Same lies, different scenery
Major kudos to the hyper-alert reader who covertly recorded the Q&A session after last night’s event in Glasgow where Alistair Darling was interviewed by James Naughtie.
Obviously it’s not exactly broadcast-quality, but it’s perfectly audible for all but the occasional couple of seconds. We were going to catalogue all the flat-out lies Mr Darling told in the 51 minutes, but frankly the “Better Together” chairman was on autopilot and you’ve heard all the untruths – and their respective debunkings – a dozen times before on this site alone.
So while we see if we can summon up the mental stamina to wade through them all yet again, just watch and see how many you can spot for yourselves.
(Actually, maybe when you see one you could post a comment, with a timestamp for how many minutes and seconds into the clip it was. If we all do one each we could bash it out in no time. Crowdsourced feature writing! This could catch on.)
Crowd-sourced feature writing sounds awfully close to churnalism…
cannot listen to that man anymore.
Bags me 40 mins – 42 mins.
1:Oil is not 20% of Scottish tax revenue. Lie = 15%
2:We have the money (for housing etc) even loosing £4m revenue,as we obviously are spending it now.
3:Nationalist Vote close t the Tory Party in last holyrood election.
Hey, we’ve paid good money so that you will listen to that sort of rubbish and we don’t have to. Back to work, Stu
Listened to 40min – 42min three times. Can’t make out much, and what I can is just the usual tripe, but there’s an interesting chunk of self-justification from Naughtie at 43.20.
“Hey, we’ve paid good money so that you will listen to that sort of rubbish and we don’t have to.”
I listened to every damn second of it. Just don’t make me write out all the lies yet again…
What was the turn out like?Was it not costing over 20quid to go?
@M4rkyboy. they were advertising that tickets were for sale at the door , so no sellout.
Sorry Rev,
Had to give up after a couple of minutes.
Just cannot listen to this drivel.
What difference does it make how many votes the SNP got in 2010? We know we voted Labour. We didn’t get the govt we voted for – again!
@Mark
No Sell Out….now isnt that ironic….
@Malc
No Sell Out
#Irony
Daring on Homeless people…And this was from a Labour Party that built only 6 council houses in the whole of Scotland during their last 4yrs in office, I’m Astonished
Darling’s arse must get jealous of the shite that comes out of his mouth.
Astonishing that anyone paid £20 to sit and listen to that total shite. I could’ve bought nine litres of Lambrini for that, and had change for fag papers.
Blair felt the hand of history on his shoulder – Darling’s going to feel its size ten boot right in the Rab Ha’s.
I’ll watch it after the watershed hour and my tablet has kicked in.
Best not to ruin the time until then. Do I need my Better together bingo card or has somebody shouted already?
I would lose the will to live listening to him!
38mins Female starts off with “blah..caving in to Nationalism…blah, blah”
Is it my imagination or has that female been at another meet recently? If I recall she was heckled. Or am I havering!
You can only laugh at this guy.
”When I said that North Sea Oil resources are declining which is a matter of fact because they are not renewable, every barrel you take out , there is one less ”
Michael McIntyre should hire him
Seriously, who wants to listen to two failing tossers trying to big each other up?
I listened, I lost the will…
Not sure the politics in this song but it fair washes that slimy flipper sludge aff me brain somehow
link to karaoketexty.cz
Alastair Darling is a first class fanny who makes hundreds of thousands on the side with his speeches. These Labour politicians are letting the people of Scotland down badly. They do not give afuck about anybody but their own kind .They have pockets deeper than a clown and want to fill them at the cost of the tax payer
o/t
sorry rev but this has gotten me angry
the soldiers reburied with full military honours of whom only one was identified as pvt William MacAleer of Leven, how was he identified?
he had the foresight to have his dogtags made out of metal and it survived to show his army number,
the others could not be because army issue dogtags at that time were cardboard! BLOODY CARDBOARD,
that shows how desperate those monsters were to repatriate the dead to their loved ones that they couldn’t even be arsed to provide a means of identifying the corpse if he’s killed by any means other than natural causes,
better together?
it -just- got- personal!
There the ‘cross border’ pensions thing @ 30:25
“The European Union rules require that each member state fully funds it’s pensions. A lot of the cross border funds we have at the moment would have to be fully funded”
Clearly the ex Work & Pensions Secretary need to catch up on his back copies of ‘Actuary’ magazine.
Strictly speaking not a lie as that is the case right now, however we know that will change very shortly….certainly it would be truly bizarre for the EU, rUk & iScotland to fund their cross border schemes as it was simulataneous relaxing them elsewhere.
You know that noise the screen makes on Family Fortunes when one of the proles gets a guess wrong?
This was a 51 minute 21 second long version of that.
I mean I assume it was, I didn’t listen, I extrapolated instead.
Am still waitin on a rebuttal on Scotland Today by the Scottish Government to “Day Trip Dave’s” Edinburgh visit.
Nothing, they went right onto another story.
STV you really must try harder, you are getting more bias by the day.
This is the same company who told us last week that the YES Campaign was 25% behind the NO Campaign.
About 21 minutes. Ireland and currency.
Ireland did not have a currency union they had a currency board and largely followed the UK’s economic policies.”
The former is true but did they follow UK economic policies?
Did they take any debt?
I listened to every word all the way through and it is well worth listening to. Apart from a couple of English voices and one Scottish it seemed to me this could have been a Yes meeting.
Darling was grilled on everything, and lost.
I’m absolutely amazed, I was at the Yes Glenrothes meeting last week and darling might have well been speaking there.
Pro Independence dominated the Q&A and Darling had no answers, his lies were exposed. Better Together are history.
Naughtie again, at 43.20, showing his Labour anti-Salmond credentials, in response to a crazy who was demanding to know why Alex Salmond couldn’t be forced to answer when asked questions.
I’ve never heard Alex Salmond not answer a question, he does have an instinct for traps and when a question is a setup, so will give his own answer.
08.46 collapsed Scottish banks, a calamity made in Scotland not in London
addendum
Fast forward 80 odd years and Scottish troops are sent to Iraq with the wrong battle dress, the wrong boots, no flack jackets,thin skinned vehicles that couldn’t stop peas out of a pea shooter the poor guys who were slaughtered by the mob who had no bullets to defend themselves with and poor communications to call for help,
I am beside myself with anger
revenge though is a dish best eaten cold.
I think the money was for charity though,so i’ll doff my hat to that.Well done.
He also used the problems of the Eurozone and Ireland to warn against a currency union. No mention of those countries in the Eurozone which are managing fine because their economy is compatible with that of Germany’s
I’ll do the honors, Rev, and produce a timeline with porkies and Fear Factor rating. Check back in a couple of hours.
What’s the purpose of spending 20 quid to listen to two unionists encouraging each other to lie to the audience for about an hour?
Darling said nothing new or different; just more of the same, tired announcements from a man who is not in a government cabinet position & is unlikely to be in one any time soon. He therefore brings no authority to execute anything.
And he brings little gravitas as ex-Chancellor because his fiscal performance was catastrophically bad – >£260 billion & still counting.
The audience reminded me of drivers who slow down to stare at accident victims on the other side of the road. The grisly scene is momentarily interesting but then you hear a good tune on the radio, so you speed up, soon forget all about it & wonder what’s for dinner.
What’s the purpose of spending 20 quid to listen to two unionists encouraging each other to lie to the audience for about an hour?
Darling said nothing new or different; just more of the same, tired announcements from a man who is not in a government cabinet position & is unlikely to be in one any time soon. He therefore brings no authority to execute anything.
And he brings little gravitas as ex-Chancellor because his fiscal performance was catastrophically bad – >£260 billion & still counting.
The audience reminded me of drivers who slow down to stare at accident victims on the other side of the road. The grisly scene is momentarily interesting but then you hear a good tune on the radio, so you speed up, soon forget all about it & wonder what’s for dinner.
Rev, I’m using Chrome for first time and whacked the submit button twice. Please delete copy. Apologies in advance.
If his lips moved I’m betting 51mins 21 secs.
I really can’t be arsed.So I’m going onto YouTube to watch the most excellent Lady Alba and her version of Bad Romance.
You know what… I was feeling really good about my ability to do this, but just over two minutes in Darling is halfway through serving such a Double Whopper with Extra Large Lies that I don’t actually think I can do this. I’d have to transcribe the whole 51 minutes and break it down. We’re into PHd thetis territory here, folks.
It would be faster just to highlight what was true:
1. “Hello, my name is Alistair Darling”.
Thats it.
Right got up to 48 minutes and I’m feeling suicidal now.
There are a fewer rabid No’s in that for whom ‘unhinged’ would be a generous description.
I forgot to take a note of the time but Darling came out with his usual….’Scottish banks with decisions taken in Edinburgh not London’
And that IS true, Goodwin and MacKillop were in Edinburgh, but they didn’t actually break any laws or regulations when the bankrupted RBS.
In fact they operated entirely within a legal and regulatory system which was very much designed in London at Westminister in fact the ‘light touch’ regulation was brought in by a Govt Darling played a huge role in.
Juteman
Surely that’s not allowed in public.
Just heard Brian on BBC trying to give ‘Day trip Dave’s’ conference speech some gravitas in sombre tones…He didn’t quite pull it off.
I keep examining the back of my head but still not finding any buttons, zips, velcro. Other fastening devices are available.
I’ll tell you what Project Fear has done for me. It has switched this former news hound off from the MSM news.
I’m like a kid at Xmas counting down the sleeps till I get my satsumas. I can’t wait till all this shite is over, and we can get down to creating our own country again.
Roll on the 18th.
Ive completely ditched the BBC, started watching STV News which I never did before, its about to get ditched as well. Cameron says “in the event of a no vote, there is a possibility that further powers could be devolved to Scotland” STV reports “Cameron promises more powers for Scottish Parliament” WTF
To paraphrase Stephen Fry: Better together’s arguments are complete loose stool water. It is arse-gravy of the worst kind. I use the term “campaign” in its broadest sense as it clearly is nothing more than people wallowing in the filth people have said about Scotland.
The only thing this have achieved is to make me feel queasy at the very notion of being thought of as British. The idea of it as a nationality that I am meant to be proud of, is one that fills me with disgust and anger.
To proud of something that portrays you as some 2nd class chancer on the fiddle, is utterly moronic.
I think we should use some of that pledge money to take out adverts. The advert would be a simple letter in the style of the one written for Alfred Dreyfus in the 19th century. We shouldn’t bother with the Scottish MSM – It should be done in the English press instead. Attack Bettertogether’s shite from the one place they won’t expect it from – England.
Brilliant comment at approx 48 minutes from someone saying they had been there to hear the positive vision for the union, but all they had heard was someone trying to sell an insurance policy.
“Bags me 40 mins – 42 mins.”
Ok you missed 2.07 when he said the UK, with the right political will can build houses for the homeless,
so what did the Labour lot do when they were in power? built four houses and sent billions back to Westminster because they couldn’t think of anything to spend the money on,
OWNED
Here’s a few from early on, stopped writing but kept listening.
2.34 “We would not have the money” when talking to the Big Issue seller about housing. Darling explained how Scotland would have to raise taxes or slash spending.
6.15 The Nationalist and Tory vote wasn’t very far apart.
When talking of the SNP’s election win i n 2011
8.17 Collapsed Scottish banks were not based in London but in Edinburgh.
Speaks for itself.
29.30 Discussing who will be responsible for pensions he stated that the EU require “cross-border” transactions to be fully funded without mentioning the proposed canges.
Gave up taking notes after that.
Best of the lot? Probably the heckler who asked “What’s your plan B for Faslane”
“Brilliant comment at approx 48 minutes from someone saying they had been there to hear the positive vision for the union, but all they had heard was someone trying to sell an insurance policy
BILLBOARD!
45 mins in someone asks Alistair Darling what his plan B is for Faslane (caused by the usual whats the plan B for the currency remark from both Naughtie and Darling), a question he avoids obviously, other than saying it will lose 8000 jobs.
A good question though, if you could pin someone down on it, as what is there plan B if we say remove it on day 1.
Sorry – lost the will to live during his first lie(answer)
Was working with a guy today who had driven up from Sunderland and he was amazed how shit the roads are after Newcastle, the A1 to Edinburgh is shit and then a dual carriageway the ‘M’8 between Edinburgh and Glasgow our 2 major cities.
I told him of the A9 up to Aberdeen one of the worst and dangerous roads in the country, I told him of the A77 from our major Ferry terminal’s at Cairnryan and Stranraer up to Ayr being a fucking horse and cart road.
All major cities in England have 3 lane motorways connecting them and what do we have it’s a fucking joke.
I told the guy that Scotland is a net contributor to the UK but our infrastructure does not get the same investment.
I think he realised why we would be better running our own country to invest in infrastructure and our people.
PS – he wasn’t taken in by the border patrol pish
Call me Dave says
“I keep examining the back of my head but still not finding any buttons, zips, velcro. Other fastening devices are available.”
Daves answer
and for our Amish friends………
I was only able to manage a few minutes, but noted with interest the person sitting in front of our ‘SPY’ in the enemy camp.
The way their head was shaking at AD’s answers told a story all on its own and I’m sure this would have been the response of the majority of the audience.
Yes every nation has its people who are ‘zipped up the back’ so a few might have believed him, but any ‘Don’t Knows’ who were listening to his crap, would have surely shifted to Yes.
This is why the trend is towards Yes, as more and more people get engaged with the debate.
This is why we will win
OK I give up,
he’s too good
“You know what… I was feeling really good about my ability to do this, but just over two minutes in Darling is halfway through serving such a Double Whopper with Extra Large Lies that I don’t actually think I can do this. I’d have to transcribe the whole 51 minutes and break it down. We’re into PHd thetis territory here, folks.
It would be faster just to highlight what was true:
1. “Hello, my name is Alistair Darling”.
Thats it.”
UNCLE
@croompenstein.
Spot on mate, I regularly drove from the West Midlands to Scotland and you could tell you had left England and had crossed over to Scotland just because the roads would suddenly go from large smooth three lane motorways to ever smaller motorways with narrower lanes.
It’s a complete joke…but the laughs on us!
11:50 [ the UK] is one of the largest countries in the world [BEEP] we can afford to maintain an army, navy and airforce[BEEP – how much is UK debt?]. Which Scotland benefits from all that spending takes place [BEEP]. Not least from building ships on the Clyde for the RN [BEEP – true as a standalone statement, but is lower than proportional rUK Defence spend] […inaudible] moving building ships for the Royal Navy into another country [BEEP]. I can’t see the point of ending up in the situation of paying disproportionately more to maintain some sort of armed forces [BEEP, BEEP]
Sorry I can’t take any more of this BEEPING crap … over to you Stu
@TheGreatBaldo
Alistair Darling wrote in his book Back from the Brink: 1000 days at Number 11 (2011)
“The responsibility for the architecture was largely mine. When we were in opposition in the early 1990s, Gordon had asked me to take responsibility for the City. I realised quickly that getting the right supervision and regulatory regime was essential and set about planning for the change in regulatory control which we implemented once we were in power”
Regarding the “right regulatory regime”, see Prof Bill Black’s comments in link to nakedcapitalism.com
Not a talk I would have paid to listen too.
I would rather have gone to tonight’s Yes meeting at Haddington. Packed out.
link to twitter.com
@John King
Rather than worry about soldiers, I am a lot more concerned about the civilians who get caught up in war, usually with no protection at all.
179 British military personnel died in Iraq, but at least 60,000 civilians died. Some estimates place the figures much higher (see link to bit.ly)
If you want to keep Scottish or British soldiers safe, there is a simple solution: don’t send them off to invade other countries. The Uk and its predecessor states have invaded all but 22 out of almost 200 countries in the world: link to bit.ly.
I hope that an independent Scotland will play no more part in this bloody imperialism … and that it will keep its young men safe by keeping out of wars, rather than by making them more effective killers
Malc
I was at the Alex Salmond one and it was totally sold out. The tickets were £30 too! Ha!
The difference in infrastructure is indeed pronounced. The only reason our railways have any 21st Century equipment is down to Holyrood. In the late 1980s our only internal Inter City trains were taken south to bolster services there, leaving us with rather austere 2-car units for most long distance services.
Looking back, it appears ever more deliberate.
‘What’s your plan B for Faslane?’
I just burst out laughing
@Croompenstein
Your description of English roads applies to the South. The roads in the North are not so good. I travel from Glasgow to Newcastle regularly and that involves the A69, which is crap. Btw, the A9 goes to Inverness, and beyond.
Alistair Darling has turned down several invitations from various non political organisations to debate with Yes Scotland and with his local MSP.
Any Questions on Radio 4 now is about Independence.
“Rather than worry about soldiers, I am a lot more concerned about the civilians who get caught up in war, usually with no protection at all.”
Point missed by a royal mile Claire!
you don’t get to choose who you fight unless you have your own government to decide that, and while we have a government who are still mourning the loss of the empire we will still face the prospect of entering wars that have nothing to do with us, and while we have a parliament who cant come to terms with reality we will continue to send our children to fight wars we have no part in (other than a misplaced sense of responsibility to countries we have previously subjugated) we need to be free of these people to save lives, both civilian and military.
Having watched all 51 minutes I am of the opinion that this was a complete car crash for Darling, so where to start.
He waffled just about every answer he gave from the number of votes the SNP and Tories got to pensions, loss of 8000 jobs at Faslane etc.
For the record here are the figures for the 2011 Scottish election. SNP Constituency vote- 902,915 + Regional vote of 876,421= 1,779,336 = 44.71% of the vote.
Tories. Constituency vote- 276,652 + Regional vote of 245,967= 522619 = 13.13% of the vote.
Close? I dont think so, but unchallenged by Naughtie.
However, my question to Darling would have been ‘why should we believe that the Chancellor who presided over the biggest financial disaster the UK has ever experienced, be relied on to give accurate figures on anything, when he had to hire an accountant to work out his complicated tax affairs, because he flipped his residence so often, to take advantage of his tax allowance, and then charged us for the privilege?
@ Croompenstein
For goodness sake don’t send anyone heading for Aberdeen up the A9… it’s a Hell of a long way round to the granite city!
2:02 but considering it took 2 minutes to get to an answer I guess it was all of 2 seconds.
On homelessness here is a shining star. Sorry if it has been posted before
link to nationswell.com
When Darling and Labour politicians raise the “Scottish Banks” issue we should remind them of their pivotal role in the affair.
The Banks were overseen by the inept UK Financial Services Authority that was encouraged to take a light touch by Ed Balls, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling.
In October 2007, barely three weeks after bailing out Northern Rock for £26 billion, the FSA and Alistair Darling signed off their approval for the fatal RBS takeover of ABN Amro without undertaking any due diligence. Incredibly, the FSA overlooked their own rules on capital liquidity by allowing RBS to do the £49bn ABN Amro deal.
Fred Goodwin, who was knighted by Labour in 2004, was one of Darling’s financial advisers at the time and remained so until several months after RBS collapse.
The lack of decisive action by Alistair Darling and the last Labour government after Northern Rock failed could have cost up to one million people their jobs according to the Bank of England Governor, Sir Mervyn King on BBC Today Programme Lecture on 2nd May 2012.
@ Why was Flipper never detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure?
@john king
Point not really missed, John
Sure, Scotland desperately needs to be free of the imperial dreams of Westminster, and their bloody realities of death around the globe. I have been a lifelong supporter of a free Scotland, and the Scotland I know has no appetite for continuing UKania’s psychopathic export of state-trained killers to advance the cause of capital.
But wherever the soldiers are coming from, and no matter flag they are fighting under (Butcher’s Apron, Saltire, Old Glory, or whatever), they are people going to another country to use force. In modern wars, the victims are nearly all citizens of whatever underdeveloped zone is the latest target, and they are overwhelmingly civilians.
The soldiers who fly in with their guns to these places are all volunteers. Nobody told them they were joining a knitting class or an outdoor sports club; they knew that the job they were signing up for was taking a gun to somebody else’s country, and that their return home might be in a body bag. Civilians don’t get that choice.
“The soldiers who fly in with their guns to these places are all volunteers. Nobody told them they were joining a knitting class or an outdoor sports club; they knew that the job they were signing up for was taking a gun to somebody else’s country, and that their return home might be in a body bag. Civilians don’t get that choice.”
Your take on armed forces personnel really disturbs me Claire because in spite of the the fact we essentially agree I find your attitude towards our armed forces quite distressing, soldiers don’t get to pick and choose the conflicts they enter, they don’t have the luxury of deciding who they will shoot,
you couldn’t get a more anti British imperialist than me but we must always be cognisant of the fact that when we are in danger we must respect the commitment of our armed forces to defend us or we could become the innocent defenceless civilians you speak of.
@John King
“soldiers don’t get to pick and choose the conflicts they enter, they don’t have the luxury of deciding who they will shoot”
John, soldiers have the luxury of deciding whether to join a fighting unit. They get to pick and choose whether to do a real job, or whether to go work with an outfit whose only function for decades has been to overseas and kill foreigners. (Apart from killing Irish people, who may or may not be foreign according to perspective).
Anyone who has joins the British Army knows the score.
Seriously No voters always think that Westminster, London etc are better and have the answers for us. Lack of confidence and responsibility…this debate by Darling, the leader of NO campaign, again, just shows how inept Westminster is.
Darling what a load of b***. How can anyone be duped by Westminster again? History is just repeating itself.
1979 – Promises, potential oil boom and a vote
Result: Broken promises & Scotland’s oil invested elsewhere
2014: Promises, second oil boom and a vote
Result: A No vote will mean broken promises & Scotland’s oil being invested elsewhere.
Maybe you would care to tell these men how much you hate their profession Claire
Just watched I Was There:The Great War Interviews on BBC2. interviews from the sixties of men (boys) who fought in the Great War. Quite heartbreaking, never lose sight of who is to blame.
25:45 – 26:07
“Labour for Independence are a nationalist organisation”
Northern Rock, HBOS and Barclays are All English banks surely. If RBS is Scottish that is. Barclays required by far the highest bailout but they were bailed out by the US federal reserve.
We actually only paid £15….they were advertised as £20 but they weren’t selling, so they were knocked down to £15 a ,then they were selling them for a tenner at the door…The hall was probably about three quarters full….with the audience around a 50/50 YES/NO split. I think Alistair initially thought he’d get an easy ride cos I think he assumed that it would all be the BT mob. In contrast, we also attended the Alex Salmond/ Naughtie debate 6 weeks ago. Again, like last night, the Q & A were not filmed, and this was the most interesting part of the whole night. We assumed (wrongly) that the whole evening was being filmed or we’d also have filmed the Q & A. Alex Salmond had a great time and you could see that both he and the audience were relaxed and we had a lovely evening. Last night was the complete opposite. You could feel the tension in the room..not an enjoyable experience and I’m sure Naughtie would back me up on that. BT are worried…they’re very worried..
Oh and I also meant to mention, the Alex Salmond event was a sell out….the place was packed and people were turned away at the door…every seat was taken up and folks were standing watching around the perimeters of the theatre :)…so as the bitters say…no one likes Alex Salmond, he’s VERY unpopular…
RE the infrastructure. Agreed about the difference in quality- I notice it when I travel north. The M74 is alright now, especially with the extension to the M8 and the M77 is a huge improvement these days but the link between our two main cities is a joke.
26:55 onwards he denies that he said currency union was his preferred option.
36mins onwards he talks about iScotland defaulting on UK debt.
10mins in, norway has igher taxes, however the fact is norway also has higher wages ie avg being 50k.
Here’s Alistair Darling saying that a currency union would be desirable… link to youtube.com
Stuart
Where does Darling get his 400,000 people voted for the Tories?I would like to know. It suddenly appeared out of nowhere and is being tossed into debates all the time.
Does he mean a large percentage are English? Or is that there is a group in Orkney, another in St Boswells, a few in Morningside, Edinburgh, and over Scotland they all add up to 400,000 wasted votes?
@John King “Maybe you would care to tell these men how much you hate their profession”
Don’t put words in my mouth. I don’t hate their profession.
The BEF 1940 was fighting against a tyranny which threatened their own country. That does not apply to contemporary soldiers.
Whatever anyone’s view of the cold war, it has been over for 25 years. Since then, there is no military threat to the United Kingdom, and for he last 2 decades the purpose of the British Army is as an expeditionary force to attack far-away small countries.
That’s what contemporary soldiers are signing up for. In some places and times, there has been organised resistance to signing up for these imperial adventures. Sadly, that resistance is absent from the UK.
Darlings answers difficult questions with:
“I find that solution/policy/choice unpalatable. That is my answer.”
Well, tough.
Your subjective feelings have no bearing on the issue.
We don’t live in a utopia that can do without an army Clare, it isn’ a crime to join an army, it is a legitimate endeavour, however you are perhaps railing against how a given government might deploy and army, a different matter entirely.
I may oppose needless wars begun by politicians telling big fat lies, but I don’t oppose having standing armies until the day we live in harmony with each other in Love and peace…..man. (or woman Stan)
On topic: I listened to just under one minute of the Darling shitefest spoken word event and then just pressed pause and cancel………it is total bilge that serves no useful purpose.
I agree wholeheartedly with Claire, the people;e who elect to join our armed forces are deliberately signing up to be trained as killers, to go to other countries with weapons which kill civilians as well as other guys who joined up to the oppsong forces to kill our people. all in the name of the despots and imperialists wholike to play soldier games and make a mint for themselves. I have no sympathy whatsoever, and no pride in anyone who makes a life choice to become a killer for their authorities, usually aristocacy/public school morons who think they have a God-given right to march into othet territories to kill and maim. there are plenty of countries who don’t send their children as mercenaries (paid killers), we don’t need to either, and our children have no need to sign up as paid killers.
Re the anti-army vibe, I joined in 87, signed for 3 years – stayed for 6. Was a nationalist then and still am.
Never wanted to kill people, just grew up in a wee village with limited employment prospects and wanted some life experience and got it in spades – as a Royal Engineer I never killed anyone or fired my gun in anger but did serve in NI and Gulf 1.
I’m depressed by the soviet style propagandising and unionist spin given to the military currently and it has caused me to be more distant or totally disengage with former friends because they are still stuck in the jingoistic British is Best, Empire, we are still a superpower etc myth.
I firmly believe a Scottish defence force based on the principles of being a force for good, providing domestic security and foreign humanitarian services, would still be a good career choice for young people to gain important skills and develop personal qualities that often don’t emerge until you are tested physically and mentally.
Just don’t like being personally attacked (as a former volunteer soldier) by people who know little of the individuals involved, their mindset or personal circumstances which influenced them.
Does anyone have the full quote where Darling advocates a currency Union?
The full quote is at the end of this clip, preceeded by another clip of him denying that he ever said it.
link to m.youtube.com