We have to admit the line below takes some chutzpah to even attempt. It’s a little bit like Harold Shipman refusing to admit to all the murders he committed on the grounds that revealing the victim/patients’ personal data would break the Hippocratic Oath.
We know, for an absolute and uncontested fact, by the Scottish Government’s own admission, that the First Minister has already committed the most serious breach of the Ministerial Code possible – lying to Parliament (section 1.3c). She lied about the date she first knew of the allegations against Salmond.
From the First Minister’s own personal written testimony, we know that the reason she lied to Parliament was that she had definitely also committed another breach of the Code, either by using Scottish Parliament premises for party matters (section 1.3i) or by failing to record government business discussed therein (sections 4.22, 4.23).
So it seems a bit late to be getting all bashful about the Code now.
Last year I was booed on the stage of the SNP’s annual conference for attempting to have a debate on how we can achieve independence in the face of Boris Johnson’s unswerving refusal to agree to a referendum.
I know that it still sticks in the craw of many that an SNP representative was booed at an SNP conference for wanting to discuss how Scotland will become independent (the very idea!), but it only made me even more determined to ensure that the democratic voice of Scotland is heard.
Nobody around here has any time for the Tories. But if you believe democracy should exist then governments should have oppositions and be subject to legitimate scrutiny.
These motions were the entirely proper business (and indeed duty) of a Parliamentary opposition. In the first instance they were acting on behalf of a cross-party, SNP-led committee which has repeatedly requested evidence it hasn’t been given, and in the second instance the SNP didn’t even oppose the motion (their MSPs abstained).
Neither of today’s motions were anything to do with independence or a referendum, just the normal everyday operation of government, so what Wishart is so indignantly demanding for his party is a rubber-stamping sham Parliament in which the SNP can do whatever it wants all the time without any meaningful scrutiny or challenge – an arrangement better known in communist China or the Third Reich.
(Ironically, it’s also exactly the sort of staggeringly arrogant entitlement you’d expect from the most stereotypical Eton Tory.)
We don’t know about you, folks, but that’s not what we signed up for.
(It’s also passingly ironic that if Biden does win – as he still may well do arithmetically, although we wouldn’t necessarily want to put a lot of money on him living long enough to ever actually reach the Oval Office after all the legal wrangling/civil war is over – it’ll be on the votes of white men overturning those of women and people of colour, who all counter-intuitively and inexplicably swung to Trump.)
In a world where almost every vote seems to be on a knife-edge, it seems the woke left still hasn’t learned how criminally, recklessly, suicidally stupid it is to alienate 70% of the population to feed the endless, insatiable narcissism of 0.7% of the population.
Quite aside from anything else, that’s because the only votes you secure by doing so are the votes of people who’d never have voted for Donald Trump in a million years anyway. The only votes you’re gambling with are those of the natural left. And even if only a tiny fraction of the alienated actually turn, it can be enough to change the world.
When we first saw this video on Twitter through bleary half-asleep eyes this morning, we thought it was a well-done satire. But no. He actually put it out himself.
There can surely in history have never been anything that demeaned both the office of President and the USA as a nation more than the image halfway through that video of him prancing around in front of Air Force One.
Today America decides its future. And dear lord, what a choice it has.
TO: Colin Beattie MSP, National Treasurer, SNP DATE: 28 October 2020
Dear Colin,
I note that today you’ve sent an email to SNP members on the contentious topic of the party’s supposedly “ring-fenced” referendum campaign fund, which we’ve learned for the first time today has a grand official name – the Referendum Appeal Fund (which from here on we’ll call the RAF for short).
The email also contains some rather offensive implied smears about my website and myself, but I’m quite used to being abused on the internet so I’ll let that slide. As we’re both on the side of Scottish independence, rather than getting involved in a tit-for-tat slanging match I thought I’d try to reach a constructive consensus.
I notice that in your email you invite people who have “any questions” on the subject to contact you without hesitation, and while I’m not a member of the party I believe I do speak for a considerable number of people who are, so it would likely also save you a lot of tedious copy-and-pasting if you replied publicly to me as their representative.
(And because, y’know, if you don’t then you’ll probably get about a thousand individual emails from members containing the text below anyway, which doesn’t seem like a productive use of anyone’s time.)
Scot Finlayson on Looking up at the stars: “Hamilton is an English carpetbagger, `A carpetbagger is a derogatory term for an outsider—historically a Northerner in the post-Civil War…” Mar 10, 21:18
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Dear Lord, that man never learns, does he? We’re doing it for you, Anas! If I were Anas Sarwar, I’d…” Mar 10, 20:38
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “It’ll dawn on the electorate one day that they’re really all just one big party.” Mar 10, 20:34
ScotsCanuck on Looking up at the stars: “….. I can only say of Coal-scuttle, he is the personification of the saying “you can’t fix stoopid”.” Mar 10, 20:14
100%Yes on Looking up at the stars: “What would I rather have Lib-Dem leader resign or the SNP out on their ear, good bye SNP hopefully for…” Mar 10, 20:05
Morgatron on Looking up at the stars: “He is a useless wank stain to be honest. His friend Anas – surley thats a spelling mistake!” Mar 10, 20:05
Geri on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “‘You cling to this like mamas titty’ Says the monarchist who clings to something out the dark ages. Where men…” Mar 10, 20:03
Geri on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““which apparently democratically elected its latest leader, in a process that with no preparation lasted a whole week, and lead…” Mar 10, 19:46
Alf Baird on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““withdraw from the Union” There is no need to withdraw from something that does not exist. Scotland was annexed, according…” Mar 10, 19:30
Alf Baird on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “On the contrary, in the paternalist colonial society it is the colonized native as dependent ‘child’ who clings to the…” Mar 10, 19:18
sarah on Looking up at the stars: “I think he’s looking for a way out of the “leadership” – or does the extra pay mean he actually…” Mar 10, 19:05
100%Yes on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “There’s bigger fish to fry than indulge into to the mind of someone who doesn’t know from one day to…” Mar 10, 18:34
100%Yes on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “He does these video from mummy’s house, I hope. Ornament refers to something that enhances the appearance of an object…” Mar 10, 18:23
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““mild” Is that the Scots for over a million casualties?” Mar 10, 17:52
Aidan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Sorry pressed submit before I finished typing, that should say that Iran is the latest despotic dictatorship Geri is fawning…” Mar 10, 17:42
Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “The things that Transgenderism and Islamic terrorism have in common is their ability to infiltrate and use Socialist administrations for…” Mar 10, 17:27
Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “20 IRGC sponsored terror attacks in the Union of Kingdoms have been stopped by MI5 in the last 2 years.…” Mar 10, 17:19
Aidan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Good to see you back CC, as you’ll see not much has changed whilst you were away. The peaceful democratic…” Mar 10, 17:18
David Holden on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “The only thing I can find as a positive about the ” kinetic event ” in the gulf is that…” Mar 10, 17:08
Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “When did the independence debate sink into colonial cryin’ and threats. I must say that a threat from a Nasty…” Mar 10, 17:01
James Che on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Lorncal, Sorry to interrupt and to be rude, but what planet are you on? Scotland was dissolved from the Treaty…” Mar 10, 16:42
Alf Baird on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““The Treaty is old guff” Tho the colonizer does tend to bring out these mankit violated treaties ‘whenever colonialism is…” Mar 10, 16:11
Lorncal on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Geri: the Scottish MPs are outvoted 10 times over and can never, ever affect the Westminster vote. That is just…” Mar 10, 16:09
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Is conscription coming for us all? I expect most posters on here will be no better than Home Guard material.…” Mar 10, 16:06
James Che on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Rev Stuart Campbell. Likewise, It seems some are not capable to apply thought, research and action for themselves and need…” Mar 10, 16:02
