Let’s Not Make Some Plans
At first, this merely sounds like the worst day out ever.
But for supporters of independence, in fact it’s even grimmer than that.
Because if the above line-up of insomnia cures weren’t bad enough, wait until you hear what it is they’re going to be droning on to an audience of God-knows-who about.
We know it’s hard to contain your excitement – just four days to wait! – about the chance to hear Alex Cole-Hamilton explore current challenges in Scotland’s growth agenda in an inclusive manner, but allow us to draw your attention to a couple of innocuous paragraphs from the breathless blurb.
Because what John Swinney and Kate Forbes are telling you they’re signed up to is a vision of the future where the UK government is still a “key political stakeholder” in Scotland in 25 years’ time, and indeed “for generations to come”.
They’re not only planning to be “collaborative” with Unionist politicians like the vast majority of the speakers (though let’s take a moment to appreciate that snide little dig about “the main political parties” regarding an event at which two pro-indy parties with Holyrood MSPs are not represented), but specifically with the UK government.
The leadership of the SNP, in other words, is picturing a Scotland that’s still very much a part of the UK in 2050. (If nothing else, we suppose that’s a strong show of optimism from Swinney, who’s already 61 and will be some years beyond average Scottish male life expectancy by then.)
But we’re probably wilfully misinterpreting that out of malicious mischief, because of course the long-awaited independence convention announced by Nicola Sturgeon in 2020, and re-promised by the party’s Depute Leader less than a year ago, is now just around the corner.
Oh, wait, we’ve had some breaking news.
Imagine our shock. But hey, Cherie Blair’s not going to schmooze herself, is she?
In today’s Scotland ‘collaboration’ & ‘cooperation’ are just euphemisms for ‘croneyism’ & ‘corruption’.
The SNP have been a Unionist party since Alex Salmond resigned as FM
Ain`t that the truth.
100%
Back to the 90s, all very New Labour.
They’re on course for a win next year, why would they change anything. More gravy. Some of them might even give big band Davy a run for his money as most gormless trougher at HR.
Well, I’m stumped.
It’s hard to believe that even the most red, white and blue of unionists could be certain there will still be a UK in 2050.
Everybody is trying so hard to ignore this WW3 thingy, presumably in the hope it will just go away,
Could it be that what we are seeing is simply another one of the problems that arise when an unserious democracy votes daft teenagers and clueless intellectual adolescents into power?
Their expectation they will be riding the gravy train until retirement means that they have to work hard to keep the status quo unchallenged for decades into the future.
How about if at future elections we vote for serious greybeards (male and female)? At least then they will be focussed on achieving something before the progressive Scottish state reckons their cost-effective time in this life is over.
Looks awfu like a conference aboot mair colonialism o Scots, A wad jalouse, wi a richt paircel o rogues.
We will never see any growth in a plundered colonial economy, only exploitation, and where the objective of colonialism is ‘to widen inequality’ (Memmi).
I wonder if they’ll decide that in 2050 they’ll still, “be doing it for you, Beth”.
Tickets a free interesting. I believe Salvo and liberation and Scotland bid to have Scotland decolonised is worrying the SNP and the Unionist.
If that was true – and I’m not at all sure there is a scintilla of evidence for it – wouldn’t we be seeing some signs both of how this fear was exhibiting itself amongst the forces of unionism?
Perhaps more importantly, wouldn’t we also be able to see signs of this upswell in support and recognition amongst supporters of independence?
So where and what is the evidence….?
Bad enough that it may be so without you wishing it..
Sounds like an absolute shitfest of a meeting with all this ‘diverse crowd’ pish. Two votes reform for me next year!
The treachery staring folk in the face.
The question for the remaining erstwhile docile and blindly loyal membership is:
What are they going to do about it?
Rev, who are the people behind this?
It sounds grim and pointless. None of the Scottish branch “leaders”, Swinney and Forbes, and other MSPs, are capable of anything yet someone is going to a lot of trouble and expense to get them in a room with ex-PM’s wife and the John Smith Centre grifter.
So who and why?
“who are the people behind this?”
Brutish Labour Party and offshore equity, by the look of things:
link to scotland-2050.co.uk
Reminder:
Alex Salmond (St. Alex) PUT Sturgeon in office as FM.
Sturgeon did not get to be FM by some magical trick. The SNP voted her in. Salmond made her his deputy leader and put her into his cabinet. He praised her repeatedly. He also put Swinney into his cabinet. They held the number 2 and 3 positions in his cabinet.
Salmond (and SNP voters) must share responsibility for what happened.
Shouda woulda, coulda.
I’m sorry if this is confusing for you, it’s completely irrelevant to the point I made, then again, absolutely nothing new with the Unionist mindset.
It’s quite difficult to get into the mind of a Unionist as there’s not much room there, rather claustrophobic, there’s definitely no sign of a dictionary in there so they don’t know the meaning of a lot of the words they use, like sovereignty, democracy, colonialism, to name a few pertinent to Scotland but other words in the wider scheme of things like gen ocide and eth nic clean sing, also.
Nobody should stay in there for too long.
So basically you couldn’t answer a single one of his points and resorted to weak insults.
Standard.
I suppose it would be a vain hope in your case to think you’ve ever heard of something called “ad hominem fallacy” (and “fallacious attack” for that matter).
Off you pop, go look them up, you may (yet) be enlightened, though I doubt it.
Bad day for you is it BP?
I’ve noticed you’ve resorted to playing solitary buzzword bingo.
Or as our host calls it, wanking on and on.
Lol….good post, Breastplate.
The yoons ate ramping it up on here, new ‘names’ by the day amongst the same old tired dross.
What on earth could be spooking them this time?
As I recall, CC, Salmond and Sturgeon came as a package. He was going to team up with Ros Cunningham initially, but Sturgeon threatened to stand against him, take the youth vote with her and split the vote, letting another candidate in, so if you wanted Salmond, you had to take Sturgeon too, as she had already cut the feet from Cunningham.
She was barely 30 at that time and I think Salmond did well to keep her in her depute leader place because she was ferociously ambitious. I never saw her – or Swinney – as wedded to independence. Both always struck me as devolutionists, and this played out in reality. Both proved – Swinney twice – to have been weak leaders, although reasonably competent as second-in commands. Neither had the mettle or acumen to fight for independence as Salmond had done.
I think that Salmond knew exactly what she was – what both were – and he was willing to tell them so, inviting his own downfall at the hands of the back-stabbers. Yes, SNP voters did put her – them – where they could do so much harm. Swinney’s first stint as party leader was a disaster, and nobody voted for him the second time. I daresay he is a decent enough human being, but a party leader and leader for independence he is not and never could be.
All the water treaders, gravy trainers, devolutionists, gender headcases, wokerati and all-round timewasters have hollowed out there SNP from within – deliberately so. It has been no accident. They have all done Wewstminster’s and Whitehall’s work for them.
link to news.sky.com
#notmyflag
Yup
He most certainly did, and in good faith too.
And lived long enough to regret it.
Surely you aren’t suggesting WM (the so called mother of all parliaments) hasn’t seen a bucket load of backstabbers and sharp elbowed grifters climbing over the carcasses of their previous benefactor besties?
Really?
Sort your own countries crap out rather than playing spoiler with your unibot “pals” here.
This is what we call a jolly. Everyone working in the 3rd sector or quangos gets drunk with their mates the night before, turns up too hungover to concentrate on anything, and then goes home having not done any work. I wouldn’t read too much into it
Unionist Prick Bingo;
three in a row – “HOUSE”!
Yes James, it’s notable that they recognised themselves.
I could understand the SNP argument if Scotland couldn’t financial be Independent, which is the exact opposite its England who would be worse off.
FFS waken up people to who’s the enemy and who’s our friend.
Lesley Riddoch is another one. The SNP has wasted 11yrs and done nothing for Scotland, in fact the party has caused more damage to the cause of Independence (blocking any policy to achieve it) than UKG could have ever have hoped to do.
England voted in 2016 to leave the EU and the SNP stood on a ticket of securing Scotland’s place in the EU by Independence, the party even marched in London to obtain another vote on Brexit. At this point the SNP held the balance of power in Westminster, and it’s the only time SNP did hold the balance of power. Johnston’s government was a minority government, without being able to pass or get policies passed in Westminster. As the SNP held power they could have secured a section 30 order or even vote with the other party’s to reverse Brexit, instead the SNP gave Johnston a general election and didn’t even secure anything for saving the tory party.
Everything we have witnessed in the last 11yrs, I find it hard to believe that these so-called Independence supporters didn’t raise an eyebrow about Sturgeon’s behaviour,, from Brexit to taking the constitutional question to supreme court or admitting she’d stay British even if Scotland became Independent.
There silence is something they’ll have to live with but the damage because of their silence is something Scotland and its people will have to endure for a long time. The SNP policy used to be Independence solve the problems the Union, but now it’s the unity of the Union that’s kept Scotland from going bust if we’d become Independent in 2014. The SNP at any point could have forced the UKG into granting a section 30 order or the party could have taken a different route and left England out on the cold. Instead the UKG knew the SNP had no interest in securing Independence so did The National as did we in the Indy movement the SNP didn’t even try to hide it. What the SNP has done is allowed England to asset stripe Scotland so the status quo remains unaffected. The loss of Grangemouth Refinery wasn’t a stab in the back by the Labour party they did it in the front, it’s the SNP who’s been given all these mandates and chosen not to do anything about them and not one of these so-called Indy supporters said anything but blamed Westminster when it was within the SNP’s grasp in 2019 to hold Johnston and the tory party to ransom on Indyref2 but they did nothing.
Don’t be fooled by these so called slowly slowly Indy supporters if Sturgeon was still in charge they be praising her and standing her corner all because they are me 1st, 2nd and 3rd.
I think that it’s imperative that we fill that room with stroppy Yes folk. It’s free, after all, so what’s to stop us?
‘He’s a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody’
A NOTE TO READERS:
If you really MUST argue with each other about Gaza, there’s now an article where such matters are on-topic:
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Comments about it elsewhere will continue to be deleted.
The SNP unionist collaborators in full sight. Deceased unionist political spook agent John Smith and his fake Centre for you Swinney. The company you and Forbes keep speaks volumes.
They have been selected for their stupidity, there can be no other reason.
There certainly seems some desperation to avoid giving Salvo’s work any kind of publicity anywhere, especially as they are now getting known at the UN.
But is there really a split in the SNP, with one person talking about an Independence Convention and at the same time, another shaking hands with the Unionists?
Or are they just trying to keep the independence supporters on board with another false promise?
Isn’t a more likely explanation simply that Salvo isn’t in fact making much impact either in the popular consciousness of the pro independence movement, or in the corridors of the UN or any other international body?
I know which option I think is more likely….!
Could it be the UN have other things on their mind?
Serious things? Important things? Matters of life and death things?
Just a wild thought I’m chucking out there for further consideration.
“House”!
I think Mr Ellis is spot on re Salvo, not only are Salvo and it’s supporters engaging in magical thinking, their claim that Scotland is a colonised nation, is genuinely insulting to nations that *were* colonised by Scots!
All those people with the surname McDonald in Jamaica for example, are not Scottish immigrants with pale skins, and ginger hair, nor have they lived in Scotland, many are descended from slaves named after their Scottish slave masters, or soldiers.
Modern Indians refer to the Raj as the “Scottish” Raj, due to the numbers of Scots in India, under the British Empire.
Quite how the claim that Scotland is now a colony will be seen by these nations, remains to be seen, at best they might laugh it off, at worst it could cause serious offence.
Either way I suspect this latest example of magical thinking by Salvo and its supporters, will fail to hit its target.
As Mr Ellis correctly points out, none of these “cunning plans” are a substitute for a resounding demonstration of the popular will at the ballot box.
However on the plus side they keep the useful idiots occupied, and give others who should know better, something to bump their gums about.
@Stuart 3.50pm
Aye, that’ll be because you’re (checks notes) a unionist plant / 77th Brigade / not REALLY Scottish / a space lizard.
The hard of thinking midwit contingent BTL don’t do debate sadly being more inclined toward the vulgar abuse end of the argument spectrum. It does seem to trigger them no end when it’s pointed out that what passes for their case appears to have little or no public support and even less support from any notable political, legal or constitutional experts either at home or abroad.
Apparently we’re supposed to just trust that at some (always indeterminate and undefined) point in the future the scales will suddenly fall from the eyes of all Scots. We’ll be wafted to the sunny uplands of independence on the wings of Salvo and Liberate Scotland’s irrefutable cases to the UN, lots of petitions, crossing our arms and tutting loudly that referendums and plebiscites are a mugs game and all we REALLY have to do is attest that the Treaties of Union are hereby abrogated, spin around three times with our fingers crossed behind our back, and lo it shall come to pass that Craig Murray will automatically become first President of the Scottish Republic.
But yeah…you and I are the deluded ones for thinking there *might* just be an easier way!
Magical thinking indeed.
@Andy
For “first President of the Republic of Scotland” read “first President of the Islamic Republic of Scotland”.
If we’re gonna name drop certain individuals for the post, let’s make sure we acknowledge their allegiance.
Lovely stuff. Chin chin.
They can start by keeping Alexander’s open and working.
Well I don’t have two brass farthings to rub together but if I did, I would be salivating at the very thought of spending the money from a full day’s begging on North Bridge on:
1. A Scotland 2050 blue Baseball Cap @ only £20.
2. A Scotland 2050 T-Shirt @ only £25.
3. 10 copies of Cherie Blair’s pre-signed autobiography: Speaking for Myself @ £14.99 = £149.90. (10 copies to be given away to the children of the world to guide them through their lives with the wisdom of their betters).
I despair of the cynicism BTL. You lot know the price of everything and the value of nothing…
Wearing a baseball cap is a clear sign you’re adopting the colonialist mindset of the oppressor.
Fits wrang wi a bunnet?
Dull as dishwater.
At least Broontosaurus isn’t attending- perhaps they are having difficulty with his defrost setting in time for the non event – so sent Teflon Tony’s other half instead..
Independence is dead under the current SNP.
A change is urgently needed; what for instance are our MPs doing?
As church elder Swinney plays with his parish cooncil (having been put in our place by the SC) then it’s for our highly paid MPs to start formulating plans and policies for independence and striking whenever WM is at its weakest.
Spine donors required though..
What the fuck does the weirdo Cherie Blair have to do with anything? is she going to have a rebirthing ceremony for Scotland? Fucking lunacy.
link to scotsman.com
To all those SNP faithful/sheep out there, a quote from Johnny Rotten…
“Ha ha ha… Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated? Goodnight!”
In other news, today I came across an expression I’d never heard before…
It could easily be applied to the policies of the SNP administration over the past decade, as it’s an adage used to describe a situation in which “ninety percent of everything is crap”.
It’s called “Sturgeon’s law”.
How appropriate!
link to en.wikipedia.org
I notice at any mention of SALVO or Liberate Scotland the FRANCHISE fanny and his fellow YOONS,Aiden,private clansman aka corporal JONES and the infamous bastard tax hater are all over the comments section, there must be something in the air, their attendance at that pish up is guaranteed where they can inhale the rancid air emanating from the Brutish corpses they worship
Absolutely spot on!
Amen to that sentiment..
Rebrand as the New SNP.
Your independence party gearing up for the next millennium.
The Westminster parties, Tory, Labour and Lib pacts have destroyed the country in just 25 years and so who do the SNP turn to for ideas.
An occupying foreign power could not do a better job of destroying the country and looting its resources. In my humble opinion they are paid mercanaries acting on behalf of others
Solid 24-carat gold pure Scottish Exceptionalism there, wullie.
I submit as disproof of your ludicrously and hysterically over-the-top exaggeration, the 4 oblasts of a certain Eastern European country currently being occupied and reduced to small shards of rubble by an occupying foreign power.
Get a grip of yourself man.
Deals for the favoured in SNP, the top grifters.
It’s a disgrace.
But what can ordinary independendistas do?
Voting is now less than 50% in elections unionists, devolutionists all back each other and are dismantling what’s left of Scotland yet again.
Cherie Blair well been I say any more am away for a session of the dry boke.
“What can ordinary independentistas do?”
Talk to friends and family about Liberate Scotland so their candidates will receive votes in the Holyrood election.
And talk to them about the UN campaign by Liberation.scot so they sign up to the Liberation movement.
What else? Sign the Holyrood petition PE2135 “Implement the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights in Scottish legislation”. Go to petitions.parliament.scot. The more signatures the better – this petition would give direct democracy a foothold into Holyrood.
Sign the Manifesto for Independence. Go to the Manifesto for Independence website.
Sarah – have you read this response to the petition?
link to parliament.scot
PE2135/C: Implement the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in Scottish
legislation
Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and
Culture written submission, 1 May 2025
“On the 17th June, a conference at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh will ponder the challenges and issues that will look at ‘Scotland 2050, Scotland’s Future’.”
link to scotsman.com
———————————————–
“Ponder” – for Christ’s sake what a fucking waste of time.
Nobody knows what Scotland will be like after the election next year – never mind 2050.
I love the 12 mugshots: but what would Jon Snow say? (or, for that matter, Humza Yousef?)
‘(If nothing else, we suppose that’s a strong show of optimism from Swinney, who’s already 61 and will be some years beyond average Scottish male life expectancy by then.)
You fail to understand that he is like Mr Burns of Simpson’s fame- and could potentially live forever-still spouting the same old pony. Plus he probably doesn’t live in the Central Belt.
Scotland in 2050 will be Willy McWonka’s Hielan Brigadoon Golf Resort Gated Community, and we, the Scots, if we are fucking lucky will get to be the Oompah Mac-fucking Loompahs.
– that is the high end prediction. The low end is we get to huff petrol on our reservation, the M8 strip (twinned with … you know where); partly zoo/safari park, and Homo Sapiens Scotticus will be considered an endangered species, studied in similar terms to the Tasmanian Wolf, Dodo and Great Auk.
Our leaders purpose at this talking shop is to work out how to get there quicker, i.e. make things a whole lot worser, faster.
Every year, now a national tradition, the SNP FM says “when we win another mandate, westminsters position will be untenable”; no one knows what this actually means and some think it is actually a saying in Auld Scots.
Norway in 2050 has built a space station, sent ships to Alpha Centauri and now owns the entire solar system due to the success of their sovereign wealth fund.
Don’t knock it.
If you turn up for the Oompah Mac Fucking Loompah gig, nobody else will get a look in.
@ agent x: Angus Robertson’s response to the ICCPR petition. No, I hadn’t read it before. Of course we didn’t expect him to do anything except say “we haven’t the power to do anything”.
However the petition still seems to be alive so just have to wait and see.
SNP Government rule out Scottish independence convention surprise surprise.
I know i have droned on about this before but i still can`t believe there has not been a rebellion by the SNP MSP/MPs over the direction the party has been taking. They are only really interested in the trough.
They make me sick.
Agreed. No-one in power in the SNP seems to have anything in common with the long-time members or voters who are desperate to be out of the Union. The former have stitched up the party procedures to suit themselves and no-one else can change anything.
It really is a tragedy.
the SNP members would have voted to say they agreed with the constitutional changes to democracy within the party. hell mend them. they got what they voted for and destroyed the party, and the independence movement, for the next 20 years at least. if they were too stupid to realise what they were voting for, why should we work with, or sympathise with them? they have caused where we are now. I dont care how sorry they are, its their fault we are where we are.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the SNP party fiances isn’t being directly funded the British labour government, so in return the SNP to sells Scotland down the Thames.
The article on the Rag regarding the “SNP Government rule out Scottish independence convention” has a 113 comments but I’ve been unable to access the comment part of this article.
Andy Ellis @ 4.32 pm
I think they’re desperate that the SALVO UN work is kept from popular consciousness.
Scotlands case will soon be well known internationally even if they hush it up at home.
Who are “they” in this context? The SNP? The Scottish media? Scottish &/or British unionists?
It all sounds a like a bit of conspiracy theory to disguise the much more likely explanation, which is not that folk don’t know it’s just that they don’t care/aren’t convinced.
Large swathes of the population know little and care even less about the minutiae of politics in general, still less the constitutional vagaries that seem to excite a small if voluble minority here.
The UN, international community and / or international organisations and courts aren’t going to deliver independence or drop it in to our laps.
There is no deus ex machina or silver bullet which delivers independence without a clear electoral mandate from a majority of the Scottish people. Even then, they have to have the balls not to meekly take a unionist “No” as an answer to an unambiguous statement that independence is the clear and settled will of the people.
It will be interesting to see what the reaction of Scottish voters will be to a Reform victory in the rest of the UK (or even an attempt by the other parties to bring them in to a coalition government.
Perhaps Rev Stu could do one of his polls about that, asking Scottish voters whether they’d be more likely to vote for pro-independence parties standing on a plebiscitary platform in the event that a Reform government or coalition including them was to be the result of the next GE.
The efforts of Salvo and others, however positively some regard them, are not going to deliver independence any time soon. The big question is why are so many people happy to endorse such efforts when there are other more conventional means which promise much more rapid and certain results.
If I was a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist I might almost think these folk were fifth columnists, but I’m not and that’s a patently ridiculous idea, just as is the idea that there are magic short cuts to independence.
As a great man once said….
“…I notice at any mention of SALVO or Liberate Scotland the FRANCHISE fanny and his fellow YOONS,Aiden,private clansman aka corporal JONES and the infamous bastard tax hater are all over the comments section, there must be something in the air, their attendance at that pish up is guaranteed where they can inhale the rancid air emanating from the Brutish corpses they worship…”
You use the phrase “any mention” as if it’s some occasional occurrence, but it isn’t is it. Any post, regardless of content, will see dozens of posters spamming about Salvo/I4I/MFI etc. with a few hours. None of the usual suspects are prepared to respond to any challenges or answer the most basic of questions, like how we navigate the blue sea rule or why the exact same approach didn’t work for West Papua.
On top of that, we’ve been told for ages that Salvo will approach the UNCDC through their annual session which is taking place right now, to see Scotland added to the list of Non-Self Governing Territories. I and others pointed out that C-24 has no power to add new NSGT’s to the list, but of course that was just “yoon pish” wasn’t it. Along comes June, and what a surprise, JPTI (representing Salvo, apparently) have been told C-24 cannot add Scotland to the list and the position of Scotland cannot be discussed in the session. Is there going to be any acknowledgment of that serious set back? Of course not, it’s just glossed over and ignored, and let’s pretend the plan was always to get over the virtually impossible hurdle of persuading the UN’s General Assembly to vote to add Scotland to the list of NSGT’s.
@Aidan; I think you are misrepresenting the current situation. C-24 is only one part of the overall process, although a key one, and it can only recommend that Scotland be added to the NSGT list, and it must be put to the General Assembly for final approval or denial. As far as I know, the C-24 hasn’t yet met to discuss this matter, let alone made any recommendation to the GA one way or the other.
Your comment appears typical of your approach to arguments, which is to make authoritative assertions as if they were matters already formally decided, while withholding relevant information that would undermine them.
You’ve explicitly asserted that JPTI has been told, presumably officially, that Scotland’s position cannot be discussed in the current C-24 session. Is this actually the case? And if so, what was the specific source of your claim? Was it conveyed in official correspondence, or minutes from the session, or a direct statement or press release from a relevant UN official?
In other words, how and where can we verify your assertion?
“make authoritative assertions as if they were matters already formally decided”
Hmmm. In the field of authoritative assertions, the recent claims that the Treaty Of Union is a fiction has to be a strong contender for first place.
Granted, I lack the interest to be arsed to double-check if that was you making the claim, Xaracen.
But if it wasn’t you, it defo was somebody very much like you.
@Hatey; The Treaty isn’t a fiction, but the authenticity of its implementation IS. Language matters, so use it properly.
I haven’t ever said the Treaty is a fiction. What I have said is that the authority that WM exerts over Scotland is not conformant with the Treaty, nor with Scotland’s own continued sovereignty and constitution. To be precise, the Treaty does NOT provide England’s MPs with any legitimate authority over Scotland’s MPs, or over Scotland. The UK parliament’s authority over Scotland is limited to what the Treaty and Scotland’s MPs permit it.
The Treaty does not give England essentially unlimited authority over Scotland, does not give England, via its MPs, any entitlement to impose its governance authority over Scotland, the Scots, or their territory.
England’s MPs had no such authority over Scotland and her MPs in 1706, and the Treaty contains nothing that gave them any in 1707.
Only Scotland’s formal representatives, her MPs, may wield the sovereign authority of the Scots in Westminster under the Treaty. England’s MPs cannot. Their respective numbers reflect no ranking in a hierarchy of sovereignties, which by very definition makes any such ranking meaningless, thus their numbers are also meaningless, in turn making the flat vote in the HoC meaningless.
The English establishment has been perpetrating a heinous fiction over Scotland for centuries, to Scotland’s great harm.
So it’s not a fiction, but somebody has been perpetrating a heinous fiction.
That’s cleared that up then.
Perhaps
If it was up to me, I’d concentrate on making a plausible and constructive case, fronted by serious, respectable, courageous, principled, non-swivel-eyed, Scottish leadership material (with a smattering of New Scots, selected strictly on merit) for a small ‘c’ conservative Independent Scotland, fit for the expectations and aspirations of a notional first-world European country in the 21st Century.
I’d concentrate on building a solid democratic groundswell of support from all Scots, indigenous and New alike, who instinctively are suspicious of snake oil salesmen. That means all of the people living in Scotland who already pay above UK level taxes for that dubious privilege, and who quite rightly expect to get a say in what they are paying for.
Turn the “Aye. Right” into “Right”.
I’d leave the Ancient Guff in the history books where it belongs.
@Xaracen – I’m happy to describe uncertainty or ambiguity where it exists, but here there isn’t any need because the situation regarding C24 has been established. I could demonstrate this by reference to the remit of C24, but more definitively, you can read about the case of West Papua where the same tactics were tried (public petition presented to C24) and outright rejected. I’ve been pointing this out for a while and the usual suspects have tried to ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist.
link to theguardian.com
So fast forward to today, and imagine my (lack of) surprise when I read the following on the JPTI website: ‘The C-24 has very strict rules. Only regions already on the UN’s official list of “Non-Self-Governing Territories” (NSGTs) are allowed to be discussed during its meetings. At this moment, Scotland is not on that list, which means no one is currently allowed to speak about Scotland’s case during C-24 sessions’.
link to jpti.ch
So it’s not as you have falsely put it, that C24 makes a recommendation to the General Assembly, C24 has no remit or mandate over any territory other than the NSGT’s agreed by the UNGA. Now it’s true that, in theory, a state could put the Salvo case before the UNGA and the UNGA could agree to add Scotland to the list of NSGT’s, but that isn’t going to happen because;
a) it would mean a fundamental change to international law to dispense with the principle of respect for the territorial integrity of states which is a bedrock of international law; and
b) the vast majority of states are implacably opposed to creating a precedent which will seriously empower their own independence movements. There is more chance of the UNGA determining that Kim Jong Il should be the supreme world leader than there is a majority of the UNGA voting to dispense with the territorial integrity of states.
link to jpti.ch
So there you have it. Now can you provide me with one single source of authority for your personal reinterpretation of the Treaty of Union, one with appears to suggest that Article 1 shouldn’t be considered as having any impact.
‘The C-24 has very strict rules. Only regions already on the UN’s official list of “Non-Self-Governing Territories” (NSGTs) are allowed to be discussed during its meetings. At this moment, Scotland is not on that list, which means no one is currently allowed to speak about Scotland’s case during C-24 sessions’.”
But, Aidan, the C-24 has more than one type of session. The rule you quoted only applies to those sessions intended to discuss existing NSGTs; it clearly cannot apply to sessions called specifically to assess petitions for an unlisted territory to be included on the list, otherwise no territory could ever be listed in the first place. The C-24 is the normal place for such petitions to be lodged. The rule makes no sense in that scenario.
Your explanation was incomplete, thus wrong.
Granted that the C-24 cannot add a new territory to the NSGT list on its own, but it can draft a resolution recommending that the GA do so, and can forward it to the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization Committee), which reviews decolonization matters before they reach the General Assembly. The General Assembly holds the final authority to approve or reject the recommendation, requiring a majority vote to officially add the territory to the NSGT list.
And for such matters, Security Council vetos don’t apply.
@Xaracen – The way that you navigate inconvenient facts by just making things up appears to know no boundaries and would make Donald Trump blush. Read the material I just sent you, particularly the article in the guardian. Does it say anywhere with that article that the problem was the petition for West Papua was presented at the wrong session, and C24 would consider it at an alternative session? Did JPTI say that the challenge relates to that specific session and that Scotland’s case would be considered at an alternative session? Can you find a single authoritative source anywhere that would affirm the idea that C24 has any remit to recommend new NSGT’s to the UN General Assembly?
Once again, these are not “my” rules, these are “the” rules.
@Aidan;
From the document you linked;
“JPTi affirms that the principle of self-determination applies universally—not selectively. It is a legal right, not a political favour. We therefore call upon the C-24 and the General Assembly to open formal consideration of Scotland’s status under Resolutions 1514 (XV), and 1541 (XV), just as was done for French Polynesia in 2013 through Resolution 67/265.”
Why on earth would JPTI call on the C-24 and the General Assembly if the C-24 cannot ever hear any discussion of Scotland as a potential NSGT until it is already listed as such?
@Xaracen – You’d have to direct your question at them, you can read from the text below that there is no ambiguity in their eyes as to the process:
“For Scotland to be added to the list, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) must first adopt a resolution that officially recognizes Scotland as a territory to be decolonized. This resolution must go through the UN’s Fourth Committee, which deals with political and decolonization issues”
So there you have it. C24 cannot consider the case of Scotland unless the UNGA designates it as a NSGT. I’ll concede it is not physically impossible that the UNGA could do that, it is just vanishingly unlikely.
@Aidan;
P1- “For Scotland to be added to the list, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) must first adopt a resolution that officially recognizes Scotland as a territory to be decolonized. This resolution must go through the UN’s Fourth Committee, which deals with political and decolonization issues”
P2- “So there you have it. C24 cannot consider the case of Scotland unless the UNGA designates it as a NSGT.”
No, Aidan, P1 does not rule out C-24 involvement prior to formal listing, while your P2 presumes that P1 did exactly that. But your P2 does not logically follow from P1.
It is abundantly clear from recent earlier cases that C-24 really does have a role in reviewing petitions from candidate NSGTs prior to formal listing by the UNGA. The C-24 has historically reviewed petitions and made recommendations that lead to General Assembly action, French Polynesia and New Caledonia being clear examples.
@Xaracen – so now I’m in a real bind, on the one hand I have an explicit statement from the chair of the C24 committee who says that they have no remit and cannot consider territories which are not listed as NSGT’s, as per West Papua: “I am the chair of the C24 and the issue of West Papua is not a matter for the C24. We are just working on the counties that are part of the list of non-self-governing territories. That list is issued by the general assembly.”
On the other hand, you say that this is wrong, that you know more about the functioning of the C24 committee than it’s own chair, and that in fact C24 can receive representations on behalf of territories looking to be designated as NSGT’s. Who should I believe in this situation?
link to amp.scmp.com
“Who should I believe in this situation?”
Seek guidance from Scotland’s national animal.
The unicorn.
Well, it seems you are in a bind, Aidan.
According to Copilot AI, “the Expert Legal Opinions submitted by JPTI were acknowledged in discussions on procedural pathways for NSGT recognition in the 2025 C-24 Regional Seminar”. No automatic rejection of Scotland’s petition by the C-24, there.
And;
“The Expert Legal Opinions submitted by JPTI on 9 May 2025 remain part of the committee’s official working record for deliberation during the June 2025 substantive session.” So no automatic rejection of Scotland’s petition by the C-24, there, either.
Hmm, and ChatGPT is under the impression that “The C-24 evaluates petitions to determine if they meet the legal criteria for political subordination, absence of self-government, and external control.” And Copilot has a similar impression. However could that have happened, Aidan?
I accept, however, that there are a number of hurdles in the way of Scotland’s listing as an NSGT, but the flat out refusal by the C-24 to consider its eligibility is not one of them. The preliminaries have not yet been completed. Once we identify an existing UN member country willing to sponsor us, it can introduce a resolution to the GA to recognise Scotland as a territory for the purposes of NSGT consideration, and if it passes, then at that point the review of its potential NSGT status can be undertaken by the C-24.
It’s not over yet!
“Once we identify an existing UN member country willing to sponsor us”
That’s great news.
And there are two obvious candidates: Ukr* and Isr*.
Both of them are currently re-writing the rule book on defending sovereignty, fighting off aggression, expelling the imperialist, colonialist invader, etc.
Lets get them on our case. Then we can’t lose.
@Xaracen – yes there was an automatic rejection of the case of Scotland. JPTI also made submissions in respect of New Caledonia and French Polynesia which were apparently discussed at the annual meeting. That’s what copilot will be picking up.
So yes it is over.
@ Aidan says: 17 June, 2025 at 5:36 am
“So yes it is over”
Naw!
Never say die, Aidan.
We just need a couple of great countries to sponsor us at the UN. Ukr* and Isr*.
They will inspire us to greatness. They know how to kick ass.
Boy! Do they know how to kick ass!
Aidan, there was no automatic rejection of Scotland’s petition. The JPTI submissions specific to Scotland were acknowledged at the 2025 Regional Seminar and remain on the agenda for the June session. If you’re claiming the petition has already been dismissed, then cite the procedural record that actually states this.
Also, conflating Scotland’s status with that of New Caledonia and French Polynesia overlooks the fact that those territories are already listed NSGTs. Scotland isn’t, yet, because no General Assembly member has introduced the requisite resolution. That’s a structural difference, not a procedural finality, because that possibility is still open.
The process is merely incomplete, not closed. Saying ‘it’s over’ doesn’t make it so.
Independence supporters should boycott next year’s Holyrood election.
Yes please.
Will enhance Reform’s chances of sinning some seats. Good work!
*winning
Heh. Freudian slip perchance
Cap’n, I bet some of the more righteous progressives in the SNP would see the election of a Reform candidate as some great moral failing. Perhaps we’ll see Freeport Forbes openly praying for souls before she commences on her retribution.
“Cap’n, I bet some of the more righteous progressives in the SNP would see the election of a Reform candidate as some great moral failing.”
Heh! I’m quite sure you’re right, Stuart – which makes the prospect all the more delicious, no? Imagine them all flouncing furiously about…
I really do hope that hardline lefties do boycott Holyrood elections, as that makes the sensible right of centre contingent all the more significant and thus likely to prevail. Who knows, maybe Scotland can break the cycle of one useless bunch of lefties in charge after the next, a reap the benefits of lower taxation, improved prospects for wealth creation, entrepreneurship and employment – and none of the ghastly swivel-eyed nonsense that I hardly need to go into, self-evident as it is.
He’s quite the populist politician is this Angus Robertson
Keith Brown says yes; Angus Robertson says no. Stephen Flynn says we should cut diplomatic relations with Israel; Angus Robertson holds clandestine meetings with the Israeli embassy.
While he was SNP leader at Westminster, Mr Robertson was a member of the HOC Defence Select Committee. That is quite a position for someone from the perceived nemesis of Unionism. No doubt he took every opportunity to advance the SNP’s opposition to nuclear weapons on the Clyde.
Another question asked from a position of ignorance – am I right in assuming that the only Scottish political party with the actual word ‘independence’ in its title is the Independence For Scotland Party, which stood in the Westminster general election in two constituencies, and garnered a total of 678 votes? There are of course several others that have the stated aim of independence, but only that tiny one with the conviction to put it in their title.
And your point is, caller….?
Not having independence in their name – or indeed being Irish language – didn’t seem to hold Sinn Fein back in 1918.
Aye Mr Ellis, nor did starting a civil war hold them back either…
@Stuart 11.59am
Well, I suppose you might argue that they weren’t solely responsible for the war. Of course this isn’t Ireland and it isn’t 1918. I just don’t think the absence of the “i” word in a party’s title is necessarily indicative if anything….?
Of course Imelda McSelfie herself famously expressed her distaste for the “n” word in SNP: doubtless not progressive enough and too divisive for her and her ilk.
Perhaps the issue with “the movement” is that it’s bung fu’ wi milquetoast nationalists – not of course that I’m conjuring the ghost of Civil War à la early 20th century Ireland, but do any of us really believe that the SNP leadership of the past decade would have gone to jail in furtherance of the cause as their Catalan equivalents did?
It seems to be holding yer Alba Party back though…
Even with a very short and compromised campaign, Eva standing as an I4I – Independent for Independence candidate garnered more votes than your Party’s Kenny MacAskill.
Seeing as yer so fond of critiquing other folk and their initiatives, and what with being a founding member of Alba, have you anything to say on the shoddy idea of a decent man in KM jumping constituencies at a late stage and standing against a committed independent supporter and former Alba member?
Whose screwed up idea was that then? Berwick Bank windfarm off Kenny’s East Lothian constituency could have benefitted from the continuity candidate continuing to represent and scrutinise the ongoing exploitation of Scotland’s resources from renewables. Could have paired nicely with another pro Scottish self-governance individual representing Alloa and Grangemouth.
And seeing as you’re dropping the tired old “conspiracy theory” shit into play a few comments up, some could easily say that Alba’s formation after ISP had previously come into existence after recognising the need to fill the political vacuum was also the work 5th columnists.
@Dan
You seem to have a fairly weird view of party politics and dynamics. I’m just an ordinary member of Alba: I agree with some of its policies and disagree with others. I’m more than disappointed that it hasn’t made much progress given the hopes many of us had when it was established, but so what? Shit happens.
I think Ash Regan would have been a better choice as leader than Kenny, but the membership thought otherwise. I also think it’s a shame the party lost 0r alienated people like Eva Comrie and Denise…but again…shit happens. Parties often have personality conflicts and disagreements. I think a major problem for Alba was that it failed to attract enough “big names” in its infancy.
If more big hitters like Angus McNeil, Joanna Cherry and some others had grown a pair and joined in the early days things might have been different…but it wasn’t to be. We have to live with the reality, not what we *wished* might have happened.
You honestly think Alex Salmond setting up a party (which was ALWAYS going to be a better bet than micro parties like ISP) was the work of fifth columnists? You’re an even bigger fantasist than I thought…and it was already pretty evident you’re an ocean going buffoon as your every contribution BTL here adequately demonstrates.
Intellectual dross like you are a major part of why the movement is dead in the water.
It’s textbook leftist behaviour to attribute the failure of every half-baked plan and reality-denying policy to tractors.
The Bolsheviks were forever scapegoating hapless unfortunates as saboteurs and wreckers.
Then it was off to the gulag for the lucky ones – a bullet for the rest.
@Andy
So jist yer usual resorting to lame ad hominen pish and skirting around adding any input on the shit tactical late decision for a candidate in your Party to jump to a different constituency.
Ach, sit on yer arse members like you failing to step up and help steer internal decision-making and Party policy is the very reason the Party politics game is on the wane, because it just allows the ongoing stupidity to continue unchecked.
There are valid reasons I am highly sceptical of Party Politics when it has consistently shown in recent times to be a completely captured venture. You even point out its flaws in your post when the supposedly decent dozen SNP MSPs that were Alba sympathetic didn’t move over to Alba pre election, or cross the floor post election when all manner of shite unwanted policies were going through Holyrood.
Or those Scottish MPs keeping schtum when they had the status, and instead leaving it to English Conservative Party member David Davis to twice use his parliamentary privilege to raise the issues surrounding the treatment of Alex.
I have firsthand experience that your Party was a fucking skipfire when it came to election campaigning.
All those decades in politics and none of the big hitters had the savvy to develop and keep contacts in their address books to call on and get the hard nitty gritty work of basic campaigning done, instead choosing to swan about and dumping way too much graft on a few individuals to carry the load; Then shitting on them when electoral results didn’t come.
Alba may have seemed a good bet to some, but not all… but it was a losing bet; And it was obvious to anybody that kept and eye on events and interacted with the wider public that the despicable smearing of AS had been successful.
Things certainly didn’t pan out anything like the numbers suggested they might.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Aye, folk can go Ctrl F search Dan and click through my last half dozen posts btl on recent articles and make their own minds up on whether my “intellectual dross” has worth, rather than taking your near always divisive word for it.
Noticed you had nothing to say on my thoughts as to why Liberate Scotland might not be backing Peter Bell’s MFI. As such a keen proponent of plebiscite elections, I thought you might have chipped in yer thoughts on that one what with talk of shutting Holyrood…
The alternative to party politics is something that can be fairly described as being analogous to herding cats.
I’m not knocking herding cats. It can be a lot of fun.
In fact, everybody opposed to party politics should arrange to experience cat herding for an afternoon. If that’s what it will take to change minds and focus efforts, bring it on.
@Hatey 7.16pm
The Bolsheviks were forever scapegoating hapless unfortunates as saboteurs and wreckers.
The Byers Road bolsheviki and Cappuccino commies are of course over represented amongst the usual suspects BTL in this place. Thankfully some of the worst offenders appear to have slithered back under the rocks they they cam from, or been ejected by the good Rev. No great loss.
It’s always amused me that they’re so determined that their views somehow represent more than a tiny minority of Scots in the movement on the far left, never mind of Scots more generally, particularly as they are very keen to attack those espousing pretty mainstream views for daring to suggest that most Scots think they’re deluded.
It doesn’t really matter whether it’s in relation to the current conflict in the middle east, or Uncle Vlad’s special operation. Doubtless they’re the types demonstrating in favour of those nice turbaned mullah’s in Tehran, or those having their arses handed to them by Egyptian civilians horrified at them stanning for terrorists at the borders of you know where.
THey are of course exactly the kind of people who would have at best stood by and watched people being herded in to the cattle trucks on the way to the gulags, or more likely actively denouncing their neighbours for wrong think.
“stood by and watched people being herded in to the cattle trucks on the way to the gulags, or more likely actively denouncing their neighbours for wrong think”
It’s only a few weeks since a couple of them were enthusiastically discussing their thoughts on mobile gas chambers for use on Scotland’s streets.
No doubt it was all just “having a laugh”, eh?
@Dan 8.40pm
So jist yer usual resorting to lame ad hominen pish and skirting around adding any input on the shit tactical late decision for a candidate in your Party to jump to a different constituency.
I’ve already said I thought it was a shit tactical take. There again, the fact Eve & some others decided to leave Alba due to internal conflicts within the high heid yins in the party is both desperately sad and hardly conducive to Alba presenting itself as a viable alternative to the SNP: it all smacks a little too much of Judean People’s Front versus Popular Front for Judea stuff. Voters hate that kind of shit.
Ach, sit on yer arse members like you failing to step up and help steer internal decision-making and Party policy is the very reason the Party politics game is on the wane, because it just allows the ongoing stupidity to continue unchecked.
Not everybody has the time or inclination to be a fully involved party member or office holder. So what? They get my subs and I vote for them: given current events and burach they seem to be making if “things generally” I’m disinclined to commit more time and effort to the party than to other things which seem to have more point.
You’re entitled to claim and believe that party politics is as a result pointless, but it all sounds a bit like blaming the voters. Perhaps we get the representatives we deserve, in which case we’re fucked.
Of course you and others appear to believe – with not a scintilla of actual evidence – that we don’t need parties or to bother ourselves with voting, because there’s a magical short cut to independence being dropped in our lap by the SNP because 18,000 signed a petition.
Good luck with that!
Aye, folk can go Ctrl F search Dan and click through my last half dozen posts btl on recent articles and make their own minds up on whether my “intellectual dross” has worth, rather than taking your near always divisive word for it.
Well quite. You pays your money and you takes your chance as they say. People can make their own minds up about the relative value of what any poster feels fit to contribute. I’m sure there are plenty of folk who lap your stuff up.
How representative it is of opinion generally is another matter of course. Others will doubtless find your world view and your views on the future of the movement, and the way they are expressed, just as divisive as mine….perhaps even more so. Such is life.
I have little doubt that you and the rest of the usual suspects represent a tiny if voluble minority thankfully. That doesn’t mean that what you’re proposing and calling for isn’t harmful to the cause of course, it just means it isn’t that important because it has no intellectual or political hinterland, and vanishingly little popular or electoral support.
Get back to us when that changes, huh? We’ll wait…..
Noticed you had nothing to say on my thoughts as to why Liberate Scotland might not be backing Peter Bell’s MFI. As such a keen proponent of plebiscite elections, I thought you might have chipped in yer thoughts on that one what with talk of shutting Holyrood…
I may have missed your hot take on what you (somewhat grandiosely) term your thoughts on the kremlinology of Liberate Scotland’s failure to take due note of Peter Bell’s MFI. I don’t set a lot of store by Mr Bell or any of his efforts.
Since you’re so critical of Alba and its failure to reach electoral “escape velocity”, how is paying attention to an even smaller splinter party going to help? Peter Bell always struck me as the kind of person who could start an argument in an empty room, so I wouldn’t bet the farm on his party “doing a Sinn Fein” any time soon. Peter Bell is no Alex Salmond that’s for sure.
Talk of shutting Holyrood is half baked inanity even by the standards of Mr Bell. The devolved parliament may not be perfect, as recent years have demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt, but it can still serve a purpose. It’s certainly much more likely to serve as a platform for achieving independence than all the “cunning plans for indy” bullshit being pedalled by constitutionally autistic snake oil salesmen in a variety of self appointed ginger groups with little or no popular support or mandate.
What the fuck has it got to do with you anyway? Of the 5 main party’s There are 4 English parties operating here plus 1 Scottish party acting as managers for the ‘British’ state. 3 of the English parties even have the gall to put the term Scottish in their names. Is that not enough for you?
I could believe it :
link to archive.ph
but let’s just have a bit of imperial propaganda to cheer us all up.
laying it on thick and getting our minds right; on one side trooping the colour and on the other in which we serve
– in which we serve is a daft film based on the war escapades of mountbatten who when he was not at the noncing was being an embarrassment to the navy. Maybe they should have done another film about his cunning plan “the raid on dieppe” (it was an abortive re-invasion of europe, total disaster, but it was canadians who got it, so – omelettes and eggs)
the coldstream guards were a gang of thugs formed by cromwell whose main job was to sit on the border and sort out the jocks
2025 is looking good for Yessers. We just need the 1,617,989 Yes voters to hear what is going on and join in!
1. Holyrood 2026: Yes voters must use their two votes [constituency and region] for DIFFERENT pro-independence parties. SNP 1 and 2 is a disaster for simple arithmetic reasons.
Yes voters need to hear about the existence of the umbrella party, Liberate Scotland, in order to vote for their candidates [as opposed to the Greens, for example, whose commitment to independence is questionable] because Liberate Scotland is full of real fighters to get us out of the Union. They are committed to rescuing Scotland from our subservient position and to improving our economic and social conditions.
2. The UN campaign by Liberation.scot [organised by Salvo.scot] is another subject that 1.6 million Yessers need to learn about. This UN approach is another way of helping Scotland because once Scotland is recognised by the UN as a colony then any vote in Scotland on constitutional matters will be supervised by the UN and Westminster will not be able to interfere. This will be a massive improvement on the situation in 2014.
So far it seems that the 17,989 have got the message and have signed the Edinburgh Proclamation to join the Scottish Liberation Movement. It would help Liberation’s work at the UN if the other 1.6 million signed up soon! Go to http://www.liberation.scot and sign NOW.
For “once Scotland is recognised” read “if Scotland is recognised”.
And, to repeat what I have said before – anybody truly believing this is going to happen and will make any difference needs to do two things:
1) Tell us when so that the grownups can plan.
2) Tell us what steps are being taken to provide Scotland with a competent, organised, clued up and democratically approved government.
Otherwise the entire exercise looks like whistling in the wind.
@Sarah
Who was Liberate Scotland’s candidate at the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election please?
Liberate Scotland is being established with the Electoral Commission now, I believe, so could not have stood a candidate for the Hamilton etc by-election.
Liberate Scotland have really missed a trick.
If only they had called themselves Enrich Scotland, they’d be fighting us off with shitty sticks.
I really do have to wonder about these people. It’s as if they really don’t know what motivates the vast majority of ordinary Sovereign Scots.
No.2 was another piece in the puzzle Sarah, no doubt about it. The trolls stand to attention every time it is mentioned. They are quite amusing these characters.
Less than 18 thousand people from an electorate of 4.2 million…?
That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement in anyone’s book is it? What organisation is going to look at that sort of number and give full throated support to defining Scotland as a non self governing territory? It’s sheer fantasy.
We can’t keep moaning about the biased MSM, britnat establishment, failing devolutionists in the SNP to excuse the failure of any alternatives to break through.
In the end it doesn’t matter whether it’s Liberate Scotland, Salvo, Alba, ISP who are failing to make an impact: what matters is ensuring that a victory in plebiscitary elections is accepted by the movement as a de facto declaration of independence.
We can sort the “de jure” bit out afterwards. We don’t all have to sign up to common policies or even necessarily like each other. But unless and until we’ve convinced 50% +1 of the 4.2 million to actually get up off their arses and vote to take their independence rather than ask for it and meekly accept being told “no” if they do so, we’re all just wasting out time.
Bad boy, Andy.
You’re not supposed to point the finger at the elephant in the room.
It’s 18,000 people assuming that everyone who signed it is a Scottish resident, and that nobody signed it more than once.
The problem with trying to achieve the necessary 50%+1 outside of a political party structure is how do you mount a convincing campaign which can effectively persuade voters on the subjects which ultimately cost it during the 2014 referendum (e.g. currency, pensions etc.). I don’t think it’s credible to go into that exercise without a political organisation capable of seeing independence through, and that can’t be an unassociated patchwork of different people who can’t even be in the same room as each other. The media will have a field day reporting on the continued infighting and inconsistent statements, and the Yes proposition will rightly be seen as a mess by everyone other than the most committed yes voters.
“ any vote in Scotland on constitutional matters will be supervised by the UN‘
I think you just made that up.
“…I notice at any mention of SALVO or Liberate Scotland the FRANCHISE fanny and his fellow YOONS,Aiden,private clansman aka corporal JONES and the infamous bastard tax hater are all over the comments section, there must be something in the air, their attendance at that pish up is guaranteed where they can inhale the rancid air emanating from the Brutish corpses they worship…”
Anyone who wants to know what the Liberation/Salvo approach at the UN can achieve has only to look at the numerous sites, facebooks and tweets where the detail is explained.
Is anybody really that interested? Apart from the fantasists, cranks and nutters………………of course.
So it works out at around 0.42% of the Scottish electorate.
Doubtless the UN will be well impressed*.
*Will totally ignore it as a pitifully poor level of support.
I hope the ghost of Alex Salmond haunts Air Miles.
If Scotland thinks and has a mindset of a colony of people in their Country it will continue for as long as colonists need or want it to exist.
Wether it is the global agenda 2025 or 2050.
Because the aim of those agendas is to Colonise all the nations, that includes England,
So when I read the the supposed yoonist on here trying to prevent Scotland having self determination and independence I am well aware that it places and prevents borders of England, Wales, Ireland and other in the isles of Britain.
So it makes you wonder why they are here. and whom they are associated with behind the scenes.
Logic tell us ll if you stop Scotland becoming independent, you stop England being a independent nation forever automatically.
They are not unionist in the normal sense of the word to maintain a England that has no Borders and cannot control its borders as a country,
Doing away with a nations control of its own borders is globalist ideology not unionists.
Ireland is realising the error of having shared British/EU uncontrolled borders.
Englands people are also realising this at a late stage,
Scotland has known this for hundreds of years.
So when so called unionists want no borders anywhere in Britain, are they actually unionists for the sake of the people across Britain, or for acting out the globalists one world government ideology by 2050,
The people in England and those that wish to hold on to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales need to rethink what they denying themselves
The ability to be a nation that is in control of its borders of England,
Thwarting Scotlands independence kills Englands opportunity for a reset from foreign policies that have taken over Englands Britain.
Sometimes it is wise to re-evaluate your own position in a political war.
@Sarah
Thankyou for your answers to my questions.
Whilst people in England are fixatedly presuming to watch in front of them Scottish independence as the enemy and threat to the nation of England and Englands Britain, they are being outflanked by a invasion in the rear entering.
The sudden population growth across England will soon equal the entire population of Scotland in just a few years.
In this modern global political world, Scotland is not the enemy invading England, in fact Scottish independence may be the saviour of England and Scotland, Ireland and Wales.
It needs some forward joined up thinking and the abandonment of old ideals of history that has been pushed on the people over centuries across Britain to be set aside,
Before each of the four nations can be saved individually from the new global invasion political policies,
Global Policies and their control over Great Britain become null and void when the invented created entity of Great Britain ends,
But at the same time does not extinguish the four nations of and in Britain, The people need to save their nations from becoming obsolete,
I was listening to Nigal farage being asked ” How do you define what a Welsh person is ? ”
His answer was roughly five years residency.
That would apply equally to England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. If that were the case,
And all four nations identities , belief systems, laws, cultures and languages have a limited timelime of ending in five year span.
If that is Britains political policy across Britain, England itself will not exist as a nation to object to Scottish independence, Irelands independence, Wales’s independence or even Englands independence.
YAY, BEST NOT MAKE PLANS,
BRITAIN ON WAR FOOTING, scream and scream English media,
trussed up in uniform drag,reeking of edwardian moth balls old Britannia is ready to do her bit.
and a king had a nice day out too,
viva ruritania.
Scotland, proud to be part of it?
Alas, “proud” has rather unfortunate connotations these days, TURABDIN.
Tell you what though. When I read about a medieval regime that will send you your teenage daughter back to you in a box, just because she was a bit stroppy about been told to clamber into a letter box, I just can’t muster any tears when they get blown back to the Stone Age they will probably feel so much more at home in.
I of course am fully aware that a chorus of indignant protest will try to tell me that I am not in any way typical of the rest of my fellow Scots.
Balls to that, say I.
Yes John, all the might of the West will come crashing down on the Iranians for having the audacity to strike back at Isr3al. The Chosen People had every right to attack Iran for the international crime of looking at them the wrong way.
We will grind them to dust, just like we did with the powerful Houthis.
Us Brits have already played our part in delivering this deadly lesson to these people by offering them use of our top pilots and 3 Sopwith Camels.
They’ll be extremely sorry to have ruffled the feathers of our great Empire.
Prick.
Pearls of wisdom from the poster the late and unlamented Northcode referred to as the “noble” James.
Although given his perennial obsession, alert readers might be excused for thinking its pearls of something else.
Dry your eyes, BP, and be a brave wee sojer for yer mammie.
Have you considered changing your pseudonym? Implants seems more apt.
I’m sorry for upsetting you John, I really do love your comments on here.
It brightens my day to know that there are people who believe the most ridiculous things while trying to portray themselves as serious and critical thinkers, it is genuinely comical.
Have a nice day and don’t let the Islamophobia get you down.
TURABDIN.
A war is the ideal finishing touch for Britain, elite and globalists , as it will reduce the amount of resistance from people in each nation for easier access to their ideal of one world governance.
Most Brits will go of to war, a large portion of those british men and women will not come home again, meanwhile I doubt that the immigrants will be asked to go as they have fled to Britain from war torn Countries,.. cough cough, Human rights you know.
So who will be left looking after yourcountry while your gone,
The new replacement population.as far as one can imagine.
You could be right.
But consider the alternative. We indigenes all sit about on our flabby erses, because we’re too sophisticated, too entitled, too old, too stoned, too fond of our precious “Bairns Not Bombs” craft work, etc.
And the New Scots and New Brits go in our stead, and the battle-hardened, fully trained, gun toting survivors come back.
What do you think will happen then?
Anybody unwilling to fight for their country loses it to those who will.
Oh well Hatey – nothing stays the same!!!!!
Another day and here we are, all having loadsa fun.
There are other things going on in the world though. No, I don’t mean THAT. How about this, which probably affects every single one of us in one way or another:
link to unherd.com
What you are being asked to do is to look at taking sides so you will end you life days blood on foreign soil while your own country is overtaken,
Smart psychology from globalists agendas. Whom apparently have sacked and abandoned diplomats and peace keepers to replace them with with words of incitement.
Reduce the native populations of Great Britain, cull them by sending them to war.
In a personal opinion The replacement populations to Brits are already here and more arriving each day with no borders to England strategy and new laws to suit newbies policies,
It just needs a blind person not to see the changes over such a short period of time,
I have always believed in Scottish independence and the right of nations to have self determination over Colonisation,
With the fast demise of England being speeded up with the labour parties past and present aided by the tories fourteen years, the need for independence and borders is being accelerated,
And should now be re-viewed in the same manner by people in England, Wales and Ireland,
“We declare the right of the people of Scotland to the ownership of Scotland and to the unfettered control of Scottish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible.
The long usurpation of that right by a foreign government has not extinguished that right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Scottish people.”
The above is an extract from Liberation.scot’s Edinburgh Proclamation, by signing which the signatories become members of the Scottish Liberation Movement.
All those Yes voters and subsequent supporters will have no problem with signing up. It can do no harm and can do good. The absence of a million signatures can only be that they don’t know that the movement exists.
Powerful stuff, sarah.
Know what we should do? We should link our struggle to that of the other two sovereign nations and peoples who currently, on the world stage, are showing us and everybody else what it really means to be facing being extinguished by destruction.
They could certainly teach us a thing or two about prevailing in the face of the most extreme hostility, aggression, colonialism and religiously inspired attempts to wipe them from the map.
And for the avoidance of doubt, no, I’m not talking about them who skulk in their tunnels, safe beneath many feet of reinforced concrete and the forsaken fragile bodies of their own women and kids.
The SNP propose we now need to wait until 2050. My opinion is Scotland doesn’t have until 2050, Independence isn’t even about Swinney or any political party its about Scotland survival. Our neighbor is pushing for us in Scotland becomes a new hub for Nuclear energy and now England talking about even more nuclear submarines all of these to be on Scottish soul.
I and many other have stated for years which now seems like a lifetime, certain individual have argued that the SNP is the only vehicle to achieve Independence I’ve never heard such rot. These so called Indy supporters run out every morning to buy The National who has about as much interest in Independence than Israel has in becoming a two state, the paper can’t help talking and promoting the Labour party and SNP agenda.
This is the same paper who allowed the Alex Salmond accusers to publish an article on their website the day after Mr Salmond was acquitted, this was all I needed to know about The Nationals loyalty to our cause.
The problem isn’t these so called soft Indy supporters its hard line Indy supporters who extremely slow to grasp reality of whats happening in the here and now and still advocate the SNP is the only vehicle when they aren’t even trying to get Into the car.
O/T This amused me: Edinburgh council are worrying about ‘conflict’ between Fringe goers and ‘medium to high intoxication, fat’ Oasis’ fans. Liam is not happy! I had a fantasy of street battles between the two, ‘colonising’ Anglo on Anglo as it were (the classic English effete versus thug battle; pretentious art v. generic rock shite). Would locals look an appalled or with grim delight?
link to archive.is
Maybe Liam should join in and get his front teeth punched out – again!
Get the popcorn out and book a place at a window to watch Cleanse the Causeway V. 2.0
Applause for that Lochy
John Swinney the modern day John Balliol – ‘Toom Tabard’ (empty coat)
“Nicola Sturgeon accuses actor of misogyny after he calls her ‘a witch’”
link to heraldscotland.com
——————————————
What’s her problem – she pardoned witches didn’t she?
I notice that Swinney’s calls for peace in the World has had zero effect. But he knows what will happen in Scotland in 2050.
Pending the Rev unveiling his proposal for ousting the SNP, in order to rekindle some enthusiasm and hope for we Yes voters and supporters, we need to spread the word about:
1. the new independence parties and the umbrella, Liberate Scotland, that some of those parties will be standing under in 2026;
2. http://www.liberation.scot – the existence of the Scottish Liberation Movement, its campaign at the UN, and the need for people to sign the Edinburgh Proclamation.
If your local Yes group hasn’t heard of these, tell them! Write to the press. Talk to your friends and family. There’s 1.6 million + Yes voters so you will not be battling against opposition – there is a willing audience.
We really must do something to save Scotland.
@Sarah
1 Well nobody has helped me, so much for the umbrella. The facts. I can spend several hundred pounds on an improvement of my blog. And then more on sponsorship of a Musselburgh race or a Junior side in my region saying look at my blog. Total spend 120k at least irrespective of policy.
2 I am all in favour of alternative angles but you missed the obvious route.Stay within existing power structures therein lies the answer.
George, what’s your blog’s web address?
George:
1. The umbrella has only just been formed. They welcome all independence supporters including Independent candidates. Contact them for help.
2. The UN campaign is an aid to the democratic vote route! It is not the whole answer of itself – it never said it was. But international recognition is essential even if there is a democratic vote for leaving the Union.
The “Umbrella” group, Liberation + Alba + ISP + I4I + New Scotland Party, is adding 0% +0% +0% +0% +0% and expecting those to add up to 51%.
Just another fantasy from the same dozen fringe commenters.
Freeman doing her statesman-like stare into the middle distance, whilst the Labour whip looks like he is on a day pass from the asylum.
Rupert Everett: “I once loved Nicola Sturgeon. Now I cannot bear her.”
He added: “As soon as the witch Sturgeon came into power, everything changed in Scottish arts and everything had to be about being Scottish.”
—–
Transgender flags are not Scottish. Mass uncontrolled immigration is not Scottish. DEI – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is NOT SCOTTISH.
SAOR ALBA.
BBC Online is reporting the latest wheeze to come out of the airheads, reality deniers and virtue signallers holed up in the wee, pretendy parliament.
As of the end of this year, our elites have decreed that it will be illegal to bury biodegradable waste in Scottish landfills.
So the solution is … drumroll … give it to England!
Up to 600,000 tons of prime Scottish rubbish will be heading across the border each year, starting in 2026.
The good news: it’s a BBC story about Scotland so by common Wings BTL consent, it’s all lies.
And it will all be going by rail, which is great for the environment.
Haha, just my little joke. It will be trucked, although industry insiders are pointing to a shortfall in the truck fleet because this new demand has just been magicked out of nowhere by the all-wise troughers in HR. So perhaps when our Council Tax bills get yet another eye-watering hike next year, some of that will be for buying trucks from overseas suppliers so that we can send our rubbish abroad.
It’s Scotland’s Rubbish!
[BTW, when I wrote “give it to England” above, I really meant “pay England to take it”. Odd but true, England doesn’t really want half a mill plus tons of extra shite a year, so will charge us for sorting out the mess made by our own devolved eejits. Thank fuck this story is on the BBC so we can all pretend it’s not true]
Surely this laughable virtue signalling – getting someone else to do your dirty work (at a price) whilst simultaneously polishing your halo and falsely claiming the credit – is de rigueur for “green” policies and politicians?
There are, of course, countless other examples and the Scots are no doubt only too aware, such as refusing to pump your own oil and gas out the ground whilst cheerfully paying vast sums to R and others for the stuff. Net result: the oil and gas is still burnt, the only difference being it being pumped and/or transported halfway across the globe (at great expense and increased carbon footprint), yet people claim “we” produce less CO2 or whatever. See also spending £25 billion on “storing” CO2 that amounts to 6 hours’ worth of China’s emissions alone, let alone the US, India’s and the rest of Europe’s. Still, “we” smugly claim the moral high ground, whilst another couple of brown coal burning power stations are erected in the East that same month. (And people point and laugh at us no doubt, as our ailing economy continues to go down the tubes).
It’s impossible not to be deeply cynical about all of this stuff. “We”’have been failed by our useless, moronic political class. Most of them (particularly on the Left) have never had a single real job between them, and boy does it show. What an utter shower.
Gah.
Spot on, CC.
And what is particularly ironic about a story like this one, is that as Scotland is just about the least densely populated country in Europe, “blessed” with gazillions of acres of what is essentially wet, boggy desert, we could have humongous landfill sites that few would ever see and even fewer would ever be bothered by.
We could design and build the things properly, capture the methane produced, and use it to good purpose.
[Just as we could have fracking, which is best placed in areas of low population density. But that’s something else our virtue signallers have so far ruled out]
@Hatey
“We could design and build the things properly, capture the methane produced, and use it to good purpose.”
Agree with every word you say, particularly the above excerpt. But then, that’s what this is all about: if we had more engineers in positions of power (and less worse-than-useless, theatrical wankers), Scotland – and indeed the rest of the UK – would be a better, richer, warmer in winter place.
@ Hatey
Methane has been captured off some legacy landfill sites for many years. Around a decade back a pal of mine used to look after the multiple internal combustion engined powered generator units (diesel engines converted to run on landfill gas) which ran on captured landfill gas converting it into electrical power. Efficiency of running an ICE are at best around 40% with diesel and less with gas, then factor in further electricity generator losses.
Impressive tech all the same with telemetry viewable on a laptop 100 miles away from the site. Numerous sensors measured all engine parameters as well as landfill gas production volumes and pressure depending on weather conditions, so he could remotely turn on or off engines as and when required if there wa a fault or volume of gas that would only be enough to run a certain number of generators.
The issue is that you are just focusing on utlising the gas, and not all the other harmful nasties in the leachate that landfill sites create.
A couple of other acquaintances work at modern energy from waste incinerators which are better suited to managing the waste we create that is not recyclable, because they can burn it all in controlled combustion systems that can be optimised to extract as much of the calorific value of the waste as possible, and also scrub the fumes created by the burning through complex emission control systems. These systems utilise the heat created by burning waste to rum steam powered generators that are more efficient than ICEs.
The issue is economies of scale. IIRC That site in Dundee has 3 energy from waste incinerators which in total don’t produce more than 100MW of power. Some of the energy released during the process heats a fluid system that is pumped to nearby buildings to help keep them warm.
That site cost many millions to build and it needs to get a slot to put the power it creates into the electrical grid to work towards getting its return of investment.
Somtimes general waste from Glasgow is transported up to Dundee to get burnt.
But for comparison as previously mentioned, the six zones in the Seagreen windfarm off the Angus coast can regularly produce 1GW of power, so ten times the amount of Dundee’s EFW facility, but Seagreen is regularly in curtailment mode at cost to taxpayers.
Legacy landfill waste is also being blended in and burnt with current waste at some EFW sites, so all those years of councils paying landfill sites about 100 quid a tonne to take our general waste means that those sites now have large volumes of what is effectively a fuel stock to burn through.
The whole thing is undoubtably a very fiscally messy business with all sorts of payments, subsidies and incentives.
But this is all probably just “intellectual dross”…
Not at all intellectual dross, Dan.
In fact, a very interesting post.
I was unaware captured methane was being used to generate electricity. I thought it was just flared off.
“fiscally messy business with all sorts of payments, subsidies and incentives”
Where there’s muck, there’s brass.
I was astonished to discover that by some measures, the largest individual man-made structures in the world are landfills. For example, the Apex in Nevada covers approximately 2,200 acres and weighs around 50 million tons.
This is estimated to be a bit less than the Great Wall Of Covid weighs, whilst that in itself weighs less than the weight of electrical and electronic waste the world discards every single year.
It will just add to the usual crap, hot air and stinking filth coming south across the border, boom boom!
It is a very interesting story with lots of issues tied up in it.
I was unaware of such a radical programme to get rid of virtually all landfill except the ash from the incinerators and building rubble. To bury or burn? Producing less must be a good idea either way. Interesting that Scotland recycles least stuff (41%) but an impressive figure for Wales (67%).
I have no idea personally what is best but when ‘Gillian Martin, cabinet secretary for Climate Action and Energy, told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme that temporarily transporting the waste was better for the environment than continuing to use landfill sites’ then all one can say is, better for Scotland but worse for England and given we are talking about C02 emissions, worse for everybody as it is going to landfill in England not incinerators! It does not fill one with confidence that a politician could not just say, but presumably think such an idiotic thing.
At the end of the day you don’t transport the rubbish like this as it is obviously crass. The temporary solution is also blindingly obvious – push the date of banning the landfill stuff back until you can burn it all if that is the desire.
“Gillian Martin, cabinet secretary for Climate Action and Energy, told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme that temporarily transporting the waste was better for the environment than continuing to use landfill sites”
Abso fucking lutely priceless!
But haud oan …
If we add to the set of magical abilities already assigned to Hadrian’s Wall, the new ability to keep climate and environmental destruction on the English side …
Then yes, I can see how that would work.
I’m starting to think I’m getting so good at this I could contribute in ScotGov at cabinet level.
We need ScotGov to set up two atmospheric greenhouse gas monitoring programmes. One each side of Hadrian’s Wall. Run them for a year and use bespoke AI analysis software to quantify the differences in air composition and climate between each side. A few millions of taxpayer’s dosh should cover it.
It does all sound like one of those Sturgeon era things that Robin McAlpine detailed so well a while back – put out a headline about something that sounds radical, cool and popular: ‘Landfill to be eliminated in Scotland in favour of clean incineration by 2021’, then try and work out how you might actually do it. Worse, even when you try and find out, you don’t consult the right people with the real practical knowledge, just more spin, ‘strategic’ types who will say yes all the time. Eventually the reality comes home to roost and the policy seriously falters or even fails totally.
As McAplpine pointed it, it all goes wrong right at the start when you decide a headline and a shedload of NS hubris is all you need to make something happen.
England has the same intention as Scotland of excluding biodegradeable waste from landfill but is still consulting on policy.
The whole thing may be unnecessary (as far as climate change goes) as scientific research “The role of greenhouse gases in radiative equilibrium – Thermodynamic evaluation” (Ullmann and Bulow, 2924) finds that all atmospheric gas components, but mainly oxygen and nitrogen, affect heat retention in the greenhouse Earth.
It might (or not) be useful to use biodegradeable materials in the biogas industry.
@Sam
“The whole thing may be unnecessary (as far as climate change goes) as scientific research “The role of greenhouse gases in radiative equilibrium – Thermodynamic evaluation” (Ullmann and Bulow, 2924) finds that all atmospheric gas components, but mainly oxygen and nitrogen, affect heat retention in the greenhouse Earth.”
Hang on, WHAT?
link to iowaclimate.org
‘… “The heat retention in the greenhouse Earth is caused by all gas components…mainly by nitrogen and oxygen. It is not permissible to exclusively assign the GH effect of 33° to water vapour, CO2, and the other trace gases.” – Ullman and Bülow, 2024
Chemical physicists Helmut Ullman and Martin Bülow have published a new paper detailing the lack of meaningful or noticeable “specialness” that trace greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2, 0.042% of the atmosphere) and methane (CH4, 0.00018%) possess in determining Earth’s greenhouse effect heating.
…
“This work challenges a common perception on the negligible role of O2 and N2 as natural greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere…”
“It is in fact the large abundance of oxygen and nitrogen which compensates for their only weak interaction with infrared radiation…”
“Due to the atmospheric concentration of atmospheric N2 (O2) that is about 2000 (550) times higher than that of Co2 and about 4.4 x 10? (1.2 x 10?) times more abundant than CH4, even the weak infrared absorption of N2 (O2) can become radiatively important.”
“Thus, we object to the view that the radiative forcing of N2 increase operates only indirectly by broadening the absorption lines of other gases.” …’
It would be beyond hilarious if it is the case that atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen are overwhelmingly responsible for Earth’s greenhouse gas effects and CO2 plays a negligible role.
Maybe we should seek to remove oxygen from the atmosphere, right?
@Hatey
Using gas engines (e.g. Jenbachers) to generate electricity is hardly new (and also, potentially, hot water for CHP – great if you have users and/or industrial processes such as dryers nearby). I remember seeing a small c.500kW facility in Kent waaay back in the late 80s.
As Dan mentions, the problem is nasty organic acids/leachate/contaminants within the “raw” gas that needs to pass through bag filtration, salt cake plant, scrubbers and the like before it can be used by the engine(s), otherwise said engines won’t last long. It is all doable, just expensive.
Energy from waste (EfW) plants use high temperature fluidised bed gasification tech to gasify refuse-derived fuel (shredded rubbish with ferrous removed, RDF) produce synthetic gas “syngas” either in situ to power a steam turbine generator, or potentially for gas liquification and onward storage. In this case it’s the flue gases (spent products of gasification) that are extensively scrubbed, filtered, injected with activated carbon et al. Solid residue (“bottom ash”) can be used in road aggregates etc.
It’s a fascinating sphere – and not without its problems, still in its (relative) infancy. Plenty of abandoned “failed plants” dotted around the UK. Still, I personally think it’s the way to go notwithstanding. Got to be better than just burying the stuff.
I’m leaning towards the assumption that the aforementioned trucks will have to be expensive electric/hybrid affairs sourced from abroad because of Net Zero®, carbon dioxide,
global warmingclimate changeclimate emergency, etc. Perhaps one of them will spark itself up into a literal bin-fire while en-route? Ach well, it would take care of the rubbish I suppose…Ach, it’s only a very small amount of the shite you’ve dumped on us for over 300 years.
You’ll be fine.
Watching the news this morning I think the debate on independence is going to take a turn. But whether it will be allowed is another question.
Britain is in an economic mess. Slumped economic output, rising debt, soaring taxes and now it is at war.
With troops and hardware on the ground in the Russian conflict the UK also has military assets active in the Middle Eastern conflict. And now a full blown head to head between Israel and Iran is underway.
Quite why Britain has to get involved in these foreign conflicts is a big question. What has happened to Gaza could with modern weaponry happen elsewhere. Israel and Iran are the latest to find that out and not just the participants to the Russian conflict.
Yes it may be good for British armament makers profits and share price but Scotland is a target in any widening conflagration.
Truly you don’t need to look too far to see how extensive military bases and manufacturing are across Scotland. There are the obvious targets of Faslane and Coulport.
But below that there are extensive industrial munition assembly facilities like RNAD Beith and of course the RAF and the Royal Navy that a currently deployed in these foreign war theatres have bases back here in Blighty.
Quite why Sir Keir Starmer has been so proactive in providing support to Israel and especially so in relation to their bombing of Gaza is a question folks should be asking. But a similar question needs to be asked of Boris Johnson in relation to the Russian conflagration. Are we really at threat from Russia and Palestine and Iran. Why are we involved against them.
These are big question because ipso facto we are at war and what are we going to get out of it. Regime change to I hear being said. Well that is what took us into Iraq but this is bigger than Iraq,
Defence is a good and proper thing. And jaw jaw is better than war war with countries who in truth we should have no real reason to fight with.
But maybe the WW1 and WW2 with all of the other lesser conflicts in between were just the warm up for another big one. Marshall Plan Mark 2 perchance but at what cost. And would it Make Britain Great Again.
For anyone interested Craig Murray is in New York and speaking to a talk show in USA with Professor Alf Baird and Sara Salyers who are back in the UK.
You’ll find this talkshow on IndyScotNews.
I hope he gets in a plug for the humous boys.
Or has their revenue stream now dried up, so he has had to go back to the original grift?
I see CM as the kind of bloke Scotland shouldn’t want to touch with a bargepole these days, but no doubt others will demur.
He did sterling work exposing the scandal of the Salmond smear campaign. And he did time for that too – respect.
But then he lost the plot.
Airtime is worth something. Shame on Scottish MSM for their silence. How much is the “democracy” journalist funding from Scot gov? Is it as much as 30 pieces of silver?
SNP have sold out. Anyone who cant see that is daft!
Craig Murray has a good article about it
Mebbe we should worry less about the climate.
One scientific study says that there are systematic errors in temp measurement and temps have not risen as much as IPCC claims.
Temp reconstructions beyond the measured temps are largely boloney with continuing use of tree rings such as bristlecones. “hide the decline?
DIGITAL thermometers are prone to temporary temperature «spikes».
Temperature recording requires skilled oversight being dependent on location away from buildings, roads, concrete, glass and materials likely to influence readings. Not all sites are free from such, those maintained by weather amateurs for Weather Observation Websites in particular.
Large cities with reflective glass structures create heat islands.
The concrete breeze block which overheats in summer and collapses in earth quakes is another culprit which may skew readings.
“James Cheyne says:
15 June, 2025 at 10:36 am
Whilst people in England are fixatedly presuming to watch in front of them Scottish independence as the enemy and threat to the nation of England and Englands Britain, they are being outflanked by a invasion in the rear entering”.
I’d almost forgotten what comedy gold is to be read here.
Keep Britain tidy. Dump all your rubbish in England!
The resource black hole that is London sucks in everything else, so send it there.
Maybe they could use it to filter their “already passed through 5 people” drinking water, might improve the taste..
english whining about having to put up with things the scots are expected to, without whining.
– english whining. Not like them. A robust, martial people.
As for facts – within the last decade there have been plans to
– take shite from england and spread it in south lanarkshire around coalburn
– start up 2 incinerators next to the town of Hamilton (owned by english companies)
and both of these got blocked only after a lot of desperate local action. Plus fucknows what got through.
And when it comes down to the “ultimate shit pile” – the long term nuclear waste dump … “no decision had been made” and the preferred site is in the english north east, but, given history – gruinard, for example, I feel that we will get the shaft on this.
Sometimes I think “chutzpah” is an anglo-saxon word.
link to archive.ph
You’re the one making this a Scotland v England thing, Buckie Benchdweller, no one else is.
Might’ve known you’d find some grievance angle or other. Saddo.
whining like a true anglo
rattle oot the pram
I’d rather be a “true anglo” [sic] than some illiterate, permanent-drunk thicko, Eight Ace.
Fred Flintstone/ aka self professed captain of industry and failed Reform candidate;
For someone who once boasted here that they were brought up on warm p1sh English beer then you certainly do seem to have a penchant for calling everyone else drunks..
Protesting too loud comes to mind.
Anyway, whatever, as you were, back to your warm flat crap ya gammon..
@YL
Ah, more badly written, entirely irrelevant, incoherent, senseless nonsense from the “3am Crew”.
Mate, I’d rather be a “Captain of Industry” who has quaffed a few pints of IPA in his youth than some illiterate fantasist punching his keyboard into the small hours, in between regaling people (again) when he was in the SAS or whatever (lol).
Once again, another half decent discussion derailed by the same old disruptive trolls adding precisely zero value – ever. How you’re tolerated is anyone’s guess.
dasBlimp
Very pleasant to see the Blimpish shape drifting back into these turbulent airstreams, Blimpster.
I trust all goes well with you in your green and pleasant land and that your shadow may never decrease.
Very nice of you Sven. I’ve never really been away. I visit nearly every day for my daily chuckle from Confused, Mia, Chey and (my good chum) James’s posts. I see Northcode’s back too – not too sure about him though. I think he bats for the other side if you get my drift … and there’s nothing wrong with that. Ha ha.
You just missed NC.
He flounced off in a monumental huff, last Thursday I think it was.
He wanted us all to believe that colonialism had taken all his stuff and was making him live in fear and somebody (me actually) refused to believe him.
It’s hard to credit that’s the kind of thing that would make a true Scottish fighter retire his claymore, dirk and targe, but I guess our Scottish martial spirit is not what it once was.
I blame a lifetime of sitting about on our flabby erses, hands held out for free stuff from the state.
shite
I am thinking of doing a swiftian ripoff – “a modest proposal” – which suggests as the optimal strategy for scottish independence – killing all englanders on earth, and eating them.
– then we can ask our shite for a section 30, an efter that, the gemme wiz oors …
the real joke being – the english don’t need to be turned into shite
… for they already are shite …
gas van
burger van
ice cream van
(*)
I’m your man, just pull on the armband, cock the spandau and feed me
– point me at the anglos
link to youtube.com
BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP
(*)- I would have added a campervan, but the SNP took that
p.s. why are small boats crossing the channel such a big fucking deal when such monstrous technology exists
– this tech was created after the falklands, when the yanks saw what the exocets (relatively small slow low yield missiles) did, turning some of the navy’s best frigates into burning scrap, despite which ended winning the election for imelda thatcher, the rose west of politics. (Rose West complained about being called the Margaret Thatcher of serial killers.)
I don’t envy you being you, Confused.
Who to gas first, eh? The Anglos or da Dews?
Why are the biggest questions always addressed to those worst equipped to answer them? It’s just not fair.
BTW. Alert readers will have noted you choose to capitalise “Margaret Thatcher” and “Rose West”, but not “scottish”, which you contemptuously insult with a small ‘s’. Care to tell us what is really going on with you?
Dinna be shy. What’s revealed on Wings BTL, stays on Wings BTL.
are you crying main
mind you don’t swallow your tongue
– wouldn’t want the world to get lighter
You’d get terrible indigestion
@Confused says: 16 June, 2025 at 6:51 pm
“english whining about having to put up with things the scots are expected to, without whining”
Awa and shite. You don’t get to deny me my Scottish Sovereignty and nationality, just because I’m smarter than you.
I’m objecting to having to pay more in taxes to pointlessly send rubbish abroad.
I’m objecting to the environmental costs of this ludicrous farrago.
I’m objecting to my government in HR being so stuffed with eejits, voted into place by congenital eejits like you, that they try to justify this.
The only one whining is you, on your knees, greeting and whining as per usual, bent double under the weight of your imaginary grievances.
And so fecking ignorant you won’t even extend “Scots” the courtesy of a capital ‘S’.
stick to the job hasbara drain, your job is to protect the yehudis day after day
– you’ll double your IQ to double figures when you understand “higher” and “lower”
a skidmark waste of protoplams like you would have to pass exams to qualify as an idiot
Confused racks his brains to come up with the most offensive insult he can summon:
Dew!
Relax yoons. Indy is going nowhere while this is what it is all about.
BTW, it’s “protoplasm”. I’m tempted to highlight the irony of you being unable to string a coherent insult together whilst lambasting my IQ and qualifications, but I guess there’s no need.
shite
english water is full of shite just as they like it
freemarket corporate profit water as determined by the invisible arsehole of the freemarket
not your scottish nazi communist public owned clean water without carbonates
you can’t have a nice cuppa of old english char without a drip of shit in it
(good enough for them)
Exporting shite.
Sellafield.National Audit Office.
“Sellafield’s new leadership team has more to do to improve accountability for performance improvement within the organisation”
“There is no overall measurement of progress towards full decommissioning.”
“Sellafield is taking action to address deficiencies in its management of major projects, which have suffered from cost and time overruns.”
“Sellafield recognised in late 2023 that it did not have a coherent plan to sustain vital sample analysis capabilities. These scientific tests are essential,for example to enable safe removal and treatment of waste from ageing facilities,and to store plutonium safely”
“Sellafield still has to address known cyber security issues”
“Increases in Sellafield’s forecast cost of decommissioning demonstrate that it is still identifying new risks and the cost of addressing these”
“Sellafield has to empty waste from ageing facilities which pose an ‘intolerable’ risk, and store it in buildings which meet modern standards. The risk these facilities pose is illustrated by the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo, which is leaking 2,100 litres of contaminated water each day. … (Sellafield and its regulators believe that current leakage rates pose a low risk to workers and the public).”
“… MSSS (Magnox Swarf Storage Silo) has been leaking contaminated water into the ground since 2019; the rate is currently estimated at around 2,100 litres per day. Sellafield is unable to fix the leak, meaning it may continue until this part of the silo is emptied in the late 2040s or early 2050s.”
“.. the NDA expects full site remediation will take until 2125.”
Shells of mussels, cockles and winkles in Port Appin, 160 miles from Sellafield are contaminated with Sellafield emissions of C14. The risk is said to be low.
That said Ireland has compared Sellafield with Chernobyl and called for an end to discharges.
There have been more than 450 safety incidents at Sellafield since 2001. In Feb of this year the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) issued Sellafield Ltd with an improvement notice after a train carrying nuclear waste was left unsecured and rolled 60m into another wagon.
“Ireland has compared Sellafield with Chernobyl”
Nah.
There are over 5 million people in Ireland. No way can they all be that gormless. I better fix this:
“Some ignorant thickos based in Ireland and desperate for cheap publicity and controversial click-bait, have ludicrously compared Sellafield with Chernobyl”.
Done.
Prick.
They obviously heard the story about the Man from the Ministry who was checking for radioactive contamination in Cumbria after the radioactive rainfall that had covered most of Northern England and Scotland in the days and weeks following the Chernobyl reactor fire.
The Man from the Ministry, when visiting a particular Cumbrian farm, had asked if the farmer had any meat that had been on-farm slaughtered for home consumption. When informed that such could be found in the freezer, the Ministry Man duly checked the lamb cuts and declared them unfit for human consumption. He insisted that all the freezer’s contents had to be disposed of in accordance with MAFF guidelines, including the freezer itself.
When the Ministry Man was informed that the cuts in question had been frozen pre-Chernobyl, the colour was said to have drained from his face and he left the premises without another word.
The Irish are many things, daft isn’t one of them.
Sure Bob.
Just like at Chernobyl, there was a meltdown at Sellafield, rendering the surrounding area so dangerously radioactive that virtually nobody has been able to live there ever since.
Just like at Chernobyl, the destroyed reactor has been totally encased in a humongous concrete sarcophagus. But you can’t see it on Google Maps. The satellite pix have been doctored and if you investigate too closely, Special Branch will take your computer away.
Sure Bob. The colour drained from the MAFF man’s face and he left without another word.
Jeezo. And now we have James spraying his pearls of w …
Whoops! There could be minors reading this.
Seems to me James is spot on!
There are many campaigners in Cumbria which is not in Ireland who have long wanted Sellafield closed down. They sought support from Ireland for their campaign, citing the contamination of the Irish Sea by leaks and contaminated dust borne on the wind. Dust contaminated with plutonium wa found in local houses
In the 1980s it was reported that half a ton of uranium was pumped into the Irish Sea.
Concerns by Irish researchers that the fire at Windscale in 1857 caused 6 young mothers in Dundalk who attended school together all to give birth to Downs Syndrome babies were never investigated.
The Black Report into the clusters of childhood leukemia around Sellafield used discharge figures that were 40 times lower than those that were later found.
Sam,
You’re just making up stories again !
Aren’t you ?
The “6 young mothers in Dundalk” were found to all be customers of the same dairy.
The same milk float delivered to them all, with the same milkman driving it.
He had no legal driving licence, no qualifications, had been a complete dunce at school, yet had somehow never been diagnosed with symptom-less Downs Syndrome.
Rumour has it he had never even heard of condoms.
It’s just one of those stories that defies belief, yet people really would like it to be true.
Radiation from Chernobyl allegedly affected west Cumbria. But in any case, it was a very convenient excuse for masking the Sellafield leakages and discharges.
I believe that Cumbrian lamb is still too radioactive for human consumption and is destroyed.
MaryB, Sam, James !
You are the same person and I claim my £5 !……
I believe that all over Scotland, and particularly in certain geographic areas, such as Grampian, granite-built houses are too radioactive for human habitation.
Oddly enough, they are not destroyed.
They are worth far too much.
As someone who has done active service for his country, which you continually deride here then it’s plain to say:
You really are a facile desk bound sanctimonious pr1ck..
Some light, diversionary reading for all Wingers planning on enjoying a leisurely breakfast.
Honestly. Some people. What are they like!
link to unherd.com
Shit lovers.Gulpin, ganch, scrunt or hellion.
The Public Accounts Committee produced a report on Sellafield. The Irish Times carried a piece on it.
“The UK’s public accounts committee (PAC) also raised concerns about the proliferation of non-disclosure agreements to settle staff whistle-blowing complaints about safety and bullying at the site, located on the Cumbrian coast about 170km from Ireland. It said safety concerns and galloping cost overruns were “simply not good enough”…
…“The intolerable risks presented by Sellafield’s ageing infrastructure are truly world-class,” said Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Tory MP who chairs the PAC. “When visiting the site, it is impossible not to be struck by the fact that one can be standing in what is surely one of the most hazardous places in the world.”
…The report also warned management must do more to “build a culture where all employees feel able to raise concerns and report poor behaviour”. The PAC was told the company had used non-disclosure agreements 16 times in the last three years when settling staff claims..
…Alison McDermott, a former executive at Sellafield who fought a legal battle with the company after she made a whistle-blowing complaint about safety and bullying, said the PAC report “vindicates everything I said” about a “toxic and dangerous” culture at Sellafield.
She said “Ireland is not safe” due to the way the site is run: “This is not a British problem – it’s a threat to everyone across the Irish Sea.”
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Tory MP who chairs the PAC. “When visiting the site, it is impossible not to be struck by the fact that one can be standing in what is surely one of the most hazardous places in the world.”
Loving it! When there’s a pointless point to be scored, even Wingers will trot out an ageing Tory. Double-barrelled surname too!
Who would ever accuse the toff boy of talking up the risks to ensure a steady flow of gravy in his direction until retirement? Certainly not I.
“standing in what is surely one of the most hazardous places in the world”
Are you up for a wee thought experiment, Sam? Three travel tickets. Departing this afto, and you have to take one.
Sellafield.
Mount Etna.
Tehran.
Choose wisely now! You don’t want to end up in one of the most hazardous places in the world!
After you, Clod.
I’ll buy you a ticket to a “bottomless pit of hell, money and despair”. Do stay for a while.
In October 1957, uranium cells inside one of the site’s two nuclear reactors caught fire, burning for three days releasing radioactive dust.
The blaze reached an estimated 1,300C (2,380F) – causing an incident so bad it was eventually ranked in severity at level 5 out of 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale.
Sellafield still contains hundreds of thousands of tonnes of radioactive waste, including the largest stockpile of civilian plutonium in the world, in excess of 140 tonnes.
Have a good time, Hatey.
I expect I’ll see you from here – glowing.
Add on Hunterston and it’s well documented leaks and the several ‘wee’ accidents at Faslane and Coulport, also well documented – the Clyde polluted by that lot and no accountability.
Insider
I used to know the area well and I used to hear all the local gossip that didn’t get put into the mainstream media.
It was the same with the stories of cancer clusters, particularly around the village of Gosforth. Understandably the media didn’t want to talk about them.
Sellafield provided the only well paid employment on a coastline which had been systematically de-industrialised and so there was always a bit of a conspiracy of silence about its problems. Their traditional industries eg Coalmining, train rolling stock manufacture, chemicals manufacture, were all gone.
Heard this before somewhere? Sounds familiar?
If this is true then the SNP leadership and so called Justice System need to go for a brain scan-
link to x.com
I wrote this earlier but it’s not been posted. So I’ll try again.
There’s long been a conspiracy of silence in the area of Sellafield. They had coal mining, railway coach building, ship building, chemicals but voted Labour, so were de-industrialised by Thatcher. Sellafield replaced it all with well-paid secure employment.
In the area, there have been cancer clusters for a long time, especially in the vicinity of the village of Gosforth.
Nuclear waste has long taken from Hartlepool on the east coast, right across the country via Newcastle and Carlisle at night to be reprocessed at Sellafield, either by train or road convoy.
@Mary B 11:26pm
You should been at the EDRP Inquiry in Caithness. The cluster theory was well and truly debunked because it happens naturally. And no nuclear facilities will still lead to clusters. I have promoted an SMR at Grangemouth to solve the high paid skills deficit in Central Scotland. But I am not a lentil munching wine bar revolutionary. Don’t vote for me.
But don’t we export 8Gw of leccy 24/7 as it is?
Why on earth would we want a nuclear power station [that we don’t need] in Scotland?
@James 5:07pm
Easy if you understand how the National Grid works. You want to live in the dark and that will definitely happen. The evidence is already there but you choose to ignore it.
James will still be able to grasp his chipolata in the dark. That’s all that matters to him.
@Hatey McHateface 7:25pm
And the tradegy is my wife was friendly with the Murkle cluster. Not long married I represented the UKAEA at least I put the sound system for the EDRP Inquiry. My first task telling the opposition they to press the On button to speak. I had time to listen to the Canadian millionaire, absolute rubbish from him. Nothing changes, Holyrood is the same. Virtue signalling the same decades ago. Never mind the facts.
Are you the same George Ferguson who bigs up Freeports?
@James 8:26pm
According to Grok I am an Architect from Bristol. Of course I think freeports is an opportunity just like your Deputy Leader Kate Forbes. Can the SNP get it together what they actually belive in?. To me the SNP stand for terminal decline. Are you on the payroll?
Ah. Freeport Forbes supporter eh?
‘nuf said.
@James
An SNP thug. Nuf said. When you come up with intelligent policies I will start voting for you again. Otherwise take your leave. I have never been influenced with anything you say. I am trying to spend 120k to gain a place in Holyrood. That’s what it will take. Of course if you want stand with the average win spend of the SNP of 2.5k. Go for it James especially in my region.
Voting for me? Dunno what planet you’re on, George. I ditched my membership in 2018 when the missing money/Salmond stitch up was surfacing. (They still owe me £20).
As you appear to be supporting wasting money on new nuclear and freeports as well I wouldn’t vote for you in a month of Sundays.
ALBA/ISP/Liberate Scotland for me, old boy.
@James 9:56pm
Welcome to the World of lost deposits. I was a member of the SNP and Alba. I thought Kenny McAskill was a really nice guy. Alba are sittings at 3pc. If an Alba/ISP/Liberate candidate gets in I will pay out myself. I left the SNP in 2014. Get real on the prospects of Indy candidates. It’s a three
Way bust up. Only money and policies will change things.And even then…
Fred Flintstone aka (so called Captain Caveman) at 8.26am with a p1sh English beer hangover!
Good morning jaikie!!
Just up and off out fishing, so an early post again to rile you up with your hangover- though if your phone dings then it can wait till later and you can roll back over and cosy up with yer new “bestie” P3nisbreath McP3nisbreathface..
Well as the far right wing todger you clearly are I would expect you to at least consider emulating your transatlantic superiors and thank those who actually served their country for their service.
Oh no, but not you, middle class self serving r3tard: typically Engerlush and thankless g1ts who consider themselves cut from a better cloth than everyone else – just, it’s made in Pakistan, not Milan!!
And BTW, no, I was never in the SAS (lol?!?), never ever said I was, just the pbi. Another one of your many made up Engerlush lies.
Rest assured your sort are despised by my sort, you know, the ones who actually put something on the line, and later on in life as a professional could detect your sort as money grubbing untrustworthy business chancers with worthless guarantees a country mile off.
And did I mention; you’re a Jessie keyboard warrior tw8t..
Just sayin an that and hope yer next one is a hedgehog.
Now where did I leave that Engerlushmans gizzard as bait for conger eels
Heh! Gone “fishing” have we YL? About the only thing you’ll catch (in your piss-stained shoes) is an empty bottle or two mate
Ever considered getting a job?
PS: being in the Cubs don’t count as military service mate. Bet you didn’t even make Seconder…
“roll back over and cosy up with yer new “bestie” P3nisbreath McP3nisbreathface..”
Aw naw! Signature double-tap there from Wings’ only self-identifying steely-eyed killer. Bang Bang I’m deid.
Odd how so many Indy supporters still revert to the stereotypes though. Obsessing about dicks and shirt lifting. Psychiatrists would have a field day with these characters. Hopefully a spot of quiet fishing on a deserted river bank will calm the fervid fantasising about erect penises and spread buttocks.
Just so long as its sticklebacks and not eels he’s casting for.
“bait for conger eels”
Aw naw! There’s no escape from it.
Ach, YL Sah! Nae hard feelz. Hope you land yourself a big, thick, black one.
Go easy on her, YL, she was a “captain” – of industry ROTFL.
And the Site Prick “P3nisbreath McP3nisbreathface”… LOLZ
Ah, another trademark valued contribution to the site from our corpulent wastrel friend.
I’ve crying rivers here, Chief. Keep your dubious little fantasies to yourself, pal.
Here’s a Kleenex, James.
Clean yourself up, there’s a good chap, afore yer mammie comes back.
Great news!
It turns out I was feeling a wee bit sensitive the other day and just needed some me time and a long weekend at a luxury spa resort.
So, after an expert radiance facial or two, some touch therapy (what fun!), a botanical massage, a shimmering body ritual (shimmer me timber! What a joy), a shellac manicure and pedicure, a lash tint and lift… with afternoon tea accompanied by a selection of delicious petit pastries, and, best of all, a sun-kissed mitted tan application with top to toe exfoliation followed by a sumptuous three course Michelin star dinner washed down with a bottle of fine Champagne… I feel much better now.
Thanks for your messages of support aLurker, Marie, deiabloandco and James.
I am refreshed, rejuvenated and glowingly exfoliated to the last follicle; ready to return to the fray here in this place.
But first… what’s this Swinney guy all about?
Let’s find out shall we?
Swinney – in his influential roles as Governor-General of England’s North British Territory and as the King’s Viceroy representing the English monarchy in that same place is the ideal conduit for the manipulation and control of the Scots.
Governor-General Swinney is an open channel for the direct transmission of the half-truths, misinformation and outright lies disseminated by England.
Governor-General Swinney is the chief ‘Scottish’ enabler of English dominion over what it perceives as its territorial possession – that country called Scotland that was fraudulently and illegally annexed and made a colony under the guise of a hoax treaty of union.
But things are even worse for the Scots than having the most boring personality-free uncharismatic Governor-General in the British Empire’s entire history of Governor-Generals… and, indeed, Viceroys.
Because through Governor-General Viceroy Swinney England (and its foreign chums) is free to plunder Scotland and subjugate the Scots unhindered.
The SNP and all the other political parties operating in Scotland, Scotland’s entire electoral system, the Scottish devolved Government, the Scottish parliament, the Scottish Judiciary, Scotland’s schools and universities, Scotland’s art and cultural institutions, and Scotland’s councils and civic institutions are all characters in an extravagant no-expense-spared unlimited budget (using Scotland’s wealth) theatrical production; a political thriller called ‘All the Coloniser’s Men’.
Don’t be taken in by their Scottish personas – the SNP and Governor-General Swinney are England’s ‘men’ in Scotland… and have been for some time now.
The only plans they’re concerned with are their pension plans.
And the only future they’ll be shaping will be the future shape of their plump pullman gravy train first class coach seats efter their fulsome pensioned aff imperial erses have pummelled the plumpness oot them.
I met, by chance, and had a brief chat with Keith Brown once whilst shopping in a Glasgow store several years back.
He oozed a kind of vampiric nothingness that seemed intent on suckin’ the life oot me in the desperate hope o’ gien himsel a personality.
I did not linger with him for long.
Is it my imagination or is our coloniser becoming bolder in its shameless extraction of Scotland’s wealth?
Does the flamboyant posturing we see in the hubris of a debased and corrupted Scottish elite foreshadow its demise?
Does imperial pride come before a once vast and powerful empire’s terminal fall?
Is England about to lose it’s last colony?
Hopefully the C-24 and Fourth committees of the United Nations General Assembly will answer that last question in the affirmative for us Scots.
“Is it my imagination or is our coloniser becoming bolder in its shameless extraction of Scotland’s wealth?”
Every night before bed, count your loose change and leave yourself a wee note somewhere you can find it in the morning when you do a recount. Can’t be too careful!
“the C-24 and Fourth committees of the United Nations General Assembly will answer”
Sure. I have it on good authority the UN is bored shitless and scratching around for something to do ATM. They’ll be all over our oppression, enslavement and national genocide like wasps on a cheap jam sandwich.
Welcome back, Northcode!
Yes indeed they are becoming much bolder.
A little, hopefully informative and not overly didactic, light-hearted diversion.
Aristotle is one of my favourite ancients and was a raving genius tae boot.
It was Aristotle who came up with this stuff:
Ethos, Logos and Pathos – the three different lines of argument or as they’ve also been described by some wit or other and for obvious reasons, the three Musketeers – were identified by Aristotle and together form the first part of Rhetoric… Invention.
These three guys are the absolute foundation of the art of persuasion.
The first, Ethos, describes how a speaker establishes their credentials with the audience.
The second, Logos, is the way a speaker seeks to influence their audience using reason (good luck with that when dealing with unionists on here by the way).
The third, Pathos – my favourite hence my heid-in-ma-hauns pity evoking ‘I can’t take any more. I quit’ comment – is the way a speaker seeks to stir their audience to anger, pity, despair, fear, hate, hope, love or joy.
A basic way of describing the various Musketeers could be something like this:
Ethos: “Believe me when I tell you climate change is real and will kill us all soon if we don’t act right now – I’m David Attenborough.”
Logos: “Believe me when I tell you climate change is real and will kill us all soon if we don’t act right now because scientists have measured greenhouse gases and particulate matter in the atmosphere and both have increased to extremely dangerous levels in just the past ten years.
On top of that, very sensitive scientific instruments costing billions of dollars have recently measured the polar ice caps in great detail and the results clearly show a reduction in their mass by almost 30% compared to measurements taken just a few years ago. ”
Pathos: “Believe me when I tell you climate change is real and will kill us all soon if we don’t act right now. Kittens – especially the cutest and fluffiest – will be the first creatures to perish in agony right in front of our weeping eyes.
We’ll be able to mourn the world’s kitten loss for about a week, after which the rest of us will die screaming when the skies catch fire and burn our world to a crisp.”
To summarise the three lines of argument:
Ethos: The appeal from character.
Logos: Sounding reasonable.
Pathos: Make ’em laugh. Make ’em cry. Make ’em agree with you.
Aristotle believed that the fundamental job of the rhetorician is to “discover the best available means of persuasion”.
That’s what’s meant in rhetoric by ‘invention’: not creating new things, but exploring what there is to say about something.
Although the ‘Musketeers’ are defined as separate conceptual units they can’t really be used distinctly in practice.
A rhetorician will mix the three lines of argument together to find the most persuasive recipe for a particular audience.
And there are as many possible recipes in the way ethos, logos and pathos can be cooked as there are people on the planet.
Whats this then? Three lengthy posts from NC, all of them written in the King’s English?
Isn’t that the language of the liar, according to (checks notes) Northcode?
Behold: the language of the [Site] Prick!