Open to interpretation
Posted on
October 10, 2020 by
Chris Cairns
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Nice work. If this goes on much longer you’re going to have a covid cartoon collection that’ll fit a book!
It’s the numpties in the media who are drunk on hatred for Scotland who are sickest.
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Excellent drawing as always Chris. Thank you.
Sadly HOPE seems in short supply this year.
On Chris Cairns “Covid Road” I actually agree with Wokeist Cabal Leader Sturgeon. Close ALL the pubs as it is clear to the dimmest person, drunk folk forget to socially distance.
Naw hope with Covid.
Naw hope with getting rid of the Woke 5th column.
Naw hope for getting rid of of Mr and Mrs Sturgeon.
Naw hope of Scottish Independence.
Naw hope of free speech after the Hate Crime Act gives the Wokeists carte blanche to get sites line Wings Over Scotland + Craig Murray closed.
NAW HOPE.
Well mibees Alex Salmond will keep is Bonnie Dundee promise…
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Excellent once again Chris ,
The only difference nowadays compared to the 1980’s is back then the “ POLIS “ were the ones inside the the pub for the lock- in . Changed days indeed .
.
How on earth can we go from many thousands of decent SNP folk in a huge hall on 28th March 2015 with a splendid but prophetically dissonant speech by Stuart Hosie and then the incredibly popular and impressive, McOscar winning PERFORMANCE from Nicola Sturgeon…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c5ZXqzRsIl0
To this week’s rattled rant from Le Sturgeon with her body language, composure and bearing all over the place.
The ONLY reasons Sturgeon McWokeists are at 55% is because Richard Leopard and Rapeclause Ruth plus wee Willie Skidmark are so fucking awful.
And Sturgeon’s regular television show with the increase to 55% that so much tv exposure gets you…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5tTeyCvLJyg
Coronavirus TV & Your Hostess With the Mostest…
NiCovid Sturgeon
Repleat with her catchphrase:
Frank get the door…
Jane Godley would make a better First Minister than the political liar we have now…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hGYMLxQPE_U
Another absolute gem Chris.Well done.
Much as I’m a fan Chris, couldn’t we have had a toon about The Persistent Trough?
Haha, fabulous Chris, great cartoon.
Ahh, good ol Scotland. Misinterpreting what they want to misinterpret.
Education and infrastructure investment would stop the cyclic lockdowns that will be needed to control the epidemic: educate the population on some basics of infection control, and on what good hygiene is when it is needed and how to carry it out. Infrastructure investment – upgrade our public places and regulate – and subsidise companies to carry out building upgrades – businesses so buildings and public transport allows for better segregation, hand washing facilities, wider spaces for pedestrians, investment in professional cleaners with good salaries, good air flow – gale force preferably – in all indoor spaces, etc. This investment will boost the economy, keeping people working, upgrading our environment so we will ALWAYS be able to weather any storm – resilience – so it is a true investment of public money.
Oh.
Sorry, forgot. We can’t do any of that because we aren’t actually independent.
Oh well.
Best stay in lock down down then, seeing as how that’s the only solution Nicola Sturgeon appears to be able to think of. No independence until ‘we’ have economic recovery from Covid,,, that’ll be NEVER then? That entire phrase holds so much information – it tells us she thinks Westminster is best placed (HAHAHAHAHAHA) to deal with all those economical things that are too complex for us thicko Scots – it tells us she has no intention of ever delivering independence – it tells us she thinks the British Establishment should be in charge. The hand-wringing obsequiousness is really getting on my nerves. She’s the thicko here, not the rest of Scotland.
We can resolve all these things – and emerge with a healthy(ish) economy only after we are independent – that’s the only solution to all these crises. But even then, we will struggle to recover if our only ambition is to to create a mini-England and a mini-Westminster – as Holyrood appears to want to model itself. Regulation, transparency, democracy, accountability – good governance.
Persistent cough, should the name not be FU before persistent
Ignore previous comment, should be not persistent but FU in front of cough instead
As this failed policy persists.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18784519.nicola-sturgeon-issues-plea-scots-follow-curbs-16-days-save-lives/
The simple recourse is mockery.
I shall not be complying! so come and get me!
Btw I have a wide circle of relations and friends, no deaths, no coughs, no fever…..sick, of course, of this scientifically ignorant Stalinism, but that is a different affliction. .
The imposition of a preposition
We all know Bill Gates is ‘generous’, BBC, Guardian and Telegraph among his recipients.
But this item from the past suggests something closer to Scotland’s centre of power.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/15901118.bill-gates-scotlands-global-health-collaborative-really-smart-idea/
What conclusions might one draw?
Just good friends?
Geeza job Bill?
I’m all for anyone who wants to to pubs, and all for landlords shovelling as much drink down their necks as they can, and for them to spill out into deserted city centre streets at 2 in the morning, while said landlords till up and rejoice at the profits they are making from the libertines, as they listen to the fights breaking out on the pavements outside their shuttered drinking dens.
Go for it big time, all on here who blame ‘Nicola Sturgeon’ for everything from potholes to Jackie Baillie’s constituent who caught Covid in a car and didn’t get a test.
It is of course every libertine’s right to let it all hang out, go maskless to supermarkets, light up a fag in a restaurant, or rifle through a rack of dresses or shirts in a boutique while wolfing a double cheeseburger dripping animal fat and ketchup.
I’m all for those poor wee souls at Uni getting pissed, some even dying of drug overdoses, and flooding Ashton Lane to ‘Partee!’
I’m all for Top Gear petrol heads racing through built up areas at 60 mph.
Go for it, you mad free spirits.
But when you get Covid, or you get stabbed outside a night club, or you wrap your turbo charged GTI around a lamp post and are lying there with a leg severed and bleeding to death, don’t expect society, in the form of our GPs Hospitals police fire service and paramedics to suddenly kick into gear and save your sorry selfish arses.
Oh, I reckon that there are in excess of 5 million Scots buckling down, following the medical advice, and doing their utmost to protect themselves and their nearest, and neighbours from the terrible plague.
The junk that the Dead Tree Scrolls and the BBC Sky and STV churn out, undermining our collective efforts to beat this is quite frankly sinister and evil.
So go ahead..drink yourselves legless, venture forth without a facemask, light up an Embassy Regal in Asda cafeteria.
But crawl off into a corner and die if you catch Covid.
Don’t expect any sympathy or support from this scribe.
I enjoyed that.
This made me smile. Looks like a few places I am familiar ! Hopefully we can all return to such establishments sooner rather than later.
“Secret Scotland”
Nice one Chris……..only in Scotland. Smiley fing
MaggieC says:
10 October, 2020 at 7:58 am
The only difference nowadays compared to the 1980’s is back then the “ POLIS “ were the ones inside the the pub for the lock- in..
I worked in my maw’s shoap when I was in my early 20s and saw things that made me regard the POLIS in a different light. If the sight of 2 x inebriated POLIS squaring-up to each other, and being separated by other POLIS, isn’t enough to entertain you then you ought to be in the audience at the Glasgow Empire. I have stories..
Great work, Chris!
Ottomanboi
Stalin didn’t act in line with several other countries.
She doesn’t know what she’s doing IMO. The lockdown won’t work because it’s so selective.
How many people will travel out of the central belt to get some entertainment?
Then what, they spread it north and south?
The test is unreliable, even the dentist said so.
I’ve seen people say, the hospitalty industry is where the majority of cases are, so restrict them. Others have pointed out, it’s because they have your details you can be traced.
No one takes your details on public transport or in the supermarkets, so no one can say for certain where is was caught or spread.
Nice one Chris, raised a smile?
O/T,
Was a bit shocked to see the state of Holyrood security, (some guy trying to serve papers on NS on utube, fair doos!)
It really does look like a police state! Paranoid or what?
Police awaie, barriers n posh cars we blacked out windows.
What a mess.
Presumably “The Persistent Cough” still has full ice buckets?
Ottomanboy
Livid about Covid.
Lager does seem to be liquid Covid
Let’s see if our alcohol restrictions over the next couple
Of weeks compares well in reducing the new infections rate.
Doing something and doing better than Boris can only auger well for independence.
3 friends tested positive after a night out in a pub?
Liz@10.21.
The latest pile-on to hospitality seams very wrong to me too. Yet it’s not just Scotland.
Regards the policy of closures. Surely the simplest would have been to close at selected time of ALL Alki sales inc supermarkets. Leaving EVERY business options on continue to trade, nae effing aboot “am a cafe” crap.
For the areas less effected just now, it could be a different “NAE ALKI” close time. Simples!
Who in Gvt knows the KISS factor ?
Lock down, lock in, what’s the difference, it’s the same.
And make no mistake, the biggest change in our freedoms to move and interact is about to befall us.
Euphemistically entitled an “ entitlement card “ the Scottish Government is poised to issue a smart card that will hold individuals biometric data that will for health reasons allow people to gain access to public places, shops, shopping centres, banks, transport such as train and buses. A Pass Card redolent of the Pass Card of apartheid South Africa, but brought up to date with modern biometric and computer based internet connected technologies. An identity card so desired by totalitarian states and all now being brought in under the guise of a health epidemic.
The existing a National Entitlement Card has the potential to transform into this but public resistance stopped it. Oyster cards to travel also have similar potential. A card that governs every aspect of our life from travel to public place access to access or entitlement to banking, medical services, asset purchase, or whatever – and yet there has been absolutely no public mandate on the card proposals that are now well progressed under Jeanne Freeman’s health department.
With card being linked to the NHS database, which in turn is linked to the Home Office and Border Agency Computers, which are linked to HMRC, DVLC and so on, you get the drift. It’s all about health and well being you realise and the SNP’s previous desire to link every child under the named person proposals has not gone away.
Totalitarianism is coming. It’s here. Lock in or lock out or lock down. I’ll leave it to readers to work that out.
At least as the cartoon shows Chris we can make fun of it. Gold star for you to proudly place on your pyjamas. And one for the Rev too!
News from a war zone you’ve probably never heard of.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-turkey-gets-bogged-down-karabakh-war-armenian-forces-reclaim-initiative/5726093
This is what leaders do when they get too big for the boots covering their feet of clay.
The Daily Hail prints some unbelievable crap in the name of the suppressive Union.
They claim Scottish Police Federation plans to advise officers against using, what they call
a haphazard Covid tracing app as it could lead to staff shortages with self isolation??
If our app is haphazard, would they rather have the world leading English one that has never worked
But cost hundreds of millions?
Would they prefer infected officers not to know so that they can continue to spread the virus to colleagues and the general public?
I’d like to think scaremongering idiocy like this could not be printed in Scotland without major fines
and front page retractions in bold letters.
Fascist non tax paying foreign colonialist bastards!
WILLIE 10:39
Joining the dots, not fantastical conspiracy theory stuff, actuality for many in the Peoples Republic of China and rumoured for introduction elsewhere in Asia.
TechTotalitarianism is here, now and coming to your home sometime, if allowed.
Daily Hail praise for Douglas Ross who picked up a couple of thousand
For running the line at the England Vs Wales friendly football match.
This wonderful Tory democracy denier ran into the dressing room afterward
Desperate to see how the Scotland match ended and what an incredible guy
Able to be a unionist politician, make money running a line and still having
Time to watch a penalty shoot out.
He makes even more money by running the line at a match in Luxembourg
Where there should be a 14 day isolation period, but it seems he has special
Dispensation for Elite Spotpersons?
Whoops- yet another rule that doesn’t apply to Tory politicians!
No disrespect to the artist – the drawing is superb.
However what are we laughing at here – the fact that a barman with kids to support will have no wages a week next Friday – are we laughing at that?
Are we laughing that this destruction of people’s livelihoods is being done on the basis of a test that is worthless as a diagnostic tool – are we laughing at that?
Are we laughing at the fact that well over a million women in the UK are currently unable to access a mammogram – are we laughing at that?
Are we laughing at the fact that the time taken to access cancer treatment has hugely increased – a death sentence for many – are we laughing at that?
Even the WHO says that poverty is the greatest factor in reducing life expectancy and we are currently seeing people being deliberately reduced to poverty on an enormous scale – is that a laugh?
If you are in favour of this you are effectively in favour of killing the many to save the few – hilarious.
Daily Hail admits an Ulster wind Turbine is subsidised to the tune of £375,000 per annum
and produces £51,000 worth of electricity.
It’s widespread in this unionist area only and only one of many Tory schemes
that Scottish tax payers fund to ensure the DUP vote Tory at all times.
Absolutely sickening!
Tories to reject bill guaranteeing current UK food standards.
This will open the door for poor standard meets and foul from
Far and near and see the end of many UK farms.
Vote takes place on Monday!
Effigy@1108am
Eh Effigy where I live in East Ayrshire is covered in the bloody things – do you honestly think the figures are much different here?
Wind farms? Subsidy farms in reality, and the politicians who are not actually corrupt and were taken in by it were fools.
change the bloody record Chris
You’re beginning to sound like the Sites Lord Haw Haw.
Nicola says: “Marmite is fantastic, no it’s rubbish, no it’s errr well, if it’s served in a restaurant it’s rubbish, if it’s served in a cafe it’s probably ok”.
Clear as mud.
WHO scores OWN GOAL.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/10/08/who-accidentally-confirms-covid-is-no-more-dangerous-than-flu/
Quick before they edit the VAR!
Look at this – she’s issuing statements to the nation.
Here is a belter for you.
Belgium will invoke an ancient charter granting
access to English Fishing waters if there is a No Deal Brexit.
It seems that England’s Charles 11 granted 50 men
Of Bruges the right to fish there for Eternity!
The Daily Hail of course says UK waters but the charter
Was signed in 1666 when Scotland was an independent
Country so Scotland would want its stolen 6,000 miles of
Fishing waters returned and all our waters protected from
The Belgian fleet.
Let them fleece English waters to their charter’s content!
J Galt@11.06.
No one is actually laughing at the cartoon.
The vast majority who contribute and visit this site are profoundly aware of what is happening in our society. These Saturday Toons, like the informed writings and opinions of the Rev and others give us a forum to exchange communicate, express opinions, comment – and indeed change opinions.
I agree with you as you rail today against injustice. We need more like you, and if we can do this through blogs like Wings then we will all be the better for it. Your comments are well understood.
@ahundrddtheidiot,
Unlike you, the sites Lord Ha Ha Ha.
On a more mundane note would it be reasonable to suspect Chris Cairns is a Glasgow West End – Byres Road drinker.
Unless I am mistaken his ” Persistent Cough ” bar looks very reminiscent of Tennent’s Bar on the corner of Byres Road and Highburgh Road.
But of course I may be mistaken. A drop of beer may never have crossed Mr Cairn’s lips, nor may he ever have spent time socialising in Glasgow’s west end.
Just saying like, as you do. Observant lot these Wings bloggers – eh?
Hospitality is dead. We are weeks away from the Christmas season and even if lockdown doesn’t come restaurants and bars won’t get anywhere near the same volume of income as in previous years which will only prolong the inevitable.
Both the SG and WM need to act now – and not in 3 weeks time – to protect the businesses and the employees so that there is still something to rebuild. You can’t start a fire if all you have is ashes.
willie@11.48
I get your point willie, as I said no disrespect to Chris – he’s a excellent artist.
I see that the Scottish Police Federation are recommending that Scotland’s 17,000 police officers do not download and use the trace and track phone app.
On health and safety grounds of course you will understand.
Other, wiser minds might just conclude that the Police have concerns about the Orwellian trace and track surveillance aspect to the technology.
Roll out the National Entitlement card and all the other state surveillance toys.
And on another tack, nice to see that as workers lose their jobs due to a slumping economy, further economic slumping and the end of the furlough scheme that thankfully our MPs are having their base salary increased by £3,360 (or 4.1%) next year putting them on £85,292, plus expenses plus a very generous pension scheme.
Nice to know that our MP’s will be swell supported through the hard times to come – but hey, some of Sturgeon’s senior SG media advisers had even bigger rises last year with one actually receiving over £20,000 of an increase taking her into the £85k to £104k base salary bracket.
From BBC Wales highlights how the “UK” government intend to “ utilise” the “ powergrab” :
“The UK government would never rule anything out on bypassing the Welsh government to build the M4 relief road the Tory Welsh Secretary has told BBC Wales.
The Welsh government said the relief road was “ a matter for Wales”. First Minister Mark Drakeford scrapped plans for a relief road last year , declaring “ a climate emergency “.
The recently published UK internal market bill will give the UK government power to spend on otherwise devolved areas such as infrastructure and economic development .The Tory Welsh Secretary Simon Hart speaking on a BBC Wales political program that if the UK government could “find a way “to build a relief road it would.
The Welsh government said a decision had already been made regarding the relief road. “ We remain committed to tackling congestion with solutions that recognise the unprecedented challenge of climate change as well as the financial pressures of ten years of austerity and capital budget cuts.
Asked how this could be funded Mr Hart said “ the shared prosperity fund” due to replace EU funding after the Brexit transition would be “ one option”.
However last week a cross party group of MP’s accused the UK government of making “ negligible progress” to replace EU funds in Wales after Brexit.
So there you have it folks . The reason for the Edinburgh “ Hub” . Funds from the EU previously devolved directly to Scotland Will in future be “ Controlled and spent” by our “ colonial masters” . No doubt there will be a huge influx of “ expat relocation jobs” currently being advertised in Whitehall ?
Great cartoon.
My own view is that the virus is spreading more because of these fucking idiots holding “lockdown parties”, rather than pub regulars.
I’m not a drinker, and rarely go to pubs, but friends of mine who are regulars have seen the overwhelming majority of people complying. We’re not talking city centre wine bars here, but local pubs in “affluent” areas such as Rutherglen, Clydebank and Fernhill.
Meanwhile, there are these ignorant, selfish bastards who think nothing of having 200 people round for a wedding, funeral or party. Fine the fucking lot of them £10,000 if they are found to have spread COVID. Other countries have eye-watering fines well in excess of the £10K.
What I want – but obviously won’t get – is a law passed that states that anyone who holds public office deliberately breaks the law regarding COVID, then they are immediately removed office, and barred from holding any such office for life. If politicians and university senior management won’t play by the very rules they set, then they cannot justify their very own employment.
Rant over 🙂
An alternative way of dealing with the virus has been done by South Korea:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/11/south-korea-shows-that-democracies-can-succeed-against-coronavirus/
@willie ,
Always thought Chris was from the civilized East rather than the wild West 🙂
In a State without either a written Constitution or a Bill-of-Rights, wherein Parliament is sovereign and business interests are granted exceptionalism by all political parties and the MSM, who can seriously talk about a diminution of Rights in the context of C19 regulations? How can UK Subjects lose their Rights, when Subjects don’t have Rights?
Bertie Armstrong, former Chief Exec of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation gets an OBE. For services to what?
There is no doubt that the unionist media is biased. Whether we like it or not we look through that prism and caught up in that bias. The result of that is that we have got blindsided with how the SNP has made a mess of the independence debate over the last 6 years.
We have to be careful that we are not caught up in this web that the unionist press has thrown over everything and cast a more critical eye over things even if that means putting Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP in an uncomfortable position. Our responsbility lies with the people of Scotland, not the SNP.
That doesn’t mean that we should be totally critical of the Scottish government’s handling of the pandameic. They have done a good job but there are other countries who are doing far better at dealing with it and as well as listening to health professionals from around the world, we need to be listening to politicians from countries who are more succesful at dealing with the virus.
I previously posted a link to how South Korea which is a bit old but that part of the world has had more historical experience of dealing with pandemics so why shouldn’t we be looking there for ways of dealing with this current one?
We are independent because we are sovereign, it’s just that your mindset hasn’t caught up yet, so you act as captives.
kapelmeister at 12:59 pm
“Bertie Armstrong, former Chief Exec of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation gets an OBE. For services to what?”
Brexit?
Apologies if this has been posted already.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12886370/average-age-covid-death-82-4-years-shield-vulnerable/
“The average age of Covid death is 82.4 years”
If this virus is so bad, why is the average age of Covid not massively under the average lifespan?
*covid deaths that should be.
Breastplate says: 10 October, 2020 at 1:10 pm
Apologies if this has been posted already.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12886370/average-age-covid-death-82-4-years-shield-vulnerable/
“The average age of Covid death is 82.4 years”
If this virus is so bad, why is the average age of Covid not massively under the average lifespan?
Simply because the virus spreads through the generations and finally comes upon older, more vulnerable people who are more suspectible from dying form it.
It isn’t that hard to understand.
Meanwhile over in La La Land even the most Loyal Supporters are coming round to the realisation that the games up for the inhabitants of Bute House .
Now the usual suspects are concocting the excuses , e.g. , fed up with all the abuse she and her government are taking when the future of Scotland is their only concern , wouldn’t be surprised if she did retire on health grounds , getting no appreciation of working day and night to ensure a voice is heard in Westminster , the only thing missing is the mournful lament playing in the background accompanied by violin music .
It’s a truly pitiful bloody spectacle seemingly intelligent adults in total denial of what’s happening around them , all the missed opportunities overlooked and disregarded ,
So the easy way out is to blame the message and vilify the messenger and and anyone who agrees with the overwhelming evidence presented as supporting and being agents of the English state
Wakey fkn Waken the idea of fingers in the ears while loudly chanting La La La La might make you feel good but it isn’t going to solve the shit place we have been manoeuvred into by the Tory Government in England assisted by a usless and Toothless SNP administration that stood by while a new English outpost who everyone and their Dug knew was going to replace our parliament was being allowed to be constructed right in our nations capital , Did our spectacularly inept Dumb and bloody stupid SNP government believe it was just another office block ? .
Very strange development with PHE, they are planning on merging the covid surveillance report with the weekly flu surveillance report, which of course always increases rapidly this time of year.
https://twitter.com/FatEmperor/status/1314642841373638657
We are now being primmed for lockdowns and restrictions every flu season.
Pac-Man,
Please explain to me and others how you can get the virus if you are shielding from the virus?
I have decided the WHO is obsolete and can be replaced by updates from a few Wingers on how to tackle a global pandemic.
I have also decided to get their advice on open heart surgery and a host of ailments on which I never ever appreciated their expertise.
You should have your own medical site guys.
My carpenter has now become an expert also via the Sun newspaper. Amazing.
Beaker @ 10 October, 2020 at 12:47 pm
Health professionals can only advise of the health issues regarding the pandemic but politicians have to make the decisions about the wider implications it has on our society.
Acting on health advise isn’t enough. Politicians need to make decisions based on the impact that this health advise has on society in general.
Politicians just doesn’t have a remit to be responsible for health issues only and it makes no sense that when they are held to criticism that they say they are only acting under advice from health professionals.
Bob,
I’m pretty sure that there will always be people that will blindly follow orders but it’s hardly a crime to ask those issuing edicts to explain why, is it?
The worldwide pandemic of Asian Flu in 1957 accounted for double the number of deaths attributed to covid-19.
Yet in the summer of 1957, with the virus having been prevalent since February of that year PM Harold MacMillan famously made a speech in which he told the British public “You have never had it so good”.
Whether MacMillan’s statement was justified or not, it shows he wasn’t trashing the economy just because there was a lot of flu about.
Also surely everyone should explanations should make sense?
*Expect explanations to make sense
9:46 Jack collatin – hear hear. Couldn’t agree more. People need to have more of a care for the physical and mental health of our NHS staff. They are about to be utterly overwhelmed this winter if nothing is done.
I bought a copy of FLYER, which is the UKs best selling aeronautical magazine.
I have been so inspired by Wingers to branch out, lose my fear, and just become confident in what I am doing.
Consequently I am building a Jumbo jet in my back garden courtesy of volume 5 of said magazine, and when it’s finished I invite you all to fly with me.
Insurance may be extra!!
Bob,
If you think I’ve said anything outlandish, please correct me.
James Che @ 1.09
Excellent observation. The ‘mindset’ is nae doot colonial.
Breastplate says: 10 October, 2020 at 1:24 pm
I post under an anonymous name and it is up to you whether you take the information I post with validity.
I am in constant contact with an elderly relative whom I have to deal with a lot of matters including simply keeping company to keep up her morale as she has lost contact with a lot of her social group due to this virus.
I am of working age. I work from home but have to go into place of work a few times a week. Social distancing isn’t being kept so I have to trust other people in building that they are doing the right thing. I have a social life, albeit not as hectic as it was in my twenties, but I have only been to the pubs once since restrictions were lifted and not impressed with it.
In effect, I am nearly shielding from the virus myself.
The problem is that there are too many people out there who think they know better than others and aren’t following the rules. All it takes is for one unfortunate encounter with one of them or even picking up an item touched by them at the supermarket and the virus is spread to somebody that is vulnerable.
I know it is being silly. I’ll be honest as a bloke I’m not that great at hygiene but that is how it is spread. The bottom line is do you want to be responsible for spreading the virus to somebody you know?
@Ottomanboi
Very interesting I was also just reading that the WHO believes that roughly 10% of the worlds population has already been infected.
If a million are dead and seven hundred and sixty million people have had it, that would be an IFR of 0.13% if my maths is correct. It is looking more and more likely that this virus is no more lethal than the flu. Hardly the devastating pandemic it is often over-hyped as. I think our politicians have been watching too many movies like contagion.
Once again wind farms are in the news but they need wind solar power needs the sun but the one they never mention needs nothing that it does not already have. tide power it is guaranteed twice a day forever so they can’t say the tide never came in today or we need storage or it spoils the view no exscuses it the best choice to any intelligent person but alas the private buineness would not make enough profit from it so once again you needlessly pay more than you would need to common sense is ignored Trident House of Lords 650mps etc., etc,.
kapelmeister says: 10 October, 2020 at 1:31 pm
Politicians in the Fifties that you mentioned and ones in the Sixties with the ‘Hong Kong flu’ didn’t have to deal with social media with their conflicting advice and conspiracy theories.
Politicians now have to deal with a lot of other things than ones in past era’s and that goes above only acting on health advice.
Pacman,
Nearly shielding isn’t shielding, lockdown or no lockdown, if you are not washing your hands and wearing a mask when dealing with vulnerable people, you are putting that person in danger.
Just to be clear, no lockdown doesn’t mean we are all entitled to spit on each other and not bother washing our hands.
Sweden has sensible restrictions that we are all capable of following.
James Che @1:09
“…so you act as captives”.
James, ever read The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude by the 16th century French lawyer Etienne de la Boetie?
Covid may wel! seem to be no worse than flu ,and here I will insert two words. For now.
It is an RNA virus and has the ability to mutate. So far these mutations have been slow as proven by infections in America being of the same strain as in mainland China.
This far these mutations have been going our way but recently in Florida there have been mutations which have made it easier for the virus to infect new hosts.
This is the worry. This thing could change to being completely harmless to being completely lethal.
That is why everybody is taking great care.
It’s like firing a gun at your head when your not sure if it’s loaded.
I could help with the definition of restaurant– it’s an eating place where alcohol takes priority over a meal.
Ambrose Harper says: 10 October, 2020 at 1:34 pm
There has been mention about the Polis in this thread.
I don’t want to go into particulars but I’ve had run-ins with the Polis over the years as everybody has. However, due to numerous issues over the years I have experienced other sides of Policing which has changed my point of view of them.
I know we have all our up and down’s with the boys in blue but they are putting their lives on their lines alongside with other emergency services with this pandemic so if they say move along, move along.
I know they are grumpy so and so’s but at this time, it is for our own good.
PacMan @1:47
Today’s political leaders, if they’d been imbued with any character, could have sought opinion from a much wider range of scienists and doctors. Rather than just from charlatans like that Ferguson.
Breastplate says: 10 October, 2020 at 1:49 pm
This isn’t Sweden. This is Scotland and that is an important difference. I doubt Sweden has the social problems that we have of binge drinking, house parties and other social issues.
It’s like comparing apples with oranges but with your overall commenting I doubt you will accept that argument.
Fraser
“where alcohol takes priority over a meal”. Story of my life.
@Bob mack
Isn’t that true for every other virus on earth? and isn’t it also just as likely to mutate into something much less dangerous, maybe even more likely as you already indicated in your post.
bob mack @ 11:57
unlike you……the sites resident orangeman.
how long did it take you to figure out it was all about hate?….exactly….it’ll take you even longer to figure out what’s happening with SARS2.
kapelmeister says: 10 October, 2020 at 1:57 pm
Today’s politicians have homed the art of deflection.
Jason Leitch was on Off The Ball yet again – his latest is that there will be no return to ‘normal’ football attendance before the Euro finals next June.
Next June.
That man has no right to frighten people like this. It’s unconscionable that he and the FM treat social engineering as some kind of a fucking game week after week, tinkering with this and that – ‘oh well, maybe we’ll try this instead’ – while people’s livelihoods go down the pan and their elderly loved ones slip into depression, spending their final (bug-free) days heartbroken and confused. It’s horrific and inexcusable.
Have just checked ‘Jason Leitch’ on Twitter – loads of reasonable, non-aggressive questions were sent to OTB but he wasn’t asked anything more challenging than the difference between a cafe and a restaurant. Many are contacting OTB to ask that they get rid of Leitch’s ‘sermon’ or simply stating that they’ve switched off after years listening.
Stuart Cosgrove and Tam Cowan are smart cookies and they must know how much damage that guy is doing to their show/reputation. The fact they haven’t hoofed him suggests, very strongly, that they’ve been told to make that space available for Leitch indefinitely.
If Leitch, the FM, or anyone else thinks they’re going to get away with subjecting us to this irrational, sadistic, pointless fucking nonsense until next summer they’d better think again. It’s not going to happen.
There’s a growing number of us here, and on all other social media platforms, who will continue to post links to the facts as they unfold. More and more people are simply refusing to have their lives controlled in this way. And no amount of angry name-calling from the usual suspects is going to stop us.
Pacman,
Of, course this isn’t Sweden but they are addressing the exact same problems as us. They have differing population density throughout their country exactly the same as us.
I’m suggesting learning lessons of what works from them or anyone else for that matter.
Some interesting comments here on covid and how serious it is to the average person,
It seems that a lot of leaders in government do not wear face masks even, noticed Micheal gove not wearing sitting a few feet away from whatever you call him, noticed they often put on face masks for public tv, but are not often wearing them when caught unexpected,
Of our leaders around the world, those whom are supposed to have caught it are either back to work or going about there business, looking like they did before, even the over weight and elderly ones,
People are beginning to suspect it may be for the purpose of governments to control the people world wide,
It does not make sense that thousands of doctors world wide are not allowed to give their opinion, that only a chosen few are allowed,
luckily I see that doctors and lawyers have come together world wide to prevent the abuse,
They talk about no pubs or businesses not allowed to open , but they allowed the bar in Westminster to stay open, we’re in lockdown for Christmas, and not allowed to see family,
But I bet
Whatever your views on the actors, including writer, in this piece https://www.spiked-online.com/ the right to free expression is held as fundamental to a democratic society valuing and upholding the right to dissent.
Mr Starkey is no shrinking violet and has directed many barbed comments towards Scotland, Scots and Scottish culture including one noteworthy attack on Alex Salmond. In that he is very old school English academic. Given his years it is no surprise he views English culture through a particular and superior ethno-historic lens. In that respect he is the mould of the acerbic Dr Johnson.
Is he not entitled to his argumentative opinions? Words, after all, do not do lasting harm. In this case the references indicate a classic paroxysm of biliousness academics are prone to experience from time to time and which students will slough with humour and indulgent ease.
Wokedom, however, is not indulgent, certainly has no humour and is far from being at ease with itself.
Applying the full force of the state apparatus, the menace of Berufsverbot and similar repressive measures indicates the presence of a ‘bile’ of a different chemistry in the body politic which unless neutralized might well dissolve our Enlightenment right of free opinion altogether.
Perhaps we might thicken our collective skin and be less petty.
The right to disagree applies equally to government Covid strategy.
The BBC is now the biggest Covid risk. At every turn they turn medical and health decisions into a political attack on the sg and give air time to mask deniers, businesses who will not pay the price of their denial and the usual Sarah Smith view of the unionists world
The BBC is our biggest risk to health.
Ian B,
Having no revenue from fans is unsustainable for many clubs. they can expect to go to the wall before next June.
The first ‘wave’ was more like a round of deaths – not a wave.
My prediction, which I made in March, was for an average 60 deaths per day at peak for Scotland and I turned out to be correct – the people I presented it to went for the SG version which said in excess of 70,000 deaths, just for Scotland and just for the ‘first wave’.
There will be no second wave. If Scotland witnesses even half that, 30 deaths in a single day that is not a Monday (NHS didn’t think it was serious enough to put an actual Doctor on duty at the weekends to sign death certificates for the first round, so I don’t see them doing it for the second round), but if they do, hit 30 as I say, I will give the Rev £1000 to donate to a Charity of his choice.
Meanwhile, modelling says 2nd wave Oct/Nov, 3rd wave Feb/Mar and no doubt next week they will be handing us the 4th ‘wave’ dates.
I stood under our town war memorial today, quietly paying my respects, but I am now thinking it was all for nothing.
@Bipod,
Most viruses we know more about. This one we dont. America is proving that when the virus mutates it is changing to attach itself more easily to proteins.
Vaccines created this month may be useless next year should the speed of mutation increase
This is a lottery. It may become totally harmless or it may also become totally lethal.
That is why everybody is concerned. There is no certainty.
Aye, all those bloody wind turbines, generating relative clean bloody energy when compared to other sources of power. It’s a bloody disgrace creating all this clean energy when we could just be burning coal and oil…
Oh! But what’s this? Scotland yet again exporting over 100% more power than it is using.
https://extranet.nationalgrid.com/RealTime
Over 30% of GB Grid power currently being produced by wind.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
The issue over subsidies being paid to wind farm owners is not just limited to that type of power generation. Oil and gas companies also receive incentives and tax favouring policies.
As Energy is a power reserved to Westminster, we are effectively bound by their actions and limited ability to address the issues.
https://twitter.com/Zarkwan/status/1313403512517201921/photo/2
Bob,
I agree that we should be vigilant and continue to monitor the virus. If it mutates into something more sinister then that would be a time to be discussing lockdowns, not before surely?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M1YUNWG-LCs
@Breastplate,
Possibly right. However this virus is off the same group of RNA as say rabies and polio dengue fever.
Polio is again on the rise in Africa although to all intents and purposes it was wiped out over the world.
The latest strain( I kid you not) is from the actual vaccine itself, because elements of the the vaccine has mutated into another strain.
When the children are inoculated they get a dose of polio type 2 ,and it could pass to over 95% of other kids it is so infectious.
This is why health professionals are concerned. They know how dangerous this could become. It is not necessarily about today, but more probably next year.
Dan,
Scotland is the Golden Goose that Westminster must hang on to.
Why is it alright to laud Nicola Sturgeon for her handling of the bug crisis whilst believing that she conspired with others to have an innocent man sent to prison for the remainder of his life?
Some of us here are indulging in or tolerating *precisely* what we criticise WGD’s regulars for i.e. ‘denial’. And the fact that the same person is delivering the messages we disagree on should give some pause for thought.
It would be harder to find a clearer example of doublethink. We all have good and bad in us, aye, that’s a given, but positing Nicola Sturgeon as the embodiment of heroic leadership and nauseating betrayal simultaneously really is stretching it a bit.
Bob,
I agree with what you say, it’s a balance of all aspects of our society that needs to be found.
@Ian Brotherhood,
It’s just human nature. We tried to put people in a pedestal when you admire them.
Ask yourself this. When Alex Salmond was being crucified in the media did you believe a word of it? Me neither. My faith in him was unshakeable. Had he been convicted I would have doubted that as well.
People will see in their own time for their own reasons.
Until then_______
TIMELINE NS/AS
Timeline – updated today 10/10/20.
2014
18/9/14 Indy Ref 1
Nov 2014 NS made leader of SNP and FM Scotland
————————————————————————————————————
7th May 2015 UK GE – SNP win 56 seats
1st July 2015 Leslie Evans becomes Permanent Secretary Scotland
————————————————————————————————————
2016
5th May 2016 – Holyrood Election
23rd June 2016 Brexit Referendum
————————————————————————————————————
2017
16th March 2017 Terrible May officially rejects NS IR2 request. Now is not the Time.
4th May 2017 – Scottish Local Elections
8th June 2017 – Terrible May calls a GE and wins.
AS loses his seat.
NS takes IndyRef2 off the table. Now is not the time.
A marked difference in her attitude is seen.
‘Not until the Terms of Brexit are Known becomes the mantra.
13th June 2017 ? Not sure if this is correct date?- Ref-Scot taken down at £482,000 of £1 million target
The Brexit deadline time line is I think November 2018 ish.
Both Pete Wishart and Tommy Shepherd (Tommy did this in a public talk, as far as I can tell he was the first person to run this up the flagpole, since then he has kept his head down on this subject – his background is old/new labour) start to talk about ‘not until after Brexit and the hard effects are felt, should we go for IndyRef2’. PW is fully supported in this view by John Swinney.
July 2017 (source Civil Service World) HM Revenue and Customs confirm the go ahead on a new Civil Service Hub to be build at Waverly St, Edinburgh to staff 11 Civil Servant departments – 3,000 positions. 20 year lease taken out. Artisan the contractor.
Oct 2017 ScotGov begins review of complaints policy. Aamer Anwar makes allegations of ‘ticking time bomb’ ‘catalogue’ of sexual harassment at HR.
November 2017
9th November 2017 AS gets his own TV Show on RT. While the Yes movement is delighted at an evening up on the media inequality… the official SNP and NS – pursed lips all round.
17th Nov 2017 – Sky New reported to be actively investigating AS over historic incidents from 2008.
First Documentary ‘The Only Game In Town’ is aired on WOS.
Nov 2017 – Evans confirmed she raised the issue with Sturgeon after learning about media interest in an incident at Edinburgh Airport in 2008-9. Airport informed Angus Robertson (can’t pin down when).
8 Drafts of complaints procedures (for dealing with current and previous employees with regards harassment complaints) – all of which have official role for First Minister with the procedures
1st Dec 2017 Nicole Richards – Director of People – contacts James Hynd re draft number 9, its, ‘agreed with Permanent Secretary I would test it with some of the key individuals’
5th Dec 2017 Judith Mackinnon – Head of Peoples Advisor has meeting with Ms A and shared draft procedures with her.
6th December 2017 Nicole Richards sends ‘final draft (9) to PS Leslie Evans which is approved by NS. This draft, unlike the previous 8 excludes the First Minister from any formal role in the process.
—————————————————————————————————————
Jan 2018
Sky News approaches the SNP re allegations of a sexual nature against AS. This may be the first complaint registered with Scot Gov against AS, or indeed the first complaint by employee may have been registered at this time, its not clear.
Feb 2018 Murray Foote Resigns from DR
March 2018
Liz Lloyd meeting Aberdein 6th March 2018
She claimed the complaints she mentioned to Aberdein re Salmond were to do with Airportgate
Not the backdated Government enquiry about which she claimed she did not know at the time.
https://archive.is/CGDZF
Mid March Geoff Aberdein is contacted by NS aids to set up a meeting with her on 29th March – this is not mentioned in any way, or officially recorded (as far as we yet know) in NS evidence to the inquiry.
GA can corroborate this contact, and has provided this information under oath at AS criminal trial.
29th March 2018
NS meets with Aberdein (who is according to NS, in parliament to see former colleague) and is informed of AS issue – according to her for the first time. Meeting takes place at Holyrood, in her office – and she later ‘forgets’ the timing of this meeting possibly due to not being supposed to hold party meetings in this venue.
Meeting and all those present is NOT officially recored in the FM’s diary.
(At FMQ on 8/10/20 she refers to it (not exact wording) as an off the cuff type meeting, fleeting/head round the door.
In contrast to GA who describes it clearly under oath as pre-arranged, and has since stated it lead to him seeking legal advice prior to attending.)
She lied to Scottish Parliament about when she was first made aware of the complaints.
April 2018
2/4/18 NS thinks AS will resign (from her whats app messages/evidence)
Rumours abound within Yes Movement at this time that NS is soon to step down from Holyrood, and possibly go on to a big job at UN.
WM votes to illegally bomb Syria.
Legal appeal against Brexit begins.
22/4/18 AS sends NS message
May 2018 Brexit – attitudes to Indy due to Brexit, ways of gaining Indy all still being talked about.
31/5/18 AS sends message to NS requesting a meet.
June 2018
3/6/18 AS threatens legal action. Asks for Permanent Secretary to be notified re sorting the matter out by legal arbitration procedures. Alerts NS that her current procedures are likely to be found unlawful and as a qualified lawyer and FM she is expected to review it and made a decision.
6/6/18 PS notified by NS
7/6/18 NS meets AS alone
SNP high in Polls
13/6/18 SNP walk out of WM in protest at treatment of the Skye Banker and what was to become the UK Internal Market Bill. Marked overnight increase in SNP membership, international media coverage of same.
Same Date Iain McWhirter writes about Devolution ending not with a bang but a whimper over this bill.
23/6/19 MSP Mark Macdonald Scandal***
July 2018
4th July 2018 – Scotland Claim of Right passed at WM
5th July NS has meeting with AS
18/7/18 No further contact after this date
Wings over Scotland has its You Tube BBC content taken down without its knowledge by BBC in London.*** Why? What footage did they want removed and why? Peter Curran’s web site also taken down. *** As far as can be seen there was nothing in the WOS footage that might have had any reference to the above. With regards Peter Curran’s website footage – unable to check. He took his site down later, concerned about criticism of the SNP GRA policy.
August 2018
17th August WOS appears in court re Kezia Dugdale
19th August Campaign in Edinburgh by many English people campaigning for Peoples Vote on Brexit and begging Scotland to assist. Apparently they don’t thing the Brexit Referndum was won fairly – when IndyRef1 unfairness pointed out to them – tumbleweed.
Kirsty Hughes – lobbyist for same – also showed up on list of ‘journalists’ who have received same ‘support’ from some Anglo/America consortium. Dani Garavelli was also on the list. Later on DG reports on the AS trial could be construed as ‘jigsaw identifying one of the complainers in AS trial’ (For obvious reasons I’m being diplomatic with this sentence.)
UK Brexit Appeal lodged
Allegations against AS made public. Civil law complaints, 2 complainers at this time. (Was it 2 complainers on 29th March 2018? If not then when, where and by what means did the second one come forward?)
AS initiates Record Breaking fund raiser and instigates Judicial Appeal. Rumours abound that SNP membership increased dramatically overnight in response – no confirmation from SNP re this in anyway.
30th August 2018 Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans meets with Civil Servant Unions to attempt to gain support against AS.
Sept 2018 Polling shows support of Indy increasing due to brexit
Oct 2018 AUOB march – Edinburgh big turnout
Nov 2018 Brexit deadline reached – Transition period entered. No talk from NS or other top SNP members as to how we save Scotland. Not until the Terms of Brexit are Known is the mantra, and the sound of the can rattles down the road again.
Dec 2018
19th Vote of No Confidence in Terrible May at WM. Boris elected. Actions by the Labour party ensure Brexit No deal is the only game in town.
————————————————————————————————————-
January 2019
AS Airbrushed out of SNP Website. NS has ordered top SNP politicians not to appear on his RT Show. AS puts pressure on her on his show, to call a second IR.
During this month or the next NS manages to recollect she had that meeting with Aberdein on 29th March 2018. Does nothing to update the official record of same, at this time.
8/1/19 AS wins Court of Judiciary process – procedure deemed unfair and tainted by apparent bias.
The Times calls for Leslie Evans to be sacked.
20/1/19 LE contract of employment extended (possibly with 20,000 £ pay rise)
From memory – it was within weeks of AS initial win that Criminal Procedures were taken out against him. Over 20 Police officers allocated to investigate him, to come up with a prosecution case that can best be described as flimsy in the extreme.
January 2019
Feb 2019 Brexit, nothing resembling a plan from the SNP
March 2019 Another Brexit Deadline comes and goes, no real progress, transition extended.
23/3/19 Kezia Dugdale v WOS defamation trial
April 2019
24/4/19 NS puts before Holyrood legislation for HR to hold referendums without permission from WM. This will be legally challenged by WM if it ever gets put into action.
May 2019
6th May AUOB march in Glasgow 100,000
End May GE called for December
June 2019 GE talk
14th June 2019 – New Civil Service Hub at Edinburgh – Queen Elizabeth House, officially opens. To house 3000 civil servant staff. Widely thought to be preparation to take over duties from Holyrood, once power grab and Brexit are complete.
To put this in perspective 1 year from announcement of 20 year lease, to building being ready for move in. All with public money at a time of Austerity!!!
July 2019
4th July Mhairi Black posts video of herself referring to all who have reservations about GRA Self ID as ‘Jeremy Hunts’. It is around about this time she is seen in HOC’s putting her hand in her pocket and then taking her hand out rubbing her finger round her gums. Concerns were raised that this is classic Cocaine misuse behaviour – she laughed this off dismissively and stated she was finishing off a piece of Kit Kat.
30th July 2019 NEC attempts to de-select Joanna Cherry as MP.
August 2019
Westminster Brexit Coup
Polling shows Support for IndyRef2 growing
Sept 2019
WM unlawfully prorogued – as found by court after action by MP Joanna Cherry
SNP policy now officially ‘Stop Brexit’ Full support for Peoples Vote on a second Brexit Vote
20/9/19 The Times reports on allegations NS is failing to keep proper records of her Government business, specifically referring to June ’19.
Oct 2019
SNP at WM prevent a Vote of No Confidence in Boris.
Tories High in polls (UK)
16th Oct 2019 – NS to DEMAND powers for Holyrood to hold Referendums. Pretty much empty rhetoric to play to the home crowd. Presumably she’ll thqeem and thqeeum and thqeem if Boris says no.
SNP policy is now openly calling for second Brexit ‘peoples vote’ on Brexit.
Electorial Commission demand 9 months notice for any further Indy Ref.. Indy Ref 2 now pencilled in for second half of 2020. ‘Trust in Nicola’ becomes the theme.
Nov 2019 Only Game in Town part 2 is shown on WoS. Leslie Evens is named within for questionable actions.
The Times reports NS handwritten notes have not been kept and have been destroyed, NS avoids using her Scot Gov e-mail system, Conservatives report her to Public Records Scotland Act 2011 for possible breach.
Dec 2019
Wings over Scotland Twitter account suspended weeks, just weeks before AS trial is due to go ahead, following complaints from woke members of SNP. And just in time for the GE.
GE Neale Harvey and Denise Findlay suspended from SNP over dubious, if not spurious complaints, and with little regard for proper procedures for carrying out same.
SNP withdraws all funding for Neil’s GE campaign and instructs SNP supporters not to assist him. He gets elected anyway.
Motive thought to have been for having signed the Womans Pledge, and complaints thought to have been instigated by Woke element within SNP.
—————————————————————————————————————
Jan 2020
11/1/20 Boris says No, to the full support of the English voting constituency.
31/1/20 Brexit officially happens – NS gives much hyped speech during which it becomes apparent there was no Plan A, never mind a cunning plan B. ‘Trust in Nicola’ not such a good theme.
Feb 2020
Covid getting closer. GRA under ‘consultation’ open to every country under the sun to contribute. Somerville openly declares her determination to push it through. Only organisations openly biased in favour are getting ministerial time to present their case.
Polls show agenda to be major vote loser.
Murray Foote infamous creator of the VOW, converts from No to Yes and is employed by SNP as media expert.
March 2020
23/3/20 AS trail – Cleared on all charges. Journalists with pro indy credentials excluded from the trial and subsequently charged with contempt of court for quoting main stream media reports verbatim.
Craig Murray the only journalist (as far as I’m aware) to record and publish, in any detail, the evidential statements given by defence witnesses. A trial in search of a crime, best description of it.
No comments of support, or compassion or relief of any kind toward AS and his wife, over whole debauchle from official SNP reps.
Covid Lockdown begins.
Boris is a complete wreck. His cabinet are not any better.
NS holds daily press conferences and receives good press for same. Support for Indy rises to 55%. No other campaigning. The official line from NS is two fold,
I’m totally focused on Covid, and
Indref 2 is off the table until the economic effects of Covid are dealt with – which could be a decade or more… The can is not so much kicked down the road as rocket launched into the stratosphere.
Aug/Sept 2020 Kirsty Wark does a hatchet job on the AS trial, so biased even journalists on the Telegraph noticed. Widely referred to as ‘a nasty piece of Wark’.
30 Sept 2020 UK Internal Market Bill passed (first hearing) at WM – second hearing due late Oct 2020.
NS unable to delegate to her Health ministers for ANY single press briefings even months down the line.
October 2020 – final transition period for Brexit deadline November – now approaching and No Deal the only thing on the cards.
Internal UK Market Bill passed at WM an open destruction of devolution and power grab. 3000 civil servants moved into Edinburgh to fascilitate same. SNP official policy – `now is not the time’ ‘Only when we can win’ Covid, covid, covid, look at the polls, look at the polls, look at the polls.
So, that’s it for the moment.
Somebody posted a link to onlineSpiked. Talk about scraping the barrel.
@Bob Mack –
You ask a fair question re Salmond.
The truth is, I did believe there had to be at least some substance to it all – ‘No smoke without fire’ and all that. It’s embarrassing to admit that now but it’s the truth and it was utterly heartbreaking.
If I hadn’t kept up to speed by reading this place then I would’ve done what I did years ago, when Tommy Sheridan’s ‘alleged’ shenanigans blew the SSP to bits – I turned my back on Scottish politics and switched off radio/TV if any mention of Tommy or SSP was made. It wasn’t until the SNP victory in 2011 that I made myself take an interest again and that was solely because AS had promised an indy referendum.
You’re right – no-one’s perfect. None of the politicians, and certainly none of us. But we can’t affect their lives the way they affect ours and it’s our responsibility to take them to task when they’re out of order. Otherwise they can just do what they fuckin well please and that’s exactly how it feels to me right now.
God only knows we have no right to expect ‘perfect’ government. And so long as democracy means human beings being chosen to make decisions on our behalf it’ll never happen. But neither should we tolerate being treated as livestock. I’ll go to prison before seeing my children virtually ‘branded’ and will politely decline to attend for my ‘vaccine’ jab. And if that makes me a second-class citizen, so be it. As a Scot, governed by people who openly despise me, my family, friends, neighbours, culture and history, I got used to that unpleasant fact a long time ago.
@Ian Brotherhood,
That’s why we do what we are doing Ian. I think more and more folk are beginning to see the changes required.
There will of course remain a hard-core group who will tolerate no criticism because they believe heart and soul in their chosen leader.
Faith can both move mountains or thrust you into perpetrating and accepting indescribable horror. Its the nature of humanity.
Ian Brotherhood, I think it’s an awkward situation – we need clear messaging from government, controlling infections needs the oversight of government. So Nicola Sturgeon is usually pretty good at making speeches and communicating – all she does in the daily briefs is read out what others give her: statistics and public health information – and government policy, rules and stuff. She should have stuck to only doing the latter – she knows no more than you or I about medical things and diseases, she can’t inform us of useful things about why we need to do stuff because she doesn’t have the knowledge, experience or skills required for that.
‘Doing better than Boris’ is not really an aspiration is it?
Nicola Sturgeon should have delegated the daily briefs to those that actually know what they are talking about – Jeanne Freeman and Jason Leitch are there, quite capable, and should have led the daily stuff. Nicola Sturgeon should only do either once a week or when there are policy changes. This would give maximum impact to new rules being declared, and given us some education about how infections work etc from the daily briefs. That would have been the best choice for our wellbeing.
What Nicola Sturgeon has done has made the briefings a political exercise – using it for maximum exposure to up her popularity rating. That’s the sort of thing that politicians do, I have no beef with that. But. It would be a bit more honourable if she did it for the SNP and independence.
The message she puts across, the rules she is imposing, are not ‘hers’ – we should be grateful she is listening to advice, and at least doing some of it – the messages come from medical folk and public health officials, NS is just a mouthpiece here, in the main.
The problem with her strategy is that because she has taken all the ‘glory’ (if you can call it that) for herself, as soon as public trust in her disappears (it starts to crumble) people will stop following the rules and things will go awry.
Because of her selfish desire for popularity and more power for herself, and because of her previous lies and behaviour being exposed, she really does risk our health. She started off badly, following Westminster, but altered her stance just enough to continue projecting the ‘caring persona’ that so many still believe, or want to believe. So we have done better from this than England, but it has hardly been a stellar performance. She doesn’t know enough about either infections or how the economy works to do stellar in this situation.
So – the messages and rules should not be undermined, we need them, but she puts us in the awkward situation where it is her delivering the messages, so we lack trust – it’s political game playing and we are being used.
It is difficult – the message itself should not be undermined (it might not be great, but it’s better than nothing), and she has made it so we can’t criticise her without doing the undermining. Nasty piece of work.
Your latest is getting a lot of well deserved traffic, Chris, and I enjoyed the pub’s name ‘The Persistent Cough’.
Your essential weekend reading:
‘Civil Disobedience’: https://wp.me/p4fd9j-oNR
It would appear that Nicola Sturgeon is channelling her inner John Knox, but rather than rail against the daemon drink and the “monstrous regiment of women”, she seems to have something against the “monstrous regiment” of decent, ordinary, working-class Scots. She’s not so much a Joan of Arc as a Queen Anne of England type figure! With less than 1% of the population at risk of dying from Covid-19, why are restrictions imposed which affect 100% of the population? Covid-1984 indeed! “The psychosis of mass fear creates fear.”
Any idea when our law makers might appreciate that their determination to stand under and support anti-foundational legal pseudo-science (Brexit and genderwoowoo), is simply incompatible with the support of public health and the rule-of-law?
International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, List of Issues, Vol. 10, No. 1
Whither Bioethics Now? The Promise of Relational Theory
https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/ijfab.10.1.7?journalCode=ijfab
With reference to todays cartoon, Scotland is being completely scammed and lied to by the Scottish government, concerning Covid.
Their official position is that in their view, the schools are safe. Covid isn’t being spread from the schools. Of course, everyone and their dug knows this not to be the case but here’s the catch:
The Scottish government are blaming the rise in cases on the socialising in pubs and restaurants, so they’ve shut them down for two weeks at precisely the same time as the school holidays.
Reported cases will now drop and the Scottish government will say ‘See? We told you. It WAS the fault of the pubs and restaurants.’
Coincidentally yet again, when the schools go back after the holidays, the pubs and places also re-open. Again, there will be a rise in cases but because they Scottish government can’t afford to close the schools, their position will be unshakeable when they continue to tell people that the schools are safe.
Then they’ll point to the re-opening of the pubs and restaurants and say ‘See? We told you. We were right, that’s where the increases in cases is coming from!’
There is a clear ideologically driven anti-alcohol agenda at play here under the guise of the Coronavirus Act 2020.
The Scottish government are scamming Scotland.
Ottomanboi, it takes a very long time to open the eyes of those that don’t want to see,
And we are often mocked beforehand, in the wokeness of ignorance, but then when it’s to late, well we all know how that ends,
There are those still thinking the snp are perfect, and there are those that think snp are all bad, and there are those that thought Scottish independence was done and dusted, there are those that wish it was,
But the truth eventually comes out,
A nice starting place for none believers starts with one simple question,
Why did Australia, America, Britain, Germany etc etc, decide that the best place to to put patients with covid symptoms was in amongst the most vulnerable people in society, Old people’s homes, not provide protective garments and masks in these homes until late on, then lock those homes down,
That has to be crimes against humanity. These old people had no way to escape this eugenics policy.
In my opinion managing the virus is even more trickier for the Scottish government than the English one, simply because we don’t have the borrowing powers that Westminster has, to offset job losses, Scotland mainly relies on the English chancellor in this matter.
If we had the borrowing powers, we might have been able to tread another path but as it is, its a balancing act between restrictions and the economy the latter will suffer, and job losses will be great because we as a nation cannot borrow cash to provide temporarily laid off workers, who might become permanently laid off with a bit of financial security.
Properly funded workers by the government, helps those folk to stop worrying about every day bills, and also allows them t focus more on following the rules with regards to the virus.
Ask yourselves this if you had very little money and the bills were piling up what would be your first concern, following the rules on Covid? or taking care of your family?
I can appreciate folks unease at the apparent incoherence of policy choices and somewhat cack-handedness of implementation, but that is a characteristic of neo-liberal government. Neo-liberal government is simply a bit dysfunctional and fragmented, so is disabled in its’ capacity for joined-up thinking and action. Saying that, when did supporting the human right individuals have to maintain their biological integrity, become oppressive government?
Please don’t reject public health ethics just because our colonial administration is impaired in its’ capacity for ethical government.
What Role for Law, Human Rights, and Bioethics in an Age of Big Data, Consortia Science, and Consortia Ethics? The Importance of Trustworthiness
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4558936/
@Grouse Beater says:
10 October, 2020 at 3:38 pm
“‘Civil Disobedience’: https://wp.me/p4fd9j-oNR”
If you are so keen about civil disobedience then lead by example.
William Wallace and Good King Robert, must have experienced it and felt totally frustrated by it, clans failing to unite against a common enemy that is.
Fast forward to today, and we have the SSP, the ISP and the Greens snubbing without actually talking to the Action for Independence party, about coming under their umbrella to eject the likes of Wells, Fraser etc from the Holyrood chamber.
A one off team up could’ve added more independence minded MSP’s via the list vote, and put pressure on the SNP to actually become more pro-active in the indy department, or even help remove Sturgeon and Murrell, but childish self centred me, me, me, attitudes have knocked that on the head.
My list vote will be going to Action for Independence, which appears to be a bit more of a grown up party than the others mentioned.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18781277.action-independences-invite-unite-snubbed-political-parties/
@Contrary –
I wish I had taken note of the time this was said by Leitch on Off The Ball – he made it clear that these decisions are being made by him and the FM. The extent to which they are ‘informed’ by science is not clear. If scientists are involved, why aren’t they doing the briefings? And if they aren’t involved, that makes the decisions, essentially, ‘political’ (not in the sense of propaganda), or ‘common sense’ or however else you want to put it.
The point is that these decisions are being made by two individuals who are no more qualified in the science of epidemiology than you or me. That cannot be right and we must call it out. They are putting intolerable pressures on almost everyone.
Why the fuck do we put up with this? How did we become so supine? It is shameful, and it’s our fault for allowing ourselves to get so lazy and stupid.
What dignity is there in surviving if it means you’re on your knees, doing someone else’s bidding without even really understanding why? I actually feel embarrassed having to write these comments – it’s been seven fuckin months since this shite started, more than long enough for people to do their own homework. And the proof is out there. It won’t appear on the msm, and no-one -especially in here! – should expect it to. But no – easier to just parrot the non-sequiturs, get barked into silence by blowhard amateurs and armchair scientists, and comply with whatever diktats are issued from the sainted Nicola and her pet, Jason.
The first act of Cvil Disobedience will be when the Yes Movement starts to campaign, off its own back, to save Scotland, and stops sitting on its arse, waiting for a tartan messiah -of any description – to ‘lead’ them.
And for anyone who thinks they can’t do it. They did that very thing in 2014, after waiting in vane for the SNP (under AS at the time, it should be pointed out) to produce something better than the white paper to inspire folk.
And for those who think we need a common goal.
First we get support for Indy over 60% by years end. All official SNP claims that Scotland ‘isn’t ready yet’ for another vote on Indy are blown out the water once that index is reached.
Ian Brotherhood @4.18pm.
Ian.
What about the infection rates and the death, which are both rising, are you saying that we shouldn’t do anything? Or what would you like to see done differently that would make a big difference?
As I said in my 3.59pm comment the Scottish governments approach is severely hampered by a lack of cash, we cannot borrow enough money to pay staff, and in some cases employers laid off temporarily, due to the restrictions, which brings us full circle back to the rising cases and deaths.
Not being an independent nation hits us harder financially I think as Westminster controls the purse strings.
Our government’s capacity to respond to covid-19, is undermined and disabled by its’ lack of autonomy and apparent lack of access to sound legal advice. A respect for public health ethics enables democracy, but that is state of affair that simply does not exist in Brexitania. So what I think we are seeing is an attempt to follow best practice, that is constrained and undermined by British nationalism, and its’ ambivalence towards the Natural law. Which is the existential kernel of “universality”, so you are on to plumbs if your looking for justice in Scotland. 🙁
Human Rights Review volume 18, pages 171–187 (2017)
Respect for Persons in Bioethics: Towards a Human Rights-Based Account
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12142-017-0450-x
@Republicofscotland –
No, I’m not saying we ‘do nothing’.
At least half a dozen of us have regularly been posting links, since this started, which turn The Leitch Narrative (i.e. whatever the ‘official’ line happens to be on any given day) on its head.
In March and April, those links were greeted with fury. Now, the response is much more muted and thoughtful and some of the loudest cheerleaders for total compliance have gone quiet or shifted to pastures new.
Do you think that I, or anyone else, courts unpopularity on purpose? Do you think lockdown critics love their grandparents and children and care for their neighbours and communities any less than everyone else? Why would I do that? What’s the incentive for me?
We’re doing it because we believe that this ‘crisis’ is premised on deception. The whos and whys are for others to determine – our job right now is to object to what’s being done because it is wrong and we’re doing that, at least in part, on behalf of those who cannot do it for themselves.
Ian Brotherhood
I’m trained in how to support public health and the rule-of-law, you’re not. That’s a simple fact of life that has some bearing on the competence of our capacity to judge the situation. Yet you simply don’t appear to be open minded enough to accept that, and appear determined to undermine social solidarity in the face of a serious health threat. So I’m way past beginning to have my doubts about you. Get a grip ffs.
@Contrary 3:27pm,
“‘Doing better than Boris’ is not really an aspiration is it?”
Most of us do better than that by around 9AM each day!
Seeing some of the twitter comments from English folk in my industry about how restrictions are being handled, it sounds like the tories are closing the breweries because they couldn’t organise a piss-up in one!
.
Pacman,
Thankyou for sharing your post.
You are not alone. Many folk, myself included share your view, your style of life and the fact you are doing your best, like so many of the rest of us.
I would like to agree with Nicola Sturgeon as she is an excellent administrator, communicator and is right in respect of the dilemma within the sketch at the top of this page by Chris Cairns.
Someone mentioned KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).
I think Nicola would have communicated better if she had said…
“We want to keep as many cafes and social places where Covid-safe meeting can take place. But when people imbibe alcohol and get pished, social distancing goes out of the window. So any cafe/restaurant with a liquor licence will close. Alcohol-free places are safer and can stay open to help preserve mental health of folk turning into isolated Nuns and Monks”.
I would like to say that and commend Nicola Sturgeon, but Stuart Campbell has researched her background well.
As a result, I have no doubt Sturgeon and Her accomplice Porky Pendold Murrell’s fingerprints are all over the dagger that back-stabbed Alex Salmond.
If she had any honour, she would resign.
Sturgeon is an over-promoted office manager and turned into a wrecker who selfishly sacrifices the Scottish nation’s right to self-determination for her own greed of wealth and avarice of high office. Sturgeon is denying us IndyRef2.
Pacman, keep on going pal. Do your best. I absolutely agree with your post.
Especially as it is a fact that Covid19 is an insidious plague. It can be passed from one person to another as simply and lethally as sharing a salt shaker…
https://tinyurl.com/LancetCovidGermany
Contrary: “we have done better from this than England”
No we haven’t. Glasgow is about as bad as anywhere in England.
In terms of Scotland as a whole, the data is skewed by population density but, even at that, mortality rates are within the same sort of range.
She couldn’t resist jumping in front of the camera and doing her Mother Theresa act. Well, that’s all well and good, but the bodies are going to be piling up soon – she can’t take credit for the good stuff and say the bad stuff is Westminster’s fault.
A smarter person would have understood all that and saw the potential pitfalls.
The tragedy is that the only political buoyancy she has right now is provided this vile disease. Well, let’s see how long that keeps her afloat.
There’s a lesson here, isn’t there; don’t stab your grassroots and their heroes in the back. Normally the Indy movement would out arguing for her and protecting her. She has nobody.
She could have been honest and this disease could have been a bigger boon to the Indy cause than even Brexit. But, no, that wouldn’t work, not when your selfish goal is to be some global leader on Coronavirus.
If she was a British agent Scotland would have gotten more out of her reign.
“We’re doing it because we believe that this ‘crisis’ is premised on deception. The whos and whys are for others to determine ”
Ian.
I want shot of Sturgeon and Murrell and their clique just as much as the next man, we have sufficient evidence on them with regards to the Salmond fit up, Hirst and Murray etc.
However there’s peoples lives at stake here with the virus, you’ll need more than just we think there’s deception going on with the restrictions etc to get people on board.
Ian,
Yes, the answer is for everyone to educate themselves.
Leitch is a blowhard, politically speaking, but he is an effective communicator, was able to put up his hands to anything he said wrong, and understands things from a medical point of view. I don’t listen any more mind you, so couldn’t say if there has been improvement or more mince. The point is, Nicola Sturgeon is not the one that should be discussing public health measures.
Because Leitch and Sturgeon are trying to hog the limelight, you think it’s them that are doing everything ,,,
‘The science’ is meaningless politic-speak for more meaningless empty rhetoric. I’m hardly going to ask an oceanographer how to treat earache am I? ‘Science’ : pish and piffle. It’s public health and infectious diseases experts that should have the biggest say in what to do – epidemiologists are the ones gathering data and putting things together on a broader scale to inform those experts.
If NS has alternative agendas running, it isn’t relevant in the immediate short-term, there needs to be some rules and restrictions (in the absence of better policies etc – yes, they should be there, yes much more should be getting done, yes we should have more trustworthy government, but) there has to be coordination of measures from central government (no, there should not be total control by central government, no there should not be conflicting and confusing rules, no they should not be destroying our economy and making us all destitute in the meantime,,,) – the importance of good government suddenly becomes the most important issue. Well, we (collectively, I don’t mean individuals) sat on our arses and did nothing about it, and this is what we get. Replacing NS would be a good start.
We have TWO shit governments, both of which give us shit information. Learn about hygiene and infection control yourself, then apply it and educate others. Until you do, you need to follow the rules, because that’s all we have if we don’t understand the mechanisms at play.
In saying that – we are lazy and supine because that’s what our political leaders want, we are forced to be like this through social pressure and regulation (everything from town planning, to employment laws), we aren’t allowed the luxury of space, money and time to ,,, live well essentially. I hate this consumerism everything is a rush lets reward sociopathic behaviour world.
Balaaargh,
😀 thanks for your post, made me laugh. (Thumbs up thingy)
“we are forced to be like this through social pressure and regulation (everything from town planning, to employment laws), we aren’t allowed the luxury of space, money and time to ,,,”
This, though town planners don’t make the laws or try to place politics above them. 😉
https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/198821
Grouse Beater @ 3.38
You are absolutely right in what you say, Grouse Beater, in that the downtrodden, the oppressed people, are the groups who are most supportive of independence, as I also found in research for my book ‘Doun-Hauden’.
Frantz Fanon well explained the decolonisation process, and which appears to be playing out in Scotland now. How a dominant National Party invariably ‘reaches an accommodation with colonialism’, which falls short of real independence or national liberation. How the ‘pampered bourgeoisie’ native and many (not all) of the ‘workers’ (those with jobs, especially those with ‘safer’ and higher pay jobs e.g. ‘key (i.e. state) workers’) tend to ignore or deny the native oppression and keep their heids doon an oot the wey. It is left to the lumpen proletariat to bring about the change necessary, and who march for freedom, and who will promote and support a new National Party where the existing one stops short of the real goal and is unwilling to go further.
Whilst Scotland’s oppressive colonial reality is evident to many Scots, ‘vested interest’ groups, which include the dominant National Party, remain less supportive or active. This is further reflected in Michael Hechter’s (1998) research work on ‘internal colonialism’ in the UK and the resultant ‘cultural division of labour’ in which the Scots speaking Scot is consigned to discrimination and marginalisation/oppression by the imposed dominant Anglophone culture and meritocracy, and hence unable to access resources or status in their own land. This is likewise reflected in the divide in the vote, which is a cultural and linguistic divide, Yes voters mostly comprising working class Scots speakers, the No vote being composed rather differently, i.e. tending to be more Anglophone and better off.
Some Scots still think independence is simply about the matter of better or more ‘competent’ governance, an SNP mantra, but its not; Scottish national independence, as with any decolonisation, is fundamentally about the national liberation of an oppressed people and their culture, and their nation as well.
Ian Brotherhood….Your hatred of Sturgeon et al is blinding you to the actual reality of a PANDEMIC i.e. World wide epidemic.
This is a separate issue from Sturgeon and her shenanigans and showboating. One of my oldest friends died of Covid 19 in the last two months, and I know of others who have ‘recovered’ and are still struggling with a variety of issues that are debilitating. I have spoken to doctors and a medical scientist, and believe me this virus is real and deadly.
By conflating the ‘messengers’ : Sturgeon and Leitch with the message is wrong. They are taking medical and research based information into account. Knowledge which is changing as understanding of the virus is being elicited day by day.
Yes, the message is political..but that is the case everywhere.It is based on the real politic of each country under threat. As it is I don’t agree with the Scot Gov approach, but I understand the ‘lock step’ with England for the reasons others have outlined: that of the Barnet Consequentials limitation on spending and more importantly borrowing.
Sturgeon may not be what anybody on here wanted, but she and Boris would not wilfully create an army of unemployed for some machiavellian purpose. The ‘Illumnati’ have far better ways of controlling the world.Already resistance is growing amongst the uncommitted population and it is a certainty that the orange unionist rump will soon be organising. Sturgeon’s current popularity will disappear faster than snow off a dyke the longer this crisis persists.
Please don’t align yourself with the Andrew Wakefields of this world..and the vaccine deniers and the alt rite cranks that are now popping up on this site to divide and conquer. Remember, in less than 3 x months, real fascism will descend on our devolved assembly and our country in the shape of the Internal market and the final stripping of our Sovereignty by our oldest enemy.
Jack collatin says:
10 October, 2020 at 9:46 am
Completely agree. Sick of folk thinking that because neither they or any of their family have succumbed that it’s all a big conspiracy. I’ve been practically isolating since 9th March because I’m carer for a family member who has had a previous bad experience with flu. That occasion had him in an induced coma for 2 weeks and left him severely weakened ever since – and he’s only 55. Covid could finish him off. I don’t care what the govt or any idiot says – I’m not relaxing my routine until I feel it’s safe to do so. I don’t want the death of a family member on my conscience.
Cameronbrodie you seem to have been brainwashed in your education, with the inability to think for yourself, everything is a quote or paraphrase,
You never answered in your own words how so many countries seemed to have identical political policies on putting covid patients in the old people’s home?
and while not providing protective gear beforehand.
Then enforcing that with lockdown of care homes,
These actions around the world are crimes against humanity
CameronB Brodie
I’m reading that a conspiracy is ‘a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful’.
It has been unearthed that: a) there would appear to be evidence of a conspiracy, and; b) that this may have been unlawful.
How should Scotland’s law officers be dealing with this? Has an investigation begun?
A word of advice to the guys on the skeptical side of the Covid debate.
Save your energy. Stop trying to argue with people who will find anything at all to protect their illusions about the world.
A far more profitable use of your time is to simply save any official releases and updates you find and let the professionals do the talking for you.
The people you SHOULD be talking to are the people who already get it and building support groups for sharing info, giving comfort and organising if necessary.
Leave the zombies to it.
Lochside @5.49pm.
Yes I tend to agree with what you are saying, you just have to look at the resurgence of the virus in cities Paris, Madrid and Manchester to see that its certainly not on the retreat.
There are some countries that are doing better than others possibly because their citizens has been more compliant with the restrictions, unfortunately the UK isn’t one of them.
We now tend to look at Sturgeon through a prism of dubiety on every matter, we certainly know of her shameless deceitfulness on the likes of independence and of the Salmond fit up. However I can’t see yet, any machinations surrounding the handling of the restrictions with regards to the virus, its possible things may arise at a later date, I don’t know, certainly some sort of inquiry in the future will be needed.
My condolences on losing your friend.
James Che
You appear to consider a professional training to be “brainwashing”, so I’ll not be taking you too seriously. I’m simply ably to point folk towards practical and ethically sourced knowledge that could be useful in the support of democracy, though I’m unable to answer your question as the inter-cultural sociology of covi-19 is not fully clear yet. Though it’s pretty obvious the more overtly neo-liberal the regime, the higher the death-toll is likely to be.
Not got anything better than lame snark?
Alf Baird
Sorry, but I can’t be specific, as that’s a bit outwith the scope of my competence. This might be the sort of thing your thinking of though, in terms of how to keep check of our law officers. 😉
MISFEASANCE IN PUBLIC OFFICE:
A VERY PECULIAR TORT
http://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/1703517/35_1_1.pdf
Joe….or is it G.I. Joe?
‘alt rite cranks that are now popping up on this site to divide and conquer.’
That’s you you fucker.
Republicofscotland says:
Appreciated. My pal was a good man and a strong supporter of Scotland’s freedom, which he didn’t live to see, unfortunately.
I don’t want to find myself on the floor again gasping for breath and unable to dial 999 so that alcohol pushers can enjoy an enhanced lifestyle and self-indulgent twats can go on the piss.
I’m so selfish.
Cameron Brodie
Thanks for that. From your source this looks interesting:
“..the decision of the House of Lords in Three Rivers District Council v Bank of England [No 3] (‘Three Rivers’).13 Building on
Mengel and Garrett, their Lordships said that misfeasance required either deliberate harm or knowingly illegal conduct in circumstances where the official had suspected that the plaintiff would suffer harm and consciously chose to run
that risk.”
A blog by Roger Mullin for a Saturday nicht read.
https://www.independentview.org/post/what-is-to-be-done
@Lochside –
Sincerely sorry for your loss.
I always read your comments and get something from them. On this occasion we will just have to disagree and wait to see how things pan out.
Let me just make two points and then I’ll shut up about it, let others have their say.
Firstly, I will not be accepting vaccination. If that makes me part of some disenfranchised underclass, a form of ‘untouchable’, so be it. At least I’ll have plenty of company.
And the second is this – I honestly don’t hate anyone. Not Nicola Sturgeon, Leitch, or anyone else.
😉
Breastplate says: 10 October, 2020 at 2:09 pm
I assume you live in Scotland and with previous comments you are not happy with. Since in your opinion Sweden is doing better then maybe the best option is to emigrate there. The link to do so is here:
https://sweden.se/migration/
Alf Baird
This is what I can come up with, after a bit if deeper thought, and remembering that this situation falls specifically within my limited competence. 😉
An Introduction to Green Criminology and Environmental Justice
Chapter 10: Repairing The Harm: Restorative Justice And Environmental Courts
https://sk.sagepub.com/books/an-introduction-to-green-criminology-and-environmental-justice/i535.xml
International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy
Green Criminology: Reflections, Connections, Horizons
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/74370848.pdf
COVID-19 and Tort Law: Examining liability for spreading the Virus
https://www.latestlaws.com/articles/covid-19-and-tort-law-examining-liability-for-spreading-the-virus/
Al-Stuart says: 10 October, 2020 at 4:55 pm
Politicians need to take advice from health professionals and make political positions in the wider context that goes beyond the health side only.
They simply can’t make political positions based on advice given by health professionals alone. If in the long run the Scottish Government has been proven to do that then history will remember them.
“It is a crime at common law for a public official, a person entrusted with an official situation of trust, wilfully to neglect his duty, even where no question of danger to the public or to any person is involved”.239
239 Gordon, The Criminal Law of Scotland (3rd ed 2001) vol ii at [44-01]. See Appendix F for further comparative analysis.”
I’ve been told by a legal expert that this law has not been used for over a 100 years. However, I cannot confirm this is correct.
Ian Brotherhood….fair do’s…I don’t like disagreeing with a long time Wings’fellow traveller’.
@Dan,
I read that blog by Mr Mullin, but to be honest it left me somewhat flat. He talks about not being vocal in public but then goes on to say that he is really only answerable to the party membership.
That’s fine as far as it goes but the party membership would only guarantee around 100,000 votes (if that).
The simpler truth is that he is answerable to anybody who puts an x in a box against his party. That’s a lot more than the membership. It smacks of an exclusive club otherwise who only tolerate your presence during a fundraising day.
Some random thoughts.
Re the Contact and Trace data gathering apps. Looking a wee bit ahead, to the halcyon days of Private Health Care and Health Insurance.
Just how Expensive will your Health Insurance Premiums be if the app you carry now registers you as having come into contact with the disease/and or contracted it.
People quite rightly eye up big pharma’s ruthless business models with concern.
Place your other eye on the Health Insurance providers. In America they aggressively lobby the Government Medical Boards. Where they can downgrade the legal classification (as they have with MS) from a Disease to a Condition – they can dramatically reduce the levels of medical care they provide their customer.
Which is one reason why they are so aggressive at data mining for personal medical details of the public.
Call me old fashioned, but the Government is not providing me with a mobile phone, or offering to pay my bill for same. Where’s the law that says I’ve got to have one.
I’m happy to wash my hands and wear the face mask, isolate when needed. But I will not be carrying their app, I will not be complying with their proposed ID card, and I will not be taking their proposed vaccination – not at this stage anyway.
Talk of Scottish independence is akin to Nero playing his harp while all around Rome burns..
In the emerging ‘reset’ Globalist world order, of which Sturgeon is probably an agent, the concept is meaningless.
Just an update from America on Covid. It seems around 10,000 mink have died over the last few days. They generally die a day after infection. Why this is concerning is that it is documented already it is travelling into other species like cats, dogs ,even tigers,and if they are susceptible then there are serious implications for the food chain never mind your freedom. Makes you think.
Re Timeline – don’t worry I’m not posting it again. It is as long as is readable I think.
However, if there is someone out there with the knowledge, who can do another one, with regards the local SNP staffing of luke warm Indy supporters/GRA wokists being elected (when, where and who).
It might go a very long way to showing those, not yet convinced, that the SNP is a different beast to the one AS gifted to NS. One with a very different agenda to the pursuit of Indy.
And in fairness, it needs to be done, in order that those, determined to reclaim the SNP and put the wheels back on the bus, see the size of the mountain they need to climb.
It is also a very difficult task to undertake, how many branch constituencies are there, how many NEC positions, how many other bits/jobs I don’t even know the name of, never mind the names and political persuasions of those chosen.
If there are some of you out there, that know one bit of that from your area, post it here, and I will start to compile it, as best I can.
“I don’t like disagreeing with a long time Wings’fellow traveller’.”
Neither do I Ian, but I’m just getting a little cheesed off that you appear to completely disregard my point of view. Even worse, you appear to consider me a psychologically unstable stooge of authority. That’s how you’ve depicted me anyway. And you’ve still made no effort to recant or apologise, so I have to assume that is how you see me.
If truth be told Ian, you appear to be a bit of a danger to yourself and others, though I’m sure that’s not your intention. Please appreciate the ethical logic of this, and try to be a bit more rational in your judgement.
“Ottomanboi says:
10 October, 2020 at 7:52 pm
Talk of Scottish independence is akin to Nero playing his harp while all around Rome burns..
In the emerging ‘reset’ Globalist world order, of which Sturgeon is probably an agent, the concept is meaningless.”
I’m sorry Ottomanboi, but I can’t accept that the possibility of independence is meaningless just because Sturgeon is in charge. There appears to me anyway to be a slow building consensus among some SNP MSP’s that Sturgeon isn’t likely to take us across the finishing line, the Salmond fit up and the ensuing inquiry has shone light on that particular facet.
I and many others certainly haven’t thrown in the towel just yet, especially with the polls in our favour.
As for Nero, I think the saying is Nero fiddled whilst Rome burned, though the harp is a far more appropriate instrument as the fiddle wasn’t around in Nero’s day.
@ Bob Mack at 7.42pm
It read to me as at least attempting to move in the right direction which may have more traction to progress than a more radical approach. Have to remember some questionable folk are already in positions of power and control within the party so it’s not like they are going to be receptive to giving that up easily.
@ Daisy at 7.57pm
IIRC Rev Stu eluded that assessing the candidates positions on certain aspects was being looked at.
In the meantime, if it helps this lad has been compiling a table of folk who are putting themselves forward for selection as MSP candidates.
https://twitter.com/BlackIslePMD/status/1314676539783630848
Oh look, there Ottomanboi sowing fear, discord, and undermining solidarity and resilience in face of an existential threat. Telt you he’s a Tory. 😉
Journal of Law and the Biosciences, Volume 7, Issue 1, January-June 2020, lsaa074
A public health framework for COVID-19 business liability
https://academic.oup.com/jlb/article/7/1/lsaa074/5909839
@Dan,
Yes Dan I appreciate what you and he mean,but my thoughts are that time is an asset we just dont have to facilitate these levels of change.
You know yourself about power grabs and all the rest coming stud like a bullet train. We have no time to slowly do anything. The party must be repaired and prepared sooner rather than later.
“If so keen about civil disobedience then lead by example.” Beaker 4.09pm.
Well, one could say I am dying for my country. Will that satisfy you?
“You are absolutely right in what you say, Grouse Beater, the downtrodden, the oppressed people, are the groups who are most supportive of independence.” Alf Baird 3.38pm
I appreciate the endorsement, Alf, and especially your eloquent narrative. I might quote from it some time soon.
Daisy, thanks for the timeline btw, it’s good to get a general overview like that.
What I have to contribute is anecdotal and I can’t verify the the veracity (drunken conversation a few years ago) – I met up with someone I’d known for years, but hadn’t seen for a couple, so I didn’t see the point in any lying but thought it hyperbole because we were having a political discussion at the time. With all the talk about how the SNP leadership is flying in their preferred candidate and taking over local SNP groups, I keep thinking back to that conversation, and think – oh, maybe it was actually true.
He said that he used to be an SNP member, a very active one, 15 years ago (so that’d be what, about 20 years ago now) but he gave it all up and is now unionist (that was the bit I couldn’t fathom, why,,, but then, people have all sorts of reasons for supporting independence, and this was well before indyref and the Yes Movement, and if you felt betrayed by a party you believed in,,, and this would be around the time Holyrood was just formed too ) – because that exact thing happened: they had their own candidate set up, it was all local, everyone happy, and then helicoptered in by head office was some smarmy stranger no one knew but they were instructed to campaign for.
If this is true, well it implies it has been habit for quite a while. Is it possible AS started this policy? – I can understand the reasoning, if you want to get MSPs and MPs bums on seats, get candidates most likely to win in place – the SNP have enjoyed ever increasing numbers for a while now. He would have seen the new Scottish Parliament as a real opportunity.
As a strategy, all very well while you are doing it with integrity and choosing candidates well – and I don’t doubt AS’s belief and determination for independence (but he is still an ambitious politician, so). But if this policy has been continued, and we don’t have very honourable people in charge any more, and they start taking the piss (people that are really not fit for office chosen as candidates) – it isn’t a policy that should be allowed to continue, when it so easily open to abuse.
Just saying, maybe your timeline would stretch back quite a bit further and imply things that don’t need to be implied, with adding ‘when did this start’ – a focus on when those chosen candidates became family and friends of the inner sanctum might be a good one though.
@ Bob Mack
I absolutely agree with you about the clock ticking and the gravity of the situation we find ourselves in.
I was only pointing out where I deemed he was coming from, I didn’t write the blog!
I chatted with a few decent local SNP members over the past week or so, they used to attend branch meetings but are all but done with adding their input now as there just doesn’t seem to be anybody listening to valid concerns and ideas.
Round my way it just feels like embedded cliques and other folk that won’t dare rock the boat against what comes down from on high.
It ain’t inspiring… 🙁
@Grousebeater,
“May we live respected and die regretted”
You’ve certainly done the first part like a champion.
I wish folk would learn to trust me a bit more, and wake up to our legal Establishment’s parochial British nationalism. Which is a legal perspective that is no longer able to support public health or democracy. It’s certainly no longer respects Treaty law, which is part of international law. so is outwith Westminster’s powers to re-interoperate.
#ragging
https://www.blogs.law.ed.ac.uk/private-law/2020/06/24/the-covid-19-pandemic-contracts-and-change-of-circumstance-still-room-for-equitable-adjustment/
A comment by Roger Mullen on the NEC and its rigged and secret Voting in the NEC on issues of policy, strategy and processes.
” Let me be abundantly clear on this point. The SNP is a political party, not a secret society. I feel very strongly about this.
“As an MP every vote I cast was recorded and made public. The same goes for MSPs. There is no case I can see for votes taken on the NEC to be hidden from party members, particularly on contentious issues. It is political cowardice for people to want their votes to be hidden. If that is how they want to behave, they should join a secret society and avoid democratic politics. Openness and transparency are essential in the conduct of party business ”
Just another voice expressing the gravest concern about the corrupted and rotten processes that now lie at the heart of our party.
We need metaphorically to take the fascist scum out and hang them upside down from a lamp post. And we should start with Tsar Sturgeon and Rasputin Murrell.
Had folks had the guts to stop a wee man in Germany in the 1930’s huge trauma could have been avoided.
RE-INTERPRET…sorry, that wasn’t deliberate.
Interesting video about the vaccine
https://www.thebernician.net/mob-interviews-dr-sherri-tenpenny-the-eugenics-vaxtrap/
@Willie,
Pitchfork readied.
@Bob Mack
You are going to need more than a pitchfork.
re. Scots law and its’ capacity to deal with covid-19, and remain relevant in Brexitania. This might prove instructive, and might open a few eyes as to just how “ambivalent” our legal Establishment is towards the concept of justice.
#ragging
A Critical Evaluation of the Rights, Status and
Capacity of Distinct Categories
of Individuals in Underdeveloped
and Emerging Areas of Law
https://www.napier.ac.uk/~/media/worktribe/output-177029/macfarlane40103619phdpdf.pdf
@Tannadice Lad,
I have a combine harvester if that’s any good.
I think this sums up an awful lot of the selfish views on here.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/616024185076187146/764593767923449858/Ej6rURNXYAIZiUB.jpg
@Bob Mack
Powers of persuasion is the best route. Having seen violence in the raw I would say no thanks. We can win this debate but need a new leadership.
@ Bob Mack at 7:42 pm
“He talks about not being vocal in public but then goes on to say that he is really only answerable to the party membership”
I unsubscribed from the blog, Mr Mullin has produced a blog to really patronise the faithful, the outsiders are supposed to keep quite, after all if you talk then ” It’ll be your fault if independence doesn’t happen,”
Think I said that yesterday as well
@CamB (7.59) –
Was doing the whole family zoom quiz thing and have just noticed your comment.
You’ve overstepped the mark Cam.
Taking you and your link machine seriously is not a precondition of being permitted to comment here.
So, if you don’t mind, I’ll continue to do my thing and leave you to do yours. I’m sure you can manage without my attention or approval.
Please don’t ever direct a comment like that to me again.
Ian @ 10:41
Ian don’t Interact, do something more productive like banging yer head off the kitchen table
It’s like having a conversation with a Breeze Block
Clinicall @ 10:23 lay off the Sauce what a load of bollocks
Fine by me but I hope Ian has no intention of coming anywhere near me.
#fannybawz
@Robert Graham (10.48) –
😉
Interesting stuff from Roger Mullin –
https://www.independentview.org/post/what-is-to-be-done
Give me strength. To be mocked when trying to convince Others you might know ‘better’ in anything, is natural. It’s a bit sole destroying though, when you actually have relevant expert insight to offer. Though such an obstacle to human progress is actually quite useful on this thread.
https://www.jahr-bioethics-journal.com/index.php/JAHR/article/view/552
Ottomanbi & bipod.
I see dumber and dumber are still playing with figures and assumptions. They post a link stating corona virus is no more lethal than flu because of a briefing on current trends.
the WHO said,
“Our current best estimates tell us that about ten percent of the global population may have been infected by this virus. This varies depending on country, it varies from urban to rural, it varies between different groups.”
From that dumber and dumber conclude an IFR of 0.13%. An accurate IFR is done at end of a pandemic or at one year points. Not half way through.
So what happens when 20% -30%-40% -50% get infected? What happens to your crude IFR?
Even some of the basics tells you this.
https://reason.com/2020/09/29/the-latest-cdc-estimates-of-covid-19s-infection-fatality-rate-vary-dramatically-with-age/
The other one up thread that said covid has killed less than that of 1957 Asian flu- wrong again. Covid is not finished wae you yet.
@Robert Graham says:
10 October, 2020 at 10:51 pm
Clinicall @ 10:23 lay off the Sauce what a load of bollocks
In what way the present one is silent and the other made noise and I always took a silent fart as more damaging than a noisy one.
Re civil disobedience. The classic example is the The Poll Tax.
What made the Tories sit up and take notice was NOT Scotland’s Can Pay Won’t Pay campaign (sorry Tommy): It was the middle-class Tory voters in the English shires threatening to stop voting Tory over the Poll Tax that ended the Poll Tax. The thought of the loss of their MP jobs is what really motivated Tory MPs to sack Thatcher.
That’s the real lesson Scotland should take. If you want the devolutionist SNP and other devolutionist parties in Holyrood to sit up and take notice: threaten their cushy, extremely well-rewarded careers in politics by threatening to put them on the buroo – and mean it.
We will never get independence by voting for colonial administrator politicians who bend the knee to the sovereignty of Crown in UK Parliament.
Just when you thought 202 could not get any crazier…
The Taliban are supporting Trump’s bid for re-election.
What’s next? Willie Rennie for FM?
That should read 2020… flipping laptop keyboard 🙂
Why isn’t the Scottish government seeking damages from Westminster, for the avoidable harm HMG’s approach to covid-19 has already caused Scotland? When will our legal Establishment start protecting the Scottish public, rather than the Crown in Parliament?
The COVID pandemic: Time to ‘ramp-up’ India’s conflict of law rules in matters of tort? (by Kashish Jaitley, Niharika Kuchhal and Saloni Khanderia)
https://conflictoflaws.net/2020/the-covid-pandemic-time-to-ramp-up-indias-conflict-of-law-rules-in-matters-of-tort-by-kashish-jaitley-niharika-kuchhal-and-saloni-khanderia/
-Colin Alexander-
Correct.
When politicians fear losing their office, complete with salary, perks and status, they soon change tack.
I despise the guy but Look at the success of Farage’s Brexit Party.
If we huff and puff then vote for the same people we will never get anywhere.
Looks like Kenny Gibson won’t be reselected, and interesting the Murrell letter has been leaked. Someone has decided to leak to the Sunday Mail a letter, sent to Peter Murrell last year, about claims of Kenny Gibson’s bullying. Of course no response from Murrell.
There may be others standing in Cunninghame North other than Humza Yousaf’s cousin Osama Bhutta (formerly Osama Saeed) and ex MP Corri Wilson, don’t know but would say Osama Bhutta represents an example of what Daisy is talking about.
He failed in his bid to be elected in 2010 as MP for Glasgow Central, beaten by Anas Sarwar. He is one of many to have worked for Alex Salmond, think as a researcher in the late 2000’s.
‘Nicholson, Gibson’s former election agent and an SNP member in Largs, Ayrshire, said: “I have very reluctantly resigned my elected position as a branch organiser because we are losing activists and we are losing members over this’
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/snp-chief-peter-murrell-accused-22826049
Reply to Daisy. apparently 37/73 SNP seats will face a selection, that’s a fair few.
Might be a start to look at the 10 sitting MSPs who are being challenged;(details from a National article)
Ministers Fergus Ewing, Ash Denham, Shirely-Anne Somerville, backbenchers; Christine Grahame, Colin Beattie, Kenny Gibson, James Dornan, David Torrance, Stuart McMillan and John Mason.
Cammy 11.26
Haha! I just popped in to see if anything interesting is happening …. only to find that CBB is still boring the pants off everybody with his irrelevant links to pseudo intellectual bulls*** … That is, when he is not doing his Equally boring negative stereotyping of the “English” (there is a word to describe people that do that cammy – but you lack the smarts and self awareness to acknowledge it).
Margaret Ferrier announces that she will not resign after
Her travels as a Covid carrier!
The act itself unjustifiable however as she considers her confused
actions were due to disorientation caused by the virus?
This puts her in exactly the same boat as people like Cummings
and many other Tories who hold office who broke the guidelines
None of whom resigned.
She will likely be voting along SNP lines although not in the party,
her action prevents a local election that we could be in danger of losing
and a new SNP candidate will replace Margaret in 2004.
Daisy, here’s the little I know re candidates.
Part 1
NEC members I am aware of;
Cllr Rhiannon Spear Argyll and Bute – sure well known to WoS readers
Cllr Graham Campbell – Edinburgh Western – partner of Anne McLaughlin MP – imo a chancer, not a very competent ‘leader’ of Africans for Yes in 2014, ex Solidarity member.
Cllr Lynne Anderson – Uddingston + Bellshill (no clue but retweets Joanna Cherry so..)
Alexander /Alex Kerr – Eastwood – no clue – but seems on face of it pretty decent, been endorsed by Tom Wills sole candidate in Shetland (fotmerly Edinburgh East branch) if that helps
Rhuaraidh Fleming – North East Fife – no clue
Stacy Bradley – Galloway and West Dumfries – no clue but says she joined in 2014
I hope the Rev has seen Sturgeon on Sophy Ridge this morning.
Worth dissecting.
As a filter for good person / wank in the SNP MSP selection process I am using the following protocol:
If they went to Stirling Uni – Caution
If they are all over Social Media like a rash and extremely slick with their content – Caution
A quick scan down their first dozens tweets and retweets on twitter, and who likes and responds, usually furnishes enough info to make a decent assumption on where they’re at.
Albalha.
In referring to the sitting MSP seat challenges it might be interesting to consider that of Cunningham North where Humza Yousaf’s cousin Osama Bhutta is seeking selection . ( yes I know Humza’s wife is seeking selection too in Fife, but let us not go there – at least just yet )
It has to be of the gravest of concerns that before the selection of a candidate to contest the Cunningham North seat has even been announced let alone decided, that an individual like Osama has now for some considerable time been hosting a web site holding himself out as the next candidate for election proclaiming ‘ Vote Osama Bhutta – Cunningham North’s next SNP candidate.”
Mr Bhutta is NOT the next parliamentary candidate for Cunningham North and to repeatedly suggest in his public address – web campaign that he is is absolutely wrong. Misleading you may say, or intended to mislead you may also say.
But that is not all. What of the timing and what of such campaigning in advance of many of the candidates not having received vetting. With some candidates not knowing their vetting results, vetting results that many suspect were malignly withheld, it seems Mr Bhutta knew early on. Moreover it did not stop him, against Party instructions, initiate a campaign before all of the other candidates had been approved and shortlisted for vetting. Being connected to the inner circle seems very much extant here – and it is a disgrace, an abuse.
But it gets worse than that. In a section of his public website, and in the section entitled ‘ Get Involved ‘ Mr Bhutta, and I quote encourages –
“ Join the SNP
You’ll be too late to vote in the constituency selections, but depending on when the regional rankings take place, you may be able to vote in them (you need to have been a member for 3 months)……..We need more people to step forward from a diversity of backgrounds, so I hope you’ll think about this. “
Now that soliciting has all the hallmarks of someone in the know and someone wanting to encourage members of the public to come and stuff the membership of Cunningham North.
How or did Mr Bhutta know of the timing of the regional rankings. The rules and timetable for selection of candidates were only created at the constitutionally disputed NEC meeting of 30th July 2020. So how did Mr Bhutta appear to know in advance that people encouraged to join could maybe catch the regional listing vote.
That the timing and detailed rules of the regional listing vote remains to be announced, by another rigged NEC, the stench of Mr Bhutta’s advance campaign becomes even more apparent. Was he in the know. Certainly seems so, and did he breeze vetting. Well that’s another question. And of the regional lists, will it be the lifeboat for the coterie of controls special ones.
New Labour most certainly don’t have a look in on what is happening here. Meanwhile many branches are still being told there is to be no campaigning – the Bhutta / Yousaf family and other selected special ones excluded.
Time the real SNP came forward. This is a party without rules, operating ultra vires, with the most malign and disfigured process.
ROBBO 11:29
Now who’s playing with figures?
The WHO’s fear filled deadly disease mantra has influenced governments to follow the current suppression strategy. It has not worked, simply delayed the process of natural community immunity, a process that has provided the human species with the antigens providing a degree of resistance to specific viral diseases long before vaccines.
Vaccines, ad hoc confected chemical cocktails, do no more than community immunity and as in Africa’s experience where vaccines have been trialled may do harm as they are a man made not natural ‘product’ and do not provide actually total resistance. Rather than discourage social mixing we ought to be doing the opposite. Let nature take its course. If that sounds Darwinian then that is the way of it, people get sick some die, a normal process
Individuals respond in different ways to Covid-19 which is the way disease presents, some experience mild others severe symptoms and those with comorbidity, complications. There is no safe, sure approach to this. Life is full of risk and individual free choice is part of the risk.
No fallible government or official body has the right to categorically demand of people what they ought to do to protect their personal health.
Feel sick, stay in bed is the rational advice.
Albalha , maybe you can throw some light on these candidates,
Jenni Minto
Breege Smith
I have heard good things about both from one source not that I can vote for either.
Bob Mack says:
11 October, 2020 at 9:09 am
I hope the Rev has seen Sturgeon on Sophy Ridge this morning.
Worth dissecting.
Is it Bob?
Frankly I’m just weary of the sound of her voice. I just want her gone, and a new team assembled that’s prepared to defend Scotland. Then we’ll at least have somebody we can at least cheer for again… Somebody we can trust.
Sturgeon is unique in the world, the only government which cannot multitask COVID with any other business, as the stench of conspiracy makes your eyes water and the Independence Cake sits in the fridge going foostie.
Heart sick of it all. What a despicable and hollowed out waste this past five years has been. I want to see Joanna Cherry Cutting loose, and launching a vigorous Constitutional dispute over Scotland’s subjugation, and bringing in 2021 Hogmanay with a bang.
All talk of 2021 votes, compromised referendums, and endless exposures of the latest Wokerati reprobates coming to a polling booth near you, just grinds me into the concrete. My own “personal” NEC has yet to approve any of the deadbeats worth voting for. You see more fight opening a bottle of fizzy juice.
Not content with five years stagnation, the SNP want ten years stagnation, Independence actually driven backwards, and the SNP rendered unelectable. Sturgeon is making the SNP toxic to all; friends and enemies alike.
What a lucky break for Unionism at a time when the Union should be at crisis point. Please God, don’t let Hogmanay this year and the expiration of the EU Transition Agreement be a repeat of Sturgeon’s gutless January Capitulation.
Willie@9:26am.
Interesting points Willie. A point to notice also is the flooding of candidacies with the “woke”. Is this so that next year’s GRA Reform Bill gets passed?
Yes indeed, the Augaean Stables need clearing out, pronto.
@Greeks
Yes we are all sick of listening to her, but we must also call her out when she is still insisting these complaints were justified.
She also inferred that Alex was angry because she would not bury these charges against him. Very subtle but designed to send the message he was guilty.
A court of law proved otherwise but she is trying to make that sound like a miscarriage of justice
She is actually very nasty.
Ottomanboi: “Let nature take its course. If that sounds Darwinian then that is the way of it, people get sick some die…”
How do you feel about meteorites that have the potential to destroy the planet – shoot them with rockets and save humanity or let nature take its course?
Anyway, I’m not sure about Ottoma, but we declared war on nature many moons ago. That’s why we are all here, talking with each other (in Enlgish) on computers, thousands of miles apart.
In an alternative, more natural, universe, maybe we’d be using smoke signals or something to call each other names from afar.
Nature didn’t come with a user guide.
Scotland Wales and N Ireland must have eliminated the Covid19 Virus, because I have not heard a word about on the “National” News broadcasters reports.
All I hear about is “The North”,,, and I presume they will be talking about the North of England, but I have to guess this, because they never tell us that they are talking about the North of England only.
And when they talk about “across the country”, they are meaning across England.
But the arrogant English bastards can’t be arsed telling the Scots Welsh and N Irish this.
All these arrogant actions by our Colonial
Masters will hopefully lead to more soft No voting Scots having their own “lightbulb moments”.
In reply to Willie.
Very interesting. And yes sounds an utter stitch up when it comes to Osama Bhutta/Saeed. And in light of today’s story about Kenny Gibson, you have to assume he was well aware that there was a good chance for the selected candidate to be elected.
I would not put anything past Humza Yousaf; this is a person who, to cover up for his not driving with insurance, blamed the stress of his marriage break up, eh he left for another woman who I’m reliably informed was in the car at the time. That’s pretty reprehensible behaviour.
I was on the Yes Scotland media desk in 2014 and remember Osama Saeed, as he was then, appearing on the desk one day late on. No clue why he was there, what he was meant to be doing, suffice to say it was frosty.
He’d just returned from Aljazeera where I worked years before him. He replaced a good Lebanese pal of mine, who was deemed too liberal a muslim by the incoming religously conservative MD Wadah Khanfar, says it all about Osama Saeed/Bhutta.
I can only hope decent members of Cunninghame North branches do their homework to find out just exactly who Osama Bhutta/Saeed is.
Meanwhile a man whose uncle died and was whose funeral was attendance restricted to his emailed Nicola Sturgeon to complain.
No doubt very upset he is reported to have described Sturgeon as Nazi , similar to Thatcher before going on to describe her as the stench of excrement, or other words to that effect.
Sending the messages in August they landed unopened by Surgeon in a spam folder. However, on checking the spam folder, staff thereafter contacted Scotland’s finest who in tried and tested fashion undertook an investigation before a couple of months later arresting the individual last Wednesday.
Maybe a good time to be pressurising those who disagree with the supreme leader Sturgeon.
So there we have it. Lose a close relative, email a spam box with comments about the infringement of personal rights to attend a funeral, and the Police Scotland with all its resources, and they are considerable resources, make it a priority to pursue this man as an evil criminal.
Police state. Certainly seems that like the 1930s, dissent, and disagreement is not tolerated. Just wait then till Humza’s hate bill comes in. But you know what, it might not because the SNP might be in for the bruising of their lives – as the electorate make Sturgeon history.
The vetted candidate for Aberdeenshire West announced herself on FB the other day, Fatima Joji. As I am seeking someone worthy of my vote, I sent her a list of questions as I had previously done to the ISP. Well, at least Fatima answered, very politely and promptly, unlike the ISP who ignored my email completely then whose convener was most unpleasant to me here on wings when I approached him about the failure to respond. That reply did predispose me towards Fatima.
However, sadly, Fatima’s answers were typically evasive, and as far as GRA goes, she claims it simply reduces the time that transitioning takes, thus reducing stress on the trans individual. She did offer a zoom call, but I turned that down as her evasiveness and dismissal of my concerns had already told me what I need to know. The end result is that unless the Alliance produce some decent candidates and stand here, I remain disenfranchised – for the first time ever, I will either not vote at all or will spoil both votes. Or, and like Breeks above, I have to hope and pray that the Murrells and their clique and their parachuted candidates are gone by May next year and that we are by then heading rapidly towards Independence at last.
In reply to Dorothy Devine.
Jenni Minto and Breege Smyth, yes would have had them in the next instalment of non NEC members. They’re the other two women standing in Argyll and Bute, both seem very decent from what I can see.
If Mr. Bhutta has broken the rules he must surely be brought to task or removed.
Bob Mack says:
11 October, 2020 at 10:00 am
…She also inferred that Alex was angry because she would not bury these charges against him. Very subtle but designed to send the message he was guilty.
Whoa there Bob, I didn’t see that on the clipped version I google’d. That just mentioned more dross about COVID.
I Clearly need a fuller input. I hope Alex Salmond’s Lawyers see it too.
Breeks @9:48.
Couldn’t agree more, hearing her voice is stomach churning for me.
It all looks doom and gloom at the moment.
Surely something can be done to halt this madness!
Breeks, we feel your pain but there are alternative ways of looking at it.
After the painful loss of 2014, it looked like we wouldn’t be getting another bite at the Indy-cherry for decades, if we are honest about it.
The clouds parted with Brexit and now we can see the planets are in alignment. Covid-19 has unveiled another treasure chest of compelling arguments and reasons to get out of the UK.
Nobody could have predicted any of this in 2014. It was basically over.
Sturgeon is toast too. I’ve read enough from people I trust, Wings, Murray, etc., to know there’s more to come and that her whole scandalous role in the Salmond affair is going to be revealed.
Those of us who saw through Sturgeon years ago and predicted her strategy would get us nowhere towards independence, are engaged again in the struggle.
Sturgeon has been highly divisive. Shunning the grassroots from day one was highly destructive and that’s where most of the division of the last few years sprang from. When she goes, the division will go too.
Replacing Sturgeon with someone like Cherry must scare the life out of the imperial masters.
Albalha @ 10.08 am
Yes many people have heard the stories about Humza Yousaf driving without insurance, and blaming the break up of his marriage for it. That he is said to have the woman who he left his wife for in the car is maybe reflective of his personal life.
The situation with his cousin and how he, and very possibly his cousin, have conducted themselves in relation to Osama Bhutta’s election campaign is however very concerning. The circumstances of his promotional literature and the apparent inside knowledge that it appears to display, is very very concerning.
Moreover, why did Osama change his nomenclature from Osama Saeed to Osama Bhutta.When did he do this, and more importantly, what prompted it.
Yes, something does not seem right at all with Osama Bhutta or Osama Saeed as he was previously styled. Time we knew.
In reply to OldPete
On Osama Bhutta/Saeed.
Wouldn’t be so sure when it comes to selection campaigning and ‘rules’. We already have the carry on in Edinburgh Central where fund raising by the particularly odious Angus Robertson runs amok and in Dundee West pre 2015 selection the castle dwelling Chris Law, I’m told, actually chapped the doors of members, obviously not allowed. Nothing happened.
From my experience over recent years the SNP rule book is a very elastic concept; basically if your face fits there’s a good chance you’ll get nothing more than a virtual wrist slap.
Hadn’t realised until yesterday how differently Richard Lyle was treated compared to Mark McDonald.
Same woman, same complainant.
At a party Richard Lyle shouted over a crowded room to her;’How big are your tits anyway’. Eh he bought some sweets, apologised. End off. For a private tweet Mark McDonald has had his life ruined.
That’s the current SNP.
@ Albalha at 6:13 am
“about claims of Kenny Gibson’s bullying.”
and
“‘Nicholson, Gibson’s former election agent and an SNP member in Largs, Ayrshire, said: “I have very reluctantly resigned my elected position as a branch organiser because we are losing activists and we are losing members over this’”
The Rascal seriously want to have a much better look
Gibson and his missus interaction are a trifle suspect
“Bob Mack says:
I hope the Rev has seen Sturgeon on Sophy Ridge this morning.
Worth dissecting.”
Was there any update on Jaffa Cakes?
In reply to Willie.
Yes you’re right re the inside intel and as I say I can only hope local members do something about it. I do feel for them as well, Corri Wilson has her baggage, wonder if anyone else is standing?
Re Humza Yousaf, you’re very generous. He had a previous affair , funnily enough, with someone standing for 2021 selection, shortly before his now wife. Maybe it’s a woman thing for me, but no he used that as an excuse, not due to stress but to get out of being pursued by the media.
Anyway, re Osama Bhutta/ Saeed from what I can see/know, he was still going by Osama Saeed in 2014. In 2016 when he’s appointed to Amnesty International the press stories refer to him as Osama Saeed Bhutta, now of course he’s dropped the Saeed.
There are plenty of stories going back to the late 2000’s about ‘Osama Saeed’, people just need to get on the world wide web and do a search.
“Effijy says:
11 October, 2020 at 8:49 am
Margaret Ferrier announces that she will not resign after
Her travels as a Covid carrier!”
Effijy.
Yes I agree, the act is almost unforgivable, however the ensuing witch hunt of Ferrier by the British nationalist establishment and her own party the SNP, is completely unforgivable.
HATUEY. 10:01
Humans can’t resist interfering with ‘nature’. Sometimes the result is even beneficial, but not too often. However, the trial and error element is part of the learning process by which we intellectually advance. Trial and error will overcome this Covid panic provided hubris and reluctance to admit error does not get in the way.
There are three experienced medical specialists in my international family. They disagree, a lot. However on Covid suppression strategy they do not. They forecast it would not work and have been proven right. The Covid can has just been kicked down the road. This reluctance to face the possibility of mortality they call the western disease. Westerners seem to seek comfort and reassurance from authority which authority is not equipped or qualified to offer.
‘Nature’ has heated up and cooled down the planet for millennia and an asteroid may, by wiping out the large dinosaurs, allowed our species a chance to develop. I am no Gaia devotee but ‘nature’ if left alone may be ‘wiser’ than our rather finite intelligence and fetishization of technology.and looking for God in pills, potions and vaccines.
The obsession with sanitizing is not wise either.
https://www.nbcnews.com/healthmain/it-possible-be-too-clean-researchers-say-yes-1C6345427
@Al-Stuart
There is hope. It lies in a vaccine. Not just any vaccine perhaps. There are signs of a possible one shot vaccine against ALL coronaviruses which might even hit the cold causing ones. More money in cold remedies than a vaccine against 25% or cold viruses. But SARS, MERS and now Covid have changed the equation.
THAT is what we could win from this, immunity to the vast majority of coronaviruses. Could even protect us from the next version to come out of over pressed, over stressed, over exploited Nature.
Ah Osama Saeed. A quick check reveals that as chief executive of the SIF ( Scottish Islamic Foundation ) and a body without any staff, there was concern about £400,000 Scottish Government grant.
Not a bad grant I have to say and the first time I’d heard about the grant and the furore surrounding it.
Ottomanboi says twice this morning:
Now I know you’re batshit crazy!
Beastplate @1:10pm yesterday
Could be another job for a judge led inquiry if it transpires that the disease actually adds over 10 years to life expectancy!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_effect
I see Sensibledave is still a niggling, ignorant, twat. Well, he’s a Tory, innit.
@ Albalha
this is dormant forum,It started and stopped
the action on the Troon harbour was one of Gibson’s illusions, at the time Gibson and Yousaf were chums, the action was to get Mrs Gibson elected and the Councillor as well, there is a post somewhere and she says she’s a member of the NEC
I’m convince Gibson was at the back of the verbal attack on the Labour candidate opposing his wife
the Offended was said to have resigned the party, But had only it appear to have been not appearing and meeting but working in the background as a media person /secretary
He is about 6ft 4 and 18 stone.
Not Kenny’s type is would think
https://threetownscomment.freeforums.net/thread/18/arran-ferry-conspiracy
In reply to Willie, yes quite the sordid tale. This Daily record article gives a good overview and that Humza Yousaf, his cousin, was the media man.
Of course other reports suggest that other members of Osama Saeed’s family were employed by SIF too. It’s written before the Festival failed to happen and money from the grant had to be returned.
You know, if nothing else, SNP members in Cunninghame North should be aware these stories will resurface more widely if he is elected as their MSP.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/fury-as-snp-cronies-group-get-400000-986464
“Let nature take its course. If that sounds Darwinian then that is the way of it, people get sick some die…”
I see Ottomanboi is playing the concerned citizen again, where as, it’s a foreign-based, far-right agent provocateur, punting hard-core Thatcherism. It is certainly not Scotland’s friend, it is a science denying authoritarian, with zero regard for international human rights law. So your man’s is simply no friend to Scots.
Covit is killing people and is not a subject of fun Chris
Scot’s will always be slaves to Westminster until the SNP can find leadership that supports the international rule-of-law, rather than anti-foundational pseudo-science and their own narrow parochialism.
I am by no means suggesting that Covid-19 is a hoax. However, in risk assessment, we need to look at the threat posed in relation to the measures taken to mitigate that threat. Clearly, from the available mortality data, the measures being taken against Covid-19 are vastly out of proportion to the threat it poses. In August, Covid-19 was the 24th most common cause of death in England. So why is it being treated by most governments as if it is the number one cause of death? Such an anomaly can only imply ulterior motives.
With regards Osama Saeed aka Bhutta cousin of Humza Yousaf
Employed by Al Jazeera TV as an expert in Communications.
Founder and Chief Exec Scottish Islamic Foundation set up in 2008. Intending to hold an Islamic Festival in Glasgow.
Given £400,000 in public money.
Humza Yousuf a Director of same 2008/09.
SIF folded months later, Audit Scotland reviewed it, found Inadequate Record Keeping.
Officially folded 2013 with ‘nothing to show for almost £200,00 public money’ From The Herald 29/9/20
When asked why he wants to be an MSP Saeed/Bhutta replied,
‘ I don;t know really, it just kind of came about’ Then posted on video, ‘because elected representatives are turbo-charged merchants of deep solidarity and empathy’.
Which for all those of us without the benefit of communications expertness – is called meaningless bullshit.
Meanwhile in 1016 his cousin Humza Yousuf – while Scottish Justice Minister was convicted and fined for Driving A Friends Car. Stated that following his divorce he had renewed his insurance policy and assumed its policy continued to provide the previous ‘fully comp’ cover, which it no longer did.
Be very interesting to see court records of the trial to ascertain if he produced, as evidence, his joint insurance policy from the time of his marriage and if it did indeed cover him ‘fully comp’.
At the time he was under fire over Railway networks, etc. Jackson Carlow of the Conservatives said of this conviction, ‘its not a resigning matter, move on’ or words to that affect.
Contrast that with a serving Police officer in Tayside Police around about 2013. Similar admin error re motor insurance – never received the letter requesting proof of no claims, continued to pay for her insurance by direct debit, unaware policy cancelled, 1′ high snow at the time, history of mail going to wrong address’ Tayside Police Chief Constable Justine Curran considered it to be a sackable offence. Though luckily it never came to that.
How do you drive someone else’s vehicle without checking you have proper insurance?
So Mr Saeed/Bhutta is a really crap commuicator, and an ineffectual Chief Exec of a folded institute which did not keep proper records and may have lost £200,000 of public money with nothing to show for it.
And Justice Minister Humza Yousuf was a director of the same institute during this time period, and drove another persons car, without insurance, while Justice Minister. And the tories were OK with that.
And now Humza wants his new wife to get elected, and his cousin to get elected.
Saffron Robe
“Clearly, from the available mortality data, the measures being taken against Covid-19 are vastly out of proportion to the threat it poses.”
Looked at from another perspective, you appear to think you know better than the World Health Organisation. That’s extremely unlikely, so I don’t think you’re really in a position to be accusing others of ulterior motives.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7306961/
Covid update (in case it hasn’t been brought up already):
Look up:
Great Barrington Declaration
What, a policy agenda set out by a right-wing front for climate change denying corporate interests? Your man Joe will need to try a lot harder if he wants to successfully promote right-wing extremism on WOS. He is kind of helpful though, in an idiotic sort of way. 😉
https://bylinetimes.com/2020/10/09/climate-science-denial-network-behind-great-barrington-declaration/