Wings Over Scotland

Boris playing airies. Marvellous Chris.

Brilliant,stark and very very frightening. A masterpiece. Well done Chris.

At least Boris doesn’t have to bulky Dross.
He just winds up and he is set off waving his union flag.

I’m old enough to remember when politicians had to be totally
Clear of controversy and have a sound set of morals in order
To progress.

We have been lumbered with Boris.
A PM in a party Scots have never voted for generation after generation after generation.
A serial adulterer.
A compulsive liar
A racist
A noted hater of the Scots
An Islamophobe
A heavily involved in political corruption
An alibi for criminals like Cummings, Williams and Patel.
A man who had generated calls to the police for physically restraining his girlfriend against her will.
Father to multiple children to multiple partners of unconfirmed numbers.
A man sacked multiple times for inappropriate behaviour
A man devoid of morality
A man devoid of compassion

There is only one way to remove this

At least BoJo resisted the strong temptation to draw a Junkers 88.

Note Bojo doesn’t understand ballistics. A bomb dropped from a plance retains the forwards momentum of the plane, the curve of it’s fall is thus forward, not backwards

That was why bombers had bomb aimers equiped with optics shifted forward.

New military spending plans? Well I suppose it’s only right and proper that the salaries of that pair of dangerous rockets should be covered by military expenditure.

If a government’s first duty is to protect the people, then this shower of shite running the show have consistently failed in that remit.
Haven’t seen much talk on the subject of potential of restricted medicine supplies as we approach the end of transition period.

@ Effijy

Re. Your list, remember to include Boris conspiring with his mate Darius Guppy to have a journalist beat up.

Daily Hail backing Boris

We must understand Patel has a busy important job
which includes a few refugees floating around the English
Coastline with no one to help her other than the Coastguard,
The Navy, The Police, The Border Control and immigration officers
so you need to let her be a bully?
FFS

“There’s a richt big hoor o’ a spaceship heedin’ richt towards us Captain McConnell.”

“Richt, set phasers tae malky.”

I think that response would quieten down Boris and DRoss.

Message for Sturgeon

There are some people who imagine that they can disarm their enemy by complacent flattery. They are wrong. The world has always belonged to the stronger and will belong to them for many years to come. Men only respect those who make themselves respected. Whoever becomes a lamb will find a wolf to eat him.

– Vilfredo Pareto

Another cracker Chris.

So Johnson will give a speech today to the branch office faithful during the Tory conference, he’s expected to give his commitment to devolution North of the border, though we all know that he loathes devolution and is desperate to roll it back.

I fully expect the the Tory branch office faithful in Scotland to get behind their beloved leader, on outwardly supporting devolution but inwardly loathing it.

Douglas Ross, branch manager of the Tory office in Scotland has made a clarion call to the branch office of Labour in Scotland to help defeat the SNP at next years elections and stop Scottish independence for good.

However if a recent Labour by-election where their vote share dropped by around twelve percentage points is anything to go by then, Richard whatshisname would do well to heed the writing on the wall, and back the Scottish peoples right to a independence referendum before he finds his party and indeed himself no longer required by the people of Scotland.

DRoss won’t like his caricature, ha ha ha. Well done Chris.

Just read and watched this piece about riot police in Bristol setting a police dog onto a young woman committing the heinous crime of dancing at an illegal coronavirus rave.

Savaging her on the thigh and the foot with life changing injuries one cannot but help realise the savagery that will be meted out to future independence marches or assemblies. The culture of police brutality is now accepted as normal. The independence movement is finished. Absolute brutality waits in the wings.

Anyway, take a look at this young woman lying savaged and surrounded by riot police in shields. As a cripple now she’ll long rue the day she broke the COVID rules.

link to independent.co.uk

As per article:

link to janes.com

One of the main issues going forward is the existing overall budget shortfall, which the MoD estimates at around £7.7 billion between 2020-21 and 2024-25. The Department is already taking steps to address this gap. This additional allocation of £16.5bn cannot be used exclusively to balance that as new capabilities and new agencies are also to make use of that funding. As such, difficult decisions with older capabilities and platforms will still need to be taken. The silver lining is that those calls will be made with more information available than what only a one-year funding deal would have provided.

I wonder how much of this proposed additional defence spending is smoke and mirrors where for instance the proposed space command in Scotland will more like be Rocket Galore than Star Trek.

I believe that police only police by consent of the people in Britain, and that the police are under patal, this is the same patal who wanted to bring back hanging in Britain,

Ross is not exactly a ‘top flight’ brain, probably an advantage in the Scotch Unionist milieu, but he does appear to be endowed with a rather thick teflon coating to protect him from collateral damage.

Well the usual Lillian Gish is now emanating from Downing street and conveyed to our eyes and ears North of the border by the British nationalist media, that Johnson’s devolution comments was reported on wrongly or it was taken out of context etc, etc, etc.

However many times has a British PM, or Westminster politician said something very distasteful about Scots or Scotland and then at a later date claimed the above.

“Scottish Tory MSP, Murdo Fraser, who sits on the committee said Swinney’s refusal was “yet further confirmation that the SNP Government are doing everything they can to shut down this inquiry.””

That probably is the intention. We can only guess what the truth is if they’d rather be accused of scuppering the inquiry than be forced to face that truth. So let’s have a guess…

It was probably about 2 months ago that I said the sequencing of events was the key to understanding all this. We’ve had a lot of people talking about sequencing and timelines since then. I don’t think anyone has come close, though.

The obvious place to start, I’d say, would be with the dismal election results of 2017 and criticism of the campaign that rightfully and inevitably followed. It was a terrible campaign.

Arguments and disagreements aren’t always amicably resolved – this is Holyrood not Hollywood – and often result in one party or another walking away angry, muttering familiar and age-old refrains: “I’ll show that bastard…”

Maybe thats all the timeline we need.

Doris about to bomb us with vaccine but where was it tested and how reliable was the testing. Has the testing data been distorted by the testing companies? They don’t care as long as they pocket the cash. Here today gone tomorrow outfits.

Inoculate the pensioners first to see if it works and if it doesn’t work so what. They were in the departure lounge already and if they snuff it just blame it on their underlying conditions like heart problems, diabetes or whatever ails them.

Why are they not starting with fit young people first to see if it really works?

Nah, it’s not for me as a wee birdie told me that they would administer it but not take it themselves and that was enough for me.

Republicofscotland

That was an excellent read. Hard hitting without either hype or being incendiary. Also the “must read” link in the article about the Biden campaign is very good, as, when you take the two articles together there are a lot of lessons for May 2021.

If there’s another presidential style election in May and we’re still in lock-down in one form or another in February you can expect a lot of trouble for the SNP. Though as McAlpine says, the position we’re in right now is not that bad.

@Dan,

The more I read the more it appears blindfolds are dropping from eyes. The Rev was way ahead of the pack.

I reckon by next year(sadly may be too late), many more will see the true state of play ‘re Independence and the utter lack of movement towards it.

The Rev is outspoken ,often controversial and bruising, but seldom wrong in his analysis of the political scene.

Swinney’s behaviour is extraordinary.

Why is he doing it?

We know bits and bobs but how much has yet to be connected?

Rev has previously highlighted the documentary work of Campbell Martin and it’s been re-linked btl here a good few times.

But many will have missed it, so here it is again – this is Part Two of ‘The Only Game In Town’, a documentary about PPI-related dodginess in North Ayrshire.

Even if you don’t have time to watch this, and the equally eye-opening Part One, please just check who pops up at the 29min mark.

link to youtube.com

@Auld highlander
Take the vaccine. I will. This is a public health emergency. Unfortunately the FM has played the game well. Why?. She has politicised it from day one. Hoping to gain advantage. The vaccine rescues us from the madness. We have all got to die sometime. Glasgow should have been shutdown weeks ago.

Dan @2.24pm.

Thanks Dan for the link, it just cements the idea that Johnson wants to roll back on devolution, and he will if given the chance, beginning next year.

Chomsky said if you want to remove a department institution etc, first you demonise it then defund it, the demonisation of devolution has begun. The Internal Market bill will start the process, and the Hub will like a Blackhole circling a star, syphon off powers from our parliament until it is unable to function properly.

However we needn’t worry about it, Blackford will stand up in the HoC and bellow out loud that Scotland won’t stand for it, just like he did when Johnson ripped us out of the EU.

That’s right, tannadice – “Glasgow should have been shutdown weeks ago.”

The current lockdown is fake though. As long as schools are open, it’s just going to spread, as sure as winter follows autumn.

It won’t be long before the WHO or someone pronounces on the negative role of schools and we see them all backtracking again. Then they’ll pretend they were against schools opening all along and mutter about Westminster controlling the purse strings.

All animosities aside, politicising coronavirus is plumbing the depths of desperation. But even that doesn’t explain it adequately. It’s really about Nicola, not politics per se.

@Hatuey

I’m not sure it’s right to say the virus can’t be contained if schools are open. It can’t be beyond the ken of man to design and implement a coherent combination of a “proper” track and trace system with effective regional lock downs which would lead to an R of <1 and allow schools and unis to remain open.

The real problem is that we don't have (either in Scotland or the rest of the UK) a government capable of coming up with that combination. They've never had a handle on this situation from the get go, so it is pointless to expect them to do it now.

For all the "follow the science" rhetoric, it's abundantly clear that the economy matters more than saving lives.

My comment is awaiting moderation. Sorry Stu didn’t mean to offend. Was it United staying up? Or something about the handling of a pandemic? I will be taking the vaccine I hope you will as well?

Vaccine, Vaccine, Vaccine, Vaccine
I’m begging of you please don’t take my man
Vaccine, Vaccine, Vaccine, Vaccine

Please don’t inject me ‘cause you can
Your Boris is beyond compare
With flaming locks of uncombed hair
With thickest skin and head to match
Your greed is like a coiled spring
Your voice is like a gurgling drain
And You won’t be injecting me Vaccine

He talks about Scotland in his sleep
And there’s nothing he can do to keep
From lying when he calls our name
Obscene Obscene Obscene Obscene

@Effigy
Now I know you are trolling. The vaccine is about Scottish public health. Nothing about Boris. I look to my Parliament first. And if they say the vaccine is safe then I will take it. But lets face it, work needs to be done on the Scottish Parliament.
I can’t believe the shenanigans of Swinney. Refusing access to witnesses etc.

You are all talking about schools:
Glasgow has around 60,000 student population. GU alone has approx 32,000. Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli et al totally encouraged to students to return – to participate remotely – despite calls from student unions and teaching staff… Disgraceful.

They were also disgracefully remiss in addressing any of the concerns of the local community.

Students, not even attending lectures holed up in HMO’s, obviously parties and mingling continued, hence level 4?

No masks, no common sense. Absolutely they are visiting outwith the “family group”.

This was so avoidable. I wonder how these recent restrictions will be enforced?

Cheers to all those supposedly Pro-Indy folk that just couldn’t be arsed voting in the “wee” council elections.
Time y’all woke the fuck up and realised that EVERY single time you are offered the opportunity to vote you should get off yer arse and take it.
Because if you don’t, we just cede the power to those we are opposed to, and hand them the tactical advantage in broadening the scope of their options to maintain control over us.

link to twitter.com

Roaster Galloway

So he’ll be breaking the law in England then.The have full lockdown.Stay in the hoose, no non essential travelling.

That man is dumb as fuck

You misunderstand me, Andy. I’m not saying the virus can’t be contained if schools remain open. I’m saying, ceteris paribus, in Scotland, the virus can’t be contained as long as schools are open.

I hate to keep using Singapore as an example but they have a population of almost identical size to us. Their population is also more densely packed and they were right at the epicenter of the outbreak with virtually no time to prepare.

The last time I looked, Singapore had a net Coronavirus death-toll of 28. Scotland, as you will know, based on ONS figures, has recorded about Coronavirus 5000 deaths.

There’s no excuse for that difference. It’s quite remarkable to me that nobody even attempts to explain why we had thousands of deaths and a country like Singapore had under thirty.

So, it is possible to keep schools open, if, as you suggest, other stuff is done well. But it isn’t.

How anybody can come on here and argue that Sturgeon has handled this well is shocking, as if the avoidable deaths of around 5000 Scottish people means nothing.

I don’t subscribe to the view that the lives of old people are somehow of less value either – that’s really dangerous talk. We shouldn’t be asked to weigh up the value of human life like that because the government is incompetent.

@ Tannadice Boy

The last council elections (ignoring by-elections) were in 2017, a year after the 2016 EU vote, and before all the current shite that has tainted folk’s views.
If ever there was a time for Pro-Indy folk to be motivated and keep the pressure on then that was it.
The material change of circumstances was in the bag.

Dan
Sorry I can’t vote for the SNP at the moment. Perhaps you have not read their policies.

Hatuey

Mibbie what Dan alludes to is if you’re not in the game you can’t win the game It’s called a walk over. Obstufication ,sabotage, downright wankerisim – see Aberdeen council for reference.

Thanks

@ Hatuey @ Tannadice Boy

Interesting responses from you both, just where the fuck did I tell you to vote SNP in the future?
I was highlighting the now past importance of turning out to vote as the councils are so finely balanced as to whether they’re Pro-Indy or Pro-Union controlled.
That may be a considered factor as to bypassing Pro-Indy run Holyrood, plus there’s the small point that local councils run elections which has the potential to be a spanner in the works.

I’ve stated plenty times my dissatisfaction with the SNP. Unlike others that have fucked off and ceded the ability to route the current NEC, I’ll stay another week and as a delegate try to influence for change. I’ve stated before it is a watershed moment because if the current cabal retain power I would expect to see some kind of split.

@Dan
Contain your anger. The SNP are the Scottish Government. Although these days the management are interchangeable. We fu##off for a reason. Local Government? I can’t think of a previous occasion when Scotland has had a more centralised Government. Ask Orkney, Shetland and the Highlands et al. In these circumstances I set no stock in local Government. The change has to come at SG level.

“I was highlighting the now past importance of turning out to vote as the councils are so finely balanced as to whether they’re Pro-Indy or Pro-Union controlled.”

It amounts to the same thing, Dan, and my response remains the same. It’s victim blaming.

The suggestion that we might watch Boris dismantle Holyrood as Sturgeon watches and does nothing, and then blame those who didn’t vote in Council elections so many years ago, is a psychedelic absurdity.

@ Tannadice Boy

Not angry, merely motivated. How do you expect the change to come at SG level if you don’t get involved in influencing it during its formation stages, much of which has already been determined through the recent MSP candidate selection process, and upcoming conference voting for NEC positions.
You may choose to utilise the Uri Geller approach of just staring from the sidelines willing change, but I choose to actively chip in with the process as and when I have time.
I can sit back knowing that my past efforts over the years may have at least played their small part in getting one decent new Pro-Indy candidate selected and hopefully on their way to Holyrood.

Effijay
The Thalidomide tragedy which you keep mentioning, was over fifty years ago. Lessons were learned and things have changed. Testing is much more comprehensive and viruses are pretty well understood now.
Hence the annual new flu vaccine which successfully combats the evolution of the flu flu virus. Do you take that? If not why not? It is new every year but has never had any ill effects.
As far as I am concerned, I trust the medical science and am looking forward to getting the vaccine and resuming normality.

Tannadice Boy says: at 8:32 pm

“However let’s stay on the same side. I think that’s the second time I have asked you to do that.”

Well if I’m gonnae get scolded and sent to bed early… jist so a ken, was the first time the other night when I’d have to pay you 500 quid before you’d interact and share your knowledge with an idiot, aye? 🙂

It’s amazing how they can train Pigs to walk and talk isn’t it , Dross being a fine example of this training I guess that’s what his wife was attracted to then again looking at a photo of her it is a perfect match ( oops naughty comment ) .

A few comments about this wonderful Vaccine , take a minute and check out Pfizers Checkered history particularly their repeated controversial use of test and side effects data ,the same applies to all these types of companies secrecy bad results are carefully and sometimes criminally hidden

These Drug companies have applied for and have been granted immunity from prosecution over any side effects that the patents or test subjects ( US ) all of us might suffer , law suits have become so widespread in the USA that most of them have applied for federal protection against further claims , any new cases are referred to the Federal Government in the USA and Surprise Surprise the Federal government can’t be sued now isn’t that comforting eh .

Take their speed of light tested cocktail of who knows what it contains or what long term effects that are and are presently unknown ( corporate confidentiality comes into play here ) Union Carbide , Dow Chemicals , DuPont , every Oil Company has caused death and destruction all over the planet protected by a corrupt legal system and now we’re invited to TRUST them Aye fkn right

And if you don’t agree with above then here’s an example.

Man, currently in power at national level.While his country falls apart an fractured from within with corona running wild and one half of population against other he goes and plays golf! From what I’ve seen of his golf swing,he’s pretty shit at that too.Much as the country he’s supposed to be running. Sighs

@ Tannadice Boy

750? That’s just pure exploitation in these times of exacerbated austerity.
But saying that, I got a deal myself the other day. A prostitute told me they’d do anything for 50 quid, so I’ve got them to do the dual mass flywheel and clutch on my Mondeo next week… Totes deal! 🙂

@Dan
Last smiley came out as a question mark. I guess I have never mastered computers. Fly wheels are hopeless BTW. Golden rule of engineering cut down on moving parts. They break down.

@Muscleguy

“21 November, 2020 at 9:12 am
Note Bojo doesn’t understand ballistics. A bomb dropped from a plance retains the forwards momentum of the plane, the curve of it’s fall is thus forward, not backwards”

To my understanding, an object dropped from an aeroplane travelling at a constant velocity will accelerate due to gravity in a downwards direction, but decelerate in the direction of the aeroplane’s travel due to air resistance (as it’s no longer being pushed along by the aeroplane’s engines). As the acceleration downwards is constant until a terminal velocity is reached, the velocity increases by 10m/sec/sec until then; the rate of forward velocity decreases by a constant amount per second.

The drawing’s roughly right, but not curved enough.

If its fall was forwards, it would be accelerating with regard to the aeroplane’s forward travel and you’d’ve discovered the secret of free energy….

@Dan

Yeah, I think you’re probably right about it being area specific. Having joined the party when I still lived in England in 2015 after never being involved in any party previously, I was looking forward to becoming involved when I moved home in 2018. It wasn’t long before the scales fell from my eyes after being back.

I only got a chance to attend a few events locally and there were some decent sorts there, but the more I’ve seen and heard of the branch since the more convinced I am I was right to leave, even tho’ the proximate cause was outrage at the defenestration of Grouse Beater rather than other issues which have since gained prominence.

I’m sure some of the rank and file members must be heart sick at what is going on, but there’s no way I could see myself campaigning shoulder to shoulder with some of the individuals in the branch from what i’ve seen and heard of their views on GRA, TRA extremism etc, and their failure to advance the case for #indyref2.

I read Robin McAlpine’s piece today and have to say I think he nailed it. If only we had more people like him guiding the party rather than the deplorable basket of moral cowards, grey suited gradualist nonentities, sophomoric woke beards and Sturgeon fan-boys we have at present.

@A Person
The SNP have always polled higher than there actual vote. I was ridiculed on here by talking about my extended ex SNP family. Anecdotal evidence was the reply. We will see. When hard core SNP supporters say no more then you can believe that they mean it. Sturgeon here today gone tomorrow and hopefully she takes all the pervy enterist crew with her.

Some readers, like me, probably go straight to the latest article here, so they may have missed this, posted on the previous thread earlier tonight:

Campbell Martin:

link to scottishleftreview.scot

Tannadice Boy says:
21 November, 2020 at 6:45 pm

“@Dan
Agreed. Nothing more to be said except my constituency vote is going a begging in May. I can’t vote for the SNP. Some random Indy party will get my second vote. But at the moment nobody is getting my first vote. 6 months to go and nobody to vote for!”

I am also in that very dark place and my bitterness and anger towards the SNP and its present leadership and most of its elected reps knows no limits right now.

Well said Hatuey@2:36am.

Hatuey
I agree absolutely.
But what still puzzles me is why so many SNP MSP/MP’s are so quiet when Sturgeon is so obviously flushing independence down the pan in front of their faces.

I am sadly unconvinced that the SNP will go into the election with a different leader.

If she’s still there, she will be a lame duck leader (no change there then), but she’ll have compromised both sides of the division. Those who cannot support her will be incensed at being asked to compromise their moral principles to back a rogue leadership and runaway faction, and those “wheesht for Indy” followers who will follow the cause no matter what will know in their hearts they’ve been duped and blackmailed into an endorsement for a crooked regime. My, my, what a cracking start to any campaign.

They are also fools to believe Sturgeon will ‘get away with it’. Just remind yourselves of Kirsty Wark and Sarah Smith cackling like witches over the merest opportunity to discredit Alex Salmond, and yet there is barely a murmur in the press about Sturgeons mess and the virtually inevitable conclusion she is up to her neck in this. It isn’t difficult doing the arithmetic. May’s elections will be a reckoning for the SNP, Sturgeon will set back the Indy cause to the pre-Devolution era, and she’ll have presented Westminster with powerful precedent that Westminster can veto Scottish Democracy, and thus Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty is badly compromised.

Sturgeon must resign, but from my perspective, it would be a much stronger outcome for Scotland if she was to be impeached and removed, guilty of assuming the roll of sovereign to overrule the democratic will of Scotland’s sovereign people. She should properly have been thrown out in 2016, but better late than never.

And for the switherers who cannot decide, let me tell you this. Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty is virtually impregnable. Yes, virtually impregnable, not absolutely. It has one existential weakness, and that lies in the perceived abandonment of that sovereignty by the sovereign, or sovereign people themselves.

That opens a real can of philosophical questions relating to sovereignty, and I’ll explain why. When a King or Queen is monarch through Divine appointment, when they abdicate the throne, they instant they abdicate, sovereignty is removed from their shoulders and passes to the next in line for the throne. It is the office of Monarch which is sovereign, not the person.

You will all be familiar with the refrain, “The King is dead, long live the King”. That refers to the instantaneous transfer of sovereignty onto it’s heir. You cannot destroy the sovereignty. You can conquer it and become sovereign, but it cannot be destroyed.

How simple and logical it is when you have only one sovereign to worry about. Here in Scotland, it’s a degree or two more complicated, because since 1320, and recognised since 1328, every person born a Scot has been granted sovereignty as a birthright.

There is no hereditary nature to our royal lineage. Our Sovereignty is not passed from one person to his heir. Scottish Sovereignty is renewed spontaneously by the creation of a newly born Scottish child.

Which poses a massive question for us, about the Constitutional ramifications of a sovereign people who endorse a democratic government which is resolved to abdicate Scottish Sovereignty. That is so truly illogical it would keep Mr Spock on Star Trek lying awake at nights. Plain daft it is.

I’ll take a running jump and try to simplify the answer to that massive question… because Scotland’s sovereign birthright is inviolable. It cannot be removed. Every Scot IS sovereign by birthright. So we’re good right? Wrong.

It puts us in same position as Scotland after 1320, but before 1328. (It doesn’t, really but humour me and just roll with it for now), – we Scots might well be unequivocally sovereign by rights, but we are not internationally recognised as being sovereign. And in that unhappy scenario, a home grown Scottish Government for Independence which doesn’t even respect it’s own Nation’s Constitutional Sovereignty will be the kiss of death to Scotland’s aspirations of International recognition and thereby Independence. How can we expect ANY nation to recognise Scotland when our government in Edinburgh won’t?

It is NOT in Westminster’s power to supplant Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty. Neither is it in the gift of Holyrood to affect Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty. What we have however is a MYTH surrounding Westminster’s Convention of Parliamentary Sovereignty, and a “Scottish” Government which seems determined that the MYTH should remain the ascendant and accepted convention over the lawful, constitutional reality.

Never mind Sturgeon’s truly dreadful and inept leadership, set aside all the corruption, secrecy and nepotism that’s consuming the soul of the SNP… they are deniers of Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty and that makes then wholly unelectable to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the SNP has got itself into an indescribable mess, but it’s their stunningly
inept constitutional failure which buries my vote, and buries it deep, because it renders Holyrood as illegitimate and unqualified to lead Scotland as any Lord or Lady given a seat in the House of Lords.

No, that doesn’t make me a Tory, Labour Lib Dem, or even make me remotely Unionist, or anti SNP. What it does, is leave me utterly dejected, because NONE of these voting options will do anything to advance the cause of Scotland’s International Recognition and Sovereign Independence. So I would wish a plague on ALL their houses.

Scotland NEEDS it’s pipes flushed with CONSTITUTIONAL drain cleaner, and nothing truly decisive can happen until it’s done,

@McDuff

I think many are relying on the inertia of the lumpen electorate who probably know little and care less about specific issues, but will probably still go out next may and dutifully vote for the SNP. as many others have pointed out, they aren’t doing do because they support GRA, the new Hate Crime Bill, or even because they think Sturgeon and her team are doing a good job generally or specifically WRT to Covid.

Sturgeonista loyalists and their useful idiots inside the party are adept at caricaturing positive polling numbers as slam dunk evidence the electorate love Sturgeon and are “on their side” on the issues. Of course, the positive numbers are NOT a ringing endorsement of the party and its policies, they are an indictment of the opposition. The logical and obvious response to such misdirection from gradualists inside the party is that we really ought to be much further ahead given the general political environment (especially Brexit and Covid), and the abject nature of the opposition both in Westminster and Holyrood.

If any further proof were needed that the SNP as currently constituted is not fit for purpose, it is the lack of courage amongst MPs, MSPs, councillors and party activists to stick their heads above the parapet and criticise the gradualist prospectus. With a few honourable exceptions they have totally failed to stand up and be counted. They all bear a heavy responsibility for not reining in roasters like Wishart, Nicholson, Stewart McDonald, Alyn Smyth and their basket of deplorable acolytes.

We keep hearing that there are individuals who support Plan B, and hate what is happening in the party WRT GRA, Hate Crime Bill, the attempted fit up of Alex Salmond, the gradualism and Growth Commission, but they’re all prioritising “wheesht for indy” and hoping against hope they can wrest control of the party from the gradualists post Holyrood 2021. It’s much more likely of course that they will be even more supine and cowed if the Sturgeonistas are not defeated and rooted out of the party.

It’s time for those opposed to the current party machine to put up or shut up. They don’t have long, and after next May’s elections they will have nowhere to hide.

Frankly, from what I’ve seen there’s as much evidence of them being able to face down Sturgeon and her team as there is of Donald Trump providing evidence of voter fraud in the US elections.

Lorna Campbell speaks for the vast majority of women – I thank her and believe that trans women have rights but they must not overtake the hard won rights of women.

After Independence Scotland will need Ambassadors, many of these will come from the Scottish politicians who have liaised with the Nations of the World.

Andy Ellis says:21 November, 2020 at 5:11 pm

@Hatuey

I’m not sure it’s right to say the virus can’t be contained if schools are open. It can’t be beyond the ken of man to design and implement a coherent combination of a “proper” track and trace system with effective regional lock downs which would lead to an R of <1 and allow schools and unis to remain open.

The real problem is that we don't have (either in Scotland or the rest of the UK) a government capable of coming up with that combination. They've never had a handle on this situation from the get go, so it is pointless to expect them to do it now.

For all the "follow the science" rhetoric, it's abundantly clear that the economy matters more than saving lives.

For the track and trace process to be truly effective, the following steps would at least need to be taken:

* The registration process in public places needs to be fully electronic, which I believe is what it is like down in England.

* Allow Automatic number plate recognition data to be used to stop travel in events of regional lockdowns.

* Allow access to every individuals bank accounts to find evidence of breaking travel restrictions i.e. purchases made in different areas, public transport purchases.

* Even greater penalties for breaking rules including eviction for repeated offences or deterrence like for instance holding large house parties.

In short, it would need draconian measures that would impact severely on our individual liberties to properly control the virus here. Some people here have problems just putting on a mask so these types of measures would never be tolerated so IMHO, it doesn’t follow that the current response by those in charge are to save the economy at the expense of peoples lives.

She could have made history. Instead she made mistakes, enemies and money. It’s probably too late to make amends. That leaves a gap.

Who’s going to fill it? New parties are forming but so far there’s nothing to suggest their leaders have learned anything from the errors of the SNP. Surely we can do better than just relying on different people boarding the gravy train by, for instance, exploiting the D’Hondt system and the Regional vote.

What should be the main aims of the SNP have not changed. For example its constitution prioritises independence for Scotland and it still has removal of WMDs from Scotland as a policy. I have lost confidence in the party because of its bizarre preferences and leadership failure but that is repairable by the right people, if they exist. First the current leadership team must go or be removed.

The SNP, for the moment, remain our main hope for independence but is it really achievable by a party tainted by accusations of malicious misconduct, improbity, incompetence, lassitude and inaction? No-one with the power or inclination to effect change has come forward, no-one has spoken out and no-one has challenged the leadership. Perhaps because there is no-one with the fortitude, integrity, determination and toughness to lead the party’s recovery.

I don’t want to see progress towards an independent Scotland if it might be governed by people who neither understand nor practise the concepts of truth, integrity, honesty and justice.

More than three hundred years of Union should have taught us that there’s nothing less impressive than Scots on the make

You got Douglass4Duff’s ears and no neck spot on, Chris!! But what a disaster SNP Gradualists have got us into. How depressing.

Your essential weekend reading:

‘SNP: Right or Left’: link to wp.me

So Auld Queen Lizzie had a plan to thwart Scottish independence if we voted yes in 2014.

“As the Scottish National Party, under the leadership of Alex Salmond at the time, prepared its bid to break away from the Union in a 2014 vote, the Queen is said to have prepared an intervention. Lionel Barber, a Financial Times’ former editor, claims the Queen’s son Prince Andrew told him of his mother’s plans during lunch – one week before the referendum.”

link to archive.is

@ Effijy at 09.25

You say the number of posters is going down on here. It may well be due to the Rev’s efficient filtering system!

McDuff says:
22 November, 2020 at 9:02 am
“what still puzzles me is why so many SNP MSP/MP’s are so quiet when Sturgeon is so obviously flushing independence down the pan in front of their faces.”

They are quiet. Not loud. Not shouting in support. Not on twitter or anywhere else defending their leader in her time of need, during this time of great crisis.

It’s the quiet ones you need to watch.

A lot of them are stepping down in May. It’s very odd. They should be excitedly preparing to fight for the last time in a devolved Scotland, anticipating the realisation of biggest hopes and dreams – that’s what the polls and the leadership seem to be suggesting – but instead they’re giving up their highly paid jobs and getting out. They’re quietly leaving.

I think we can safely say the manager has lost the dressing room.

OK, so here’s the skinny. Scots have little chance of enjoying access to due process in law and to the potential benefits of democracy, if we allow our law officers in both parliaments, to play funny buggers with legal practice that is divorced from reality and the Common law. So here’s a look at “LEGAL DISCOURSE; STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS, RHETORIC AND LEGAL ANALYSIS”, in case you’ve not noticed we’ve two governments to deal with. Which appear intent on harming the fabric of our civic society and public consciousness, through legal sharp practice and cynical linguistic vandalism.

link to era.lib.ed.ac.uk

“I am very conscious of being a tedious space-hog”…..

….and yet……

Never thought I’d see such Trumpian levels of self awareness BTL on WoS. There are just not enough LOLZ in the world.

Lame snark is rather tedious. Especially when directed towards others who seek to share a multi-disciplinary perspective into the legal ‘workings’ of democracy. So it probably wasn’t intended to trigger me to offering a look at “The rule of recognition and the emergence of a legal system”.

link to journals.openedition.org

“The paper claims that the rule of recognition, given the way it is presented by Hart, cannot be a constitutive rule of any legal system as a whole, but rather a constitutive rule of (primary) legal rules as elements of a legal system. Since I take the legal system to be an institutional artifact kind, I claim that, in order to account for a legal system as a whole, at least two further constitutive rules, in addition to the rule of recognition as a token-element constitutive rule, are needed – one constitutive of legal officials and the other constitutive of a legal system as a token.

However, given the central role the legal officials’ practice occupies in establishing a particular instantiation or token of a legal system, I also claim that the rule of recognition cannot be understood as ‘merely’ a token-element constitutive rule but also as a legal system’s implementation or concretisation rule.”

Big thanks to Ian Brotherhood for reposting Lorna Campbell’s wise words
As ever Lorna, 100% agree.
Can’t understand why the current leadership seem intent on alienating 51% of the voting public to suit less than 1% of the population.
The Equalities Act protects the characteristic of transgender persons. The 2004 GRA provides a route to obtain a GR certificate. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
If Lizard Truss in Westminster can agree to retain single sex spaces why can’t Nicola Sturgeon?

I’d suggest there is a unworkable mess at the heart of the SNP, as well as our government and judicial systems. Which have been hobbled in order to ensure they stands under Westminster’s assumed supreme authority. So you’re simply on to plumbs if you respect “REGULATORY THEORY – FOUNDATIONS AND
APPLICATIONS”.

link to press-files.anu.edu.au

Andy Ellis says: 22 November, 2020 at 1:07 pm

@PacMan

I don’t think the things you are positing as necessary are in fact necessary. I doubt they are what was in place in other countries which managed to contain the virus with more

Not entirely correct. These were the sort of steps that were taken in South East Asia that allowed them to take the necessary steps to successfully contain it. Here are some links:

link to straitstimes.com

link to theconversation.com

Also, Vietnam was so successful that that they are on track to getting positive economic growth this year:

link to econotimes.com