Panto season
Posted on
December 27, 2020 by
Chris Cairns
(Yeah, we lost track of the days and forgot yesterday was Saturday, shut up.)
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27 12 20 07:56
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“Oh No it doesn’t”
You may have lost track of the days Chris, but Bojo and his cohorts have lost track of the centuries!
Legends in their own minds only.
I’m presuming the fine detail of the Brexit deal
reveals the true horrors within otherwise it would
have been extensively covered by Bojo’s media.
Thank goodness it only 4 years away until England
gives Boris another 5 year term.
Time someone speared the bastard with the trident he’s holding in his left hand before he and is ilk roast us all on a spit.
From the little I’ve read you presume correctly Effijy.
Has Blackford resigned yet ?
And what are the new NEC doing ?
Great cartoon Chris.
The only upsides I can see to brexit are :
Everyone now knows for certain that the queen is very political, calculating, and prefers her offshore tax avoidance to protecting her poorest subjects.
Eton, Oxford and Cambridge can produce significant numbers of very selfish roasters.
The more we find out about the tax avoidance – the less popular reesmogg becomes.
The BBC is finished as a news gathering service.
Any others ?
All gas and gaiters. Which I think was the title of an English sitcom back when people did the football pools. Don’t know if the old one was funny, but this sitcom we’re in isn’t.
I lost track of the days too and thought today was Saturday, and here’s the cartoon – right on time. Thanks, Stuart. It’s outstanding. Brilliant, Chris.
… was reading yesterday that the U.K. gdp growth is forecast to outstrip the Eu by over 5% over the next few years.
Keep decrying the U.K., the English, etc, keep underestimating us, keep belittling us, our politicians and our institutions. Keep telling us there would be no cherry picking. Keep telling us what we can’t do “sarf of the border”.
Meanwhile, “darn sarf” we vote for something, we vote for someone, they promise to do something, they do it.
The contrast couldn’t be more vivid … so have fun with your little cartoon, carry on getting everything wrong, carry on getting nowhere, carry on with the bitter infighting and division, carry on with it all …. whilst the rest of the U.K. moves onwards and upwards.
Happy new year!
SENSIBLEDAVE.
Obviously depends on how you interpret the runes.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/dec/01/government-covid-oecd-uk-growth-forecast
Enjoy!
The english media telling us everything is going to be just fine.
And that we have to “stick with it” to appreciate all the benefits that will come flooding our way.
I have a better idea,,, let’s just vote to become an independent nation and let engerland get on with it’s self inflicted death.
Sensible Dave. You do realise you’ve broken your cover in your euphoria over Johnson’s deal?
Also you laud the UKs institutions, WHIT!
A WM Parliament that’s living in the dark ages trying – and failing – to maintain an internal English Empire. It’s all crumbling and you don’t even see it.
The UK’s attempt to insert a STOP THE SCOTS clause is PRICELESS.
Your kind have no ownership of Scotland.
England/UK have NO VETO over Scottish EU membership.
Get intae yer time machine – but mind – it only has one gear – REVERSE.
Ottomanboi
… written on dec 1st by the Gruduan! Ffs!
But your comment proves my point. You desperately seek news and stories to bolster your negative views about my country and my fellow citizens. You rarely seek to inspire Scots with a positive story about a positive future based upon positive steps. No, you need/want the U.K. (England) to fail …you rely on mealy mouthed, one eyed negativity about the rest of us.
With the greatest respect, IT ISNT WORKING!
I have been commenting here on Wings for many years and, frankly, it is hard to remember a recent time where indyref2 (or indyreg2 being won by Yessers) is less likely.
@Sensibledave,
I see you have decided that Brexit allows you to come out fighting. I agree with you on some things Dave but not on others.
We can sort ourselves and our leadership out in time and still remain on the road to Independence. It is for me at least a one way street with no reversing.
As for the economy, I hope English people do well and I say that with no resentment at all.
We are however two nations joined under a Treaty. Both want different things and yet only one has the power to change not only their own course but the choices of the other.
We want something else? Too bad the choice is made for you.
People cannot live wjth that indefinitely Dave. We as a nation are showing clear signs of that. Only the overconfident or the arrogant would ignore those signs ,just as Westminster is doing.
Things will change and for better or worse I will be embracing those changes here in Scotland.
Do I want my grandchildren growing up having to deal with a neighbour with attitudes like yours. No.I don’t.
Better to leave an abusive partner and leave with nothing,than to remain. Ordinary English folk are not responsible, but Westminster do what they do in your name to keep you happy . You clearly are.
And the French now have the english just where they want them. They have the power to let the english economy grow, or they could shut the english economy down.
All it would take is one small blockade at Calais and the english economy comes to a stand still.
Similar to the way Israel decides whether The Gaza Strip sinks or swims.
So a wee warning to all you mouthy Englanders,,,be careful how you treat your neighbour across the Channel.
In the hopefully not too distant future, the Englanders will have EU Nations to the North, South, East and West of it.
Bringing home the true meaning of being “isolated” to the detested, racist english.
Anyone else think Boris capitulated on fishing as a consequence of the French closing the Border?
Seems to me like the French have the UK exactly where they want them but no-one in England seems to have recognised it.
I don’t see why the French will continue to hold back refugees so will Brexit be the start of an influx of asylum seekers landing on the South Coast?
Sensibledave
Why the hysteria.
The solution is simple, let us leave the the union and that way England gets rid of us moaning ungrateful jocks and all that subsidised money we get goes to the hard pressed English tax payer. Done.
Except England has done everything short of military action to keep us in the union. Why? I mean according to Westminster there is no financial sense to keeping us.
So Dave why won’t they let us go, and please don’t say “because we are stronger together”.
Oh you plebs.
You just don’t get it, do you?
The UK has the BEST genomic sequencing in the world!!
So you silly Scots can’t go independent. How would you fare in the next pandemic without the BEST GENOMIC SEQUENCING IN THE WORLD???!!!!???!!!???!!!!!
Sorry, OT. This post has been made on FB by west aberdeenshire snp. It is interesting:
“Just reflecting on the new “great deal” UK has with the EU.
In the run up to the next INDYref, the Unionist can no longer argue that we will “be out of the EU”, and they won’t even be able to claim England and Wales will not trade with us.
At worst we will have the terms of the “Great Deal” as a backstop when negotiate our trade treaty with both the EU and England and Wales [NI will be unified fairly soon).
Hard to see that Unionist can argue anything other than a “scorched earth” policy towards Scotland in that case, and the EU would not be best amused if EFTA membership already negotiated in the couple years from vote to Independence Day.”
And this is my reply:
“is that the ‘indyref 2’ which Boris wont allow, and even if he did, would be voted down in HoC via the huge majority of unionist MPs? The same ‘indyref2’ that Sturgeon has falsely and repeatedly promised us was coming soon, 2016, 2017, 2019? Is that the same indyref2 that will be handled by a unionist vote-counting company, and arranged by a unionist Electoral Commission who will print vast numbers of postal votes which will all be returned and found to be in the negative? Like in indyref 2014. And will Ruth Davidson again be able to warn us in advance that the ‘no’ vote has won?
Is that the ‘indyref 2’ that the Scotgov and the snp have done not a single thing, zilch, in preparation for over the past seven years, in the unlikely event that it would be run fairly this time and result in a ‘YES’ vote? Or is that the ‘indyref2’ which, if run fairly this time and resulting in a YES vote, will be the signal to Sturgeon to launch a commission in the following year to start thinking about maybe how independence might be brought about if all the ‘ifs’ can perhaps be overcome by her valiant actions, but it is essential to take time over this to get it right?
And meantime, while all this ‘indyref2’ action is taking place, sturrel or murrel or whatever the overpaid slug’s name is, with the great civil service team headed by Evans & co, will have framed Cherry, Murray, and probably one or two other political threats as ‘sex pests’ or maybe next time successfully get one or more of these threats jailed for life for ‘sex’crimes’ – but no one will know all this because even if the parliament runs an enquiry into the behaviours of those at the top of the snp and the top of the scotgov, only A4 sheets of redactions will be produced as evidence and in any case, these upstarts will have been wiped from snp online history. And of course the press have been well-paid by the Scotgov to ensure they can continue to print whatever stories or non-stories are politically convenient for WM and its Scotgov allies – how many £millions of subsidies were given by Scotgov to the british newspapers, can anyone remember?
Or is that the ‘indyref2’ that will be lost not by WM interference or Scotgov interference but by over 50% of the Scottish people having been alienated by the removal of their sex-based rights and protections, with lurid anecdotes leaking out about porn workers invited by MPs to speak to children in schools, and of attacks on girls and women in changing rooms and toilets and prisons and schools and gyms up and down the land, while their menfolk (by birth and physiology, not by wordplays) have all been sent to prison for speaking out with the truth – that truth which is based on scientific reality and not weasel words or barely credible ‘re-definitions’.
Oh, I cant wait for this ‘indyref2’, hope it will be in my lifetime!
Little Fergus Mutch, the snp candidate for the area sent out cards just before xmas with a mini-survey on voting intentions for HE. It was sent back with reasons why I wont be voting at all till the Sturrells go. I hope they are getting the message.
Thank goodness for Bojo and his conspiracy of English nationalists for keeping support for Scottish independence so high by highlighting again and again that this is not a Union of equals. Instead it is the absolute domination by England’s ruling elite over Scotland, treating Scotland like a colony.
Thank goodness for Bojo for the blatant attacks on Scotland’s common sovereignty and democracy.
Whereas the SNP and Scottish colonial Parliament are like the enemy within, undermining and attempting to suppress the desire and means for the restoration of Scotland’s national sovereignty.
The SNP talk the talk. At the same time they and Scotland’s other politicians undermine and put obstacles in the way of Scotland gaining her freedom. They also facilitate and give credibility to English constitutional arguments of “(England’s Crown in parliament sovereignty”.
McDuff
Yes, Boris & the Brexiteers celebrate England’s independence, but true English independence will require our oppressor to finally ditch its cultural imperialism ‘One (Brit) nation’ policy imposing colonial rule over the ‘Celtic Periphery’.
Devolution and now Brexit reveals the true colonial nature of Scotland’s subordinate status, as does the actions and inactions of a daeless SNP elite.
Ronald Fraser says:
27 December, 2020 at 10:15 am
In the hopefully not too distant future, the Englanders will have EU Nations to the North, South, East and West of it.
Bringing home the true meaning of being “isolated” to the detested, racist english.
I think you will find that most of us do not ‘detest’ the English and accept that the majority of English people are no more racist than the average Scot.
How you think these absurd Siol nan Gaidheal rantings help the cause in any way is a mystery – unless of course your purpose is to deliberately damage the public image of the independence movement?
@Fionan says
In fairness, you couldn’t expect Sturgeon upon gaining power in 2014 to call for indyref2 to be held in 2015. It was only Brexit that gave us the possibility of a new indyref so quickly. So the seven-years jibe isn’t appropriate, IMO.
My view is that Sturgeon has deliberately held back from holding indyref2 until it’s clear to all that we’re forever stuck under a Tory thumb and lumbered against our will with Brexit. Let’s remember that she pulled the rug out from under Corbyn by calling for the GE that put Boris in power. You might not agree with Sturgeon’s strategy but that was a strategic move – what else could it be? Without the SNP, that GE would not have happened. Sturgeon put Boris in power and – presumably – did it to make more Scots favour independence.
At least, that’s what I hope. Anyway, Brexit has been done and we’re being vaccinated against covid. So nothing to stop the upcoming SNP election manifesto to include a line like:
That way, we’re voting not just for indyref2 but also for the time of it (so Boris can’t use “now is not the time” excuse).
So let’s pressure Sturgeon for the date of indyref2 to be in the manifesto!
ScotsRenewables
Go on say it numbnut,,, I’m from the 77th, 78th and 79th.
The majority of Englanders are racist little isolationists.
They fuckin hate the whole of humanity,,, unless you are a white Anglo Saxon.
They think the world owes them a favour.
So IMHO, the english are racist (Brexit Vote), and I can’t wait to see them wither and die.
Engerland will not be missed.
Gregory Beekman says:
27 December, 2020 at 10:54 am
@Fionan says
So let’s pressure Sturgeon for the date of indyref2 to be in the manifesto!
This is one of the most constructive ideas I have seen on here for a while.
We should all start lobbying our SNP MSPs now.
I’d like someone to tell me why a serious news programme thinks the photos released by Number 10 of the P.M pretending to make BIG Brexit decisions , is somehow worthy of public presentation.
Anyone? ITN????
Ronald Fraser,
It is you who is coming across as an unpleasant and not very bright racist, someone who is content to publish foaming xenophobic claptrap even though they must know it cannot possibly do the movement any good.
It is a mark of just how tolerant Wingers are that your ranting is still tolerated here, but you might like to contemplate the fact that no-one else has offered any support for your nonsense.
“Thank goodness for Bojo for the blatant attacks on Scotland’s common sovereignty and democracy”
From where I am sitting, the biggest assault on Scotland’s democracy, Scotland’s rights and popular sovereignty did not come from Bojo. It came from Sturgeon.
She is the leader of the party sent to Holyrood in 2016 with a mandate to hold indyref if we were dragged out of the EU against our will. In line with the UN charter, she should be fighting for the powers to hold that referendum to be delivered to Holyrood with no delay. Today there is absolutely nothing to stop this woman calling the referendum. All what she asked for is now in place. Do you see her on a hurry to bring those powers to Scotland and call that referendum? I don’t. I see her attempting to distract with potato seed nonsense and engaging in one of her favourite games: to hide her inaction behind criticism of the Uk government.
Her government is even fighting Mr Keatings in court to stop the people of Scotland finding out if we already have those powers. The denial of Scotland’s exercise in self determination is not just Bojo’s. It is a collusion between Bojo and Sturgeon.
She is the leader of the party that was given 45 seats in 2019 with a mandate to stop brexit. She could have attempted to stop brexit by removing the MPs from Westminster denying its legitimacy, albeit temporarily, to continue acting on behalf of Scotland. At that point, she could have demanded that either brexit was stopped or the union ended. If laughed at, she could have taken the Uk gov to the ECJ for unconstitutional triggering of A50 in violation of Scotland’s claim of right and equal status in this union. She could have taken the UK gov to the UN court for a direct breach of international law in attempting to force over Scotland its own interpretation of the treaty of union and for abuse of power aimed, in bad faith, to taking control of Scotland’s assets. At least make the world aware of what is going on.
Did you see this woman making a move, any move at all, towards that? Did you see any attempt by this woman to educate the world of what the UK is (not a country) and what Scotland’s fundamental part in it is?
Did you actually see her making any real move towards stopping brexit apart of wasting our time with the nonsense of joining England’s parties asking for a meaningful vote that did not matter to Scotland an iota and did not have a chance in hell?
I didn’t.
In conclusion, she is the leader of the party that so far has refused to uphold Scotland’s popular sovereignty, refused to deliver our democratic mandates and has endorsed the power and asset grab by allowing its MPs to continue sitting in Westminster and allowing those votes to go through.
She is the leader of the party that has point blank denied us our right to self determination and continues to do so to this day by forcing upon us the need of a S30. To add salt to the wounds, her government is happy to use taxpayers’ money to fight in the courts against Scottish people themselves and that are paying from their own pockets, so her government can ensure the need of that S30 is upheld against Scotland’s interests and be used as a blackmailing tool to ensure an SNP win in 2021.
From where I am seating, all what I see points to the fact that Sturgeon has been doing against Scotland the Uk gov’s dirty work for the last 5 years.
Time of course will reveal the real level of participation of Sturgeon in Mr Salmond’s conspiracy to destroy his reputation and credibility before voters. But looking at the bigger picture, smearing Mr Salmond was just another tick in the list of the British state’s dirty work tasks in Scotland.
ScotsRenewables says: 27 December, 2020 at 10:53 am
The ‘Sole nun Gael’ always present their ugly heads from time to time and their activities always seen to be picked up by the likes of the Daily mail soon after they go about their mischief making.
They are nothing but a cover for agent provocateurs and Ronald Fraser is just another one. 77th Brigade or a paid troll by private sector interests?
Scottish renewables
I think you are a Scottish Greens diehard, who has moved to Bonnie wee Scotch Land from the Saff of racist Engerland.
Up here to tell us not to mention how racist the english really are.
You’ll be fully behind this new Hate Crime Bill???
The english are the most detested, racist nation on the face of the earth.
There you go Renewables,,,sorted.
ScotsRenewables @11:07
Thank you!
ALSO: If Sturgeon wants to prove Wings wrong, she’s got an easy solution: put the indyref2 date in the manifesto.
Mia,
A few points offered in a non-combative manner:
Seed potatoes are not a nonsense, they are a valuable Scottish export. However, the hurt will most be felt in rural Tory constituencies, so maybe the EU have given us a hand here.
The SG are not opposing Martin Keating’s case, they merely decided against participating in it having originally agreed to. This has cost time for Martin and money for the Scottish taxpayer but heyho, the case is till going ahead and the SG’s non-participation is unlikely to affect the outcome.
As for ‘not stopping Brexit’ – well, she never had a hope in hell and in truth why would she want to? A hard Brexit is Scotland’s ticket out of the UK.
I am all for holding the SNP to account and now is the time. Now, not a year ago. Now, with Brexit finally behind us, a Covid vaccine rolling out and support for independence at an all time high.
To say that now is the time to ditch the SNP, to ditch therefore all hope of independence for a decade, is either a council of despair or a classic BritNat intelligence divide and rule tactic. My money is on the latter, and I am sad that so many have fallen for it.
Sturgeon reads this, she knows we are unhappy, she knows that we must see action now or her coat is on the proverbial shoogly peg. The NEC elections were a clear sign, the rumblings of impatience within the party are growing.
Best suggestion yet is to demand that Sturgeon sets a referendum date in the manifesto for the May elections, with or without an S30. Probably best to wait for the Keating court result first though, for which I am sure we are all keeping our fingers crossed.
As for the suggestion that all Nicola wants is 5 more years in Holyrood . . . she’s not a stupid woman, and I think she has more ambition than that. I think she will either bow out on a high quite soon to take up some highly visible public office or pick up the dropped indy baton and run with it. (Which depends on how likely it looks that the Salmond enquiry will finish her off).
My fear is that she hands the baton to that pompous, useless tool of a man, Angus Robertson. That WILL be the end of independence.
My other hope is that someone of substance steps up to the plate to front the ISP, and that the other wee pretendy indy parties then have the decency to quietly fade back into the woodwork.
Ronald Fraser,
You missed the target quite spectacularly with your attempt to pigeonhole me. I have voted SNP since 1974 with only one (regretted)lapse in 1979 when I voted Labour to try to keep Thatcher out.
For what it is worth, I think you are a useful idiot unwittingly doing the English government’s work for it here.
Your racist labelling seems strangely familiar – you aren’t Boris are you, adapting your Spectator Scots poem for the venue??
SENSIBLEDAVE
Guardian reporting the OECD…Do get it right.
Plenty more where that came from in European press.
Why are UK nationalists so purblind.
Best this, best that, at the top of the other….all rather immature.
Latest Brit vaccine comes with World’s Best Buy sticker….omg!
Enjoy the fantasy….Impressionabledave.
Enjoy the Great Reset too.
@Scots Renewables,
Sorry but Im going to have to correct you on Martin Keatings.
The Scottish government were on the other side.
Remember Pete Wishart tweeting about how it was inappropriate?
@SensibleDave
It is not in Scotland’s interest to neighbour an economically depressed helhole. if you recall last indyref white paper proposed to open development banks in Nothern English cities.
I wonder if we will still have to do that. Based on past performance any growth will just be in service intdustries in the SE leaving the North as depressed as ever.
So good luck with the national project of England and I mean that genuinely. Meanwhile we will be going our own way.
@ Bob Mack
I know the SG do not approve of Martin Keating’s action. That’s their perogative, but I chose personally to donate to the fundraiser.
They haven’t AFAIK opposed it legally though, merely declined to participate (and caused considerable delay and hassle by pulling out when they initially said they would participate)
I am prepared to be corrected if there is stuff I am missing here.
on a zillion poscards:
The 2021
Scottish Parliament Elections
are
the Indyref2 Elections
“We believe that the Scottish people are sovereign,
and we hereby announce our intention
to declare Scotland independent
and submit that intention to the will of the people
in this election for their approval”
R B Cunninghame Graham got it right 100 years ago,
“The enemies of Scottish Nationalism are not the English, for they were ever a great and generous folk, quick to respond when justice calls. Our real enemies are among us, born without imagination.”
we need to stop blaming England , let them go their own way and wish them all the best,
`Our real enemies are among us, born without imagination`
I think what got Sensible Dave all rattled is the fact that Boris and the Brexiteers got humped.
Only the other week they were threatening gunboats, and now no change, they’ve thrown in the towel.
And Northern Ireland. Not so long ago they were going to build an ROI / NI border. Now it’s effectivly a united Ireland in the EU with a border down the Irish Sea.
And UK trade into the EU. Conditional on the UK keeping its nose clean, doing what it’s told, or else.
Now that’s why Sensible Dave is rattled. The Bexiteers got humped by their own ptard.
Scot Finlayson says:
27 December, 2020 at 12:04 pm
`Our real enemies are among us, born without imagination`
True in September 2014 and true here and now BTL on Wings. Time for the real wingers to claim this site back IMO, just as the real SNP are slowly but surely starting to claim their party back.
OT, great Christmas Eve article from Barrhead Boy, a tribute to all the pro-indy media stalwarts and a touch of justifiable damning with faint praise for the SNP. My take on it though is that this campaign will be led by the grassroots, not the SNP. It is our turn to lead them.
@Scots Renewables,
Try to remember that Mr Woolfe tried to have the case thrown out because the Scottish Government were thinking of introducing a PROPOSED Bill for a referendum in Holyrood this year. They opposed Keatings action.
The judge ddcreed that the proposed Bill didnt amount to anything of substance whereas tbe case would define it definitively. Thus she allowed the case to proceed.
The Scottish Government were none too happy.
Renewables
Even you are too ashamed to admit to your englishness,,, can’t blame you.
The detested english are the most detested and loathed shower of racist reprobates ever to walk on Earth,,, IMHO.
You ever read the comments on the Daily Mail about the Scots???
Are you a paid up contributor???
I’ll do it my way Renewables,,,and you do it the Englander way.
My advice to you is just scroll past my very informative posts.
ScotsRenewables
Getting rid of colonial oppression, which is by definition racism, is the reason most ‘peoples’ have sought independence. Yet it seems difficult for some Scots (I assume you are Scottish) to come to terms with Scotland’s colonial status, or what Hechter (1998) described as Scotland’s enduring ‘internal colonialism’ and its entirely negative cultural, social, economic and political etc impacts.
Colonialism, lets remember, “is the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.” These are hardly the acts of a friendly neighbour. Why do you think Scots seek independence, which is liberation from oppression, colonialism being what the UN term ‘a scourge’, a form of punishment?
Colonialism is also regarded as racism (see for example ‘British Colonialism and Racism – The English Patient’ by Michael Ondaatje: https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-english-patient/themes/british-colonialism-and-racism.
It should be appreciated why Scots who have been and remain subject to colonial oppression and hence racism (the latter also ‘internalized’) think the way they do.
Taking back our seas, our fish. Yeh right Dave. Gun boats all broke are they mate?
No more EU rules. Yeh right Dave. Yookay either abides em or else mate! Shout all you want from the sidelines.
But Northern Ireland Dave. The Brexiteers certainly worked the magic there. Father Christmas in fact to a united Ireland.
There laid it out for you Dave. You’s been umped and dumped mate.
@ Bob Mack
Peoples Action on Section 30 second ‘stretch’ fundraiser now open, with 6 days to raise £125,000
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/pas30/
Well worth a few Wingers’ pennies, surely? The case should be heard fully in a 2 day hearing in the Court of Session on 21 and 22 January 2021, so not long to wait now.
Alf Baird, while there may be some truth in some of what you say, Scotland is not and never has been a colony in any conventional sense of the word, and I don’t personally believe that is a helpful analogy.
It has been an occupied country, which is not the same thing. And now it is a ‘partner’ in a union it apparently wants to leave but cannot.
Don’t believe everything you read in Trainspotting!
@Scots Renewables,
Just pledged again. Well worth it if only to force the Scottish government to actually act on something.
If anybody values our liberty they should contribute .
Ronald Fraser says:
27 December, 2020 at 12:17 pm
My advice to you is just scroll past my very informative posts.
Ronald Fraser, I think we are all scrolling past your posts now as they are completely devoid of meaningful information.
I will just pause here though to call you out right here, right now as either a Unionist plant or a mindless, bigoted Seed of the Gael racist, a stain on our country. No normal pro-indy supporter with a belief in real Scottish values would post the sickening misanthropy that flows from your keyboard.
Bob Mack says:
27 December, 2020 at 12:33 pm
@Scots Renewables,
Just pledged again. Well worth it if only to force the Scottish government to actually act on something.
If anybody values our liberty they should contribute .
Yep. I’ve just contriibuted again, shared on FB and with all the Indy groups I am a member of. Let’s make sure Martin isn’t worrying about money when he goes into court.
That link again, folks:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/pas30/
Does Crowd Justice not have a PayPal option?
Hazily, read that as “a golden Bra…”!
To all of you that have posted comments since my last one.
Read through them again.
Look for the positive portrayal of Scottish Independence. All you will find is people taking pot shots at the U.K., England, Boris, Oxford Vaccine, etc, etc.
It is, frankly, all rather pathetic actually.
Ronald Fraser writes, without a hint of self awareness or irony how much he detests the English … because we are racists apparently, haha you couldn’t make it up!
McDuff writes about “let us leave”. Who is the “us” mcduff? The majority of Scots that voted to stay in the U.K? You idiot! As has been proved recently in polls, the English don’t give a stuff whether you stay or go. We just want to stop being blamed because the Version of independence you offer under the politics of those that profess it, appears to be so unappealing to most Scots.
Scot Finlayson at 12.04 above seems to be the only one with his head on straight. The ONLY folk that have ever voted to stop Scotland becoming Independent … are Scots!!!!
But none of this will make any difference. The intellectually challenged, will carry on with their attacks on the English, English politicians, English institutions, English vaccines ffs, ….. and in 2 or 3 years you will be on the same place as you are now … whinging about the English. Because, as you can see from the above, it is unlikely that “floaters” will read the the comments above and think … yes! These folk speak for me!
BawJaws may be an arse. Correction, IS an arse, but as head of the Westminster Government he at least looks out for his constituency – Brexit voters/English Tories.
Pity the same can’t be said of the head of the Scottish Government. She just fiddles while Rome burns.
@Sensibledave,
You remind me somehow of the 19th century mine owners and their attitude to the miners. They too thought their workers should be grateful for everything they had.
Its that same mindset, that permeates through.
dan macaulay says:
27 December, 2020 at 11:58 am
on a zillion poscards:
The 2021
Scottish Parliament Elections
are
the Indyref2 Elections
“We believe that the Scottish people are sovereign….
Important tweak Dan… It’s not a matter of mere belief. The Scottish people ARE sovereign by legal definition.
We should leave the ambiguity of “belief” to all the charlatans and colonial usurpers who “believe” In Westminster’s ‘convention’ of parliamentary sovereignty, and propagate the fallacy that Scotland’s sovereignty was extinguished, and the further fallacy that an Independent Scotland would ‘secede’ from the UK.
Scotland’s shame and humiliation is that currently, we must include our own Devolved Assembly amongst this rabble of charlatans, pedalling sophistry and disinformation about the Union.
Sadly, Scottish politicians seem little better informed than the propagandists posing as Scottish news media, who seem to have no appetite for the truth or constitutional probity.
Bob Mack
… that is bull crap!
Point to a single statement that I have made that justifies your comment.
Whilst you try and think of something, let me say that knocking out a weekly xenophobic cartoon, so that the swivel eyed can applaud the “wit” of the worn out cliche is also pretty pathetic too. Oh , and btw, it’s not working.
ok
on a zillion postcards:
The 2021
Scottish Parliament Elections
are
the Indyref2 Elections
“the Scottish people are sovereign,
and we hereby announce our intention
to declare Scotland independent
and submit that intention to the will of the people
in this election for their approval”
Dan
… whilst I don’t really care whether Scotland stays or leaves the U.K. … you should’ve careful what you wish for.
As usual, you don’t look further than the end of your nose. If you are successful in getting the SNP to buy into that …then expect to be on the receiving end of Project Fear 2 … that would make PF1 look like a picnic.
Dan, sit and have a think. Think what your opposition might do and say I the campaign. Do you see any problems Dan? Any problems at all?
@Sensibledave,
Please! Your sense of superiority and arrogance shines through like a beacon. Do you read your own posts?
You try to belittle. You try to rub salt in wounds. You think you will show us how foolish we are by the benefit of you being “down sarf”, as if that somehow is something we should envy.
At least have the courage to say what you mean rather than the condescending innuendo you prefer.
You do have an air of superiority about your scribblings which I suppose comes from being successful in history on the backs of others. It’s ingrained I suppose.
The devil, as always, is in the details and I’m afraid the self styled “sensible” Dave’s fixation with aggregate (as well as limited) GDP forecasts misses a great deal simply because it assumes outcomes concerning distribution – such as trickle down – for which no credible evidence has never, nor ever will, exist.
A period of time out to peruse and digest some of the dangerous detail of this deal would be time we’ll spent. With here as good a place as any to begin:
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/12/24/there-will-be-dancing-in-the-uks-tax-havens-this-christmas/
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/12/26/tax-haven-uk-is-on-its-way/
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/12/27/the-uk-does-not-need-the-abused-that-freeports-generate-so-why-are-they-the-supposed-big-bonus-from-brexit/
The absence of any regulatory checks and balances on the creation of such tax havens (up to ten under UK Government plans) from the Brexit deal, with different or no discernible tax regimes, throughout the UK provides a framework for tax evasion/avoidance, money laundering and a race to the bottom on tax which is likely to undermine not only our own economy but also that of other States, including the EU.
It will make the UK a Spivs paradise and the centre of dirty money laundering as well as impoverishing more of the populace.
Turkey’s voting for Christmas is one thing. Turkeys voting to have Christmas and Thanksgiving rolled into one every single day into the distant future is deeply tragic.
OT/ I would like to wish everyone a very belated merry Christmas and wish everyone a very happy prosperous heathy new year for 2021.
I would also like to thank everyone for the help and advise they gave me in trying to submit my comments, on previous blogs, and I never had the time to reply, as I was busy painting families houses as Christmas presents on canvas, a big take on, and it took two months leading up to Xmas.
One again many thanks and a happy new year to everyone here.
“Whilst I dont care if Scotland stays kr leaves the Uk”
Why are you here then?
That sense of superiority raises its head again Dave.
We are careful what we wish for. We wish to be European.
We wish to look after our own finances. We wish to welcome and be welcomed. We wish to be rid of Westminster. We wish to make our own laws and have our own Parliament.
We wish for better care for those in poverty. We wish many things ,but most of all to celebrate our re establishment as a sovereign people.
Xmas Cracker, Chris, looking forward to more of your gems in 2021 !
ScotsRenewables
If Scotland is not a powerless colony then we must be a sovereign nation, and as a sovereign nation we would surely still be in the EU.
This is what happens when sovereignty is disrespected, ignored and undermined and a people are dominated by another nation/people, i.e. they are rendered effectively and for all political purposes a powerless colony.
You appear to be looking at Scotland from the point of view of the colonizer who likewise delights in telling us we are part of his glorious ‘union’, albeit a ‘union’ based on his unilateral revised terms and conditions of course.
Bob
… do not confuse my words. When I say “be careful what you wish for” I mean do you really want the May elections to be a proxy for indyre2? If you do, then expect some serious fire from the other side. Have you got your ducks in a row? Currency, deficit, borrowing? Not being in EU and not being in U.K. … for 10 years?
The only time I see SNP types being interviewed on those subjects, all hear is “wing and a prayer” stuff … nothing that would convince a floater I’m afraid.
Bob
… btw, please explain why not caring whether Scotland is in or out of the Union is a display of “superiority”.
You are not doing that bastardised Stockholm Syndrome “thing” are you … where you somehow need me to want you to stay … so that makes you feel better?
Take a look at yourself man.
I see the Scotsman spouting retoric regards cars in Scotland being charged to travel by the mile instead of car licenses,
I deeply oppose this, this could not only hit the disabled and vulnerable, it would be excessive for many people in Scotland, perhaps more so than anywhere else in Britain as many people live in isolated places with great distances to travel just to get shopping, hospitals, school, or to a train station, never mind a regular bus service,
I was raised on the west coast of Scotland, and I had to walk miles if we needed anything, across hills and in all kinds of weather.
We’re supposed to live in a modern world for goodness sake, and those people making a living in the middle of nowhere, while raising a young family or needing to take their parents to hospitals need help not penalising.
I now live in a different area in Scotland, but remember how difficult it was to travel through miles of hills, forests and boggy heather in bad weather when a bus didn’t show, and deliveries were unable to get through.
We’re stepping back a century in time to do this experiment in Scotland first.
@Dave,
Why are you here then? If you don’t care why spend so much time posting?
Its basic incongruence Dave. Heres the thing. You do care, but you cant admit it. You think you are showing us we are all misjudging our ability to be an Independent nation.
Ever deeper is the sense of ownership you display, whilst trying to feign indifference. All this “I have no dog in this fight” malarkey.
You really think Scotland is an integral part of your idea of the UK and you cannott understand why they should be allowed to leave. That’s really what you think Dave.
@Sensible
Sorry, but I for one, do not want to attract any ‘floaters.’
@Bob W,
I think we are too late on that score. He’s here.
Some animated discussions above!
Can we get this on Zoom? 🙂
@Bob Mack
I may have misinterpreted Sensibles use of ‘floater.’
The far from Sensibledave is into fear, the promotion and threat of, the last refuge of the psycho bully.
A government functionary called Osborn, who remembers him, was full of it too.
Petty, juvenile school yard stuff.
“The denial of Scotland’s exercise in self-determination is not just Bojo’s. It is a collusion between Bojo and Sturgeon.”
Quite correct Mia. They both worship at the altar of Mammon. (However, as Alf Baird pointed out, at least with Boris Johnson and the Tories, what you see is what you get.)
“So let’s pressure Sturgeon for the date of indyref2 to be in the manifesto!”
In my humble opinion, no amount of pressure will make Nicola Sturgeon concede a date for indyref2, just as no amount of pressure from Nicola Sturgeon will make Boris Johnson concede to a Section 30 order (see above).
As regards colonialism. We all know that Scotland is not a colony in the sense that we were never colonised by force of arms, but England cannot help but treat us as a colony because that is all they have ever done to those nations they consider themselves to be “superior” to and wish to exploit.
And I agree that Ronald Fraser is outspoken, but is he saying anything worse than Boris Johnson said in his racist poem and who is now in control of our destiny? And Ronald makes a valid point. If we do by the grace of the Gods gain our independence and Ireland unites, then England really will be isolated and surrounded on all sides. And Ronald is also right in that England really isn’t liked throughout the world. I would point out that I like the English individually very much, especially English women, but it is their (form of) government which is the problem and not the people themselves.
@Ottomanboi
I must confess, I did stoop to a little playground humour.
Bob
… Ah! Classic!
So Bob, you seek to win the debate by claiming that my words should be ignored… because you are so clever that you, uniquely, know what is going on in my mind.
Your desperation continues.
Btw … I note that you have not responded to my challenges above. Just the usual swivel and swerve when asked to justify a comment.
On the generality, I have explained my presence here many times. I am here to educate and inform. If you listened more to folk from outside of this echo chamber, you might learn stuff and start to understand why Scots didn’t vote for Indepenence last time and, unless you come up with a positive and attractive picture for an independent Scotland, they won’t next time.
Pursuing the line that everything is the fault of the English, English politicians, English institutions, etc clearly hasn’t worked … and it won’t work in the future. But knock yourself out Bob. Keep applauding the xenophobic, jingoistic, dog whistle stuff … and you will be in the same place next year, the year after that and the year after that.
Horror of horrors Bob, have you considered that the U.K. might actually make a success of Brexit? What then Bob? Does that help or hinder your edited outcome? Have you put all your eggs in one basket …. again!?
Bob
… Ah! Classic!
So Bob, you seek to win the debate by claiming that my words should be ignored… because you are so clever that you, uniquely, know what is going on in my mind.
Your desperation continues.
Btw … I note that you have not responded to my challenges above. Just the usual swivel and swerve when asked to justify a comment.
On the generality, I have explained my presence here many times. I am here to educate and inform. If you listened more to folk from outside of this echo chamber, you might learn stuff and start to understand why Scots didn’t vote for Indepenence last time and, unless you come up with a positive and attractive picture for an independent Scotland, they won’t next time.
Pursuing the line that everything is the fault of the English, English politicians, English institutions, etc clearly hasn’t worked … and it won’t work in the future. But knock yourself out Bob. Keep applauding the xenophobic, jingoistic, dog whistle stuff … and you will be in the same place next year, the year after that and the year after that.
Horror of horrors Bob, have you considered that the U.K. might actually make a success of Brexit? What then Bob? Does that help or hinder your desired outcome? Have you put all your eggs in one basket …. again!?
Like Dan, you appear not be able to see past the end of your nose.
THE independence resolution for 2021.
Enough whinging, just get on with it.
And FM cut all that Covid crap, coz its getting very tiresome.
Rather like crying Wolf! The fear factor times out.
@Sensibledave,
Not ignored Dave. Just understood in context. You are just not honest enough with yourself.
Now England is a finally independent NATION once again, free from the clutches of the “EU” or as I call it, the 4th Reich and HOLY ROMANIST PAPIST EMPIRE, we can finally enjoy the rights and freedoms of the Glorious Revolution, to establish a new Commonwealth.
– in practical terms, now out of the EU we can send all the PAKIS back to BONGO BONGO-istan.
And establish a FREE TRADE agreement with the ANGLOSPHERE nations. Even the Chinese itch to be British, once again.
Scottish Independence will be squashed by a new Federalismical VOW of Devolvedism, in which we enshrine in law, ENGLISH COMMON LAW, that the “SCOTCH” have a right to be recognised as an approximate second-rate type of Englishman, with an odd accent, akin to the Geordie, and superior to the SCOUSER, who is half IRISH anyway.
exciting times ahead and, now wisened, we can avoid the disastrous failures of the past – loss of empire, failing to take up the Hess peace offer, decimalisation and the metric system. The pound once contained 240 pennies, not 100 – where did that lost wealth go? Gravity, which holds us down, in this potential well, stopping us reaching for the stars, would have been weaker in pounds-foot-fathom-jeroboams.
Dynamite the Channel Tunnel!
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/27/boris-johnson-admits-brexit-deal-falls-short-for-financial-services
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/12/quick-notes-on-the-brexit-deal.html
@Sensible
You appear to have taken umbrage, at my playground humour. I used floater in the context of something that will not flush. As to your dual posts berating my contribution, try to get a sense of humour, it does help to navigate the cesspit of current UK politics.
@Sensible
When replying to a ‘Bob’ post, please use their full handle, to prevent confusion.
Nice one Chris, though in my opinion Johnson doesn’t give a toss about all that sentimental shite, its more about lining his pockets and the pockets of his party donors, business pals, and anyone who can further his ambitions.
Bob W
Sorry for the confusion. To clarify, I haven’t responded to any of your comments. Just Bob Mack.
Bob Mack is desperately trying to re read my comments to see if he can come up with some half arsed justification for his comments about them.
He may be a while…
@ James Che
Re. Road Vehicle Excise Duty. A proportional system based on fuel used has its merits. A fuel used system is different from a charge per mile.
If someone drives a big thirsty car they pay more than someone driving a more economical car, if someone drives loads of miles they pay more someone driving a lesser amount.
That system works on two levels as there is a punitive element for those driving a thirsty environmentally unfriendly vehicle, and also a proportionally higher levy for those racking up loads of miles.
With the small amount of Vehicle Excise Duty added to the price per litre and collected at point of sale, it means that if the vehicle is moving under its own power, it has paid the duty, and thus does away with the offence of driving without VED.
No doubt there will be winners and losers as in any system, but the current “norm” (well until covid hit) of folk traveling excessively is an issue, when we should be looking at reducing our fuel usage by developing ways of living more locally.
Getting folk to even consider doing things a different way is the problem.
Consider the potential of raising Public Spending revenue through Annual Ground Rent as a concept proposed by Graeme McCormick.
Top ex-SNP spin doctor Kevin Pringle says they’ll be no indyref next year, yes Kevin we know.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18971489.ex-snp-comms-chief-kevin-pringle-says-indyref2-wont-take-place-2021/
Meanwhile Sturgeon is to ask Johnson if Scotland can remain in the Erasmus programme, even though Johnson is promising some sort of programme based on Bletchley park bollocks and Alan Turing.
Of course Sturgeon is only asking because by doing so she’s in a no lose situation, if Johnson says no Sturgeon can say I asked but I was refused, and if she’s successful, Sturgeon can bang the I’m working for the interests of Scots drum.
Its a sideshow the main event passed us by (Our EU exit) with Sturgeon promising much but delivering nothing, four years later when we should be an independent nation, Sturgeon’s still bleating over EU scraps, but of course there’s an election to be won next year (Though I have serious doubts it will be held on the date) so the failing of Johnson are highlighted.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18971729.nicola-sturgeon-ask-tories-scotland-stay-erasmus-scheme/
Scotsrenewables doing his NS act of just one more mandate will do it CON , and his wish ALL you nasty wingers who decry the sainted one would all go away , so this site can go back to Nicola worshipping with all the old wingers coming back
And he knows Nicola reads the posts on the site and is well aware that her policies and inaction are raged against but will just continue ignoring all our criticism , because one more mandate will do it you know it makes sense vote Nicla
He supports Martin Keatings but Martin must be wrong or delusional when he posts that the SG are being obstructive and objecting to Martin’s case through the lord advocate and therefore the SG , SR maintains it was only an in out hokey cokey scenario and ONLY meant more paperwork , but SR neglects to say that the paperwork revisions required a massive amount of work by Martin and the lawyers which cost
the case additional thousands of pounds which Martin has to find , meanwhile the clusterfuck created by the SG are using our taxpayer money to fund their legal fees
@Scots renewables
“Seed potatoes are not a nonsense”
The seed potatoes itself are not a nonsense. What is a total nonsense is to have the brass neck to use the potatoes to criticise a deal that everybody and their dog knew was going to be crap since 2017, particularly after you have done fck all to stop it and to ensure Scotland saw its expressed democratic will upheld when you were given all the tools to do so.
“The SG are not opposing Martin Keating’s case”
Yes they are and shame on them all for doing so.
“As for ‘not stopping Brexit’ – well, she never had a hope in hell”
If you champion Westminster’s sovereignty as gospel as Nicola Sturgeon has done, then you have denied yourself every hope in hell. But if you don’t accept that English convention and if you demand Scotland to be treated as an equal partner and remove the MPs to deny legitimacy to Westminster to act on behalf of Scotland for as long as the constitutional subjugation continues, then you have not just a hope in hell, you bring the union to standstill.
“in truth why would she want to?”
Because all this time she has claimed to be a democrat. Democrats do not simply flush democratic mandates down the toilet, they deliver them. She campaigned on a mandate to stop brexit in 2019, she should have delivered it or step aside.
“To say that now is the time to ditch the SNP, to ditch therefore all hope of independence for a decade, is either a council of despair or a classic BritNat intelligence divide and rule tactic”
Sorry, but you are barking at the wrong tree. If you think the old labour’s chewed and licked bone of your party being the only chance in hell to achieve whatever it is that you want us to believe it will, is going to stick when that same party has been doing fck all for 5 years after given all the tools to do so, you are wasting your time.
In the same way you cannot abuse antibiotics because your bugs may become immune to them, continuous use of propaganda and psychological blackmail in order to get their votes leads to propaganda fatigue and the voters’ immunity to blackmailing. I have reached that point long time ago.
The SNP, like labour at that time, failed to deliver. They failed to deliver voluntarily. They are still failing to deliver and are now on course to waste a democratic mandate that is perfectly valid until May 2021. You do not reward losers and time wasters with more time. You chuck them out in the expectation that somebody better will take over. That is what we should be doing right now. Either they deliver that indyref before the end of this government term, or as far as I am concerned they can go whistle. As I said, losers do not get second chances and certainly will not get my votes.
“Sturgeon reads this, she knows we are unhappy”
But she does not give a sht about it because she is too busy hiding behind the virus and too worried saving her own political arse from the botched fiasco of Mr Salmond’s orchestrated smear.
Frankly, I could not give an iota if Sturgeon reads this or not. I have already struck her off as arrogant, untrustworthy and having double standards. Actions count more than words and her actions are out there speak louder than the words ever could.
In my personal view the SNP only has a chance at survival and that is by ejecting this leader, getting itself a real pro independence one, clear out the sewers of all those gradualists and include in the manifesto of 2021 a mandate to end the union with a schedule of delivery. Last chance saloon, take it or live to regret it.
As for those SNP MPs that feel so comfortable in their gravy train, that is not going to last forever either, because once a political party is in its way down because it has lost the electorate’s trust. Many of those now in control of the SNP came from labour, don’t they? Well then, they should know very well that you do not take the electorate for fools if you want their votes more than once.
“Best suggestion yet is to demand that Sturgeon sets a referendum date in the manifesto for the May elections”
Absolutely not. The best suggestion is to demand Sturgeon to step down from the position of FM for embarrassing us all allowing her government to obfuscate a parliamentary inquiry that may led to the revelation that she broke the ministerial code, for allowing them to disrespect 2 parliamentary votes that demanded that evidence to be submitted and for allowing under her premiership a political conspiracy against Mr Salmond that has led to throwing away millions of precious taxpayers’ money.
Second, she must be demanded to step down from the leadership of the SNP for allowing under her watch half a million pounds of ring-fenced, donated for the sole purpose of enabling indyref, to disappear from the accounts. That and allowing embarrassingly undemocratic processes such as the blocking of Ms Cherry and the parachuting of Robertson to the seat. She is not fit to be a party leader.
For whoever takes the helm, they should be reminded that they were given a mandate in 2016 for a referendum to give Scotland a choice. For 5 years this current FM has deliberately denied us that choice by allowing brexit to proceed and forcing on us a requirement for a S30 to stop us having the chance to step out. That mandate expires in May 2016 therefore must be delivered BEFORE then. If that leaves only the date of the election, so be it. It is not the electorate’s fault that we have so little time left. It is Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP’s for allowing her to waste our time in this unjustifiable fashion.
“As for the suggestion that all Nicola wants is 5 more years in Holyrood . . . she’s not a stupid woman”
No, but she is acting as if the electorate are.
“I think she has more ambition than that”
Which only becomes our business when she is putting her own personal ambition ahead of Scotland and ahead of our popular sovereignty, rights and interests. Is this what she has been doing?
“That WILL be the end of independence”
No. Sorry. While I do not particularly like Robertson and I do not think he should be anywhere near the leadership of the party, you do not get to transfer how deliberately useless Nicola Sturgeon has been to progress independence for the last 5 years onto somebody else to let her scot free when she has been given more majorities than she could handle and every opportunity to move independence forward. If we are not independent next year, it will not be because of Robertson. It will be because Nicola Sturgeon undermined our democratic will, disregarded the constitutional subjugation of Scotland, the abuse of our rights and theft of powers and squandered the best opportunities in 300 years Scotland has ever had to end the union.
“and that the other wee pretendy indy parties then have the decency to quietly fade back into the woodwork”
Since 14 November 2014 there has been only one “pretendy indy party” in Scotland and that is the SNP.
Twathater. @3.39pm.
It wasn’t that long ago that SNP minister said that there’s no indyref 2 imminent, and that Martin Keating shouldn’t be allowed to to take the course of action he’s taking on the S30 because he’s not an MP.
https://archive.is/ogX8v
Sensibledave says:
27 December, 2020 at 9:20 am
… was reading yesterday that the U.K. gdp growth is forecast to outstrip the Eu by over 5% over the next few years.
<b The relevance and importance of that statement becomes more meaningful when we know the figures for each at the starting point of the prediction:-)
%ages are the most malleable of calculators in the world.
Love the latecomer Chris. I just thought you were on holiday to be honest – I looked out for you at Trump Turnberry:-)
Hope you’re enjoying a wee break from all the sweat and toil
Ronald Fraser says:
Be careful tarring all us English folk who live in Scotland and campaign for independence. You simply come across as the worst kind of Nationalist – no better than the English you purport to despise.
@ Sensibledave
Any chance you could live up to the “Sensible” you include in your btl name, because the sensible thing to do would be to properly identify who you are quoting or responding to so as not to cause confusion.
TIA
1.02pm
So im an idiot.
When I say “us” I mean the consistant majority who will now vote yes having seen through the lies in the ’14 ref. And tell me what you think the result would have been if the entire MSM had relentlessly promoted independence instead of unionism.
As for the English not being bothered about us leaving the union perhaps you could convey that to Bo Jo and Starmer and the rest at Westminster who are most certainly adamant that we will not be allowed to leave (s30 refusal), so deal in facts not fantasy.
And your sensitivity to English criticism is a joke when you consider your English PM regards Scots as “vermin” and should be exterminated. Just consider these words.
Dan , have you ever actually lived in the middle of nowhere for a good number of years to actually have it in practice rather than theory.
(a) Imagine that you are a forestry worker, you have to fill your vehicles in a village or town, but you have to drive there first, from your house. then once you have filled your vehicles and petrol in cans, you have to drive to your place of work, leaving the main road and travelling miles and miles up a hill on isolated forestry roads to fell trees, you spend your day up there, then when your work is done for the day you drive miles and miles back down the hill to rejoin the main road, then you travel along that road to get home again, the next day you have to do the same all over again, except maybe you will be sent to a different forest in a different glen, perhaps even further away and more difficult to reach,
How does that work for locals who’s choice of employment is limited in these remote areas, they would be financially penalised, and probably go broke.
(B) imagine you are employed as a gardener, again you need to top up fuel for lawn mowers and other gardening equipment, taking cans of fuel with you in case there is not a supply nearby, and again you have to travel miles to get to different places of work, and then back home, home to do the same routine all over again the next day., you are penalising the self employed, and you won’t find any electric charging point in loch ran o high forest or up the top of tynedrum. You certainly don’t find spare batteries or charging points in the middle of the country side when your a gardener either,
These are just two instances where someone in theory had an idea, but hasn’t a clue how it works in reality,
I am sure others will provide plenty more.
Supposed to read, loch rannoch, up above.
Ethnically informed populist constitutionalism does not a healthy democracy make, as it is not supportive of cultural pluralism. If you acknowledge that economic health is dependent on cultural health, Brexitania is likely to experience an increasingly rapid spiral of decline. Westminster’s and Holyrood’s lack of attention to the “rule of recognition” and Natural law, means Scots will never enjoy the benefits of democracy. As our legal environment will actively prevent the actualisation of our cultural potential.
A general theory of constitutional patriotism
https://academic.oup.com/icon/article/6/1/72/669052
“This article offers a theory of constitutional patriotism independent of the controversial social theories of modernization and rationalization with which Jürgen Habermas’s version of constitutional patriotism is associated. It argues that the purpose of constitutional patriotism, as a set of beliefs and dispositions, is to enable and uphold a liberal democratic form of rule that free and equal citizens can justify to each other.
The object of patriotic attachment is a specific constitutional culture that mediates between the universal and the particular, while the mode of attachment is one of critical judgment. Finally, constitutional patriotism results in a number of policy recommendations that are clearly different from policies that liberal nationalists would advocate.”
Mia @ 3.47
Excellent synopsis.
Liz @ 4.05
Maybe worth remembering that: “Scotland only remained in the Union because of the views of those who were born in other parts of Britain and further afield” (McIntosh 2015).
The census and post-referendum survey work suggests that possibly as many as half of No voters in 2014 were not Scottish. Some might reasonably take the position that this undermined the self-determination of the ‘Scottish people’ process.
@ James Che
FYI I have lived out in the sticks for years and I’m a mechanic that runs cars, motorbikes, lawnmowers and chainsaws, has dabbled in motorsport so well aware of country life and what it entails with regard fuel costs.
Maybe before we either completely slate or support the concept it would be best if we actually knew just how much would be added to the price per litre in such a scenario.
It’s surely unlikely to be more than pennies per litre so no more than the price variation / fluctuation seen at the pumps already.
It would effectively be pay as you go rather than the monthly, bi-annual, or annual financial hits we current have.
Some efficient new cars are free from paying VED, but owning a new car is out of reach for many folk so many have to run older cars which have higher VED rates, so there is already unfairness in the system. Plus continually manufacturing what are becoming pretty much disposable cars isn’t the most environmentally sound practice.
Electric cars are pricey as fook and still plagued with aspects of battery tech.
Scotland’s public raised funds to enable Alex Salmond to defend himself against allegations – allegations against him prepared and funded by the Scottish – SNP – government.
Scotland’s public raised funds to enable Martin Keatings to challenge the S30 clause – a clause given “implied authority” by Nicola Sturgeon – and the SNP disapprove/ resisted the Keatings initiative.
Really does seem a bit topsy turvy doesn’t it?
And please stop the anti-English discussions, you are being silly. The English population are not your enemy. My fairly extensive experience of working, supervising, managing industry in England is that –
The blue collar English know little nor cares much beyond their “parish”. The white-collar salaried, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding “of a Sunday” feel smugly superior of others.
Their enemy, our enemy is the ruling class.the entity so powerful that they can hand out huge contracts to “chums” for PPE, to ghost shipping companies without scrutiny because, they have assumed the authority to do so and totally against procurement protocol.
And meantime Sturgeon, of no medical qualification, devotes her time to reading out on TV, statistics, Monday to Friday on Covid.
Fiddling as Rome burns,
If fuel prices were such an important factor in the economic survival of certain areas, then the opposite of the alcohol minimum pricing policy could be implemented in the form of a fuel maximum pricing policy.
It would be uneconomic for folk to travel to areas where cheaper fuel was available.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/due-diligence/
@sensibledave
“On the generality, I have explained my presence here many times. I am here to educate and inform. If you listened more to folk from outside of this echo chamber, you might learn stuff and start to understand why Scots didn’t vote for Indepenence last time and, unless you come up with a positive and attractive picture for an independent Scotland, they won’t next time.”
I’ve told you this on more than one occasion, The Scottish people did vote for independence in 2014 it was your countrymen/women who swung the vote against the will of the people,
You’re a troll Dave now fuck off
So Brexit is Sturgeon’s fault. That’s a good one.
She also caused Covid, child poverty, all the drug deaths and tailbacks on the M8
Once she is gone independence will just happen and we will all live happily ever after.
Bunch of fantasists on here, you know who you are. When Stu began to point out the failings of the SNP and its leadership I imagine he hoped for something more productive than a lynch mob.
Meanwhile the rest of us will quietly work away, actually doing stuff to further progress instead of giving up and blaming everything on the bogey man. When my grandchildren ask what I did to help Scotland gain its independence I will be able to tell them I made a few modest but positive contributions, converted a few No voters.
Those whose main contribution is an endless torrent of bile and negativity pouring from their keyboards are going to find it a bit more difficult to identify exactly how they helped.
And to the whingers who want non-native-born Scots excluded from the franchise, does this mean giving a vote to all those born in Scotland but no longer living here?
Because that would definitely result in another NO vote.
Stop whining about how non-native Scots voted and set about convincing them to vote YES next time. Slagging them off and trying to deny them a say in the future of their adopted country is not the way to win hearts and minds.
Scott Finlayson, spot on, wonderful, Robert B Cunninghame Graham..
To paraphrase Irvine Welch.. ‘Trainspotting’,
‘Some people blame the English’..
I dinnae, I blame Sturgeon/Murrell, Swinney, Smith, Russell, Strickland, Mckelvie, Black and Brown..
To those inclined to take a baseball bat to the image of this ‘fascistic’ science expert…feel free.
https://unherd.com/thepost/neil-ferguson-interview-china-changed-what-was-possible/
Feel better already?
@Republicofscotland says:
27 December, 2020 at 3:32 pm
“Meanwhile Sturgeon is to ask Johnson if Scotland can remain in the Erasmus programme, even though Johnson is promising some sort of programme based on Bletchley park bollocks and Alan Turing.”
Students currently on their Erasmus schemes will be allowed to complete them. As for the Turing scheme, if it is global then it would be expected to be in place for next September. At least wait until we see the detail before you shoot it down.
“So Brexit is Sturgeon’s fault”
It is.
If you have the power to stop something but you choose not to do so, you cannot longer claim you are an innocent bystander. You have become an accessory.
Brexit is clearly the result of a collusion of interests between England’s government and Sturgeon’s government. Had Sturgeon and the SNP not wanted brexit to happen and it would have never happened. Had those SNP MPs refused to give legitimacy to Westminster to trigger A50 on behalf of Scotland and that would have not happened.
What is abundantly clear is that you could have never stopped brexit by taking the route of kneeling before Westminster’s sovereignty and walking all over Scotland’s popular sovereignty, which is precisely the route Sturgeon took and continues to force us through even today.
You can have as many faux hissy fits as you wish, but you will never escape the fact that Scotland has been giving the SNP the power to end the union in the form of 3 successive SNP majorities in Westminster since 2015 and they have wasted them. Every single one of them.
Had they ended the union at any time since 2015 or seriously threaten to do so, and we would not be today facing this crap deal and facing the usurping of our rights, our assets and markets with a damaging “internal market” bill. England’s government would have been shting a brick and falling over themselves to secure a much better deal. A deal that would ensure the standards would remain the same, the borders with Scotland would remain permanently open and it would not lose its lucrative share of Scotland’s market after Scotland ended the union and re-joined the EU.
It’s a very long time since I’ve looked at constitutional law, but I thought this might provide a little light on the subject.
FAREWELL TO THE RULE OF RECOGNITION?
https://biblat.unam.mx/hevila/ProblemaAnuariodefilosofiayteoriadelderecho/2011/no5/12.pdf
[One of the greatest costs – which cannot be quantified in lives lost or dollar signs – has been to freedom. And this goes deeper than the (hopefully) temporary curbs on everyday life. Our entire culture of freedom has collapsed. We now need and expect the state’s explicit permission for whatever limited activities we can do. Even Christmas can now be cancelled by the state.
None of this is to say we can throw off all the restrictions tomorrow and everything will be fine. But it is striking just how little questioning there has been of either the efficacy or the harms of the defining policy of the pandemic. Even if the lockdown debate becomes academic at some point in the new year, and despite the fact that lockdown has clearly failed, there is a danger lockdown becomes the default policy for the next pandemic – if not for some other threat. And there will be another one]
From Spiked.
Independence also means the ability to recognize when you’re being taken for a compliant, complaisant sucker….trust us, we have your interests at heart.
With the talk of English on this article BTL, this article from just before the referendum needs to be brought back:
http://nflg.co.uk/files/Borderlands.pdf
With a population of about 14 million within a couple of hours travelling distance from the Scottish central belt where most economic activity occurs at the moment, it would be madness not to form link to the North of England and in particular as we have seen with recent events, Mayors of the cities in these regions have been given a more prominent media profile.
We are more or less politically aligned with them despite the recent movement to the Tories and Brexit which reeks more of dissatisfaction with Labour and having no alternatives like we do here with the SNP.
I’m genuinely surprised that the Scottish government hasn’t been cooperating more with the likes of Andy Burnham in dealing with the virus because it’s obvious we have common goals as the UK governments response seems to be focused solely on London and the South East.
If the SNP isn’t interested in a referendum, surely they should be seeking closer ties with a large market right on our door steps that requires little or no additional infrastructure to reach?
And here’s a look at the “rule of recognition” from a perspective informed through sociological juresprudence.
Social Facts, Constitutional Interpretation, and the Rule of Recognition
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1326566
Dan, I understand where your coming from in making a cleaner environment, but we all ready pay as go on fuel, because it is taxed at the moment, and I believe the Scotsman was indicating by mileage, not necessarily by petrol tax alone,
We also have to not be so paranoid about our carbon footprint here in Scotland. Per head of population equating with land mass, England is way ahead of us in population per land mass, (carbon footprint)and I hate to think about China or America to name a few.
Our carbon footprint is minuscule in comparison.
And how far are you personally willing to go in contributing to lowering your carbon footprint,
Lithium batteries take an awful lot of mining to produce, which of corse use petrol and diesel vehicles to obtain these minerals, then they become a problem at the end of there life, in safe disposal.
The shell of these new battery cars is also produced in means not friendly to the environment,
Looking at the hidden environmental cost these end up not being eco friendly at all, and I would suggest that most people spouting these issues have a stake in the game, more likely than not, as the saying goes.
Are you going to get rid of your computer and your mobile phone, do without electronics as these are all plastic coated, including in new battery cars, are you going to get rid of your tv, or the tyres on your car and go back to iron rimmed wooden ones, are you going to get rid of your fridge and tie your meat into a stream to take the salt out of it for a few days, or be prepared to bury it in the ground to preserve it, are you going to give up your cooker as these things are pretty much made in and with the same materials, as your cars, will you have to go back to cooking on a fire, how far will you go. How far do think you can go, choosing cars, is nit picking.
I was raised without any mode cons until near my teens, including not having washing machines, we washed clothes in the stream in cold winter days too and amongst the fish and eels, electric lights was a great novelty when we got them, being able to turn light on and off by a switch, wow.
How prepared are you to go back in time and live in a less damaging way to the environment, no showers, no pipes to your bathroom as copper pipes have to be mined by big bad vehicles in big quarries that damage the environment and wildlife, perhaps you will have to cancel your hairdresser/barber appointments because of the chemicals they use, the plastic seats and accessories, and the metals that are quarried for copper pipes,
Are you genuine in wanting to save the world and the environment,
I am quite willing to show you how not to have a carbon footprint, how to build a wooden round house, or even a drystone bothy without any mode cons, and once you lived this way with no carbon footprint or the lowest it can be for a few years, then come back to me with some common sense suggestions. And a alternative to the replacement of fossil fuels that does not have a long term cost to the environment.
Too right Mia.
Surgeon colluded to deliver Brexit. She had a majority in the Scottish Parliament, she had a majority in Westminster, and she had the 62% of Scots who voted to stay in the EU.
Sturgeon has against our wishes sold us down the river. And now we are out of the EU with the devolution settlement set for destruction.
Now is not the time – eh Nicola?
And here’s a look at the “rule of recognition” from a perspective informed by linguistic theory and stuff.
Finding Wittgenstein at the Core of the Rule of
Recognition
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/147631538.pdf
“….Wittgenstein believed that when we make an intelligible statement in a language, there is no abstract or “superlative fact” that can govern the formation of the statement other than the language in which the statement is made.”‘ There can be no “theory” behind a rule other than the practice that made the rule comprehensible to start with: “nothing…keeps our practices in line except the reactions and responses we learn in learning them.”””‘
If asked by Fuller why a core instance was a correct
application of the Rule P, ultimately, for Hart, this question makes as much sense as if Fuller had pointed to a patch of red and asked “why” Hart had called it red.102
Thus, in the core, there is no interpretation, although different people may apply the same rule differently. Fuller thought that every act of rule application was an act of interpretation because he believed that every rule is open to at least two applications; one needed an interpretive theory
to know “how to go on.”
Fuller used interpretation to escape a paradox that Wittgenstein had identified in his critique of traditional views about rules. Wittgenstein argued that it is impossible to explain a rule by reference to concepts that transcend our experience of the rule itself. Our application of a rule cannot be explained by reference to a concept revealed by our experience of the rule because there is (in theory) an
infinite set of hypotheses that are compatible with our empirical experience of the rule.
As Wittgenstein famously argued, any mathematical sequence
is theoretically compatible with an infinite number of equations: for example, the sequence 2, 4, 6, 8 …. might represent the rule “[a]dd 2,” or it might represent the rule “[a]dd 2 up to 1000, 4 up to 2000, 6 up to 3000 and so on.”‘ 103 The “paradox” that interested Wittgenstein was that the view that a rule was an abstraction revealed by or contained in a set of empirically observable facts led to the skeptical conclusion that rules did not exist. “This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule.”104
There were at least three directions one could take in response to this paradox. The first was to embrace scepticism, which is what Saul Kripke has recommended, and many legal scholars have followed his lead.105 The second
path was to insist, as Fuller did, that there is a transcendental scheme of norms and that the meaning of a rule is determined by its place in that scheme.106 The third path was to reject both scepticism and idealism, which is what Wittgenstein did, and to argue that rules could have meaning
and could guide their own application, but that the rule application was a practice or a way of life, not an interpretation of another abstract entity.”
Beaker @6.18pm.
I’m not interested in Johnson’s new scheme, if it comes to fruition, and I’m sure many other Scots aren’t as well, its all part of Johnson’s English exceptionalism I’m hoping by next September we’ve either held an indyref or a date is set in stone for one.
“So Brexit is Sturgeon’s fault”
Brexit is nobody’s fault bar the idiots who voted for it the fact we are being dragged out with them against our expressed will is 100% Sturgeons fault, she was given a clear mandate to stop us being dragged out with them and not only did she fail, she didn’t even f@cking try.
too busy giving access to male perverts, fetishists and other weirdos to girls toilets & changing rooms, taking away our right to free speech, and attempting to imprison an innocent man on trumpted up charges.
Nicola Sturgeon has been an abysmal failure
@Willie, son of william
Back again with your drivel on your current female target of choice.
Reminder on your pished up, wee, bitter, frothing, wife beater, post from yesterday on the previous thread:
“Fuck off ya wee fucking slag”
It appears Nicola is fully responsible for all of your past poor decisions and resultant problems in life.
Take a quick scan around the empty room. Yep, definitely Nicolas fault.
I suppose one good thing about forums like this is that it keeps the noise down when it’s time to get some sleep. You just don’t seem to get tortured souls ranting at the world out of open windows late at night since the internet.
Nailed it. This is what both ‘our’ parliaments would deny those living in Scotland, as the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty is simply not compatible with international human rights law. Neither is genderwoowoo.
Towards A Relational Paradigm for the Concept of Law:
Uncovering Implications of Hart’s Rule of Recognition to
Develop a Relational Foundationalism, as Expressed in
Preliminary Terms through the UN Right to Health
https://www.qmul.ac.uk/law/humanrights/media/humanrights/news/hrlr/2016/Rule-of-Recognition-final.pdf
Graeme, all the evidence from 2016 up to the beginning of this year suggested we would have lost any referendum.
And if we had started a campaign early this year Covid would have meant a frustrating false start.
It is quite possible that Sturgeon will fail us now, but it is certain that any earlier referendum would have been doomed to failure.
And the SNP is a lot more than its leader.
There has never been a better time, Covid trickling to an end and a massive pro-independence majority looming, but you and others want to throw the towel in because you don’t like Nicola Sturgeon.
I remember the arguments we used in 2013/2014 with people who said they would not vote YES because they didn’t like Salmond.
Is your memory so short?
James Che
That nice, thick blanket of peat that covers a lot of the country soaks up an enormous amount of carbon. It’s a bonanza as far as carbon credits go. It would be even more valuable if estates stopped burning it for grouse shooting.
I’m going to do a Cameron and post a link to a journal abstract “Peatlands: our greatest source of carbon credits?” https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.4155/cmt.11.23
There’s not much to read, so here are the essential numbers:
Peatlands are the most efficient carbon stores of all terrestrial ecosystems, containing approximately 455 Pg of carbon, which is twice the amount found in the world’s forest biomass.
Using figures from The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), the world’s peatlands can be valued at up to US$18 billion.
Throw in some decent telecomms networks and software the country could take advantage of the move to remote working to offer smart Scots to the companies all over the world. We’d also go a long way to solving the isolation problems that a lot of the more remote parts of the country suffer from.
So although a complete rethink of how we treat the environment might take quite a bit of adjusting to we already have some innate advantages. All it needs is a little creativity and the right mindset.
Now that Douglas Red Card Ross and co have pissed of the fishermen, who is going to locate the Russian Fleets now?
Mutatis mutandis
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-who-has-changed-the-definition-of-herd-immunity/5733149
There is a wider issue here, ignorance, in this case, is far from bliss.
As the SG is up to its tartan mask in this medicated coercion, we ought to be very concerned.
Graeme 5.54
…ah, the “only true Scots should be allowed a vote” gambit!
Everyone will be so proud of you Graeme!!!
“…ah, the “only true Scots should be allowed a vote” gambit!”
I didn’t say that you f@cking idiot
@ James Che
I suspect my environmental footprint is already rather light! 😉 Also acknowledge that few would ever make the personal choices to live as I do. But it is actually hugely fulfilling and interesting living as I do now.
I grow and catch my own food, still got veg stored including loads of large marrows and pumpkins, along with an array of jars of homemade jam. Going fishing tomorrow if ice hasn’t completely covered the water.
We can but lead by example and try to get folk to at least begin to embrace some basic behaviours that would make a difference.
Old habits die hard though and some folk just seem unable to change from their ingrained routines. It’s possibly a “positive” in this covid “new normal” situation as it may force folk to adapt to better ways of doing things.
It’s below freezing outside so I’ll point out that folk are actually using their fridges and using leccy to keep stuff warm!
My Green voting neighbours are currently burning imported Estonian kiln dried firewood… whilst I am sitting toasty next to my wood stove burning naturally seasoned copiced beech logs from my hedge.
Have sourced more firewood in a deal with local landowner as spent the past two mornings extreme litter picking the steep roadside embankment down to the burn, where numerous clarty bastards have jettisoned an incredible amassed amount of rubbish thrown from their cars.
It’s approx. a 300 yard stretch and probably going to be close to 10 large black binbags full, with each bag containing hundreds of pieces.
Wondering if @redbull #RedBull could incorporate this activity in their next X Games seeing as so many of the fuckin morons that drink that brain melting pish think it cool and rad to lob the empty tins anywhere they want rather than recycle them.
Matters got even more exiting when I nearly found myself up to my waste in beaver action! Steady, not what you’re thinking, it was when the ground I was climbing over collapsed as was obviously the roof of an old bank lodge.
That’s still closer to a beaver than a recent date with a transwomen though! So still got to nail that C Griffiths btl poster that stated here that transwomen are women. The bugger is defo due me a refund for making me join that dating site!
“up to its tartan mask in this medicated coercion”
Legal change is a complex affair that incorporates many considerations if it hopes for a just conclusion. So your on to plumbs if your expecting justice to suddenly appear in Brexitania.
To Fight a New Coronavirus: The COVID-19 Pandemic, Political Herd Immunity, and Global Health Jurisprudence
https://academic.oup.com/chinesejil/article/19/2/207/5891893
“In global health, certain truths are held to be self-evident. Germs do not recognize borders, but, in a world where borders define the exercise of political power, international cooperation is critical to combatting pathogenic threats. Effective cooperation, including the use of international law, can produce political herd immunity – resistance within and between states to political behavior that disrupts measures needed to protect nations and individuals from infectious diseases.1
Outbreaks from cholera epidemics in the nineteenth century to Ebola crises in Africa in this century have reinforced, time and again, the necessity for countries to prioritize science and public health strategies in order to sustain political discipline within and across borders to prevail over common microbial threats. Unfortunately, history will not record the COVID-19 pandemic as a highwater moment for international cooperation and international law.”
@ ScotsRenewables
Don’t tell me my memory’s short
I remember Nicola wasting 2 years after 2016 fighting tooth and nail to deny the English people what they voted for instead of promoting Independence,
That’s what I remember or is your memory so short you’ve forgot about that
willie says:
27 December, 2020 at 7:09 pm
Too right Mia.
Surgeon colluded to deliver Brexit. She had a majority in the Scottish Parliament, she had a majority in Westminster
I must have missed both of these events. My understanding is that the SNP have been running a minority government at Holyrood since 2016.
And the concept of the SNP having a majority at Westminster is plainly ludicrous.
The fact that you can make these stupid and utterly wrong statements identifies you, at the very least, as a political idiot, ‘willie’
Ottomanboi
Your point about state control of our lives is well taken.
On a personal level myself and my family have continuously disregarded every diktat put out by NS and her underlings.
It is not the state’s business to tell me how to go about my day to day business nor should it ever be.
Only robots and morons should be controlled by the levers of the state, not human beings.
Sensibledave
Voting rights in national referendums are always restricted to the nationals of the country concerned. A German living in Denmark cannot vote in a Danish national referendum. An Englishman living in Ireland cannot vote in an Irish national referendum. A Norwegian living in Luxembourg cannot vote in a Luxembourg national referendum.
There is good reason for this universal practice. A non-reciprocal residence-based franchise as opposed to a national-based franchise risks a people losing their national sovereignty, as arguably occurred to Scots in 2014.
Graeme, you do seem to have a habit of oversimplifying things.
Firstly, independence from a Brexited rUK is a very much trickier animal than independence when both nations are in the EU and have a frictionless border.
Secondly, the Scottish people voted in 2014 to stay in both the UK and the EU. Then in 2015 they voted to stay in the EU by 62% to 38%. It is entirely possible to make the case that, for Scottish voters, stopping Brexit was a priority over independence and that was therefore Nicola’s priority.
And thirdly, there has been no majority expression of support for independence until this year.
I fully understand why an increasing number of indy supporters no longer trust Sturgeon, but if she is going to betray us it has not actually happened yet – though I agree it may be imminent, we must give her a lot more rope before Joe McSoap is convinced.
I also think it wise to remember that Sturgeon and her clique are not the SNP, and that a week can be a long time in politics.
Alf @8.30pm.
Good point Alf, would I be correct in saying that Scots did vote for independence in 2014, but they were thwarted by non resident Scots.
It is traditionally those of a right-wing persuasion who are prone to placing the ideological above the biological, as they are not eager to acknowledge that poverty is a major social determinant of health and social mobility. However, the lefts’ adoption of anti-foundationalism as a means of bringing about radical social change they can’t achieve through the democratic process (see genderwoowoo), actually turns neo-liberal theory against the existing fabric of legal theory and practice that is aimed at resisting neo-liberalism’s transformation of human values and democratic principles.
International law in the times of the coronavirus
Legal experts at the MPI for Comparative Public Law and International Law examine the responce of WHO in curbing the coronavirus pandemic
https://www.mpg.de/14697255/international-law-in-the-times-of-the-coronavirus
The franchise was for residents, non-residents did not get a vote. You are havering. What I think you mean is non-native-born Scots.
As I have pointed out before, giving the vote to native Scots only is the thin end of a tricky Wedge. If birth is the criterion then expat Scots living in England will demand a vote.
And then we really are buggered, because they are in the main house jocks who have bought into the English media nonsense about their homeland.
Residency is the only sensible franchise, so please stop your blood and soil nonsense and get out there and convince your English neighbours. Half my local grassroots group is English, so it’s not so hard to do.
Cameron Brodie, yeah yeah, give it a rest. You are pitching way too high for folk on here, some of whom don’t even realise that the SNP has run a minority government since 2016
Alf Bairds point at 8.30pm is actually a perfectly sensible point which seems to get thrown at us as racism everytime it’s mentioned.
Our problem stems from not being a, sovereign state, afterwards we could easily do this. Doing it before results in our larger neighbours who contain among them a sizeable portion of colonist, exceptionalist mentality inverting their own thought process to keep us subjugated. It’s a very basic, but very clever trick
ScotsRenewables
I appreciate that but I don’t know any other way of resisting institutional Torydum.
https://www.justsecurity.org/73447/covid-19-and-international-law-series-human-rights-law-right-to-health/
Dan, it’s good to try new age living, but it sounds very half a way of living, and not a full commitment, we did not have computers, television, lights, cars, motorised vehicles of any kind, no telephones in the house or in our pockets, we did not get a bus or lift to shops, it was shanks’s pony or a shared push bike, we did not have a hospital near us for absolute miles, we saw a doctor if we were lucky, in the summertime, he would travel up the loch in a canoe.
If we’re needed extra food we either fished, ate venison or ate cockles, mussels straiaght from the beach, hens, or hen and duck eggs, we had our own goats for milk, my father grew the veg for all the family, my mum cooked and baked, wild food and learning what you can and can’t eat in nature was part of my growing up, and we never thought nothing of it at the time, so been there and done it, really lived that live, while your still new to this concept of living naturally,
When you get ill and your miles from a doctor and no fast transport to get you there in an emergency, let me know how you got on, I became three quarters deaf through having no access to emergency treatment when I was nine years old and rocked myself to sleep by repeatly bumping my head of the wall to kill the pain in my ears,, and when there was doctor around to stitch my brothers slit head, my mum tied his hair together across the split,
With the nhs in dire straits and people losing employment everywhere, and the economy in a mess, we should be more worried about now,
There are more stories to tell from my childhood just as equal, do you honestly think I want to step back in time to live that way again,
Robbing Paul to make make eco Peter work is not a solution. These are extremely lucrative businesses for the wealthy, There has to be a better alternative to mass produced wind turbines, electric cars, and taxing people up to the gunnels,
By the way, out of curiosity why are you picking up litter if you live out in the sticks, we didn’t see anyone for months, there was no one to drop litter.
Great cartoon again Chris ,
Thank you for keeping us laughing throughout the year especially this year .
Without a regard to international health law, you are vulnerable to legal practice that supports a state of authoritarian totalitarianism. Which is where the radical-right are driving us, with the help of the radical-left.
Dynamics of Population Immunity Due to the Herd
Effect in the COVID-19 Pandemic
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/8/2/236/pdf
“The novel Coronavirus 2 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-Cov-2) has led to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which has surprised health authorities around the world, quickly producing a global health crisis.
Different actions to cope with this situation are being developed, including confinement, different treatments to improve symptoms, and the creation of the first vaccines. In epidemiology, herd immunity is presented as an area that could also solve this new global threat.
In this review, we present the basis of herd immunology, the dynamics of infection transmission that induces specific immunity, and how the application of immunoepidemiology and herd immunology could be used to control the actual COVID-19 pandemic, along with a discussion of its effectiveness, limitations, and applications.”
Tartanpigsy, your comment at 9:10 pm is really superb, particularly the last couple of sentences.
Ottomanboi, thank you for your link regarding the WHO changing their definition of herd immunity. Shocking but not unexpected.
ScotsRenewables says:
“I fully understand why an increasing number of indy supporters no longer trust Sturgeon, but if she is going to betray us it has not actually happened yet.”
Surely it will have happened definitively by the end of the year?
Dan, it’s good to try new age living, but it sounds very half a way of living, and not a full commitment, we did not have computers, television, lights, cars, motorised vehicles of any kind, no telephones in the house or in our pockets, we did not get a bus or lift to shops, it was shanks’s pony or a shared push bike, we did not have a hospital near us for absolute miles, we saw a doctor if we were lucky, in the summertime, he would travel up the loch in a canoe.
If we’re needed extra food we either fished, ate venison or ate cockles, mussels straiaght from the beach, hens, or hen and duck eggs, we had our own goats for milk, my father grew the veg for all the family, my mum cooked and baked, wild food and learning what you can and can’t eat in nature was part of my growing up, and we never thought nothing of it at the time, so been there and done it, really lived that live, while your still new to this concept of living naturally,
When you get ill and your miles from a doctor and no fast transport to get you there in an emergency, let me know how you got on, I became three quarters deaf through having no access to emergency treatment when I was nine years old and rocked myself to sleep by repeatly bumping my head of the wall to kill the pain in my ears,, and when there was no doctor around to stitch my brothers slit head, my mum tied his hair together across the split, no painkillers.
With the nhs in dire straits and people losing employment everywhere, and the economy in a mess, we should be more worried about now,
There are more stories to tell from my childhood just as equal, do you honestly think I want to step back in time to live that way again,
Robbing Paul to make make eco Peter work is not a solution. These are extremely lucrative businesses for the wealthy, There has to be a better alternative to mass produced wind turbines, electric cars, and taxing people up to the gunnels,
By the way, out of curiosity why are you picking up litter if you live out in the sticks, we didn’t see anyone for months, there was no one to drop litter.
“all the evidence from 2016 up to the beginning of this year suggested we would have lost any referendum”
I don’t think that is true. Not if you had set in place the right conditions for a serious referendum where the interference from the British state was blocked and where the franchise was set up in a way that natives would not see their pro independence vote blocked by settlers as it happened in 2014. Sorry, but apathy and disinterest for setting up a robust plebiscite that respects the right to self determination of the natives is no an excuse for not holding one.
In 2015 the percentage of pro indy vote in the GE was 50.5%. Over 50% pro indy vote, 56 out of 59 seats in Westminster and the majority of the seats in Holyrood. Did this woman do anything to take advantage on all this to progress Scotland’s autonomy? No. She waited for the support for independence to go down so she could justify going in to the GE2017 without even mentioning independence. One can only wonder what Mr Salmond would have achieved with all that. God gives bread to those who have no teeth, eh?
Polls conducted by Ipsos mori and TNS between 24th August and 1st September 2015 put Yes ahead too, so the percentage was sustainable. If only it had been fed by an official campaign…
2 polls conducted by Survation/Daily Record and one by PanelBase/Sunday times between 25 and 28th June 2016 (immediately after the EU ref) put yes ahead too. What did she do about it?
She attempted to sell Scotland down the river by immediately surrendering our expressed democratic will and settling for the single market. She, allegedly a Scottish Nationalist heading a party with a democratic mandate for a referendum to end the union, even went to the lengths of preparing a document for the entire UK to remain in the EU! WTF?
If you look at all the polls conducted on Scottish independence, what you see is that the people of Scotland is responding to the assaults from the UK gov prompting increase in yes vote, but then the total apathy of Sturgeon and her total disinterest in capitalise on that brings that increase down.
We are subjected to intense heat from the UK gov and cold showers from Sturgeon. It is a process of starting, stalling, starting, stalling, starting, stalling and it has been like that since 2015. Are they attempting to exhaust us morally? This is clearly a collusion between two governments aiming to contain the Yes movement and to keep it on a leash. No other explanation makes sense. This kind of collusion is what you would expect from a labour gov in Scotland, not form an SNP one.
A poll conducted by IPSOS Mori/STV between 24 Feb-6 March 2017 (A50 was invoked on 29th March 2017) put yes ahead. Immediately after Sturgeon announces her first attempt to seek a S30. On that same week, the polls collapse again.
The recent over 50% in the polls has been sustained now since at least June 2020 due to the continuous assaults of the British state on Scotland’s rights and powers, so much so that Sturgeon’s ice cold showers cannot longer damp it down. That is 6 months of positive polls. How long does this woman need? An eternity of pro-yes polls?
She started a collection of mandates in 2016. Is she now holding a collection of polls too? Or is she hoping the polls will go down again so she can go into the next Holyrood election without “scaring the soft no’s” and without mentioning independence again.
17 successive polls, one after other putting yes ahead over a span of 6 months and the best this woman could come up with is denying our right to self determination by forcing on us a S30.
What do you thing is going to happen again if the SNP does not move her aside and starts to do something serious to move Scotland towards independence and to deliver that referendum?
Yes, you guessed it right. The polls will go down again.
Let me tell you what the evidence shows. The evidence shows that this woman never had any intention to deliver indyref. The evidence also shows that if you do not capitalise NOW in the current circumstances, launch a proper campaign and move on, the chance will be lost again because if you wait too long, you will reach the point where after all the turmoil of the theft of powers, the internal market bill and the noise of the crap deal has passed, things will settle. People gets used to “the new normal” and people do not normally seek change if they are in a comfortable position. Remember the old said “Better the devil you know…”.
So, is this what this woman is waiting for? For the polls to go down?
Sorry, but in my eyes her credibility as a trustworthy pro independence leader is zero.
Vaccination is the only ethical means of achieving any form of “herd immunity”, which isn’t a particularly ethical or practical approach to tackling the spread of a debilitating and potentially fatal pathogen.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/covid19/2020/10/23/goodharts-law-and-the-dark-side-of-herd-immunity/
“Herd immunity is often held up as a solution to the COVID-19 crisis. Bob Hancké (LSE) argues that it is a dangerous solution, and morally rejectable – in large part because it is a special instance of Goodhart’s law, undermining the very goal it purports to achieve. Herd immunity is not only technically flawed, as many medical experts argue, but also epistemologically wrong in the case of COVID-19.”
Republicofscotland @ 8.41
You are right, a majority of Scots did vote for indy in 2014. Due to the residence-based franchise “Scotland only remained in the Union because of the views of those who were born in other parts of Britain and further afield” (McIntosh 2015).
In Scotland’s case the national government used a more open local government franchise for a national referendum. No other country would ever do such a thing. A national referendum is clearly of far greater importance than local gov elections, and even more especially on the subject of constitutional change and matters of sovereignty.
ScotsRenewables @ 8.58
Place of birth is arguably less important than parental descent. For example, a child born in Malaysia to parents of Turkish nationality is not a Malaysian national.
Nationals of other countries resident in Scotland who desire Scottish citizenship may apply for it after indy, same as anywhere else. What we are doing with a local gov residence-based franchise for a national referendum is giving other nationals the power to block the very existence of Scottish citizenship and nationality. People of other national identities who actively block Scottish citizenship from existing clearly don’t want it anyway and by voting No they are making sure nobody else gets it either, not even the Scots for whom the self-determination process is primarily aimed at. This outcome should also be viewed as significant external interference in the self-determination process, which the UN is opposed to.
In other words the unique and non-reciprocal Scottish Government referendum franchise is designed to inflate the No vote, as it did in 2014.
To be or not to be, that is the question, Chris, cheers aye.
@ James Che
I’m wary of continuing to take up more btl space with this potentially protracted conversation.
Will try to keep it short and point out that we are where we are in a world at this moment in time, and this moment is different in many aspects from what proceeded so comparisons to different times are not always appropriate.
I’m not trying to follow a specific “pure” existence or ideology as determined by someone else. We are all individuals that try to live our own lives, but that involves compromises as we are also part of local communities and wider society.
It is extremely difficult to completely opt out these days.
Building my knowledge and awareness that shapes and defines my actions, along with my activism, requires me to engage with the world we live in.
That being the case I meet, speak, and work with all sorts of folk from all sorts of backgrounds. I also use the internet through a laptop and smartphone. Binned TV in 2004, binned BT a decade or so back. 15 quid a month for smartphone calls and data. Think I’ve averaged using less than 2 units of leccy a day for 15 years or so that means minimal overheads, plus it’s a strong basis for offering a justifiable “fuck you” to any sanctimonious green twats that even consider giving me grief. 😉
I could easily produce that sort of power by going off grid with a couple of solar panels & battery, or a generator if needs be, but my property has a leccy supply so why waste time and money setting that up for more hassle with little benefit.
The time and money saved by living a less flashy but efficient existence allows me to pursue other activities that I deem worthy and beneficial, such as the veg growing, as well as committing time to improving the lives of others or the environment, and of course more than a little time on the old activism…
I am already very independent and suppose I could just sack all these other distractions off, disconnect to an extent and spend more time doing stuff purely for my own self interest, and tbh the way things are panning out that may actually be a prudent way to go to create more of a cushion for when shiz goes bad. However I don’t feel overly invested or hyper cautious in living a life in fear, paranoid about every little thing that could harm or end me.
It’s been shit enough the last year and doesn’t look like improving anytime soon. Humans gonna human, and if that means idiots eating shark fins or pagolins coz they think it’ll give them a better stauner, or folk think they can actually physically change their sex, then I’m not sure I really want to be part that species anyway. The petri dish appears close to being overwhelmed by an ever growing bloom of idiotic and corrupt bacteria.
Ach, we’ll all be back to being space compost soon enough anyway… 🙂
If Brexit shows us one thing, it is that Westminster does not feel it necessary to recognise Scotland’s voice or legal presence within British constitutionalism, but is instead intent on empowering right-wing and xenophobic English nationalism.
Constitutional patriotism, citizenship, and
belonging
https://icon.oxfordjournals.org/content/6/1/137.full.pdf+html
Fucking shite Alf Baird, blood and soil seed of the gael bollocks, and a very poor start for the type of Scotland most of us want to see.
Taking it even further now I see, from place of birth to ‘parental descent’
Aye, pure Aryan Scots, ya fucking racist balloon. Away and shite.
At the risk of further alienating myself with some, I’m determined to at least bring this stuff to folks’ attention. As our legal establishment would rather you were kept dumb and powerless.
“Democracy and Power-Sharing in Multi-National States”
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000149924
Fucking shite Alf Baird, blood and soil seed of the gael bollocks, and a very poor start for the type of Scotland most of us want to see.
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And who determines who this MOST of us want , is it you renewables or does this come from a vote of the people who live here , or has it been decided by the sainted one because ONLY she knows what is best for Scotland
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You recently ADMITTED that you had doubts about Sturgeon’s dedication or determination for a indy ref , where previously you were full frontal Nicola wonderful , you even went on to start your own website which I visited at times but it was too much apologist and sycophantic for my taste . Your vehemence in your responses to people who disagree with your opinions and views smacks of the same disregard that Sturgeon displays to independence supporters it is NOT a good look
Everyone is ENTITLED to their views and opinions regarding the voting franchise and on our route to independence , your feelings of superiority , name calling or bullying won’t change that
ScotsRenewables
I wouldn’t disregard the importance of ‘parental descent’ in relation to national identity and citizenship if I were you:
“Following registration under sections 4G-4I of the British Nationality Act 1981, a person will be a British citizen ‘by descent’ if they would automatically have become a British citizen by descent…”
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/824429/registration-as-british-citizen-children-of-british-parents-v6.0ext.pdf
And as the Scottish author James Kelman noted: “our identity is to a large extent defined by who our relatives are”.
The self-determination of ‘a people’ is by definition primarily a matter for that people and them alone. ‘A people’ in this context are usually defined by key aspects such as their culture, language, ethnicity, heritage/history, and common suffering. ‘A people’ in this sense are not defined by where they happen to reside at any given point in time.
Dan, I was not intending coming back and comment again on this picticular blog, but out out respect to you I do so,
Without boasting in any way or manner, as I stated I have been there and done that, so have total understanding of how you live your life in the way you want to the best of your ability in the modern day and world,
But you know in your heart that not everyone is able to do this, some people are disabled mentally or physically, and do not the support systems needed, others are trapped in an environment of flats, others are tied to their place of work or responsibilities to family ties, others are not natural nature inclined like you and I, others need to stay close to a government run city or town for facilities as they actually do not drive,
Others may not have the finances to start up and go it alone,
This is Whom I speak up for, I have a plan in place how to find food and shelter if everything goes upside down just as you do,
To start a rollercoaster of a eco world agenda because we can, gives no thought to others, the mess we are able to create while utterly destroying the people lives of people today, to save other people’s life’s in the future, is called sacrifice, not your sacrifice, not mine, but theirs,
I have more empathy towards others than to say, you will do this now, you may have no employment, you might not feed your family, you will give up your mode of transportation, you will have no roof over your head, you will not own anything, you may die of starvation or hyperthermia out in the sticks with no support system, but you will do it. And it is you that has to do it now in this generation.
While you or I sit smug, knowing it will have little or next to no impact on ourselves,.
No this is a slower process than that, it will take a slower generation to generation learning and substancial support in housing, transport, financing and the willingness for big landowners to give the land back to the people, for roads to stop being tarmaced and for concrete jungle towns to stop being made, for people to have space and gardens again.
One glove does not fit all, its has taken a few hundred years of industrial revolution to get here, and it will take that amount of time to naturally return to a better life.
Forcing this change on people in a very short timeline regardless of suffering is for whom find no empathy in their hearts towards the welfare of their fellow man or woman in the present.
@Alf Baird says:
27 December, 2020 at 8:30 pm
“Voting rights in national referendums are always restricted to the nationals of the country concerned….”
Various of my Scots-abroad friends were quite narked about not having a vote last time around. Next time around they won’t be entitled to a vote anyway, as almost all of them have taken foreign citizenship to spare themselves from Brexit repercussions.
@ James Che
There’s a new thread on the go now so will respond.
There seems to be a little confusion on where you think I am coming from. I’ve already stated “Also acknowledge that few would ever make the personal choices to live as I do…
…We can but lead by example and try to get folk to at least begin to embrace some basic behaviours that would make a difference.”
Compromise is needed and that’s a two way thing, as in no way do I expect folk would or could ever make such a radical shift in how they live their lives to align with mine.
But if folk would or could start to make the effort to stop chucking their fuckin litter out of their cars, and actually learn to properly recycle their waste using the current but limited systems we have in place it would be a start.
Their lazy thoughtless actions use up my time that could be spent doing far more beneficial activities for the locale, rather than me just trying to keep the place tidy and safe for bairns and wildlife.
Broken glass from lobbed wine and beer bottles doesn’t biodegrade and deer, beavers, otters, ducks and swans all use that area, and loads of wee mice die in juice tins as they become trapped.
Folk can whinge that their local council is cutting services, but it costs approx £100 a tonne for general waste going to landfill, so it doesn’t take long to take significant amounts from local authority budgets if general waste amounts aren’t reduced by households segregating the recyclable elements out.
Fairly sure we are generally on the same page and know that most of our societal issues are caused by shite government policies, inequality / poverty, lack of land reform, etc
But as you point out, we are sovereign, and still do have the power and capacity to act and do certain things in our lives. Just coz some aspects of our control and power are compromised, we shouldn’t give up and not endevour to use the ones we do actually have the ability to exercise.
Think global, act local n aw that.
Spent another morning finishing cleaning the roadside embankment of discarded waste. Yay for a new item on the list as scored a used nappy! That’s normal behaviour isn’t it, lobbing yer bairn’s nappy oot the car windae.
Too cold for fishing so opened up a pumpkin and got 6lb of tasty flesh for a pie and soup.
Cannae even be arsed commenting on new thread as totally scunnered that it has come to this…