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Wings Over Scotland


Lie back and think of England

Posted on August 10, 2014 by

Any enterprise as crass, witless and poorly-thought-out as Dan Snow’s “Let’s Stay Together” campaign – funded by the same man who gives millions to murderous war criminals and populated by a curious mix of billionaire Tories, Sirs, Lords, Baronesses and Z-list nobodies – will always create all manner of hostages to fortune.

We’ve already mentioned David Starkey, who felt able to pledge his love to Scotland despite having previously called it a “feeble little country” obsessed with the “deeply boring provincial poet Burns” and “the awful bagpipe”. The “celebrity” list also featured Ross Kemp (who previously likened Glasgow to a third-world warzone) and the deeply unpleasant right-wing columnist Rod Liddle, who opined in 2010 that:

“The only reason any people remain in Scotland is on account of the extremely cheap alcohol available in supermarkets, plus a ready supply of heroin for when the alcohol runs out.”

And then there was “hard man” actor and bookies’ shill Ray Winstone.

raywinstone3

Quite a few people picked up on Winstone’s appearance last year as the guest host of “Have I Got News For You”, in which he trotted out a list of tired stereotypes and suggested Scotland should “bugger off”. But as we noted at the time, HIGNFY is a comedy show produced by public schoolboys for whom patronising the “Jocks” is second nature and not worth getting worked up about.

What bothers us a little more is Ray’s view on the country he wants Scots to stay in.

Because in March last year he told Talksport Radio:

“I drive down the road, there’s more holes in the road than there are in a tennis racket, and we’ve got no hospitals, we’ve got fire stations closing down.

I can see myself leaving here quite soon, actually. I love this country, but I’ve had enough of it, I don’t see what we’re being given back. I just see the country being raped.”

Ray Winstone can afford to just up sticks and leave the UK, of course. He’s got plenty of cash, despite his extensive bleatings about taxation. It’s just Scots he thinks should stay behind and endure being “raped”. At least, we suppose, he won’t be watching.

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117 to “Lie back and think of England”

  1. MikeF
    Ignored
    says:

    Bye Ray, can I help you pack.

  2. Rockysboy
    Ignored
    says:

    The truth is out there, all these 200+ snobs don’t have the worrys 90% of us have.

  3. Roddy Macdonald
    Ignored
    says:

    It appears Darling and Murphy harbour similar feelings about Labour and its leadership.

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/09/labour-fears-brain-drain-mps-quit

  4. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    There’s lots of ridiculous things on teamGB telly but none more so than watching hard man luvvies llike this one expecting to us think he is an actual gangster. See if the clown ever goes to Scotand and says “you’re Scottish beggars” in public.

  5. Alan McHarg
    Ignored
    says:

    Maybe they see the writing on the wall and are smoothing their way to moving to foreign parts…i.e. an independent Scotland. Maybe we should consider border controls!

  6. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Roddy Macdonald@ thanks for link and Flipper’s getting ready to quit and Murphy stands on a soap box balling his head off for UKOK but he’s wanting to be an MSP in a “new powers” Holyrood that Darling couldn’t say what the all new powers actually are, last weeks STV debate

    “Any move by Murphy would be motivated by the chance of entering a Scottish parliament with new powers, following the announcement by all three party leaders that such reform would happen if Scotland rejected independence. However, other Labour MPs are reacting against what they see as the uninspiring character of their leader.”

  7. Oui Things
    Ignored
    says:

    Good luck to any boulders who may be reading this.

    If at first you don’t succeed…

  8. caz-m
    Ignored
    says:

    And the patronising Peers Morgan chips in with a comment that will only go to increase the YES vote.

    https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/497663830009597952

  9. The Scotswoman
    Ignored
    says:

    Ray, please don’t let the door catch your well – padded arse on the way out and if you could take David Starkey with you as folded hand luggage then so much the better.

  10. john king
    Ignored
    says:

    “I just see the country being raped”
    I thought you were a bit quick to agree with the commentator who called Thpnr on using a similar analogy Stu.

  11. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Ray Winston, Danny Dyer, Whatshisname Kemp, all of them less convincing Cockney hard men than Danny Kaye.

  12. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    To be fair that’s all in the Torygraph how to evade tax section, sorry personal tax advise section, where Tory boys can swing free, as in Liam Fox whi no like tax either,

    According to The Times, Dr Fox will say: “I believe that in leaving money in people’s pockets, economic activity will follow. People will buy houses, invest for their future or just go shopping. Whichever is the case, it’s creating a society that is sustainable for the future in the way that our current welfare-dependent and debt-ridden economy is not.

    “We should gradually move towards the reduction – or even abolition – of the taxes where the state not only taxes the same money on multiple occasions but discourages the very behaviour that would lead to a more responsible society.”

    Scots oil UKOK taxed at 80%, FM Salmond plans Scots oil fund like near trillion dollar state pension fund Norway have, (Norway actually has several)

    BUT Darling says no way silly little man, what nappened to nice Alex? You’re such stupid people, stupid stupid stupid soil and blood nats, oops etc.

  13. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan Snow (secretly) married to the daughter of the richest man in Britain, the Duke of Westminster. (£7Billion) They have a Child. Close ties to the Royal/ Establishment/MSM Spokesperson? Issues of inheritance, landownership, tax evasion and secrecy.

    Family seat near Liverpool where there are food banks etc.

  14. pete
    Ignored
    says:

    I never liked the cockney twat any ways, every fim he has ever been in he has f****d it up with his accent. The last one was Noah’s Ark, the bad guy with the cockney accent ????? F****d the movie right up prick. I dont understand why the give him leading roles. Useless twat . Vote YES and get rid of these arse holes….

  15. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Family complacency. Peter Snow, ‘ young people nowadays have different priorities. They don’t plan for the future. My son and his partner do not bother about pension planning or worry about the future finances.’

  16. Cyc
    Ignored
    says:

    While it’s hardly news that historians live in the past, the parade of people who have no ambition to make their country better, to make the world better, is quite depressing. We must get that Yes for all of us.

  17. bunter
    Ignored
    says:

    Bit strong there Pete. You all right there.

  18. Christian Wright
    Ignored
    says:

    cAZ-M: “And the patronising Peers Morgan chips in with a comment that will only go to increase the YES vote.”

    Yes. Couldn’t put it more eloquently than our American cousins did when he left CNN: “Piers old thing – GFY”

  19. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Il informed, ignorant, arrogant tax evading? ‘actor’ pops off.

  20. Mat
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye, well, they do lurv us, just as long as all we do is bask in the warm glow of their love, feel the security and trust of their tender and genuine embrace, reciprocate their ‘mwah!’ from afar.

    But, but – question them, suggest that maybe it doesn’t quite feel right, and they quickly revert to type:

    “Grievance, victimhood, anger and conspiracy does not bode well as the basis for the self rule of a confident nation.”

    Aw, gee, thanks guys.

    A contrary viewpoint as aggression, debate as bullying. My my but the veneer is thin.

  21. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Piers Morgan tax evading ? self exile criminal can’t come back to Britain. All is not forgiven.

  22. Iain
    Ignored
    says:

    I fear for any woman in ‘big’ Ray’s company if his response to his country getting raped is to bugger off to pastures new.

  23. big jock
    Ignored
    says:

    I will not be told what is best for my country by a jumped up cockney barrow boy!I live in Scotland he lives 400 miles away in another country and thinks he knows Scotland better than me.If anyone is any doubt that Scotland has a different culture to England go and spend a week in London.It doesn’t feel like my country and nor does Manchester or Liverpool.This is not about money its about democracy and culture.The Scots are not the same as the English and in fact we never have been.Britishness is an abstract term used to describe something that only exists at the Olympics or when there is an imperialist war going on.

  24. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    This is getting ridiculous. I had my rant ready for the Herald on 19 September.

    You know the one: Were you watching, Margaret Thatcher, Sir Winston Churchill, David Cameron, George Osborne, Boris Johnston, Ed Milliband, Ed Ballstalk, Nick Clegg, Nigel Farage, etc….Your team took a hell of a beating.

    But, it would be going over the top to then list these 200 numpties before the Your team etc bit.

    That “Ed Ballstalk” is a “typo” in this morning’s excellent Iain Macwhirter article in the Sunday Herald. I reckon “Ballstalk” has to be the Shadow Chancellor’s new name from the Yes side.

  25. Clootie
    Ignored
    says:

    Perhaps if Dan Snow had been more open about the family land ownership in Scotland I would have been less suspicious of his motives.

    I also suspect that many have had their egos stroked – “it would make such a difference if we had YOU onboard”. This list is the meagre haul from that fishing venture.

    The others -Starkey and Co – they are just taking the piss!

  26. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    You have to admire the sheer bullshit capacity of all these guys, Winston’s just a rent a quote ham but Liam Fox has power

    Doc Fox “it’s creating a society that is sustainable for the future in the way that our current welfare-dependent and debt-ridden economy is not.”

    So Tory’s like Brown, Darling, Osborne saving the world by hand out City rich whizz kids hundreds of billons of tax payers cash in 2008 that we’ll never see again, but even our children will be paying back, is NOT welfare-dependant? And our debt-ridden economy is NOT down to lawless morality free, super rich tax City tax dodgers and their poodles like Doc Fox and New Labour?

    If the Flipper is about to jack, I’d put some money on him sliding onto a few seats on the boards of a few City banks, it’s what socialist workers from Scotland dream of.

  27. Hardin
    Ignored
    says:

    If he does leave I’m sending Ben Kingsley to bring him back.

  28. Les Wilson
    Ignored
    says:

    Roddy Macdonald says:

    That Guardian photo, this is the condescending look from Murphy I really dislike. Also he is trying to lampoon a politician whose boots he could not lace.

    I would like to have been at that photo shoot with a large custard pie in my hand, woooosh!

  29. Auld Sandy
    Ignored
    says:

    With all his pals telling him he won the TV debate, Darling’s probably already getting himself measured up for the ermine cloak. Lord Darling of North Britain? Oh, everybody please vote YES

  30. Tattie-bogle
    Ignored
    says:

    He never signed but this is the response they should get

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBE6VLIDxKo

  31. Muscleguy
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hardin

    David Suchet used to do a good line in Cockney gangsters more convincing than Winstone. We could send him along with Ben Kingsley. Together they would have Winstone shaking in his boots.

  32. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/10347458/Lady-Edwina-Grosvenor-I-see-my-wealth-as-a-gift-that-I-should-put-to-good-use.html

    Lady Edwina has many gifts, including inheriting a seven thousand million quid fortune, which is probably a huge underestimate in the avoidance any tax difficulties.

    So vote NO we love you Scots Oxbridge Dan Snow gets top BBC presenter job, which had nothing to do with his dad, Jon Snow, then he marries super rich Lady Edwina, who wants penal reform. I think I prefer that space cadet that’s building a cairn and likes walking around in countries where most of the natives are piss poor and only humour him out of politeness, like in Scotland .

  33. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    John King,
    Seconded. ps. love the hat.

    Ken500,
    Hilarious!

  34. Bugger (the Panda)
    Ignored
    says:

    Hardin

    Darling might encased in the concrete supports of the new Forth Crossing?

  35. Les Wilson
    Ignored
    says:

    I found this courtesy of Sainscot, this shout be distributed everywhere, facebook, twitter, everywhere.
    It would be interesting if Osborne comes back up here to tell us what we can and cannot do, he would be a laughing stock if Scots were more aware of this.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TlqpCVoSlM

  36. big jock
    Ignored
    says:

    Why are we even talking about these eejits!Ken I know its fun but they are just a posh noise from doon sooth.The question I have is it now gloves aff for Salmond.Its not the no side he is fighting he won that a long time ago.If no win it will be the msm what done it.So Salmond and Yes need to beat the media now!Just how I don’t know other than the local meetings.

  37. caz-m
    Ignored
    says:

    The English establishment love nothing better than that feeling of being in control of everything Scottish.

    Examples:-

    Ed Miliband WILL NOT LET Scotland use the pound.

    Westminster WILL ALLOW Scotland to have tax raising powers.

    They just cant help it.

    In their eyes, we are nothing more than an irrelevant mountainous region of Northern Britain that needs wee a hug every now an again.

    On the 18th September we will have the power to tell the lot of them where to get off.

  38. JWil
    Ignored
    says:

    I just wonder if at least some of ‘the two hundred’ are having second thoughts about the wisdom of signing up to this letter now that they know that it has been exposed, not as a gesture of goodwill towards the Scots, but a political gambit by people who have manipulated them.

  39. Famous15
    Ignored
    says:

    When someone comes across as too strong in their language on this site you have to wonder are they teeing up for BT to say look how crazy the cybernats are and can you trust them with your granny’s pension.

    There is a dawning awareness that YES is better at poker than darling Darling.Let us quietly enjoy the moment they realise that the trap has snapped shut. We have a country and its peoples to serve. Self service and ermine dreams are for the UKOK brigade!

  40. Joan
    Ignored
    says:

    Apologies that this is slightly off topic but I though you might enjoy this satire of the independence referendum http://theoccasionalpigeonuk.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/concern-in-whitehall-that-scottish.html

  41. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Cheer up Big Jock, imagine if someone sat seven thousand million quid next to you, like what happened to oor vote no we own. I mean we love you Scots, Dan Snow?

    “I gradually developed a fantastic life with my prison work,” she smiles. “I also partied very hard, but I kept thinking that boyfriends would only like me for my money. I decided I wouldn’t grab any old guy who came along, and that if I didn’t find anyone, at least I had great friends and was happy in my work. But by the time my cousin Rosie Innes-Ker got married in the summer of 2008, I hadn’t had a boyfriend for four years, so I said: ‘Please put me next to a single hot guy.’

  42. john king
    Ignored
    says:

    JWil says
    “I just wonder if at least some of ‘the two hundred’ are having second thoughts about the wisdom of signing up to this letter now that they know that it has been exposed, not as a gesture of goodwill towards the Scots, but a political gambit by people who have manipulated them.”

    Don’t you kid yourself,
    just like BT’s “grassroots” activists you had better believe there was something in it for them before they put their names to that stupid letter!

  43. Onwards
    Ignored
    says:

    The parade of English celebrities signing these type of declarations is pretty meaningless.
    Most of them probably don’t give it a second thought.

    Let’s be honest, England is the dominant partner in an unequal union.
    90% population, and with the seat of power in London.
    If I lived in London I would probably sign it too.

    The figures show that Scotland has subsidised the rest of the UK for years.
    Who would want the gravy train to stop?

  44. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    Just watching the drumhead service on the Edinburgh Castle esplanade.

    The troops are now marching down the Royal Mile – British Imperial troops, in full fig, marching, colours flying, drums beating, bands playing, through our capital.

    It’s almost as if they are threatening us.

  45. Edward
    Ignored
    says:

    MuscleGuy
    Agree about Ben Kingsley
    Did post a comment with link to you tube clip from ‘Sexy Beast’ but didn’t pass what is acceptable

  46. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Life in teamGB, you front expensive, dreary, out of date, can you please stop going on about the bloody war BBC TV, you’re at a do, a sex starved single for 4 years blond, in her late 20’s, worth £7 billion takes the bar stool next to you…

    No wonder all these guys are desperate to save the UK.

  47. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Interesting to see Winstone quoted because whenever he speaks that weird larger than Cockney Cockneyese I can’t understand a bloody word he says.

    It’s all moronic mumbles, innit?; a mouf-fool of ma’bles.

    “Wha’s tha’ yer sayin’, yoo stoopaid Jock? Go”a problym?”

    Winstone follows in the footsteps of a more famous professional Cockney, Michael ‘Nosy Neighbour’ Caine.

    Soon as ya makes some ‘onest tardy bucks you bleedin’ well levver it to a Swiss bank, don’tcha, complay-nin’ merry Englund is milkin’ ya fucki’ dry!

    In Hollywood Caine is regarded as a whore. If you can meet his half-million basic fee demand from his London agent he’ll sign the contract no matter how crap the script.

    “Let me tell ya, the own-lay erf the meek inherit is six fee’ under. Not many pee-pole know tha'” Michael Micklewhite.

  48. WantonWampum.
    Ignored
    says:

    Iain Mc Whirter in today`s Sunday Herald makes a mockery of all this garbage about Currency Union with a bankrupt Bank of England, a worthless £ and this Bankrupt Treasury at Westminst -err.

    On the day,months and years AFTER Indy Scots can use the currency – any currency – incl Sterling.

    For over 50 years the Rep of Ireland used Sterling.
    Like almost every ex-Commonwealth Country that took Indy from Westminster and this corrupt Monarchy

    You will probably have noticed that those Rabid Scottish Tories who actually own vast tracts of Scotland have been omitted as signatories of Dan Snow`s pet project.

    People like the Duke of Argyll,the Duke of Sutherland, lord Thurso,the Earl of Angus etc and let`s not forget Ross and Cromerty.

    Klan Chiefs who live in London, Los Angeles, Wyoming etc.

    BamCam and Dan Snow expect their in-laws to Retain their lands in Scotland – AFTER – Scottish Independence.
    Aye that`ll be frigging right.

    Bedroom Tax imposed at Balmoral,Castle of Mey etc.

    Strangely, SLAB socialists want to maintain this division?

  49. big jock
    Ignored
    says:

    Off topic and childish of me.I run past a house in let’s say a Brit stronghold of Falkirk.They have a union jack on a flagpole and next to it a flag with the English three lions royal regalia.No reference to the Scotland that they live in.Well I ran past yesterday and the boy about 12 opened the door with I kid you not Union jack shorts.I couldn’t resist and started singing Scots Wahay then flower of Scotland!He looked at me, looked down at his shorts and you could tell he actually felt some shame.Or maybe that was wishful thinking.However there was no retort or comeback.I dread to think what the inside of the house looks like!

  50. Dr Ew
    Ignored
    says:

    Stu, you really are misrepresenting Dr David Starkey.

    Of course, he wants us to stay – this will then prove his thesis we are indeed “a feeble little country”.

  51. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    What’s their problem? If they love Scotland so much they can come and live and work here. But if they don’t want to come and live and work here, maybe they could reflect on why that might be?

  52. caz-m
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T

    Going by the TV coverage, there are still seats available at Edinburgh Castle for the WW1 celebrations of the start of the Great War.

    I don’t know what was so Great about it. It looked like a total massacre of innocent men to me.

  53. Wouldn’t it be fitting for Ray to pop up on referendum day with the latest odds on Scotland being independent and saying “have a bang on that”.

    Perhaps if anyone wants to make some spoof adverts about the falling price for YES they could use Ray?

  54. Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    @caz-m

    I still don’t get why we are celebrating the start of a war and not the end? Someone please explain it to me.

  55. Johnny Farrell
    Ignored
    says:

    Ray, See when you leave, don’t let the door hit ye on the arse on the way oot. Oh, and FFS don’t come tae Australia. You’ll hate it here. Try France. You’ll love it there – plenty o’ folk tae argue wi’

  56. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    @Grouse Beater, sorry GB, you’re way off the mark on Michael Caine, his Jaws 4, the Revenge, This Time Its Personal 3-d changed the way we think about cinema as art, also you should have see the house that Jaws 4 built. We have to listen to these guys and back away, don’t make eye contact…

  57. Les Wilson
    Ignored
    says:

    Jim says:

    Easy Jim, another Westminster cack handed attempt at making us feel unified for the greater good (in their eyes ).

    They do not get that most Scots are jaw dropping at the foolery of it all. Celebrate the END of war, not the start.
    Scots get that! er failed again!

  58. caz-m
    Ignored
    says:

    Jim

    Where is Gary Lineker? I thought he covered ALL major BBC events, and no Clair Balding either.

    The BBC definitely think this WW1 stuff is a real Vote NO winner, don’t they.

  59. BigSteveChisholm
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh England, my lionheart.

    Worth-a-read interview with UKIP’s new poster girl. It’s funny how they’re ‘not racist’, Kippers just ‘say what they see’.

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/10/ukip-jane-collins-election-roma-sheffield

    I wonder what their plans are for Scotland? We have to wait until the UKIP conference on 26 September to find out.

    I’ll take a guess in the meantime – lots of fracking, accelerated NHS privatisation, further erosion of worker’s rights, UK out of EU in 2017 and lashings of racism disguised as an antidote to ‘political correctness gone mad’.

  60. BigSteveChisholm
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh, and I forgot to mention in my comment above:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-12964769

    “The UK Independence Party believes in a Scotland where there are no MSPs, all students are given grants and young offenders are sent to boot camps.”

  61. big jock
    Ignored
    says:

    I am sick of the War stuff.I make no bones about it.I am a pacifist and do not wear an Earl Haig poppy.There is an accepted facism towards people in this country who do not want to get involved in war propaganda.Its like hey you are being disrespectful.There was an ex soldier interviewed in George square who said he signed up as he was unemployed.After 12 years in the army he said he realised that war and exploiting young unemployed people as cannon fodder was wrong.The same cannon fodder sent to their deaths in world war 1 by the generals on the hill.

  62. Muscleguy
    Ignored
    says:

    @WelshNotBritish

    Just imagine all this schizophrenic ‘you’re too wee, too poor, too stupid’ and ‘Please don’t leave us and retreat into your valleys so we never see you’ stuff when you follow us.

    Because the British state apparently knows no other tactics now it is not allowed to send in the conscripted squaddies in pith helmets and/or some gunboats (they don’t have enough of either anyway).

    Oh and it’s because they are not allowed to and are too nice. Not because Glasgow or Cardiff would make Belfast look like a holiday camp, no siree.

  63. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    Another day another think tank The Policy Exchange say Westminster should lower the benefit cap outside London and the south east (of England) because the cost of living is so much lower elsewhere. This would save billions for infrastructure projects in “the north” (of England presumably).
    Labour agrees.
    http://tinyurl.com/k52eexj

  64. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    I still don’t get why we are celebrating the start of a war and not the end? Someone please explain it to me.

    TeamGB establishment, elite, MOD, MP’s etc love a bally good war. They’re not unlike other far right regimes around but they are on the wane.

    When I was a kid, we watched the horrifying jingos at the Beeb and ITV boost up the Falklands task force, nutters like Max “Hitler” Hastings posted thrilling dispatches daily, even in the battlefield we had awestruck recounts of officers bravery in the face of, like Colonel H Jones and today?

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2227871/Brigadier-Rupert-Jones-Son-Falklands-hero-Colonel-H-Jones-charge-9-000-troops-Afghanistan.html

    Colonel Jones yomped 9000 troops for days, meets an array of machine guns and runs right at them, alone.

  65. Bugger (the Panda)
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Johnny Farrell

    Bugger aff, I am in France.

    🙂

  66. seoc
    Ignored
    says:

    Let’s stay together? What a wonderful idea. This time though the Scots will run the place.

  67. Bugger (the Panda)
    Ignored
    says:

    heedtracker

    Ah a Rupert.

  68. joe kane
    Ignored
    says:

    How anybody allowed a hate-filled racist, misogynist, disablist bigot like Liddle sign a letter of friendship is pretty mind-blowing. With his qualifications he ought to be in charge of some British Government Ministry of State such as the Department of Work and Pensions perhaps.

  69. Muscleguy
    Ignored
    says:

    @heedtracker

    I watched the Falklands War from my penultimate year of school in NZ. We were annoyed/disgusted when our arse licking PM Rob Muldoon sent a NZ frigate to the Indian Ocean to ‘release’ a RN one for the ‘front’.

    He was out of office in a landslide 18 months later. My first election that one 🙂

    I can tell you that British jingoism looked really arcane and Ruritanian from the South Pacific.

  70. Nana Smith
    Ignored
    says:

    Referendum TV Live 11/08

    Presenters Stephen Paton and Iain MacWhirter are joined by actor Elaine C Smith who’s starring in Alan Bisset’s play Pure, Dead Brilliant and her own one woman show; actor David Hayman from the Pitiless Storm and comedians Paul Sneddon aka Vladimir McTavish and Keir McAllister will chat about their own show, ‘Aye Right, How No’ […]

    http://www.referendumtv.net/category/referendumtvlive/

  71. Rev. Stuart Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    “I thought you were a bit quick to agree with the commentator who called Thpnr on using a similar analogy Stu.”

    FFS, John. My ENTIRE POINT is that we don’t get to take the high ground for idiots like Winstone casually tossing the word “rape” around IF WE DO IT TOO. I haven’t likened anything to rape, I’ve pointed out someone else doing it.

  72. DaveDee
    Ignored
    says:

    As I have said before, true friends would say we’d like you to stay but you must do what you think best for yourself and your family and if in the end you decide to go we will do all we can to help your move to be as smooth and pleasant as possible.

    They seem to be saying please stay but if you decide to go we will male it as difficult and painful as possible.

    Something not quite right there.

    .

  73. DaveDee
    Ignored
    says:

    make not male

  74. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Muscleguy, but nothings changed, in fact its even worse now. A VC for an officer who committed suicide and venerated still by ultra right teamGB media?

    They came within a few Exocets of losing the Falklands and by the end, even the BBC couldn’t cover up our rulers terror at their own blood lust. If it wasnt for Regan, fast forward a generation and Westminster marches off to bomb Iraq back to the stone ages with ultra right USA, nearly a million civilian lives lost in violence and now Pres Obama says vote No.

    We’re stronger together

  75. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    I was mostly bemused by the 200 names thing, a great many of whom I have never heard of. Piers’ comment I considered positively beneficial to the Yes campaign. The only thing that has irked me is Ed Miliband playing to Daily Mail demographic by coming up here and striking the “tough on Scotishness, tough on the causes of Scotishness” pose.

    I really do wonder who advises him because his triangulation on every issue really pisses me off. If I want a fucking toblerone as PM I will write toblerone on the ballot paper.

  76. Auld Sandy
    Ignored
    says:

    Did these people love bomb the Falklands before their referendum too? Falklands voted to remain ‘British’ but have their own currency pegged to sterling. Isle of Man has (if you believe Wikipedia) ‘unilateral’ CU with UK, even though it’s not part of UK and isn’t in EU. (I didn’t know that – any border controls?) What’s my point? These places have CHOSEN what they want to do and all sorts of different arrangements CAN work if there’s a will to make them a success, so why can’t Scotland choose what it want’s to do and make it work?

  77. cirsium
    Ignored
    says:

    OT – I’ve just watched this very interesting short interview of Joseph Stiglitz about his new book on inequality. His subject is the USA but what he says could be applied to the UK. Small is beautiful – vote YES in September.

    http://rueclementmarot.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/small-is-beautiful.html

  78. Helena Brown
    Ignored
    says:

    Big Jock @111.44, Could not agree more, sick to death of all this War Stuff. Got me this morning, The War to End War, as my Hubby said, how did that work out for you. His Granddad came back from WW1 to 7 years unemployment. We should by all means remember those who gave their lives in all wars but this goes well beyond this. I would have to say it is a put up job hoping to get us all being proud to be British. Well Mr Cameron some of us know the sacrifice that was made by Scotland in both wars and we do not want any more of it.

  79. Another Union Dividend
    Ignored
    says:

    Latest apologist for the No NHS campaign is not a “proud Scot” but Prof Mike Dixon claiming “I am English but masquerade abroad as a Scot” who is threatening to leave Scotland if we vote No. Talk about multiple personality disorder.

    http://www.scotsman.com/news/mike-dixon-nhs-won-t-suffer-with-no-vote-1-3504147

  80. Muscleguy
    Ignored
    says:

    @heedtracker

    The Heath Robinson, wing and a prayer, any old wreck pressed into service nature of it was well and truly evident from NZ (an independent media you see).

    Reading stuff afterwards just confirmed that. The Paras and Marines had to yomp all that way because the helicopters either didn’t work or went down with one of the ships in San Carlos Water.

    Then there were the carriers, too precious to be put in harm’s way, sat so far SW the harriers got virtually no time over SCW so could not offer real air cover.

    If the Argentines had had a slightly more modern airforce and navy it would have been complete carnage.

    Any idea of Britain as a first world military heavyweight went right out of the window.

    Note that in both Iraq I and II and Afghanistan Britain relied on American transports to get troops and materiel in theatre. No capacity to project any more.

    Little NZ maintains the ability to project and supply a battalion strength force with naval support into the Pacific. We have defence and civil defence responsibilities inherited from Britain there. Britain only retains Pitcairn because it can’t give it away. It tried recently. NZ said ‘No thanks’.

  81. Alexander Montrose
    Ignored
    says:

    If the BBC ever bring back Alf Garnett, Ray Winstone would be a shoo in for the job.

  82. Chic McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    I believe BET365 are going to give odds on whether Mr Winstone’s next pronouncement indicates his desire that Scotland leave or stay in the UK.

  83. Patrick Roden
    Ignored
    says:

    The thing about Rays hard-man accent is it doesn’t work well in Scotland because we don’t see Londoners as hard men, but almost any English accent works for en evil person for the American audience.

    Not sure why, but Americans seem to think if someone is pure evil, they are probably English!

  84. Cag-does-thinking
    Ignored
    says:

    I can’t really find too much animosity against Ray Winstone or anybody else in the 200 with the possible exception of the few that set it up knowing that perhaps their dad in law owned a sizable chunk of Scottish playground. His comments certainly point to a viewpoint that the whole UK is going down the toilet and in England that has meant a drift towards UKIP, we at least have an alternative and now up here a much more analytical approach as to WHY we are where we are. The chattering classes in England have always threatened to leave for a variety of reasons and many of the self same have taken part in all of these tax avoidance schemes which shows they have little affection for the government at Westminster or the country they assume we are a part of. They don’t want things to change because there is a chance that if things change they may have to pay a fair proportion to keep their current country afloat. And that would never do, they’d have to threaten to leave ad nauseum.

  85. ailsa craig
    Ignored
    says:

    Socrates MacSporran.

    Totally agree with the Ed Ballstalk typo. Made me laugh all through breakfast. Wonder if it was deliberate? It has taken over from a remark from a harried mum when I was up in Ayr last week, and chanced upon the bold Jim on his box. As the wee lad pointed him out to her, she said, ‘Come away,son. We might catch something’. I liked it.

    Iain’s article was excellent. Compulsory reading for everyone [including AS even if just to boost his confidence]. He is a great ally in an unfriendly MSM world.

    Thanks for the welcome Robert Peffers. It can be lonely out in the sticks, living in tory territory, but I have enjoyed all the commentary.

  86. jacksloan2013
    Ignored
    says:

    Another from “we love you Scotland” – David Aaronovitch.

    “I’m fed up with this myth of superiority spouted by the Scots… It happened last Saturday afternoon: a Scotswoman opened her mouth, and all of a sudden I knew I’d had enough of all this Scots wha hae stuff, and decided that if one more person whinged to me, even in a minor key, about how the English fail to comprehend the Scots, then I’d give them a Cullodening.”

    Thanks David. Love to you too.

  87. Cag-does-thinking
    Ignored
    says:

    Just in case Prof Starkey or any pedants come along that should have read ad nauseam. I sometimes need an edit function.

  88. HYUFD
    Ignored
    says:

    Yes has its celebrities too, including Sir Sean Connery from the Bahamas, Alan Cumming from Manhattan and Brian Cox in a new Yes video.

    Russell Brand, another multimillionaire Englishman, has also just come out for Scottish independence

  89. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ HYUFD, the rather large difference is all your Yes vote celebs are Yes for radical political changes for their homeland.

    The 200 super rich daddy’s Dan Snow dragged in just want to keep Scotland theirs, which is a rather large difference, innit:D

  90. Rosa Alba Macdonald
    Ignored
    says:

    I have a huge problem w. anyone using the term raped out of context. The context being that of sexual assault.
    I appreciate the fact that you put comma-y thingies round it.

  91. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    Hey, don’t knock Russel Brand! Russel is very sharp and witty and the best celeb antidote to Westminster England’s got at the moment. His interview with Mehdi Hasan is well worth watching.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3PalrfEF4g

  92. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ HYUFD
    heedtracker says:

    @ HYUFD, The 200 super rich daddy’s BOY Dan Snow. oopsee!

  93. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan Snow –

    I’ve found myself staring – that’s the only description because there’s very little intellectual content or insight – at three of his alleged ‘history’ documentaries.

    Without exception they are in quality sub-BBC Educational Television.

    I don’t regard him an authority on any historical subject. He’s a narrator who writes his own lines.

  94. thedogphilosopher
    Ignored
    says:

    @heedtracker 10.41 link re Lady Edwina Grosvenor (Dan Snow’s richer half)

    Interesting insight into how the Other Half live. Has the righteous ring of Victorian charitableness, saving the poor from themselves. She is worth billions but claims: “I was so fascinated by prisoners that I nearly became a prison officer.”

    Kinky, or just deluded?

  95. PeeGee
    Ignored
    says:

    Col H Jones VC was shot by his own troops as he ran in front of their guns. Maybe by accident or maybe they didn’t want to commit suicide. Either way covered up and turned him into a hero.

    Of course suicide bombers are pure evil. Death and glory charges are for our boys not theirs.

  96. PeeGee
    Ignored
    says:

    There is nothing wrong with using the word rape to mean what it means.

    it is those claiming exclusivity for the term to only ever apply to the sexual crime that are in the wrong.

  97. JWil
    Ignored
    says:

    Toadies (sic) poll predicts, a 4% shift away from YES and a 4% shift towards NO, after ‘the debate’. That surprises me given the hype the debate has got from the Unionist supporting media. I was afraid it would have been much more. It’s almost within the margin of error.

  98. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Heedtracker: his Jaws 4, the Revenge, This Time Its Personal 3-d changed the way we think about cinema as art,

    Yeah, absolutely – put Kurosawa’s amateur efforts in the shade!

  99. handclapping
    Ignored
    says:

    Has he ever been to Scotland? It reads like his British=English and he considers England is the victim.

    If so I agree with him. Anything outside Westminster is a suitable sacrifice if the Establishment is preserved or profited thereby. Flooding in Cambs, Storm damage in Devon, TB in badgers “Oh dear. What a shame. Lovely boy!” but water on the roads in Surrey, National catastrophy, IMPORTANT people inconvenienced.

    I used to think that the Northumbrians would be the first of the English to twig that they are getting a raw deal from Westminster but they seem to have been bought off with its Scotlands fault for getting more than their fair share. My money now is on Yorkshire folk getting their act together and setting up a Northern League to force change at Westminster.

    As an Englishman who moved here what I don’t understand is how people in Scotland can’t see that Yes is the perfect chance to get away from the incompetence of Westminster

  100. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ thedogphilosopher, super rich philanthropy is just part of the game. They all have to do it, good PR, staves off revolution, even Bill Gates does it, probably a 1% max deduct on your cash mountains and ofcourse ofcourse! it’s all tax deductible.

    Thought it was weird that Lady Edwina’s pater Duke of Insane Greed, Mayfair, W1, suffers depression. One’s so sad and down having so much of teamGB wealth on my hands. What a downer, MONEY FIGHT!

  101. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    Rosa Alba Macdonald says: 10 August, 2014 at 1:46 pm

    “I have a huge problem w. anyone using the term raped out of context. The context being that of sexual assault. I appreciate the fact that you put comma-y thingies round it.”

    Would it help any if I quoted you the definition directly from my dictionary?

    rape n, the act of forcing a person to have sexual intercourse againse his or her will: the plundering (of a city, etc) as in warfare. *vti to commit rape, (upon).”

    There is also the second definition of the oilseed rape plant.

  102. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Grouse Beater, Caine’s a lot like Ewan Macgregor, couple of great movies, one acting style for life, then they cash in with any old grot.

  103. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Just add pillage to rape, why that combo works, I’d love to tell you using deep grammar and stop nitpicking, perlease:D

  104. Andy-B
    Ignored
    says:

    It shows you the stupidity of Winston when he knows whats going on, but sticks the boot into Scots anyway. Winston like his movies, and of course Westminster are, nothing more than B rated dross.

  105. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    “Oh, oh, Antonio, he’s gone away.
    Left me alon-io, all on me own-io.
    I want to meet him with his new sweetheart
    Then up will go Antonio his ice-cream cart!”

    Cockney music hall song about a woman jilted by her Italian lover –

  106. geeo
    Ignored
    says:

    . If I want a fucking toblerone as PM I will write toblerone on the ballot paper.
    ……….
    Best one today, and by a long way !!

  107. James S
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan Snow said on the Telegraph launch video:

    I keep having these conversations with other English, Welsh and Northern Irish people and they keep going “Wow! This debate is really happening”

    I notice Dan didn’t mention any Scottish friends, nor does he speak with anyone from Scotland.

    Dan Snow also presented the Business info for the Government. Here is a great video about starting on your own:

    http://www.bgateway.com/finance/tax-rates-and-allowances/business-allowances/

    Mark Stannage (self employed stunt performer)

    “I like working for myself. I like the freedom. The freedom to do what I want, when I want and not have somebody dictating to me…It’s nice being in charge of yourself.”

  108. Jeannie
    Ignored
    says:

    @heedtracker

    Damn! Clicked on that link you gave to the article in the Telegraph on Lady Edwina Grosvenor. Up pops a box from the Telegraph asking to me take part in a survey So then had to click on the box that said “No Thanks”. Damn!!

  109. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    big jock,

    “There was an ex soldier interviewed in George square who said he signed up as he was unemployed.After 12 years in the army he said he realised that war and exploiting young unemployed people as cannon fodder was wrong.The same cannon fodder sent to their deaths in world war 1 by the generals on the hill.”

    Precisely.

    Two things the establishment do to achieve this:

    Keep a large pool of unemployed people handy.

    Whip up patriotism each time there is any threat to the establishment.

    The ex soldier saw the light after 12 years. For most, it is too late.

  110. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @heedtracker
    Ewan MacGregor played a totally different style in Nora as James Joyce to the Trainspotting junkie Renton!
    @ Grousebeater are you referring to the Monocled Mutineer, Percy Toplis, who sang Antonio at the piano? A fitting tribute to the WW1 commemorations (but not one the BBC are likely to broadcast after the Tory outrage when they first produced it!)

  111. a2
    Ignored
    says:

    Menwhile…

    Captain Sensible says

    “So, because I have some connection North of the Border I feel I have a right to an opinion and it is this: if I lived here I wouldn’t want to live in a country ruled by a never ending succession of right wing London governments (red, blue, whatever) who would rather spend money on unusable nukes and endless Middle East wars than looking after the welfare of its own people. Students, pensioners, hospitals … this is what taxes should be spent on – not bloody bombs. The advice of THIS daft musician is to ignore the scaremongers in the media and vote for an independent forward thinking Scotland.”

    http://louderthanwar.com/scotland-calling-captain-sensible-interview/#sthash.Hgutj9Ss.mGtyByg7.dpuf

  112. Marco McGinty
    Ignored
    says:

    @Muscleguy
    David Suchet used to do a good line in Cockney gangsters more convincing than Winstone.

    Justin Bieber would be more convincing than Ray Winstone in that role. In fact, I would go as far as saying Olive Oyl would be more believable as a London hard man.

  113. Arthur Crichton
    Ignored
    says:

    Wings over Scotland is a conduit for all the Scots whose paranoiac complexes of inferiority and persecution are boundless. They’re pathetic bleating embarrasses the rest of us Scots. I consider myself as a true Socialist, unlike the blatantly fascist Nationalists agenda that WOS expound. Eighty years ago the Communists and the Jews were demonised, today it’s anything perceived as British, Unionist or Tory.I for one will never betray my comrades in the rest of the UK. We must stand with them as a bastion of the Labour vote in the fight to create a fairer society in the whole of the United Kingdom.

  114. HYUFD
    Ignored
    says:

    headtracker Since when was Russell Brand English



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