Liars K to B
This is a story in the Herald today.
Thing is, we know it’s a lie. Who says so? Kezia Dugdale does.
Because just 17 months ago, she told Scotland On Sunday that her branch office’s membership was a whopping 9,000 higher than she says it is now.
This morning, using the exact same terminology as then – “members and registered supporters” – she put that figure more modestly at “in excess of 20,000”. (30,000 can of course be accurately described as “in excess of 20,000” but Wednesday’s Herald had been helpfully more precise about what that figure meant, specifying 21,000.)
“We have in excess of 20,000 members and registered supporters of the Labour Party here in Scotland – it’s higher now than it has been since, I think, 1997.”
(Good Morning Scotland, BBC Radio Scotland, 24 February 2017)
.
Plainly it can’t be the highest since 1997 if it’s not even the highest since 2015. It’s utterly mystifying to us why Dugdale persists in telling such painfully transparent lies, as if nobody’s going to remember or check, so we’ll just leave this here to help her.
But she wasn’t alone in falsehoods today. Experienced truth-mangler Jackie Baillie gave a speech to the Scottish Labour conference in which she claimed 120,000 jobs “across Scotland” had been lost “since the SNP promised a second oil boom” prior to the independence referendum, apparently having mixed up the SNP and David Cameron.
We thought we’d give that a quick check. The Scotsman front cover was from the end of February 2014. Scottish unemployment for January-March 2014 was 178,000.
The most recent figure, for September to November 2016? Despite a rise of 11,000 over the three-month period, it stood at 139,000.
Alert readers will have noticed that that’s a FALL of 39,000 rather than the increase of 120,000 claimed by Baillie. She was a mere 159,000 jobs out. Employment was also up over the period, from 2,585,000 to 2,604,000 – an increase of 19,000.
But we have to admit that we’ve been a little bit disingenuous with you there, readers. Because it’s true that then-SNP leader Alex Salmond did also posit the possibility of a second oil boom, in March 2013. (We just thought it was worth making the point that he was hardly alone in having a positive outlook about oil before the referendum.)
The problem for Jackie Baillie is that if you start counting from the spring of 2013 the numbers get even worse for her, because Scottish unemployment for February-April 2013 was even higher than it was a year later, at 194,000.
Since Salmond said that, unemployment in Scotland has dropped by 55,000. Baillie’s claim is now 175,000 jobs out – more than the current total of Scottish unemployment. And employment is up by a whopping 74,000 over the period.
Of course, it’s possible that some high-skilled and well-paid jobs, particularly in the oil sector, will have been lost and replaced with lower-skilled, lower-paid jobs. But there’s no actual evidence for that. The median salary in Scotland for 2014 was £27,045 and it rose by 2.5% in 2015 – the year of the oil price crash – to £27,710, and it grew again in 2016 in line with inflation, to £27,953.
Well-paid work appears to have moved rather than vanished. And while the Aberdeen area has unquestionably suffered a downturn, as is the nature of the oil business, it remains in the top pay category for Scotland by region and is likely to pick up again soon, with the oil price having more than doubled since early 2016.
In short, then, Dugdale and Baillie were unequivocally and knowingly lying. The facts are all on the record – and in Dugdale’s case straight out of her own mouth – and it’s not credible to suggest that either politician didn’t know them.
With two days of the Scottish Labour conference still to go, we wish we could be sure that there wasn’t a lot more to come.
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Previous Kezia Dugdale Fact Checks: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]
Oh Kezia….Check facts before opening gob.
I almost feel sorry for her.
shiregirl,
That’s exactly what her own Father tells her all the time. Along with engage brain before speaking. Both her Father and Mother are Independence supporters.
I’m fed up of this lying. Really I’m sick of it, I want to know why the media don’t expose their lies. I want to know why Unionist politicians are given such an easy time on interviews on the TV and aren’t held to account for their lies.
I already know the answer to that though and it’s because the media support them in their lies. They are lying bastards too.
It’s as simple as that.
I cannot feel sorry for Dugdale but I sure hope she stays as Leader of The Labour Party in Scotland. As for Baillie, she just gives me the dry boak.
I wonder who’s compiling the figures that Dugdale and Ballie are reading out?
Or are they just making most of it up as they go along?
Are the Labour faithful so loyal that that they themselves won’t bother to check out the facts.
Shiregirl , I think you’re on your own as far as your last sentence s concerned!
Down the rabbit hole and up a gum tree. KD’s got to crack, surely. Get a life.
Quel a shower of post-imperial wasters.
Wonder what Kez will do after politics? D’Hondt gives us a balanced voter choice but how long can she go on before finally going, oh fcuk this I’m off to get a proper job. |
BBC vote Tory Scotland are crewing up, we’re told to be thrilled by.
They just can’t help themselves ……..
Just a few days ago Stu comprehensively debunked the whole “SNP funded BT millionaires and lottery winners”
Didn’t stop Kez trotting out the same old shit on good morning Scotland.
I was raging listening to it.
Then there was the membership crapola.
Now this………
It would stretch the imagination to wonder what can be next.
In essence jobs in O&G means little to the people of Scotland but revenue does. The figures show that even that doesn’t contribute that much. Recently.
Dear God. That is some grim politicking by Ms Dugdale and Baillie .
They’re basically just saying… stuff. Anything that floats past their frontal lobe. It simply makes its way to their mouth and falls out at this point and that is beyond unacceptable. It’s embarrassing for them, their party and anyone associated with them.
Actually, scratch that. I doubt that the party are embarrassed at all by such cretinous actions. Those who are left clearly support and emulate this strategy.
Y’know upon a time I’d have supported the need for a Labour party in an independent Scotland. Now for the life of me I can’t see a point to their continued existence at all. There is no requirement for them.
Scotland has a perfectly able and capable left of centre party in the SNP. Better yet, they can actually govern and have the ability to put the needs and interests of the population before their own party. For evidence of that you need only look at the past two years and five months. I can’t think of any other party or group of people who would have performed as they have under the most appalling of circumstances. Trial (torture) by Westminster politics and UK media, simply because they were asked to and they were needed.
Bottom line is that Labour in Scotland have made themselves surplus to requirements. The position has been filled.
Just had a weird thought – maybe Kez is really an SNP Plant??? Naw she could never pull it off.
Auld Rock
The lassie is seriously out of her depth.
And should there be a 2nd Referendum, god help her if she is asked to be a key leader of the next Better Together group. She’s no Lamont, let alone a Darling. She’ll also have to hold hands with one Ruth Davidson; a woman who humiliated her in the recent elections and who would be quietly waiting with the steely knife to end her career utterly by reminding the Scottish electorate afterwards, how SLAB for a second time, worked with the Tories in denying Scots a chance of greater autonomy.
She cannot walk into a 2nd Referendum promising Federalism as the answer …since England cares not a bloody jot for Federalism. No one wants Federalism …least of all the English. That leaves her devoid of all alternatives. So what does she offer instead? Does she promise the Scottish nation with the answer of keeping the current Status-Quo? That will go down like a lead balloon with most of the electorate (possibly except with the likes of Pensioners who remember Empire and of course, the OO).
This lassie will get eaten alive in the next Referendum. She is no leader. She does not inspire. She does not offer a solution to the current political turmoil. Literally …she offers the Scottish people nothing.
Maybe wee Kez and her bestest mate Jackie believe all the s***e they keep spewing out but in all honesty I can’t believe for one second anyone in the REAL world believes a word of their s***e.
Nice to hear wee Kez claim that it’s £1 for young people to join her “party.” Funny then, is it not ,that the £1 “special” does not appear on the Scottish Labour party’s membership page then. Stu had the page up in an earlier article but here it is again anyway.
link to secure.scottishlabour.org.uk
Membership costs either:
£4 per month … £48 per annum
£3 per month … £36 per annum
£2 per month … £24 per annum
Sorry Kez … yer LYING! There is NO £1 special deals available!
Bottom line I now believe there will very few people, in the REAL world, who actually believe anything wee Kez says, about anything, but especially in this case about membership numbers.
What pisses me off with the Unionists is…fuck it. The list is too long to type.
Oil and gas bonanza. What a joke. 140,000 lost their jobs.
Has Walter Mitty replaced McTernan at SLab HQ?
The Party of “Transparency” has now spent years lying to Scotland about something so basic as the number of party members. How could any Scot trust them on anything important
As they say themselves, “The Party comes before everything else”. Yes before the Scottish People, before the Truth,
before social justice.
I genuinely try to see both sides of any story, but how anyone in Scotland could vote for these imposters just has me beat.
I heard an elderly female Labour supporter on Radio Shortbread suggest that Kez-Dippy Dug was the only one that held Sturgeon to account at First Ministers Questions?
I nearly crashed the car! lol
That’s a bit like a battered boxer suggesting that he is attacking his opponents fists with his head.
I have never felt so sorry for an incompetent and incapable politician as I do for Kez at FMQ Frankly Mystifying Quandary.
Maybe Labour’s oh-so-autonomous branch office are copying that old wheeze beloved of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and have been giving away party membership free with copies of the Daily Record?
Or like the Latterday Saints, enrolling the already-departed?
Or maybe they have been aggregating all their figures over the last 5 or 10 years? Not technically a lie exactly then, just that old familiar “being economical with the verité”… =laugh=
Dorothy Devine says:
24 February, 2017 at 8:15 pm
Shiregirl , I think you’re on your own as far as your last sentence s concerned!
I know….I said almost 😀
And as usual the worst part is the fact that the Media refuse to pick up on it or challenge it in fact they cooperate in distributing the lies.
Even the Kremlin during the days of the Soviet Union didn’t have this cosy a relationship with Pravda.
JLT @ 8:32pm
Spot on with your assessment of where Dugdale and Labour are.
I was at fmqs on thursday & witnessed no camaraderie between dugdale & baillie (or anyone for that matter). They sat well apart & kezia looked rather exposed & isolated. Shoogley peg an aw that, I thought. As I watched & listened, I got the impression that the only people taking OUR parliament seriously was the SNP members. No surprise there, I suppose. They don’t think that we are a real country, so why behave with any dignity at holyrood. My anxiety levels are at defcon 1 for indyref2. If we dont win…..
Ooops! I just lied,ha ha too late now stupid people will have already absorbed it as a fact says Labour
Kezia Dugdale! you just lied, no I didn’t, yes you did, no I didn’t, you’re doing it now, no I’m not, but you are, nooo it’s you that’s wrong, here’s the evidence, no It’s not, yes it is, Nooo that’s old evidence which was applicable at that time which was then and this is now, what you don’t seem to understand is Federalism allows for that in the new stronger for America Clinton Dugdale world of Scotland autonomy and badgers
Nymphs and shepherds la la la babies and popcorn and blue we will sing a red flag and a blue flag and a white flag too
At least we’ll be spared the old ‘highest taxed part of the UK’ pish yoon soundbite at Slabs conference and they can hardly screech ‘nyoose the powrs, nyoose the powrs’ as their own slab cooncils have refused to nyoose the powrs the Scottish Government gave them to raise cooncil tax.. win win 🙂
would be cool if u were at their rotten conference listenin to speeches and taking notes
@JLT
She cannot promise anything regardless of what the Scottish conference vote for.
She’d firstly have to convince the PLP to accept federalism as a party policy. Then of course Labour would have to actually win a UK election with that on their ticket. Oh, and of course the Conservatives would have to meekly stand by whilst all of the above is occurring, vote in both chambers in support of it and throw everything they stand for into a bin with a match t’boot.
There’s also the teeny problem that what Ms Dugdale is proposing is not strictly fereralism as we would understand it. It’s certainly not devo max, or indeed FFA. It seems to be merely a bit more devolution dressed up in Sunday best wellies. Or perhaps she hasn’t considered that true federalism would more than likely require a parliament and powers for England and a total restructuring of the powers and competences of the UK parliament.
THAT is just how catastrophically stupid and improbable this latest sales pitch is. She can promise whatever she likes. They can vote for whatever they want at conference. It makes absolutely zero difference.
They can deliver nothing… and they know it. Their problem is, so do we.
Apologies for going O/T so early folks.
As some may know there is a march and rally in Glasgow on 3rd of June. Of course being held in Glasgow with the council that supports all marches, just so long as they are Orange Order marches, the organisers need to raise £30,000 to pay for stewards at the ratio, apparently, of 1:10.
link to crowdfunder.co.uk
I would like to think after May this requirement will be dropped. Unfortunately the requirement remains.
This is the sort of bonkers ideas that flow through Labour and its “politicians” these days.
JLT @ 20:32,
After catching a wee clip of UKez tonight on her
party broadcast half-hourerr, I mean Reporting Scotland, I’m beginning to think that the whole point of this “federalism” thing is more sinister than the dead-wood absurdity we sentient beings have all taken it to be.It was her hint of adding a second question in indyref2, on the subject of… guess what…?
A poison-pill ploy, no less, inserting the false prospect of a fairer, more-devolved UK2.0, the utterly undeliverable proposition that they well know it to be, but a deliberate cynical diversion designed to bleed enough votes to scupper a win for indy.
As we have seen from past experience even on here, there are people around who are gullible enough to be happy to include all kinds of diversions in an indyrefforreal that would inevitably guddle any clear answer. Which would be right up the street for the unionists.
Let us be resolute – the unionists had plenty opportunity last time to add that question to the ballot, and in typically arrogant fashion they blew it. So stuff that for a lark now.
Next time, no diversions. All or nothing.
Interesting.
Not an oil expert but those i know in the oil business are still working just not in Aberdeen.
Maybe a large part of Aberdeen area downturn is oil people following oil round the globe and talking their business with them.
As for labour well there are no words really.
Sorry for going O/T … AGAIN … and so early. but just saw this on Twitter.
Get the tin foil hats oot folks.
The Britnats are shitting themselves … BIG TIME! 😀
link to ukdefencejournal.org.uk
Be warned folks looks like George Allison has been speaking to a certain Jackie Baillie! 😀
Having watched a few of the delegates, it’s not just Dugdale & Ballie this perpetual lying seems to be endemic in the whole party, now why would people do this unless they know they won’t be questioned or contradicted, well who would go after them ? Oh our media aye that would be the ones forever looking after our interests , the impression I got watching this Labour conference was it has been staged for TV , they don’t give a f/k about the truth as long as it gets to Air , job done , it’s a whole campaign propaganda production, spread over three days with the BBC providing the platform free of charge.
Why hasn’t ‘Rock’ been in, crowing about the apparently calamitous collapse in sales of The National?
Doesn’t this mean that indy-supporters have finally sussed that they’re nothing more than ‘cash-cows’ keeping the Herald afloat?
Isn’t he delighted that so many fellow travellers have finally seen the light?
I need to read George Orwell’s 1984 again.
I’m sure he must have a Ministry of Numbers to complete the set with his Ministries of Love, Truth and Peace etc.
Everywhere you look, you see politicians quoting numbers, percentages, statistics and general gobbledygook that they know people aren’t going to question.
It’s like the BBC saying Scotland has a £15billion black hole. For a start, we don’t, but frankly the BBC could say it was a £15 million black hole, £15 billion black hole, or a £15 trillion black hole, because nobody, that is to say nobody watching, and nobody in the studio knows what it actually means. How many zeros are there in a billion? 10 billion? A trillion? Do you know? Do you care?
To most of us a million is a “wee” big number. Nobody loses too much sleep about a million anything. A billion? A billion is an individual unit of a big bad number, and a trillion? Well, a trillion is such a big bad nasty number that we only bring it out at all on special occasions. See? It’s all just meaningless padding, wordplay with numbers designed to bamboozle you and me and allow people speak with what sounds like authority but actually say nothing at all.
They are using numbers and figures in their dialogues because it creates the illusion that they are well informed, and because they have the figures that you don’t, it creates the further illusion that they are better informed than you are.
Look at the way Andrew Neil came lamentably unstuck quoting figures from a Labour Press release to Derek MacKay; someone who actually knew not only the real figures, but also where Andrew Neil had got his bogus figures! Fiction feels the cold hard steel of fact, as Derek wiped the floor with Andrew Neil.
So good on you Rev, keep up the good work digging the truth out about these throwaway sound bite figures and statistics, because when you peel away the illusion you expose these gobshite charlatans waffling on about facts and figures that aren’t true and actually mean sweet feck all.
Remember the ‘scottish’ labour ‘accountancy unit’ rammy brought about by dear old Ms Lamont as she departed with her branch office jibe ?
A recent interview with Torquil Crighton claiming how the “branch office” jibe was firmly behind ‘scottish’ labour, got me thinking…..
So i looked in the most obvious place. Labour’s very own constitution, and found 2 interesting things there…..imagine my surprise…!!
……………
Clause 3 – The Party’s Financial Scheme
1 The party has adopted and registered with the Electoral Commission a financial scheme, whereby the party consists of a central organisation and separate accounting units.
2 THE FOLLOWING shall be ACCOUNTING UNITS under the financial scheme:
(a) CLPs
(b) THE SCOTTISH LABOUR PARTY ?
(c) Wales Labour
(d) the National Organisation of Labour Students (‘NOLS’)
(e) the Association of Labour Councillors (‘ALC’)
(f) the Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Committee and the Regional Liaison Committees
(g) the Parliamentary Labour Party (‘PLP’).
3 The following may, subject to the approval of the NEC, become registered as accounting units under the party’s financial scheme:
(a) local government committees (‘LGCs’)
(b) such other party units as shall from time to time be agreed by the NEC to be eligible for registration.
……….
I then set out to find the registration evidence of this fully autonomous ‘scottish’ labour party….alas, to no end.
But feel free to check for yourselves..
……
link to archive.is
Kezia said today that 85% voted NO. Along with the 45% who voted YES, that’s a helluva turnout.
Also, she doesn’t want Ruth Davidson running Better Together2. Obviously afraid that too much focus on Davidson will put her and her party completely in the shade – diminish them in the eyes of the voters.
See video:
link to stv.tv
OT Alyn Smith in the National today spouting off about social media and saying don’t spread fake news,Mays that the likes of RT and Sputnik are not credible, Sorry ? Think it is Mr Smith that is spreading fake news, If he thinks that RT spreads fake news and the BBC does not.
To me this is all good news for the ‘Freedom’ campaign. People proving to us they lie over and over again. Good for the door step.
I have never voted labour but I wish they were more decisive up here in Jockland. You need a choice. I hope that the Labour for Independence group take over Labour in Scotland. Fingers crossed for them.
I have voted SNP since 2007 and will continue to do so because they are, for politian’s, relatively consistent. I am not an SNP member.
Tried to watch the SLAB conference. Lasted 10 minutes as it was boring.
She’s using the combined Scottish and UK labour membership figures. After her quote “We have in excess of 20,000 members and registered supporters of the Labour Party here in Scotland – it’s higher now than it has been since, I think, 1997.” she sneaks in “as the combined number”.
Makes you wonder if and when the Labour branch in Scotland ever told the truth.
I was just musing over an old sketchbook earlier and discovered an old ad, Feb,2014, from the ‘Sunday Sun’, my bro brought it up for cat litter.
The ad was about a huge recruitment drive, for people with the right skills, in ‘opportunities in Oil and Gas’ in the North East of Scotland. This was to take place in Newcastle. It says, ‘The oil and gas industry is currently experiencing high levels of activity and growth’. Basically they were travelling the UKok to find people with relevant skills, to work in the north east of Scotland.
Scotland’s oil and offshore gas industry is very healthy, but is being undermined, and talked down.
Nothing new really. It has not suddenly become a waste of time or money to explore or invest in Scotland’s oil and gas fields.
Since she’s stupid enough to do it, I wager she asks a question about numeracy standards in Scottish schools at FMQs within a month. .
Dugdales real problem is similar to Sevco. They both can’t admit they are wrong and both are going to keep hurting until they change.
However I think they are both so thick and hardline in their beliefs. That they are blinded by bitterness and becoming irrelevant. Scotland has moved on but Kezia just keeps on the same arrogant path to oblivion. Talking about federalism when not in power is just as disingenuous as Brown talking about the vow. They are asking Scots not to take their destination y into their own hands. They are asking Scots to trust a third pary they didn’t vote for to deliver something none really want anymore.
It’s like a child who is kept at home and not allowed to grow up. The child is conned into believing the world outside is big and scary. Only it’s parents can protect it by taking everything from the child and giving it pocket money. It’s Stockholm Syndrome for a nation.
Hi Breeks at 9:43 pm.
You typed,
“How many zeros are there in a billion? 10 billion? A trillion? Do you know? Do you care?”
This is one of my pet peeves. Most people (of a certain age) have an idea of what a million pounds means. We just have to go back to the days of ‘million pounds’ pools winners to get our heads around it. We (well most of us) understand the value of a million pounds.
In the olden days, when things were logical, we could understand that a billion was a million times a million, ie a million to the power of two (bi). Similarly, a trillion was a million to the power of three (tri) – a million, times a million, times a million.
When they started to refer to a thousand million as a billion, the eyes of the man on the Broughty Ferry bus began to glaze over. A thousand million (1,000,000,000) suddenly replaced a million million (1,000,000,000,000) in the media.
We lost the correlation with value.
Now we hear so many mentions of “trillions” – but they’re not real trillions. Apparently, they’re a thousand times a devalued billion, ie a thousand times a thousand times a million.
Why has this obfuscation happened?
Because it makes the eyes of everybody on every bus glaze over, because we have no comprehension of the VALUE of that which is being discussed. The old ‘Mushroom Principle’.
For example, the annual Scottish “grant” from the UK is usually said to be around “30 Billion”. Not in real money! It is 30,000 Million. Sounds a lot different in value, doesn’t it?
This wikipedia page explains it. Here’s a quote:-
“A billion is a number with two distinct definitions:
1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or 109 (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now generally the meaning in both British and American English.[1][2]
1,000,000,000,000, i.e. one million million, or 1012 (ten to the twelfth power), as defined on the long scale. This is one thousand times larger than the short scale billion, and equivalent to the short scale trillion.
American English always uses the short scale definition but British English has employed both versions. Historically, the United Kingdom used the long scale billion but since 1974 official UK statistics have used the short scale. Since the 1950s the short scale has been increasingly used in technical writing and journalism, although the long scale definition still enjoys common usage.”
link to en.wikipedia.org
The whole principle behind changing the perception of VALUE is to keep us plebs in a perpetual state of incomprehension as to what the real figures really mean.
End of rant…
@ Brian Doonthetoon
I’ve long been infuriated by the use of the “wrong” definition of a billion, but I’d never previously considered it might be a deliberate ploy to obfuscate.
Thank you!
It’s Stockholm Syndrome for a nation.
Nation’s have personalities and its not as if these personalities cant be changed. What are the massed ranks of Great British liars, starting with likes of Kez and chums, trying to mould the Scottish nation’s personalty into?
We know BBC wants Scotland to be a land of alcoholic murderers on the brew and ofcourse Billy Connoly style clowns, but what are SLab twerps up to and how can they be argued or debated with constructively?
Meta yes, but its a challenge facing all SNP elected reps in Holyrood and Westminster, as the tory BBC led UK meeja airbrush them all out of our collective consciousness.
Brian Doonthetoon
…So we’ve only got a £15,000 million deficit then – that’s pimpsy peesy!
Flat out lying by politicians is perfectly fine and perfectly legal in this rotten to the core union of kingdoms.
The likes of Carmichael and Dugdale should be in prison, in my view.
If and its a HUGE IF, punters are still voting for Slab then Scotland deserves to be the but of every joke, its bad enough the Shortbread Tories get some votes, but Slab are an embarrassment.
Its note just Jaba and Duggers who constantly lie, its every one of them, just like the Tories, the proof is there for all to see.
Mind you its not called lying when a Yoon politician is involved.
Thepnr,
“I’m fed up of this lying. Really I’m sick of it, I want to know why the media don’t expose their lies.”
You could always ask the “independence supporting” The National to reproduce this article as top headline news in their Monday edition.
Ian Brotherhood,
“Why hasn’t ‘Rock’ been in, crowing about the apparently calamitous collapse in sales of The National?
Doesn’t this mean that indy-supporters have finally sussed that they’re nothing more than ‘cash-cows’ keeping the Herald afloat?
Isn’t he delighted that so many fellow travellers have finally seen the light?”
Have you gone back on your word to stop posting unless I am not allowed to?
Have you gone back on your word to stop posting unless I am not allowed to?
Well look at the Graun spin on this daily tory horror show and why is it not reported by our chums in Pacific Quay? It is some SNP bad spin by Graun gimps too, considering their decades long wimmins page stuff. Gawd help us in this tory fcuk heed UKOK zone.
link to theguardian.com
The pro Yoon parties can lie to their heart’s content. Confident that the main stream media will not probe too much. It is a blank cheque. Sites such as WOS are preaching to the converted no matter how popular they are. While every news stand hides the only pro independence paper – The National – or under orders it. This is a war and the Yes to independence folks do not seem to understand that our fight back is too tame and lame. We are vastly under resourced and our argument is twisted at every given opportunity. Independence is fixed securely to SNP policy rather than the reality of a groundswell of indignation from the people of this country. It is a 21st century Bannockburn or Culloden. David v Goliath. Our main weapon should be stirring up the people to get out and demonstrate and make it hard for the MSM to ignore it.
What do they have left but lies ? They are trying to hold a tiger by the tail but failing miserably.
OT
This article from the Telegraph about an IT company that helped the Leave campaign may be worth a read and bearing in mind for indyref2
link to archive.is
Chitterinlicht 9.18 I worked in the oil industry, not at the sharp end but in the office, and I know lots of folk who have not followed the oil round the globe. One of my mates has submitted hundreds and I mean hundreds of job applications without even an interview. Another has given up , there are tens of thousands like them. I went through a few downturns in Aberdeen notably 1986, there has been nothing like this , it’s bad and doesn’t seem to be picking up despite the upward movement of the oil price. Thank god the broad shoulders of the UK were there to support the industry, otherwise it would have been a disaster! (That was a joke btw)
I wonder about the comparative job losses in Norway, have never seen any figures, I wonder why? One thing I did note was that in a year that we were producing 1 million barrels a day, the
UK treasury said it took 50 million pounds (yes 50 million pounds taxes) that same year Norway produced 2 million barrels a day but according to their accounts took 30 billion pounds in revenue
To the Norwegian exchequer. Do the math, I wonder if the missing 15 Billion pounds went into the ex regio account! Now that production is up to 2 million barrels per day , let’s hope it generates more than 100 million pounds to the exchequer!
Is David Clegg still advising Labour or are they advising him
and is he doing it on behalf of the Daily Record or on his own time while he’s still pretending to be neutral when he turns up on the telly commenting and opining
@Rock –
I don’t remember giving ‘my word’ that I would stop posting here.
I just got hacked off with your incessant negativity.
You’re an eighteen-stone budgie in the corner who can’t help repeating blah-deblah, whatever…that nuclear weaponry exists and it’s a miracle we all haven’t been radioactive glass for the past six decades, that we all have relatives we don’t-much-care-for, or that it’s-been-fine-today-but-we’ll-all-pay-for-it-later. You are, and always have been, the WOS BTL answer to Rev I. M. Jolly, minus the humour.
Anyway, ya boring fud, I asked a question and you haven’t answered it.
You happy, now that The National ‘appears’ to be in decline?
The reason why the population of North Korea believe in their divine leader and in their status as the most successful nation on earth, is that they are completely brainwashed through relentless State propaganda.
British Nationalists, aka No voters, are adamant to the point of fury that the UK could be brainwashed just like the North Koreans. Yet it’s true. Most English people believe with a passion that England supports impoverished Scotland and pays its bills.
This myth is being vigorously maintained every single day by British State Media and its skivvies.
Kezia Dugdale, Ruth Davidson, and Willie Rennie are all guilty of this. Some day, they may well go to jail for their crimes against the Scottish Nation.
@ Brian Doonthetoon 22:16
Hehehe! I’m glad I’m not the only one who gets crotchety when people refer to 1000, 000,000 as a billion!
… Guess I must be of a certain age. Damn! 🙁
Ian Brotherhood,
“@Rock –
I don’t remember giving ‘my word’ that I would stop posting here.
I just got hacked off with your incessant negativity.”
Since you don’t remember, let me remind you:
Ian Brotherhood,
11 February, 2017 at 12:59 am
“Rock and his supporters are – successfully – choking the life out of creative, informative discourse on this site.
No more appealing to Rev, or anyone else – I’m out.
I’ve had my run-ins with a few folk here over recent years, but it never got so nasty that I, or t’other correspondent was barred (well, so far as I’m aware).
This is something else – Rev Stu is, for his own reasons, deciding to ignore repeated and genuine complaints about a poster who appears to be a properly full-grown, very hairy (if crafty and intelligent) troll.
This is a gesture of protest, aye, but it’s a purely personal shout. I’m not trying to spark some major outcry or witch-hunt.
See ye’s around elsewhere, nae doots!”
Ian Brotherhood, if the National is not selling as much as you hoped, its not due to some random btl comments saying they don’t like it for what ever reason.
Give the people what they want:D
@Rock –
Hooray!
You know how to copy/paste stuff!
Now, back to my question – are you pleased to hear that The National ‘appears’ to be in decline?
BBC’s dedicated television channel – spin or spineless?: link to wp.me
Rock I like you. Should I now hand myself into the nearest Jail
Grouse Beater says:
25 February, 2017 at 12:23 am
BBC’s dedicated television channel – spin or spineless?:
It will all be focused on being British, and being British, it will all be focused on England. They could just spend their millions on telling us what our who and what our neighbours, other than England, are actually like.
What’s a Norwegian life like, or being an Icelander, a Fin, what’s really happening in Ireland, or the Faroes, or Sweden even? But they wont, its just going to middle class bores, waffling away for the UK, insular, parochial, royals groveling, cake bake off, eastenders, gogglebox, Leicester City who gives a flying fcuk England:D
Expect David Attenborough up here with film crew sometime soon at the news a couple of Lyre Birds have been spotted in Scotland.
P.S, Mind you in Post Ruth Scotland they will have to go some to compete.
Ian Brotherhood,
24 February, 2017 at 11:35 pm
“@Rock –
I don’t remember giving ‘my word’ that I would stop posting here.”
Ian Brotherhood,
11 February, 2017 at 12:59 am
“Rock and his supporters are – successfully – choking the life out of creative, informative discourse on this site.
No more appealing to Rev, or anyone else – I’m out.”
Are you back “in”?
Just to start an argument with me?
My views on The National are well known on this site.
And it seems the vast majority of Yes supporters agree with me.
@Rock –
‘My views on The National are well known on this site.’
Yes, they are.
And that’s why I ask, for the third time –
Do you welcome the ‘apparent’ slump in sales figures for The National?
Hi, IanB – nice to see you posting again, but you’re wasted on the budgie. Gie us something on-topic instead – it would surely be more interesting than that.
There are two more days of the Lab branch office gathering – doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun! – so there’s sure to be some more to be had before they “go forth and prepare for (local) government”. (To coin a phrase.) =grin=
@RJS –
Hoots brother, and apologies, but yon budgie needs a final cover, god ‘elp us all…sumbdy, please, gie its neck a twist, eh?
*tired*
🙂
I expect circulation figures for “The National” will continue to fall unless it adopts a more forceful policy on supporting independence. This would entail embracing and giving news column inches to journalists (professional and wannabe)who have something useful to contribute.
The present practice of giving a up a whole page each day to the views of radical leftie luvies is of little value or impact (check out election results)
In a letter to the editor (if I ever wrote one) I would strongly advise at least two pages daily should be given over to articles written by or sourced through “The Rev” and “Wings”
Circulation would increase markedly. But does the editor have the courage to buck the system?? Time will tell.
It’s alright having a laugh at the Dug and jabbas made up figures, but let’s face it they are the only figures that are getting media publicity , and everyone on here knows they will be swallowed and believed by the uninterested and gullible
Someone posted the other day about how good the SNP”S SG political broadcast was , I disagree , it lacked substance , it was all so nicey nicey . RP has always asserted that the SG press office does produce arguments and proof to counteract the lies , but they are never published.
The broadcast was a PERFECT opportunity to ADDRESS some of the continuous lies and misinformation we are swamped with daily ,Proud Cybernat does these wee posts sometimes humorous othertimes informative , when he puts the lies on the left , then the TRUTH on the right ,the SG should have done something similar , think of the impact it may have , some people might even be tempted to check out further statements to see if they are also more lies ,( hope springs eternal ) if the SG don’t go into overdrive and ditch this nicey nicey approach and confront these lies head on ,we are going to suffer mightily , I personally do not want a rerun and disappointment like 2014.
Nicola I have faith in you , get the gloves off and show Scotland and the Scottish people your enthusiasm for self determination and independence
@Artyhetty, 9:59 pm
Re the Sunday Sun recruitment drives in Newcastle.
I probably have worked on around 30 platforms in the North Sea. Most platforms have worked on had at best an average 50/50 split between Scottish and English workers. I walked away from the North Sea oil industry because I got sick of the nepotism involved in trying to get on a project, seeing guys with little or no experience favoured only because their father knew the engineer or they happened to have a TS1 postcode.
Now I am not certain, but since the English born workers home address is in England, then that means that they will not any tax allocated. The high paying jobs like Commissioning Techs / engineers offshore or Engineers in the Aberdeen offices are all self-employed, Limited company jobs – hence their corporation tax goes straight to HNRC, and since the majority reside daan south, so does their tax.
Every year Amec / QEDI do a ” recruitment roadshow” for skilled trades. To work on their projects in that year you must have passed their “Trade Test”. Typically they will have one stop in Scotland, and 2 or 3 in England. You must register, travel to this event on your own and complete their safety training as well as pass the trade test.
I have one problem with this. Before this policy began, you would travel to Aberdeen to do this training. Amec would pay a return train fare as well as a days pay for the trouble. In the time I did these maybe 2 people failed out of about 40 in Aberdeen. The problem with their trade test is that the Questions and answers are widely available to those who know the right people. So much so that when they got to know of this and change the questions, there was a 60% fail rate lol.
In almost every case, where an engineer or manager from Teeside is in charge of a new project. they will favour their own labor from their own region. Case and point to me was Cadiz in Spain. 85 Instrument guys on the job, one Jock, one Portuguese, a couple of Geordies / Yorkshiremen and the rest of therm from Teeside. To the extent that there were 22yo Tiffies straight from college starting on the Job whilst experienced hands for Scotland could not get on it.
Mechanics were probably a 3:1 split between Geordies and Jocks, and the Electrical guys were about a 4:1 split NE England to Jock.
I had the chance of a job on Clair Ridge last year, which I declined. When I asked if there was any chance of my mate getting a start (Instruments), the response was “sorry buddy, thats a closed shop”.
Then you have Mr Sadiq Khan (sigh).
Have you seen this yet folks?
link to archive.is
Apparently we’re no better than racists or religious bigots. Not seeing how such a claim helps any debate, but I do see what benefits putting a spanner into the works for Scottish independence may have for Mr Khan.
Now before anyone reads this IN ANY VERSION across our meeja BE AWARE! This is click bait writ large and its looking for an enraged response so that yoons can point and shout. ARE WE CLEAR ON THAT? So calm observation and dissection is required.
Ask yourself what Mr Khan, as Mayor of London, hopes to achieve by attempting to scupper the independence movement and a second indyref?
He’s the Mayor of London mind.
What threat does an independent Scotland pose to the city most? A Scotland still probably part of the EU at most, or certainly party to EEA, EFTA and all the open border, four freedoms agreements any such alliance Scotland may be party to or inherit. The man is terrified of direct competition, capital flight and a more attractive financial services sector agreement right on his doorstep. I’d say he’s considered the threat an independent Scotland would almost certainly pose to those and such as those in London is imminent and has decided a pre-emptive strike at that threat was on his to do list.
So Mr Khan has decided to bait half of the next door neighbours by insinuating they are every bit as bad as racists and bigots. Uh huh!
The response should be either a. Laugh and spoof. OR b. calm dissection and refutation. If folk can’t do either of those, then take two paracetamol and go to bed for a couple of days till you feel better. ?
@Macart
What’s new?
Sadiq Khan’s version of Scottish Independence supporters is just another Labour party LIE spread wide by a willing, helpful and compliant media.
I believ you are exactly right as to why he is repeating the lies first spoke of by Alastair Darling with his “blood and soil” nationalism lies.
Mr Khan is rightly concerned that high value banking jobs would be transferred from London to Scotland in the event of Scotland becoming Independent and remaining in Europe.
I read the other day in one of Nan’s links that 100,000 UK limited companies have already opened limited companies in the Republic of Ireland in order to protect their EU business after Brexit. Scotland could expect similar if we can stay in the EU.
An Independent Scotland in the EU is a far bigger threat to rUK business and industry than Brexit. This is clear as day and is just one reason why the lies are coming thick and fast and getting bigger.
They are like cornered rats and will scratch and bite and fight to protect their own interests. In that case no LIE is ever too big.
@Thepnr
Its amazing what fear makes of people. What it makes them capable of doing to others.
I had thought better of Mr Khan. He spoke a good game when standing beside the FM against Brexit, but he’s proven himself no different from the rest in the end. (shrugs)
We’ve come through a lot as supporters of self determination. The political class and the media have been on our case 24/7 for years now with the amp cranked up to eleven. Mr Khan’s motives and intent are laughably transparent and should be treated as such.
We shouldn’t react, but act accordingly and file them under yet one more reason to walk away from this sad omnishambles.
The lies, the ploys, the sound bites will get bigger and louder and way more desperate. Simple questions ahead of all this springs to mind.
What do they hope to achieve within the electorate? Fear? (again) Hatred? Resentment? And this helps society how precisely?
This creates ‘One Nation’ Britain how?
The answer is very simple. It doesn’t.
It never could and it was never intended to. Their political strategies, as we’re all too painfully aware, are designed to confuse, divide and manage.
Macart, Khan’s resist claims of Scots being racist or sectarian is pretty sneaky. His London gets half of all UK infrastructure spend for starters. Scotland as a nation state not only wont contribute to it all, or rather the borrowing for it all but the bit of the UK that’s not London, will start acting up too.
“Khan is expected to resist claims he is accusing Scottish nationalism of being racist or sectarian.”
“Labour sources said Khan believed nationalism as a concept was divisive by definition because it stresses differences, implies superiority and erects barriers to other people.”
Its getting really dirty really quickly.
Khan can go and have a good fuck of himself. Scratch any Labour politician and they’re all Unionscum underneath.
So then, Khan. Racist, xenophobic, British nationalism… GOOD! Civic, inclusive, Scottish nationalism… BAD, is it?!
Go and do one ya fanny, ye!
Go and do one ya fanny, ye!
If Khan is right, how come England’s new HS2 super railway only runs London to Sheffield, or several hundred miles away from this Scotland of superiority and barriers erectors “to other people.”
Possibly Khan has been ” leaned on ” and advised not to get to
get ” to close” to the SNP ” Brexit position”.Clearly , the ” narrow nationalists”
are the ” Britnat Tory & Labour parties”, who after all don’t appreciate ” pooling & sharing”
with Brussels?
Links
link to indyref2.scot
link to albanationsimon.wordpress.com
link to ericjoyce.co.uk
link to andywightman.com
link to newsnet.scot
Dugdale’s car crash interview
link to youtube.com
link to opendemocracy.net
All that positive economic data is just a head fake – Brexit really has pushed Britain to the edge of the cliff
link to uk.businessinsider.com
link to publiclawforeveryone.com
EU states back call for UK to agree €60bn exit bill before trade talks
link to archive.is
link to dutchnews.nl
Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore has warned Americans that life under Donald Trump will be “worse” than they thought
link to archive.is
France’s National Front scandal has exposed the dirty little secret of Europe’s far right
link to archive.is
Bannon makes stunning threat to media
link to archive.is
Obama openly admits ‘brokering power transition’ in Ukraine
link to archive.is
‘Can you hear me?’ phone scam to hit UK
link to archive.is
Nana: Good Morning,
Links for a windy Saturday, Thank You. Kettle’s on!
Where’s my kite?
Peace Always
A very shoogly lookin Brian Wilson’s trip to Lithgae could be summed up as “Dinosaur speaks at dinosaur’s funeral!”
Off to get my National, never miss!
@Smallaxe Good morning to you and
link to youtube.com
Nana: 🙂
Peace Always
isnt it so revealing when the Rev breaks down the labour lies, lie by lie, detail by detail. Labour have learned nothing since the Vow, and continue to see lying as something that someone will believe. They are wrong and their destruction, total and utter, is the only medicine for this beleugered band of thugs. Wipe the remainder out in May.
I’ve said many times that Labour depends on tactics not substance, however I only really began to understand that about 5 or 6 years ago. I dumped Labour at that point.
@ Nana 8.33 Can you hear me, it wont work in Scotland . Aye / I / Eye . Like to see they’re bloody contract being upheld wie they responses lol.
O/T
The French are serious about companies moving to Paris from London.
Major office development planned for La Defence.
link to archive.is
La Defense is the major commercial hub of Paris at the end of Metro Ligne 1.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Easy to commute to and with underground shopping. I worked there with Technip and surprisingly found self contained accommodation within walking distance. Excellent location unlike working in London. I lasted six weeks there with J Brown Engineering at Paddington.
On the BBC UK webpages(not on Scotland web pages)there is a video of a huge oil platform starting its travel to the North Sea which will arrive in June. This platform handles 44,000 barrels of oil per day. That’s worth almost £1Billion per year from that one NEW platform.
So, according to Mr Khan, I, a European citizen on the verge of being separated and divided from my fellow European citizens, against the will of the majority in MY country, due to the actions of a bunch of little-Englanders, am a “racist” for seeking to reverse that situation.
Who is it who is doing the separating and dividing, Mr Khan?
Don’t worry, Kez. It’ll all soon be over. Just after 10pm on Thursday 4th May I should think.
I’m utterly flabbergasted at Mr Kahn’s assertion that Scottish nationalism is the same as racism.
Mayor Kahn is wrong and completely out of touch as to why so many of us have left Labour.
Labour’s House Newspaper,the Daily Record’s Front Page today:
“London Mayor”.
“Scottish Nationalism is the same as racism”.
I am a Democrat to my very core,First,Now and Always.
The scottish branch of the labour party will soon be finished off for good, its quite sad really that they have no real policies apart from the nonesense they are told to spout that comes from the silly monkeys who talk a load of bananas at westminster
They have lost all credibility, they never where a party of the people in scotland anyway, its all been smoke and mirrors for decades, its amazing to think in the Inverclyde area we have had yorkshire men voted in as our members of parliament in the recent past, and people actually voted for them, why is any yorkshire man or woman standing for my constituency , that allways puzzled me, are there no good scottish men or woman that can get elected to a safe labour area, as it used to be, now labour are finished in Inverclyde according to the latest polls, and good riddance as far as i am concerned, years i have waited for this, i new it would come someday, its a fact, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time, now they will reap what they have sown….. Alba Gu snooker loopy!
Khan went to the airport to welcome a muslim hate preacher to britain, and he had some kind of reception for a few of them in his capacity as mayor of London
Is this acceptable in London now, bringing in people who hate our way of life and giving them a little state like welcome, and this is the same guy that does not want the president of the united states to be allowed the same treatment, waken up Londoners, you have a viper in your midst
David Caledonia:
Why should you care what the origin of any M(S)P happens to be? There have been several well-known English/Welsh MPs in Scottish seats in the past, including Red Clydesider Mannie Shindwell, Gladstone (Midlothian) and Churchill (Dundee), Jenkins (Glasgow) and until recently Holyrood had a French MSP. So what? You may argue about how effective for their constituents any particular MP may have been, but if someone has chosen to live here and contribute to their community, why should you give a toss?
You start with the English, then who do you pick on next, eh? Victimise the less-fortunate, just like your apparently-beloved Trump.
This kind of thing plays right into the hands of the likes of Sadiq Khan. Nicely re-quotable as proof by the usual yoon suspects.
Racist. Provocateur.
Well I’ve quickly scanned the comments and it looks like no-one got the Dexys reference…any gift vouchers on offer?