Little does he know the FBI actually wired it up to an ejector seat.
Malky
6 years ago
Your picture flatters Donald the Trumpet, Chris.
IheartScotland
6 years ago
School kids in the US now learn how to survive a ‘School attack’ much like the nuclear war days..( hide and protect) duck under your desk and hope like ‘feck’…it’s so very sad. But all too common.
IheartScotland
6 years ago
‘Potential’ nuclear war days that I grew up in. Well….hmmm
IheartScotlanf
6 years ago
Just ask Donald…
jimnarlene
6 years ago
Chilling, very chilling.
Bill
6 years ago
There are guns in every home in the Falkland Islands, at Christmas there was a sale of 9mm Glocks in local supermarket! 800 quid for a Glock!?
[…] Wings Over Scotland
Really smart and very stable
Read the full article::
Wings Over Scotland
[…]
Effijy
6 years ago
America gave us “One Flow Over The Cookoos Nest”
How little did we know it’s nest would one day sit atop
The American President.
That’s internally and externally.
Caught a piece on BBC Breakfast yesterday about kids learning Mathematics.
Very quickly the reporter mumbled about how England and Ireland are have the
Worst performing school kids in Europe.
I take it then that Scotland again does better than England.
Isn’t it strange this wasn’t an extensive in depth report repeated
Across all UK media, just as it would had Scotland been down there?
Has Ruth come out of hiding in the Bakers shop to discuss the proven dire consequences
For Scotland, should her Tory party rip Scotland out of Europe?
Maybe ask why The Tories in England are not getting on with the day job on Education
Rather than touring the world pleading for anything they could pretend is a trade deal.
starlaw
6 years ago
United States of America is at war with terrorism all over the world. Meanwhile in its own homeland schools children are being slaughtered by American citizens and no action is taken.
The President declares something is wrong with the mentality of its citizens and to a point he is right. There is something wrong with the mentality of the only country in the world who permits this to happen, become normal even, there is a problem … From the top down. The people of the USA need to go to war on this terrorism now starting with the removal of President Chump.
ronnie anderson
6 years ago
Trumps had his medical but not Phycratic evaluation that might have said he was strong & stable. All American School kids & Parents can do is wait on the next massacre since Trump repealed the Obama bill on mental health aspects of gun applications .
galamcennalath
6 years ago
My understanding is that Second Amendment giving the right to bear arms had in mind “a well regulated militia”. That seems a far cry from the free for all they have.
I suspect that “militia” was considered necessary because of the threat from the UK a couple of centuries ago! It was also at a time when the US had very limited standing armed forced. An armed citizenry made sense.
Times have changed!
Macart
6 years ago
He truly is an appalling article.
A scary one Chris and right on the money.
starlaw
6 years ago
I believe the American constitution states That citizens have the right to bear arms … in defence of the state.
carjamtic
6 years ago
Now then Boris,is the answer ?
A. Jumping the Shark
B. Nukeing the Fridge
Or
C. Truth and Consequences
#LaughUntilYouCry
Abulhaq
6 years ago
Media POTUS obsession….will it make you go blind?
Morgatron
6 years ago
Who really is the Phsyco Killer?
Bob Mack
6 years ago
The guy has all the stability of an Ikea table.
Reluctant Nationalist
6 years ago
That’s a very good drawing.
Bob Mack
6 years ago
If 20,000 Americans minimum are killed annually by their fellow Americans ,then if Donald is right, there must be a major mental health problem in America.
I have never understood the need to carry an implement that causes death, whether that be a gun or a knife. I always believe it shows fear rather than courage. People who are very afraid are even more likely to use these weapons in the first instance rather than see them as a last resort.
Clootie
6 years ago
…as it has been stated many times the 2nd Amendment was written in the period of single shot muskets and basic revolvers plus the political/national requirement to raise a skilled militia quickly.
I don’t think auto fire assault rifles and truck mounted 50cal weapons quite fit the legislation a few hundred years later.
The most chilling call was the demand for MORE guns in schools to DEFEND the kids?
One_Scot
6 years ago
Alex McLeish – ‘Scotland, you are too shit to be a real country, but I will still take your money’.
Why does that have a familiar feel to it?
Tinto Chiel
6 years ago
You’ve caught his glaikit simper perfectly, Chris: chilling.
What galamcennalath said @8.48.
The Simpsons had a great line about the lunacy of the Second Amendment, some thing along the lines of “Yes, we all need more assault rifles because we never know when George III will invade.”
What is truly disturbing is that the country has been brainwashed into thinking more guns are always the answer, just so a tiny minority of arms dealers can become obscenely rich. Americans are literally sacrificing their children because of the NRA and its “sponsored” Congressmen.
Their appalling healthcare system also survives because they brainwash the electorate to vote against their own best interests and influence them to think a National Insurance-based system like ours is akin to evil communism.
The sad fact is the USA needs to foment perpetual wars abroad to enrich its arms industry (just like the UK), what Eisenhower recognised as “the industrial-military complex”.
dakk
6 years ago
Neatly done Chris.
Scary and funny at the same time.
Winifred McCartney
6 years ago
In the National during the week was an article recalling a pay-off to a woman Chump had slept with only one year after marrying his current wife – this information came out during the presedential election but still the Chump survived – he is covered in teflon and it seems his base is so disallusioned with govt they are prepared to accept him as he is because the believe he is their salvation. Big mistake – he is only capable of thinking about himself – his money – his power – his ego. Yet if he had put the money his father left him into savings he would have made more – it takes something to make a loss in a gambling casino – but chump managed it. It is a sad sight to see America ruled by this chump.
louis.b.argyll
6 years ago
Donald Trump,
Is really quite stable,
As a fresh jelly trifle,
On a three legged table.
PictAtRandom
6 years ago
One_Scot says:
17 February, 2018 at 9:38 am
Alex McLeish – ‘Scotland, you are too shit to be a real country, but I will still take your money’.
Why does that have a familiar feel to it?
It reminds me that Blair McDougall’s failure at the GE means he is available for a second bite at managing Bitter Thegither. Always look on the bright side…
Robert Peffers
6 years ago
@IheartScotland says: 17 February, 2018 at 7:27 am:
“School kids in the US now learn how to survive a ‘School attack’ much like the nuclear war days..( hide and protect) duck under your desk and hope like ‘feck’…it’s so very sad. But all too common.”
Aye! IheartScotland, the same USA where the kids are brainwashed from the day they enter their schools. Every morning they stand, place their hand on their heart and chant, “The Pledge of Allegiance”.
They put your hand over your heart, (like when they sing their national anthem), and chant, “The Pledge”.
The pledge is “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One Nation under God Indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”
There are differences in different states as to whether the singing of the USA National Anthem is compulsory and if it is sung every morning or just once a week.
louis.b.argyll
6 years ago
How can eleven Scottish footballers make the international grade, when half the country..
(if you include incomers but exclude foreign settled workers)
Q: What noisy brass wind instrument does the American President play?
A:The Trumpaphone.
……I’ll get my coat.
Dan Huil
6 years ago
No wonder rabid British nationalists love Trump.
Re: McLeish. Like Smith afore him, he’s just anither Britnat who’ll dump Scotland as soon as he’s offered more money.
Indy2
6 years ago
If McLeish is a true Unionist, should he be barred from singing Flower of Scotland?
How can he stand there and ask:
“When will we see your likes again?”
I think Mr McLeish has a few questions to answer.
Bob Mack
6 years ago
Interesting story emerging of two students who filmed inside an Orange Lodge. They captured mobile phone images of the members present who obviously felt relaxed. They made jokes about shooting Catholics and one even described how he would take his Boys Brigade troop to some type of shooting range and tell them the targets were Catholic.
Present at this laugh in was one of Ruths Tory councillors.
Needless to say the evening ended with demands for the students ID and SIM cards. Threats were also used re their personal future safety.
I’ve got no problem with Alex McLeish being a Unionist but I do have a problem with him managing the National football team of the country he says doesn’t or shouldn’t exist
You either keep your mouth shut or don’t do it
But then again I’m talking about principles the only thing the poor can afford to have
Indy2
6 years ago
McLeish is just another “Kiss the Badge” ProudScotBut…
Hamish100
6 years ago
The logic of the US gun lobby is that each person should eventually have a nuclear weapon to ensure their safety. MAD indeed.
Apart from a pistol the ownership of machine guns, cannons and the like should not be allowed with individuals.
Dave McEwan Hill
6 years ago
If McLeish manages the team well he’ll do for me.
galamcennalath
6 years ago
Ok, what are the chances that Scotland will have it’s own national team at the next Winter Olympics?
IMO, more likely that not 🙂
Old Pete
6 years ago
Odd, if Alex McLeish does not believe Scotland to be a country how can he sing `Flower of Scotland` at the start of matches ? He is without a doubt a backward move by a unionist dominated SFA.
When Scotland regains its independence would he be happy to manage a country he never truly believed in ?
How Scottish sport in general is full of Scots but…..
Devalues sport here in general, how they claim to be proud of a country they don’t believe exits shows what little integrity most sports people have.
Highland Wifie
6 years ago
It seems to me that people in the US have become so accepting of the status quo with respect to gun laws that it will be very difficult if not impossible to make any meaningful change. When your mindset is along the lines of ‘there are bad people out there and I must protect myself’ it becomes difficult to feel safe without recourse to a firearm. The fact that there is little chance of having time or ability to access that firearm in an emergency situation does not impact that mindset.
I have spoken to ordinary American family men and women who seem rational and sensible in every other way but still defend the right to bear arms. It’s almost like its part of their dna. Others who do not support it feel powerless to do anything about it.
There is though a general feeling that there is no need for anyone other than the military to have access to automatic or semi-automatic weapons and this is where there should be movement for change. However, the combination of a powerful NRA and the ability of different states to legislate differently would lead to reluctance of any state to change the law on this unilaterally. It would have to have agreement nationally. Not much chance with this guy in charge. Even Obama for all his rhetoric didn’t make much impact on gun laws. Whilst gun shops do background checks, gun fairs and the like are largely unregulated.
Australia has managed to make significant changes to their gun laws after their Port Arthur shooting but I’m not sure the US has the will to go down this road yet. What will it take?
I can only hope something changes before my grandchildren get to school.
stewartb
6 years ago
So Scotland’s National football team, which plays in international competitions against the teams of (normal) nation states, is managed by someone (and probably supported by many) who do not wish Scotland to be a similar (normal) nation state.
OK, but let’s be clear, this puts them on the same side as powerful others in the British/English establishment that espouse quite explicitly a ‘one nation’ political vision for the UK – ‘one nation’ is a phrase used in just about every speech by the present Tory Prime Minister on domestic, UK matters.
“… rise now and be the nation again ” – tartan-clad ProudScotbuts better be quick to do this or their children and grandchildren may well be left only with nostalgia.
This from the nasty piece of work who, as Home Secretary, threatened to withhold key intelligence information from an independent Scotland purely for petty, spiteful political idealogical reasons. Thus putting innocent men, women and children at risk of being killed and maimed
A couple of years ago I had the shocking experience of attending one of the largest, if not the largest gun show in the USA. ( no I am not an arms dealer just that the family business has tenuous connections not gun related and customers were at the show ) Thousands of stalls. There was everything from camouflaged ladies underwear to machine guns too heavy to lift by their thousands. It was mainly geared towards hunting. Lots of camouflage stuff, rifles that were beautifully ornate and costing hundred of thousands of dollars cost price,hunting knives galore, crossbows, etc., etc.. Also several big British names were there plying their wares. Union flags flying above their stalls. I met a Scottish guy on the plane home (it was just after the ref and he was a unionist who genuinely thought Indy would have been bad for his business) who had been checking out night vision equipment for night time wildlife tours.
The point being it was clear that the arms trade in the USA is unstoppable now. Billions of dollars worth of, not only arms, but the ‘by products’ of it. Hunting is huge in the USA. ‘Do you hunt?’ Is almost the first question you get asked in the Midwest. Well after ‘do you know the queen?’ I can’t see it ever being put back in the box. It is well and truly out there, sadly. The best we could hope for is slightly stricter regs. But I won’t be holding my breath.
Romaff
6 years ago
Button should have been much bigger. Donald won’t like it.
Flower of Scotland
6 years ago
@starlaw 8.32am
America IS the terrorist!
About Alex McLeish. I know nothing about football, not really, but I just think that he,s old hat! Why couldn’t the SFA have found someone new!
Before 2014 I watched the Scotland games in football and rugby and have been to Murrayfield more than a few times. After the run up to the referendum when rugby players and Alex came out on the NO side, I was fair scunnered, and haven’t cared about a Scotland game since. They could have said nothing but I think it was a deliberate doing down of the YES side.
When your National teams and leaders of those teams don’t support their own country they’re better being quiet about it.
OT I hear that 17 Russians are to be charged for interfering in the US elections I wonder if our police will charge Obama and all the EU leaders who interfered in the Scottish referendum ???
Robert Louis
6 years ago
Great cartoon, as usual. In a few weeks when US media interest wains, things in the US will go back to the way it is now, and voices arguing against guns will be drowned out by the wealth paid advocates of the NRA and gun industry.
Trump is NOT going to address the issue. Period.
In other matters, some days I read the stories of the British Nationalist behaviour, and just despair. We have the apprentice boys of Derry (a N.Ireland organisation in Scotland who basically hold the same views as the orange sectarian bigots), filmed talking about shooting catholics – and worse, one of the people on stage may have been the chapalain (far lewft of stage), with all gathered laughing at the prospect. The said gathering of MEN repeatedly threatening some students who had been invited in, and who accidentally filmed the comments.
Then we find out the president of the apprentice boys is a current Tory councillor, of Ruth Davidson’s Tories.
I suppose Ruth Davidson will be refusing to be interviewed as usual.
Then we have the BBC’s Claire Balding behaving like a patronising British Nationalist fool, telling a Scot off for using the word Scotland, in relation to the Scotland curling squad (every member of the ‘team GB’ curling team is from the Scotland squad, and is Scottish). SSsssh… don’t mention the ‘S’ word.
Then to top it off we have a BBC presenter continually qualifying the word Scotland or Scottish, over and over again, by saying ‘Scottish athlete, competing as team GB’. They cannot just say ‘Scottish athlete’.
BBC british Nationalist propaganda, and Tory extremist, sectarian, racist bigotry. What a way to start Saturday.
wullie
6 years ago
from scot goes pop
Rhona Howie visibly shrinks into herself and mutters “sorry”.
Did she really say that. My god the cringe runs deep, what other national on this planet would accept such an insult. she should have told baldy to F off.
mogabee
6 years ago
Slightly unfair showing the Donald as itching to press that big button Chris!! You really should have added another elephant in the room, namely the ‘Military Industrial Complex’..
He’s teasing the world isn’t he, that blob of useless manhood? Will he, won’t he everyone wonders, but by fuck the world leaders are sooking up big time.
Guns,Trident, missiles and the rest are just destroyers of children truth be told.
stewartb
6 years ago
Flower of Scotland@ 11:40 am
You write: “Before 2014 I watched the Scotland games in football and rugby and have been to Murrayfield more than a few times. After the run up to the referendum when rugby players and Alex came out on the NO side, I was fair scunnered, and haven’t cared about a Scotland game since. They could have said nothing but I think it was a deliberate doing down of the YES side.”
Yes I was very disappointed too at the number of sports personalities coming out against our self-determination and status as a nation state. Of course many of them had the status of sporting ‘hero’ as a result of achievements in representing Scotland in international competitions with ‘normal’ nation states! And like you, this has reduced my interest in our ‘national’ sports teams ever since.
There are a number of incidents that stick in the mind from 2014 but one that made me really angry was on a BBC panel discussion about the indyref when Scottish rugby ‘hero’ Scott (I think it was) Hastings said, with a straight, serious face, that (I paraphrase) he could never vote ‘YES’ because it would deprive future rugby players from Scotland from playing for the British Lions! My TV screen has rarely been at such risk!
So was this ProudScotbut just plain ignorant of the actual composition of the British and Irish Lions team (had he really no appreciation of the contribution made by the Republic of Ireland) or only too happy to deceive the ‘nation’ for the cause? No more heroes any more!
Dan Huil
6 years ago
@wullie 12:18pm
The British nationalist media ignores Scotland’s curlers all the time – except if there’s a chance during an olympics that England’s national anthem will be played after a Scots’ win.
Bill and Ben
6 years ago
About 3 years ago my son was stabbed with a knife, there was a fracas inside his close beside his door, the people upstairs where dealing drugs and two wiseguys went to rob them of their ill gotten gains.
Now who was to blame, was it the knife which is in most homes btw, or was in the slimey git that used the knife on my son, he is actually doing life for murder now btw.
Knives are the weapon of choice in Glasgow, even in my own area there are people caught with knives all the time, hardly any of them go to prison.
If i lived in america i would have a gun in my house i can assure you, you cannot control guns its impossible, that genie is well out of the bottle, young kids are killing each other all over the UK, and people think trump can stop shootings, its in american law that people are entitled to have guns, and that ain’t ever going to change not matter who the president is
mr thms
6 years ago
A striking, thought-provoking cartoon. It really should win an award.
winifred mccartney
6 years ago
Re Clare Balding – we will NEVER apologise for being Scottish. All she needed to say was thank goodness the Scots are representing GB but why be pleasant when you can be bossy, horrible and put someone down especially a Scot – Balding is a disgrace to herself and the BBC.
Brilliant, Cairns.
Imagine if there were 18 Dunblane incidents in Scotland since the turn of the year?
Blair made sure that the Dunblane enquiry report was buried for 30 years?
I wonder why?
I have holidayed in America and have been more than aware of their psychopathic insistence of being able to bear arms.
Armed cops everywhere.
Asda is now owned by Walmart.
I no longer shop there since the takeover.
Imagine beimg able to buy an assault rifle with your bacon and eggs.
God Help America.
On the McLeish farce.
It merely confirms that Scottish Football is a wee secret society clud like the Masons or the knights.
This man came out as British not Scottish in 2014.
In his retirement he has just been handed a seven figure bung to manage Scotland.
I look forward to 6 Rangers Players in the Team.
What a recipe for failure, which, I suspect, is why he took the job.
I’ve not watched or supported the International Rugby Team since 2014 either.
McLeish, the SFA, the Rugger Chaps are part of the Scottish Branch of the English Oligarchy.
I’m only 70; ‘Gie’s ajob. I can do that’.
An insult to the Tartan Army and Scotland.
Will he be selling his Fulham house and moving to North Britain?
TheWasp
6 years ago
Balding was out of order, but for Rhona to apologise makes it worse. Maybe she was caught off guard but a wee pause first to gather her thoughts wouldn’t have gone amiss, then a bit of a come back or an uncoupling of the microphone and a walk off set, which I think most folk on here would have done, if I’m not mistaken.
Morgatron
6 years ago
I cant believe the utter pish that spouts from that insincere cow Balding. She is a total idiot spouting her GB jingo. As for the BBC coverage – well enough said.
wullie
6 years ago
just wait until the olympic mens slalom, there is one skier who might make the podium and secure a medal. Dave Riding who I hope does make the podium, he is a world class skier and has achieved top placements at World Cup level. Dave is from England and that is what we will have rammed down our throats.
handclapping
6 years ago
Not enough chins, otherwise excellent.
galamcennalath
6 years ago
Remember, Brextremists want to make the UK more like the US. Not saying guns, but the general free for all attitude. Small government, deil tak the hindmaist society. God help the poor, the vulnerable, and the unlucky.
mr thms
6 years ago
A peeved Clare Balding reminding Rhona Howie, herself an Olympic gold medallist, that “It’s the Olympics!” because she happened to refer to the mens curling team as ‘Scotland’, has to rank as one of the most conceited remarks ever uttered by a BBC presenter.
All of Scotland’s 39 representatives should back Rhona and say ‘Scotland’, should an opportunity arise in a live interview.
After all there are 59 members of ‘Team GB’, and Scotland provides two thirds of the team.
louis.b.argyll
6 years ago
The Scotland football manager appointment is so important we should have let the English FA choose a manager for us.
Now that’s no fair Bob, I have had an IKEA dining room table for 15 years and it disnae wobble, its even moved house! Of course if you’d said an MFI table I would have been on board at once.
If I learnt nothing else at school, I did get to know my tables.
jfngw
6 years ago
Balding is over rated, she wouldn’t look out of place as the gym teacher in a St Trinian’s film.
louis.b.argyll
6 years ago
Let’s start a campaign to remove Scotland’s FIFA status until after independence.
Bread and circuses, foreign owned media, trumped up notions of grandeur, a sick feeling creeping across half our nation, the other half ignorant, sold out, money first, Scotland’s society relegated to regional status.
Hamish100
6 years ago
Rhona Howie is a brit nat so to be told by her better not to be naughty her only response could but be “..sorry..”.
On reflection maybe she would suggest to balding “I will call Scots Scots..” or maybe just “bugger off” would suffice.
louis.b.argyll
6 years ago
Claire Balding, establishment stooge, elevated to BBC mouthpiece, knows her place..and it is above Scotland.
Hamish100
6 years ago
On bbc r4 Bertie Armstrong- “Scottish Fishermen Federation of brit nat and ulsterman fame.
It will be brit fish only. Pack up your bags Scottish fishermen your fish are now brits to be fished by the good people of Engerlund. A whole 100%
mike cassidy
6 years ago
Trump has no problem with mentally ill people having guns.
” “I was being so careful not to as well,” says Howie. “Because they are really strict about Team GB. But then the camera turned round and there were two big Scottish flags in the crowd. Normally they ask for them to be taken down because it’s Team GB. So I saw that and thought: ‘oh, they are allowed to fly Scottish flags’. Then in my head I just blurted out Scotland… and Clare called it out, which is fine. I am glad she did. I was like: ‘oh sorry, yes, the British team’ “
North chiel
6 years ago
Well said “Dave Mcewan Hill @ 1107” , and I suppose Sir Alex Ferguson would be “ off the menu”
( not that he would be likely to come out of retirement now), for some posters, as he also was a “ better together” man in 2014
Proud Cybernat
6 years ago
O/T
Guy in the pub a while back, bursting with pride at being British. “We live in the greatest country in the world, d’yae know that?”
AT first the hackles rose immediately and I was about to chuck a few barbs his way but then I thought, “No – just step back and listen to him. Try and understand what it is that he thinks is so compelling about the notion of ‘being British’ that he would vote in an IndyRef to remain ‘British’.”
So I just sat and listened. There followed a litany of the respect Britain has because we have a royal family. We had Winston Churchill and we won two world wars. The greatest scientists and artists in the world EVER. The Beatles.
The more it went on, the more fascinating the insight became. It’s almost like these people have been hynotised. It’s all historical, gooey-eyed, sentimentalist fluff which ultimately all boiled down to one thing, “We’re the greatest”. That’s it. To these people being British makes them he greatest people on the planet.
I left with just one parting question for him to ponder. I finished my pint, walked over to him and asked. “Why do you want your country to be better than everyone else? Why can’t you just settle to be the equal of others? Wouldn’t that be good enough for you?”
And left.
Excellent ‘toon Chris even if just a tad scary!
Cactus
6 years ago
Meanwhile in another galaxy… (this side of oor pond).
Substitute the Trump for the Theresa and change the ‘Nuclear Warning’ symbol for an ‘A50’ symbol… Alas! The two-fingered-tories have already pushed that destructive end of UK days button.
The words remain the same (glaringly).
Who’s smiling now?!
Robert J. Sutherland
6 years ago
galamcennalath @ 08:48,
Like Switzerland still does in effect to this day. “Well-regulated”, so there’s no succession of crazies going around blasting everybody they can find.
I have always puzzled about that particular disconnect between right and practice in the US. It seems that virtually no Americans have actually ever read the words, let alone understood the meaning, of the 2nd Amendment.
Which itself is a warning about muddling fundamental constitutional rights by artificially injecting arbitrary political policies of the day, however well-meaning they may seem at the time.
ALANM
6 years ago
Re. McLeish
I agree with those who say the job should go to the best candidate irrespective of their views on independence. That said, I sometimes find myself wondering if our reliance down the years on players & managers with little or no pride or passion might go some way towards explaining our lack of success on the pitch.
However let’s not forget that McLeish was part of that great Aberdeen side managed by Alex Ferguson which triumphed against all the odds in the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1983 and so it would appear that the “cringe” doesn’t extend to club football.
Talking of that Aberdeen team, brings to mind their clash with Bobby Robson’s high-flying Ipswich side in September 1981. The tv cameras had been given special access to the Ipswich dressing room for the return leg at Pittodrie which was unheard of back then. Robson’s last words to his players (which included a fairly sizeable Scottish contingent) before the match were “go out there and get stuck into these fuckin’ jocks.” Didn’t work though – his team lost 3-1 and exited the competition 4-2 on aggregate!
David Mills
6 years ago
What, the potential nuclear war days
The doomsday clock currently at two minutes to midnight closer to armagedon than anytime since the 50’s
Jason Lombard
6 years ago
Having encountered a few of the US gun types I can say that they would be apoplectic at the idea the 2nd Amendment was to defend the government or even primarily for hunting. The primary reason they usually give is to ‘defend themselves against government tyranny’ – in most cases this is an innate fear of what they see as ‘socialism’. It seems extraordinary to us but a lot of minds have not changed since MacCarthy’s Red Scare. They’ll vote for a tub of lard if it’s pro-gun.
They also hate the term ‘assault rifle’ as the Hughes amendment of the mid 80s banned all new manufacture of full auto weapons. However old ones were just grandfathered so can still be purchased and sold, if you can afford $20k upwards.
Incedentally NI still allows purchase of handguns for target shooting and self defence (if your life is in danger from paramilitaries) – a used Glock 9mm will run you about £350!
auld timer
6 years ago
You might just have enough time to watch the old film Dr Strangelove before he presses the button.
One_Scot
6 years ago
Alex will kick Scotland in the nuts if he ever gets a better offer. He is only interested in looking after himself, nothing else.
Jack Murphy
6 years ago
Off Topic.BREXIT.
Bloomberg on-line says:
“European Doctors Are Giving Up on the U.K.
Just under 3,500 registered to work in 2017, a 26 percent drop from 2014…….”
This Tory Theresa May,Boris Johnson,Ruth Davidson and David Mundell policy of departing from the European Union is SO wrong in many many ways.
Labour are also in a similar mindset as the Tories!
So the bench filler, Alex McLeish is now the new manager of the Scottish national football team. McLeish has already been the manager of the national team achieving nothing in the process.
In my opinion, McLeish is in it for the money, he doesn’t even believe that Scotland should be a independent nation, let alone posses the ability to take the “national” team to a major finals.
It’s a bit like Ruth Davidson becoming Scotland’s FM, she’d wax lyrical about how much she loves Scotland whilst achieving nothing for Scotland.
The SFA, haven’t a clue.
Highland Wifie
6 years ago
To be honest I have never understood the love affair with Clare Balding. I have never warmed to her and always felt she was smug and overbearing as many establishment figures are. She is no stranger to controversy, coming under fire before for ill-judged comments. Rhona Howie should not shrink before this type of superiority complex. She has good reason to be proud of the fact that she’s Scottish.
Apparently Balding is an eleven times great granddaughter of Oliver Cromwell. Make of that what you will.
Effijy
6 years ago
Claire Balding has made £Millions from BBC Contracts and all because she is fro the Toff Tory Sloan Ranger Horsie cabal.
She doesn’t want Scots claiming control of their own resources or One’s chums would risk having to lay off some servants.
Does anyone want to argue that you couldn’t find a few thousand pleasant and articulate presenters who could pick up the basic rules of Curling in an afternoon, and accept £99K Salary?
Hate everything about the BBC and how they operate.
Robert Peffers
6 years ago
@Robert Louis says: 17 February, 2018 at 11:52 am:
“Then to top it off we have a BBC presenter continually qualifying the word Scotland or Scottish, over and over again, by saying ‘Scottish athlete, competing as team GB’. They cannot just say ‘Scottish athlete’.
BBC british Nationalist propaganda, and Tory extremist, sectarian, racist bigotry. What a way to start Saturday.”
Ach! Robert Louis, it is actually a great way to start a Saturday. Like many things it is a matter of how you look at things. So I’ll tell you how I look at things. As usual I’ll qualify that by saying I may be wrong but … and I’ll explain to you how I figure it out.
The way I see it is that the Westminster Establishment is collectively shitting itself in abject fear that their tenure as The United Kingdom leadership is on its last legs. They know the truth is that the United Kingdom ends when one of the only two partner kingdoms calls, “Enough”, and departs. The union is over and what remains is the Status Quo Ante of two independent Kingdoms and not as the Westminster Establishment would have it, an independent Scotland and an rUnited Kingdom.
The reason I believe that is due to reverse psychology.
If the Establishment weren’t bothered about Scottish independence they wouldn’t go to such lengths and act as they do.
Note that in their efforts to pretend they don’t care they only succeed in drawing attention to their fears.
The more they fear the more they attempt to ignore anything and everything Scottish and the more apparent it becomes they are worried stiff. So the more they worry the more Scots become aware of their acute anxiety. Remember that we had an entire General Election to choose Westminster MPs and the Yoons spent the entire campaign claiming that Scots don’t want another referendum- what another referendum had to do with selecting members of the Westminster Parliament is anyone’s guess.
gus1940
6 years ago
Coming to your local bookshop or Amazon the latest blockbuster -‘Theresa May’s Bumper Book of Slogans, Catchphrases, Lies,Buzzwords and Woffling Mindless Platitudes’.
jfngw
6 years ago
I could have sworn that it was reported that this weeks speech by May was going to lay out the foundations of her vision for Brexit. It was just another vacuous encounter with some statements about security co-operation, hardly the most groundbreaking area as lots of the EU are already members of NATO.
Is anybody counting how many of these vision speeches have been announced to turn out to be just empty rhetoric.
Returnofthemac
6 years ago
Missed the Rhona howie comment. Not surprised balding called it out. Wouldn’t it have been nice if she had praised the Scottish curlers as indeed being Scottish first before making her all important point it’s team GB it’s team GB, GB. And you should know your place, No time for Balding.
heedtracker
6 years ago
Orange Hitler probably will have a hot “tactical” nuke war but the big issue for Scottish democracy, is just how hard the beeb gimp network’s going to use him for their Project Fear 2 campaigning.
If anything displays just how hard core right the beeb gimp network is today, its their often shocking fawning and arse licking of Pres Trump.
Rob James
6 years ago
@ Jack Collatin
I think you’ll find that the Dunblane Report was buried for 100 years, which is a longer period of time than that required for state secrets. It does make you wonder what was going on.
One_Scot
6 years ago
Rob, I was not aware of the 100 year ruling. I went on to find this,
Scotland employ a manager who hasn’t been in the game for donkeys years, lives in London, and doesn’t like his homeland, it’s a marriage made in Yoon heaven. At least I’ll not see the games as they are on sky sports, small mercies.
Dave McEwan Hill
6 years ago
North chiel at 2.10
I wouldn’t presume that Alex Ferguson has anything other than a loyalty to Labour which he had when I knew him slightly when he was a player at Ibrox. With a shipyard background he had a trade union mindset but I suspect there is a strong possibility had he stayed in Scotland he would be on the other side by now on the independence question. He has a surprising amount of informed knowledge about the Irish Rebellion in 1916. He is a pretty sharp guy and he has done a lot of good community work.
Further evidence in support of what Robert Peffers said “The union is over and what remains is the Status Quo Ante of two independent Kingdoms and not as the Westminster Establishment would have it, an independent Scotland and an rUnited Kingdom”.
The government of the republic of ireland is putting out feelers to Unionists in northern ireland about a re-United ireland
Senator Mark Daly is spearheading an effort by an Oireachtas (Irish parliament) committee to tease out what a reunited Ireland might look like in a post-Brexit world.
As part of this effort, the committee has tasked itself with understanding and comprehensively addressing the fears unionists hold of a united Ireland.
I just noticed there has been nothing said yet except a very brief little mention on the BBC text service about this little news item that is now in The National:-
The blanket blotting out of SNP news shows the abject fear slowly crippling the YoonYoonist mind-set. You can smell the Westminster fear here in Scotland all the way from the banks of the Thames.
It really is amazing that the third largest political party at Westminster is in the process of electing a new depute leader and there is virtually silence in the United Kingdom’s media.
There is more news being shown about the UKIP’s Henry Bolton being sacked.
For the record here is the current state of the Westminster parties:-
Conservative 316
Labour 259
Scottish National Party 35
Liberal Democrat 12
Democratic Unionist Party 10
Sinn Féin 6
Independent 5
Plaid Cymru 4
Green Party 1
Speaker 1
Vacant 1
Total number of seats 650
So where on that list are UKIP?
HandandShrimp
6 years ago
Trump dances to the same old interest groups as every other administration. The only certainty is that there will be another gun massacre.
Also hoping that the US National Security Agencies have fail safes on the red buttons.
HandandShrimp
6 years ago
To be fair Robert, the press know we will pick someone sensible and there will be a minimum of fuss.
UKIP are a travelling sideshow in the PT Barnum tradition. There is so much back biting in UKIP that it makes for easy copy in a “he said she said” sort of way.
Cactus
6 years ago
Dumbarton Road.
Somewhere.
West end.
SCO.
X.
K1
6 years ago
The only time gun laws in America will change is when some kid opens fire at one of the prestigious schools where members of the ruling classes children are studying.
The rest of America’s kids can die in their thousands…when will America wake up to their own class ridden system instead of pretending they are a meritocracy? When Yoons realise they are arse lickers of those they perceive as their ‘betters’. Never gonnae happen.
heedtracker
6 years ago
Democratic Unionist Party 10
Just think, each DUP MP cost £100+ million, to keep Strong and Stable tory gits in office. Giant bribes, all of which sold as completely normal UKOK politics in action, not flat out bribery, to a bunch of all kinds of DUP.
Tory BBC gimpery calls it all a pact, a deal, not bribery.
The price of keeping power
Analysis by BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg
The Tories now face a bumpy day of criticism, about how the DUP have been bought off – £100m for each of their ten votes in Parliament. The other devolved nations will cry foul.”
DUP bigots now have more control over their Scotland region than any Scot.
Always wondered, historically has Ireland ever been an independent united country ?
Robert Peffers
6 years ago
@HandandShrimp says: 17 February, 2018 at 10:29 pm:
“There is so much back biting in UKIP that it makes for easy copy in a “he said she said” sort of way.”
Which is, basically, the actual point I was making, HandandShrimp.
That is these scandal sheets and the Westminster controlled broadcasters claim to be newspapers and news broadcasters.
If memory serves me well it is a written in clause of the Westminster granted broadcaster’s licence that they must all carry news and such things as party political broadcasts and government public announcements like health, weather and traffic safety warnings.
ATM there seems to be a government blanket ban on anything about Scotland – except of course SNP/Scotland BAAAAD! items.
Now I’m not at all displeased by their actions – as I said up-thread to me it signifies they are in virtual panic mode and people in panic mode make very bad decisions. The Westminster Establishment are, to all intent and purposes, presently in self-destruct mode.
It seems to me the logical outcome must be the break up of the United Kingdom, (that is the parting of the two kingdoms), but it also looks very likely that the Kingdom of England is also about to begin splitting up. That is the unification of Ireland sees the ending of the, “Crown of Ireland Act”, that saw the English Kingdom annex Ireland.
Cactus
6 years ago
Love.
Love.
Love.
Keep lovin’.
Tis ra only one true emotion.
EMOTION Scotland.
Terry
6 years ago
I love wings
Cactus
6 years ago
Terry aye ur ma kinda yuy….
Love Scotland.
Always.
X.
Bill not Ben
6 years ago
The doomsday clock. ha ha ha, the fecking doomsday clock is ticking the moment your born, and who the hell want’s to live forever anyway, the doomesday clock lol
frogesque
6 years ago
@Cactus 11.51
Stay safe pilgrim and have a braw night.
Robert Peffers
6 years ago
@Bill not Ben says: 17 February, 2018 at 11:52 pm
“and who the hell want’s to live forever anyway, the doomesday clock lol”
That clock you are listening to is not the Doomsday clock, Bill not Ben, it isn’t the clock in the Elizabeth Tower, (Big Ben), either as that is being renovated just now.
I think it must be the count-down alarm for the end of the United Kingdom.
The only question now is, does the United Kingdom end before or after the Kingdom of England loses Northern Ireland to Irish unification?
Cactus
6 years ago
Salt n sauce.
Freedom is soon…
Cactus
6 years ago
You look gorgeous.
Scotland.
X.
North chiel
6 years ago
Re “ Dave Mcewan Hill@ 0801pm” , interesting comment sir, undoubtedly some prominent people ( including sporting icons) May well consider changing from “no” to “ Yes” for Indyref 2. Here’s hoping anyway , a trickle can eventually lead to a flood and could win the day for our country.
Cactus
6 years ago
Aye can hear ra sweet sounds of ra River Kelvin…
A flowin’ thru Glasgow.
Deep down.
Love yerself!
cearc
6 years ago
A fine, starry, starry night here.
Have fun in bonnie Glasgow, Cactus.
Liz g
6 years ago
Cactus @ 12.24
Salt n sauce ???
Are ye sure yer in Glasgow!
Cactus
6 years ago
Ra road is long.. though many a windin’ turn.
Ahm wearing ma Wings hat on ma head.
Maryhill HOME soon.
Don’t give a fuck.
Walking.
Aye.
yesindyref2
6 years ago
That Clare Balding putting Rhona Howie in her place is on youtube:
Never did like Clare Balding anyway, she thinks she’s more important then her guests, whereas she’s a nobody. Fairly typical for BBC presenters “I’m the BBC”.
Grouse Beater
6 years ago
How to stop a crazy man from pushing the red button, Chris, that’s the question. Do you pronounce him unhinged and have him removed, or push him under a bus?
@ ben madigan 09.00
Thanks for the link, an interesting read. This highlights a concern of mine if the timings of the break up of the UK are in the order of the reunification of Ireland first, then an Independent Scotland following thereafter. The 18% of Unionists in Northern Ireland that will never accept the reunification of Ireland are described as the “fight or flight” group. If a large number of them choose to leave, and if from what I understand there is already a vanguard settled around Ayrshire and the South West of Scotland area, then Scotland may be their preferred region of the UK to move to and live in.
They will all then be eligible for a vote in the next Scottish Independence Referendum and its pretty much a forgone conclusion that they will vote to retain the Union between Scotland & England. This is in my opinion is another reason why the timing of the next Indyref will be crucial. Lets hope that Scotland wakes up to the realities of Brexit and takes the only sensible course of action available to us before the situation in Ireland develops as predicted.
yesindyref2
6 years ago
@Macart
What a disgusting article that is in the Guardian. Even the claim of 0.2% seems to be wrong. And that sneer “Around 10% claim to understand it to some degree (perhaps just a few phrases)” belongs more below the line in the Express. From 2015, this article claims 2%, no idea of the political orientation of the Belfast Telegraph:
Glad I don’t read the Guardian online any more, it’s the pits.
galamcennalath
6 years ago
Arthur Martin says:
Scotland may be their preferred region of the UK to move to
… and they will be encouraged to so do by every other BritNat group. It will be seen as easing to problems for UKOK … allowing NI BritNats to retain their precious Britnattery and sabotaging Scottish aspirations. A win win for BritNatdom.
There are many advantages in holding the two referendums concurrently. One would definitely be that if Scotland remains in Union then we could be flooded by some of the more unpleasant elements of NI society!
Socrates MacSporran
6 years ago
Rhona Howie (Martin) is a lovely lady, who I have had the pleasure of meeting on a few occasions. I was, for instance, one of a hanful of journalists at the welcome home evening for the curling team at Greenacres – their home rink – in 2002.
Rhona is from a well-off Scottish Tory family. I do not know, but, I suspect given her bacground and upbringing, that Rhona was a No voter in 2014.
The reality is, Rhona knows full-well the curlers are Scottish wearing, once every four years, Team GB kit.
I find it disgraceful that a jumped-up, over-promoted “personality” such as Clare Balding should be allowed to talk down to a genuine national sporting icon.
Rhona Howie is more of a lady than Balding, for all her alleged royal connections via her father once being a trainer to HM the Queen, will ever be.
The Labour councillor who came first William Crawford in Cumnock and New Cumnock puts the Orange Order as one of his named interests.
It’s time the Scottish parliament banned all sectarian organizations and we could be rid of this vermin before they are supplemented by a flood of loyalist fanatics from NI. We need the next referendum before this happens or the fight for Independence will be lost.
John Thomson
6 years ago
Ruth appearing on Peston on Sunday shortly
TheWasp
6 years ago
tRuthless is now the new princess Diana, the queen of minefields. I wonder if she was actually clearing them instead of getting on with the day job?
Fireproofjim
6 years ago
Galamcennlath
Although Ayrshire may attract a few diehard Orange Unionists in the event of a United Ireland, I can’t see a mass emigration in numbers enough to affect any Scottish referendum.
Most Unionists are reasonably prosperous in Ulster and have family ties and own property there. Would you give all that up at the behest of a few fanatics to start again in Scotland?
A united Ireland will be a pretty attractive place to be – in the EU and away from Westminster’s follies, – and I am sure Dublin will do everything possible to make the Unionists happy.
Fireproofjim
6 years ago
Thanks for the links Nana.
Enjoy your well deserved break.
[…] Really smart and very stable. Relax. It’s not about weapons. It’s about mental health link to wingsoverscotland.com […]
louis.b.argyll
6 years ago
Re Oxfam executives dirty cover-ups/BBC BIAS.
Did the Tories cut the BBC’s funding after MANY of it’s staff were found guilty of disgusting behaviour and high-level corruption.
Absurdly, Nick Robinson thinks that-
The BBC INVENTED..
The Samba/Tango/Foxtrot etc.
Animals, and natural history.
Glastonbury and classical music.
The guy is a political activist,
a disguised excuse for a journalist,
an uncultured professional TORY,
who HATES anyone he sees as beneath him.
louis.b.argyll
6 years ago
Nana,
Haste ye back.
Hamish100
6 years ago
On tele Peston Geek of the Week.
How many universities in Italy, France, Spain, Scotland, England since their formation to today.
The presenter ignores Scotland entirely and so does the geek of the week another tory geek.
Oops have I missed Ruth Davidson! Apparently she is on? Or is that arse of the week?
Robert Peffers
6 years ago
@louis.b.argyll says: 18 February, 2018 at 10:29 am:
Re Nick Robinson:-
“The guy is a political activist,
a disguised excuse for a journalist,
an uncultured professional TORY,
who HATES anyone he sees as beneath him.”
Small correction – “Nick Robinson hates anyone he sees as beneath him. should read, Nick Robinson hates everyone and sees everyone as beneath him.
John H.
6 years ago
If you feel like having your stomach well and truly churned this morning, then tune your radio in to LBC where Jacob Rees-Mogg is standing in for Farage. I couldn’t listen to much of it, but from what I heard the people phoning in are all Brexit supporters. The amount of grovelling going on to this man is embarrassing. A wonderful man, should be P.M. etc. with Rees-Mogg purring his appreciation in his self-satisfied patrician tones.
It seems that some people down there really want to go back to the eighteenth century, as long as their overlords are English.
heedtracker
6 years ago
It seems that some people down there really want to go back to the eighteenth century, as long as their overlords are English.
Same overlords are available for listening to on the vote tory or else show,
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Nairn Community & Arts Centre in Scotland with a panel including the chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation Bertie Armstrong, Scottish National Party MP Joanna Cherry, Conservative MEP author and columnist Dan Hannan and the leader of the Scottish Labour Party Richard Leonard.
If you’d like to hear a nice display of how toryboy’s lie flat out, its a nice example.
Dan Hannan for example explains clearly/blatantly lies about how the EU caused depletion and near extinction of UK fish stocks.
Bertie A explains/blatantly lies about how Scottish fishermen are going to be just like Icelandic fisherman and will get to keep 90% of all UK fish stocks with Brexit.
Another day of beeb gimp attack propaganda for sure but even so, toryboy’s certainly are unscrupulous pricks.
Also, Leonard nobody probably isn’t the SLabour messiah…
winifred mccartney
6 years ago
Thank you Nana for all you do – have a great break.
RD on Peston saw about 30 secs of her ‘uninterrupted statement’ and in that time she told 2 blatant lies – the Northern Ireland border has been settled and the transition deal. Would she like to tell Tereeza and Arlene that.
Capella
6 years ago
Happy holiday Nana and look forward to your return. I’ve been offline for a couple of weeks as my gadgets all went kaput at once. A wee break is good for you!
Bill Hume
6 years ago
I want my Nana…….Charlie Sim. (Yes I am old enough to remember that).
Marie Clark
6 years ago
Nana, many thanks for the links, taking a wee while to get through them all.
link to snp.org
And we are working directly with our 2,400 volunteers in our nationwide Experience Panels
I have been a member of one of these panels and to me it is like a breath of freh air compared to how the claiming and assesment process wa before the Scottish Government are taking a very considered and considerate approach to this whole thing . As far as I am aware NO government has ever consulted with those directly affected by new legislation prior to it being implemented.
If only we could get all powers devolved but we are all (foreby the trolls) working towards that goal. Thanks for everythig as always Nana
louis.b.argyll
6 years ago
Thanks Robert,
“Nick Robinson hates anyone he sees as beneath him. should read, Nick Robinson hates everyone and sees everyone as beneath him.’
If I can add..
Whether, a majority of BBC viewers
are finally seeing through eg Robinson,
Peston, Dimbleby, Neil, Paxman, Portillo,
(Grub) etc, is unlikely judging by the way
Middle-England and the ignorant fringes
lap up the right-wing supremacy jargon.
The BBC fronts-up the scheming against,
and the stereotyping of, EVERYTHING else
except UK/England’s oppressive,
cultish, still-medieval Establishment,
WHICH IS THE REAL DENIER OF PROGRESS.
Robinson thinks ‘Strictly’ is a great
British export- it’s a fucking light-
entertainment show, stuff people do in-
between the shit jobs they suffer due to
prick Tories like Nick.
starlaw
6 years ago
Fireproof Jim 10.16
Totally agree, Hardline Unionists will not be pouring over here there is nothing here for them.
The entire basis for their existence is embedded in Boyne Water and their bonfires. Ulster Orangemen who are here return to their roots in Ulster every July to carry out their Medieval Nonsense.
And as you point out they will be better off in a United Ireland, more chance of those already here going home, or did they come here to escape what passes for normality in their former back yards.
Macart
6 years ago
@Yesindyref2
It was basically one long sneer at other peoples culture. Pretty disgusting top to toe. The Ramsay piece over on Open Democracy was bang on the money.
And no, I don’t regret leaving the Guardian behind either.
Jack Murphy
6 years ago
Off Topic. For Newbies and Weekenders to Wings over Scotland.Welcome. 🙂
Here is a new Truly Scottish TV on-line.
“Hello and welcome.
We’re a small band of amateur Broadcasters.
Our aim is to broadcast a Positive Scotland to the world.
Coming soon – We’ll be broadcasting News/Politics/Sport and weather.
To support us, simply drop-by each day and watch at least 1 programme.
Well,well Peston can get Davidson on his show but BBC Scotland TV&Radio can’t I wonder why and whats this about NI border being settled and Peston let her off with that.
A waste of space she is.
PS I see that Leonard has a small piece in the SP saying he apologised for his parties battle with female workers over equal pay.
Many equal pay claims were settled under Labour in Glasgow he says so why the long drawn out legal battle.
Footsoldier
6 years ago
My biggest concern of the lot is that the Unionists continue on the attack all the time relentlessly and never give up especially as there are plenty of other things for them to worry about.
What are we doing on the independence side – nothing. We are thinking about things, waiting for the right moment and do very little attacking or rebuttal. The SNP is shedding members, their once formidable army of well co-ordinated foot soldiers is somewhat depleted and demoralised. Our well motivated Yes army lacks co-ordination and hand it to the Unionists; their plans against Scottish independence seem to be going quite well.
Everything now is on the constitution and Brexit. Try some canvassing. As an SNP member I find lots of questions on the doorstep that arose in the 2014 referendum and a full 3 years on we still have no answers. It’s simply not good enough to lie low while we plan and think.
heedtracker
6 years ago
Have a great break Nana! what are we going to do without your links.
BBC Scotland cost Scots over 300 million smackers, to tell us how awful we are and just how awful Scottish democracy really really UKOK is. Scottish democracy is very very awful, says 300+ million bbc sovs.
but just one link from Nana…
This just in. BBC Scotland only “spend” a third of Scotland’s licence fee on Scotland, the rest goes to Clare Balding, to tell Scots be quiet, you’re British.
Great VFM, UKOK style:D
Macart
6 years ago
@Nana
Take care Nana and enjoy the break. 🙂
McDuff
6 years ago
Footsoldier 12.15pk
Spot on. Complacency has been allowed to set in and all that passion of’14 has dissipated.
You are correct , whre are the answers for the doorstep?
@Socrates MacSporran
I think Howie got the better of Balding by saying “Sorry”. An apology from her highlighted that the presenter made her guest uncomfortable – Howie wins, Balding loses.
I did like Balding doing the horse racing on the few times I used to watch, that was more her genre. She rose to her level of incompetence.
heedtracker
6 years ago
Thanks folks, as the terminator said “I’ll be back”
He also said, “If you want to live, come with me.”
Does Scotland want to live, or be governed by abject tory shits, for another generation?
Dave McEwan Hill
6 years ago
Footsoldier at 12.15
We had all the answers in 2014 but we didn’t and don’t have the media. This is still the case. Those who imagine we will win independence by “having all the answers” are deluding themselves.
We will find ourselves again bogged down in a maze of answering fake unionist questions without the armoury to fire back.
“All the answers” is the chosen battleground of the unionists.
Robert Peffers
6 years ago
@Footsoldier says: 18 February, 2018 at 12:15 pm:
“My biggest concern of the lot is that the Unionists continue on the attack all the time relentlessly and never give up especially as there are plenty of other things for them to worry about.”
Aye! But! Aiblins yon’s why you sing yersel as, “Footsoldier”, and Nicola Sturgeon sins herself iz the Scottish FM.
(Owersettin intil the Inglis – Aiblins = perhaps or possibly).
It is the foot soldiers lot to do or die and the leaders lot to reason why:-
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred..
(apology to Alfred Lord Tennyson).
Obviously you have not quite thought the matter through properly, Footsoldier.
Look at things from the point of view of the leader, (and her host of expert advisors), as the political tactician leading Scottish independence.
There is an ever increasing campaign waged by the Westminster Establishment, (and that Establishment includes far more than just the HOC & HOL), the most apparent lot among them are the London Financial Sector and the Westminster controlled media that includes their representatives right here in Scotland.
From their point of view there is very good reason for that campaign being of an ever increasing and on-going nature – it is simply failing to be as effective as The Establishment had hoped. In fact it has increased to such a point that even former unaware of political events Scots are awakening to the fact they have been fooled and taken in by centuries of Westminster propaganda.
This last fact shows as a slow but steady move of opinion polls towards Scottish independence and Westminster has only two alternatives – step up the all too obvious anti-Scottish/SNP/SG rhetoric or drop the anti-Scottish campaign. The point being that their campaign is back-firing on Westminster and it is their anti-Scottishness, and not any extra activity by the SG/SNP that is winning over former Britnats to the indy movement.
Factually more battles are lost by wrongly timed attacks than are lost by having inferior numbers of inferior weapons. Let’s face it Westminster has both superior numbers and superior armaments than has the SNP/SG yet there is a slow but steady increase in those who now support Scottish independence.
Now, though, we can factor in a few other things that are in our favour. BRUKEXIT has opened up two other fronts that mean the Westminster forces are now fighting on several fronts and cannot thus concentrate fully upon Scotland and independence. Westminster is making mistakes.
BRUKEXIT has had several secondary fronts for Westminster to fight on besides just simply leaving Europe. First there is the growing threat of a united Ireland and that can only result in the return of Northern Ireland to the former Kingdom of Ireland that is already a Republic and republics cannot be part of a Kingdom.
Then there is the Gibraltar problem which could have several different outcomes not the least of which would be a Gibraltar return to Spain or to an independent part of the EU. Not to mention the hardly reported in the UK media coming events of secret Commonwealth talks on who should succeed Elizabeth Regina as Commonwealth Head and several Commonwealth countries are already teetering on the brink of ditching the monarchy altogether and the Brexateers were counting upon easy trade deals with former United Kingdom colonies.
It really isn’t a big step for Commonwealth countries to simply become fully independent. After all the United Kingdom ditched all of them when it joined the European Union.
Then there are such as China, Japan and the ever rising Eastern powers who will look at things as a choice of doing trade deals with either the EU, (the largest Trading bloc), or, forming an Eastern trading bloc among themselves or the USA that has been declining of late.
The whole BRUKEXIT thing is potentially the biggest threat that Westminster has ever faced and that includes two World Wars.
Yet you claim, ““It’s simply not good enough to lie low while we plan and think.”
Just which side is it you are really on, Footsoldier?
The one moving inexorably towards independence as shown by opinion polls or the one inexorably losing support on all fronts as it battles away on several different but linked fronts and looking increasingly like losing on all battlefronts?
Robert Peffers
6 years ago
@myself:02:05 pm.
Oops! I messed up my HTML and bolded far too much of the post. Sorry!
Hamish100
6 years ago
indyref 2
Howie lost. She apologised when she had no need to. Howie is paid by the bbc and is pro unionist so obviously felt she had to demonstrate her Cringe. Balding is overrated but her partner works in the BBC I believe so that helps with contacts
bbc so interested in curling that they didn’t even bother to report on uk “national” news that the European championship was won by Scotland s women recently. Of course cricket was more important.
Cactus
6 years ago
Good afternoon fine Wingers. Mini adventures are fun when accompanied by ra tiny bubbles. The next guided tour begins in six days hehe 🙂
That Clare Balding fellar could very easily morph into that Ruth Davidson fellar and then again into that Lord Charles dummy.
Dummies the lot of them (plus the one at the top).
yesindyref2
6 years ago
@Hamish100
Depends how you look at it. Technically Balding was right, but if Howie had argued or anything she would have looked like a dick. As it was her “sorry” highlights Balding as being the dick, and kind of draws attention to Balding’s pettiness, and self-importance.
HandandShrimp
6 years ago
On the Moog
For those that missed Rachael Parris’s Mash Report on the bounder
I drew attention further up the thread to Howie’s comment on the incident from a Scotsman interview.
” “I was being so careful not to as well,” says Howie. “Because they are really strict about Team GB. But then the camera turned round and there were two big Scottish flags in the crowd. Normally they ask for them to be taken down because it’s Team GB. So I saw that and thought: ‘oh, they are allowed to fly Scottish flags’. Then in my head I just blurted out Scotland… and Clare called it out, which is fine. I am glad she did. I was like: ‘oh sorry, yes, the British team’ “
“Always wondered, historically has Ireland ever been an independent united country ?”
yes for many centuries, ireland was traditionally a grouping of clans/geographical areas, each with their own leader under an Ard Rì (High king).
Like Scotland, ireland fought off English encroachment, conquest and attempts at pacification for 800 years. Indeed one of the cries of irish prisoners throughout the ages was that they were political prisoners, not criminals.
Modern irish republicanism was born out of the American and french revolutions in the late 18th century. The 1800 Act of Union with GB annexed ireland and abolished her parliament,
(much as the 1707 Act did for Scotland).
auld highlander
6 years ago
Yesterday I saw a guy in a jimmy hat and a brief flash of a Saltire hanging over the barrier at the end of the run, possibly on one of those fancy sledge runs but I can’t really remember .
Their editor must have been sleeping to let that pass by.
yesindyref2
6 years ago
@mike cassidy
Like that article. Howie: “We represent Scotland at every championship we go to and then all of a sudden it is Britain, which is fantastic for the players but the commentators suffer…”
Howie’s taking the piss in a very gentle way 🙂
As the article says: “that had anchor Clare Balding spluttering out a correction”.
God forbid anyone was to upset the English’s GBness by having any Scottish people in it,even by mistake, Christ! I’ll give them mistake!
Am I the only one who sees that for what it is
A big fat display of racist domination *get back in your place we are the British you little nobody Jock squirt*
And folk are apologising because technically TECHNICALLY!!
Are you people kidding?!?! Is that what it’s come to now apologising for saying the word Scottish in the wrong place
so’s not to offend the bloody English, get a flaming grip here nobody committed a murder or a rape or even harmed a fly
Do we have to look away or down when our masters pass by now or move off the pavement to give them room to kick the fucking shit out of us if they’d like because we’ve seen that before somewhere else
In order to stop people bullying us some people might think about not apologising for existing in the first place,
(abused wife syndrome)
Niall Whyte
6 years ago
Off Topic: Q: Should Scotland be Independent
I would be very grateful if some of you could look at the debate across on Kialo regarding Scottish Independence. At the moment one or two enthusiastic Unionist or pro-Union contributors seem to be running the show. They’re using tired old arguments that need to be refuted. If you feel inclined, please pop over and put some meat on the bones for Scottish Independence.
“I would be very grateful if some of you could look at the debate across on Kialo regarding Scottish Independence.”
I suspect you’ll have to tell people what the hell “Kialo” is first.
bjsalba
6 years ago
@Footsoldier
Keeping ones powder dry and waiting till you see the whites of their eyes are good tactics. Shooting off early loses the campaign.
There are a lot of people out there who have not a clue about what is going on because they do not follow politics. Until the situation as regards the disaster that is Brexit is right up close in their faces any move is premature.
Yes we need to have answers, but we shouldn’t run a campaign which revolves around responding to BritNat badgering with questions. They mustn’t be allowed to set the agenda. We must be primarily proactive.
In 2014 there was a certain inevitability that when it started as a proposion i.e. independence, that this would be challenged. The status quo was well establish and would never have undergone the same questioning. (Although the Vow could have given the opportunity for attack rather than defence)
For IndyRef2 we must go all out to question, criticise, dismantle, destroy the BritNat proposition of their hard Brexit. We should be the ones on the attack.
Yes, the BritNats and their media will ask questions of our side, but any answer should be laced with counter points about where the UK would take us. We can set the framing and present independence as the safer option. Brexitised UK must be hammered as the disaster it will be. Indy must be seen as positive, a salvation, an escape, a solution, stability, and putting wrongs to right.
galamcennalath
6 years ago
ben madigan says:
Modern irish republicanism was born out of the American and french revolutions
Indeed. And of course those revolutions utterly terrified the UK Establishment.
Don’t know if anyone else has pointed this out, probably.
How many times have sports commentators or competitors said England when they meant, or should said, UK?
Also, the inverse. I seem to remember some England competitors sporting Butcher’s Aprons as part of their equipment at the Commonwealth games. Was it cyclists helmets, perhaps? Was that ‘stood on’?
Of course we all know it’s about denying, when and wherever possible, any Scotland reference or symbol. They are trying to hide Scottishness, eradicate it from consciousness even.
Robert J. Sutherland
6 years ago
Dave McEwan Hill @ 14:04,
There has to be an economic answer, since the BritNats will inevitably try to stir up another “pea-souper” over that issue again. And we need to be able to blow it away.
However, you are right, trying to field all the nit-picking distrations they raise, assisted by all the convenient thinktanks the BBC can conjure out of the woodwork, is a fools’ errand. Playing their games, always on the back foot, won’t do the job.
I believe the counter to that is to have an arsenal of examples of other small countries who are doing very well, thank you very much. Have our own media folks going to these places and doing interviews there with local economists and vox-pops with locals who will naturally all poo-pooh the notion of giving up their hard-earned independence to anyone else.
It’s all too easy for the MSM here to find negative vox-pops from unimaginative people here without a clue. The result is (deliberately) depressing and disengaging. UK-based thinktanks are rarely if even truly dispassionate and neutral.
That’s the answer to this one. Don’t get embedded in fine-grain economic discussions to which a potential scare cloud can always be easily attached. Instead use positive examples from elsewhere that demonstrate to ordinary folks that this is do-able without having to worry about all the grisly detail.
When folks say they “need more facts”, they don’t really mean it. They drowned in them last time. What they really want is reassurance.
What we could do with is a “yellow book” (say!) containing a bunch of examples of how other comparable small European countries manage to do very well. Rather like that short series that The National ran some time back, but with perhaps a little more depth.
Leading by example in a way that people can readily comprehend.
Robert J. Sutherland
6 years ago
me @ 18:11,
Oops, that should be “rarely if ever”.
(Keys not even close, and can’t blame predictive text either. Huh.)
Footsoldier
6 years ago
Robert Peffers comments 2.05pm
Pretty much shows the problem I outlined.
The Scottish curling team are there representing Team GB, and Clare Balding was being an obnoxious Britnat and anyone who mutters about technicalities is as bad as her and her British Nationalist mates for even thinking about cringing over this
There should be no apologies for using the word Scotland or Scottish anytime anywhere, GB is as far as I’m aware not a Nationality and never has been one
What happened there was English Nationalism being bossy and every time we hear it it should be slapped down hard and not apologise for mentioning who we are
As one of the Nations of the UK our athletes are invited to take part to represent the team GB it’s not for some jumped up presenter to inform us who we’ve not to be or what we can say or not say
We’re a Nation, not tools for the English to use to promote their Britishness then tell us to shut up about being Scottish
That applies to the Welsh as well, get these idiots telt
This is not anti English, it’s anti Arsehole
Giving Goose
6 years ago
Re galamcennalath
It’s also about keeping a lid on Englishness.
If England starts to emerge as an entity alongside Scotland (and Wales, N Ireland), then events will unfold very quickly.
Hence it makes sense to refer to “Great Britain”.
yesindyref2
6 years ago
@Dr Jim
Indeed. It was things like that on the BBC was a large part of why I took to supporting Independence in 1972. However, consider this possibility. Balding has previous, and so does the BBC, and perhaps Howie has noticed the BBC slant, and said what she said to needle Balding. Balding took the bait and as the Scotsman article said: “that had anchor Clare Balding spluttering out a correction”. Job done, move on.
Quite a coincidence Howie being interviewed by the Scotsman shortly after …
Robert J. Sutherland
6 years ago
galamcennalath @ 18:08,
I’ve never seen anyone taken to task on TV over using “England” inappropriately. Maybe it has happened sometime somewhere. Has anyone?
I even saw an example last summer of a commentator on the Eurosport channel using “England” inappropriately in front of a Scot, and nary a word was said about it, largely out of deferential politeness, it seems.
All this “Britain First” stuff is a sign of the times. As with that blog calling-out The Graun to which indyref2 linked upthread (for which thanks!). The English Establishment, including its supposed liberal-left wing, is seriously rattled by indy and Brexit. And being exposed for the control-freak neo-colonialism at its heart.
As RP mentioned upthread, this increased brittleness is a tell-tale sign of BritNat insecurity. (Not that this has necessarily helped as much as it ought.)
There used to be a time when Unionism was confident and could support – even foster – a considerable degree of cultural diversity. That’s what kept the Union together and alive, in fact. As I mentioned in a post in an earlier thread, a confident Union would have developed a vigorous new constitutional re-arrangement by now. Smith was the last-chance saloon, and now the bar is cobwebbed and empty.
Instead, now it has to be “England (disguised) First”. Which is why the Union is doomed. And why we have to make our move to break away soon, before the cultural and political suppression really starts to bite. As it surely will if we just sit back and let it all go down.
Gfaetheblock
6 years ago
Robert Peffers @ 14.05
What opinion polls are you referring to? Support for independence is declining currently is it not?
@RJS
Can’t take the credit, it was the great Macart who linked that one. But people aren’t thick, it’s not just Indy supporters who notice, and the more the media panic, the more it’ll upset people who aren’t involved, and they’ll react. Gently gently, catchee monkee. We just keep poking the skunk and stand back and watch it emitting foul smells 🙂
I think, don’t know, but think, there’s a few pro-indy subversives around, not naming any of them of course. It’s not what they say, it’s the way they say it.
galamcennalath
6 years ago
Giving Goose says:
It’s also about keeping a lid on Englishness.
If England starts to emerge as an entity
Yes, you’re right. They want to control Englishness carefully. Part of that will intentionally be muddling the meaning of England and UK. They don’t want English folks to start consciously to think about England first. That is the reality, as all non English citizens know. However it would be very ackward if English voters started to genuinely shout … “let Scotland and NI go their own way”.
The Greater England model is the one the Establishment want to retain.
yesindyref2
6 years ago
“Support for independence is declining currently is it not?”
You’ll notice anything to do with Wales goes unnoticed or considered quaint even though the Welsh folk I know totally despise them a whole hell of a lot while they smile take their money and speak in Welsh in front of them
See there’s no threat from Wales to the Brit economy but without Scotland there is no Brit economy and Lil ol England has to subsidise Wales and Norn Ireland on its own
That would really really hurt
Gfaetheblock
6 years ago
yesindyref2 @ 19.01
There is a theme on this website that we deal in facts, with references.
Primary school insults generally only make the person using them look infantile.
Socrates MacSporran
6 years ago
Some years ago during a quiz on a cruise I was on, Daley Thompson was accepted as the correct answer to the question: “Who won the Decathlon gold medal for England at the 198 Olympic Games?”
When I pointed-out, the correct answer was: “Nobody”, since England does not compete in the Olympic Games, and that Thompson (English-born of a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father) was competing for “Team GB” the official Olympic tam of the International Olympic Committee of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, well, all Hell broke loose.
Suddenly, I was a Chippy Jock; everyone knew England and Team GB/the UK was one and the same. I was marked down as a trouble-maker for the remainder of the cruise.
England first, last and always is their credo – and they don’t know they’r doing it.
yesindyref2
6 years ago
That’s nice dear. “we deal in facts” – when are you going to start?
I provided a link to dozens of opionion polls, which show a clear trend since the Indy ref. These are facts that mr peffers seems unaware of, I was wondering if he knew of other polls that showed the opposite.
Data and facts, not assertion or abuse.
call me dave
6 years ago
@Socrates MacSporran
Excellent. 🙂
On a quiz show in the middle of the week where contestants had to name the first 10 European countries in alphabetical order and France had already been named at No 10.
A contestant said ‘England’ and was marked wrong by Bradley Walsh? So you see there is no such country.
Apparently they(England) go as we do under the ‘UK’ much consternation ensued. Funny old world init!
PS:
Watching the golf from America on PC stream here on a well known provider and Scottish commentator Ewen is suffering from Shakespeare syndrome.
He can’t bring himself to mention Martin Laird then lying 6th as he goes through the leading scores on screen having made 3 birdies in his first 5 holes.
The word ‘Scottish play’..er is beyond him and the cringe is strong.
Happens every weekend… I’m used to it all.
As I said on Friday 4 countries pretending to be one I don’t watch the Olympics.
yesindyref2
6 years ago
@Macart
Indeed. James Cook does some good stuff. Interesting tweet from Chris Law (Shadow SNP Spokesperson (International Development) on that thread:
“Just returned from EU Common Security and Defence Delegating n in Bulgaria last night & EU welcomes UK’s future cooperation and will continue to have delegates. I look forward to returning”
Glad to see he’s taking an interest.
stewartb
6 years ago
Robert J. Sutherland @ 6:38 pm
You write: “There used to be a time when Unionism was confident and could support – even foster – a considerable degree of cultural diversity. That’s what kept the Union together and alive, in fact. As I mentioned in a post in an earlier thread, a confident Union would have developed a vigorous new constitutional re-arrangement by now. Smith was the last-chance saloon, and now the bar is cobwebbed and empty.”
Well OK, up to a point. There used to be a time, over a large part of the last century, when it was only a small minority of folk in Scotland who questioned – even thought about – being part of a ‘Union’. They just were ‘British’ and ‘Scottish’, nothing difficult about it.
Unionism didn’t need to be ‘confident’, the status quo was hardly challenged. I was born, brought up and then lived contentedly in that environment until, personally, the mid 70’s. Even then, the need for Unionism to be ‘confident’ was limited – devolution, even though it took a long time to deliver, was seen as the solution, a sap to those challenges that were emerging.
But gradually more and more people in Scotland have become alienated from the ‘Union’ – I think ‘alienation’ is a crucial term, a key process at play here.
But for the Westminster establishment, it did not change the fact that “Union” remains just a name, a terminology, inherited from history but rarely if ever thought of as an actual combination of or partnership of kingdoms, nations or countries of equal value and status.
And yes, a Union that is acknowledged and valued would “have developed a vigorous new constitutional re-arrangement by now” (your words) but note, unlike you, I am not attributing this to the Union’s “confidence”: it is the Westminster and British (English) Nationalists’ continuing lack of basic acknowledgement of the notion of partnership coupled to a sense of entitlement i.e. simply no appreciation of what a ‘union’ actually is, should be, could be.
As I’ve posted before – one state, one country, one kingdom, one nation is all that really matters to the British ruling elite and their supporters, and now, when challenged, the response is to defend the status quo to the … (well we wait to see)!
(And this all has so many manifestations – the irony of a BBC Sports commentator chiding someone referring to Scotland in an Olympic event rather than Team GB, when the latter is a term that explicitly air brushes Northern Ireland out!)
yesindyref2
6 years ago
“Misogyny as well, nice.”
Not really dear, there’s a female btl poster who uses it a lot to guys. I kind of borrowed it. It’s become unisex, dear. Keep up at the back JSW!
“In the light of the UK prime minister’s pragmatic approach to post-Brexit security this @alexmassie piece from 2013 is worth re-reading. “Theresa May’s grubby little warning: an independent Scotland will be out in the cold.”“
Macart
6 years ago
@Yesindyref2
Worth bookmarking. That’s another argument ticked off the list – cross border security cooperation. Next time the Britnats pull that horseshit… ‘but your PM said…’. 😉
wull2
6 years ago
YES people have your own backup plan just in case we loose posts, like yesterday and today on two different platforms that I know of.
Ananurhing
6 years ago
A wee anecdotal account of an interesting encounter I had a couple of months ago.
I was chatting to a couple I come across now and again. Late fifties, very RP English, lived in Scotland for quite some time. Tory, No, Brexit voters. Business interests which take them to Europe sometimes. Nice people. They know my politics and I know theirs. We tend not to go there but I never miss an opportunity for a sideswipe if it presents itself.
Standing outside having coffee I dropped the Brexit bomb, and asked for their take on it. Man it was like lighting a slow burn fuse. He turned away in disgust while she built up a head of steam. I stood back and said very little other than steer the conversation a bit.
She got into her stride, ranting about how we were told we would still have access to the single market. “That’s what we were told” I was gobsmacked at her language when she finished with ” The country’s f***ed, this country is f***ed, isn’t it? It’s enough to make me think about voting for….” She stopped herself. I raised one eyebrow and gave her a wee smile. She looked a bit sheepish. Inside I felt like Rowan Atkinson getting a drop of blood from a stone.
I would have laid money on them both being No voters till their last breath. I followed up with Wee Black and Blue books which I would never have wasted on them before, and I’m not finished with them yet.
So please, enough of the knee jerk prejudice that has raised it’s head here recently, and don’t write anyone off.
schrodingers cat
6 years ago
support for indy is pretty static, at about 45%
amazing really, considering the tories won 2 GE’s and the euref returned a leave since indyref1
but i still believe that brexit will be awful and will be the catalyst we need to get public opinion to move to Yes.
but we need to wait until we see the result of the negotiations and whether the MPs at westminster can reverse or stop brexit, and whether there will be another euref. Until we know the answers to these questions, indyref2 must stay off the table.
Footsoldier
6 years ago
Robert Peffers @ 2.05pm responding to mine of 12.15pm
This is probably my first and last long post on Wings. Having now had time to digest your comments (does bold mean you are shouting), I take umbrage at your comment “which side are you on”. After 50 years of active campaigning for the SNP and still doing so, bones and hip permitting, I know only too well what side I am on and can also recall the annual conference being held in rooms and tiny halls, so don’t lecture me with your Poobah attitude.
I did learn that Tennyson poem at school and can still recite it verbatim, well almost. The first stanza might metaphorically describe our current predicament while the second stanza is an indicator of where we could end up.
Wings is an indispensable website and the amount of information the Rev provides is absolutely amazing and without doubt is a valuable resource in our independence campaign and much more should be made of it in a wider field. However I suspect his income to maintain this website derives from having to put up with those who enter into endless lengthy correspondence to each other and probably get up each day to spout forth on Wings while achieving absolutely zilch for independence.
Get real, the biased comments, personal abuse and bad language are not going to convert many, if any, previous No voters and that is assuming they have heard of Wings which the vast majority have not. Sure it’s a great damp sobbing pillow but the chat is taking you nowhere.
More time spent on Wings, less time speaking to No’s – your choice. Get a life!
Thepnr
6 years ago
@Ananurhing
Very encouraging wee anecdote. When Brexit starts to bite we may see all kinds coming over to support Independence that we might not have previously imagined.
So I believe your right, we should never write anyone off.
I’ve been wandering around on Twitter, due to boredom with the Scottish scene. I noticed a lot of English pro EU starting to follow me, for comments I made, correcting Brexiteers, pointing out SNP unequivocal support for SM and CU etc.
Its striking how there is now a pretty large contingent of English pro EU waking up to BBC bias and Corbyn’s bullshit on the EU, and they are really angry with Labour.
Lots of talk of May council elections, and academic AC Grayling is urging people to use said elections to send a message. A recent council by election showed 50% swing to Lib dems.
The message is if Labour won’t oppose Brexit, vote any candidate who is pro EU.
It’s interesting because their energy on Twitter reminds me of the indy movement. They are articulate, and countering Brexiteer crap very well.
Daisy Walker
6 years ago
Since January this year, I’ve met 2 former ‘no’s’ absolutely bricking it about Brexit and looking and now remembering and listening to what the ‘yessers’ have said.
It’s true what they say about you reap what you so… all that biting back retorts and not getting angry, keeping it positive, answering the questions, being impeccably behaved and providing factual answers… we now have credibility and integrity. The Britnats,,, do not.
We absolutely must not write anyone off, especially now, when there are hard core no voters doing u turns. If they can turn, they will bring others.
BROKEN VOW, BREXIT CHAOS YES NOW x
Dave McEwan Hill
6 years ago
Ananurhing at 8.25
“So please, enough of the knee jerk prejudice that has raised it’s head here recently, and don’t write anyone off.”
Well said – and with opinion polls showing no drop whatsoever in support for independence it’s conversions that will win for us
winifred mccartney
6 years ago
We know labour in a mess over Brexit but that is not the only thing they are messing up – ‘Appalling behaviour from NEC chair Andy Kerr towards Katrina Murray. Voted 70 to 45 to proceed with electing a chair, this was denied’ from Jackie Baillie’s own twitter account and yet we have 2 labour mp’s this morning telling us nothing to see here Emily Thornberry who just laughed it off on Preston and the shadow Educ on Marr just dismissing it and labour wonder why with the worst govt ever they are still languishing in the polls. They had obviously been told to play it down, but anyone who has watched it knows how disgraceful it was. Labour are forgetting we all have access to their deceit and lies – they cannot get away with saying one thing to their audience and another to TV or Parliament like the notorious Jackie baillie did. As for Jeremy he will continue to reap what he sowed and it is not a pretty sight.
A terrible weekend what with Clare Baldings disgraceful behaviour and Ruth Davidsons blatant lying – everything sorted agreement on EU Nationals, agreement on NI border, agreement on divorce bill and agreement on transition – hope she had told Tereeza and Arlene. And not once quizzed or questioned by Peston.
However I feel most sorry for America with the chump, as usual deflecting from the real problem of guns towards mental health. You have to wonder how much the Rifle Association has paid into his coffers.
Ian Brotherhood
6 years ago
@Daisy Walker –
Interesting to hear your experience of how Brexit is creating potential indy supporters.
The following seems to me to be the kind of thing that no reasonable ‘No’ voter could simply ignore or dismiss. It’s less than 10 minutes long and is not difficult to understand.
That link is bringing up a cooking programme on my PC
Robert Louis
6 years ago
2 different things. 1. Date of indyref. 2. Date indyref is announced by Scotgov (and that needs to be soon).
Can people on here answer this straightforward question. It seems most folks want to make sure an indy ref is run early next year. PRIOR TO BREXIT. If that is the case, is there not a somewhat pressing need for the Scotgov to announce the date and start of the campaign sometime very soon – say within a month at most.
It would be no good waiting until late in the year to announce the referendum date, since people tend to want to get out campaigning during the summer. The time of marches, get togethers and events etc.. It would also be no good to wait until brexit negotiations are over, since, those negotiations are currently consuming the entire civil service, so they would not have the time to fight the anti indy campaign for the British Nationalists like they did last time.
So, the question is really simple, when will the Scotgov. call the referendum – that is, announce the start of the campaign? Until then, we are all still kind of in the dark – and getting extremely frustrated at a lack of action from SNP/Scotgov. Meanwhile the absolute disaster of brexit just keeps marching on.
Are we really going to wait until brexit has been done to Scotland? After that it will be much, much too late.
Rich pensioner Bill Grant recently elected MP for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock denies the poorer members of the electorate financial benefits and welfare which they need to survive.
The news tonight is a lot about students and loans and fees, and that’s all fine, except they’ve decided to exclude Scotland from these discussions because let’s just say for the moment our system’s different, but is this entirely fair to the *British* public on the *British* national newsies when they’re happy to talk about Welsh students and English students important as they are, but let’s just not report anything on this about Scotland
And that my friends tells you all you need to know about the great British media, if Scotland’s doing anything well
Don’t F…..g report it
And that’s how you manipulate news output, either make Scotland Baad news or make Scotland cease to exist even though we pay their F…..g wages by license tax or Sky subscription
Hamish100
6 years ago
I think when the next independent referendum is called the timeline will be short as the choice is quite clear and stark– brexit, stark loss of jobs and lurch to a right wing English government with DUP help (May will also be ousted) or self determination with close links to Europe and positive life choices. Pro NHS, Public service, renewables, pro agriculture and food and drinks, pro education– oops oil reserves as well.
Even some past No’s will vote for that. We will get the support of younger voters.
The future is bright…. the future is independence!
Ian Brotherhood
6 years ago
@Dave McEwan Hill –
Ach, sorry, I linked from the Truly Scottish TV channel…it must start at the beginning of a loop of some kind.
Brexit,article 50, the final “deal”…. thats all stuff the EU and Westminster are dealing with!
We are not involved….Westminster went to great lengths to make sure of that.
Despite being informed by Holyrood ” things” would be much better all round if they were!
Holyrood even spent time and treasure on producing plans.
But no…Westminster were very clear,Holyrood were not to be involved.
Therefore it is, I think,a fair statement to say that the date,the length of the transition and any vote’s about it,are Westminster and the EU’s …Time Table….
Why on earth should we be organising the future of OUR country’s arrangements on someone else’s time table.
This is a matter for Scotland.
As I see it there only needs to be an .. Announcement…that there is to BE a referendum before March 30th next year.
That would be enough to signal to the Westminster and the EU negotiators that Scotland and her resources are not and cannot be included in “whatever” post EU membership arrangements they are making.
In fact I think that the only thing they can do if Hoolyrood announced a referendum is to plan for both …a deal without Scotland and a deal with Scotland.
What they cannot do is pick our date for us…that’s for Holyrood to do…..and has not a thing to do with the discussion they are having….. You know the one they didn’t want Holyrood in on.
Its not as if they didn’t know we have considered holding one
So much so we voted to give our Parliament the mandate to do exactly that!
Hamish100
6 years ago
liz g
agree
louis.b.argyll
6 years ago
The democratic deficit has been proven to exist, with malignant potential, against the principles of Union.
A basic risk assessment, using Tory-Brexit-bloody-minded-ness as a political reality, shows that even the case for Scottish Independence is a control measure against the unchecked influence of the privilidged over those less so.
Timing is all.
Stand Fast.
Brian McHugh
6 years ago
The BBC pit England against Denmark and Germany, as well as the USA on university tuition fees in their wee graphic. link to bbc.co.uk
…got to wonder why the omission of a slightly closer country?
Liz g
6 years ago
Thepnr @ 11.30
I actually think that is what is actually going on Thepnr.
I think if Nicola announced a date, May would respond with a second Brexit vote.
The Unionist campaign would then be based around wait and see Scotland and our campaign itself would also be sidelined for the “more important” decision.
That’s why I think Nicola is waiting till it’s gone too far for Westminster to call another vote.
And as I’ve already said to Robert Louis we can just call a referendum but we don’t ACTUALLY need to have it till England have left the EU…..just so long as everyone is clear that the new “Bespoke ” trade deal won’t be including Scotland!
If Westminster managed to call off Brexit first…..then I think that might be the time to use the 2021 election to campaign for never again being dragged to a cliff edge and back again because of the democratic deficit!
schrodingers cat
6 years ago
Robert Louis
Liz
I would point you to PNR’s comment, what if there is no brexit?
We dont know if the mps at westminster will stop A50, vote for an euref etc,
if we put indyref2 back on the table and the mps vote against the final brexit deal, we would have no choice but to take indyref2 back off the table??
no, sorry, we have no choice but to wait and see this brexit fiasco play out
Little does he know the FBI actually wired it up to an ejector seat.
Your picture flatters Donald the Trumpet, Chris.
School kids in the US now learn how to survive a ‘School attack’ much like the nuclear war days..( hide and protect) duck under your desk and hope like ‘feck’…it’s so very sad. But all too common.
‘Potential’ nuclear war days that I grew up in. Well….hmmm
Just ask Donald…
Chilling, very chilling.
There are guns in every home in the Falkland Islands, at Christmas there was a sale of 9mm Glocks in local supermarket! 800 quid for a Glock!?
[…] Wings Over Scotland Really smart and very stable Read the full article:: Wings Over Scotland […]
America gave us “One Flow Over The Cookoos Nest”
How little did we know it’s nest would one day sit atop
The American President.
That’s internally and externally.
Caught a piece on BBC Breakfast yesterday about kids learning Mathematics.
Very quickly the reporter mumbled about how England and Ireland are have the
Worst performing school kids in Europe.
I take it then that Scotland again does better than England.
Isn’t it strange this wasn’t an extensive in depth report repeated
Across all UK media, just as it would had Scotland been down there?
Has Ruth come out of hiding in the Bakers shop to discuss the proven dire consequences
For Scotland, should her Tory party rip Scotland out of Europe?
Maybe ask why The Tories in England are not getting on with the day job on Education
Rather than touring the world pleading for anything they could pretend is a trade deal.
United States of America is at war with terrorism all over the world. Meanwhile in its own homeland schools children are being slaughtered by American citizens and no action is taken.
The President declares something is wrong with the mentality of its citizens and to a point he is right. There is something wrong with the mentality of the only country in the world who permits this to happen, become normal even, there is a problem … From the top down. The people of the USA need to go to war on this terrorism now starting with the removal of President Chump.
Trumps had his medical but not Phycratic evaluation that might have said he was strong & stable. All American School kids & Parents can do is wait on the next massacre since Trump repealed the Obama bill on mental health aspects of gun applications .
My understanding is that Second Amendment giving the right to bear arms had in mind “a well regulated militia”. That seems a far cry from the free for all they have.
I suspect that “militia” was considered necessary because of the threat from the UK a couple of centuries ago! It was also at a time when the US had very limited standing armed forced. An armed citizenry made sense.
Times have changed!
He truly is an appalling article.
A scary one Chris and right on the money.
I believe the American constitution states That citizens have the right to bear arms … in defence of the state.
Now then Boris,is the answer ?
A. Jumping the Shark
B. Nukeing the Fridge
Or
C. Truth and Consequences
#LaughUntilYouCry
Media POTUS obsession….will it make you go blind?
Who really is the Phsyco Killer?
The guy has all the stability of an Ikea table.
That’s a very good drawing.
If 20,000 Americans minimum are killed annually by their fellow Americans ,then if Donald is right, there must be a major mental health problem in America.
I have never understood the need to carry an implement that causes death, whether that be a gun or a knife. I always believe it shows fear rather than courage. People who are very afraid are even more likely to use these weapons in the first instance rather than see them as a last resort.
…as it has been stated many times the 2nd Amendment was written in the period of single shot muskets and basic revolvers plus the political/national requirement to raise a skilled militia quickly.
I don’t think auto fire assault rifles and truck mounted 50cal weapons quite fit the legislation a few hundred years later.
The most chilling call was the demand for MORE guns in schools to DEFEND the kids?
Alex McLeish – ‘Scotland, you are too shit to be a real country, but I will still take your money’.
Why does that have a familiar feel to it?
You’ve caught his glaikit simper perfectly, Chris: chilling.
What galamcennalath said @8.48.
The Simpsons had a great line about the lunacy of the Second Amendment, some thing along the lines of “Yes, we all need more assault rifles because we never know when George III will invade.”
What is truly disturbing is that the country has been brainwashed into thinking more guns are always the answer, just so a tiny minority of arms dealers can become obscenely rich. Americans are literally sacrificing their children because of the NRA and its “sponsored” Congressmen.
Their appalling healthcare system also survives because they brainwash the electorate to vote against their own best interests and influence them to think a National Insurance-based system like ours is akin to evil communism.
The sad fact is the USA needs to foment perpetual wars abroad to enrich its arms industry (just like the UK), what Eisenhower recognised as “the industrial-military complex”.
Neatly done Chris.
Scary and funny at the same time.
In the National during the week was an article recalling a pay-off to a woman Chump had slept with only one year after marrying his current wife – this information came out during the presedential election but still the Chump survived – he is covered in teflon and it seems his base is so disallusioned with govt they are prepared to accept him as he is because the believe he is their salvation. Big mistake – he is only capable of thinking about himself – his money – his power – his ego. Yet if he had put the money his father left him into savings he would have made more – it takes something to make a loss in a gambling casino – but chump managed it. It is a sad sight to see America ruled by this chump.
Donald Trump,
Is really quite stable,
As a fresh jelly trifle,
On a three legged table.
One_Scot says:
17 February, 2018 at 9:38 am
Alex McLeish – ‘Scotland, you are too shit to be a real country, but I will still take your money’.
Why does that have a familiar feel to it?
It reminds me that Blair McDougall’s failure at the GE means he is available for a second bite at managing Bitter Thegither. Always look on the bright side…
@IheartScotland says: 17 February, 2018 at 7:27 am:
“School kids in the US now learn how to survive a ‘School attack’ much like the nuclear war days..( hide and protect) duck under your desk and hope like ‘feck’…it’s so very sad. But all too common.”
Aye! IheartScotland, the same USA where the kids are brainwashed from the day they enter their schools. Every morning they stand, place their hand on their heart and chant, “The Pledge of Allegiance”.
They put your hand over your heart, (like when they sing their national anthem), and chant, “The Pledge”.
The pledge is “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One Nation under God Indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”
There are differences in different states as to whether the singing of the USA National Anthem is compulsory and if it is sung every morning or just once a week.
How can eleven Scottish footballers make the international grade, when half the country..
(if you include incomers but exclude foreign settled workers)
..BELIEVES SO STRONGLY THAT OUR..
businesses,
managers,
lawyers,
doctors,
legislators,
workers,
trade-unions,
artists,
journalists,
entrepreneurs,
scientists,
soldiers,
nurses,
shopkeepers,
ARE BEST SERVED BY FOLLOWING BEHIND OUR LARGE NEIGHBOUR’S PROFESSIONAL BODIES AND THE ABUSIVE GOVERNMENT THEY HAVE LOBBIED FOR OVER 300 YEARS.
We can do much better.
JOKETIME:
Q: What noisy brass wind instrument does the American President play?
A:The Trumpaphone.
……I’ll get my coat.
No wonder rabid British nationalists love Trump.
Re: McLeish. Like Smith afore him, he’s just anither Britnat who’ll dump Scotland as soon as he’s offered more money.
If McLeish is a true Unionist, should he be barred from singing Flower of Scotland?
How can he stand there and ask:
“When will we see your likes again?”
I think Mr McLeish has a few questions to answer.
Interesting story emerging of two students who filmed inside an Orange Lodge. They captured mobile phone images of the members present who obviously felt relaxed. They made jokes about shooting Catholics and one even described how he would take his Boys Brigade troop to some type of shooting range and tell them the targets were Catholic.
Present at this laugh in was one of Ruths Tory councillors.
Needless to say the evening ended with demands for the students ID and SIM cards. Threats were also used re their personal future safety.
I’ve got no problem with Alex McLeish being a Unionist but I do have a problem with him managing the National football team of the country he says doesn’t or shouldn’t exist
You either keep your mouth shut or don’t do it
But then again I’m talking about principles the only thing the poor can afford to have
McLeish is just another “Kiss the Badge” ProudScotBut…
The logic of the US gun lobby is that each person should eventually have a nuclear weapon to ensure their safety. MAD indeed.
Apart from a pistol the ownership of machine guns, cannons and the like should not be allowed with individuals.
If McLeish manages the team well he’ll do for me.
Ok, what are the chances that Scotland will have it’s own national team at the next Winter Olympics?
IMO, more likely that not 🙂
Odd, if Alex McLeish does not believe Scotland to be a country how can he sing `Flower of Scotland` at the start of matches ? He is without a doubt a backward move by a unionist dominated SFA.
When Scotland regains its independence would he be happy to manage a country he never truly believed in ?
How Scottish sport in general is full of Scots but…..
Devalues sport here in general, how they claim to be proud of a country they don’t believe exits shows what little integrity most sports people have.
It seems to me that people in the US have become so accepting of the status quo with respect to gun laws that it will be very difficult if not impossible to make any meaningful change. When your mindset is along the lines of ‘there are bad people out there and I must protect myself’ it becomes difficult to feel safe without recourse to a firearm. The fact that there is little chance of having time or ability to access that firearm in an emergency situation does not impact that mindset.
I have spoken to ordinary American family men and women who seem rational and sensible in every other way but still defend the right to bear arms. It’s almost like its part of their dna. Others who do not support it feel powerless to do anything about it.
There is though a general feeling that there is no need for anyone other than the military to have access to automatic or semi-automatic weapons and this is where there should be movement for change. However, the combination of a powerful NRA and the ability of different states to legislate differently would lead to reluctance of any state to change the law on this unilaterally. It would have to have agreement nationally. Not much chance with this guy in charge. Even Obama for all his rhetoric didn’t make much impact on gun laws. Whilst gun shops do background checks, gun fairs and the like are largely unregulated.
Australia has managed to make significant changes to their gun laws after their Port Arthur shooting but I’m not sure the US has the will to go down this road yet. What will it take?
I can only hope something changes before my grandchildren get to school.
So Scotland’s National football team, which plays in international competitions against the teams of (normal) nation states, is managed by someone (and probably supported by many) who do not wish Scotland to be a similar (normal) nation state.
OK, but let’s be clear, this puts them on the same side as powerful others in the British/English establishment that espouse quite explicitly a ‘one nation’ political vision for the UK – ‘one nation’ is a phrase used in just about every speech by the present Tory Prime Minister on domestic, UK matters.
“… rise now and be the nation again ” – tartan-clad ProudScotbuts better be quick to do this or their children and grandchildren may well be left only with nostalgia.
Brilliant cartoon btw Chris.
Sorry forgot to say!
link to theguardian.com
This from the nasty piece of work who, as Home Secretary, threatened to withhold key intelligence information from an independent Scotland purely for petty, spiteful political idealogical reasons. Thus putting innocent men, women and children at risk of being killed and maimed
Hypocrite doesn’t even start to cover it.
A couple of years ago I had the shocking experience of attending one of the largest, if not the largest gun show in the USA. ( no I am not an arms dealer just that the family business has tenuous connections not gun related and customers were at the show ) Thousands of stalls. There was everything from camouflaged ladies underwear to machine guns too heavy to lift by their thousands. It was mainly geared towards hunting. Lots of camouflage stuff, rifles that were beautifully ornate and costing hundred of thousands of dollars cost price,hunting knives galore, crossbows, etc., etc.. Also several big British names were there plying their wares. Union flags flying above their stalls. I met a Scottish guy on the plane home (it was just after the ref and he was a unionist who genuinely thought Indy would have been bad for his business) who had been checking out night vision equipment for night time wildlife tours.
The point being it was clear that the arms trade in the USA is unstoppable now. Billions of dollars worth of, not only arms, but the ‘by products’ of it. Hunting is huge in the USA. ‘Do you hunt?’ Is almost the first question you get asked in the Midwest. Well after ‘do you know the queen?’ I can’t see it ever being put back in the box. It is well and truly out there, sadly. The best we could hope for is slightly stricter regs. But I won’t be holding my breath.
Button should have been much bigger. Donald won’t like it.
@starlaw 8.32am
America IS the terrorist!
About Alex McLeish. I know nothing about football, not really, but I just think that he,s old hat! Why couldn’t the SFA have found someone new!
Before 2014 I watched the Scotland games in football and rugby and have been to Murrayfield more than a few times. After the run up to the referendum when rugby players and Alex came out on the NO side, I was fair scunnered, and haven’t cared about a Scotland game since. They could have said nothing but I think it was a deliberate doing down of the YES side.
When your National teams and leaders of those teams don’t support their own country they’re better being quiet about it.
OT I hear that 17 Russians are to be charged for interfering in the US elections I wonder if our police will charge Obama and all the EU leaders who interfered in the Scottish referendum ???
Great cartoon, as usual. In a few weeks when US media interest wains, things in the US will go back to the way it is now, and voices arguing against guns will be drowned out by the wealth paid advocates of the NRA and gun industry.
Trump is NOT going to address the issue. Period.
In other matters, some days I read the stories of the British Nationalist behaviour, and just despair. We have the apprentice boys of Derry (a N.Ireland organisation in Scotland who basically hold the same views as the orange sectarian bigots), filmed talking about shooting catholics – and worse, one of the people on stage may have been the chapalain (far lewft of stage), with all gathered laughing at the prospect. The said gathering of MEN repeatedly threatening some students who had been invited in, and who accidentally filmed the comments.
Then we find out the president of the apprentice boys is a current Tory councillor, of Ruth Davidson’s Tories.
I suppose Ruth Davidson will be refusing to be interviewed as usual.
Then we have the BBC’s Claire Balding behaving like a patronising British Nationalist fool, telling a Scot off for using the word Scotland, in relation to the Scotland curling squad (every member of the ‘team GB’ curling team is from the Scotland squad, and is Scottish). SSsssh… don’t mention the ‘S’ word.
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.ae
Then to top it off we have a BBC presenter continually qualifying the word Scotland or Scottish, over and over again, by saying ‘Scottish athlete, competing as team GB’. They cannot just say ‘Scottish athlete’.
BBC british Nationalist propaganda, and Tory extremist, sectarian, racist bigotry. What a way to start Saturday.
from scot goes pop
Rhona Howie visibly shrinks into herself and mutters “sorry”.
Did she really say that. My god the cringe runs deep, what other national on this planet would accept such an insult. she should have told baldy to F off.
Slightly unfair showing the Donald as itching to press that big button Chris!! You really should have added another elephant in the room, namely the ‘Military Industrial Complex’..
He’s teasing the world isn’t he, that blob of useless manhood? Will he, won’t he everyone wonders, but by fuck the world leaders are sooking up big time.
Guns,Trident, missiles and the rest are just destroyers of children truth be told.
Flower of Scotland@ 11:40 am
You write: “Before 2014 I watched the Scotland games in football and rugby and have been to Murrayfield more than a few times. After the run up to the referendum when rugby players and Alex came out on the NO side, I was fair scunnered, and haven’t cared about a Scotland game since. They could have said nothing but I think it was a deliberate doing down of the YES side.”
Yes I was very disappointed too at the number of sports personalities coming out against our self-determination and status as a nation state. Of course many of them had the status of sporting ‘hero’ as a result of achievements in representing Scotland in international competitions with ‘normal’ nation states! And like you, this has reduced my interest in our ‘national’ sports teams ever since.
There are a number of incidents that stick in the mind from 2014 but one that made me really angry was on a BBC panel discussion about the indyref when Scottish rugby ‘hero’ Scott (I think it was) Hastings said, with a straight, serious face, that (I paraphrase) he could never vote ‘YES’ because it would deprive future rugby players from Scotland from playing for the British Lions! My TV screen has rarely been at such risk!
So was this ProudScotbut just plain ignorant of the actual composition of the British and Irish Lions team (had he really no appreciation of the contribution made by the Republic of Ireland) or only too happy to deceive the ‘nation’ for the cause? No more heroes any more!
@wullie 12:18pm
The British nationalist media ignores Scotland’s curlers all the time – except if there’s a chance during an olympics that England’s national anthem will be played after a Scots’ win.
About 3 years ago my son was stabbed with a knife, there was a fracas inside his close beside his door, the people upstairs where dealing drugs and two wiseguys went to rob them of their ill gotten gains.
Now who was to blame, was it the knife which is in most homes btw, or was in the slimey git that used the knife on my son, he is actually doing life for murder now btw.
Knives are the weapon of choice in Glasgow, even in my own area there are people caught with knives all the time, hardly any of them go to prison.
If i lived in america i would have a gun in my house i can assure you, you cannot control guns its impossible, that genie is well out of the bottle, young kids are killing each other all over the UK, and people think trump can stop shootings, its in american law that people are entitled to have guns, and that ain’t ever going to change not matter who the president is
A striking, thought-provoking cartoon. It really should win an award.
Re Clare Balding – we will NEVER apologise for being Scottish. All she needed to say was thank goodness the Scots are representing GB but why be pleasant when you can be bossy, horrible and put someone down especially a Scot – Balding is a disgrace to herself and the BBC.
Brilliant, Cairns.
Imagine if there were 18 Dunblane incidents in Scotland since the turn of the year?
Blair made sure that the Dunblane enquiry report was buried for 30 years?
I wonder why?
I have holidayed in America and have been more than aware of their psychopathic insistence of being able to bear arms.
Armed cops everywhere.
Asda is now owned by Walmart.
I no longer shop there since the takeover.
Imagine beimg able to buy an assault rifle with your bacon and eggs.
God Help America.
On the McLeish farce.
It merely confirms that Scottish Football is a wee secret society clud like the Masons or the knights.
This man came out as British not Scottish in 2014.
In his retirement he has just been handed a seven figure bung to manage Scotland.
I look forward to 6 Rangers Players in the Team.
What a recipe for failure, which, I suspect, is why he took the job.
I’ve not watched or supported the International Rugby Team since 2014 either.
McLeish, the SFA, the Rugger Chaps are part of the Scottish Branch of the English Oligarchy.
I’m only 70; ‘Gie’s ajob. I can do that’.
An insult to the Tartan Army and Scotland.
Will he be selling his Fulham house and moving to North Britain?
Balding was out of order, but for Rhona to apologise makes it worse. Maybe she was caught off guard but a wee pause first to gather her thoughts wouldn’t have gone amiss, then a bit of a come back or an uncoupling of the microphone and a walk off set, which I think most folk on here would have done, if I’m not mistaken.
I cant believe the utter pish that spouts from that insincere cow Balding. She is a total idiot spouting her GB jingo. As for the BBC coverage – well enough said.
just wait until the olympic mens slalom, there is one skier who might make the podium and secure a medal. Dave Riding who I hope does make the podium, he is a world class skier and has achieved top placements at World Cup level. Dave is from England and that is what we will have rammed down our throats.
Not enough chins, otherwise excellent.
Remember, Brextremists want to make the UK more like the US. Not saying guns, but the general free for all attitude. Small government, deil tak the hindmaist society. God help the poor, the vulnerable, and the unlucky.
A peeved Clare Balding reminding Rhona Howie, herself an Olympic gold medallist, that “It’s the Olympics!” because she happened to refer to the mens curling team as ‘Scotland’, has to rank as one of the most conceited remarks ever uttered by a BBC presenter.
All of Scotland’s 39 representatives should back Rhona and say ‘Scotland’, should an opportunity arise in a live interview.
After all there are 59 members of ‘Team GB’, and Scotland provides two thirds of the team.
The Scotland football manager appointment is so important we should have let the English FA choose a manager for us.
[…] link to wingsoverscotland.com […]
”
Bob Mack says:
17 February, 2018 at 9:09 am
The guy has all the stability of an Ikea table.”
Now that’s no fair Bob, I have had an IKEA dining room table for 15 years and it disnae wobble, its even moved house! Of course if you’d said an MFI table I would have been on board at once.
If I learnt nothing else at school, I did get to know my tables.
Balding is over rated, she wouldn’t look out of place as the gym teacher in a St Trinian’s film.
Let’s start a campaign to remove Scotland’s FIFA status until after independence.
Bread and circuses, foreign owned media, trumped up notions of grandeur, a sick feeling creeping across half our nation, the other half ignorant, sold out, money first, Scotland’s society relegated to regional status.
Rhona Howie is a brit nat so to be told by her better not to be naughty her only response could but be “..sorry..”.
On reflection maybe she would suggest to balding “I will call Scots Scots..” or maybe just “bugger off” would suffice.
Claire Balding, establishment stooge, elevated to BBC mouthpiece, knows her place..and it is above Scotland.
On bbc r4 Bertie Armstrong- “Scottish Fishermen Federation of brit nat and ulsterman fame.
It will be brit fish only. Pack up your bags Scottish fishermen your fish are now brits to be fished by the good people of Engerlund. A whole 100%
Trump has no problem with mentally ill people having guns.
link to archive.is
Rhona Howie.
link to archive.is
” “I was being so careful not to as well,” says Howie. “Because they are really strict about Team GB. But then the camera turned round and there were two big Scottish flags in the crowd. Normally they ask for them to be taken down because it’s Team GB. So I saw that and thought: ‘oh, they are allowed to fly Scottish flags’. Then in my head I just blurted out Scotland… and Clare called it out, which is fine. I am glad she did. I was like: ‘oh sorry, yes, the British team’ “
Well said “Dave Mcewan Hill @ 1107” , and I suppose Sir Alex Ferguson would be “ off the menu”
( not that he would be likely to come out of retirement now), for some posters, as he also was a “ better together” man in 2014
O/T
Guy in the pub a while back, bursting with pride at being British. “We live in the greatest country in the world, d’yae know that?”
AT first the hackles rose immediately and I was about to chuck a few barbs his way but then I thought, “No – just step back and listen to him. Try and understand what it is that he thinks is so compelling about the notion of ‘being British’ that he would vote in an IndyRef to remain ‘British’.”
So I just sat and listened. There followed a litany of the respect Britain has because we have a royal family. We had Winston Churchill and we won two world wars. The greatest scientists and artists in the world EVER. The Beatles.
The more it went on, the more fascinating the insight became. It’s almost like these people have been hynotised. It’s all historical, gooey-eyed, sentimentalist fluff which ultimately all boiled down to one thing, “We’re the greatest”. That’s it. To these people being British makes them he greatest people on the planet.
I left with just one parting question for him to ponder. I finished my pint, walked over to him and asked. “Why do you want your country to be better than everyone else? Why can’t you just settle to be the equal of others? Wouldn’t that be good enough for you?”
And left.
Excellent ‘toon Chris even if just a tad scary!
Meanwhile in another galaxy… (this side of oor pond).
Substitute the Trump for the Theresa and change the ‘Nuclear Warning’ symbol for an ‘A50’ symbol… Alas! The two-fingered-tories have already pushed that destructive end of UK days button.
The words remain the same (glaringly).
Who’s smiling now?!
galamcennalath @ 08:48,
Like Switzerland still does in effect to this day. “Well-regulated”, so there’s no succession of crazies going around blasting everybody they can find.
I have always puzzled about that particular disconnect between right and practice in the US. It seems that virtually no Americans have actually ever read the words, let alone understood the meaning, of the 2nd Amendment.
Which itself is a warning about muddling fundamental constitutional rights by artificially injecting arbitrary political policies of the day, however well-meaning they may seem at the time.
Re. McLeish
I agree with those who say the job should go to the best candidate irrespective of their views on independence. That said, I sometimes find myself wondering if our reliance down the years on players & managers with little or no pride or passion might go some way towards explaining our lack of success on the pitch.
However let’s not forget that McLeish was part of that great Aberdeen side managed by Alex Ferguson which triumphed against all the odds in the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1983 and so it would appear that the “cringe” doesn’t extend to club football.
Talking of that Aberdeen team, brings to mind their clash with Bobby Robson’s high-flying Ipswich side in September 1981. The tv cameras had been given special access to the Ipswich dressing room for the return leg at Pittodrie which was unheard of back then. Robson’s last words to his players (which included a fairly sizeable Scottish contingent) before the match were “go out there and get stuck into these fuckin’ jocks.” Didn’t work though – his team lost 3-1 and exited the competition 4-2 on aggregate!
What, the potential nuclear war days
The doomsday clock currently at two minutes to midnight closer to armagedon than anytime since the 50’s
Having encountered a few of the US gun types I can say that they would be apoplectic at the idea the 2nd Amendment was to defend the government or even primarily for hunting. The primary reason they usually give is to ‘defend themselves against government tyranny’ – in most cases this is an innate fear of what they see as ‘socialism’. It seems extraordinary to us but a lot of minds have not changed since MacCarthy’s Red Scare. They’ll vote for a tub of lard if it’s pro-gun.
They also hate the term ‘assault rifle’ as the Hughes amendment of the mid 80s banned all new manufacture of full auto weapons. However old ones were just grandfathered so can still be purchased and sold, if you can afford $20k upwards.
Incedentally NI still allows purchase of handguns for target shooting and self defence (if your life is in danger from paramilitaries) – a used Glock 9mm will run you about £350!
You might just have enough time to watch the old film Dr Strangelove before he presses the button.
Alex will kick Scotland in the nuts if he ever gets a better offer. He is only interested in looking after himself, nothing else.
Off Topic.BREXIT.
Bloomberg on-line says:
“European Doctors Are Giving Up on the U.K.
Just under 3,500 registered to work in 2017, a 26 percent drop from 2014…….”
This Tory Theresa May,Boris Johnson,Ruth Davidson and David Mundell policy of departing from the European Union is SO wrong in many many ways.
Labour are also in a similar mindset as the Tories!
Bloomberg article:
link to tinyurl.com
So the bench filler, Alex McLeish is now the new manager of the Scottish national football team. McLeish has already been the manager of the national team achieving nothing in the process.
In my opinion, McLeish is in it for the money, he doesn’t even believe that Scotland should be a independent nation, let alone posses the ability to take the “national” team to a major finals.
It’s a bit like Ruth Davidson becoming Scotland’s FM, she’d wax lyrical about how much she loves Scotland whilst achieving nothing for Scotland.
The SFA, haven’t a clue.
To be honest I have never understood the love affair with Clare Balding. I have never warmed to her and always felt she was smug and overbearing as many establishment figures are. She is no stranger to controversy, coming under fire before for ill-judged comments. Rhona Howie should not shrink before this type of superiority complex. She has good reason to be proud of the fact that she’s Scottish.
Apparently Balding is an eleven times great granddaughter of Oliver Cromwell. Make of that what you will.
Claire Balding has made £Millions from BBC Contracts and all because she is fro the Toff Tory Sloan Ranger Horsie cabal.
She doesn’t want Scots claiming control of their own resources or One’s chums would risk having to lay off some servants.
Does anyone want to argue that you couldn’t find a few thousand pleasant and articulate presenters who could pick up the basic rules of Curling in an afternoon, and accept £99K Salary?
Hate everything about the BBC and how they operate.
@Robert Louis says: 17 February, 2018 at 11:52 am:
“Then to top it off we have a BBC presenter continually qualifying the word Scotland or Scottish, over and over again, by saying ‘Scottish athlete, competing as team GB’. They cannot just say ‘Scottish athlete’.
BBC british Nationalist propaganda, and Tory extremist, sectarian, racist bigotry. What a way to start Saturday.”
Ach! Robert Louis, it is actually a great way to start a Saturday. Like many things it is a matter of how you look at things. So I’ll tell you how I look at things. As usual I’ll qualify that by saying I may be wrong but … and I’ll explain to you how I figure it out.
The way I see it is that the Westminster Establishment is collectively shitting itself in abject fear that their tenure as The United Kingdom leadership is on its last legs. They know the truth is that the United Kingdom ends when one of the only two partner kingdoms calls, “Enough”, and departs. The union is over and what remains is the Status Quo Ante of two independent Kingdoms and not as the Westminster Establishment would have it, an independent Scotland and an rUnited Kingdom.
The reason I believe that is due to reverse psychology.
If the Establishment weren’t bothered about Scottish independence they wouldn’t go to such lengths and act as they do.
Note that in their efforts to pretend they don’t care they only succeed in drawing attention to their fears.
The more they fear the more they attempt to ignore anything and everything Scottish and the more apparent it becomes they are worried stiff. So the more they worry the more Scots become aware of their acute anxiety. Remember that we had an entire General Election to choose Westminster MPs and the Yoons spent the entire campaign claiming that Scots don’t want another referendum- what another referendum had to do with selecting members of the Westminster Parliament is anyone’s guess.
Coming to your local bookshop or Amazon the latest blockbuster -‘Theresa May’s Bumper Book of Slogans, Catchphrases, Lies,Buzzwords and Woffling Mindless Platitudes’.
I could have sworn that it was reported that this weeks speech by May was going to lay out the foundations of her vision for Brexit. It was just another vacuous encounter with some statements about security co-operation, hardly the most groundbreaking area as lots of the EU are already members of NATO.
Is anybody counting how many of these vision speeches have been announced to turn out to be just empty rhetoric.
Missed the Rhona howie comment. Not surprised balding called it out. Wouldn’t it have been nice if she had praised the Scottish curlers as indeed being Scottish first before making her all important point it’s team GB it’s team GB, GB. And you should know your place, No time for Balding.
Orange Hitler probably will have a hot “tactical” nuke war but the big issue for Scottish democracy, is just how hard the beeb gimp network’s going to use him for their Project Fear 2 campaigning.
If anything displays just how hard core right the beeb gimp network is today, its their often shocking fawning and arse licking of Pres Trump.
@ Jack Collatin
I think you’ll find that the Dunblane Report was buried for 100 years, which is a longer period of time than that required for state secrets. It does make you wonder what was going on.
Rob, I was not aware of the 100 year ruling. I went on to find this,
link to archive.is
Spoke to someone who met McLeiah in a restaurant in London a few months ago.Clapton or Clapham he now lives I think.
This Celtic fan Yoon lady customer of mine took great delight in quoting him as saying he ‘ would never come back up the road’.
Doesnt seem to fancy his old country much.
Prepare for 2 years of failure.Hes just another Yoon using Scotland.
Re Dunblane.
Check here for the reply to an FOI request in 2014.
Don’t have the relevant wordprocessing software to look at the reply.
FOI request
link to whatdotheyknow.com
Trump is a loathsome individual, Fox, Johnson, Gove, May and the rest are just as bad.
Don’t know if this has been posted already
link to unearthed.greenpeace.org
Morning links on the previous thread.
Scotland employ a manager who hasn’t been in the game for donkeys years, lives in London, and doesn’t like his homeland, it’s a marriage made in Yoon heaven. At least I’ll not see the games as they are on sky sports, small mercies.
North chiel at 2.10
I wouldn’t presume that Alex Ferguson has anything other than a loyalty to Labour which he had when I knew him slightly when he was a player at Ibrox. With a shipyard background he had a trade union mindset but I suspect there is a strong possibility had he stayed in Scotland he would be on the other side by now on the independence question. He has a surprising amount of informed knowledge about the Irish Rebellion in 1916. He is a pretty sharp guy and he has done a lot of good community work.
If only the American’s had religion. :/
Love Scotland Xx.
Further evidence in support of what Robert Peffers said “The union is over and what remains is the Status Quo Ante of two independent Kingdoms and not as the Westminster Establishment would have it, an independent Scotland and an rUnited Kingdom”.
The government of the republic of ireland is putting out feelers to Unionists in northern ireland about a re-United ireland
Senator Mark Daly is spearheading an effort by an Oireachtas (Irish parliament) committee to tease out what a reunited Ireland might look like in a post-Brexit world.
As part of this effort, the committee has tasked itself with understanding and comprehensively addressing the fears unionists hold of a united Ireland.
link to thejournal.ie
Basecamp Maryhill.
Headin’ out soon.
Downhill QMD.
Celebratin’
West end.
Guest.
Aye.
mike cassidy says:
17 February, 2018 at 5:56 pm
Re Dunblane.
Check here for the reply to an FOI request in 2014.
Don’t have the relevant wordprocessing software to look at the reply.
Mike if you’re on Windows download this, its safe and legit and free.
link to libreoffice.org
I just noticed there has been nothing said yet except a very brief little mention on the BBC text service about this little news item that is now in The National:-
link to thenational.scot
The blanket blotting out of SNP news shows the abject fear slowly crippling the YoonYoonist mind-set. You can smell the Westminster fear here in Scotland all the way from the banks of the Thames.
Here’s her Twitter thingy:-
link to twitter.com
It really is amazing that the third largest political party at Westminster is in the process of electing a new depute leader and there is virtually silence in the United Kingdom’s media.
There is more news being shown about the UKIP’s Henry Bolton being sacked.
For the record here is the current state of the Westminster parties:-
Conservative 316
Labour 259
Scottish National Party 35
Liberal Democrat 12
Democratic Unionist Party 10
Sinn Féin 6
Independent 5
Plaid Cymru 4
Green Party 1
Speaker 1
Vacant 1
Total number of seats 650
So where on that list are UKIP?
Trump dances to the same old interest groups as every other administration. The only certainty is that there will be another gun massacre.
Also hoping that the US National Security Agencies have fail safes on the red buttons.
To be fair Robert, the press know we will pick someone sensible and there will be a minimum of fuss.
UKIP are a travelling sideshow in the PT Barnum tradition. There is so much back biting in UKIP that it makes for easy copy in a “he said she said” sort of way.
Dumbarton Road.
Somewhere.
West end.
SCO.
X.
The only time gun laws in America will change is when some kid opens fire at one of the prestigious schools where members of the ruling classes children are studying.
The rest of America’s kids can die in their thousands…when will America wake up to their own class ridden system instead of pretending they are a meritocracy? When Yoons realise they are arse lickers of those they perceive as their ‘betters’. Never gonnae happen.
Democratic Unionist Party 10
Just think, each DUP MP cost £100+ million, to keep Strong and Stable tory gits in office. Giant bribes, all of which sold as completely normal UKOK politics in action, not flat out bribery, to a bunch of all kinds of DUP.
Tory BBC gimpery calls it all a pact, a deal, not bribery.
link to bbc.co.uk
The price of keeping power
Analysis by BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg
The Tories now face a bumpy day of criticism, about how the DUP have been bought off – £100m for each of their ten votes in Parliament. The other devolved nations will cry foul.”
DUP bigots now have more control over their Scotland region than any Scot.
@ben madigan
Always wondered, historically has Ireland ever been an independent united country ?
@HandandShrimp says: 17 February, 2018 at 10:29 pm:
“There is so much back biting in UKIP that it makes for easy copy in a “he said she said” sort of way.”
Which is, basically, the actual point I was making, HandandShrimp.
That is these scandal sheets and the Westminster controlled broadcasters claim to be newspapers and news broadcasters.
If memory serves me well it is a written in clause of the Westminster granted broadcaster’s licence that they must all carry news and such things as party political broadcasts and government public announcements like health, weather and traffic safety warnings.
ATM there seems to be a government blanket ban on anything about Scotland – except of course SNP/Scotland BAAAAD! items.
Now I’m not at all displeased by their actions – as I said up-thread to me it signifies they are in virtual panic mode and people in panic mode make very bad decisions. The Westminster Establishment are, to all intent and purposes, presently in self-destruct mode.
It seems to me the logical outcome must be the break up of the United Kingdom, (that is the parting of the two kingdoms), but it also looks very likely that the Kingdom of England is also about to begin splitting up. That is the unification of Ireland sees the ending of the, “Crown of Ireland Act”, that saw the English Kingdom annex Ireland.
Love.
Love.
Love.
Keep lovin’.
Tis ra only one true emotion.
EMOTION Scotland.
I love wings
Terry aye ur ma kinda yuy….
Love Scotland.
Always.
X.
The doomsday clock. ha ha ha, the fecking doomsday clock is ticking the moment your born, and who the hell want’s to live forever anyway, the doomesday clock lol
@Cactus 11.51
Stay safe pilgrim and have a braw night.
@Bill not Ben says: 17 February, 2018 at 11:52 pm
“and who the hell want’s to live forever anyway, the doomesday clock lol”
That clock you are listening to is not the Doomsday clock, Bill not Ben, it isn’t the clock in the Elizabeth Tower, (Big Ben), either as that is being renovated just now.
I think it must be the count-down alarm for the end of the United Kingdom.
The only question now is, does the United Kingdom end before or after the Kingdom of England loses Northern Ireland to Irish unification?
Salt n sauce.
Freedom is soon…
You look gorgeous.
Scotland.
X.
Re “ Dave Mcewan Hill@ 0801pm” , interesting comment sir, undoubtedly some prominent people ( including sporting icons) May well consider changing from “no” to “ Yes” for Indyref 2. Here’s hoping anyway , a trickle can eventually lead to a flood and could win the day for our country.
Aye can hear ra sweet sounds of ra River Kelvin…
A flowin’ thru Glasgow.
Deep down.
Love yerself!
A fine, starry, starry night here.
Have fun in bonnie Glasgow, Cactus.
Cactus @ 12.24
Salt n sauce ???
Are ye sure yer in Glasgow!
Ra road is long.. though many a windin’ turn.
Ahm wearing ma Wings hat on ma head.
Maryhill HOME soon.
Don’t give a fuck.
Walking.
Aye.
That Clare Balding putting Rhona Howie in her place is on youtube:
link to youtube.com
Never did like Clare Balding anyway, she thinks she’s more important then her guests, whereas she’s a nobody. Fairly typical for BBC presenters “I’m the BBC”.
How to stop a crazy man from pushing the red button, Chris, that’s the question. Do you pronounce him unhinged and have him removed, or push him under a bus?
Your essential weekend reading:
Don Roberto, nationalist pioneer: link to wp.me
A review of ‘The Shape of Water’: link to wp.me
Worth a read.
link to opendemocracy.net
@ ben madigan 09.00
Thanks for the link, an interesting read. This highlights a concern of mine if the timings of the break up of the UK are in the order of the reunification of Ireland first, then an Independent Scotland following thereafter. The 18% of Unionists in Northern Ireland that will never accept the reunification of Ireland are described as the “fight or flight” group. If a large number of them choose to leave, and if from what I understand there is already a vanguard settled around Ayrshire and the South West of Scotland area, then Scotland may be their preferred region of the UK to move to and live in.
They will all then be eligible for a vote in the next Scottish Independence Referendum and its pretty much a forgone conclusion that they will vote to retain the Union between Scotland & England. This is in my opinion is another reason why the timing of the next Indyref will be crucial. Lets hope that Scotland wakes up to the realities of Brexit and takes the only sensible course of action available to us before the situation in Ireland develops as predicted.
@Macart
What a disgusting article that is in the Guardian. Even the claim of 0.2% seems to be wrong. And that sneer “Around 10% claim to understand it to some degree (perhaps just a few phrases)” belongs more below the line in the Express. From 2015, this article claims 2%, no idea of the political orientation of the Belfast Telegraph:
link to belfasttelegraph.co.uk
Glad I don’t read the Guardian online any more, it’s the pits.
Arthur Martin says:
… and they will be encouraged to so do by every other BritNat group. It will be seen as easing to problems for UKOK … allowing NI BritNats to retain their precious Britnattery and sabotaging Scottish aspirations. A win win for BritNatdom.
There are many advantages in holding the two referendums concurrently. One would definitely be that if Scotland remains in Union then we could be flooded by some of the more unpleasant elements of NI society!
Rhona Howie (Martin) is a lovely lady, who I have had the pleasure of meeting on a few occasions. I was, for instance, one of a hanful of journalists at the welcome home evening for the curling team at Greenacres – their home rink – in 2002.
Rhona is from a well-off Scottish Tory family. I do not know, but, I suspect given her bacground and upbringing, that Rhona was a No voter in 2014.
The reality is, Rhona knows full-well the curlers are Scottish wearing, once every four years, Team GB kit.
I find it disgraceful that a jumped-up, over-promoted “personality” such as Clare Balding should be allowed to talk down to a genuine national sporting icon.
Rhona Howie is more of a lady than Balding, for all her alleged royal connections via her father once being a trainer to HM the Queen, will ever be.
Rhona Howie has Class, Clare Balding none.
Links
link to snp.org
link to indyref2.scot
Robert Somynne looks at why have the Scottish Tories been so absent in discussions around Brexit.
link to youtube.com
link to crowdfunder.co.uk
Read John Jappy’s blog here
link to inchbrakie.tripod.com
link to opendemocracy.net
link to walesonline.co.uk
link to skwawkbox.org
Revealed: rightwing groups plot to ditch EU safety standards on food and drugs
link to archive.is
link to taxresearch.org.uk
link to eamonnmallie.com
link to yournewswire.com
Won’t archive
link to independent.co.uk
Oxfam admits it knew about abuse report 10 years ago
link to archive.is
link to politicshome.com
link to tompride.wordpress.com
Re Northern Ireland
Here’s what some people from Northern Ireland resident in Scotland were thinking at the time of the referendum.
link to archive.is
Stormont deadlock: Sinn Féin to meet Theresa May
link to archive.is
link to bloomberg.com
Last links for a while, I’m taking a break.
The Labour councillor who came first William Crawford in Cumnock and New Cumnock puts the Orange Order as one of his named interests.
It’s time the Scottish parliament banned all sectarian organizations and we could be rid of this vermin before they are supplemented by a flood of loyalist fanatics from NI. We need the next referendum before this happens or the fight for Independence will be lost.
Ruth appearing on Peston on Sunday shortly
tRuthless is now the new princess Diana, the queen of minefields. I wonder if she was actually clearing them instead of getting on with the day job?
Galamcennlath
Although Ayrshire may attract a few diehard Orange Unionists in the event of a United Ireland, I can’t see a mass emigration in numbers enough to affect any Scottish referendum.
Most Unionists are reasonably prosperous in Ulster and have family ties and own property there. Would you give all that up at the behest of a few fanatics to start again in Scotland?
A united Ireland will be a pretty attractive place to be – in the EU and away from Westminster’s follies, – and I am sure Dublin will do everything possible to make the Unionists happy.
Thanks for the links Nana.
Enjoy your well deserved break.
[…] Really smart and very stable. Relax. It’s not about weapons. It’s about mental health link to wingsoverscotland.com […]
Re Oxfam executives dirty cover-ups/BBC BIAS.
Did the Tories cut the BBC’s funding after MANY of it’s staff were found guilty of disgusting behaviour and high-level corruption.
Absurdly, Nick Robinson thinks that-
The BBC INVENTED..
The Samba/Tango/Foxtrot etc.
Animals, and natural history.
Glastonbury and classical music.
The guy is a political activist,
a disguised excuse for a journalist,
an uncultured professional TORY,
who HATES anyone he sees as beneath him.
Nana,
Haste ye back.
On tele Peston Geek of the Week.
How many universities in Italy, France, Spain, Scotland, England since their formation to today.
The presenter ignores Scotland entirely and so does the geek of the week another tory geek.
Oops have I missed Ruth Davidson! Apparently she is on? Or is that arse of the week?
@louis.b.argyll says: 18 February, 2018 at 10:29 am:
Re Nick Robinson:-
“The guy is a political activist,
a disguised excuse for a journalist,
an uncultured professional TORY,
who HATES anyone he sees as beneath him.”
Small correction – “Nick Robinson hates anyone he sees as beneath him. should read, Nick Robinson hates everyone and sees everyone as beneath him.
If you feel like having your stomach well and truly churned this morning, then tune your radio in to LBC where Jacob Rees-Mogg is standing in for Farage. I couldn’t listen to much of it, but from what I heard the people phoning in are all Brexit supporters. The amount of grovelling going on to this man is embarrassing. A wonderful man, should be P.M. etc. with Rees-Mogg purring his appreciation in his self-satisfied patrician tones.
It seems that some people down there really want to go back to the eighteenth century, as long as their overlords are English.
It seems that some people down there really want to go back to the eighteenth century, as long as their overlords are English.
Same overlords are available for listening to on the vote tory or else show,
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Nairn Community & Arts Centre in Scotland with a panel including the chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation Bertie Armstrong, Scottish National Party MP Joanna Cherry, Conservative MEP author and columnist Dan Hannan and the leader of the Scottish Labour Party Richard Leonard.
If you’d like to hear a nice display of how toryboy’s lie flat out, its a nice example.
Dan Hannan for example explains clearly/blatantly lies about how the EU caused depletion and near extinction of UK fish stocks.
Bertie A explains/blatantly lies about how Scottish fishermen are going to be just like Icelandic fisherman and will get to keep 90% of all UK fish stocks with Brexit.
Another day of beeb gimp attack propaganda for sure but even so, toryboy’s certainly are unscrupulous pricks.
Also, Leonard nobody probably isn’t the SLabour messiah…
Thank you Nana for all you do – have a great break.
RD on Peston saw about 30 secs of her ‘uninterrupted statement’ and in that time she told 2 blatant lies – the Northern Ireland border has been settled and the transition deal. Would she like to tell Tereeza and Arlene that.
Happy holiday Nana and look forward to your return. I’ve been offline for a couple of weeks as my gadgets all went kaput at once. A wee break is good for you!
I want my Nana…….Charlie Sim. (Yes I am old enough to remember that).
Nana, many thanks for the links, taking a wee while to get through them all.
Take it easy and enjoy your wee break.
Nana says:
18 February, 2018 at 9:29 am
Links
link to snp.org
And we are working directly with our 2,400 volunteers in our nationwide Experience Panels
I have been a member of one of these panels and to me it is like a breath of freh air compared to how the claiming and assesment process wa before the Scottish Government are taking a very considered and considerate approach to this whole thing . As far as I am aware NO government has ever consulted with those directly affected by new legislation prior to it being implemented.
If only we could get all powers devolved but we are all (foreby the trolls) working towards that goal. Thanks for everythig as always Nana
Thanks Robert,
“Nick Robinson hates anyone he sees as beneath him. should read, Nick Robinson hates everyone and sees everyone as beneath him.’
If I can add..
Whether, a majority of BBC viewers
are finally seeing through eg Robinson,
Peston, Dimbleby, Neil, Paxman, Portillo,
(Grub) etc, is unlikely judging by the way
Middle-England and the ignorant fringes
lap up the right-wing supremacy jargon.
The BBC fronts-up the scheming against,
and the stereotyping of, EVERYTHING else
except UK/England’s oppressive,
cultish, still-medieval Establishment,
WHICH IS THE REAL DENIER OF PROGRESS.
Robinson thinks ‘Strictly’ is a great
British export- it’s a fucking light-
entertainment show, stuff people do in-
between the shit jobs they suffer due to
prick Tories like Nick.
Fireproof Jim 10.16
Totally agree, Hardline Unionists will not be pouring over here there is nothing here for them.
The entire basis for their existence is embedded in Boyne Water and their bonfires. Ulster Orangemen who are here return to their roots in Ulster every July to carry out their Medieval Nonsense.
And as you point out they will be better off in a United Ireland, more chance of those already here going home, or did they come here to escape what passes for normality in their former back yards.
@Yesindyref2
It was basically one long sneer at other peoples culture. Pretty disgusting top to toe. The Ramsay piece over on Open Democracy was bang on the money.
And no, I don’t regret leaving the Guardian behind either.
Off Topic. For Newbies and Weekenders to Wings over Scotland.Welcome. 🙂
Here is a new Truly Scottish TV on-line.
“Hello and welcome.
We’re a small band of amateur Broadcasters.
Our aim is to broadcast a Positive Scotland to the world.
Coming soon – We’ll be broadcasting News/Politics/Sport and weather.
To support us, simply drop-by each day and watch at least 1 programme.
?Thank you.”
There are links at top of their Main Page. 🙂
link to trulyscottishtv.com
Well,well Peston can get Davidson on his show but BBC Scotland TV&Radio can’t I wonder why and whats this about NI border being settled and Peston let her off with that.
A waste of space she is.
PS I see that Leonard has a small piece in the SP saying he apologised for his parties battle with female workers over equal pay.
Many equal pay claims were settled under Labour in Glasgow he says so why the long drawn out legal battle.
My biggest concern of the lot is that the Unionists continue on the attack all the time relentlessly and never give up especially as there are plenty of other things for them to worry about.
What are we doing on the independence side – nothing. We are thinking about things, waiting for the right moment and do very little attacking or rebuttal. The SNP is shedding members, their once formidable army of well co-ordinated foot soldiers is somewhat depleted and demoralised. Our well motivated Yes army lacks co-ordination and hand it to the Unionists; their plans against Scottish independence seem to be going quite well.
Everything now is on the constitution and Brexit. Try some canvassing. As an SNP member I find lots of questions on the doorstep that arose in the 2014 referendum and a full 3 years on we still have no answers. It’s simply not good enough to lie low while we plan and think.
Have a great break Nana! what are we going to do without your links.
BBC Scotland cost Scots over 300 million smackers, to tell us how awful we are and just how awful Scottish democracy really really UKOK is. Scottish democracy is very very awful, says 300+ million bbc sovs.
but just one link from Nana…
This just in. BBC Scotland only “spend” a third of Scotland’s licence fee on Scotland, the rest goes to Clare Balding, to tell Scots be quiet, you’re British.
Great VFM, UKOK style:D
@Nana
Take care Nana and enjoy the break. 🙂
Footsoldier 12.15pk
Spot on. Complacency has been allowed to set in and all that passion of’14 has dissipated.
You are correct , whre are the answers for the doorstep?
“Where are the answers?”
Pensions:
link to theweebluebook.com
Currency:
link to theweebluebook.com
Just two examples…
Thanks folks, as the terminator said “I’ll be back”
and these are definitely the last for now 🙂
link to peterabell.blog
link to chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.co.uk
EU citizens in the UK, The impact of Brexit
link to youtube.com
@Socrates MacSporran
I think Howie got the better of Balding by saying “Sorry”. An apology from her highlighted that the presenter made her guest uncomfortable – Howie wins, Balding loses.
I did like Balding doing the horse racing on the few times I used to watch, that was more her genre. She rose to her level of incompetence.
Thanks folks, as the terminator said “I’ll be back”
He also said, “If you want to live, come with me.”
Does Scotland want to live, or be governed by abject tory shits, for another generation?
Footsoldier at 12.15
We had all the answers in 2014 but we didn’t and don’t have the media. This is still the case. Those who imagine we will win independence by “having all the answers” are deluding themselves.
We will find ourselves again bogged down in a maze of answering fake unionist questions without the armoury to fire back.
“All the answers” is the chosen battleground of the unionists.
@Footsoldier says: 18 February, 2018 at 12:15 pm:
“My biggest concern of the lot is that the Unionists continue on the attack all the time relentlessly and never give up especially as there are plenty of other things for them to worry about.”
Aye! But! Aiblins yon’s why you sing yersel as, “Footsoldier”, and Nicola Sturgeon sins herself iz the Scottish FM.
(Owersettin intil the Inglis – Aiblins = perhaps or possibly).
It is the foot soldiers lot to do or die and the leaders lot to reason why:-
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred..
(apology to Alfred Lord Tennyson).
Obviously you have not quite thought the matter through properly, Footsoldier.
Look at things from the point of view of the leader, (and her host of expert advisors), as the political tactician leading Scottish independence.
There is an ever increasing campaign waged by the Westminster Establishment, (and that Establishment includes far more than just the HOC & HOL), the most apparent lot among them are the London Financial Sector and the Westminster controlled media that includes their representatives right here in Scotland.
From their point of view there is very good reason for that campaign being of an ever increasing and on-going nature – it is simply failing to be as effective as The Establishment had hoped. In fact it has increased to such a point that even former unaware of political events Scots are awakening to the fact they have been fooled and taken in by centuries of Westminster propaganda.
This last fact shows as a slow but steady move of opinion polls towards Scottish independence and Westminster has only two alternatives – step up the all too obvious anti-Scottish/SNP/SG rhetoric or drop the anti-Scottish campaign. The point being that their campaign is back-firing on Westminster and it is their anti-Scottishness, and not any extra activity by the SG/SNP that is winning over former Britnats to the indy movement.
Factually more battles are lost by wrongly timed attacks than are lost by having inferior numbers of inferior weapons. Let’s face it Westminster has both superior numbers and superior armaments than has the SNP/SG yet there is a slow but steady increase in those who now support Scottish independence.
Now, though, we can factor in a few other things that are in our favour.
BRUKEXIT has opened up two other fronts that mean the Westminster forces are now fighting on several fronts and cannot thus concentrate fully upon Scotland and independence. Westminster is making mistakes.BRUKEXIT has had several secondary fronts for Westminster to fight on besides just simply leaving Europe. First there is the growing threat of a united Ireland and that can only result in the return of Northern Ireland to the former Kingdom of Ireland that is already a Republic and republics cannot be part of a Kingdom.Then there is the Gibraltar problem which could have several different outcomes not the least of which would be a Gibraltar return to Spain or to an independent part of the EU. Not to mention the hardly reported in the UK media coming events of secret Commonwealth talks on who should succeed Elizabeth Regina as Commonwealth Head and several Commonwealth countries are already teetering on the brink of ditching the monarchy altogether and the Brexateers were counting upon easy trade deals with former United Kingdom colonies.
It really isn’t a big step for Commonwealth countries to simply become fully independent. After all the United Kingdom ditched all of them when it joined the European Union.
Then there are such as China, Japan and the ever rising Eastern powers who will look at things as a choice of doing trade deals with either the EU, (the largest Trading bloc), or, forming an Eastern trading bloc among themselves or the USA that has been declining of late.
The whole
BRUKEXIT thing is potentially the biggest threat that Westminster has ever faced and that includes two World Wars.Yet you claim, ““It’s simply not good enough to lie low while we plan and think.”
Just which side is it you are really on, Footsoldier?
The one moving inexorably towards independence as shown by opinion polls or the one inexorably losing support on all fronts as it battles away on several different but linked fronts and looking increasingly like losing on all battlefronts?
@myself:02:05 pm.
Oops! I messed up my HTML and bolded far too much of the post. Sorry!
indyref 2
Howie lost. She apologised when she had no need to. Howie is paid by the bbc and is pro unionist so obviously felt she had to demonstrate her Cringe. Balding is overrated but her partner works in the BBC I believe so that helps with contacts
bbc so interested in curling that they didn’t even bother to report on uk “national” news that the European championship was won by Scotland s women recently. Of course cricket was more important.
Good afternoon fine Wingers. Mini adventures are fun when accompanied by ra tiny bubbles. The next guided tour begins in six days hehe 🙂
That Clare Balding fellar could very easily morph into that Ruth Davidson fellar and then again into that Lord Charles dummy.
Dummies the lot of them (plus the one at the top).
@Hamish100
Depends how you look at it. Technically Balding was right, but if Howie had argued or anything she would have looked like a dick. As it was her “sorry” highlights Balding as being the dick, and kind of draws attention to Balding’s pettiness, and self-importance.
On the Moog
For those that missed Rachael Parris’s Mash Report on the bounder
link to facebook.com
Scotsman happy to reproduce chunks of Davidson’s interview this morning
including her ‘sticking up for Scotland’ nonsense.
link to archive.is
Re Howie and Balding
I drew attention further up the thread to Howie’s comment on the incident from a Scotsman interview.
” “I was being so careful not to as well,” says Howie. “Because they are really strict about Team GB. But then the camera turned round and there were two big Scottish flags in the crowd. Normally they ask for them to be taken down because it’s Team GB. So I saw that and thought: ‘oh, they are allowed to fly Scottish flags’. Then in my head I just blurted out Scotland… and Clare called it out, which is fine. I am glad she did. I was like: ‘oh sorry, yes, the British team’ “
She was happy to be admonished!
link to archive.is
YESINDYREF2
I agree with mike Cassidy. Scots are Scots. is Team GB a new country in the UN?
In reply to Scot Finlayson who asked
“Always wondered, historically has Ireland ever been an independent united country ?”
yes for many centuries, ireland was traditionally a grouping of clans/geographical areas, each with their own leader under an Ard Rì (High king).
Like Scotland, ireland fought off English encroachment, conquest and attempts at pacification for 800 years. Indeed one of the cries of irish prisoners throughout the ages was that they were political prisoners, not criminals.
Modern irish republicanism was born out of the American and french revolutions in the late 18th century. The 1800 Act of Union with GB annexed ireland and abolished her parliament,
(much as the 1707 Act did for Scotland).
Yesterday I saw a guy in a jimmy hat and a brief flash of a Saltire hanging over the barrier at the end of the run, possibly on one of those fancy sledge runs but I can’t really remember .
Their editor must have been sleeping to let that pass by.
@mike cassidy
Like that article. Howie: “We represent Scotland at every championship we go to and then all of a sudden it is Britain, which is fantastic for the players but the commentators suffer…”
Howie’s taking the piss in a very gentle way 🙂
As the article says: “that had anchor Clare Balding spluttering out a correction”.
Like I said, Howie won by a country mile.
God forbid anyone was to upset the English’s GBness by having any Scottish people in it,even by mistake, Christ! I’ll give them mistake!
Am I the only one who sees that for what it is
A big fat display of racist domination *get back in your place we are the British you little nobody Jock squirt*
And folk are apologising because technically TECHNICALLY!!
Are you people kidding?!?! Is that what it’s come to now apologising for saying the word Scottish in the wrong place
so’s not to offend the bloody English, get a flaming grip here nobody committed a murder or a rape or even harmed a fly
Do we have to look away or down when our masters pass by now or move off the pavement to give them room to kick the fucking shit out of us if they’d like because we’ve seen that before somewhere else
In order to stop people bullying us some people might think about not apologising for existing in the first place,
(abused wife syndrome)
Off Topic: Q: Should Scotland be Independent
I would be very grateful if some of you could look at the debate across on Kialo regarding Scottish Independence. At the moment one or two enthusiastic Unionist or pro-Union contributors seem to be running the show. They’re using tired old arguments that need to be refuted. If you feel inclined, please pop over and put some meat on the bones for Scottish Independence.
Thanks
“I would be very grateful if some of you could look at the debate across on Kialo regarding Scottish Independence.”
I suspect you’ll have to tell people what the hell “Kialo” is first.
@Footsoldier
Keeping ones powder dry and waiting till you see the whites of their eyes are good tactics. Shooting off early loses the campaign.
There are a lot of people out there who have not a clue about what is going on because they do not follow politics. Until the situation as regards the disaster that is Brexit is right up close in their faces any move is premature.
Two hours of missing posts
Re “having all the answers”
Yes we need to have answers, but we shouldn’t run a campaign which revolves around responding to BritNat badgering with questions. They mustn’t be allowed to set the agenda. We must be primarily proactive.
In 2014 there was a certain inevitability that when it started as a proposion i.e. independence, that this would be challenged. The status quo was well establish and would never have undergone the same questioning. (Although the Vow could have given the opportunity for attack rather than defence)
For IndyRef2 we must go all out to question, criticise, dismantle, destroy the BritNat proposition of their hard Brexit. We should be the ones on the attack.
Yes, the BritNats and their media will ask questions of our side, but any answer should be laced with counter points about where the UK would take us. We can set the framing and present independence as the safer option. Brexitised UK must be hammered as the disaster it will be. Indy must be seen as positive, a salvation, an escape, a solution, stability, and putting wrongs to right.
ben madigan says:
Indeed. And of course those revolutions utterly terrified the UK Establishment.
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
Re the Balding incident
Don’t know if anyone else has pointed this out, probably.
How many times have sports commentators or competitors said England when they meant, or should said, UK?
Also, the inverse. I seem to remember some England competitors sporting Butcher’s Aprons as part of their equipment at the Commonwealth games. Was it cyclists helmets, perhaps? Was that ‘stood on’?
Of course we all know it’s about denying, when and wherever possible, any Scotland reference or symbol. They are trying to hide Scottishness, eradicate it from consciousness even.
Dave McEwan Hill @ 14:04,
There has to be an economic answer, since the BritNats will inevitably try to stir up another “pea-souper” over that issue again. And we need to be able to blow it away.
However, you are right, trying to field all the nit-picking distrations they raise, assisted by all the convenient thinktanks the BBC can conjure out of the woodwork, is a fools’ errand. Playing their games, always on the back foot, won’t do the job.
I believe the counter to that is to have an arsenal of examples of other small countries who are doing very well, thank you very much. Have our own media folks going to these places and doing interviews there with local economists and vox-pops with locals who will naturally all poo-pooh the notion of giving up their hard-earned independence to anyone else.
It’s all too easy for the MSM here to find negative vox-pops from unimaginative people here without a clue. The result is (deliberately) depressing and disengaging. UK-based thinktanks are rarely if even truly dispassionate and neutral.
That’s the answer to this one. Don’t get embedded in fine-grain economic discussions to which a potential scare cloud can always be easily attached. Instead use positive examples from elsewhere that demonstrate to ordinary folks that this is do-able without having to worry about all the grisly detail.
When folks say they “need more facts”, they don’t really mean it. They drowned in them last time. What they really want is reassurance.
What we could do with is a “yellow book” (say!) containing a bunch of examples of how other comparable small European countries manage to do very well. Rather like that short series that The National ran some time back, but with perhaps a little more depth.
Leading by example in a way that people can readily comprehend.
me @ 18:11,
Oops, that should be “rarely if ever”.
(Keys not even close, and can’t blame predictive text either. Huh.)
Robert Peffers comments 2.05pm
Pretty much shows the problem I outlined.
The Scottish curling team are there representing Team GB, and Clare Balding was being an obnoxious Britnat and anyone who mutters about technicalities is as bad as her and her British Nationalist mates for even thinking about cringing over this
There should be no apologies for using the word Scotland or Scottish anytime anywhere, GB is as far as I’m aware not a Nationality and never has been one
What happened there was English Nationalism being bossy and every time we hear it it should be slapped down hard and not apologise for mentioning who we are
As one of the Nations of the UK our athletes are invited to take part to represent the team GB it’s not for some jumped up presenter to inform us who we’ve not to be or what we can say or not say
We’re a Nation, not tools for the English to use to promote their Britishness then tell us to shut up about being Scottish
That applies to the Welsh as well, get these idiots telt
This is not anti English, it’s anti Arsehole
Re galamcennalath
It’s also about keeping a lid on Englishness.
If England starts to emerge as an entity alongside Scotland (and Wales, N Ireland), then events will unfold very quickly.
Hence it makes sense to refer to “Great Britain”.
@Dr Jim
Indeed. It was things like that on the BBC was a large part of why I took to supporting Independence in 1972. However, consider this possibility. Balding has previous, and so does the BBC, and perhaps Howie has noticed the BBC slant, and said what she said to needle Balding. Balding took the bait and as the Scotsman article said: “that had anchor Clare Balding spluttering out a correction”. Job done, move on.
Quite a coincidence Howie being interviewed by the Scotsman shortly after …
galamcennalath @ 18:08,
I’ve never seen anyone taken to task on TV over using “England” inappropriately. Maybe it has happened sometime somewhere. Has anyone?
I even saw an example last summer of a commentator on the Eurosport channel using “England” inappropriately in front of a Scot, and nary a word was said about it, largely out of deferential politeness, it seems.
All this “Britain First” stuff is a sign of the times. As with that blog calling-out The Graun to which indyref2 linked upthread (for which thanks!). The English Establishment, including its supposed liberal-left wing, is seriously rattled by indy and Brexit. And being exposed for the control-freak neo-colonialism at its heart.
As RP mentioned upthread, this increased brittleness is a tell-tale sign of BritNat insecurity. (Not that this has necessarily helped as much as it ought.)
There used to be a time when Unionism was confident and could support – even foster – a considerable degree of cultural diversity. That’s what kept the Union together and alive, in fact. As I mentioned in a post in an earlier thread, a confident Union would have developed a vigorous new constitutional re-arrangement by now. Smith was the last-chance saloon, and now the bar is cobwebbed and empty.
Instead, now it has to be “England (disguised) First”. Which is why the Union is doomed. And why we have to make our move to break away soon, before the cultural and political suppression really starts to bite. As it surely will if we just sit back and let it all go down.
Robert Peffers @ 14.05
What opinion polls are you referring to? Support for independence is declining currently is it not?
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
The latest musings of Gordon Ross
link to youtube.com
@RJS
Can’t take the credit, it was the great Macart who linked that one. But people aren’t thick, it’s not just Indy supporters who notice, and the more the media panic, the more it’ll upset people who aren’t involved, and they’ll react. Gently gently, catchee monkee. We just keep poking the skunk and stand back and watch it emitting foul smells 🙂
I think, don’t know, but think, there’s a few pro-indy subversives around, not naming any of them of course. It’s not what they say, it’s the way they say it.
Giving Goose says:
Yes, you’re right. They want to control Englishness carefully. Part of that will intentionally be muddling the meaning of England and UK. They don’t want English folks to start consciously to think about England first. That is the reality, as all non English citizens know. However it would be very ackward if English voters started to genuinely shout … “let Scotland and NI go their own way”.
The Greater England model is the one the Establishment want to retain.
“Support for independence is declining currently is it not?”
In your skidmarks it is.
You’ll notice anything to do with Wales goes unnoticed or considered quaint even though the Welsh folk I know totally despise them a whole hell of a lot while they smile take their money and speak in Welsh in front of them
See there’s no threat from Wales to the Brit economy but without Scotland there is no Brit economy and Lil ol England has to subsidise Wales and Norn Ireland on its own
That would really really hurt
yesindyref2 @ 19.01
There is a theme on this website that we deal in facts, with references.
Primary school insults generally only make the person using them look infantile.
Some years ago during a quiz on a cruise I was on, Daley Thompson was accepted as the correct answer to the question: “Who won the Decathlon gold medal for England at the 198 Olympic Games?”
When I pointed-out, the correct answer was: “Nobody”, since England does not compete in the Olympic Games, and that Thompson (English-born of a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father) was competing for “Team GB” the official Olympic tam of the International Olympic Committee of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, well, all Hell broke loose.
Suddenly, I was a Chippy Jock; everyone knew England and Team GB/the UK was one and the same. I was marked down as a trouble-maker for the remainder of the cruise.
England first, last and always is their credo – and they don’t know they’r doing it.
That’s nice dear. “we deal in facts” – when are you going to start?
Heh. Life comes at you fast right enough.
link to twitter.com
yesindyref2 @ 17.39
Misogyny as well, nice.
I provided a link to dozens of opionion polls, which show a clear trend since the Indy ref. These are facts that mr peffers seems unaware of, I was wondering if he knew of other polls that showed the opposite.
Data and facts, not assertion or abuse.
@Socrates MacSporran
Excellent. 🙂
On a quiz show in the middle of the week where contestants had to name the first 10 European countries in alphabetical order and France had already been named at No 10.
A contestant said ‘England’ and was marked wrong by Bradley Walsh? So you see there is no such country.
Apparently they(England) go as we do under the ‘UK’ much consternation ensued. Funny old world init!
PS:
Watching the golf from America on PC stream here on a well known provider and Scottish commentator Ewen is suffering from Shakespeare syndrome.
He can’t bring himself to mention Martin Laird then lying 6th as he goes through the leading scores on screen having made 3 birdies in his first 5 holes.
The word ‘Scottish play’..er is beyond him and the cringe is strong.
Happens every weekend… I’m used to it all.
As I said on Friday 4 countries pretending to be one I don’t watch the Olympics.
@Macart
Indeed. James Cook does some good stuff. Interesting tweet from Chris Law (Shadow SNP Spokesperson (International Development) on that thread:
“Just returned from EU Common Security and Defence Delegating n in Bulgaria last night & EU welcomes UK’s future cooperation and will continue to have delegates. I look forward to returning”
Glad to see he’s taking an interest.
Robert J. Sutherland @ 6:38 pm
You write: “There used to be a time when Unionism was confident and could support – even foster – a considerable degree of cultural diversity. That’s what kept the Union together and alive, in fact. As I mentioned in a post in an earlier thread, a confident Union would have developed a vigorous new constitutional re-arrangement by now. Smith was the last-chance saloon, and now the bar is cobwebbed and empty.”
Well OK, up to a point. There used to be a time, over a large part of the last century, when it was only a small minority of folk in Scotland who questioned – even thought about – being part of a ‘Union’. They just were ‘British’ and ‘Scottish’, nothing difficult about it.
Unionism didn’t need to be ‘confident’, the status quo was hardly challenged. I was born, brought up and then lived contentedly in that environment until, personally, the mid 70’s. Even then, the need for Unionism to be ‘confident’ was limited – devolution, even though it took a long time to deliver, was seen as the solution, a sap to those challenges that were emerging.
But gradually more and more people in Scotland have become alienated from the ‘Union’ – I think ‘alienation’ is a crucial term, a key process at play here.
But for the Westminster establishment, it did not change the fact that “Union” remains just a name, a terminology, inherited from history but rarely if ever thought of as an actual combination of or partnership of kingdoms, nations or countries of equal value and status.
And yes, a Union that is acknowledged and valued would “have developed a vigorous new constitutional re-arrangement by now” (your words) but note, unlike you, I am not attributing this to the Union’s “confidence”: it is the Westminster and British (English) Nationalists’ continuing lack of basic acknowledgement of the notion of partnership coupled to a sense of entitlement i.e. simply no appreciation of what a ‘union’ actually is, should be, could be.
As I’ve posted before – one state, one country, one kingdom, one nation is all that really matters to the British ruling elite and their supporters, and now, when challenged, the response is to defend the status quo to the … (well we wait to see)!
(And this all has so many manifestations – the irony of a BBC Sports commentator chiding someone referring to Scotland in an Olympic event rather than Team GB, when the latter is a term that explicitly air brushes Northern Ireland out!)
“Misogyny as well, nice.”
Not really dear, there’s a female btl poster who uses it a lot to guys. I kind of borrowed it. It’s become unisex, dear. Keep up at the back JSW!
@Macart
A later one from him:
link to twitter.com
“In the light of the UK prime minister’s pragmatic approach to post-Brexit security this @alexmassie piece from 2013 is worth re-reading. “Theresa May’s grubby little warning: an independent Scotland will be out in the cold.”“
@Yesindyref2
Worth bookmarking. That’s another argument ticked off the list – cross border security cooperation. Next time the Britnats pull that horseshit… ‘but your PM said…’. 😉
YES people have your own backup plan just in case we loose posts, like yesterday and today on two different platforms that I know of.
A wee anecdotal account of an interesting encounter I had a couple of months ago.
I was chatting to a couple I come across now and again. Late fifties, very RP English, lived in Scotland for quite some time. Tory, No, Brexit voters. Business interests which take them to Europe sometimes. Nice people. They know my politics and I know theirs. We tend not to go there but I never miss an opportunity for a sideswipe if it presents itself.
Standing outside having coffee I dropped the Brexit bomb, and asked for their take on it. Man it was like lighting a slow burn fuse. He turned away in disgust while she built up a head of steam. I stood back and said very little other than steer the conversation a bit.
She got into her stride, ranting about how we were told we would still have access to the single market. “That’s what we were told” I was gobsmacked at her language when she finished with ” The country’s f***ed, this country is f***ed, isn’t it? It’s enough to make me think about voting for….” She stopped herself. I raised one eyebrow and gave her a wee smile. She looked a bit sheepish. Inside I felt like Rowan Atkinson getting a drop of blood from a stone.
I would have laid money on them both being No voters till their last breath. I followed up with Wee Black and Blue books which I would never have wasted on them before, and I’m not finished with them yet.
So please, enough of the knee jerk prejudice that has raised it’s head here recently, and don’t write anyone off.
support for indy is pretty static, at about 45%
amazing really, considering the tories won 2 GE’s and the euref returned a leave since indyref1
but i still believe that brexit will be awful and will be the catalyst we need to get public opinion to move to Yes.
but we need to wait until we see the result of the negotiations and whether the MPs at westminster can reverse or stop brexit, and whether there will be another euref. Until we know the answers to these questions, indyref2 must stay off the table.
Robert Peffers @ 2.05pm responding to mine of 12.15pm
This is probably my first and last long post on Wings. Having now had time to digest your comments (does bold mean you are shouting), I take umbrage at your comment “which side are you on”. After 50 years of active campaigning for the SNP and still doing so, bones and hip permitting, I know only too well what side I am on and can also recall the annual conference being held in rooms and tiny halls, so don’t lecture me with your Poobah attitude.
I did learn that Tennyson poem at school and can still recite it verbatim, well almost. The first stanza might metaphorically describe our current predicament while the second stanza is an indicator of where we could end up.
Wings is an indispensable website and the amount of information the Rev provides is absolutely amazing and without doubt is a valuable resource in our independence campaign and much more should be made of it in a wider field. However I suspect his income to maintain this website derives from having to put up with those who enter into endless lengthy correspondence to each other and probably get up each day to spout forth on Wings while achieving absolutely zilch for independence.
Get real, the biased comments, personal abuse and bad language are not going to convert many, if any, previous No voters and that is assuming they have heard of Wings which the vast majority have not. Sure it’s a great damp sobbing pillow but the chat is taking you nowhere.
More time spent on Wings, less time speaking to No’s – your choice. Get a life!
@Ananurhing
Very encouraging wee anecdote. When Brexit starts to bite we may see all kinds coming over to support Independence that we might not have previously imagined.
So I believe your right, we should never write anyone off.
THIS!
link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
In the spirit of observations.
I’ve been wandering around on Twitter, due to boredom with the Scottish scene. I noticed a lot of English pro EU starting to follow me, for comments I made, correcting Brexiteers, pointing out SNP unequivocal support for SM and CU etc.
Its striking how there is now a pretty large contingent of English pro EU waking up to BBC bias and Corbyn’s bullshit on the EU, and they are really angry with Labour.
Lots of talk of May council elections, and academic AC Grayling is urging people to use said elections to send a message. A recent council by election showed 50% swing to Lib dems.
The message is if Labour won’t oppose Brexit, vote any candidate who is pro EU.
It’s interesting because their energy on Twitter reminds me of the indy movement. They are articulate, and countering Brexiteer crap very well.
Since January this year, I’ve met 2 former ‘no’s’ absolutely bricking it about Brexit and looking and now remembering and listening to what the ‘yessers’ have said.
It’s true what they say about you reap what you so… all that biting back retorts and not getting angry, keeping it positive, answering the questions, being impeccably behaved and providing factual answers… we now have credibility and integrity. The Britnats,,, do not.
We absolutely must not write anyone off, especially now, when there are hard core no voters doing u turns. If they can turn, they will bring others.
BROKEN VOW, BREXIT CHAOS YES NOW x
Ananurhing at 8.25
“So please, enough of the knee jerk prejudice that has raised it’s head here recently, and don’t write anyone off.”
Well said – and with opinion polls showing no drop whatsoever in support for independence it’s conversions that will win for us
We know labour in a mess over Brexit but that is not the only thing they are messing up – ‘Appalling behaviour from NEC chair Andy Kerr towards Katrina Murray. Voted 70 to 45 to proceed with electing a chair, this was denied’ from Jackie Baillie’s own twitter account and yet we have 2 labour mp’s this morning telling us nothing to see here Emily Thornberry who just laughed it off on Preston and the shadow Educ on Marr just dismissing it and labour wonder why with the worst govt ever they are still languishing in the polls. They had obviously been told to play it down, but anyone who has watched it knows how disgraceful it was. Labour are forgetting we all have access to their deceit and lies – they cannot get away with saying one thing to their audience and another to TV or Parliament like the notorious Jackie baillie did. As for Jeremy he will continue to reap what he sowed and it is not a pretty sight.
A terrible weekend what with Clare Baldings disgraceful behaviour and Ruth Davidsons blatant lying – everything sorted agreement on EU Nationals, agreement on NI border, agreement on divorce bill and agreement on transition – hope she had told Tereeza and Arlene. And not once quizzed or questioned by Peston.
However I feel most sorry for America with the chump, as usual deflecting from the real problem of guns towards mental health. You have to wonder how much the Rifle Association has paid into his coffers.
@Daisy Walker –
Interesting to hear your experience of how Brexit is creating potential indy supporters.
The following seems to me to be the kind of thing that no reasonable ‘No’ voter could simply ignore or dismiss. It’s less than 10 minutes long and is not difficult to understand.
John Jappy, ‘Hiding The Truth’
http://www.trulyscottishtv.com/channel-1—welcome-to-scotland.html
Evenin’, aye may have found some rare footage of the Theresa and the Ruth, when they were performing on stage together:
link to youtube.com
iScotref announcement is nearing.
Trump that.
Ian Brotherhood at 10.33
That link is bringing up a cooking programme on my PC
2 different things. 1. Date of indyref. 2. Date indyref is announced by Scotgov (and that needs to be soon).
Can people on here answer this straightforward question. It seems most folks want to make sure an indy ref is run early next year. PRIOR TO BREXIT. If that is the case, is there not a somewhat pressing need for the Scotgov to announce the date and start of the campaign sometime very soon – say within a month at most.
It would be no good waiting until late in the year to announce the referendum date, since people tend to want to get out campaigning during the summer. The time of marches, get togethers and events etc.. It would also be no good to wait until brexit negotiations are over, since, those negotiations are currently consuming the entire civil service, so they would not have the time to fight the anti indy campaign for the British Nationalists like they did last time.
So, the question is really simple, when will the Scotgov. call the referendum – that is, announce the start of the campaign? Until then, we are all still kind of in the dark – and getting extremely frustrated at a lack of action from SNP/Scotgov. Meanwhile the absolute disaster of brexit just keeps marching on.
Are we really going to wait until brexit has been done to Scotland? After that it will be much, much too late.
Rich pensioner Bill Grant recently elected MP for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock denies the poorer members of the electorate financial benefits and welfare which they need to survive.
link to caltonjock.com
@Robert Louis
Something to ponder, what if there is no Brexit?
The news tonight is a lot about students and loans and fees, and that’s all fine, except they’ve decided to exclude Scotland from these discussions because let’s just say for the moment our system’s different, but is this entirely fair to the *British* public on the *British* national newsies when they’re happy to talk about Welsh students and English students important as they are, but let’s just not report anything on this about Scotland
And that my friends tells you all you need to know about the great British media, if Scotland’s doing anything well
Don’t F…..g report it
And that’s how you manipulate news output, either make Scotland Baad news or make Scotland cease to exist even though we pay their F…..g wages by license tax or Sky subscription
I think when the next independent referendum is called the timeline will be short as the choice is quite clear and stark– brexit, stark loss of jobs and lurch to a right wing English government with DUP help (May will also be ousted) or self determination with close links to Europe and positive life choices. Pro NHS, Public service, renewables, pro agriculture and food and drinks, pro education– oops oil reserves as well.
Even some past No’s will vote for that. We will get the support of younger voters.
The future is bright…. the future is independence!
@Dave McEwan Hill –
Ach, sorry, I linked from the Truly Scottish TV channel…it must start at the beginning of a loop of some kind.
Here it is, from Youtube directly:
John Jappy, ‘Hiding the Truth’ –
link to youtube.com
Robert Louis @ 11.07
Its only an opinion mind….but….
What’s the rush?
Brexit,article 50, the final “deal”…. thats all stuff the EU and Westminster are dealing with!
We are not involved….Westminster went to great lengths to make sure of that.
Despite being informed by Holyrood ” things” would be much better all round if they were!
Holyrood even spent time and treasure on producing plans.
But no…Westminster were very clear,Holyrood were not to be involved.
Therefore it is, I think,a fair statement to say that the date,the length of the transition and any vote’s about it,are Westminster and the EU’s …Time Table….
Why on earth should we be organising the future of OUR country’s arrangements on someone else’s time table.
This is a matter for Scotland.
As I see it there only needs to be an .. Announcement…that there is to BE a referendum before March 30th next year.
That would be enough to signal to the Westminster and the EU negotiators that Scotland and her resources are not and cannot be included in “whatever” post EU membership arrangements they are making.
In fact I think that the only thing they can do if Hoolyrood announced a referendum is to plan for both …a deal without Scotland and a deal with Scotland.
What they cannot do is pick our date for us…that’s for Holyrood to do…..and has not a thing to do with the discussion they are having….. You know the one they didn’t want Holyrood in on.
Its not as if they didn’t know we have considered holding one
So much so we voted to give our Parliament the mandate to do exactly that!
liz g
agree
The democratic deficit has been proven to exist, with malignant potential, against the principles of Union.
A basic risk assessment, using Tory-Brexit-bloody-minded-ness as a political reality, shows that even the case for Scottish Independence is a control measure against the unchecked influence of the privilidged over those less so.
Timing is all.
Stand Fast.
The BBC pit England against Denmark and Germany, as well as the USA on university tuition fees in their wee graphic. link to bbc.co.uk
…got to wonder why the omission of a slightly closer country?
Thepnr @ 11.30
I actually think that is what is actually going on Thepnr.
I think if Nicola announced a date, May would respond with a second Brexit vote.
The Unionist campaign would then be based around wait and see Scotland and our campaign itself would also be sidelined for the “more important” decision.
That’s why I think Nicola is waiting till it’s gone too far for Westminster to call another vote.
And as I’ve already said to Robert Louis we can just call a referendum but we don’t ACTUALLY need to have it till England have left the EU…..just so long as everyone is clear that the new “Bespoke ” trade deal won’t be including Scotland!
If Westminster managed to call off Brexit first…..then I think that might be the time to use the 2021 election to campaign for never again being dragged to a cliff edge and back again because of the democratic deficit!
Robert Louis
Liz
I would point you to PNR’s comment, what if there is no brexit?
We dont know if the mps at westminster will stop A50, vote for an euref etc,
if we put indyref2 back on the table and the mps vote against the final brexit deal, we would have no choice but to take indyref2 back off the table??
no, sorry, we have no choice but to wait and see this brexit fiasco play out