No jocks please, we’re British
One of the great things about this site’s sky-high viewing figures is that on the rare occasions when we might be, for example, out having a walk in the park to get over the crushing disappointment of somehow losing yet another Scottish Cup semi-final, our ever-vigilant readers will remain alert.
Otherwise, we might have missed this.
That’s the Guardian’s Polly Toynbee on this afternoon’s Sunday Politics London during a discussion on Nick Clegg’s leadership of the Lib Dems, telling presenter Andrew Neil that even were Scotland to vote No in September’s independence referendum, it would be unthinkable for any Scot to ever again lead a UK political party, or hold any of the great offices of state.
(For the sake of brevity we’ve cut a chunk out of the middle where the woman in white talked about something else, and during which we suspect Neil got some urgent orders through his earpiece telling him to go back to Toynbee and “clarify” her position. We haven’t edited out anything relevant, and you can check the video for yourself when the clip goes live on iPlayer – it’s about 37 minutes in.)
When someone told us, we thought they must have misheard and meant in the event of a Yes vote, but no, they were right the first time. We had to rewind a couple of times and check, but it turned out that the proposition being made really was that Scottish members of parliament should become second-class citizens, disqualified by dint of devolution from having the same rights as anyone else in the United Kingdom.
Some food for thought there, eh, Scottish Labour MPs?
wow
Great British democracy at its best!
Some food for thought there, eh, Scottish Labour MPs?
I don’t think they care. The only food they are concerned about is what comes on the gravy train.
Becoming a Labour MP from a Scottish seat is like winning the lottery for them. Job for life, then elevation to the Lords for desert.
I’m not convinced she did mean what Andrew Neil said, I believe she meant anyone who is Scottish.
“I’m not convinced she did mean what Andrew Neil said, I believe she meant anyone who is Scottish.”
Yeah, that’s how it came across to me too. I mean, how many Scots will be representing English constituencies? How many are there now? One?
bbc scotland and our scottish media will be all over this in a proud way im sure.
Oh Polly what were you thinking? 🙂
I too sought solace from the cup semi final result and went out to discover that although a great many things can be bought on a Sunday, getting the battery in your watch replaced is not one of them.
That’s Dougie Alexander and Jim Murphy’s career prospects well and truly cropped if Ed wins in 2015 and there is a no vote in September. Not to mention Mags Curran. With a bit of luck they’ll all be out of a job.
Better Together Mr Alexander ?
The Great Offices of State – Prime Minger, Chief Naysayer of the Currency Union, Secretary of States for Jockoland, Leader of the Liberated Doomocrats.
Presumably a minor job such as tea-boy or Deputy Prime Minger would be ok though? F@ck me – all becoming a bit bitter isn’t it.
We are different Polly – and we will be leaving you to your own understated racism
I can see where she’s coming from because we are already in the situation where an MP from a Scottish constituency in the position of Health Secretary in Westminster can make decisions about the English NHS which do not effect his constituents apart from any Barnett formula consequentials.
She’s also making the assumption, common among those who are out of the loop about the independence referendum, that a No vote will result in even more power being devolved to Scotland and leave Scottish MP’s with even less to do.
But it’s a shot across the bows for all the careerists in Scottish Labour. The door is going to be shut on any Cabinet post where the power has been devolved and more importantly on the leadership of their party.
Well that is quite unbelievable.
What an ignorant statement from Polly Toynbee. Is she speaking for liberal England here? Why do Scots vote in favour of this abuse?
No Scot from a Scottish constituency to PM or hold one of the great offices of state(so called i guess because they said they are great). What about an English born MP standing in a Scots constituency?
link to en.wikipedia.org
Lots of other Scots born in the south should be objecting to this.Sure I see some of the paper review regulars on that clip as well.
sweaties no more
I thought it was the expenses these SLAB troughers cut their Westminster teeth on before descending into the Noble piggery with outstretched hand and contempt for the mugs who voted for them.
They’ll just have to settle for expenses and exciting night life around the Westminster scene, well somebodies got to do it.
Have always believed that the jocks would be severely punished for this referendum, let it begin with them they deserve it. Well done SLAB you’ve just shot yourselves in the head.
This presumably means that in the event of a No vote the Secretary of State for Scotland (a cabinet member and so a holder of one of the major offices of state) would have to represent an English/Welsh/N.Irish constituency.
*that second last sentence doesn’t sound right,sorry,I meant all Scots should be objecting to this,even those born in the south.
Polly Toynbee is a bit of a fruitbat.
She was bumping her gums a wee while back that the Newspapers should be subsidised, just like the BBC, so that they could continue to stay afloat, which probably was codespeak for “she could continue to live her metrocentric caviar socialism and her second villa in Tuscany. I believe Tony Blair used to rent a villa in Tuscany.
Anybody know someone with a villa in Tuscany who share it with a Scottish politician.
It is an Italian thing, getting to know politicians at close quarters.
But that isn’t how WM cabinets works. It’s why you can have un-elected people sitting in the Cabinet. Being an MP isn’t a prerequisite, unless Toynbee wants us to have a written UK constitution post Indy vote. Such casual racism and from the doyen of the Guardian left too.
He was absolutely told to go back to that comment as it was massively incendiary.
Even when corrected it was still a disgraceful comment and shows a very negative thought process overall. I would only temper it with the fact that she is just a journalist and its just one opinion.
The truth is BetterTogether doesn’t actually exist, other than a few ‘faces’ like Darling, mass produced leaflets and in the Unionist media. At grassroots there is nothing.
I watched that four times just to make sure – yes, she meant being a Scot.
Just in case anybody was in any doubt what would happen if No wins, there it is spelled out clear as day; whatever democratic deficit may existing in Scotland now, it’s nothing compared to what will happen when Westminster determines to settle the problem of the troublesome Scots once and for all.
Anybody else having problems refreshing the threads on Wings and posting? I have to preview pane of what I have typed on this thread and had the same problem earlier today, but it went away later.
Anybody else having problems refreshing the threads on Wings and posting? I have no preview pane of what I have typed on this thread and had the same problem earlier today, but it went away later.
Polly Toynbee’s astonishing remark is probably typical of dinner-party conversations among the Metropolitan chattering classes. Once again, can’t you just feel the love?
And the fools running ‘Better Together’ are trying to tell us that Scotland, as a country, will benefit from voting No and continuing to tug its forelock to these people!
Sorry, above should have been posted under Misleading Advertising. Opppps.
My jaw dropped at the “impartial bbc” view of scottish defence post yes vote on sunday politics scotland.
What I really don’t get is why don’t they just throw us out of the Union? What’s the point of a referendum?
Just give us our marching orders and be done with it!
Just listened to it again.
Polly Toynbee voice sound just like what I always imagined that of Patrician Socialist Entitlement.
Now I have the preview pane.
I have an Aunt who is a no voter… this link has just been sent to her. Can you all help me with any other links of this ilk, demonstrating blatant racism. I have one other (below), but the more the better to video bomb my Aunt with and drum reality into her noggin. 😉
I like Polly Toynbee’ honesty! I remember this being an issue when Gordon Brown became PM.
If there is a no vote there will be restrictions on ministerial appointments and voting rights for Scottish MPs as long as the Westminster Parliament serves as the English Legislature. I do not think that these formal restrictions would extend to the high offices in purely UK roles, e.g. PM, defence secretary, and Foreign Office, but it is unlikely that a MP representing a Scottish constituency would be PM unless there was an equivalent English parliament or regional assemblies as the PM would have to carry the support of the majority of English MPs to ensure stable government.
Sorry, the other one I sent was this…
link to youtube.com
I don’t think Polly was advocating it, just imagining what Westminster might do.
“I don’t think Polly was advocating it, just imagining what Westminster might do.”
It sounded very much like it was her own view.
@ Rev Stu
“I mean, how many Scots will be representing English constituencies? How many are there now? One?”
Gove, Stewart in Carlisle area, Riffkin, err.
Aye, the arrogant colonial Englander is always there just under the surface.
A.Neil=Ooh I hope you don’t mean me Polly, i’ve been here 43years?
P.Townbee=No you nice Jockney Andrew. Cos you won’t be holding any”great offices of state.”
Bitter forever in action.
The Secretary of State for Portsmouth.
@thepnr 6:14 pm
They need a colony to dump their shit in, and they need our resources and economy to prop up their putrid “mother of parliaments” which is nye bankrupt. O and someone to kick whenever they throw a wee tantrum.
They really are the scum of the earth.
SQUAWK…. Polly is a cracker….. SQUAWK
Bugger (the panda).
I have problems too.If I try to print anything from WOS I get error message “Please check if printer is accessible” and the cursor arrow of my mouse always shows a continuous loading circle as if something is being downloaded. This does not happen on Newsnet Scotland , National Collective or Derek Bateman sites where I can print without any problem. I am not too computer savvy and wonder if this could be part of an attack on the WOS site?
Yes but wasn’t it kind of Andrew to help her out like that!
Oops! The mask slipped there for a second, and we got a good look at whats to come for Westminster Scots, even Andrew Neil looked rather taken aback.
AYEMAN
I use Firefox and Mac OS
To be fair, there are actually quite a few Scottish MPs that don’t represent Scottish constituencies. For example, David Mundell may be the only Tory MP for a Scottish constituency, but he’s certainly not the only Tory MP originating from Scotland – Malcolm Rifkind, Liam Fox and Eleanor Laing all spring to mind.
I don’t know the actual number, but this article at Liberal Conspiracy gives a ballpark figure: link to liberalconspiracy.org
Bearing in mind there are English-born MPs in Scottish constituencies (Malcolm Bruce and Tom Greatrex, for example), there must be 30 or so Scottish MPs in non-Scottish constituencies.
Astonishing
Imagine if someone from Yes had suggested English MSPs be unable to take a major role in the Scottish Parliament after a Yes vote or a No vote in the future! It would be widely and correctly denounced as Racism with a capital R.
Hard to imagine as our Yes campaign is a modern, multicultural, inclusive movement.
That shite is hard to listen to as an SNP member and committed Yes. How hard must that be for committed Scottish unionists?
And Andrew Neil should have strung her up for it.
@AYEMAN
Very often the webpage appears to be still attempting to load content. I don’t know which browser you use but on a different page say google for example look in the top bar for a circular arrow pointing clockwise.
This is the refresh button, it changes to an X while a page is loading. On wings the page seems rarely to fully load. Click the X which will halt the process and try printing then.
In fact I would suggest we all click the X when the page has obviously loaded else we ourselves are possibly overloading the server by being “always on” so to speak.
Scots sitting as MPs for English constituencies – Liam Fox, that guy (MP for Fylde?) who just had to resign as a PPS because of goings-on with a male Brazilian escort.
I’m sure there are others (at least one Tory woman). Getting a safe English seat has long been an escape route for ambitious Scots – remember Teddy Taylor.
@Alba4Eva
Not sure that this is really the way to go in terms of convincing your aunt – I think a positive case is always better – but as you’ve asked, here is one of the most stunning pieces of broadcasting arrogance:
link to youtube.com
Worth noting that Polly Toynbee came in at the end and said, in relation to people from Scotland holding government positions at Westminster: “nor indeed even the great offices of state.” Now, I can understand the Secretaries of State for Health or Education,which are mostly about health and education in England, and even Home Secretary, although there are important cross UK immigration issues under that post, but, in the event of a No vote, Scottish MPs effectively being barred from the UK positions of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary of State For Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Secretary Of State for Defence, Secretary Of State for Business, Secretary Of State for Works and Pensions, Secretary Of State for International Development, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change? One person who is close to the talk of the steamie at Westminster is Polly Toynbee – so, clearly not making it up as she went along, no matter how many denials we will hear from Better Together. Another day, another outrageous comment about the corrupt thinking in the mother of all parliaments.
Casual English racism exacted towards Scots on the telly is nothing new. The buffoon Clarkson has a long track record of sneering at ministers for no reason other than being Scottish.
The program “Have I got news for you” also has a long history of English comedians who have raised a canned chuckle from making stereotypical jokes out of Scots, of our culture & of our nationality.
Point this out to the “British” media though & you are accused of being thin skinned. After all, they will indignantly defend, it’s only harmless fun. With no hint of ironic sense of superiority, Jocks are advised to get a sense of humour.
Meanwhile, we are repeatedly told by “Flipper” Darling to believe that it is with Toynbee & her ilk that we are Better Together.
No, we are not.
It is worth noting that Polly Toynbee came in at the end and said, in relation to people from Scotland holding government positions at Westminster: “nor indeed even the great offices of state.” Now, I can understand the Secretaries of State for Health or Education,which are mostly about health and education in England, and even Home Secretary, although there are important cross UK immigration issues under that post, but, in the event of a No vote, Scottish MPs effectively being barred from the UK positions of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary of State For Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Secretary Of State for Defence, Secretary Of State for Business, Secretary Of State for Works and Pensions, Secretary Of State for International Development, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change? One person who is close to the talk of the steamie at Westminster is Polly Toynbee – so, she was clearly not making it up as she went along, no matter how many denials we will hear from Better Together. Another day, another outrageous comment about the corrupt thinking in the mother of all parliaments.
Can you imagine the outcry if this was reversed, and someone in Scotland said that English folk couldn’t be in a Scottish cabinet after a Yes vote?
The MSM would go ballistic.
It doesn’t take much for the mask to slip does it? I try to make allowances for them and then I hear comments like that – no wonder Neill was trying to rescue it but clearly pissed off!
Wow. No Scot for leader of a “national” party, and no Scot for “indeed, any of the great offices of state”.
That might be a wee bit disappointing, and might be bad news, for all those ambitious Labour Shadow This-and-that people.
I don’t see what the problem is with the comment, as I’ve always said that there shouldn’t be any Westminster parties in the Scottish parliament and vice verse.
After a ‘NO’ … nothing should change. Scots, English, Irish and Welsh should all be equally ‘interchangeable’ regardless of position (Whether it as PM or a CEO of a big English or Scottish Company) The current Head of Scottish Arts & Culture is an English Lady I believe? Our new culture secretary is a Muslim with Pakistani heritage.
After a ‘YES’ …. nothing should change. There will be free movement of people and goods on these islands. And your ethnic origin is irrelevant as long as you are now legally entitled to live and work in Britain.
Remember we are supposed to be a multi-cultural country. (UK)
Any other view is inherently racist.
Toynbee’s liberal mask slipped and she spoke without thinking. There is no doubt that the comment was inadvertently(?) racist. (benefit of doubt here)
The sooner people recognise that the 400,000 English living in Scotland and the 800,000 Scots living in England are not going anywhere… the more reasonable this debate can become. The truth is the UK culture is inherently racist. Hence all the hysterical furore about us becoming a foreign country. Heavens to Murgatroyd.
The sooner people get it into their heads that Independence is NOT a Scots / English thing the better. (Its a Scotland / England thing – political geography, not ethnic origin)
Forgive me… but people thinking otherwise are stupid insular bigots without a sensible vision of the necessity of continued collaboration.
PS The panic from Andrew Neil, confirms that there is ‘political control’ on the BBC to ensure there are no comments that push residents of Scotland closer to YES.
It is an astonishing remark, and it’s….actually great. The more people in the London/Westminster bubble they can get to repeat it, the better.
There’s five months of 24-hour news coverage for plenty buffoons to pipe up with it. We will watch out.
I wonder if it sticks in the throats of others here as it does mine. When the Westminster Elite’s call each other the “Honorable” this and the ” Honorable ” that.
When they are hardly that.
Now, I could understand if it was ” Dishonorable” this and that! Now that WOULD make sense!
after gordon broon there will be many english people who hold the same view. no more sweaties.
Roguecoder… believe me I know my Aunt… stubborn as hell… only sledgehammer tactics work with her. 😉
Ladies and Gentlemen, take note: You are seeing the product of 3 years of Bettertogether campaigning. They have done such a hatchet on Scotland’s reputation within the UK, that even if a no vote wins, it is now nigh impossible for Scotland ever to be a part of it. They will have made it all but impossible for anyone in Scotland ever to feel comfortable with the idea of British Identity.
The Unions dead. Killed by Unionists. Oh the Irony.
That no-one but English, or so anglified as not to be noticed, – Alex Douglas Hume – should be PM is not new.
Remember when labour were so convinced they were going to win the GE in 1992 that they were celebrating before the event only to find that the cons under that great statesman John Major got voted in.
It was quite obvious at the time that Neil Kinnock – ‘Welsh windbag’, courtesy of the Daily Heil – was not an acceptable PM.
They tried to make out afterwards that they knew they were going to lose due to complacency etc.
(Interesting point from Thepnr a few posts back – are we helping by stopping the spin of reload, computer wizzes might be able to concur)
easy solution,one just need to call oneself English old boy.Play the old assimilation scam.
Quite a day for the BBC. Sunday Politics Scotland’s offensive and utterly biased Defence ‘animation’ was like stepping back to the racist end of Empire for this relic of Empire.
De fence? De man wid de nails am comin’ to fix it.
link to logicsrock.blogspot.co.uk
Will be allowed to walk on the grass of the parks in London?
Will we have to travel in special carriages, labelled Sweaties Only on the Tube?
Will kilts be banned in public?
There are just too many unanswered questions.
poor george galloway, whatever will become of him?
ASTONISHING ;(
I used to like old Polly (not in THAT way!) but she’s been going a bit weird recently. I blame her constant cheerleader act for Gordon Brown before he became PM and how that all turned out.
Alba4Eva
here’s one from a couple of months ago. Its a Wall street Journal interview with Melanie Phllips. Staggering.
link to youtube.com
More from Panelbase.
link to heraldscotland.com
Once again the question of how people believe they are likely to vote in September based on who they think will win the next UK GE. Values including DK’s in brackets.
If Scots feel the Tories are going to get a majority or lead a coalition:
56% Yes (48%)
44% No (38%)
If Scots feel Labour are going to get a majority or lead a coalition:
49% Yes (42%)
51% No (43%)
So Labour actually not that appealing, but the Tories much less so of course.
Shows you how the Yes is actually equal to or ahead of the No. You just need to give people an excuse for justifying why they’re an ‘anti-English braveheart-loving fantacist who’s living in economic cloud cuckoo land’… That can be a few hundred smackers or the Tories. You then start to get the truth out of the shy Yes vote.
What is going to be interesting is that the Tories and extreme Tories (UKIP) are due to take over half the rUK vote in the EU elections next month.
Going to be fascinating watching Alistair Darling trying to explain how that’s all hunky dory.
Hmmm, on first watch I assumed she was just saying that it would be politically unfeasible for a Scottish MP to be the leader of a UK party, and to be honest I would agree with that – I think a lot of English voters wouldn’t stomach a Scottish UK party leader, and in fact I doubt Labour would have gotten the majority they did in 2005 if they’d been led by Gordon Brown.
But on second and third watch, it does indeed sound like she actually endorses that sentiment herself.
Will we have to sit at the back of London busses?
Watched it again – would bet my bottom dollar that Neil gave her a nod/wink as he was correcting her ( with his head being back to camera ) which she caught on to and agree to his re-wording of her comments – vipers in a sack
@Paula Rose
“Interesting point from Thepnr a few posts back “
Yes, this will help. I think the main problem we have at the moment is that the traffic is increasing at a rate which means it’s outstripping the server’s capacity faster than the Rev can get it upgraded. I think we’re in the process of another move which is why things are a bit slow at the moment (also, I understand, the Denial of Service attacks which have ramped up a notch recently).
If you want to get technical, the high numbers of comments also has a significant server load. Each comment needs to be filtered, processed and then written to a SQL database. The cycles required to do that are typically in the order of 100 times greater than just serving the page.
There is stuff than can be done to optimise and remedy this even within WordPress, but the problem with intervention is that it risks downtime – and nobody wants that.
Ah… sorry, probably just went a bit too geek for this audience 😉
Hopefully I’m not repeating anything anyone’s already said but according this this one survey there are 33 Scots (who were either born or went to school in Scotland) who are MPs for non-Scottish constituencies. If you look at Scottish questions, etc. in parliament you’ll see quite a few of them pop up with dutifully ignorant points and questions.
I’m guessing a few of them are a little worried about how their true blue constituents will view a “foreign” MP after independence.
link to eprints.lse.ac.uk
Thanks for that Thepnr, the spinning blue circle has been annoying me.
When I looked it up on-line, they were suggesting possible malware but I’ve done a security check and all is OK.
As for Polly Toynbee and the guardian, they are not liberal.
They remind me of new labour in that they are mini-me conservatives.
@Thepnr
Your suggestion regarding the X button would be correct.
Pressing the esc key after the page has “obviously” loaded would also do the job.
We are to some extent, albeit unwittingly, contributing to the DDOS overload of the site in the manner you outlined.
If English folks could not stomach a Scot as PM (or position of great office) then would they stomach taking orders from a Scots army officer, senior medical practitioner, Met police senior officer …?
When this mentality starts to seep into the UKOK mindset and be openly stated on national TV, then it surely blows a massive hole in their pathetic better together “family” rhetoric.
Better Together = political segregation based on nationality.
Maybe we could wear an armband to help identify ourselves?
What is all this disappointment with cup semi-finals? I thought they went quite well.
Especially today’s win for Saints at Ibrox. Bring on the first Tayside final.
Come on you Saints!!!
as this opinion will surely spread, alister darling will be hyperventilating thinking he may not be allowed to hold a position he believes his status deserves.
Until the Tories/UKIP manage to eject the rUK from the EU, I’m pretty sure they can’t bar candidates for seats on the basis of nationality, provided they are EU citizens.
The mask slips. As a Scots YES voter in Aberdeen, personally I would happily vote for an English Holyrood MSP or an English FM, if their policies were what I want obviously. Go figure!
Toynbee’s comment is the classic Freudian slip – she spoke what she thinks not what she ought to have said.
So, what shall we do?
Send home every English head of our institutions? Is there a railway train long enough to accommodate them? Shall we bar all English from political appointment in Scotland, or confine that edict to “great offices of Scottish state”?
Then again, we can go farther: No Scot shall become head of the United Nations. Nor shall they read the news on English television.
English ingrained dislike of foreigners now includes Scots. Well, I guess that’s progress of sorts.
Another one hits the list…
shes just another stupid little englander think about it i am a Scot from Scotland she is an Eng from England no wonder they hate us lol
@Sunshine on Crieff
That’ll get you a nice little lifetime ban from Rev. Stu!
It was a wee shame to see Andrew Neil practically begging to be accepted.
G H Graham
When I hear politicians / journos / comedians coming out with the ‘Don’t be so thin skinned’ excuse to justify their comments, I apply a simple comparison test:
Replace the word Scot / Scottish / Jock etc with your choice of colour, race or minority. If it is offensive when you do the substitution then in its original form its offensive to Scots.
@SquareHaggis
Esc works good, will my education on wings ever come to an end? I hope not.
BBC Bias – grousebeater.wordpress.
Enjoy, as they say in American diners.
Well, that sounded very much like she meant any Scottish MP, not any Scottish MP representing an English constituency, and when Andrew Neil offered a nice gentle way for her to backpedal she took it like a hungry lion pouncing on a knackered wildebeest.
Presumably she realised she had suggested something that wouldn’t play well across Scotland and managed to dilute it just slightly. Of course, Scots representing English seats but not Scots representing Scottish ones, well, that’s hardly better. She flatly suggested all Scots, regardless of party, coming from a Scottish seat, should be barred from holding senior public office and then tried to take back some of it.
That’s an no vote concept right there. I can well imagine that even if no Westminster mandarin had thought of it before they’re certainly trying to work out how to implement it now.
So ladies and gentlemen, we all know what to do here. Vote yes and remove the problem of any nasty Scottish people tainting Westminster. I’m sure Ms Toynbee would agree. Those Scots who represent English seats? Best of luck to them.
They’ll need it.
To be honest, I don’t think a Scot, under the present constitutional set up, should be PM or hold any of the senior positions. Let’s face it, every Scots Unionist MP couldn’t give a damn about the well being of the citizens of the British Isles. They are only in it for selfish, careerist reasons. Not one of them has the skills to do the job. Brown and Blair were supposed to represent the pinnacle of the Unionist skillset and look what happened, an absolute disaster. Toynbee’s reaction is to be expected, it is just a natural symptom of the inevitable coming apart of the Union. For a Scot to hold such a position would require a complete rewrite of the current relationship. Scots constituency MPs voting for English only subjects; that is not only grossly unfair but is just stupid. When you take Devolution, the legacy of Brown and a significant proportion of the Scot’s electorate wanting Independence, if I were English or Welsh, I’d be thinking the same thing. In addition, the fact that there are people from the Westminster parties who are non Scots that may hold senior positions is more a reflection of how adherence to Neo Liberalist beliefs is deemed more important than race or background. It’s a complex picture and a reflection of the mess that is UK Plc.
There should be encouragement for an English identity to reassert itself, it’s about time and it actually works to the benefit of Scottish Independence. The English have been victims of Westminster centralisation as well.
The more discussion and comment there is on the vastly undemocratic, unfair and London centric political system (regardless of how it is presented or aired) the better for all concerned. Someone above is right. Labour have, by their sheer greed, incompetence and self centred lies, put in place the ingredients that will see the end of the Union. Murphy, Darling, wee Duggie, Curran et al, we salute you, you idiots!
Tonybee once wrote that Welsh parents must be out of their minds for sending their children to bilingual schools. The Brit metro-left just don’t get it.
Emailed Polly T, and surprisingly got a response – here it is:
No, that’s not what I said. I said that already no MP for a Scottish seat could occupy certain roles – ie health or education secretary. I said it was very unlikely from now on a Scottish MP could be a national leader: Brown will the last. After the referendum there will be further devolution, making it even more unlikely that someone whose constituents are not affected could sit as leader deciding English tuition fees, NHS, schools policy etc.
Polly normally winds up Tories in the Guardian. I think she was just opening up a second franchise on the wind up front 🙂
Imagine the Flipper’s blink rate (MP for Edinburgh South West) watching Labour’s Polly Toynbee end his career as union saviour/future UK Labour Chancellor Exchequer.
No doubt some noble and honest BBC in Scotland ligger will ask Flipper what he thinks about his permanent Westminster back benchness, whatever the result.
@Andrew Morton
That’ll get you a nice little lifetime ban from Rev. Stu!
Aw, I hope not, I’m still a Saintee for Yes!
And wouldn’t it be wonderful? A first Scottish Cup for St Johnstone AND a Yes vote in the same year!
@Thepnr
I’m too lazy to move the mouse all the way to the X ;-p
I suppose there is a difference between ‘should lead a party’ and ‘could lead a party’ – most of the present BT MPs couldn’t lead a conga! Pretty sure she did mean ‘should’ though.
Well I must say this has cheered me right up. It’s unbecoming but I do relish a good gloat. If Toynbees view is shared by the political establishment,imagine the plight of our chums Davidson, Sarwar, Curran and co. If it’s a no vote -their careers will have stalled at the back benches, never to progress and if it’s a yes, well I don’t see Scotland welcoming them back with open arms. Nor do I see any English safe seats offering to take them in. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people!
@Sunshine on Crieff
That would be pretty good. A third Scottish cup for Dundee United though and a Yes vote pips it for me.
Are we not over-reacting just a wee bit to the opinion of one journalist?
This is just a variation of the trusty old West Lothian Question.
I’m not entirely sure what she meant but it is certainly possible to interpret it as her saying it is unlikely that A UK political party would elect someone from a Scottish consistency as their leader if the Scottish Parliament is given more powers after a No vote.
Knowing her record, I find it extremely unlikely that she would be calling for any sort of ban particularly on the grounds of nationality.
Anyway, I think those of us who believe in Independence have bigger issues to concern us than an off the cuff opinion from one journalist.
I remember years ago Kenneth Clarke saying this about Gordon Brown. Not Gordon Brown is a numpty not Gordon Brown is a this and that. No it was Gordon Brown can’t be prime minister because he’s scottish. Nothing more, just that reason. Says it all really.
@Giving Goose
That was difficult to read in a single block but excellently put.
Thank you.
Not long now. They can forget about “jock bashing” and get on with destroying the rUk. YES 18/9/14!
What also bothers me me is her use of “National party”. If I understand correctly, she’s doing the One Nation Britain thing, where the UK is the nation, Scotland a region. But IF that’s the case, then why should she consider those from one region in a nation unsuitable for a national office? If, on the other hand, she believed Scotland WAS a nation and England one too, then does she also believe that people born in other countries that aren’t Scotland should not be in this National party too? And if not Scotland, then where do Wales & Northern Ireland stand in all this? Do they have a voice? Why should they have a voice yet the second largest of the four UK nations doesn’t?
Very bizarre statement, and very worrying too.
I don’t think a Scot, under the present constitutional set up, should be PM or hold any of the senior positions
You make an interesting point worthy of a debate in itself.
The again, loyalties might get in the way. The painter, Stephen Campbell, was born in England, but educated in Scotland and considers himself very Scottish in character, culture, and art. The reverse could be true.
fairiefromtheearth _ are you an idiot or what? Plenty English folk voting YES. I’ve plenty english cousins and friends who liver in England. And I’ll tell you what I’d rather have their company than your stupid racist face in the same room as me. You write the word ‘hate’ like a unionist. Shouldn’t you be getting ready for school tomorrow?
The last Prime Minister to win a General Election while holding a Scottish constituency was Andrew Bonar Law.
That was in 1922.
Alec Douglas-Home and Gordon Brown while both representing Scottish constituencies as PM never won a General Election. And both were dumped in short order.
It was Gordon Brown can’t be prime minister because he’s scottish.
Was not that always the way, and still is? No matter how honoured by the British state, no matter how loyal to the British way of life, you will never be accepted a full Englishman. Well, vive la difference!
The opposition continually derides Scottishness: we are not true Scots but part, Pict, Irish, Norwegian, Dane, Gypsy, capercaillie, oatcake – half-man, half-bisqwit.
(yes the esc button stops the spin as well – perhaps we need a wee reminder of such things every 50 comments or so?)
The woman is a right winger and she has always been a right winger. She supports workfare and means testing of benefits, including widow’s allowance.She has a long history of this, and endemic racism is part of the set, though not everyone has a full set.
I see from rab the doubter’s post above that she is also an out and out liar. Can’t say it surprises me.
But that is what passes for left wing in the UK these days, sadly
You can’t have a Jew – or mebbes a woman, our Feminist Polly – occupy one of the great offices of State.
But they might be usefully employed in cleaning the toilets.
Sneddon i see you cant have a joke so i will get down on my hands and knees I BEG YOUR FOREGIVENESS I AM BUT DUST BENETH YOUR FEET is that better or are you just a unionist troll?
@rab_the_doubter – I’m so glad you’ve got that im ‘writing’ as it were because that is every bit as bad – no Scottish MP can ever be PM!!!
Does she not realise that even so called only English issues have an effect on the
England land of the Engs sounds good dont it sneddon Scotland land of the Scots now come on.
Alba4eva @6.19
Those are three people you just wouldn’t tire of slapping
what a truly disgusting crew.
@rab_the _doubter – ignore that post it added before I was finished.
I’m so glad you’ve got that im ‘writing’ as it were because that is every bit as bad – no Scottish MP can ever be PM!!!
Does she not realise that even so called only English issues have an effect on the the whole of the UK?
So the rest of us have to put up with English only PMs.
When in a hole stop digging – that’s racist no matter how you look at it.
Cmon sneddon tell me how the union loves us what was their name for the referendum project love?
Rogue Coder @6.39
There is no effin way I sitting through that bilious twaddle again I only just had the holes I punched in the wall repaired from the first time I watched it. and that Katty Hopkins is a truly disgusting creature (not a spelling mistake)
If no MP from a Scottish constituency can become PM the union is over.
“So the rest of us have to put up with English only PMs.”
What about the Welsh and Irish are they banned from holding office too?
She meant any Scot, as in ‘I’m another Guardian racist’. The high offices of state are the very ones that are UK wide.
Great googly moogly.
So as far as Ms Toynbee is concerned the reward for loyalty to the UK is to become a second class citizen?
Scrapes jaw off deck… :O
I’ve now emailed her back to suggest that she listens to what she said and then issues a public retraction in tomorrow’s Guardian.
Do you want to meet up sneddon? cause i will tell you one thing im fed up with scum like you putting me down so are you MAN enough to say that to my face?
Peter Macbeastie: “Presumably she realised she had suggested something that wouldn’t play well across Scotland and managed to dilute it just slightly. Of course, Scots representing English seats but not Scots representing Scottish ones, well, that’s hardly better. She flatly suggested all Scots, regardless of party, coming from a Scottish seat, should be barred from holding senior public office and then tried to take back some of it.”
I think you’ve maybe gotten the wrong end of the stick. The point was she first said “Scottish MPs”, then Andrew Neil suggested she really meant “Scottish MPs representing Scottish constituencies”, meaning the likes of Liam Fox and Michael Gove – Scots in English constituencies – would still be able to lead a UK party or hold offices of state.
Should yes voters vote for ukip in the coming euro elections?
Rev
There are two Scots representing English constituencies. One is Liam Fox, somewhere on the England/Wales border and the other is just along the road and quite near you in North Wiltshire in the form of James Gray who hails from Perthshire.
O/t, I have to inform all that my team is not out of the cup.
@John King see my previous post re Neil Kinnock.
Exchange the word ‘Scot’ or Scottish, for Black or Asian, and watch the Video Again—Her Feet would not touch as they whipped her out of the Studio and Kerr would not have been making up tenuous excuses for her either! But it’s OK, it’s only the Jocks!
what about george galloway?
Ah yes, Gove. Forgot about him. So easy to do I suppose.
Three Scots in English seats then.
Anyone hear Blair Mac on R4? Snippet of Salmond then absolute guff from Blair. Of course no comeback but “impartiality” intact because we had some Yes then some No.
I despair of the state media at times.
tartanarse George Galloway?
As there is no common ground between YES support & UKIP then I can’t see any purpose in voting for them.
George Galliway used to be my MP, he is a useless tosser whose only function is self-publicity
So,.Galloway should be allowed to fade into obscurity
anyone fancy editing her wikipedia page? I’ve edited the odd page in my time but not sure if this is something it’s fair to add under the section ‘political history and opinions’
link to en.wikipedia.org
@Fairliefromtheearth
@sneddon
Take that nonsense elsewhere, this is a grown up site and that kind of comment / behaviour isn’t helpful, nor should it be tolerated.
What about Secretary of State for Portsmouth?
I remember something similar prior to Browns coup – Letwin saying no Scot will ever be prime minister – burned into the memory that – thanks Letwin – cemented me as a YES voter…
Giving Goose
I take your well made points, although my conclusions were different.
What I heard was that as a Scot I should be barred from high office if we vote No. Aside from this being, as you suggest the union being torn up it ignores the fundamental, central constitutional reality as I see it. A 100% Yes vote plays exactly the same as getting through by a hair’s breadth. And a 50.000001% No vote is constitutionally identical to a landslide No and equals no change. All the rest is constitutionally speaking, noise.
A 50.000001% No vote is a 100% full endorsement of the Union. Don’t knows need to understand this.
The smokescreen of devo-nano or whatever guff we are offered by Cameron is irrelevant. A no vote and it is business as usual – there is no sending or receiving of a message.
Polly Toynbee is conceding that if it is a No vote it will be close and nothing will ever be the same again. But she is insulting the unionist voters (never mind the rest of us) by saying that even if, when the campaign begins; even if they get off their arses and make a case and win this referendum, the Scottish people have become 2nd class citizens by having the afront to vote for a party who promised a referendum.
I know the union us unravelling and I am desperate for a Yes in September. But if it is a No vote I would defend Danny Alexander’s right to lead his party or Jim Murphy’s right to be Prime Minister or whatever role they were elected to serve as. It’s called Democracy, and it exists for all UK “subjects” in its current form until it is changed regardless of whether that is stupid or unfair.
rab the doubter no mate when someone calles me a rasist i think i have the right to reply oh i might have went over the top but hey im mentally instable and thats why sneddon the unionist is hiding under his bed right now 😉
Oddly enough reminds me of that scene from Blazing Saddles when the multi-racial railway workers offer to help the towns people defend themselves from the bandits… They’d agree to take everyone into their town “except the Irish” … well boys and girls today it’s everyone “except the ungrateful jocks”….
Makes me want to scream from the roof top – “in that case Fk you and the horse you rode in on!” VOTE YES!
New thread on NNS just up re:
Better Together’s last U-Gov poll. Headed:
‘Better Together … or Oops for short’
Worth a read.
Eleanor Laing is a Scot, and I’ve tickled her tonsils with my tongue. Nice girl, but now has very strange views.
Anybody wunt tae buy a secondhand Portcullis SatNav,am fed
up turning intae culdesacs,keep our eyes on the road ahead
& in the words of Wee Harry Lauder, Keep Right On To The
End. Trot on Pony Toynbee.
Perhaps some bedtime reading for PT?
A Practical Guide to Racism
A look at the races of the world by a lovable bigot, capturing the proud history and bright future of racism in one handy, authoritative, and deeply offensive volume
link to amazon.com
This is nothing new. A reduction in Scottish seats and a final solution to the West Lothian Question will leave Scottish based MPs, of whatever nationality, unable to vote on topics which are already devolved.
By extending that logic, there is no point Labour having a Scottish PM who cannot vote on his own parties proposals.
One more Tory term will see this introduced. For all those out there who “don’t know enough about the debate (can’t be arsed finding out)” don’t say you weren’t warned. You were. You just refused to listen.
In further news, following the cancellation of the Red Road Flats demolition the Commonwealth Games organising committee have decided instead to portray, through the medium of song and interpretive dance, the total collapse of the Better Together Campaign.
For the benefit of Sneddon and Fairiefromtheearth – darlings I was born in England, London no less, I moved here in 1984 and apart from a few idiots I am pleased to call it my home. Like many I love with all my heart this wonderful approach to inclusion – so please boys do a virtual handshake and give each other a kiss, here’s one each (love your contributions) XX.
Ah… the hypocrisy of chin-stroking latte-liberals at its finest. Makes me want to firebomb a Waitrose 😛
Paula
Careful now. 🙂
@rab_the_doubter
That is funny!
Fairie at 9.41,
Oh yeah, how did I forget that tuber and fellow Dundonian(we’re not all like him btw).
I thought there was two but turns out there’s double that. Any more?
Perhaps it’s because they are all so forgettable.
There must be some more.
A slightly different view on Scottish Independence from another London Journo, Kelvin MacKenzie.
link to news.bbc.co.uk
Cameron B
That page you gave the link to also shows us a book entitled “How to live with a huge penis”
My missus says this applies to me but not in the way I think.
Should I be worried?
🙂 🙂 🙂
@S_S
Very interesting poll that gets us over the line if the Tories get back in.
But did you see the poll out today that shows Tories dropped back to 30%,
Labour on 36%,
UKIP on 20%.
Darlings – CameronB has a lovely wee winkie – don’t get him too excited.
I’m not sure how to follow that ‘compliment’. Haven’t you heard Paula, it’s the motion in the ocean, or was that the pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle. 🙂
And we don’t need to wait for Polly Toynbee to tell us we are all insignificant, second class wee shits,
Better Together and BBC Scotland tell us that every day.
@Paula Rose
What is this “winkie”?
Is that something you do with your eye?
How does one do those wee winkie thingys? No I don’t really need to know.
@caz-m
Wow, that was a bit of a blast from the past – Nicola’s hair! 🙂
Not the point I’m sure you were making, but it struck me that the panel and Dimbleby were still pushing the “subsidised” line, and that was only just over two years ago. Oh what a difference we’ve seen since then; the Unionists wouldn’t dare try pushing that line now, not since the GERS figures have been so comprehensively disseminated as part of the Yes effort. I think I’ll go have a look at some of the older material online and see what else has shifted (the currency union seems to have taken a disproportionate amount of everybody’s time recently).
Maybe sometimes in the heat of the moment we forget what giant steps have already been taken. No resting on our laurels, though 🙂
I posted the below comment on Polly Toynbee’s column in the Guardian – will see how long it lasts before being deleted.
13 April 2014 11:02pm
‘The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee on this afternoon’s Sunday Politics London during a discussion on Nick Clegg’s leadership of the Lib Dems, telling presenter Andrew Neil that even were Scotland to vote No in September’s independence referendum, it would be unthinkable for any Scot to ever again lead a UK political party, or hold any of the great offices of state.’
Would you care to make a comment on this?
How does this sit with your liberal, feminist attitude?
Do you not think that if a Yes supporter said this in relation to an English person with respect to the Scottish government it would be considered to be racist?
@RogueCoder
Kelvin Mackenzie would still repeat that shit today.
He is one nasty piece of work.
And that’s a good idea, get the archive material up to show the strides we have made in such a short time.
Here’s me saying “in such a short time”, it seems like a lifetime, but I have noticed since the turn of the year, the weeks are flying in.
I think people like Polly Toynbee forget that the people of Scotland actually want to live in the type of country that she can only dream of, here we are going to do it for real.
O/T (Slightly) ‘Mo’ (Mohammed) Farah an ‘Englishman’ according to the BBC (and no doubt according to the Daily Mail):
“Despite missing out on the British record, Farah recorded the fourth fastest time by a Briton and set the fastest time by an Englishman.”
I all seriousness, would Polly Toynbee’s ‘suggestion’ not lead ultimately to an apartheid state, if taken up by the Westminster party?
Polly’s thinking out loud is a realisation that the UK is a union that is no longer fit for purpose – and like many others, she wishes she lived here.
Really? 170 comments & rising about a throw away comment from an English journalist, who, if anyone cared to read anything she wrote is generally pretty sound – ok she is pro union but we can maybe forgive a few English folk for that.
Meanwhile an article about the importance of galvanising the women’s vote gets about 70 votes less.
Now, one of these subjects is absolutely critical to getting a yes vote in September but astonishingly it doesn’t appear to concern folk on here as much as a misguided comment from an English journalist.
Jackargent
Sorry mate but sound she most definately is not. IMO, she is a dangerous imperialist stooge who spreads dangerous dis-information. Have you read any of her comments about the Syrian crisis?
@Craig
I see what you mean, Mo Farah born in Somalia now has British citizenship he has broken the English Marathon record but could he be the English record holder? Could he also be the Scottish record holder?
@Jackargent – you might think it’s a throw away remark, I however think it is racist from a journalist who works in a supposedly liberal newspaper which apparently supports every minority group in the world.
It shows that Scots are considered to be 2nd class citizens in their own ‘country’and if you think she is alone in this view, you are naive.
This is important for the DKs and the No voters because they need to be aware of how they are perceived in the UK.
Most of us Yes voters are already aware of this view however many DKs and Nos still think we part of a union of equals.
@ Jackargent – presume you’ve put a significant part of your earnings into the women for independence appeal – thanks.
CameronB
No, I have not read much of what she has said for a wee while …used to be a Guardian reader but not being a merchant banker I cannot now afford it every day! & I will check out what she has said about Syria.
But, I’m pretty sure she is not someone who poses a significant threat to the Yes campaign. I think a lot of folk on here are getting a bit carried away & perhaps even getting a wee bit on the negative side.
I also suspect that following a Yes vote she is exactly the sort of person who would be calling for rUK to negotiate sensibly & reasonably with Scotland & the more of these voices there are in rUK, the better.
There are some people who post on this site who really really want to spread negativity. Now there’s a surprise!
She’s been coming out with this stuff for a long time. I remember being incandescent with rage about something she wrote in the Radio Times when I still lived in England, so must have been over eight years ago – could have been a lot longer.
Jackargent
But, I’m pretty sure she is not someone who poses a significant threat to the Yes campaign.
I want to agree but is she not a leading cheer-leader for leftist though in Britain? Let’s just mark her down as a possible Fabian, shouting insults from the touch-line?
I agree that there are bigger fish to fry, but I think she not only embarrassed herself, but also the BBC and the London establishment. As liz suggests, I think this shed light on a rather dangerous attitude. Perhaps even the crux of the matter.
I realise I am defeating my own argument by continuing to post on this thread, so I shall just bow out by saying, whatever you think about Polly Toynbee, she should, in my opinion, be a long way down the list of people we need to be concerned about.
Mountains out of molehills & storms in teacups.
If we are fighting Polly, we are fighting the wrong enemy.
Someone facebooked today about Britains Got Talent. No auditions in Scotland because David Walliams says he doesn’t like Scots!!! My friend was really cut up about this! Get your priorities right folks!
Just read this on bella
link to bellacaledonia.org.uk
Interesting image midway down the page.
Anyone know if this was a recent Dundee United game?
The joy of being a Dons fan. Chin up, Rev.
SquareHaggis
Someone didn’t read all the way to the end. 😉
For the slightly desperate folks who’ve been running with the idea that art and politics can’t mix (“indy luvvies”) stuff we think a good portion of Dundee disagrees, as the Ibrox showed yesterday.
This energy is defeating dark cynicism over and over.
Oh come on Rev, the Labour MP`s will be happy as ever to have the Tories lord it over Scotland so long as the gravy train remains in place for them. Isn`t it funny how the Westminster lot look down on their Holyrood comrads? Well it would be funny if they weren`t holding their country men and women hostage to a system stuck in the dark ages.
Severin Carrell, Steve Bell, Polly Toynbee – the unacceptable face of the Guardianista latte slurpers of Islington.
It’s quite a complement to be told you can’t be trusted with the pro-oligarch, neoliberal agenda of the Westminster-Whitehall-City of London elite.
NINA – No Irish Need Apply.
NSNA – No Scots Need Apply.
rab the doubter says
“In further news, following the cancellation of the Red Road Flats demolition the Commonwealth Games organising committee have decided instead to portray, through the medium of song and interpretive dance, the total collapse of the Better Together Campaign.”
Chortle
now THAT I would pay to go and see.
Tartanarse says
“My missus says this applies to me but not in the way I think.
Should I be worried?”
Dear Tartanarse
maybe its time you put some space between you and your wife, depending on your -ahem- dimensions, I would say 1/2″ should be enough! 🙂
Flowerof Scotland says
“Someone facebooked today about Britains Got Talent. No auditions in Scotland because David Walliams says he doesn’t like Scots!!! My friend was really cut up about this! Get your priorities right folks!”
Im not sure I would want to swap saliva with him either, not after he’s been munching turds in the Thames!
I love the smell of London brainwashing in the morning. It smells like a self righteous sewer and here’s oor Polly’s colleagues in vote No action kicking off one more vote no week in this nonsense union
link to theguardian.com
“To read some nationalist propaganda, you might think that the buoyant yes campaign is already neck-and-neck” and
“they have Mr Salmond. The first minister’s speech was long on rhetoric. His sneery tone is not to all tastes. And Mr Salmond does not have the majority either”
That’s you told Scotland so there.
“Anyone know if this was a recent Dundee United game?”
Saturday’s semi at Ibrox.
Well, had the relatives up from England this weekend and at a couple of points, the referendum came up as a topic. To be honest, they admit that they hear nothing in the media except that the vote will be ‘No’, but they were astonished to hear that the ‘Yes’ vote has now caught up with ‘No’ so obviously, they were a little perplexed.
They believe that Faslane is not an issue. The subs will just be moved to Portsmouth. Currency Union was avoided like a hot potato (I’m guessing they’re not into the idea it!), and that England has real problems (at a social level such as the NHS and tuition – they don’t like the idea of privatising or burdening their kids with debt) …and oh, aye …Simon Cowell is a ********* (fill in the blanks with any sweary words you want).
One thing is for sure …this referendum appears to be leaving them uneasy. I think they are now cottoning on from ALL the relatives in Scotland, that Independence seems to be real …and looking like it is going to happen. I think the key question that is what is running through their minds is… ‘How the **** did it come to this?’
Yet again they forget that they broadcast up here and someone invented the Internet, HIGNFY will probably get insanely worse as september approaches creating more YES voters and a video of Richard Madely and Katie Hopkins should be sent to every household in scotland.
Polly Toynbee is arguing for full Devolution. It came out wrong. She supports the Scottish gov and SNP policies. Andrew Neil is twa faced.
How much did Simon Cowell make out of Susan Boyle?
If high office for Scottish MPs is to be restricted because of Scottish devolution then surely the same must apply to English MPs, and also applied across the board to all MPs from the various devolved regions and countries of the UK state?
For instance, the current UK Health Secretary is, in effect, just the Health Secretary for England and, as such, is actually a minister in a devolved English government in everything but name.
If there was a de facto restriction on MPs from Scottish constituencies holding government office then it would be necessary to form a devolved English Government and remove such offices of state as that of Health from the UK Government given they only really apply to England, not the UK.
It’s good to see the empathy some posters feel for Polly Toynbee’s colonialist slip, but rarely is that concern for Scotland reciprocated.
What she did was confirm what we always knew, too many English regard the United Kingdom as England. It isn’t something they question. They have no need or wish to look beyond that.
This may explain why so many are bewildred at Scotland’s demand for greater political powers. England is happy with its lot, why not Scotland?
faeriefrom earth- Making threats online shows you up for the person you really are. You deny being racist after saying you hate the english? End of discussion.
@cynicalHighlander: 06:38 pm: “Great British democracy at its best!”
Err! Highlander. There is no such thing as, “Great British democracy”.
“Great Britain”, is the biggest island in the British Isles.
Did you perhaps mean, , “United Kingdom”, un-democracy?
@ John King
David Walliams says he doesn’t like Scots!!!
You’d expect an inveterate cross-dresser happy to live among men who wear skirts!
Whats this Jocks, Britain nonsense?
I was reading the English version of the Metro today and front page its all about the dire situation for students finding themselves in massive debt and yet only being offered pitiful jobs. What next, you’ll be telling me Soctland tries to protect their young, enthusiastic tax earners?
But apparently it must all be okay as the rest of the paper just shows loads of adverts praising Mo “Im not doing the Glasgow Commonwealth Games as I have the London Marathon” Farah in yesterdays capital race..he must have won judging by all the adverts, he did win, didnt he?
Surely Ive not been taken in by a misleading Press?
Nothing new here really.
When I lived in England I remember watching the ITN News
after Blair was going and David Cameron was being interviewed
and the interview was along the lines of ‘Gordon Brown can’t take over as PM, he’s Scottish and there’s too many of them in positions of power already.’
I’ve tried to find a clip of it many times but always to no avail.
@Geoff Huijer,yes it that was said of G Brown, and I for one are sorry that he ever was PM him and his idiot cohort
Mr Darling both of them fucked up my private pension fund.
Polly may have articulated a rather clumsy expression of support for a more fundamental Federalism, I am not sure. She isn’t generally wittingly on the side of the more anti-Scottish brigade so I could be persuaded to cut her some slack if she were to write a piece more fully explaining her position and how she would see it working in practice.
However, if you want to read a good old fashioned colonial fit of peak yesterday’s Guardian editorial is enlightening.
link to theguardian.com
Pique, even?
From that Grauniad article.
It is no longer possible to say with near-certainty, as it was as recently as the new year, what the result in September will be.
That broke my brain, thinking about it. The logic, it burns!
@ pnr, 6:14, 13 April 2104
“What I really don’t get is why don’t they just throw us out of the Union? What’s the point of a referendum?
Just give us our marching orders and be done with it!”
The fact is they can’t. Only Scotland can amend/dissolve the Treaty of Union I believe. Some test case in the 1950s too (McCormick vs Lord Advocate).
Polly Toynbee remark. Nasty though it is, I believe it is most likely true. I have an English friend who was so exercised about Scots in the UK parliament that I was asked if I could ever imagine English running the Scottish Government and what was the criteria for being elected to the Scottish Parliament.
Well, I wasn’t astounded at the ignorance because I think you could easily find it here amongst Scots. I pointed out that criteria was UK, Commonwealth or EU citizen for Scottish Parliament election and that we already had several English MSPs and, indeed, a French man.
Backlash in the UK parliament? Oh yes, I can see that happening.
if you want to read a good old fashioned colonial fit of peak yesterday’s Guardian editorial is enlightening.
There it is in black and white, the neo-liberal British press.
Not a word in an entire editorial to confirm Scotland has as much as a single problem politically, economically or culturally that holds it back.
The Guardian thinks Scotland a nation of whingers, but bourgeois etiquette stops it saying so. What is does imply is, we are led by fanatics, hence we are all gullible fools. You can almost hear the editor shouting as if a character in a sci-fi propaganda film: “They are here” They are among us! Take shelter! They are coming!!!”
We might as well be reading the Daily Express or Mail for all the reasoning found in the Manchester Guardian.
@ G. P. Walrus says:9:09 pm, “If no MP from a Scottish constituency can become PM the union is over.”
The Union was effectively over when Westminster changed the bipatite union of two kingdoms into a quadratic four counbtry union with Westminster retained as a de facto parliament of England. Thus effectively making the Westminster parliament the country of England parliament devolving English powers to the other three subservient countries parliaments. They may have got away with it if they had also given England a parliament and moved Westminster to a federal parliament but they didn’t.
I wonder what Scottish Labour MPs think of this situation. Are we to have constitutional racism creep into Westminster’s politics, as if they are not already there!
Pique, even?
Morag
Almost certainly, devoid of caffeine my brain could see something was wrong but it couldn’t determine what it was 🙂
That’s a really interesting perspective I hadn’t considered before.
@Doug Daniel… I didn’t actually get the wrong end of the stick… what I got was a bad case of putting my opinion across to make it look entirely different to what I meant.
Only realised this long after I had typed it. Either way; she’s still making worrying noises.
@ JLT, 7:13am
Thanks for the report on your English relatives’ visit at the weekend.
I was hoping to catch your update and it mirrors the experience I have had with an English friend. I found that when given too much to think about, i.e the previously unconsidered view from this side of the border, it became too much for my friend who thought we were all rolling along quite happily together in the UK. My friend soon decided that we should not discuss it further; it was too emotionally painful.
This is the same amongst Scottish voters. Many don’t want to face that we are constantly being told lies, being repressed, and they didn’t realise it. They don’t want to believe they have been duped (fingers in ears, nah, nah, nah). It isn’t just banter after all. Pride is hurt.
This is the doorstep challenge for campaigners – persuading people to consider what the union has never offered, will never offer and consider what independence can, to look beyond the “stories”.
You, you Scotch!
MPs from Scottish constituencies should have more spare time to dedicate to a ministerial brief, what with not having to worry about education, health, cockle picking and airgunnery.
@Thepnr
Thanks for the sage advice Thepnr. I clicked on the X refresh button as you suggested and can print now. I will follow your advice in future and click on the X once the download is finished.
Time to go, goodbye and thanks for naught. Vote yes.
Thepnr,
The BBC (and no doubt the Daily Mail) expressly calling Mohammed Farah an ‘Englishman’ sounds so ridiculous.
Can we now call all Somalis born in England ‘Englishmen’ / ‘Englishwomen’?
I wonder how that would go down with the Daily Mail and UKIP.
Holding an English record is not quite the same thing.
Only losers can be called Scots, so since he came a miserable 8th despite the hype perhaps he should have been referred to as Scottish!
Polly Toynbee is a British Nationalist warmongerer, a staunch supporter and promoter of Blair’s illegal wars.
she ment what she said not what andy corrected it into.