Selected voices
Posted on
November 23, 2019 by
Chris Cairns
The world's most-read Scottish politics website
-
About
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
-
Recent Posts
- 12-14
- 12-12
- 12-09
- 12-07
- 12-03
- 11-28
- 11-25
- 11-23
- 11-22
- 11-18
- 11-17
- 11-12
- 11-09
- 11-06
- 11-04
- 11-03
- 11-02
- 10-29
- 10-26
- 10-26
A tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
Richard Leonard was sopposed to be interviewed on Labours views on the forthcoming G.E. ,
This was on the Scottish B.B.C. Nine, turns out to be a political broadcaste for Labour, as neither of the interviewees seemed willing to interrupt his long replies.
A waste of time.
I cant believe that folk are still paying the English TV Tax and still watching the English Broadcasting Corporation. It is as if Jimmy Saville and all the others didn’t happen.
Oh and why isn’t David Steel in jail as opposed to just suspended from Lying Fib Dems? I guess Cyril Smith never happened either.
jfngw
At the Scottish Conservative and Onionist Party Manifesto launch it seems that Boris has stated that ..” Nicola said Scotland would join the Euro when we (re-)join the EU”
Nicola has picked this up and her twitter response is :
‘Boris Johnson is lying”
So, absolutely blatant now.
Shameful behaviour – but then exactly what Trump does and the public seem to accept it with no questions.
Lots of extra helpers at SNP headquarters here. 40 volunteers on Saturday stuffed 20,000 leaflets into envelopes and all labelled, sorted and prepared for distribution in just over one day. Quite a few people getting involved for the first time.
Scots should not be paying the TV licence. Its a small but important protest we can all make.
You may want to keep paying until next year though…. Because yup a royal wedding.
Nothing like a good royal wedding to keep the spirits up for us poor proles.
I believe it is the daugher of some prince Andrew, vaguely remember him for some reason.
Well worth signing this one.
link to change.org
In the light of the current row about anti-semitism in the Labour Party I checked out Jewish history in Scotland and found that, according to the Jewish historian David Daiches, Scotland is the only European country with no record of Jewish persecution. Jews fled to Scotland in the Middle Ages to avoid massacres in England. I don’t know if they were made welcome but they seem to have been safe here.
Mind you, we currently have our own religious bigots of the tangerine persuasion.
Is Russian propaganda any less accurate than BBC offerings?
link to pravdareport.com
auld highlander says:
26 November, 2019 at 10:30 pm
Well worth signing this one
Really? Sure, if you’ve sod all better to do with your time…
If anyone thinks that the problem with the BritNat Brainwashing Channel at Pravda Quay is the result of one individual then they’re either naive or stupid, or both!
You can put whoever you want in charge of BBC Scotland and the news and current affairs output, with its mantra of SNP-Bad, will remain the same.
Witch-hunts seldom make those doing the hunting look good in the eyes of the general public. It’s the organisation, not the individual, which needs to be the focus of any campaign.
@galamcennalath 11:05pm
Notice how the article refers to the SNP as a regional party though
A region af where, and that’s the fx%”*^g problem
This is quite funny, basically speaking apart from a quibble about NHS targets, the BBC fact check supports Sturgeon, and at least as far as the EU joining currency issue, makes an arse out of Andrew Neil and the right wing Spectator crowd whose words he hangs on in his retweets.
link to bbc.co.uk
Along with a nice diagram showing NHS Scotland doing better in 2018-19 than England, and way better than the other two!
There is no precedent for it
The thing is the EU is political, there are NO officials who can state chapter and verse about what it will do; if the EU-27 want iScotland the heads of government vote for it in the Council, the EP Parliament votes for it, and Voila, you’re in, willkommen!
Oh, and as usual Kelvin Vague pooped his nappies with his misunderstanding of the acquis, another right-winger Neil retweeted.
You couldn’t make it up. But they do, all the time, all the time.
Jo Swinson’s QC, Roddy Dunlop again, gets an SNP leaflet banned in Jo Swinson’s constituency two weeks before election.
Jo Swinson wins court bid to stop SNP ‘fracking’ leaflet – link to bbc.co.uk
Terry callachan 8.47pm
I was thinkening metaphorically.
but,
It’s time a’buddy SNP ripped the piss right out of that
bunch of mad feckers down there.
The likes of A niel could and should be ripped to shreds’s.
shreddies.
Remeember how joe (witch hunt) mcarthy was destroyed just
by an old man’s tone of voice…and a bit of truth!
There was a report earlier that the BBC won’t call the PM a liar. Splash you boots – Sim is mostly an OK guy! Here’s what he tweets in reply to Dan Vevers of STV:
“If you’re interested in what Nicola Sturgeon actually did say about currency last night, Reality Check has been looking over the currency/EU accession exchanges from last night’s big interview – link to bbc.co.uk”
link to twitter.com
And here’s what Vevers says out straight:
“Boris Johnson claiming at the Scottish Conservative manifesto launch that Nicola Sturgeon said in her Andrew Neil interview an independent Scotland would ‘join the Euro’.
I just watched it. She definitely didn’t. ”
link to twitter.com
BBC are such right-wing wusses, scared of their charter being removed by the TGories. And Sim is quite a decent guy.
Walpole’s supporters argued that the treaty of the union “supposed and required equality of taxes between England and Scotland” and it would be unconstitutional for Scots, despite their comparative poverty to pay a penny less than their wealthy southern neighbours.
The cynical approach would bring with its introduction a significant increase in the tax burden of the Scots balance with a massive decrease in taxation on the rich.
link to caltonjock.com
@Fireproofjim
King Edward I of England was the first European national leader to ban Jews from his nation,
in 1290 he issued the Edict of Expulsion,
Edward advised the sheriffs of all counties he wanted all Jews expelled by no later than All Saints’ Day (1st November) that year,
the expulsion edict remained in force for the rest of the Middle Ages,
the edict was not an isolated incident, but the culmination of over 200 years of increased persecution,
Edward needed money and the backing of his nobles for his wars in Wales,Scotland,France and Middle East,
Edward was in debt to the Jews and so were his nobles,
so the chance of cancelling the debt and taking the Jews property was taken by the English,
it wasn`t till Cromwell ,350 years later,that the Jews were allowed to return.
You know what Stuart….you either start doing the job that countless numbers on here have channelled funds for you to do…. Like supporting the only political party capable of conducting a fight for independence…or you just fuck off and say you hate the SNP.We’re not daft…you taking a break is one thing…..but your total adherence to an anti-SNP position does it for me.Enjoy your……whatever.
Scot, not sure that is entirely correct, other countries like ‘Spain’, also expelled those Jews who would not convert to Christianity although they did allow those who did so back into their country.
Langshanks was, however, the first that I know of to exterminate the Jews who were reluctant to leave and as you say the ban on Jews in England was on the statutes for several hundred years thereafter.
That and his propensity to invade and attack every neighbouring country, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and France and other atrocities like the massacre of Berwick and the cultural vandalism of burning books and libraries in Scotland to try to substantiate his claim to Scotland, does mean the ‘Psycho Eddy’ probably deserves his reputation as Europe’s first proto-Hitler.
I’m obviously up later than everyone else and just hope you are all registered to vote as the deadline has passed. Vote SNP to save Scotland on December 12th. Hope we have a good result on the 13th.
Just read the judgement on the jo swinson donation
– it reeks of sophistry and hairsplitting legalisms, and again, it’s selective application of the law; if the SNP had tried it on like this, they would have been laughed out of court.
– in the common meaning of words and the framing of language
“jo swinson took money from a fracking company”
– but no, her constituency office did (- except she controls that money and has use of it)
– and the fracking company is a “renewable company which holds fracking licenses” (- except if they hold fracking licenses, then they want to use them at some point, which would make them a fracking company, a company who fracks)
This kind of crap is why everyone really hates lawyers, but its par for the course for them and earns the big bucks
Everyone in public life should acquaint themselves with the 38 techniques of schopenhauer, and also the old battles between the sophists and the cynics – diogenes is a favourite of mine – oh to hear his take on the 56 genders …
– would be sweet if jo lost her seat, but a gain for a charity shop somewhere, right at her level, but then from what I heard, she is much too lazy to do any honest work.
@jeff
that ranty bit was copied from somewhere else and considerably cleaned up
– I think “eurofag” is a generalised insult, term of derision, like “eurotrash”
that’s the context I picked up
Capella says:
27 November, 2019 at 12:13 am
An aerial survey of fracking sites has been done in the Central Belt including East Dunbartonshire.
I was at a meeting a couple of years ago in a local church hall Kirkintilloch in regard to fracking, the folk who were running the meeting were involved with Dart Energy.
They broke the people attending into to 2 groups and began to push all the benefits of fracking to those assembled.
Their lies were thick and fast, cheaper energy bills for everyone in East Dunbartonshire, loads of high paid hi-tech jobs for locals, no effect to the local environment, no effect on the wild life, in effect no disruption what so ever !
However the Truth is much different, for one there is no way a shale oil extraction company can offset the energy bills from several different energy companies to all of the people who reside in EastDunbartonshire !
As for the Hi-Tec jobs, the many numerous well heads would be installed by experienced installers from outside the County. The well heads themselves would be mostly automatic, monitored and controlled from a central source which could be as far away as Grangemouth. The only local jobs would be for hundreds of tanker drivers required to move the crude oil to the refinery.
Getting back to the Environment in G66 this area like most of the Scottish Central Belt, it was heavily mined for coal, with much of extraction lacking detailed maps and information as to the number of pits/shafts/galleries/levels. Any disruption/collapse of any of these could inevitably cause subsidence to housing anywhere in the county. Plus any upsurge of contaminated water from old workings leading to pollution of local water courses.
As for the issues in regard to local wild life, like the rest of the topics mentioned by the audience in the hall that night they were brushed aside. Much of the Central Belt is a migratory route for geese in the winter months coming from Scandinavia, who once they arrive in Scotland forage for food in the fields on the valley floor from Loch Lomond to Milngavie, all the way to Denny. On one occasion I counted 35 skeins of geese flying over the Balmore Haughs on one late afternoon in November.
As for no effect on the community, hundreds of diesel powered trucks coming and going through the County taking raw crude to the refinery and on their return journeys too, noise and air pollution ! The stench of chemicals coming from many hundreds of well heads !
As shale oil fracking extraction is fairly short lived therein beggars the question of who pays for the clear up ? Companies like Dart are offshore companies with basically less than a dozen people on their books all of them non-uk taxpayers I might add. You’ve guessed it it will be the local tax payers who will be left to pay for the clean up !
Meantime all the profits extracted will leave Scotland, there will be no long term jobs established and the farming land in the Central Belt tainted for many generations not to mention the water quality !
Any Political Party involved with Fracking in the Central Belt are either insane or have taken bribes !
One from Andrew Neil
link to twitter.com
“Nicola Sturgeon at no stage in my interview said Scotland would join the euro. Indeed, though I had had questions on the euro, we did not have time for them.”
with Sturgeon’s “Boris Johnson is lying” tweet attached.
Looking at his twitter, Neil gets retweets to do his dirty work, Fraser Nelson, the Spectator in a few forms, Kevin Hague who falls over himself in his eagerness to get things wrong, and others. Sneaky. You get the one-sided impression without him having to actually do the dirty work of being one-sidedly BBC biased. But he did retweet this one:
“Peter Beuster@PeterBeuster
Enjoyed the @afneil @NicolaSturgeon interview. A proper fact based interview that gave us a chance to make proper judgements on key issues which impact both inside & outside of Scotland. Sturgeon remains one of the few credible party leaders at the moment for me.”
But I don’t know why I’m doing this, I’m sure after 8 days and 518 posts on this thread, there’ll be an article about it along soon enough.
Tam the Bam. says:
27 November, 2019 at 1:13 am
You know what Stuart….you either start doing the job that countless numbers on here have channelled funds for you to do…. Like supporting the only political party capable of conducting a fight for independence…or you just fuck off and say you hate the SNP.We’re not daft…you taking a break is one thing…..but your total adherence to an anti-SNP position does it for me.Enjoy your……whatever.
Funny thing Tam the Bam, I know it’s not popular saying it at election time, but some of us reckon it’s the SNP has been “taking a break” for the last 5 years, but suddenly it’s hey! Drop what you’re doing and help us win an election… I’m guessing you don’t see the irony Tam…
If the Rev is as angry and disillusioned as I think he is, maybe we should all be glad he’s holding his tongue, and it’s the SNP which needs to decide if it actually wants his help, or just thinks the Rev is too hot to handle.
In life, we reap what we sow…
Breeks @ 5.04
Fair comment Breeks!
………………….
Capella @ 12.13
Ah Jo Swineson… The kind of woman that when she she’s shit on her face,calls for someone to clean the mirror. 🙂
Fresh links here:
link to indyref2.space
Tam , no-one held a gun to my head to make donations to Stu.
It is his website and he can say /do/not do whatever he wants – no-one will force you to read or comment but it is HIS.
Personally , I am not upset by indy inactivity by the SNP – I think they have been getting on with the ‘day job’ as they have been encouraged to do by rag , tag and bobtail of the other bleating parties.
May I wish the best of luck to the very young lady standing against Ms Swinson in East Dumbarton and remind everyone that fracking is a dangerous pursuit and has no place in our bonny land.
Not to mention that it would be a misjudgement for a Scottish politician to access money from such a source – no matter how hard they try to hide the fact.
Tories now finding plenty money for the NHS Just as they did before the privatisation off the Gas, Electric and railways. Pump money in, get it fattened up then sell it to your best pal. The Americans are coming for the NHS make no mistake.
@ Scot Finlayson & Fireproofing.
I would agree, no edicts or laws against Jews that I can find, nor indeed anti English edicts or laws, and one of the few countries in Europe to ignore the anti Templars edicts from the Pope, mind you we weren’t exactly on Popes Christmas card list at the time.
Plenty of anti Scottish edicts and laws from our southern neighbours though.
Hackalumpoff
Thanks for those links.
Archived this one.
Still think Holyrood should ignore Westminster on this issue.
But its a start.
Scotland’s First Heroin Assisted Treatment Unveiled
link to archive.is
@chicmac,
The Alhambra Decree
was an edict issued on 31 March 1492, by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon)
ordering the expulsion of practicing Jews from the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year,
Henry III of England issued The Statute of Jewry in 1253.
In response to antisemitic feelings in medieval England, it attempted to segregate the Jews, including imposing the wearing of a Jewish badge.
Swinson and fracking…the term “hypocritel seems apt.
This from July issue of Ecologist Journal
“… Swinson’s victory speech in London emphasised Brexit, populism, climate change and living standards. “Liberal Democrats can make a real difference,” she told the crowd, “when we take power and put our principles into practice.” She nevertheless continued to rule out coalition with Jeremy Corbyn or Boris Johnson.
The incoming leader spoke of “a planet that is at breaking point”, adding: “We are the last generation who can act to stop catastrophic climate change, and yet the government is failing to take the urgent action we need.”
Though Swinson made climate a major campaign theme, her record on the issue proves remarkably patchy. She talks a good game on the climate emergency, and boasts of joining April’s Extinction Rebellion protests. Unlike most XR activists, however, she has taken money from fracking interests and voted down key regulations on the industry.
In July 2017 Swinson took a personal donation of £10,000 from Mark Petterson, director of Warwick Energy – a company with fracking licences across England – and a further £4,000 in January 2018. This was after she had voted against an eighteen-month fracking ban, against a review of the industry’s environmental, health and social effects and against requiring frackers to get environmental permits.
Petterson’s co-directors, John Sulley and Rob Jones, had previously paid out $48 million settling a securities fraud suit after their $2.3 billion company Independent Energy collapsed in 2000. They founded Warwick Energy just weeks after its predecessor folded.
Swinson is open to concerns that she sometimes seems to support climate action in principle but oppose it in practice. In 2012 she voted to create a Green Investment Bank; yet that same year she voted against making the bank help cut UK emissions in line with the law.
She voted for 2008’s Climate Change Act and wants to make companies report on climate risks. Yet in 2013 she opposed setting CO2 targets per unit of electricity and voted against closing a loophole on fossil fuel plants’ emissions standards…”
Rafael Behr comes close to the perfect description of Boris Johnson : “A SCHOOLBOY SHOPLIFTER”.
Except it is far far more serious than shoplifting. I did say close.
“You see it written on Johnson’s face too, at unguarded moments: the flicker of a guilty smile, the glint of disbelief around the eyes that, yes, he really is getting away with this; the furtive shuffle, like a schoolboy shoplifter, with unearned electoral advantage stuffed down his trousers, sidling past the checkout hoping not to trigger any alarms before polling day.”
• Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist
link to archive.ph
@ Jomry – excellent comment. Let’s see whether there is an appeal. The court decision, once again, seems to defy all reason and evidence.
Swinson for fracking? Isn’t that deviating from the party line? I thought I clearly heard Johnson say that it had been shelved.
Bbc Scotland Politics now giving Labour and Lib Dems opportunity for election campagning but not SNP or Tories who are quizzed on Referendums Act
What is it with you guys and the BBC try doing us a favour get all politics off the telly
National make the point with Boris ducking and diving over an Andrew Neil Interview the point is the BBC should not have shown any interviews without tying down the PM so Boris whose afraid of Andrew Neil and the watching public Nicola and Jeremy weren’t