Wings Over Scotland

Think what the independent nation state Scotland is capable of, free of SLab, Murphy etc

Need to get past the likes of the very rude and oh so nasty UCL press officer Brian Walker at 1.07 and his usual BBC/UKOK media scrounger Scots attack: “transfers from rich London and the south east to Scotland that the Barnett formula graciously allows you to continue to receive”

link to ucl.ac.uk

Getting in touch
Brian Walker is our Press Officer and can be contacted on 07802 176347 or williambrianwalker@gmail.com.

“A BBC lifer, in earlier years in his native Northern Ireland, he was a news correspondent, political editor and current affairs editor for BBC Northern Ireland as well as working later in the Westminster lobby as London editor of the Belfast Telegraph. In London he served successively as BBC commissioning editor for Radio current affairs programmes and editor of political and parliamentary programmes at Westminster”

I like the emphasis on the fact that the basic premise of any government’s economic should be that it is for the good of its people. Not the Tories – the economy is like their own personal cash cow. Right, back to the vid…

Just a question…..

Is it normal for academic lectures to end in whoops of delight and thunderous applause?

The ones I attended usually ended in a rush to the door by the smokers…

She has developed even over the past year to a consumate politician. Has the pupil overtaken the Master ?

Many thanks for sharing Stu – BBC & STV are hardly likely to share such footage within news coverage, particularly with an English audience cheering a Scots Leader at the end.

Sure they would just say she was presenting to fellow Scots

The lady has the resilience of hardened steel before academics.

Pride doesn’t cover it.

I shall look at that after tea.

James Kelly received a letter today asking for his vote;

link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk

Piece on the 6 o’clock news about Ms Sturgeon’s speech. Guess what? Oor Jim was in London today! He was interviewed as part of the report. He has not been in London for weeks but as soon as Nicola goes down off he trots.

Respect.

Stu
You beat me to it-grr. Have just watched entire speech & Q & A session & intended to come back here & post the link.

I think the audience were surprised to hear actual direct answers to their questions. Refreshing change for everyone & that was reflected in the huge applause & cheering at the end. She came across as that very rare species, an honest politician & as someone who moves in those circles in London many will have found that a shock to their belief system. I know from the comments I get when attending conferences, seminars etc Londoners have believed everything that was said about wee Eck & about Nicola & those beliefs ate taking a massive hit now.

Pete Wishart tweeted earlier that ‘SNP are all the rage in London today’ & I took that to be a tongue in cheek comment but judging by her reception at UCL, perceptions are shifting just as mine did.

You also have to look at how that speech was covered by BBC as a live broadcast. That doesn’t happen often. It usually only happens for the budget, a few important debates but it isn’t the norm. Today they actually took down the BBC barriers & broadcast it in full. It is probable that the lack of TV coverage in the Scottish media has made SNP look for alternative routes to get the message out & this event today certainly did that.

Very well worth watching & well done Nicola 🙂

Ok bbc did mention the Aberdeen councillors

She speaks in language we can all understand.Whats not to like about her,all you ‘i did’nt like Alex Samond’no voters?

What a brilliant and most erudite speech. It tackled the key economic issues head on, yet was gracious and thought provoking. BBC take note – and notes.

Am claimin nae credit fur saying ,(like Alex Salmond taking the SNP message to the Nth Of England) Nicola should do the same & spreaad the message in England ( little TV exposure here ) lots of TV exposure in London.

Keep it up Nicola sense & sensibility fae a politician in London who’d widha thunk it.

That aside, it gets rite up they,re nose, ah la Curran / Carmichiel/Mundell.

I attended this event. Nicola gave a very impressive talk and was warmly received. A lot of genuine applause. Brian Walker was sitting behind me. He was almost chuckling when he asked that question so it was a deliberate attempt to rile her which she brushed off. Didn’t get any impression it was a genuine question/belief.

Thanks Rev. How enjoyable was that.

Nicola Sturgeon is head and shoulders above the party leaders of the Lib/Lab/Con.

I have watched the video from start to finish. I must say what a wonderful First Minister we have. Professional, eloquent and unphased. A delight to behold. I was rather disappointed by the BBC Scotland coverage which was around 20 seconds of her speech followed by 2 – 3 minutes of their political editor rambling on.

How can some figures still believe that Scotland is subsidised by Westminster? Beggars belief.

Tory boys fear and loathing, or at least their shills are shittin bricks. This charmer tries out tory boy Comical Cockers but its still fun to watch his pretence at actual balance. You can tell its NOT Severin Brookes of rancid Graun, he forgot to grovel to Jim Murphy, who is NOT a fcuking red tory! Come back you old con artist Severin, your red Tories in Scotland need you

link to archive.today

“By posing as the enemy of austerity she can present Miliband as ?too cowardly to oppose “Tory austerity”, which will help her secure the votes of former Scottish Labour voters who want a Socialist nirvana. If English voters also get annoyed at being lectured by the SNP, then that’s even better for the Nats.”

unstoppable for social justice, nicola.
keep hammering the message home, it will eventually sink in.
🙂

Nail on the head. Just about the first time I have heard a politician mention the fact that private debt is a huge problem and not how to grow an economy. This is all tory and labour know.

Ah Stull hink wee Magrit Stairheid widda dun ah better joab but, in ah hink rit ra Furst Ministurs goat sum expainin tae dae aboot wher ra munneys gonny kumfy
Nicola is a Star….

I had a lump in my throat after listening to Nicola. Intelligent, measured, professional and compassionate. She is head and shoulders above the other leaders. (Bar Patrick Harvie who I have enormous respect for.)

I saw Salmond in New Deer on the Sunday after the referendum and never heard anything so moving, genuine and brilliant. What a man, what a leader. And now Nicola. And yet the MSM try and set them up in competition to see who is the most “powerful”. Ha ha – they just don’t get it. Nicola looked a bit baffled by the question when asked it on TV recently and just replied, “But we are a team!” And what a team – Hosie, Wishart and the gang – plus the new kids on the block for May – and the goodwill of a sizeable number of the Scottish population.

After the devastation of September each day brings more and more cheer. Sometimes I wonder if one of the reasons they fought so hard to keep us is cos they’d be shown up by what our politicians could achieve in an indepedent Scotland and thus prompt rebellion down the road?

It’s speeches such as these that will bring over the feartie Nos. Who couldn’t believe in Sturgeon? Utter class!

I have to say I loved watching that. She was articulate, patient and to the point. Cameron et al could learn from her!

Excellent speech finished off with some fully answered questions.

I para-phrase…”we must think about how austerity affects everyone in society”

Yes indeed, Nicola has sent out the message and hopefully provoked some reflection within the neoliberal Thatcherite followers…it’s not all about self, there is a wider society to think about, one which if helped will ultimately benefit all of us.

Did everyone note the response she got to the answer about tax dodgers?

Now, having watched that…could you see Murphy present a speech that so captured a mood like that. Indeed, could he answer just one question fully that was put to him?

Nicola, you are a credit to Scotland.

The applause was well deserved.

Grizzle MaPuss says

Now, having watched that…could you see Murphy present a speech that so captured a mood like that. Indeed, could he answer just one question fully that was put to him?

Murphy never answers ANY question put to him.

Is is not sad that with quality like Nicola we’re going to be lumbered with either Cameron or Miliband. (Both of them as sincere as Murphy!)

Watched the whole lot.

Why is it, that a too wee, too poor, too stoopit nation like ours, can produce a politician that will wipe the floor with Millipede, Clegg and Camerbund, given a fair media chance?

Methinks, perchance, our country is in safe hands. And I liked what she said about independence at around 1 hr 16 mins…

@ScottieDog
@Dr Jim
“Margaret Curran”

{spit}

Chalk and cheese!

@frazer allan whyte says:11 February, 2015 at 6:06 pm:

” … it was depressing to realize from her speech that the UK is in the grip of an economic death cult.”

It really is no secret that the United Kingdom’s four countries are being made sacrificial lambs to the London Establishments slaughter. The big difference between the present artificial monetary crisis is that the rich have continued to become ever richer as the poor suffer, starve, freeze and in much more than a few cases die from the austerity measures forced upon them. In my book that is pre-meditated murder.

Quite obviously the cynical claim that, “We are all in this together”. was always a bare faced lie. If true it would have mirrored the previous financial crisis with financiers throwing themselves from tall building windows.

In this crisis they just keep their money out of circulation, lay down another good years champers in the cellars, buy a New Roller, invest in Gold Bullion and property and buy up art treasures at higher than ever prices.

The Establishment has, after all, fixed it for them to continue their good life by transferring more of the burden of tax to indirect taxation and given them instant tax breaks. The coalition’s first move was to up the rate of VAT and then cut the 50p tax band rate.

Consider this, though, if a proper government aims to re-grow the economy then their first move is to arrange for more money to get into the hands of the electorate who then buy more good and that creates demands for more goods. That demand is met by business expanding to cope with the demand, which means more manufacturing, more jobs, more cash in the market place and thus even more demand and expansion.

Nicola and the SNP have got it 100% correct. Instead of driving the poorest into ever increasing poverty the solution is to NOT create more austerity it is to do exactly the opposite.

There really is no shortage of cash in the UK the problem is that what cash there is has been tightly zipped up in just a few very, very rich pockets.

Well done Nicola, a true credit to Scotland.

I wonder if she dropped by the palace for a cuppa with the old purrer, she will be choking on furballs on May 8th rather than purring the old shite

Allan Massie’s piece in the Spectator following the speech is a reasonably fair piece I think. The baying, braying Tories below the line beg to differ with him but the insults are old hat and unimaginative.

My respect for Nicola Sturgeon has grown though it was already huge.

She is a great orator but much more than that, you can feel his sincerity. We, in Scotland are very lucky to have such politicians available to represent us.

During the referendum campaign, my wife often said about Nicola “she is the SNP’s greatest asset”.

Now I truly believe my wife was right, the speech along with the Q&A’s in hostile territory would have matched Alex Salmond at his best.

He will be proud, as she should be. I am, I hope we all are.

Thanks to Ian B for the link to Richie Venton, explosive stuff!

She just gets better all the time. Many English must wish they had someone like her to lead them.

@manandboy says: 11 February, 2015 at 6:34 pm

“Nicola will get no help from the BBC.”

You haven’t noticed then? Wassa Marra was on the Radio earlier attempting to amplify the BBC faux generated story that the Scottish NHS is in meltdown.

Yet the Scottish NHS is the top performing NHS in the United Kingdom. There really is no crises and the SNP action of sending in a team to the underperforming Hospital, (BTW : it has a Labour Controlled Hospital Board), to nip their falling performance figures in the bud demonstrates a well performing government.

That Hospitals figures quoted for their poor performance actually shows they outperforming the average figures for each of the other UK countries NHS services.

To show that this whole meltdown story is a lie see this picture of Wassa Marra & sidekick campaigning against NHS understaffing — outside a disused Glenrothes health centre. You couldn’t make it up.

After hearing the First Minister, what sort of people in Scotland will vote for Labour in May?

Where does that 25% support come from?

Fear us Westminster, fear us establishment lackeys, you can’t so easily turn your propaganda to the full unbridled effect it has had in the past. You can divide us no longer.

Nicola’s integrity and the honesty that flows from this shines a light on her truly egalatarian nature.

She speaks for me and I find myself honoured to be a person lving in this time in history. Not only witnessing but being a part of a genuine movement that takes a more compassionate and holistic view of the society we live in. That seeks to provide the means to bring about a radical rethink and change of course from the one we have been set upon by those with no integrity; who have placed personal gain above all other considerations at the expense of their fellow human beings.

This way has led to great, unnecessary, suffering.

Enough.

Dave McEwan Hill,

“There is indeed billions of cash locked up in banks in UK.”

The UK is bankrupt and its banks even more so.

The money is deposited by extremely rich people in overseas tax havens and is used to fund the arms trade, the drugs trade and all sorts of illegal activities and wars.

The new Greek government is a breath of fresh air but it won’t be long before it is either toppled or corrupted by the few people who actually rule the world.

This state of affairs exists because the plebs are easily outmanouvered by the establishment by bribes, threats, lies and jingoism.

Especially jingoism for the 70% elderly british nationalists who voted No.

@galamcennalath says: 11 February, 2015 at 9:52 pm:

“Chalk and cheese”.

If it smells like cheese, and it looks cheesy … …

Ahem! Yes Well!

When out visiting tonight, Newsnight came on their TV and we paused to see how they reported the towering performance of Nicola Sturgeon in London.

Instead, they covered the spat at PM’s questions over Labour/Tory grabbing hot money and brought Harriet Harman on to talk about womens’ equality in politics.

It took 20 minutes to get BBC complaints to answer, and to be fair I think the intelligent young man who eventually to the call completely understood and accurately recorded the call pointing out that Newsnight had missed its only opportunity to hear a serious alternative to the 3-party austerity policy – That they had failed the UK public in not letting them hear top-class ideas on how to build a functioning economy while protecting the common weald – and this from the woman would be likely to be making the real economic decisions in the UK in a hung parliament.

A woman who had already implemented the equality of women in politics, and was not just waffling as Labour has on this subject since time immemorial.

03700100222 option 1 and option 3

Magrit Curren is just as good but in her own way.

Spoken in one breath…

Inna wan’tae make Scotlan’ a be”er place by kickin’ oot tha’ SNP, coz they’re draggin’ us doon, they cannae dae a thing righ’, they’re a millstone roon oor neck an’ ankles; they’re like gravity times a hunner, poolin’ us intae a stank, an’ we havtae gie peepole hope, hope so they kin stand tall again at least till they reach the pollin’ station tae vote Labour, efter tha’ they’re oan their oan – an’ those tha’ cannae pit their ‘X’ on a wee bi’ o’ paper are strapped tae a chair till they sign a thousan’ postal votes each, cos if we dinnae bend the rools a wee bit they Tories we like tae caw SNP will ge’ back in again, and we mayasweel bury oor dead noo cos it wull be devastatin’ fer us as a nashun that’s pert o’ the great union o’ nations called the British Bank Laundry Services. Okay ah’ll take kweshuns now…

Ms Curren, are you no obsessed with the SNP?

Me? Ah didnae menshun them the wanst! Whit are yi gettin’ at? Ah am Laburr frae ma beauty pedicure tae ma hunner pound hair do! But since yous mention them usurpers and burpers a kin tell yous a thing or two aboot their total incontinence-

Dimbleby holds his head in his hands, speaks to audience:

I am terribly sorry, I had invited Victoria Coren to the Question Time panel but our new researcher is from Glasgow and he thought I said Curren.

@stinky 6.42 and 10.04
@finnmacollie 7.05
@Robert Peffers 10.40

03700100222 option 1 and option 3

I knew AS was probably Scotland’s most gifted politician and he was the man who bulldozed a path forward to the brink of independence.

He was also very clever in seeing the potential in NS and smart enough to let her mature as a person as well as a politcal force.

Nicola has taken all the knowledge and experience of AS, added her own and taken herself, the SNP and Scot. Gov. up to a completely level never seen before in Scottish politics and hopefully soon in the UK. What a speech and what a fighter for Scotland.

I feel so very, very proud to be Scottish and to know that gal(!) is one of ours. 🙂

Nicola is the most charismatic politician in these islands.
Warm, humerous , witty and brilliantly intelligent.
How lucky we are.
How anyone can hear her and then believe the rubbish that the Slab rabble come out with defies all reason.

@crazycat says:11 February, 2015 at 11:14 pm:

” … they wouldn’t have to go out of their way to hear her”

For many of that ilk, crazycat, it wouldn’t make a whit of difference. Nicola frequently uses words of more than one syllable. To many of the Labour traditional voters she would be as well speaking Martian doublespeak. Strange thing is they can usually tell you the precise odds and returns of any particular stake for a complex roll-up bet on the horses.

It thus isn’t that they have no brains or reasoning powers. In other words they are not in any way stupid – just totally uninterested in other than a very few matters. Matters which may also account for much of the poor lifespan figures in parts of Scotland.

Extremely proud of our first minister Nicola Sturgeon. I will have an extra spring in my step tomorrow morning as I deliver my next batch of leaflets. Wow!,what a performance.

Thanks Rev ,
Now that video is a WOW moment ……. If Carlsberg did Politicians …………. Sorry that may need explaining to some younger readers .

Need to catch up posts , sorry folks Ch4 news first .

I agree with above posts , this BBC an Labour crap attacking SNP / A&E is disgraceful . Surely it will turn staff away from Labour as a party .
I’m sure I heard TV tonight quoting their source ” Figures provided by Labour ” FFS the media are so useless they just accept everything the Labour Party tells them , without any thought on verification , useless !

Roll on our PQ protest next month .

@Tackety Beets I’m sure I heard TV tonight quoting their source ” Figures provided by Labour ” 12.25
If your are right – thats an Ofcom issue – take time to complain and ask for a written reply for reference to Ofcom

@ Ronnie A

I can confirm I know a good few ” at the upper level / Admin ” types on NHS Highland that were strong NOs .
I felt their wrath a few times whilst I tried to engage nicely with them pre Sept 18 th
Common retort was ” Alec Salmon win nae get rid o food banks ”
Sorry to admit but it was the vehement tone that made me leave it . I was quite astonished that TTIP went over their heads . Move on I thought …. An Hell mend ye under my breath !

Thanks Cadogan .
Will do .
Right now , senior moment , Doh !
I’m 99.9999% sure that’s what was said .
It was late eve news , maybe some others on here noticed too ?
I’ll check tomorrow first tho’

Cheers

Has anyone seen this dross over on the new statesman?

link to newstatesman.com

Its the kind of spinelessness that I absolutely despise. The English left simply does not get it yet. I wonder if they ever will?

O/T
Caught sight of a programme on BBC 3 worth checking out, called An Idiot’s Guide to Politics. It’s on IPlayer and if you can put up with the quirky aspects there are some very revealing moments, such as the fact that it’s not illegal for MPs to lie in the HoC, but the general theme is about the lack of engagement with politics (in England) because most of the Facebook generation don’t trust politicians (corruption being a core reason).

It begins in Scotland with praise for the level of engagement during Indyref 1, then switches to England thereafter, where most of the big parties get in the neck. Coming on the back of Nicola’s speech, perhaps there is hope for a radical awakening south of the border?

Proud to say That Nicola Speaks on Behalf of Scotland.

Our Nicola is brilliant!!!

I, and my son and his pal, were really lucky to hear Nicola Sturgen speak at Napier University in the run up to the Referendum. She took the time to speak to folk afterwards. I was incredibly touched that she told us to keep up the good work. An encounter we will never forget.

Today’s speech was very similar in quality and poise but with even greater added confidence and content!

I was waiting for a member of the UCL audience to ask the SNP to put candidates up for election in their constituencies and save England too!!

Mind you, that could yet happen…

Seen in yesterdays Courier, worth repeating

“Labour on the Road to D’ohwhere”.
titter
🙂

The friend I attended with yesterday (never a supporter of Independence until he thought about it during the referendum debate) had suggested to me a couple of months before the referendum that Salmond should step down to push us over the line. I disagreed. For me he was the single most important factor to getting us to where we were. He brought the same point up yesterday after the talk and although I made the same argument there was sone doubt in my mind. Might that have been a good strategic move? We’ll never know.

O/T

Extensive coverage of Football TV rights in Herald Sport this morning.

Alloa chairman saying “Disgraceful BBC leave SPFL short on TV deal” and on back page Kevin Ferrie making salient point that unlike in Ireland Sky and BT have no need to negotiate with the Scottish government before beaming pictures into homes.

@Fat boab

Lack of Murphy?

Maybe it is because I keep phoning the BBC to thank them and ask for him to be on as much as possible as every time he appears the SNP votes goes up by tens of thousands.

Do you think they have twigged?

It is good fun – give it a try 03700100222 Option 1. Option 1.

Nicola was brilliant but we must get the links out there on every site we visit. Link,link link!

People have to hear what she said and how she said it and not have the BBC or STV filter!

frogesque says:

Scotland has Nicola, Labour has. . . a wee pink bus.

Aye, and the cunning, bright pink “Barbie bus” stunt has backfired big time. It’s going down really badly and seems to be even more offensive than the patronising cereal woman ad. A bit of backpedalling going on this morning, with red tories trying to say it’s nothing to do with colour. Really? Then why the hell did they try and use colour?

Red tories – from bad to worse! You really couldn’t make this stuff up (unless you’re a red tory).

Cash For Honours Scandal. The men who loaned money to Labour;

Rod Aldridge – £1 million – former Executive Chairman of Capita
Richard Caring – £2 million – owner of The Ivy, London
Gordon Crawford – £500,000 – Chairman of London Bridge Software
Sir Christopher Evans – £1 million – Founder of Merlin Biosciences
Sir David Garrard – £2.3 million
Nigel Morris – £1 million – co-Founder of Capital One and Director of The Economist Group
Sir Gulam Noon – £250,000 – Chairman of Noon Products Ltd
Dr Chai Patel – £1.5 million
Andrew Rosenfeld – £1 million – Chairman of Minerva plc
David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville – £2 m – Government Minister
Barry Townsley – £1 million – Chairman of Insinger Townsley
Derek Tullett – £400,000 –
Total: £13,950,000

The CfH timeline;

link to uk.reuters.com?

Why is Jim Murphy accepting a donation from Sir David Garrard?

If the lack of coverage of Nicolas speech by the TV news outlets has taught us only one thing, it’s that Scotland’s crying out for its own dedicated TV news channel.

Without it, it will always be an uphill struggle.

Cochers getting his knickers in a twist over Nicola’s speech yesterday-lovely but don’t think he was watching the same speech as us. His version departs quite quickly into the realms of fantasy. Why am i not surprised by that?

Thankfully the audience recognised class when they saw it :-)but Cochers says it was Nicola pitching her tent on WM turf. Haha-he’s spitting nails at her audacity. How very dare she.
link to archive.today

And then it’s time for Alex Massie talking about Cameron being lucky that he’s not facing Sturgeon 🙂
link to archive.today

Nicola = Pure dead BRILLIANT

@ Hoss.

Brilliant, doing it today.

Getting a bit frustrated with Archive.Today this morning as this is the 3rd article it won’t let me archive. Scottish Labour Paying the Price by Jamie Maxwell

link to newstatesman.com

Robert Peffers/Thepnr I could trade poverty stories with both of you but Robert what you said was straight out of sixties Daily Express so Thepnr I agree with.

Robert there are no gold stars trading deserving poor against feckless betting,smoking,drinking poor. Poverty damages us so do not defend it. The work ethic is great if you can find the work!

Sir David Garrard donated £25,000 to the Better Together campaign last year.

Also…

Middle East Monitor, 20 October 2014
Around this time last year, parliamentary records show, the retired property developer and hugely generous Labour party donor, Sir David Garrard, had given a modest £60,000 towards the party’s election campaign for 2015. It came in addition to around half a million he had already given since 2003.

That same day, Garrard transferred a whopping £630,000 to the Labour party accounts, over ten times his donation from the previous year.

The Jewish Chronicle, 24 September 2013
Senior Labour shadow cabinet members are due to join the party’s biggest delegation to visit Israel for years.

Philanthropist Sir David Garrard is hosting the visit, which will see the delegation tour Herzliya’s International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Israel’s northern borders, Iron Dome units, Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and the new Palestinian city of Rawabi.

* Moshe Ya’alon, 2002: “The Palestinian threat harbors cancer-like attributes that have to be severed. There are all kinds of solutions to cancer. Some say it’s necessary to amputate organs but at the moment I am applying chemotherapy.”

In October 2014, Ya’alon supported a plan that would effectively ban Palestinian workers from buses used by Jewish settlers.

New Statesman, 18 December, 2006:
The present cast of special advisers and spin doctors in Downing Street fully expect to be out of a job when the Gordon Brown premiership begins. But it is not immediately obvious that the new man will find it easy to draw a line under the affair. There is, for example, the small matter of the £2.3 million loan from Sir David Garrard, a former supporter of the Conservative Party. When I made a documentary for Channel 4 on the subject of cash for honours earlier this year, Garrard’s spokesman, the Conservative peer Lord Bell, told me that Sir David had given the loan because of his strong support for the war in Iraq.

lollysmum
done
link to archive.today
I’m putting out fires all over the place today. 🙂

She makes me so proud (as condescending as that might sound) I’m so proud to have her as our head of state she is fantastic. Her own person as much as she is part of the team.

What an applause as well, made me well up a little bit.

Labour’s wee pink bus outside ASDA ….Ms Sturgeon inside UCL talking to the grownups in a grownup way.

The contrast could not be starker and Channel 4 news last night, perhaps unwittingly, showed it even more starkly. They followed a fairly longish discussion piece about the pink bus where two women, one of whom purported to be a politician, discussed the pink bus dealing with such important things as the exact shade of pink.

This was followed immediately with Jon Snow’s interview with Ms Sturgeon. The contrast was like night and day. It was a short interview and none of the speech was shown but if you want women to engage in politics then it was quite clear who would be the more effective advocate for that.

@Famous15 well said. Do we need to get our poverty/adversity credentials out? It’s about respect and empathy.

@at Robert Peffers, you really believe people choose ignorance??

Hi Robert Peffers.

You typed:
“Not everyone born to depravation is destined to remain in depravation.”

That takes me back to when I was around 12. The teacher had asked a question and one of my classmates answered,

“A deprived child is a child who lives in a state of depravity.”

Oh how we tittered…

Lenny Hartley says:

Whether its because people are starting to realise that they threw away the chance to have a fair and prosperous country or that the change of direction to push for Devo-Max has attracted the new members I don’t know but it can only be for the good.

Many people voted NO out of instinct (fear) because the stakes were just too high. They stuck with the devil they knew (or thought they knew). Now that the immediate “threat” of independence has been lifted, and the “devil” is even more nasty than they thought, these people are starting to take stock and rationalise just what was on offer last September (and whether or not they made the right decision). The hard-core Britnat faction are, of course, eager to return to the old ways, but many soft NOs are still thinking about what happened, what is to come, and what they will do if there is another referendum.

People had two years to really think about it and make their minds up. It’s a phenomenon of human nature that even if they had ten years, many people would still be unable to decide properly until after the deed was done. It does have very important implications for the next referendum, however. The movement for home rule/FFA is now stronger than ever, because YES and soft NO voters have decided that it’s the very least that they want, for now.

Valerie says
“@at Robert Peffers, you really believe people choose ignorance??”

I do,
I know them,
people who when faced with fact simply refuse to acknowledge them.

England has been running Scotland for 300 years
Despite every attempt to prevent democracy in Scotland we’ve now managed to get a little bit of what we vote for
Now it seems that the English are falling for the media’s attempt to sow derision between the Nations
Let me try to be as clear as i can on this,neither the SNP or Scots have any interest in running the affairs of England we are very comfortable with EVEL
The only thing Scots are interested in is running our own country without interference from Westminster but in order to achieve that we have had to play Westminster at their own game but play it smarter
I hope this in some way gives you comfort in that your bit of the UK will remain your responsibility to do with what you can and with that We wish you luck
Don’t be fooled by what the Tv media and Rupert Murdoch would have you believe we’ve found them out and i hope you do too
The SNP are not Extremists Terrorists Ultras Fascists or any other of these types of stupid name calling tactics by the media

We are mostly Insturgeonts
That’s just a wee joke…

Nevermind:
the ability to introduce fair proportional voting in England is entirely a matter for the Engish electorate, as is the need to devolve an English Parliament if they are really serious about remaining together with Scotland, and indeed retaining Wales and NI in the UK of GB and NI. They make up the majority of the population, their representatives make up the majority at Westminster. Do. It. Yourself.

We are not their social conscience, we are not the reason they ‘have to’ do anything. Neither are we to blame for what they have chosen; conservative policies for decades masquerading as various shades from blue to red.

The changes that have happened in Scotland could have happened in England, and they will, but first the English electorate need to decide who exactly they are. Are they ethnic English only? Or are they inclusive of EU nationals? Are the English simply Greater Londoners or are they a rich diverse group with strong regional identities who still all feel an English bond?

I have English ancestry, and I live in England, I find myself sympathising with many here in the North East of it, they’d like what the Scots have; strong, intelligent and caring government that sees locally as well as globally, a few consider it unfair, and something they have somehow ‘paid for’ but most recognise the same abandonment by London that happened to them and appreciate the effort to get devolution and to run a devolved administration. Quite a few now regret not going for a regional assembly.

The lesson the Scots teach the English is take what’s on offer, make the most of it even if it’s not quite what you had in mind, and never give up on the ultimate goal. AV wasn’t good, but it was on offer and it wasn’t FPTP. Regional assemblies were talking shops but they were on offer, now what is muttered about is elected mayors and city states, which will concentrate power instead of distributing it.

The Greens are on offer, don’t piss away that chance.

@ nevermind
Did you watch the whole of her speech? I clearly heard her talking about banks, tax avoidance etc & she got a round of applause for her comments.

I am English & live in England & yes I want proportional representation too. I don’t have a party I can vote for because none of the current crop equates to my leftie inclinations. Not even the Greens who don’t appear to be standing a candidate in my area anyway.

There is a huge democratic deficit in England because none of the parties give us a choice where our vote actually counts for anything. Scotland only got PR to ensure that no single party could dominate in Scot gov & we see now how that worked out.

The turkeys in Westminster will never allow PR because they would be putting themselves out of their very lucrative jobs so please don’t blame Scotland/SNP for not pushing PR-that is England electorate’s job (mine included).

There is uproar in England because Scotland wants it’s legally elected MP’s to vote in the Commons on the issues that affect Scotland & HoC is seeking any way to prevent that because everyone objects to Scots having their voice heard. So are you seriously saying that they should seek to interfere in the voting system in England given that they already have PR? That would seem to be offensive when they have nothing to gain from doing so & would play into the hands of MP’s/Parties that don’t want Scots MP’s anywhere near to WM.

It is up to you, me & everyone else in England to make the case for PR here in England. At the moment, FPTP system ensures that only a third of the electorate gets it’s choice of representation to WM which leaves two thirds disappointed but that is our problem & we can’t expect the SNP to force that change on us. We have to do that for ourselves.

Criticising the SNP for not pushing PR really is disingenuous when the solution is in the English electorate’s hands.

@ John King

Thanks for archiving that page John & well done 🙂

@ nevermind

“For the last time, please make the choice for fair proportional voting here in England an essential part of your possible future coalition talks, why would you not want us to have a fair vote when you granted it to Scottish voters, indeed when you were at the centre of the campaign for fair voting?”

Because it would be wrong and its not about what we want for anyone else’s electorate.

The SNP are primarily concerned with representing the people of Scotland at Westminster. How the SG conduct their electoral affairs in Scotland and how we react to that structure is for Scots to decide. How parties of government in England, Wales, NI conduct their electoral affairs and how their electorates respond to their governance is, quite rightly, for them to decide.

Can you imagine the reaction to the Scottish government dictating terms of voting to another country’s politicians or electorate as part of any deal? Dear God, we’d never hear the end of it. No, their job is to represent the Scottish electorates interests at Westminster as part of a parliamentary political union, nothing more, nothing less. If the people of the other constituent partners wish to reform their own electoral system or that of the UK as a whole, then they vote for a homegrown party which proposes such reform or they pressurise their party of choice into putting such reforms on their agenda. These parties carry this to the UK parliament get a bill together and the process rolls from there on till its carried or chucked.

The best Scotland can do as the numerically smaller partner is provide an example for others to follow. PR has worked here reasonably well. Its for the voters of England to draw this to their representatives attention and twist a few arms.

So if you like PR, start twisting your politicians arms and making some noise.

Oh and by the by, if you watched the vid you’ll note that coalition isn’t really on the cards. In fact the only people who have consistently brought up the subject have been Labour, the conservatives and their pet commentators in the media. In fact, everyone but the SNP.

@ Brian Fleming, if you resort to stereotypes and heresay to make your point you’re on thin ice. I think you’ll find that most “Highly Intellegent” Glaswegians voted YES, to their eternal credit.

Looking askance at the guys in Bet Fred as if they’re some kind of different species hardly squares with the interests of the last First Minister who reputedly knew the back of a horse from the front and would be quite at ease in Bet Fred himself.

So does this Fred! you bet.

@ gordie mcrobert –

Sorley Maclean – xx

link to youtube.com

For those who are interested in economics, and relevant to Ms Sturgeon’s analysis, here are two short papers which are as clear an explanation of the present position as I have yet found. I really urge all of you to read them, because they address some confusions I have seen often on here: not least the media distortions about the origins of the crisis; the insignificance of the deficit and the reasons it is given so much emphasis; and the role of the media in supporting the austerity agenda. Do please read them.

link to lrb.co.uk

link to static1.squarespace.com

Don’t listen to what they say: watch what they do, as the saying goes..