fergus macErc and his sons, gabran and loarn, gained ascendancy in argyll.
However, argyll was still recognised as being a province of the Cruithne, and the irish continued to call the people of alba, cruithne, including the kings and princes of dalriada, not as is commonly said that it is what the “scots” called the picts.
It was the king of Fotla who gave Iona to st columbus (another O neil missionary)
So the early use of the term “scots” refers to a cruithne (pictish) kingdom covering argyll and ulster and probably connaught.
history records that it was the o neils(an irish tribe) who conquered this area, giving rise to the notion the scots came from ireland.
history is written by the victors etc, indeed, since st columbus chose Áedán mac Gabráin as king, this was used for centuries afterwards as a means to claim to be rightful king of scots, see robert the bruce’s claim (the colours of the lion rampart are deliberately red on gold, the colours of the o niels)
until now, it hasnt been politically correct to suggest an earlier pictish influence from scotland into ulster politics, for obvious reasons. but times are changing even in ireland
Robert Peffers @ 5.12
Just musings Robert…..While I suspect a walk out is just a dramatic gesture that the MSM would use to try to deligitimise the new referendum.
I do wonder if there is something in the small print that requires a functional opposition,(and while functional is in dispute) they are in “theory” the opposition.
Although I understand that Holyrood doesn’t have an official opposition in the sense that Westminster does.
Holyrood doesn’t need a government in waiting because there’s always direct rule should the Holyrood administration fail,for any reason…..Do you see how I am thinking?
As you more than most Robert well know…The devil is usually in the details,so!!!
Is there an actual point to this?
Is it just for the Media to attack?
And as Arbroath 1320 indicated….Is it even real,or is it a figment of the Sun’s imagination?
Even the Rev pointed out in the article….We are rudely taking off topic… Sorry….News is a bit hard to spin because of the holidays and some (well more than usual) minipulation is required.
Time will tell I suppose,but they really are clutching at straws now to see what would fly as the “new”campaign theme.
How does a walkout under Tory laws affect MSPs that walkout? If they fail to sit down and do their day job,do they get suspended or something? 🙂
Ach, if Kezia wants to test the public again over higher taxes, who am I to stop her? =grin=
And if the usual media suspects believe it’s a handy wheeze to continue whining that “Kez says up” and “Rude says down”, who am I to contradict them about that either? =laugh=
As to the Rude Gang walking out of Holyrood, that would seem to me to be nothing other than an improvement. No surprise there, since they all share Annie Wells’ evident contempt for the place and the sovereign people it represents.
I’m sure that in return the tax-paying public would welcome seeing all those empty seats “doing the day job” that their former possessors couldn’t stop moaning about.
Re this proposed Tory walk-out. I am no expert, and I am positive there are regular posters on here who could keep me right, but – a Tory walk-out would be meaningless.
Yes, there would be all those empty seats in the chamber, but, unless they all resigned as MSPs, this would not matter. Even if they did resign – there would be seven by-elections in the seats which they won by FPTP, their other vacancies would be filled by the next Tory on the List, until they had run out of list candidates.
In either case, more-so with the by-elections, the risk is that the SNP might win these and achieve an outright parliamentary majority.
I sense they would be almost like those Sinn Fein MPs who refused to take their Westminster seats.
IF the Tories did walk-out, there is the slight chance that the Tories at Westminster could decide to abolish Holyrood. The problem with this is, we would then revert to the pre-1999 status, whereby a majority of Scottish MPs being in favour of Independence would lead to – Independence.
I fear, IF the Tories walk-out, this will be a symbolic gesture and, without the weekly platform of FMQs, the would-be Gauleiter of Scotland would soon be getting a sympathetic interview from the BBC – Byrd, Brewer and Campbell, in which she would tell us, we have made our point and it is time to get back to opposing this evil SNP government, who are really baaaaaddddd for Scotland.
If polls are to believed Labour will be happier that the next test of public opinion on 4th May is conducted under STV rather than FPTP. In the former they will have representation but under the latter an electoral disaster in the making. If they do lose councillors it does weaken further their party structure.
Arbroath 1320 5.30pm
“…it looks like Brexit Broken Britain could be on the verge of losing the European Banking Authority and European Medical Agency within weeks…”
That story broke on Friday and am still waiting on one of our Media broadcasters telling us about it. Not a peep.
That is a huge loss to the UK economy.
Our English news bulletins are all full of North Korea and Russia at the moment.
Thought folks might like to get a wee practice in ready for the Great Day. (when wee Ruthie leads the gaggle of what nots out of Holyrood.)
link to youtube.com
@Muscleguy says:17 April, 2017 at 5:18 pm:
“Indeed, also excavations at Dalriada show continuous occupation void of sudden changes indicative of invasion and consistent with it being a member of a maritime culture of the West of Britain down to Brittany and even Northern Spain.
All of which is consistent with what has come to light of more recent years. The first clue was when a fishing trawler hauled up a large bit of what seemed to be moss, (bog), from the Dogger Bank a shallow sandbank area of the North Sea, of the East coast of England.
Now we know that during the last ice age the bank was part of a large landmass connecting Europe and the British Isles. We now call it, “Doggerland”. A fishing boat hauled up a large lump of moss, (peat bog), and the skipper recognised what seemed to be flint tools in the moss. He took them to a local University and they were indeed flint tools. The conclusion was that the Dogger was once inhabited. The tools were carbon dated to very early Stone age.
Subsequent sonar and other surveys, (because of North Sea oil & gas), established a larger area that we now know as, “Doggerland”. Then a building site in Inverness turned up a thin layer of almost pure white sand and carbon dating established it was from an era close to that of the flint tools from Dogger and the sand indicated the sea had flooded Inverness at that time. In other words a fairly sudden and extensive sea flood.
Further surveys showed that Doggerland had preceded the flood and the first inhabitants in Britain.
To cut a long investigation short, there is a rocky ridge running across the North Sea that had once held back the cold Polar waters and it had breached to comparatively slowly flood Doggerland and form the North Sea. And it is the lush Doggerland vegetation that formed the oil & gas and, of course, much of Britain’s other mineral deposits.
Then a large Stone Age settlement was discovered at Howick Mesolithic archaeological site that dated to a period previously thought to be just Hunters-Gatherers but is now know to have had also large early farming settlements.
So apparently the aboriginal Britons came from Doggerland. When Doggerland flooded the inhabitants obviously would move to what was then the mountain ranges that is now Britain. Another clue comes from the place names of today. Notice the similarity of the English Howick and the Scottish Hawick. Doggerland is just around 25 miles from Howick.
There is little doubt that the earliest Britons were early Stone Age people and indeed genetic tests around Howick discovered a lady who was a direct relative to the remains of a stone age person discovered at he Howick dig.
Thousands of years and there was still family living in the same area.
I think they are all grateful to the Donald for his warmongering ideas around North Korea Caz. Without his ongoing threats to NK they certainly would have to report on such matters as losing the European Banking Authority and European Medical Agency. 😀
Labour/Unionists want to borrow and illegally spend £Billions on non mandated grotesque projects of no value. Getting towns/cities and countries Into massive £Trns of debt. Then put the extra burden by raising taxes on already hard pressed households. While also cutting essential services and starving the vulnerable, worldwide. Labour/Unionists are the most ignorant incompetents ever put on the planet along with the rest of the ‘psycho bastards’. Most of them should be in jail. They even gerrymander and illegally change the electoral system so the voters can’t get rid of them. Malicious liars.
Illegal wars, financial fraud and tax evasion.
Dugdale should go off and do something useful instead of the pathetic lying, whining.
Anyone else listen to Radio Clyde 2. ?
The music they play is alright but their news bulletins are startin to sound as if they are reading straight from Kezia Dugdale’s twitter page.
They told us today about Kezia’s latest tax plans and even included a wee rant directly from Kezia.
They then moved on to the next article without any SNP rebuttal.
This is happening more and more on Clyde 2. It’s as if they have been given their orders from Yoon Central to give it SNP Bad as often as they can.
Naughty naughty Clyde 2. More balanced news bulletins please.
And that is ma wee rant fur the day.
@Meg merrilees says: 17 April, 2017 at 5:31 pm:
“I have Spanish connections too.
My maternal Grandfather lived in Liverpool and was called Costello. … Apparently the Costello family had come over, at some point, from the Galway area where the Spanish had been shipwrecked, come ashore and settled.
(Supposedly from the Armada? – but maybe that’s romantic, Irish blarney!)”
It’s a bit of a mystery, Meg, Irish history has as many variations as there are Irish historians.
Anyway! Google, “Black Irish”, and you will end up as confused about the matter as everyone else.
It is so tempting to think that the best thing would be to bump up the taxes of the Scot butts to cover their deliberate undermining of the existence of the poor. But of course it is impractical in the final analysis because the problem would just escalate and it wouldn’t just affect the Scot butts.
No, the answer is independence asap. Very soon the Scottish electorate are going to be faced with the choice of independence or sucking up life in an extreme right wing state.
The threat by Tories (no doubt supported by their Slab lapdogs) to walk out of Holyrood is just an extension of their policy of infantilising the Scottish electorate. The poor wee Scottish voters can’t be expected to keep going out and voting and even worse making grown up decisions.
Would that strategy work now? Not if even half the electorate support independence.
O/T I will be surprised if May doesn’t get a heavy tap on the shoulder from the Brit establishment in the very near future. This Brexit means Brexit is getting way beyond a joke, unlike her and her elite team of idiots.
Strange, just saw this headline on Newsnow posted at 18:10:
“How to vote in the council elections” Scottish National Party 18:10
Clicked the link as thought, this could be interesting.
Got “The page you were looking for was not found.” Never mind.
Kezia?
I didn’t think they were bothering for these council elections.
Robert Louis at 3.37
It may come as a surprise to you – as it comes as a surprise to many – to point out that the population of the Island of Ireland is approaching 7 million , with the ROI population just below 5 million of that at the last count.
In 1925 the population of ROI was 2.9 million against a Scotland at just about 5 million (despite losing 130,000 men in WW1).
Whoever is profiting from the union it is not Scotland. Were it not for appx 480,000 English immigrants into Scotland (most of them retired and economically non active and non child bearing) and about 100,000 from the EU our population would be considerably lower than Ireland’s.
The populations of Ireland, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Finland have all AT LEAST doubled since 1910 and Scotland is at the same place. And we are not producing enough children to reverse this. We need a much better deal for mothers in an independent Scotland
We do not have a lot of time.
Robert Peffers re Doggerland the latest thinking on the final flooding of Doggerland is a tsunami , there are also theory’s about giant Canadian Loch’s breaking through Ice and pumping billions of gallons of fresh water which surged over the Atlantic.
Both would have been very sudden, so it’s probable that some of the people of Doggerland had already moved to what is now Gt Britain.
link to personal.soton.ac.uk
“widening gulf between the richest and the rest”
That did happen – under New Labour rule.
Dugdale’s heroes, the likes of Mandelson, were perfectly at ease with the super rich.
@ Macart
Libdems – Wheeeeee
Had a wee laugh at that 1
Thanks Robert Peffers for the link to Rome’s final frontier, it refreshed my brain from some 40 years ago at school but learned a lot too. I did visit Antonine’s wall a couple of years ago, not far from the Kelpies, and this documentary helped put it all in perspective.
Loved the ending too, resonating as it does with words that are very relevant today:
“Like every superpower since, the empire manipulated local societies. Created tension and strife. Some people got seriously rich. Others got seriously annoyed and fought back”.
The Tory walkout.
If they really do walk out of holyrood how about we turn this on its head? I.e. For every day they are out we pledge something like a £1 a day to a food bank and £1 to the next Indy campaign. The unionists would hate that. It Would take the wind out of their sails, turn the tables on them and if enough of us did it it would be great publicity.
Anybody up for organising this and promoting on social media etc? Or how about wings or an Another existing group?
Heid full of mince.
Pathetic whining.
Could make you dry boak.
As ma auld granny used tae say ” whits wrang wie them son? “
This Tory walk out thing folks are talking about it was in the Sun so is 99% made up nonsense.
Though i would love them to try it mainly because by doing so they are saying they no longer recognize the Scottish parliaments authority.
Some say this will cause by elections sorry you are wrong this will cause a full Scottish parliament election one which no Conservative party member will be allowed to stand in.
If they walk out which i doubt they will,Nicola should call a Scottish parliament election asap.
Half of everyone who voted, voted for the SNP’s ideas on a range of issues.
These ‘party leader says..blah..’ articles are attention seeking fantasy, being enabled by a clearly ignorant malevolent anti-progress media and civil service.
Bad bad bad bad bad, to the bone.
@Fran
It’s rumoured that may be a direct quote from Wullie Rennie. 🙂
link to caltonjock.com
@ schrodingers cat.
Not sure i agree with your explanation about the “cruithne”.
There were cruithne in Ireland , but Ireland was never a cruithne province. They were living there as vassals of the gael.
Old welsh has the name “britain “originally rendered as Prydain , or Prydein.
The old old irish version of this was Cruthen , plural Cruthin.
Cruthentuath meant “briton land” ,which over time came to mean scotland north of the forth on the eastern side , and the cruithne simply britons. ( non romanised eventually later we know them as the picts.)
@Muscleguy says:17 April, 2017 at 5:18 pm:
They may well have had cultural and family links with people in Ireland that didn’t make them Irish or that before the Kingdom of Alba such concepts as ‘Irish’ or ‘Scottish’ did not exist. Tribe or clan was all.
True but there was a sense of being related to other tribes (by a common culture and also by intermarriage between leading families) and a kind of loose sense of wider identity existed then.
We just need to remember we are one of the oldest countries in Europe. We were one long before England became England.
Not really. The whole of Scotland (Alba) was not a complete entity until mid 10th Century. All of the Anglo Saxon kingdoms were united shortly before that also in the 10the century. So both kingdoms came into being (or rather expanded over the previous century or so to take in something close to their current geographic areas) about roughly the same time. Possibly Strathclyde was subordinate to the kings of Alba before that but it wasn’t absorbed until later.
In The Last Kingdom when the Brothers say they going to raid the Scots they meant it, there were no longer the Picts, the Scotti, the Strathclyde Britons etc and had not been for at least 150 years when that was set. England was still split, down the middle by the Danelaw and into Wessex and Mercia etc too.
Since the story takes place in the time of King Alfred (lived 2nd half of 9th century) the kingdom of Strathclyde still existed. In fact according to a book I’m reading (Clarkson: Strathclyde and the Anglo Saxons) Æthelflæd (Lady of the Mercians, interesting woman) made agreements with the Strathclyde Britons for a kind of mutual defence pact against troublesome Norsemen. Strathclyde ceased to exist as an independent entity a few decades later (as did Mercia).
Church of Scotland issues joint press release re: two child limit.
link to jointpublicissues.org.uk
Ruth is a Church of Scotland member, no?…. Awkward.
God needs to review his door policy as she is well from the dark side.
A Tory walk out of Holyrood would have about as much impact as a Labour walk out of Westminster. Can you imagine May saying “Oh please come back Jeremy”? May and her cabinet would rip the piss out of Labour over it.
If the Tories want a longer holiday let them go for it. Presumably like any strikers they wouldn’t get paid.
The Tories walking out would be a gesture only. There is absolutely nothing in the Standing Orders of Holyrood which stops the rest of Parliament making decisions in their absence. Even if the Tories resigned en masse, all that would happen is their seats would be up for grabs.
Meaningless, stupid and ultimately worthless. Just like Tories actually!.
I’d love to see Pete Wishart stand up at Scottish Questions and do ‘Good guy. good guy, w***k…’
Socrates -correct me if I am wrong but Holyrood elections are not FPTP – that’s for Westminster elections only.
or have I completely lost the plot (wouldn’t be the first time LOL)
@ stu mac
Sorry, I have to say that you are splitting hairs ‘re the forming of the Kingdom of Scotland. Why, because Strathclyde was independent. The lordship of the Isle under Somerled, (styled himself King of the isles ) didn’t recognise David the 1st as sovereign, neither did Orkney or Shetland. It’s arguable that neither did Galloway.
Whatever its borders were, there was a recognised polity and kingdom of Scotland,that the Kingdom later absorbed other Celtic kingdoms is neither here nor there.
@ stu mac
Thanks for that too pal but no sure i entirely agree with that either.
The nucleus of what became scotland was being formed centred around scone in the mid ninth century , England followed roughly a century later.
The boundaries of both modern scotland and England werent set for many centuries later .
You can clearly see this from Englands doomsday book , were large parts of what is now northern England werent included as part of Williams kingdom.
The border wasnt finally agreed centuries later , and it would be even later before folk began to see themselves as scottish or english by nationality.
A common theme in the celtic countries was a loose collection of sub kingdoms united in language and culture , Ireland and wales were the same.So you musnt fall into the trap of English historians who later tried to espouse lack of centralisation meaning lack of a nation , this isnt the case.
It was simply an older form of governance , replaced by the later feudal pyramid.
It was the normans who centralised everything much later on , including in England , and set the base for what eventually became the uk.
@Ann says: 17 April, 2017 at 5:03 pm:
” … IPolscot,brilliant… and to think that we thought the big man up there made us special?”
Ah! But, Ann, there is a real basis for that claim and it goes all the way back to the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320.
To understand it you have to know the legal history of that time. Europe was Christian. In fact it was referred to as, “Christendom”, and the, “Rule of Law”, throughout Christendom was, “The Divine Right of Kings”.
This law held that God, by the miracle of birth, chose those who would rule we mere mortals by causing them to be born heirs to the throne of whatever kingdom we were born into. That meant the God also chose the monarch’s subjects for the monarch to rule and all monarchs were thus, “Sovereign”, and they were God’s chosen rulers and their word was law.
Then we had the King of England who, in 1284 had, under the law of, “Divine Right”, defeated the last native Prince of Wales in war. Under the rule of law of, “Divine Right”, a monarch defeating another monarch could claim that monarch’s fealty, and tag his monarchy onto the winners existing kingdom. (Principalities were just junior Kingdoms), and by the, “Statute of Rhuddlan”, the English Monarch added Wales to the Kingdom of England.
Also be aware that a male Monarch who married a Queen, or the Princess who ruled a Principality, became the owner of the lady and her monarchy. Also if a monarch inherited a kingdom through marriage that kingdom also became his.
So, when King Alexander died suddenly and his Heir, The Maid of Norway, drowned and left Scotland without a monarch the people appointed to run Scotland until the monarchy thing was sorted out though to seek the help of an acknowledged expert on such matters. They asked the King of England to help sort out the matter, and he saw his chance to take over the Scottish Kingdom.
He chose John Balliol to be the King. The deal with Balliol being that if he swore fealty to the English Monarch then he got the gig and thus the English Monarch had taken over Scotland. However, even Balliol had enough pride to change his fealty and thus he didn’t last very long.
So after getting shot of Balliol Scotland was back in trouble again with several claimants to the throne. Including Robert Bruce and the Red Comyn. In the event Bruce killed the Comyn on the alter steps of Dumfries High Kirk and Edward saw his chance to regain control over Scotland.
He persuaded the Earthly boss of Christendom to excommunicate Bruce for murder in a Kirk and, under Divine Right, that meant that as King everything, including the people, belonged to the King and all Scotland was excommunicated and not just Bruce.
This was when the Scots drew up and sent the Declaration of Arbroath to the Pope, who, by this time had fallen out with the King of England, and the Pope, head of all Christendom, accepted the Declaration.
This not only declared that Scotland was an independent Kingdom but, something unheard of in those days, that the people of Scotland were legally sovereign, not just in the eyes of the law but in the eyes of GOD.
So there you go – We are indeed legally God’s Chosen People and, under God’s law, and under independent Scots law, We remain today legally and in the eyes of God. Legally chosen to rule. i.e. Sovereign.
Meanwhile, England only slightly changed the law of Divine Right in 1688, during the English, “Glorious Revolution when the English Parliament threw out their monarch and imported King Billy & Queen Mary but forced them to legally delegate their, “Divine Right of Kings”, to the Parliament of England.
This is where we are today – Westminster is claiming that they have full legal sovereignty over the legally sovereign people of Scotland but there is absolutely no legal basis for that anywhere. There is no legal judgments and no written evidence other that the old, old story, of Westminster Because we say so.
Just to complete the history. The Papacy appointed the King of England to be Lord of Ireland during the Norman Conquest of Ireland. In due course, (in 1542), the King of England forced the Parliament of Ireland to pass, “The Crown of Ireland Act”, that annexed all Ireland as part of the Kingdom of England. Thus, in 1707, neither Wales or Ireland signed as partners in the United Kingdom because both were integral parts of the Kingdom of England.
Yet here we have a Church of England vicars daughter claiming that she, as the head of the de facto parliament of England has full sovereignty over Scotland and is attempting to force Scotland out of Europe. Go Figure?
@ golfnut
I agree pal.
Whatever strathclyde was to begin with , a kingdom of the britons , it was largely gaelicised long before it fully merged fully with Scotland.
The whole of Moray and galloway for example rose against king david , because like in England the ordinary folk hated the normans .
Feudalism was seen as alien to the semi communist gael and the norman elite as foreigners for many centuries in both Scotland and England.
Is the ‘Ruth clause’ is getting much coverage in the Union press – deliberately ignoring it I should think.
C. of S. coming out against it is great news – if it’s reported.
Too much going on with Trump/N.Korea etc.
Just commented on the threatened Tory walkout on another thread. Can’t wait! Presumably the debate could continue as long as the S.P is quorate. Been through the Standing orders and can’t find any mention of ‘Quorum”.
Does that mean that they don’t need a quorum to hold a vote? Anybody know?
If Tories walkout, will Kez’s club follow and Willie’s troop?
Just means the motion will be returned unopposed! with a majority….
An ex- Union steward, long-in-the-tooth, told me once that you don’t threaten to
walkout or quit unless you’re absolutely prepared to do it.
Is Ruth-jung-oon sabre-rattling or just trying to get a high profile slot on the 6 o clock news?
Nicola and Patrick can sing Woody Guthrie’s song ‘so long, it’s been good to know ye’ as they go out the door…
Meg Merrilees 9.31pm
“Nicola and Patrick can sing Woody Guthrie’s song ‘so long, it’s been good to know ye’ as they go out the door…”
Or how about Nicola and the rest of the Indy gang belt out a few lines of Monty Python’s “Always look on the bright side of Life”
As Ruthie and her mob trundle out.
@Lenny Hartley says: 17 April, 2017 at 7:01 pm:
“Robert Peffers re Doggerland the latest thinking on the final flooding of Doggerland is a tsunami”
I heard the theories, Lenny, but the original one looks far more correct not to be right.
That rocky ridge that started to break was not too far from where HMS Hood went down in WWII. Sonar shows there is indeed a broken bit in the rocky ridge there.
Taking the height of the ridge, with perhaps a bit extra to allow for erosion, it wouldn’t need a tsunami. In fact a tsunami would, most likely have swept away most of the Doggerland population anyway but it does add strength to the theory that the flooding could have been due to polar ice melt.
It was, after all, a time of the ice receding.
So it could have been the Polar water reaching the top of what was virtually a dam and then suddenly overflowing much like a tsunami.
It is, of course, speculation that the flooding was rather slower and a gradual process of Doggerland just getting smaller and the lower bits slowly filling up. Perhaps with a final rush when the thing finally overflowed.
As the bits of Doggerland above water got smaller and smaller they would be unable to support the same numbers and people would move out both to the European mainland and to Britain.
The many large middens of shellfish remains that can be found right along the Scottish shores indicates that the people were sea-men and fishers and that they lived along the shores. With only around 23 miles between Ireland & Scotland it isn’t hard to see there would be interchange between the two.
Anyway, as things progress, we may get solid proofs someday soon.
“Sturgeon faces Labour call to tax high earners more”
Hmmm. I bet Nicola will lie awake all night worrying about that one.
What gets me is how the papers keep trying to create the impression that what Labour or Dugdale says is of political significance. Recently, the Scottish electorate has twice shown its contempt for Labour at the ballot box, and will do so again a few weeks from now.
They have trouble with their spelling too
Their East Dunbartonshire candidate seems to think the SNP must ban fracking instead of just a (Temporary prohabitation)
I don’t know how one “prohabitates” something
You live and learn eh
England was a relatively new country when it came to an abrupt end in 1066, its ruling class completely replaced & people enslaved, what replaced it was only England in name.
Whilst the archaeology may not show any invasion of Argyll etc’, the DNA shows an influx of emigrants of one particular group from Ulster around the year 500 into both Argyll & Galloway. This “Niall of the Nine Hostages” group makes up the biggest group of people in the present north of Ireland.
@HandandShrimp says: 17 April, 2017 at 8:21 pm:
“If the Tories want a longer holiday let them go for it. Presumably like any strikers they wouldn’t get paid.”
Oh! Come on, Guys and gals! This is not a factory we are talking about. The MSPs don’t need to clock on and off.
You never see a full house in a parliament for the very good reason that members have constituency business to attend to, various committees and other legitimate duties to conduct. Especially if they are ministers or shadow ministers.
They even have to climb onto tanks, various animals and even bouncy castles. The visit schools and work places in their constituency. Go into hospitals, hospices, homes and attend charity events. Just about the only time there is almost a full house is FMQ’s when they get to abuse each other and make arses of themselves.
My point is they could just walk out and go to do something else. In fact their walk out is a great opportunity to call votes on subjects the SG wants passed without any bother. The SG should just carry on with business without them.
The voters would then see that they are of little consequence if there is a government majority without the need to call upon the Greens.
Come to that the only ones that might miss them is the Greens who would lose some influence in the chamber.
@ starlaw
You might google ‘Irish Lusitanian Flora’, possibly settlers brought certain plants with them.
Tomorrow’s National front page:
Something about a Stand Off between Donald Trump and Ruth Davidson i think.
Tomorrow’s National twitter pages:
link to twitter.com
BBC Scotland Tells Lies says:
17 April, 2017 at 10:51 pm
Tomorrow’s National front page:
Something about a Stand Off between Donald Trump and Ruth Davidson i think.
……………
In the 18th century there was the War of Jenkin’s Ear. Now it looks like we may have the War of the Bad Hairdos.
The National:
Letters II: Ruth Davidson has shown her true colours and must be held to account
AS if any right-minded person needed reminding, this week saw the mask fall from the face of Ruth Davidson. Her willingness to be associated with the most horrendous of a long list of odious attacks on the disadvantaged by her party has proved once and for all that she is nothing but a nasty, careerist opportunist, with her eye on bigger things within the Conservative Party.
She has hidden behind the skirts of her spokesperson the whole time, and when she finally was forced to make a statement, she further enhanced her newly revealed image without a trace of shame or embarrassment. Like all bullies. That basically is what she is – she uses a crowd to do her dirty work. I can’t wait until Holyrood resumes to see what a mauling she will receive from all parties!
Unfortunately, she will try to brazen it out and shout loudly to try to deflect any criticism away from herself and her morally bankrupt party, but that will not work this time Ruthie, because, like your Westminster cabal, you have gone way beyond the pale, and to have the effrontery to employ the cheapest trick yet by trying to shift the blame to the Scottish Government, the SNP and, by association, the Scottish people is unforgivable. That type of fake news/alt.right garbage may sit well in the cesspit of Westminster, where nothing is out of bounds, but it will not and cannot be allowed to become acceptable ever in our Parliament.
What compounds the vileness of the whole affair is that Davidson, the Conservative Party and the DWP spokespersons justify their obnoxious and perverted actions upon the poor and the needy as being necessary to “provide value for money for the taxpayer”. By reducing the subjects of these attacks to objects or statistics rather than human beings in dire need, they are wilfully desensitising the general population thereby making it oh so easy to continue to persecute the disadvantaged to save money that should be theirs as a given.
The real objects of their persecution should be the reckless and greedy bankers who caused the financial black hole in the first place, but as we all know this will never come to pass.
To end it all, she “proudly” unveils the Tory “the Scottish people are fed up and don’t want another referendum”. She has again tried, in the most blatant and juvenile fashion, to turn said elections into a mini-referendum about independence. The local election pledges that do exist could be written on the back of a postage stamp, and without a trace of irony, she demands that the SNP do their day job. Rich!
May I suggest to Reckless Ruth, Dugdale and Rennie, that they offer some positive and meaningful proposals for local government instead of their ongoing mantra of SNP/Greens Bad! I, along with millions of other discerning voters, see through your vacuous propaganda and you will be held to account in the forthcoming elections. Wouldn’t it be a pleasant change to wake up one morning and hear that the opposition parties in Holyrood had decided to work with the Scottish Government to try to get Scotland out of the Brexit miasma, to work towards keeping our place in the EU and to forge a new path for an outward looking country, that we, and our children deserve? Ah well, at least I am still allowed to dream
@Fred says: 17 April, 2017 at 10:29 pm
“Whilst the archaeology may not show any invasion of Argyll etc’, the DNA shows an influx of emigrants of one particular group from Ulster around the year 500 into both Argyll & Galloway.”
Now there’s a thing?
As genetic testing was not possible at the time of the claimed, “influx of immigrants from Ulster”, around the year 500, how did they deduce the direction of travel to Argyll & Galloway?
They can only have carried out the testing upon the remains they dug up but have no way of knowing whether they had just come or had been there all along?
The only sure conclusion could be that a certain number of the remains had counterparts elsewhere – in this case Ulster, How did they deduce the direction of travel?
Well it looks like wee Ruth Kin Jung In is upping the anti
for announcing her party’s Holyrood walk out!
No Tank Turret or Buffalo bare back riding this time.
It seems she has acquired Wee Jimmy Krankie’s Bean Stalk from the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow.
Just hope its tall enough to reach that giant of a politician Nicola Sturgeon.
Wee Ruthie might put forward a motion to feed the disabled, 3rd children, and our OAP’s with magic beans on toast?
FranticTories’r’Dozie!
So how many BLiS Council groups actually want to freeze the Council Tax? They could have extracted higher taxes from the rich by increasing Council Taxes on them. This is a Party not just in disarray but undergoing what is an ongoing political rout.
re The threatened Tory walkout, let them get on with it. Is there any way we can stop their wages since they wont be doing the day job?
I’m going to attempt to manage to get to bed before midnight as usual but hope that, as usual, I don’t finish up still here hours later.
So I’ll leave you with a clip of, (Warning dinna hae onythin heave close at hand), Fluffy Mundell and the usual rabble of English MPs causing havoc and disrespecting the SNP members as anything but their equals :-
link to youtube.com
If the Tories walk out. The SNP will have a majority. Use it to change Holyrood and the Councils elections to FPTP. The Tories will never, ever get elected again in Scotland. That will get rid of them once and for all.
Was Labour not against the extra Council tax for education? They were going to vote against it. Labour did not put up the Council tax in some Councils. After hollering that it should be put up. When they could. They did not.
Ken500 @ 23:42,
Oh, don’t be silly. Life just isn’t that simple.
Anyone still up -this will give you a laugh!
link to twitter.com
Voting registration closing… congrats if you made it in, in time.
Vote FOR Scotland.
X.
Shinty re system for Scots Parliament , two tier system, fptp for Constituancy , proportional for list.
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
Robert Peffers, re Doggerland, guess these guys have to justify their funding somehow 🙂 reading
Moffats book on Scots dnA I was surprised how much Doggerland DNA was still about.
@ Arbroath1320, 17/04/17, 5:30pm
Same as last time, no doubt.
ot
sorry to those not history affictionados but it warms my heart to see so many people posting stuff about scottish history, a subject ignored by so many for so long. changed days indeed.
re doggerland
I worked off the coast of yarmounth, in the leman field, from a helicopter, you can still see the ancient shore line with waves breaking, at times of low tide, sand banks stick proud of the sea which you can land on. taxi drivers from norwich to yarmouth will tell of the 50k mammoth bones dredged up from the now submerged island of leman, currently in storage at the local museum., indeed, local fishermen have avoided it for years, catching a trawler net on an old tree stump can and have had catastrophic consequenses in the past.
I have also worked on the dutch side on the island of of Ameland, from the drill floor of a land rig(most northerly tip) you can see the waves breaking miles from the shore, even the offshore platforms 2 miles offshore, are only in water 2m deep.
what we know
the area of leman to the north, was a hillier region than the south, one night, an area of 3500 km2 (a huge piece of land) slipped off from norway down into the storrega trench.(6500bce)
this would have devastated the region, it left white silt deposits in inverness and the montrose basin. the low lying areas of holland and anglia would have been like wise devasted.
however, these waters would have receded leaving a once fertile area of doggerland now flooded with sea water, from which the survivors migrated upland into scotland and have left a mark on our genetic fingerprint.
the island of leman was the slowly submerged by rising tides over the next 1500 years.
nb, sea level rises quoted for britain over this time do not take into account local east coast geography, eg the NE of scotland is a range of shear cliffs, and very little of the coastline has changed since 8000bce, eg, a 10m rise in sea levels today, might flood the centre of aberdeen, and stoney, but little else.
a 10 m rise in sea level in the south would mean norwich would become an island
see the book britain bc for a timelapse sequence of the uk from 8000bce
to the present day to see how rising tides affected different areas
Bit quiet on here tonight – why are we not railing against Ruth the Mooth?
Saw a post earlier on FB that Ruth wants somebody to save her from that clause. It’ll no be us then.
Just discovered that the Conservative and Unionist candidate for Bannockburn, Paul Henke, Is the former Chairman of UKIP Scotland. Isn’t even local as he lives in Balfron.
So, are the Tories becoming UKIP or vice versa, or have they always been UKIP?
link to twitter.com
This video contains Muppets:
link to youtube.com
It’s quite taxing.
much of our current knowledge about scotlands (and europes) ancient past comes from scholars from the 1850,s onwards.
it is based on such historic documents we have and the archeological evidence that remains.
many of the comments here reflect this old fashioned consensus.
but this view of our ancient history was never shared by linguists
eg, 60% of gaulish nouns are cognate with old germanic, only 30% of irish/scots gaelic/ old cumbric or brithonic are cognate with old germanic
result. gaelic split at least 1000 years before, at a point where old germanic and gaulish were the same language
this old ” Mind yer P’s and Q’s” type of celtic language divide is bollox. always has been. Yes, brithonic and cumbric are P celtic languages, but they are much closer to irish and scots gaelic than gaulish or celti- iberian by a country mile
simple frequency analysis shows this clearly
this isnt new knowledge, i can reference linguistic authors who were pointing this out in 1899, problem is historians and archeologist dismissed the linguists interpretation.
but there is a new kid on the block, its called genetics.
the genetic maps produced so far, agree 100% with the linguist view of history, not the historians or the archeologists.
there data will stand up in court.
I would urge many of the posters here to read some of the newer works that are currently being released to get a more modern and upto date view of scottish history
link to youtube.com
link to wales.ac.uk
better to view them as continental and insular celtic.
Scottish local elections: Labour to issue independence protest vote warning
“She also highlighted the “abhorrent rape clause” as showing the “ruthless” nature of the Tories.”
Has Dugdale and Davidson fallen out.
link to archive.is
schrodingers cat:
Why don’t we just ask Neil (Lovely Locks) Oliver?
🙂
Peace Always
@ schrodingers cat.
I know what you are saying pal but most of europes languages originate from indo european with a few exceptions.
I think its obvious with the close proximity of gaul and germany their languages would interact , but you are not taking into account large parts of modern germany were celtic , with the germans themselves being to the north east of the haartz mountains.
Big arguments in many languages about origination ,with constant attempted historical revision true or false.
For years the French refused to believe their language was full of gaulish words , and the romans borrowed many words from the continental celts.
Scotland is a difficult case as we know very little of exactly what language pictish was , theory now accepted it was a form of non romanised p celtic .
Whatever the elephant in the room for scotland is the english language in all its guises and the myths surrounding “scots ” as a language and its origination.
Or how the lowlands spoke teutonic and the highlands spoke gaidhlig .
Prior to the 14th century , the idea of a highlands and lowlands as a cultural divide , had not entered the minds of scotsmen .
Most folk are gradually coming aware scotland was a celtic speaking nation until roughly the reformation .
I personally think the idea of scots as our language is nothing short of a defence mechanism for us , the more we became culurally asimmilated to England , the more , as Tam Devine said , we looked to the highlands for our identity.
Best wishes pal.
Now we have so many UKIP candidates within the Conservative party in Scotland can we assume Labour will side with the Greens and SNP to raise the matter in the Scottish Parliament if the democratic process is being subverted by the right wing extremists.
Davidson of course will blame the SNP Murdoch Fraser will grin as he sees the opportunity in a year or two to take control of the dangerous right wing group forming in Scotland.
@ Bob Peffers, no bones involved, mainly the way DNA mutates & which variant is older. Check Alastair Moffat on “Niall of the Nine Sausages!”
A lot online. This is my own group & have no Irish connections at all, unless my g,g,grannie had an arrangement with her Donegal coal-man!
So all this tribal movement from A to B across continents and islands throughout history…
There’s a name for that.
Not sure the PM, the Yoonitariat and their ever faithful are quite ready to accept it right enough. 😉
Poor wee Kez! 🙂
She just doesn’t seem to get it that, thanks to her party and its obstructive attitude in the Smith Commission to new powers for the Scottish Parliament, the government cannot “tax the rich”, as she so quaintly puts it.
The Scottish government can only tax everybody including pensioners and the low paid, regardless of wealth, or nobody.
Thanks for nowt, Kez, and all the other Yoon parties who thought (and think) emasculating the Scottish Parliament and giving it pretend “powers” is a jolly wheeze.
Meanwhile, the SNP gets on with the day job protecting Scotland and Scots against the worst depredations of your London masters.
O/T
For those unaware, or who read comments only occasionally, remember ‘the mother of all independence marches’ is taking place in Glasgow on Saturday 3rd June.
Take your granny, take your dog, take everybody, to make this massive.
link to allunderonebanner.com
DATE: Saturday 3rd June, 11am.
Location: Glasgow
Route: Kelvingrove Park to Glasgow Green.
@ Robert Louis
I’m a bit concerned about the rally. AUOB were crowd funding to cover costs and have had to cancel it. They needed the money by 17th April (?).
link to crowdfunder.co.uk
The last time I checked it out it was only at around 20%.
@ thomas
One of the most annoying aspects of any discussion on Celtic languages is the almost pushing it/ them to the fringes of culture, barbaric and uncouth, primitive even.
The reality is quite different, all Celtic languages have a common root with Latin, Hebrew and Greek. David Starkey would be apoplectic at this point.
I did read a rather excellent book on this very subject many years ago( I am now going to have to try and find it) which dealt with this comprehensively.
Ruth Davidson happy to appear on Have I Got News For You but scared to face Radio Scotland questions on Rape Clause and hopefully about the Tories seven racist candidates.
admiral says:
Yes, and Kezia’s lot were the worse of all, though the three Unionist parties seemed out of kilter with everyone else. Trade unions, charities, the true consensus was to devolve far more.
So Kezia has one Hell of a cheek arguing that the poor financial powers we have are used to mitigate the effects of the powers we were denied!
The era of devolution has past. More powers probably wouldn’t have effected the Brexit crisis. Now we see that in a post Brexit UK Tory policy is to reduce/remove devolution, not increase it.
@Smallaxe says: 18 April, 2017 at 7:41 am:
“Why don’t we just ask Neil (Lovely Locks) Oliver?
Oh! You mean the guy who is an Archaeologist but thinks he is a historian with an axe to grind and the BBC thinks is a useful idiot.
He starts with a false agenda and works backwards to try to fit the evidence to support the axe he ground to start with.
Smallaxe says:
Why don’t we just ask Neil (Lovely Locks) Oliver?
um, his last 3 episode mini series about orkney, britains ancient capital, he managed to talk for 3 hrs without ever mentioning scotland once.?
I dream of a time, once we are independent, that we have our own tv channels which fund programs and historians to explore our own history, a subject no longer relegated to the fringes of a blog about scottish independence.
thomas says:
Scotland is a difficult case as we know very little of exactly what language pictish was , theory now accepted it was a form of non romanised p celtic.
————-
theory is now, gaelic was the linga franca of the bronze age, covering all of the british isles and most of modern day france and spain.
gaulish was the language of the iron age which gained a foot hold in england, wales and southern scotland.
but while cumbric and brithonic are p celtic languages, they are far closer to gaelic than gaulish.
the cruithne in northern scotland continued to speak “Cassiteridish” with far less influence from these iron age invaders. an ancient form of gaelic
rp
re neil oliver
snap
In BBC Radio Scotland GMS main news bulletin, they told us that Marie Le Pen will get tough on immigration if she wins the Presidential race later this month.
Why did BBC Scotland think we needed to know that this morning?
BBC Scotland know that the SNP are more in favour of Immigration than Ruthie’s Tory Party.
BBC Scotland still doing one of their ex colleagues a favour.
BBC Scotland still playing the racist/Immigration card.
@thomas says:
17 April, 2017 at 8:58 pm
============================
Fair points, in fact very good points. (Though I think my arguments were valid at least in part for the poster I replied to who maintained Strathclyde Britons did not exist at that time). However the English themselves had a shared sense of identity (Angelcynn) even when living in separate kingdoms. So could your argument not be applied to them also? (OK a bit tongue in cheek there but it does show how these things can be argued over). I find it all very interesting, and don’t mind being corrected if it points me in the direction of finding new stuff out. Thanks.
May to make Downing street statement at 11.15am this morning.
The mind boggles.
PM making a statement from Downing Street 11.15.
What now? (sigh)
If the Tories walk out of Holyrood, they achieve nothing beyond exposing their cynical objective of delegitimising Scotland’s parliament. No surprises there, they are led by Ruth Davidson, who can’t even bring herself to respect the office of Scotland’s First Minister, while at the same time coveting the same position for herself. Once they walk out, they have nowhere to go. Personally, I’d bolt the door behind them as they left.
Contrast this Tory “publicity stunt” with what ostensibly appears to be a similar action, whereby the Scottish MP’s in Westminster were to walk out of Westminster. This would not merely be a petulant stunt intended to delegitimise Westminster, because it would mark the end the United Kingdom, where the Sovereign voice of Scotland currently shares the same roof as that of sub-Sovereign voice of England. Once they walk out, the Scottish MP’s can call an assembly and merge with Scotland’s MSP’s, and for the first time in 310 years, Scotland has its own sovereign government, elected to office democratically by their sovereign people. At worst, at the very worst, perhaps it would require a vote of ratification for their actions. But this ratification too is rather void, because failure to ratify the ending of the Union once ended, should that happen, would not “rejoin” the United Kingdom. Once a contract is formally breached, it cannot be unbreached, and a new contract is required. A new Act of Union would be required, and good luck with getting that…
So take your pick, walking out of parliament is petulant attention seeking from the Buffalo Whisperer, or it is the very real coup de grace, literally the actual death blow, for the UK parliament.
So on you go Davidson, de-legitise Scotland’s Parliament if you must, then look on from some position of obscurity as the people of Scotland not only re-legitimise the Parliament, but go further to ratify its sovereign independence so our sovereign legislature need never be maligned or held hostage by the cantankerous likes of you ever again.
@Thomas
==========
I was going to challenge that when I realised you must be right. I remembered reading recently that although there was no conquest per se of the Picts by the Gaels, the Gaelic language over time replaced the Brittonic Pictish language and became the shared language of Alba. Something similar could easily and is likely to have happened with Strathclyde. Interestingly it also claimed that Scots Gaelic though still clearly a Gaelic language was very much influenced by the Brittonic language which died out. So a 2-way effect although Gaelic coming out the winner which itself suggests mutual influence rather than conquest and imposition.
May to make Downing street statement at 11.15am this morning.
She seeks to intimidate us by the use of the quarter hour. (loosely – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.)
The Cat, re Q and P gaelic, a little real life story backs you up. Back in the eighties one of my mates was working with a French Drilling company in the North Sea and as a result could speak French a bit. One of his colleagues from Brittany had no English but spoke His native Brittany P Gaelic and French, anyway on his two weeks off the Briton went to the western Isles. When they met up in the rig again, my mate asked him how he managed to communicate, he said it was no problem, I spoke my language and they spoke theirs and we understood each other.
Not with you on this one Rev.
The clever sums count for nothing when public services are being decimated.
I support the SNP’s policy on independence, but an income tax policy that was a mirror image’s of the Westminster Tories’ policy was pish.
The Scottish Greens had a much better policy.
People imagine the SNP to be champions of Social justice. They look that way when compared to the Tories. Almost any party would, compared to the Tories.
The truth is that the SNP is a broad coaliton of views. It plays safe. Moderate. Mediocre.
The SNP does not want to risk upsetting anyone that could split the pro-independence movement, so it does very little to change anything too much.
It administers; it does not reform. Just as the Lib/Lab Scottish Govts did before it.
In a large respect it’s true: the SNP IS/WAS a single-issue party.
However, it has got used to being in power – administration power; not reforming power.
ScotGov ministers and MSPs don’t want to risk losing their cosy lives as high salaried earners for doing very little.
Thus, independence Yes, but let’s not risk losing votes or MSPs jobs over it. Vote SNP as a safe, mediocre administrators.
We won’t tax the rich any more than the Tories. We won’t tax the middle earners more than the Tories. We will treat the poor a bit better than the Tories.
But we won’t change anything very much.
Jam tomorrow: once we are independent.
But let’s not push too hard for independence as we have lots of SNP MPs and SNP MSPs in cushy jobs now.
Let’s not push for social justice and better public services too much, as high earning MSPs and MPs aren’t struggling to live.
BBC reports that Kezia is launching the Westminster Branch Office Local Council Election campaign with a warning that Local Services will not be safe in Conservative hands.
She also claims the SNP are pushing for another independence referendum to distract from what they call a, “Poor record”, in government.
She also warns against voting Conservative as a protest against independence.
Now I’m not exactly an unbiased observer but I have to wonder what criteria wee Kez is using to come to her conclusions. Most of Scotland’s voters have long ago concluded that Local council services are, “not safe in Tory hands”, by not having voted for many of Scotland’s local authorities under Tory control.
As for her claim that the SNP are attempting to use a referendum to distract from, “their poor record in Government”, all evidence proves that, at local council level, the SNP’s spell in office has seen Scottish local services, in every local department, outperforming every other country in the United Kingdom.
Where does this excuse for a party leader get her perceived information from? She seems to live in some kind of world that is insulated from the World the rest of Scotland live in.
BTW: Radio Jockland is warning we should stand by for an immanent and important Downing Street announcement from Theresa May.
Has she resigned?
The Unionist party:
Vote Yes or No? Milk or no milk? Plain bread or pan?
These are the divisive questions we’re faced with every day, how DO we survive the tension and family disputes that separate us without going to pieces
The thing about the voting part is you don’t even have to say the words you put a cross in a box in secret so nobody need even know how divisive you were
So….
The party who voted against their own parliament having the powers to do the things they keep insisting the SNP should do
The party who presented the Scottish people with a prospectus which was rejected utterly by the electorate insists that the SNP should adopt all the unelectable policies which they themselves were rejected on
The party when presented with the powers to control Scotlands future named those powers “Wee things” and voted against having them
The party who returned hundreds of millions to the Westminster treasury because they couldn’t think of anything to spend the money on
The party in whos entire term of office built 6 council houses
then left Scotland with PFI debt for school building for generations
The party who votes with the Conservatives in Westminster to deny Scotlands wishes then challenges the SNP in Holyrood to mitigate against the things they voted for in Westminster
The party along with their sister party the Conservatives who raise the subject of “Another divisive referendum” every 25 minutes of every day then accuses the SNP of being obsessive about another referendum
The party who will likely never be in power in Westminster for what could be the next twenty years who have voted for almost all of the Tory bills or abstained in order for them to pass unopposed insists they will change everything that they vote for now
The party whos leader seems to be actively seeking alternative positions in Wales or England insists she’s committed to Scotland…. at the moment
Er’s yer Labour party folks, two for the price of three
are you falling for it yet?
@hrodingers cat says:
===============
It’s hard to discuss what you say as you don’t give clear evidence – the 2 references you quote have nothing to do with Gaulish/Germanic links and are about the origins of Indo-European. Interesting but don’t support what you suggest. What can be said is that I’ve never come across such a suggestion anywhere and I’ve read a wee bit about language development. If anything the Celtic languages, including Gaulish are more related to Latin and Greek (though distantly) although of course ultimately all the Indo-European languages have some connection and some that were close interchanged features and words with each other.
First things first: and end to the union with England.
Ahhh, what a time to run out of popcorn!
The only way to save UK & Scotland from post-Brexit economic disaster is Alistair Darling & Scottish Labour leading an independent Scotland.
Lol, Sky news can’t contain their excitement.
Re announcement at 11.15
My guess is that she is resigning on health grounds. She has type I diabetes and I suspect that the stress of the PM job, bearing in mind the unrest in her cabinet from the likes of Boris etc is just too much.
Also, her body language shows her to be not comfortable on the world stage, particularly in dealing with a now hostile EU. The health grounds may be used as a part cover for her unease in the job and her mounting realisation of what an impossible task it is.
The only way to save UK & Scotland from post-Brexit economic disaster is Alistair Darling & Scottish Labour leading an independent Scotland.
We need to seduce Alistair Darling to lead Scottish Labour & Scotland to independence. He is the only man to extricate both UK and Scotland from post Brexit economic disaster.
Already Lloyds Bank for example is relocating HQ to Germany. Why not instead to an independent Scotland?
There is no time to lose. Alistair Darling can be persuaded, he commented in an address recently UK should not be given a blank cheque regarding Brexit. He is an economist. He wants to be part of the EU. His heretofore unionist ideology must now appreciate that the only way to save the joint economies of UK and Scotland is via Scottish EU membership and independence.
Outside chance,
May is about to formally announce Direct Rule of Northern Ireland.
@stu mac says:
18 April, 2017 at 10:16 am
==========================
Aaargh. Something went badly wrong with the autocorrect here and “shared language of Celts” became “shared language of Caesar”. Weird.
Theresa May to make Downing St statement @ 11-15am Odds on the following: 1)Health 2)N.Korea
3)Something on Indyref2(to pre-empt Nicola’s ‘statement of intent) OR…my choice…4)General Election announcement…although not sure how this works with ‘Fixed Term Parliaments.
They must be pissing themselves laughing behind the door of number 10 watching Sky and the BBC.
Lol, election June the 8th.
Kuensberg is tweeting GE June 8th…unconfirmed as yet, also likley a party political statement as the the prime ministerial ‘black seal’ is not on May’s lectern.
Snap One_Scot 😉
Point One
colin alexander @ 10.34am
My troll antennae twitched on first reading your post, but, there are some valid points in there.
I have, at times, been unimpressed by the quality of some of the SNP’s staff and political foot soldiers, but, as you say, the party is a broad church, and gaining independence is its over-riding USP. Every team is only as good as its weakest member, and, the weakest SNP/Independence team member is still a far better player than most of the Unionists teams’ members.
It does not help that Westminster, both when setting-up Holyrood and more-son with the Smith Commission, did a pretty good job of making certain Holyrood could change little, and had very few tax-raising or mitigating powers.
What the SNP has to do is win the biggest battle – get Scotland independent. Then, and only then, they can get creative with tax reforms etc – say to the civil servants, who, we should never forget, belong to what is basically, even in Edinburgh, a London-centric organisation: “Right, how can we change things”.
I have no doubts, after independence, the civil service and our politicians will find ways of messing things up; they will make wrong choices, but, they will be Scottish civil servants and MSPs, making choices (even wrong ones) for Scotland, and not for Westminster.
Point Two
All this stuff about languages and how far the Romans got is very interesting, but, we are supposed, on here, to be trying to win independence – we can worry about ancient languages later.
The immediate priority is crushing the Tories and further harming Labour in the Council Elections on 4 May. Back to the Day Job lads and lassies.
If it is a snap GE then its very very good news for indy.
The GE in Scotland will have one subject – independence & the red/blue/orange tories are fucked on a FPTP system for now 🙂
No need for indyref2 if this happens.
So much for…”Now is not the time!”
@Arbroath1320 and @ caz m
O/T
Losing the European Banking Authority and European Medical Agency was bound to happen, the EU just got off the starting block as soon as Article 50 was triggered.
As far as the European Medical Agency goes, the problem is not just the direct jobs, but the effect on medical products related job in pharmaceuticals, in medical research, in medicine related IT projects. The knock-on effect will be enormous.
The EU27 are already moving to much more regulation of the financial services industry – the UK was fighting that tooth and nail. Losing the European Banking Authority is just a part of the process. What will really hurt will be loss of Euro-clearing. Merkel and others have already said it is on the way. The knock on from that will make the losses from the Medical Agency seem chicken feed by comparison.
The MSM will not be able to bury that one.
May could be calling an election to cover up the electoral fraud. She could hope to lose because of Brexit. The poison chalice. That is what the Tories do. They muck up and run away. They have form. Murray could have deduced.
The £20Billion the Union costs Scotland could have paid for baby boxes, no benefit welfare cuts, increased pension and full employment. Increased investments. Osbourne illegal high Tory taxes destroyed the Oil sector andlead to more Oil & Gas being imported. Frack US Gas and Norwegian Gas. Putting up the balance of trade deficit and the debt. Costing 120,000 jobs in Scotland. There are 120,000 people unemployed in Scotland.
The £1.2Billion Labour/Green ACC has wasted on non mandated projects of no value the majority do no want. The City could have been regenerated and predestrianised with and provided excellent essential services. For less. Instead of them being cut.
If the £Billions spent on illegal wars was cut. There would be more money for funding mental health issues.
Teresa mucked up again.
@stu mac says: 18 April, 2017 at 10:16 am:
“I was going to challenge that when I realised you must be right. I remembered reading recently that although there was no conquest per se of the Picts by the Gaels, the Gaelic language over time replaced the Brittonic Pictish language and became the shared language of Caesar!”
I believe you are both wrong – for very obvious reasons.
You are confusing the language with genetics.
Since the Romans arrived in Britain there has been an elite ruling class that were genetically different from the general population. In Roman times there had been no written languages and as the rulers used written language then things had to change as far as the native populations were concerned.
The languages spoken in Roman times until today have changed depending upon what ruling elites were in power at different times. In effect the general population were not genetically changed because ruling elites tend to interbreed among themselves so are to great extent become insulated genetically from the general population.
Language wise the general populations, while for centuries insulated from the elites genetically, tended to adopt the languages of the elite rulers. They also tended to adopt many of the cultural mores of their ruling classes who basically treated them as slaves, serfs, villeins or other forms of lower orders.
As an example we still have hereditary peers sitting in the Lords that are the direct descendants of the Normans of 1066. These Normans, were an offshoot of other Germanic Tribes who had settled in Normandy around the same time as the Anglo Saxons were settling in south Britain.
In fact the term Normans is a derivation of Norsemen and gave the name Normandy to the area they settled.
Another obvious outlier is that while the southern Normans conquered south Britain in north Britain they assimilated into the population by intermarriage with the northern ruling classes.
Furthermore the Celts were mainly holy men, mainly celibate and were converting the locals not ruling them as the many place-names associated with Celtic saints will testify.
Official Language used is no guide to genetic makeup.
Ahhh, GTF May, ‘Now is not the time’
I’ll guess a resignation. After failed attempt at Christianity . Jings she is on now.
GENERAL ELECTION
Jings, crivvens, help ma Boab.
Let’s get the bitch, and her toxic Tories out of Scotland
FREEDOM!!!!!
Whatever TMay is about to announce, you can be sure now is not the time! 🙂
How does it square with the 5 year election rule. Another U turn. Corbyn must have agreed.
keep throwing her spades she is digging well. Lets get fluffy dumped.
BREAKING: TM calls GE June 8th.
Wow!
Here we go!
Bring it on.
Could we not have the Independence Referendum on the same day?
Let’s sort it all out on one day, once and for all.
Be funny if she doesn’t get her two thirds majority!
Oh great, another divisive election to tear families apart hee hee.
Can we get rid of SOS Mundell??
Fasten your seat belts one wheel might be about to come off the wagon!
Implications for Scotland?
SNP to fight on referendum platform?
Corbyn will be gone soon for sure.
You were right, Rev. 2017 defo boring year for politics. LOL!
Party time
Mandate for independence referendum should be clear then. Even put it in the manifesto that a majority of SNP MPS should be the basis for Independence talks?
May well lose some SNP MPs but hopefully hang on to a majority.
Well done the guessers on this site BBC claiming everyone taken by surprise by her bold decision. I plumped for resignation or Election.
No need for a referendum. Make the GE an Indy vote.
Mmmm want to reconsider running the polls now Stu? 😉 (private joke)
Game on.
The SNP have to run this as an EXPLICIT mandate for independence within 12 months. No more waiting for what Brexit is going to bring – it’ll bring zip-fuck in the way of any trade deals, the likelihood is that it’ll be WTO & if that happens the UK is screwed. It’ll make the mid-1970s and 80s look like a panacea.
Get rid of the liar Carmichael; useless Fluffy & the BritNat (when convenient) Murray* and its done. No referendum required. 100% SNP MPs = indy and indy which WILL be recognised by all EU countries.
I guess we can all see why Murray was running his own polls to see if he can get in as an “independent” candidate 😀
I smell shite… how is the investigation into GE2015 Tory expenses going?
OFFS! Can she actually be …?
Nevermind.
I’m buying shares in popcorn.
It’s a General Election! Who’dathunkit?
Game on
So where does this leave the May Council Elections?
Objectives ….
SNP should stand on a mandate for ScotRef.
We make Scotland a Unionist free zone as far as Westminster is concerned. Get the last three Yoon MPs out. They are all weak and on shoggly pegs.
May is unbelievably thick. She says no scotref as it would create instability, but on the other hand calls a general election. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
John Curtice tells BBC he expects SNP to hold on to most of its seats.
Well, that’s ok then.
“now is not the time – the 6th of June is! What a shower!
And the Beardmuncher walks out of Downing Street wondering if he’ll be signing on in June!
“Now is not the time” “get on with the day job”!
GE on 6th June
Well…could we have wished for anything better…think yes to cover the election fraud and to give her a bigger mandate in England for Brexit. The stars have aligned, this is the biggest chance we’ll ever have to simply take our independence, surely now Scotland can’t step back in the face of what will be for many of us eternal Tory role when they stregthen their toxic mandate down south?
Bring it on!
Oh and yeah, hypocritical bastard ‘now is not the time’ for you lot in Scotland but it’s okay for ma lot to call the shots, ‘know yer place Scotland’. They can GTF, gear up everyone we’re in for the battle of our life’s!
A confession at last!
link to twitter.com
Liar Carmichael on BBC now:
“The Liberal Democrats are the only party in British politics wishing to put the UK at the heart of Europe”.
Factually correct, but, still a bit of a lie – the SNP wants Scotland in Europe.
He cannot help telling lies.
Interesting timing.
Agree with Mike Cassidy will she get the required 2/3 thirds majority in the HOC. Given that labour is + 20% behind the Tories in the polls are they likely to support this motion. Date the risk a drubbing in this election?
So, the tories walkout will start 6 weeks before June 8th, i.e. April 27th. Empty vessels!
Wow! Our chance to get rid of Davidson, Fraser, Carlaw and the whole sheebang!
Get your trainers strapped on folks, there’s work to do.
Irish re-unification, Scottish Independence – anything is possible.
She’s got to get her two-thirds majority tomorrow in WM though. Liar Carmichael smiling on TV just now.
Very clever strategy – if she loses, she doesn’t have to be the PM in charge when the UK breaks up.
Game ON!
what with all these threats of walkouts and talk of a GE, id almost forgot about the rape clause issue..
but then i remembered what really matters to people.
The greens should work with the SNP to defeat Mundell Murray and Carmichael.
Not doing a Gordon Brown then.
Sees her opportunity and going for it.
Fixed term parliaments now but there are two ways call an early election.
The law decides when elections happen
The Queen no longer has the power to dissolve a Parliament before its five years are up, except in two—and only two—special circumstances described in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.
Early elections possible, but MPs need to agree
Lord Norton of Louth, an expert in government, has recently lamented that this is still misunderstood, even by political junkies. He points out that an early election can be triggered only if:
1. two-thirds of the House of Commons vote for it; or
2. a simple majority of MPs (more than half of those voting)
passes a specifically worded motion expressing no confidence
in the government.
Tories should stroll to victory according to opinion polls darn Sarf.
But in Scotland the SNP will win but it’s going to be hard to repeat the feat of securing so many MPs as before.
June 8th game on. 🙂
This clearly isn’t a surprise to many politicos outside the Tory party. Murray for one had to know about this a couple of weeks ago otherwise why the polling about him standing as an independent anti-Brexit candidate?
So if he knew then it beggars belief Sturgeon didn’t know – in fact she said she would be setting out “further steps” before Easter.
Dear gods don’t let the SNP screw this up with customary timidity.
No wishy-washy crap, indy or bust at this GE because that’s the real choice facing us.
If May gets a big majority (she will) then the Scots Parliament is gone ASAP – bet on it! There won’t be any indyref2 because there won’t be any devolved govts.
SNP a win gives us the authority to negotiatethe removal from Ruk.
It looks as if Denmark is going to contest the UK’s claim about taking back control of its fishing grounds
link to archive.is
On the subject of this announcement of a General Election: will the Tories in Scotland try to turn this into yet another ‘referendum’ about holding a second indyref?
Dare they risk a drubbing in this election?
Doh
Robert Peffers,
‘ to support the axe he ground to start with.’
Pretty crap archaeologist if he starts with an axe!
Sounds to me as if the Toies are pulling the plug before someone else pulls it for them, maybe something to do with election fraud? It could be that they will loose their majority anyhow due to the Tories being in jail, and so the plan is; run a GE before too many learn about it… I guess.
To me this seems like an oppertunity for SNP to gain independence for Scots. Since Theresa May has said “no” to Scotref, then if I were an SNP leader I would add into the manifesto that a majority for SNP = Independence.
Juteman 11.15 am. Absolutely,snp should make this GE a mandate for independence,no referendum needed.
Ye may be onto something there Meg…it’s May’s ticket out potentially, remember what a Tory says in public is rarely if ever truthful, from that speech it’s all soundbite wi no substance in her reasoning. Persoanlly ah think the HoL is her main threat, Brexit is destroying the Tories…long May this continue.
@ stu mac, mebbes the Irish missionaries had the edge over the heathen with Gaelic?
Lokking forward to Mundell No More, Murray No More & Carmichael The Liar No More!!!!
May will get 2/3 vote no problem for those of you wondering.
Labour have already said they wouldn’t oppose an early GE & the SNP must be ecstatic right now 🙂
Even if Labour did formally oppose an early GE there’s no way Corbyn can whip his MPs into voting that way (he knows this) as they’ll look at this as a way of removing him.
pic.twitter.com/c1KaaB2FEd
this is a map of scotland in 3 parts, showing the name places mentioned by Ptolemy, the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, and the origin myths of scotland earliest writers.
bollox………in mid comment, st treeza calls for a general election on 8th june
Ha Ha! Prof Curtis caught looking a bit casual on Aunties tv news darn Sarf, no tie or jacket on, maybe just out of his pyjamas.
Says SNP will do well holding on to nearly all their seats…not news where we are. 🙂
Carmichael looking perky and predicts a resurgence for the Lib/Dems. It’s all about rejecting a hard Brexit.
Humblest apologies. BBC Radio 5 announced election on 6th June. Should have looked at calendar! GE on THURSDAY 8th June.
I agree. Time to seize the thistle. Majority M.Ps == mandate for independence. Tories can’t say ‘now is not the time’, they’re the ones who called this.
sarah smith?Verified account @BBCsarahsmith
SNP will hope a good performance in general election strengthens their case for #indyref2. But its hard to do better than 56 out of 59 MPs
she’s right
The pound has fallen off a cliff face folks!
on.ft.com/2pu7lgg
Lets get rid of that useless prick Mundell
Stu hasn’t tweeted in about 5 minutes. Suspect he’s rushing out an article giving his take on events. Looking forwards to that!
The only way to save UK & Scotland from post-Brexit economic disaster is Alistair Darling & Scottish Labour leading an independent Scotland.
We need to seduce Alistair Darling to lead Scottish Labour & Scotland to independence. He is the only man to extricate both UK and Scotland from post Brexit economic disaster.
Already Lloyds Bank for example has chosen Germany as its European base after Brexit and aims to apply for a licence in the country in a matter of months. Why not instead to an independent Scotland?
There is no time to lose. Alistair Darling can be persuaded, he commented in an address recently UK should not be given a blank cheque regarding Brexit. He is an economist. He wants to be part of the EU. His heretofore unionist ideology must now appreciate that the only way to save the joint economies of UK and Scotland is via Scottish EU membership and independence.
59 out of 59.
Bring it on!
Labour have previous on what opposition consists of. The haven’t said they will agree to an early GE so haven’t committed themselves to voting in favour.
Forcing the government to call a vote of no confidence against themselves would definitely put them at a disadvantage if it went to a debate.
All the FTSEs nosediving. Ma shares FGS!
Never mind if it’s leading to independence well worth it.
Anything from the FM yet. She might have to amend her promised statement.
@schrodingers cat 11:36 am :
“sarah smith?Verified account @BBCsarahsmith
SNP will hope a good performance in general election strengthens their case for #indyref2. But its hard to do better than 56 out of 59 MPs
she’s right”
Forget indyref2, its not going to happen.
The mandate for complete indy has to happen at this GE as any subsequent section 30 order will be rejected. If the SNP go for yet another mandate to have an indyref then I give up on them & I’m sure I won’t be alone.
Once the Tories have an unassailable majority in England & are heading for hard Brexit do you seriously think there’s ANYTHING short of violence which will prevent them ignoring Scotland’s democratic wishes for another 50 years again?
This is it.
The Tories could have been defeated in Westminster. If there was an opposition. Still could be after a GE. The Polls are much the same. With more people voting anti Tory because of Brexit? They will still be able to. A hung Parliament. Excellent for SNP for influence. Balance of power. Teresa May runs away.
“…. give the country the strong and stable leadership it demands”.
Says the UK Prime Minister in office less than 9 months, arguing for a hard Brexit she opposed, after those who caused Brexit all ran away, who says now is not the time for Scottish democracy but then calls a UK General Election.
If Thatcher was the Iron Lady, I take it Theresa wants to lay claim to the Irony Lady.
The only stable leadership the UK has is shitting the stable door once the latest clusterfuk policy has bolted.
So, game on. SNP on an Indy mandate is it?
So, Sinn Fein don’t have to hold out for another election – TM has just gifted them a chance in a lifetime.
She doesn’t have to force Direct rule onto N. Ireland – very unpopular move.
She isn’t seen to give in to Sinn Fein and offer another election and thereby let down Unionists.
Unionists get another bite at the cherry to get their majority.
It’s up to the people.
Clever move – takes care of N. Ireland.
Scotland a very different case.
Are the May elections suddenly more important or less important?
Don’t want to put any ideas on paper as i don’t want to tempt fate…
What if there is a GE and May stands down – Boris Johnson for PM? Disaster!!!
Aargh! need to lie down…
Need to go and lie down.
We live in interesting times!
Err… that should have said “shutting”… apologies.
Buying time. Ireland can now be put on the back burner till after the election. It was supposed to come back to Westminster rule on Friday. On top of this there was the possible loss of majority due to election fraud.
The last point is that she is gambling the SNP lose their majority in Scotland, allowing Westminster to regain control either in terms of party mPs who support the Union, or who would vote to suspend Holyrood.
This is a major ,major gamble untypical of Mrs may. I would bet my house she will hoover up N of England seats, but I am also confident of two things. The SNP will keep their majority representation and many pro European Tory seats will fall to the lib demo.
Interesting times right enough. We must galvanise people to get to the polls ,because election tedium will be a factor, which May will hope affects other parties.
Onward and ?.
She really is running out of options. Time to get our taketty boots on and pump up the volume.
So May’s Easter message was that she had a sense that the country was coming together. [Stop sniggering at the back] Days later she thinks it can only be united with a GE?
Go figure.
Who saw that one coming? So much to consider now.
Will the 48% all vote for the Lib Dems?
Will UKIP fight or stand aside – or are they completely irrelevant now?
Will Labour in ENgland be obliterated?
Will Home county Tory shires (that voted Remain) vote Lib Dem?
Will the GE in Scotland be a vote on Independence or Brexit?
How do the SNP improve on last GE? Is the only way .. down?
Will Scottish Brexiteers vote against the SNP?
Northern Ireland, Wales, The EU … exciting times!!!!
Robert Peffers says:
18 April, 2017 at 9:47 am
@Smallaxe says: 18 April, 2017 at 7:41 am:
“Why don’t we just ask Neil (Lovely Locks) Oliver?”
“He starts with a false agenda and works backwards to try to fit the evidence to support the axe he ground to start with.”
He didn’t grind Smallaxe, Mr Peffers, I’m still well sharp and ready to cut THEM down!
Let’s finish them forever in Scotland and take our country back, I’ll be at Glasgow Green on the 3rd June if it’s still on, come hell or high water, I hope to meet many of you there.
Peace and Independence Always
So Mrs May won’t allow a referendum campaign in parallel with her Brexit negotiations but she’s happy with a GE campaign? Labour happy to give the two thirds majority for the Fixed Term Act – turkeys voting for an early Christmas?
@Socrates MacSporran says: 18 April, 2017 at 11:25 am:
“The Liberal Democrats are the only party in British politics wishing to put the UK at the heart of Europe”.
Factually correct, … “
That, Socrates, depends upon what you mean by, “British Politics”. I’m certain that Scotland, The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have all said they want to remain in Europe. Then we have the three Crown Dependencies who are all associate members of the EU but I’m sure they are hoping to be able to become members and not be dragged out of Europe on Westminster’s coat tails.
The UK is not Britain and Brexit cannot take all Britain out of Europe, at most Westminster can only take the UK out and that means one of only two partners in the UK is dragging the other out.
@cearc says: 18 April, 2017 at 11:32 am
“‘ to support the axe he ground to start with.’
Pretty crap archaeologist if he starts with an axe!”
Yes, Cearc, but it was a flint axe and, anyway, I didn’t claim he was a good Archaeologist – just that this was what he qualified as at Uni.
@Dr Jim
I’ve recently seen the “6 council house” claim elsewhere, about the last Labour administration.
However, although almost correct, it refers to a single quarterly period.
From 1996-2007 there were fewer than 60 Local Authority new builds “Started” per quarter, with a single exception of 101 in Q2-1999
For entire years (4 Quarters) of the last Labour governments since devolution :
1996 (3 Quarters) = 77
1997 = 132
1998 = 62
1999 = 158
2000 = 81
2001 = 60
2002 = 15
2003 = 0
2004 = 0
2005 = 6 (Shetland)
2006 = 28 (Midlothian)
2007 (Q1 prior to election) there were 0
Then, with a change in government in 2007, there were over 400 per annum
(2008 was an outlier with under 200)
Since then it’s been upwards growth with builds of over 1000 per annum.
Source :
link to gov.scot
@Vestas says: 18 April, 2017 at 11:34 am:
“Even if Labour did formally oppose an early GE there’s no way Corbyn can whip his MPs into voting that way (he knows this) as they’ll look at this as a way of removing him.”
Aye! Vestas, that will indeed be their first reaction – then it will slowly dawn upon them that they may just be also removing themselves from Westminster as well.
Not only could they NOT be reselected as candidate by the rank & file constituency associations but many will have slim majorities to worry about too.
May could find that she doesn’t get the 2/3rd majority she needs to call a snap election.
Robert Peffers 12:35 pm :
“May could find that she doesn’t get the 2/3rd majority she needs to call a snap election.”
No mate it’ll be easy peasy lemon squeezy. Its already a done deal IMHO – I don’t think this is any sort of surprise to privy councillors for example.
One (Sturgeon) said before Easter she’d be setting out “further steps” on 17/4/17 (I think she forgot thats a Bank Holiday in England) & another (Murray) has been carrying out polling on how he’d do as an “anti-Brexit independent candidate”.
Its done – wait & see.
@sensibledave says: 18 April, 2017 at 12:01 pm:
“Will the GE in Scotland be a vote on Independence or Brexit?”
Dunnow! You’ll have to ask the Tories in Scotland, The Labour Party Scottish Branch Office and the Scottish Lib/Dems about that. They are the ones that dictate what Nicola is doing and thinking.
“How do the SNP improve on last GE?”
Not too hard as the only three seats the SNP didn’t win have very thin majorities and they were won based upon lies or underhand tactics.
“Will Scottish Brexiteers vote against the SNP?”
Does the Pope shit in the woods and are bears Catholics? (did I get that wrong)?
“Northern Ireland, Wales, The EU … exciting times!!!!”
Eh! Don’t you know that, according to the non-SNP parties in Scotland and the Scottish media, all we Scots are worn out by elections and referendums?
@Smallaxe says: 18 April, 2017 at 12:02 pm:
“He didn’t grind Smallaxe, Mr Peffers, I’m still well sharp and ready to cut THEM down!”
Oh! Smallaxe, I didn’t, for a moment think you were not.
Anyway, Oliver’s axe was a flint axe and we all know you are made of the very best, and keenest, tempered steel.
@ golfnut
Belated pedantry (and overtaken by “events, dear boy”, but since I’m a pedant….):
Latin, Greek and the Celtic languages are Indo-European.
Hebrew is a Semitic language and quite different. (They have influenced each other, of course.)
We should target Fluffy’s constituency with everything we have – is it not and 800 ish majority. Also ,if poss, the Fat Lyling Slug’s in the Northern Isles.
Robert Peffers:
When I’m as sharp as you sir, as sharp as a Gor? Ny?d? Masamune blade I shall be content.
Arigat?gozaimasu
Thank you, sir
Tsuneni Heiwa
Peace Always
Robert Peffers
Some things don’t translate to the page!
Goro Nyudo Masamune/Arigatogozaimasu
Shazai itashimasu Sensei
My apologies Teacher
🙂
Peace Always
Interesting article sick of hearing about Scotland and Brexit.