Something deep in the gut
Posted on
March 06, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
No.6: Christopher, from Stirling, biker.
Previously:
(All clips via the always-excellent Phantom Power Films.)
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YES! nice bike too Christopher. Never take your eyes off the road though, to Scottish independence:D
Love ?? it
?? Was a red heart. Wondered if it would work?
Love this series. The tide is definitely turning.
I can feel the difference this time. More and more people are becoming open to the idea of Independence. Not surprised then that everyone connected with keeping the Union intact are running around like headless chickens.
They see what I see and are bricking it!
A great series that fair lifts my spirit 🙂
For the generations to come….Independence!
Heartened by these videos.
Still not over the punch in the guts from last time.
Welcome Christoher = )
What an articulate, heartfelt and well reasoned statement.
I am so often deeply impressed when I hear the voice of the young people of Scotland. I am so so proud of you 🙂
I now cannot imagine how it could be possible to have a vote on the future of our Nation without the voice of the younger folk.
I’ll do the mummy thing now Christopher :
YOU BE CAREFUL ON THAT BIKE!!!
Ah, Youth.
Bike fan not working is still less impressive than a burning exhaust ?
Well done, Yesbiker
Glad we’re not looking to wait 30 years for another go, like we did with devolution.
Found that to be really moving.
It takes courage to admit you were wrong and a nice simple message,look how well we can run our own country.
The BBC is the enemy, I think Yoon papers less so but he’s right,they will target all of us.
The American lady Melissa who was harrassed by the DM said it was Blair McD that dropped her in it,the man has no morality
There’s nae muckle difference between a Yes Biker and a Yes Disabled Buggy driver.
‘Cept the YES biker’s a hellava loat faster.
These videos provide an invaluable contribution to the argument for Scotland’s Independence- cool heads and a clear logic for voting YES.
Of course the obstacles to deliberative democracy – social inequalities, power asymmetries,media distortion, public ignorance and apathy are encoded into everything that extreme conservatism seeks to retain power.
The democratic deficit between WM and Scotland is now an unbridgeable chasm. There is only one thing that the YES movement is phobic about and that’s the failure of the democratic process.That will not be an option in the next Indy vote.
Welcome!
It’s sunnier this side of the street.
Not only a conversion from No to Yes,but an energetic and enterprising campaigner for Scotland’s freedom from colonial London rule.
Very refreshing to hear Christopher,and worth your wait in gold for Scotland’s future.
Reminds me of a good joke.
Heart surgeon takes his bike in for repair. The mechanic says “you know Doc, I take the heart of this machine and change the valves and get it working again, yet I only earn £30,000 a year ,while you earn 5 times that. How come ?
The heart surgeon leans over and says” Try doing it with the engine running”
Welcome to yes young fella. I hope we have a happy outcome together fixing the beating heart of our country for the better.
Excellent, nice to hear Chris and his total enthusiasm for Scotland’s independence.
It goes to show, once people see through the unionist veil of lies, deception and bullying, they can’t even consider that their own country should be anything other than independent.
The yoons should accept that the tide is turning, they should let go, and act with the maturity required to enable a good settlement for both parties. It is in their interest, in the short and long term.
Think of the children, the future. Yoons, what is it that you think a future Scotland should look like. It could be very dark indeed couldn’t it.
We independence supporters know what the future should look like, but do you?
Welcome, one and all?
On Andrew Wilson “oil a bonus not basic” thereby discounting oil revenues to zero in his growth commission projections..
Scotland was never dependent on oil to survive.
Oil and gas revenues, which were projected last spring to be negative over the next six years, now set to be worth £6.5 billion.
link to twitter.com
Great to hear you had a change of mind after September ’14. Westminster’s empty threats and promises won’t fool us now.
Good luck with the trip to The Hague and Catalonia. Exciting times ahead!
BBC, Queen Victoria programme. Several historians have just repeatedly confirmed that Vicky was the queen of England only. Totally fascinating. I did not know that.
Good on you, Christopher.
I love these films so much, so uplifting and powerful, the people they feature are rational, thoughtful and always have such a strong, passionate and positive reason for voting yes. Well done Phantom Power 🙂
People Carrier saye
It’s the BBC …. England. / UK / Britain / British Isles / Great Britain / Greater England …. it all means the same to their mainly South British audience. 🙂
Apparently, galamcennalath, Vicky left Sidmouth to convene more fully with the English Royal family. Her mother was also very lucky to have married into the English Royal family. Really quite educational.
The presenter resembles a puppet from Thunderbirds. There’s real gravitas being exhibited here. Maybe they’ll do one where James I is seriously fortunate to have married into the English royal family……………..oh wait………… ?
Apparently, galamcennalath, Vicky left Sidmouth to convene more fully with the English Royal family. Her mother was also very lucky to have married into the English Royal family. Really quite educational.
The presenter resembles a puppet from Thunderbirds. There’s real gravitas being exhibited here. Maybe they’ll do one where James I is seriously fortunate to have married into the English royal family……………..oh wait………… ?
O.t. Kevin McKenna on Scotland tonight blaming the SNP for all the worlds ills.
What a fool .Poverty cannot be eradicated by a Scottish Government it can only be mitigated.There lies the wonder of Westminster ,burden Scotland with useless powers. All or nothing otherwise you are just playing games. EG a wee tax adjustment and the Tories label us as the highest taxed part of the UK and thereby undermine a route to increase average wealth.
Enough of being a branch factory,we need the HQ jobs too in order to advance.
@Ken500
♥ (if it works) is that what you wanted?
❤ 💓 💜 💚
Fantastic to hear from you Chris,
I know people who were sick to their stomach that they voted against the chance for the freedom of their own country,
but they were frightened about the apocalyptic future that Blair McDougall and his henchmen and woman promised would happen if we left the grasp of Westminster,
outside the odd blinkered Yoon they all can`t wait to vote this time for a free Scotland so they can sleep without the constant thoughts of betraying their country.
@Famous15
Yeah, KMcK has always been against the SNP and good for him, he’s stayed true, as he has to Labour, but it hasn’t stayed true to him. But he’s pro-indy and can appeal to Labour supporters who still cling on in hope, but despair at the likes of last week’s conference. He’s on our side, just not on the SNP’s side.
Oh, forgot the semi-colon at end ♥
Great series of wee films these the facebook community are sharing them out for more folk to see
All good stuff
Kevin McKenna on STV
He’s just such a wet useless article too frightened to outright say the majority of the blame lies at Westminster in case he doesn’t get invited back so he blames the SNP for making health better in Scotland but just not better enough quick enough
Wimp of a man and it makes you no better than Cochrane Kevin, stand up man!
How come there was little Yes activity in Stirling, can that be accurate ?
Maybe he grew up somewhere else.
Anyway, well done & welcome, Christopher, your generation has most to gain.
@Ken500
You can get a whole load here, alt codes
link to alt-codes.net
Just cut and paste the code like (remove spaces) 😍 is & # x 1 F 6 0 D ;
(waits the hammer – bang bang revrend’s silver hammer)
Well done Chris. And welcome aboard the Indy bike or bus if you prefer.
Hopefully many more will follow.
Today, a dollar today is worth 82 pence, and the current price of a barrel of oil is $55.93. Making its equivalent in sterling, £45.86.
I’ve just read an OBR pdf, from 2014, page 114,
link to cdn.budgetresponsibility.org.uk
which shows the OBR prediction for the price of a barrel of oil in 2016/17 at $99.30, or £59.20.
Compared to the current price of a barrel of oil in dollars, the OBR were way out with their forecast by $43.37.
But when you compare their forecast of £59.20 to the current price of £45.86. They are out by £13.34.
This where it gets interesting.
In 2014, the average cost of producing a barrel of oil was almost $30.
Going by the OBR prediction for 2016/17, the equivalent in sterling at that time would be around £20. Giving a gross profit of £40 a barrel.
Today, the cost of producing a barrel of oil is £12.30, or $15. With the current price in sterling at £45.86. This gives a gross profit of £43.56 a barrel.
That would mean the OBR forecast has been exceeded!
With 14 new fields due to come on stream this year, production is expected to reach 2 million barrels a day.
This level of production is on a par with Norway.
That’s the Herald getting into campaign mode with its bitchy headline about Maggie Chapman, co-convener of the Greens:
“Non-candidate launches Greens local election campaign”
the Herald was starting to be quite balanced, but Tom Gordon blew it.
Awesome! 🙂
Well done Christopher.
This bit
‘Today, the cost of producing a barrel of oil is £12.30, or $15. With the current price in sterling at £45.86. This gives a gross profit of £43.56 a barrel.’
Should read..
‘Today, the cost of producing a barrel of oil is £12.30, or $15. When this amount is deducted from the OBR forecast of £59.20, it gives a gross profit of £43.56 per barrel.’
I was trying to show that in exceeding the OBR sterling forecast for the price of a barrel of oil in 2016/17 that their forecast of $99.30 was also exceeded when you factor in the fall in the value of the pound, and the fall in production costs compared to 2014.
@mr thms
Very interesting. Slight correction, current profit should be £33.56, not £43.56. But £33.56 is quite close to the OBR forecast of £39.20, less than £6 per barrel difference.
Just thinking about the difference between YES and NO in Indy Ref 1 and it’s happy and fun against angry and bitter. So it seems to me the leader of YES should be happy and fun as well. Someone like (I’ve only met a few), Rogue Coder. But hey, who would do the AyeMail?
What’s not needed is an intellectual who doesn’t laugh!
Links
FM visits Stornoway
link to twitter.com
link to randompublicjournal.com
link to rbs.postach.io
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
link to itisintruthnotforglory.wordpress.com
link to commonspace.scot
Fort William Smelter Leading Highland Industrial Comeback
link to archive.is
Scottish wind farms provide enough power for four million homes – but
link to archive.is
Culture of denial over sectarianism in Scotland, report says
link to archive.is
link to scottishreportage.wordpress.com
Aberdeen teachers given opportunity to leave despite 100 vacancies
link to archive.is
Report due today
link to parliament.uk
Welcome to yes.
link to alt-politics.com
link to lbc.co.uk
London’s wealthiest neighbourhoods set to have own private police force
link to archive.is
link to euronews.com
link to thecanary.co
link to skwawkbox.org
link to waitingfortax.com
Posting this again for anyone who missed it. Scroll down to watch Ben Griffin a veteran for peace speaking at the Oxford union. He doesn’t hold back. Rory the tory and Rifkind in the front row.
link to dontjointhearmy.co.uk
Robert Peffers says:
6 March, 2017 at 9:25 pm
There’s nae muckle difference between a Yes Biker and a Yes Disabled Buggy driver.
‘Cept the YES biker’s a hellava loat faster.
100 YES Disabled Buggies moving en masse down the street?
Now that would be really impressive. 🙂
You know what to do, Yes-supporting Disabled Buggy drivers!
The suggestion to ignore oil revenue is utter madness. I agree that it should be outlined as a fund builder or as an interim income to invest and build a long term renewable industry. It is a wealth generator if invested or directed into new long term projects.
Once again one of our own has fallen into the “mini UK” model for an Independent Scotland. The U.K. Wasted the Oil money as part of their economic model (short term cash flow). Why would we copy that…and to recommend not including the revenue suggests the chairman thinks we would.
Do we ignore Whisky sales / Tourism / Fishing etc because the “value” may fluctuate?
Revenue will be spent IN Scotland as an Investment and not on the Infrastructure of the “Empire” such as the M25 / London Cross rail etc etc
I wonder if this guy is looking for a job his track record is mighty impressive.
Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa
link to youtube.com
Two more links
Watch with caution, you may want to throw something! What an arrogant tory clown
“Soctland’s independence isn’t economically viable” says @AdrianYalland which @glasgowcathcart calls “insulting” in fiery #indyref2 debate.
link to twitter.com
link to blogs.lse.ac.uk
First, Stu, ure amazing, followed closely by Nana, and not forgetting a whole group who stand right behind. Outstanding.
@Nana
Adrian Yalland? The Tory PR dude and campaigner? That Adrian Yalland? Bwahahahahahahaha! 😀 EPIC LOL
#comedyrelief
Good selection this morning Nana. 🙂
@Macart
Good morning Macart, he’s a very excitable wee man isn’t he. lol
from Nana’s link,
link to lbc.co.uk
“Well speaking specifically about the British Empire in India, the British came to one of the richest countries in the world, and over 200 years of plunder and exploitation reduced it to one of the poorest. ”
Sounds familiar?
Well worth the read, the stuff on trade also sounds rather familiar, in fact you could swap India for Scotland (probably any other part of the ’empire’ as well) and the piece would still make sense.
now we’re a ‘tribal uprising’ (Melanie Phillips, The Times). What a cracker.
It is not just the price of Oil. It is the tax. It should be taxed highly when prices are higher and lower when the price is lower. Osbourne increased the tax in 2010 Budget by 11% (£2Billion) to up to 80% When the price fell 75%, the tax was reduced to 60%. It was reduced to 40% in Jan 2016. That is when production began to increase. If Osbourne had reduced the tax earlier priductiin would not have fallen so drastically. The Oil sector is like a giant furnace when production slows down it takes longer to restore it. Decommissioning the rigs can bring jobs to Scotland.
The Tories are also cutting renewables. Losing jobs in that sector but spending £Billions on nuclear. Spending £Billions on HS2, Hinkley Point, Trident and Heathrow. A total waste of money.with more credible alternatives. Lining the Tories and their associates pockets. They committed electoral fraud in 31 constituencies. Labour are useless. The only way for Scotland is Independence. The Tories will not compromise.
Nana,
link to scottishreportage.wordpress.com
Funniest piece I’ve read for ages! Just brilliant..
I Particularly liked,’A Tong local, who declined to be named but is almost certainly a Macleod…’
Ive met chris, nice guy, he may have voted no last time but he and the other yes bikers are making up for it now, very active, at ever rally across scotland
re the production costs, the $15/bbl looks like a world average, costs vary enomously at different locations, eg land, desert, offshore, even between platforms due to age etc, even between wells on the same location depending on extraction methods, last average cost/bbl I heard for the NS was about $45-50/ bbl
@cearc
I knew that piece would provide some entertainment.
It’s good to laugh.
Gawn yersel’, Chris! Nice one!
As others have said already – it’s a BIG PERSON who admits they got something wrong and an ever bigger person to do so in such a public manner. But, as you said in the vid, you based your 2014 decision on what you were hearing from the country’s traditional media outlets, all of which have a vested interest in keeping Scotland and its people shackled to an undemocratic, unfair, unjust, dysfunctional and anachronistic Union.
Time to break the chains. Not the bike one, of course! Keep on motoring and we’ll get there.
Luigi
There’s a YES supporting disabled buggy driver lives on the outskirts of Stirling, near me.
He is regularly spotted well in advance of his actual presence by the presence of not one but two Scottish flags – the Saltire and the Lion Rampant which he flies on poles about 8 foot tall either end of his buggy, as he goes about getting his messages.
Wonderful sight!!!
Help!
Has anyone yet archived that silly old moo Melanie Phillips’s latest brainfart.
As a matter of principle I refuse to pay Uncle Rupert for anything. So I will not be trying to read it off the Times website.
More kudos to Nana, that Scottish Reortage piece is indeed hilarious.
I found myself trying-out a “teuchter” accent when reading that line: ,’A Tong local, who declined to be named but is almost certainly a Macleod…’ Brilliant.
Scotland In Union’s daily propaganda piece in Scotsman 200 this morning features Alistair Cameron’s call to scrap Flower of Scotland.
This will be as effective as his campaign for tactical voting to get rid of Alex Salmond in 2015
David Cameron from here: link to youtube.com
You listening, Mayhem?
I love these Phantom films. This is on Twitter and Facebook too. It’s a fantastic way of getting our message out there.
Nana,
I don’t post much on WoS but read the articles and comments every day.
I want to thank you for posting the link to Ben, the Veterans for Peace speaker. It was an eye opener.
Thanks for the many other links too.
@ Sinky
Let me guess he says we should use GSTQ or maybe the sash instead.
Somebody please tell mad Mel this is 2017.
@Anne Bruce
You are very welcome Anne.
@Famous15 says:
6 March, 2017 at 11:21 pm
O.t. Kevin McKenna on Scotland tonight blaming the SNP for all the worlds ills.
============================
McKenna is an odd person who seems more interested in in being controversial than in giving a genuine viewpoint. His viewpoint indeed seems to swivel depending on which outlet he is writing for. He is forgetting however that on the telly everyone who reads the different papers can hear what your saying. Credibility rating close to zero.
GMUK
Across the world, the British Ruling classes are renowned for their treachery. Not so in the UK, and not so in Scotland either, where large numbers of the population stubbornly believe that Westminster is akin to a benign foster parent. And while Nicola and her team hold a steady course against gale force headwinds from the South East of England, there’s still a fair bit to go before we’ll be home and dry, and quite a few obstacles to be navigated around.
Among such obstacles are those who voted No in IndyRef14, and for whom nothing has changed. For them there are no lessons to be learned, no pitfalls to be avoided, and the benefits of hindsight are to be scorned.
Many No voters will be simple souls, often perhaps a wee bit gullible, and slightly innocent in their naivety – I’m not referring to the elderly – easy prey for Tory spin doctors.
For them, the Propaganda War currently being waged by Downing St via the BBC and the Press, is a piece of nonsense. The very idea that those nice people from London could do such a thing is preposterous.
They don’t recognise in their daily diet of ‘fake news’ that they are being brainwashed by the British government for its own political purposes. But that’s the way they are, and that’s the way it is.
What is of greater concern are those in spheres of influence, specifically politicians and their army of advisors, who also exhibit a naive trust in Westminster, apparently in the utterly mistaken assumption that sooner or later, Scotland will be justly treated by its centuries old Colonial Masters. How long will it take before the penny drops in Edinburgh. Rigged elections? ‘Sorry, move along. Nothing to see here. Everything about the IndyRef14 ballot was satisfactory. No lessons need to be learned.’
Left to our own devices, Scotland would have been independent long ago. But The Establishment daren’t do that. The daily dose of mind control must never be switched off. Otherwise, the Electorate would come to their senses.
This has never been more true for the Establishment than in these politically perilous times for them, involving Brexit, Scotland’s Independence, Irish Unification, Gibraltar, the US and a divided and troubled electorate in England – oh, and £trillions in debt.
So, let’s give Independence a try. It’s worked for every other country and Scotland is no different. It does seem as if the time is right and England is so far from what it used to be, it’ll soon be unrecognisable – as well as being completely unable to afford the upkeep of its three home colonies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
England has had its way with Scotland for three hundred and ten years, often by brutal and devious means. It’s time to put an end to that.
Kevin McKenna says he is pro Scottish independence and was going to vote for Yes in indy1,
and yet does nothing but run down SNP and Scotland when in press or in tv news studio,
he has a slow way of speaking when on tv which makes you think some well constructed pearl of wisdom is about to be produced,
but all you get is a smirk and SNP BAD,
too many old pals losing their brown envelopes in his corrupt, fetid Zombie Scottish Labour for him to not hate the SNP,
they say “i did not leave Labour, Labour left me”
instead of fighting the corrupt Labourites and taking back control they abandoned her to the dishonest corrupt thieves,
Labour did not leave them, they were to cowardly to fight to save her.
@Manandboy,
Sadly the elderly have been taken in or more accurately programmed to believe that the union offers them security. That is all about to change. The Tories have been making noises about how well off pensioners are compared to the general population, and in addition they have recently passed a ruling that pensioners will become subject to the bedroom tax.
The Scottish government will not have the resources to cope with that. People who thought they had security of tenure on a long standing family home are about to have a very rude awakening.
How long can the SNP keep the heat off people. There has to come a time when we will experience the cuts ,just as in England.
I mentioned last week that McKenna and MacWhirter should be kept at arms length AT ALL TIMES, I still stand by that warning.
As was mentioned above, their values change depending on which day of the week it is.
They are covering all their bases, that way they don’t get nailed down to one particular side.
They are what is known in the trade as A PERR A CHANCERS.
Here is the Philips piece in the times. Cor blimey!
link to archive.is
Imagine, if you dare, Melanie Philips wearing a long-haired wig… it’s Neil Oliver!
The Philip’s piece, where to begin? Well best not to bother.
Robert Peffers, please DO NOT read it. It’s nonsense, not worth it and definitely not good for your health!
@Nana
Great googly moogly! 😯
Ms Philips is completely off reservation. By any definition, that’s a howler.
Hopefully she’ll get a regular column to spout this stuff. Should go down well in the ‘regions’ with us rowdy tribal types and other such barbarians. 😉
@cearc
Indeed it’s a piece of nonsense. Having had the misfortune to watch her on question time she is prone to bleating on any subject with such a superior sneering tone. Silly woman.
I’m sure her phone is red hot, A Neil and co will be itching to get her on the sofa.
@Macart Great googly moogly! sums it up.
“The UK is a super-confederation of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”
“Great Britain, though, is a confederation of three ancient nations: England, Wales and Scotland. The UK is a super-confederation of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”
“Britain, by contrast, is an authentic unitary nation.”
“Britain is a nation with the right to rule itself. It is the EU which is the artificial construct,”
Lots of assurances from Melanie. Superdooper is much better, super sonic too maybe.
“Throughout its history, it was beset by attempts at secession by tribes across Hadrian’s Wall and across the Irish Sea.”
Are we really going to be dictated to by tory twits like this?
A writer for the London Times has questioned Ireland’s ‘tenuous claim to nationhood’
link to thejournal.ie
I agree with the commentator who states “Phillips is a slightly more sophisticated version of Katie Hopkins”
@heedtracker
Instead of centuries of wars against the Celtic nations now we have…
“Ancient Unity”?
The Empire 2.0 will have to re-write its glorious history to make it fit better with the Brexit narrative.
Nana @ 11:31,
Thanks (if that is the right word!) for that link.
What a confused load of tosh from Tory booster Melanie Philips. She drags in another BritNat history woman Linda Colley, and manages to squeeze in a few basic historical facts, then launches into this extraordinary tangent of her own devising that others have already commented upon.
Ridiculous. Absurd. She seems to be entirely unaware that every nation state is imagined. That’s what actually creates and sustains it! But oh no, “Britain” was ordained in prehistoric times by God or something, while this European Union thing is some dreadful foreign artifice.
Unapologetic blood-and-soil nationalism at its most stark.
Puerile and repugnant in equal measure. But will there now be screeds of guff on Twitter accusing her of racism? Likely not. It’s just “good old British patriotism”, isn’t it?
That Melanie Philips article should be posted through every door in Scotland as a prime example of how Unionists think.
@Nana
The Ben Griffin link should be read and viewed daily IMV.
Great link Nana.
Just saw a great retweet on WoS feed.
@Major Bloodnok
If you’re scanning?
Awesome! 😀
link to twitter.com
Oh dear! I’ve seen Melanie Phillips many moons ago when I used to watch QT, and she never impressed me at all. I always thought that she had a screw loose somewhere, her views were so outlandish. All delivered in those plummy tones with the usual sneer.
That article is a real barking at the moon howler. Is she off her meds or something. Wow, so Ireland is not a nation, and we’re tribal hordes now. Well I never, you learn something new everyday.
I’m pleased we gave up on the BBC after the referendum, I certainly don’t miss the likes of her on TV and I don’t read any of Murdoch’s rubbish.
Nana, you do sterling work with all your links, thank you.
@Robert J. Sutherland
Ah Robert no need for thanks, I can raise the blood pressure and lower the tone in equal measure. lol
Vonny Moyes says
link to archive.is and there are some terrific comments.
Seems this ‘flouncing’ on/off twitter is a thing. Where does one get lessons I wonder? I’m sure I’m not too old to learn!
I’ve really got no problem with the United Kingdom of England Great Britain place I have relatives who live there and were born there
My problem is they seem to know an awful lot about where I live (Scotland) because they either saw a documentary on the telly or they visited here once or read some “facts” in a newspaper about where I live so it’s very difficult to explain to them that things might not be quite as they have been led to believe about where I live
And this bothers me because it seems when I try to inform the people of the United Kingdom of England Great Britain that their viewpoint of where I live is incorrect they get very angry with me and I didn’t understand the
anger before but now I think I’m beginning to see why those people get so angry with me when I tell them that where I live isn’t good because it’s run by the government that’s elected by the people in all those other places I’ve already mentioned
The people of the United Kingdom of England Great Britain take it as a personal insult to them and a criticism of their judgement and decision making that I shouldn’t have the right to be unhappy about the conditions chosen for me by them about where I live and that desiring an alternative to their choices is in fact an act of unpatriotic treachery
and not to be tolerated
Maybe they’re right because lots of them have visited where I live on more than one occasion they say, and they’ve read newspapers and seen documentaries all about where I live so who am I to argue with all that superior knowledge of the people of the United Kingdom of England Great Britain because there are more of them so they must be correct, they say, so I have to agree
Or they’ll make me suffer, they say
Nana,
I’m totally impressed by your industry and versatility. I don’t indulge in Twitter myself, just occasionally get taken there by a link. I find it all a bit confusing and overheated in general, with just the occasional gem amidst the dross.
(Probably a sign that I’m descending into fogeyness, alas, even though I don’t feel it.)
I prefer the relative calm of WoS! =laugh=
Clootie @0825hrs
Agree with your comment that oil/gas should NOT be ignored with regard to future projections by the Scottish government. Why should it?. Hammond tomorrow is going to produce a budget that includes forecasts of future revenue, so why can’t the Scottish government include forecasts based on oil and gas.
Is this guy saying that its okay for the english government to produce guesstimates but not the Scottish government. Utter bollocks.
When we eventually get independence its is NOT going to be a Scotland flowing with milk and honey. Its going to be tough for a few years no doubt about that. We will make mistakes but they will be our mistakes but at least we will have available ALL the tools to do something about it unlike the present situation.
On the other hand look at westminster. They are firefighting on all fronts. They have got great difficulties with Brexit, the EU will not roll over. Many years of uncertainty both fiscally and politically. Dangers of a united Ireland and possibly reintroduction of direct rule.
Possibily of those pesky Scots wanting independence and the loss of their oil and gas revenue and the breakup of their beloved UK.
English NHS in meltdown, education system in turmoil along with the prison service. The police service strapped for cash and massive cuts effecting the judicial fabric of england. The treasury are currently printing money like it is going out of fashion to bolster their £1.9 Trillion debt.
Possibility of up to 10 years of a conservative government at UK level.
Compared with the english government a future independent Scotland problems pale almost into insignificance. If you had a choice what would you prefer?
Tough choice – I think not. A NO brainer.
@ Nana – the comments on that Vonny Moyes article are worth a read! John Barr’s is as long as the article but makes some very salient points. No doubt it will be dismissed as more evidence of the misogyny of the Independence movement.
Racism, sexism etc etc. Are there any more “isms” we will be accused of?
@cat
No, mr thms is correct for the UKCS:
“Average unit operating costs have improved by half within two years from $29.70/bbl to $15.30/bbl. ”
link to oilandgasuk.co.uk
The Melanie Phillips article. All media output has a target audience. One thing is certain, that piece wasn’t aimed at Scots if any persuasion!
Reminiscent of the Nazis attempting to create an alternative history of Germany and the German people to suit and justify their views and policies.
Dr Jim @ 12:55,
Worry not. Sister Theresa is going to sort out this distressing anomaly you mention very soon and then we misguided primitives will all conform to their greatly improved Great English British version of reality.
If we let them.
Regarding the Philips ultra loon piece in the Times , How can anyone interact rationally with that Higher Intellect ,she appears to be on her own little planet her rantings really do defy description , but she is far from being alone on her Planet ,Peter Hitchens the Mail columnist seems to take the same line on Ireland , they will do as we say ,Now where have we heard those sentiments before , I believe someone has added something to the just about drinkable water down south , a collective Lunacy has taken hold a once quite rational people are beginning to act like their Empire still exists , and the rest of us better bloody do as we are told .
@Capella
There’s a new reply from a woman, JC, to another poster on that VM article, and it makes life easier when it’s not a man saying it.
Anyway, remembering the comment Heuchan made to poor Angela about how there’s no such thing as white racism, Heuchan is now saying Vonny Moyes made the comment:
“@[xx] Nationalists began trolling & harassing her because she stated that white people don’t experience racism. @jk_rowling”
link to twitter.com
Despicable.
Nationalism bad but Patriotism good ?
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”——–Samuel Johnson.
Ps He was a very Right wing Tory as well according to his friend Boswell,himself a Scottish, who described Johnson as” narrow and nationalistic”,
Again on the Vonny Moyes comments – brian watters got online early (6:24am Tue 7 Mar 17) to note that we’ve had the racism attack, now the misogyny attack and the sectarian attack is being cooked up as we speak…
Anyone see a pattern developing?
Worth a read.
link to archive.is
BTW I tried to read the Mad Mel article but one sentence was enough. Can’t do it. I used to hear her on the radio – The Moral Maze, Any Questions etc – pontificating in her supercilious, radical common sense manner. Whatever the issue, Mad Mel can be relied on to adopt the most authoritarian, illiberal attitude possible. Her grasp of history is as lunatic as every other tinpot theory she spouts. Perfect columnist for a Murdoch rag.
Melanie Phillips article, I can’t be bothered reading past this, in fact I don’t even bother with replying to morons in forum who use this stupid statement:
“In other words, they want to reclaim powers from Westminster in order to surrender them to Brussels.”
What gets me is that they seriously seem to believe themselves!
I seem to remember Melanie Phillips on US television during the indyref1 campaign unashamedly pronouncing that “England runs the United Kingdom”.
@Yesindyref2
Haven’t stopped laughing. 😀
I do hope they give Ms Philips a regular column.
#comedyrelief
Along with a few other zoombat articles in the past fortnight it does betray a very particular and unhinged mindset in the commentariat. They’re cutting loose on the electorate with the real ‘fringe’ commentators.
Waits for Katie Hopkins article on the new empire…. 🙄
Some homework for Mad Mel ‘P’:
Full article here:
link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
We are getting into seriously unhinged territory with that article by Melanie Philips and now the latest intervention by Rowling to Orwellsplain to us thickies that ALL NATIONALISM IS BAD.
Rowling is losing what little credibility she has with with her patronage of increasingly dodgy unionists. Even fairly tolerant people must be questioning her judgment and her motives.
Beginning to wonder if Heuchan real or part of some manufactured social media stunt? For someone studying said media she does know people can read and check up what she said and compare it with reality?
@ yesindyref2 – Vonny will maybe dismiss comments from older women like JC as “Uncle Toms” out-of-touch with dynamic young activists like herself.
I’ve been a feminist since the mid 60s when it was neither fashionable nor profitable. I think it was called “wimmins lib” then.
Sadly, it all has to be relearned by every generation. That’s because, like Scottish Independence, it hasn’t yet been achieved!
Congratulations to Ghana who yesterday celebrated 60 years of Independence from the Great Brutish Empire,
Ghana had been subjected to nearly 500 years of being pillaged,plundered,ransacked and stripped of her assets whether human,gold and ivory by various European countries Portuguese, Swedish, Danish-Norwegians, Dutch and German lastly Brutish Empire,
can anyone deny their pride in their hard won Ghanian nationalism.
Capella
BTW I tried to read the Mad Mel article but one sentence was enough. Can’t do it. I used to hear her on the radio – The Moral Maze, Any Questions etc
I’m a Moral Maze listener too, Mad old Dr Starky was kicked off it, I think because he was too hysterical. Then there’s Moral Maze regular Clair Fox of the Intsitute of Ideas, who was on the Ligger Neil’s vote tory lunchtime BBC politics show last week. Scottish independence is not going to happen, says the Institute of Ideas.
link to bbc.co.uk
Half an hour in, Claire says things like its galling to hear things like Scotland voted to Remain, and other NO things too, in one of the Liggers most, English high tory meets vile sep shows for a couple of years.
link to twitter.com
Just a thought.
Nana @ 7.32 am
link to alt-politics.com
Wonder if this is the reason that William Hague is pushing for a snap election? Get the ‘big majority’ in to WM before they have to sack the MPs involved?
2 hours ago from Rev’s twitter:
“And we’re there! The Wings fundraiser 2017 has raised more money in a week than Scottish Labour did from its members in 2016.”
link to twitter.com
Sorry if anyone else posted this!
Britain, by contrast, is an authentic unitary nation. It didn’t begin with the union with Scotland but as the British Isles, an island nation defending itself (or not) against invaders from across the seas. Throughout its history, it was beset by attempts at secession by tribes across Hadrian’s Wall and across the Irish Sea.
Anybody have the faintest idea what this means?
Scots fought and held off at great cost the Romans, which is why they built a wall. Scots fought and defeated the Saxon Northumbrians. Scots fought and ultimately absorbed Viking settlers. Scots fought off the Norman English, re-emphasising our independence. We have never seceded from anyone we have always succeeded in retaining our identity. The alternative facts in this piece are quite remarkable.
I also note that the Irish State has a tenuous claim to independence having only been formed in 1922. I am quite sure Melanie would take a different tack on countries formed in say 1948. One rule for others, another for Scotland and Ireland. The Unionists are ridiculous in their transparency.
@Capella
I hate having to read articles like those from Angela and Vonny and largely leave them alone, but sadly it’s still neccessary even in this day and age. You see misogyny in the forums all the time, even if it’s “just” casual. And yes, it is mostly against women! But they blew it in those two articles by associating with that person and thinking she was their friend. They should just stick to writing their own articles, from their own observations and knowledge.
O/T
Having read James Kelly’s latest article on STV voting system, I have changed my mind about my voting intention for the May local elections.
Prior to reading Kelly’s article I was simply going to vote ONLY for Indy-supporting parties, thus:
1 SNP
2 SNP
3 SNP
4 Green
5 SSP
End.
On reading Kelly’s latest article (link below), I now intend to vote:
1 SNP
2 SNP
3 SNP
4 Green
5 SSP
6 LIB/DEM
Much as I detest the lying Lib/Dem gits, having read through Kelly’s blog, it makes sense to me now to place only one Unionist candidate (last in my rankings) since there may be instances of some councils having No Overall Control and I would rather work with LDs than the Red or Blue Tories.
If we do not rank any of the Yoony parties then we are effectively abstaining and leaving Yoon voters to decide how the cards fall as far as the Yoon outcome goes. However, if we all voted for the LDs at the end of our rankings as the one and only Yoony party then we can influence (slightly) the outcome of the Yoon vote and that could have a significant bearing on the eventual make up of any particular council.
Anyway – see what you think yourselves:
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
I see Sillars has turned up again, he would rather be in the UK outside the EU rather than in an Independent Scotland inside the EU. It’s Independence on my terms or none is his moto, stuff democracy. Just as warned peoples personal agendas are more important than the overall goal, is this a Scottish trait? With the prospect of victory in sight there are still those who may help grab defeat.
Voting No will effectively be voting for tuition fees, prescription charges, NHS privatisation, bedroom tax. It was clear what the agenda of the PM is after her conference speech, and the SG cannot alleviate these forever whilst dependent on its funding from Westminster.
WHandandShrimp says:
7 March, 2017 at 2:07 pm
“Britain, by contrast, is an authentic unitary nation. It didn’t begin with the union with Scotland but as the British Isles, an island nation defending itself (or not) against invaders from across the seas. Throughout its history, it was beset by attempts at secession by tribes across Hadrian’s Wall and across the Irish Sea.
Anybody have the faintest idea what this means?”
Aboriginal Picts once dominated the whole British Isles??? Or maybe somebody is writing a load of shite in the Times…
Anybody have the faintest idea what this means?
Scots fought and held off at great cost the Romans, which is why they built a wall.
Picts H&S. Rome called the people on the north side of their wall the Picts but they were individual clans.
Its the Roman Empire that created the British Isles we have today. If the might of Rome had been able to defeat the Celts up here, Scotland would never have existed or at the very least, the history of these isles would be rather different.
The Nation State of Scotland, forged in a victorious 400 year war with the might of the Roman Empire. Just saying that out loud, often gets up the noses of our chums in the south, particularly tories like Melanie,
But what ever happened to the Romans:D
@Nana
Please don’t flounce off Wings we need your links. Nothing like a slice sausage in the morning with a cup of tea!
On the other hand if you do need a rest, why not show us how flouncing is REALLY done, putting even Torrance to shame …
@ heedtracker – I can’t watch that BBC programme not having a TV nor a licence. But I had a look at the Institute of Ideas website and there’s a Claire Fox moderated podcast discussion on the Politics of Identity which should be right up Vonny Moyes street!
I’ll give it a listen to pick up some useful pointers.
link to instituteofideas.com
@ yesindyref2 – just say “Wazzup sista!”
@Breeks 2:30pm
Not that long ago there was no English Channel and Britain was part of continental Europe. Wonder if wee Melanie kens that?
@Liz Rannoch
I really hope the Tories do call a snap election and win a massive majority in England.
Maybe that would help focus the minds of those swithering No voters with a social conscience than a Tory majority in Westminster in excess of 100 seats.
@Proud Cybernat
Yep think I’m going to do the same, no chance of a Lib Dem council being formed where I live but if it keeps one less Tory or Labour Councillor out of a seat my vote would have been worth it.
Don’t forget Independents though, I have one in my ward who was formally an SNP member but became an Independent after falling out with the SNP council because of a local primary school closure in his ward. He’ll also be getting a vote from me.
Might be worth sending an email to any Independent candidates in your ward to ask the direct question “Would you support the SNP in forming a council if they were the largest group on that council?”
Melanie P has always appeared quite unhinged to me. And that neurotic thinness suggests an unhappy wee sowill, deep down.
This latest piece is shockingly bad. Her arrogance is exceeded only by her ignorance of history but she is sadly typical of the Establishment in her ability to spout utter bollocks with complete conviction.
Hope someone’s hidden Robert Peffers’ china.
Apparently we are to be given another opportunity not to hold street parties in honour of yet another Royal jubilee, if Westminster votes for a public holiday in June.
I’m really looking forward to not going to one again.
Capella says:
7 March, 2017 at 2:36 pm
@ heedtracker – I can’t watch that BBC programme not having a TV nor a licence.
I’d never seen her before but extremely familiar voice, of polemic, BBC style. She’s interesting in that she comes across as a radical, leftie polemic but is really just as BBC as the Ligger. They’re employed by tory beeb precisely for that too.
If she was an actual polemicist o the left, she would sit there and say stuff like the actual reality, if we lose control of Scotland, it will seriously diminish England. But that’s clearly not what beeb tory producers are ever going to allow to be said on their BBC.
Even if she does do the usual beed tory thing, that its not the people up there in our Scotland region, its only the SNP, what are going to seriously diminish England, if we lose control of Scotland.
This is the DNA of the 4 separate nations that make up the political union of the UK,
the article is called,
`We are not as British as we think we are`,
Scotland, Wales and NI are mainly populated through the Atlantic sea routs where England mainly comes through the North sea and La Manche,
link to tinyurl.com
@ Proud Cybernat
A bit like you I’ve been thinking about what I would vote for (if I could) after reading comments/explanations from James Kelly and Vestas.
Up till now I would have voted
SNP
SNP
Pro Indy parties
Pro Indy parties
Pro Indy parties
– and then stopped rather than vote any Lib-Lab-Tory.
Now (like you)
SNP
SNP
Pro Indy parties
Pro Indy parties
Pro Indy parties
Lib Dem
Better a halfway useful Lib than a Tory wrecker.
But I still think it’s better to deny Lab and certainly Tory a vote because any votes for them could under circumstances be helpful to them in a tight last seat.
It’s one of the reasons why we come to WOS – we learn to be better.
Well articulated there that man. Another one of these Journey to Yes clips that brings a tear to the eye.
Phantom Power do a great job with these short films.
Bikers for Yes are bloody brilliant: the noise, the visuals. Cannae beat it!
Poundland…
link to imgur.com
jfngw @ 14:29,
Where has Sillars popped up now? Some BritNat Dead Tree Scroll, I suppose.
I would feel sorry for the man, who has clearly become sclerotic in his dotage, if it wasn’t so important for the rest of us. Just another useful idiot for the British State. What a comedown.
You’re right, they seem to be queuing up to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory these days. Colin Fox of the SSP has a letter in The National today saying that Brexit is irrelevant, the EU is unimportant, it’s economic wellbeing that’s important. As if the latter is completely detached from the former. Duh. Only on Planet Fox, that is.
God save us from people with private agendas based on their own loony fixed ideas. And I don’t just mean the obvious yoons.
@yesindyref2
Flouncing doesn’t really work when there is no one to watch. Anyway I’m too lazy and I just don’t have the flowing locks [think Neil Oliver haha] to make flouncing dramatic.
Talking of drama or as we know them ‘useless labour’
link to uk.businessinsider.com?
Conan,
Wonderful news, I too love not going to street parties.
Mind you, not having a street does make it easier!
Scot Finlayson says:
7 March, 2017 at 2:55 pm
This is the DNA of the 4 separate nations that make up the political union of the UK,
Interesting but wonder why there is no such a thing as Scottish DNA? Just Irish, British, Fin, Iberian peninsula, Scandinavia, Greece and so on. Its almost as if Scots do not exist at all, in anything, let alone science.
Science calls it, conformation bias. Don’t not want something to exist? you can easily prove it does not.
But does it:D
@ heedtracker – I had a look at the Claire Fox twitter feed. I too thought of her as fairly left of centre with a Yorkshire accent so not “metropolitan” like most BBC voices. But her twitter is quite right wing and disappointing.
She definitely doesn’t think much of Scotland – Scotland is now antithesis of ‘land of the free’
Oh well. So much for the Institute of Ideas.
Go to the Wings archives for 01 March 2014 and Rev Stu’s post ‘Let’s get this party started’.
It has a video of an interview Melanie Philips gave to Wall Street Journal Live.
Her ignorance and anti-Scottish bigotry is astounding.
Another dramatic announcement from you know who…sheesh
Won’t let me archive so I have copied
Former SNP deputy leader: I won’t vote for Scottish independence if it means rejoining the EU
Former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars has said he will not vote for Scottish independence if it means rejoining the EU after Brexit.
A pro-Leave campaigner in the run up to June’s referendum, Mr Sillars said he “could not vote Yes” to Scottish independence in such circumstances.
Speaking in a BBC Radio 4 documentary broadcast on Monday, the former Glasgow Govan MP warned that Nicola Sturgeon risked alienating SNP supporters, a third of whom voted to Leave, by framing a second referendum around EU membership.
He said: “I, for example, could not vote Yes if on the ballot paper it said, ‘We wish the Scottish state to be a member of the European Union’, and I’m not alone in that.
“One of the biggest miscalculations by Nicola Sturgeon is to believe that the 1.6 million Scots who voted Remain would automatically then vote to go back into the European Union.
“That means Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Tory party, and all the Tories who voted to Remain, would in fact vote to leave the United Kingdom and take a Scottish state into the European Union. I think that’s fantasy.”
Mr Sillars went on to describe what he described as the “grievance tactics” of key figures in the current SNP leadership.
He said: “The whole idea is to drive up the grievance, that we should be treated equal and we are not being treated equally, we’re being ignored, our legitimate concerns are no concern of Westminster.
“You build up this idea that we are being ill-done by inside the United Kingdom.”
He added: “From this point of view, [such tactics] should drive up the Scottish grievance that we are being ill-done to and therefore the best thing to do is get out of it altogether. It’s not a position I agree with.”
The First Minister is widely expected to announced further steps towards a second referendum on Scottish independence at the SNP party conference in Aberdeen next week.
In January, Ms Sturgeon said a second vote was now “more likely” after Theresa May confirmed the UK will leave the European single market.
It seems the Westminster Tory Government now think they can do anything to Scotland and get away with it,” she said. “They must start to understand how wrong they are.”
“The UK Government cannot be allowed to take us out of the EU and the single market, regardless of the impact on our economy, jobs, living standards and our reputation as an open, tolerant country, without Scotland having the ability to choose between that and a different future.”
Memo of M Phillips, consider the Battle of Brunanburh 937 AD.
This goes down in (English written) history as the point in time when the nation of England was born and its boundaries set forever. They alternative non-English version would be that this the point in time when English expansion was halted by the nations which surrounded her.
The English won but had exhausted too many resources to expand further. Perhaps the first if many Pyrrhic victories to come,
Whatever way you look at it, this was when the British Isles had something close to the modern layout settled.
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
@yesindyref2
And we’re there!
==================
The unionist mentalists in the press/media deserve some thanks for this as they seem to have annoyed a lot of folk into backing Wings even more than before. I never backed Wings before but reading some of the recent nonsense had me getting my debit card out twice.
@Conan the Librarian
Apparently too the UK Government will be donating £20 million for a monument to be erected in France to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D Day landings.
Come the next campaign there will be plenty more of this UKOK jingoism meted out I’m sure.
The thousands of Britons who died in the D-day landings are to be remembered with a new monument. The memorial to those who died in the Normandy campaign will be erected at the site of fierce fighting that occurred during and after the Allied landings in France in 1944 and will be unveiled on the 75th anniversary of D-day in 2019.
link to archive.is
Nana at 3.19
I’ve always been wary of Jim Sillars. From his past Labour, then attempted SLP (Scottish Labour Party) connections. He waltzed into the SNP and tried to get into top office immediately. He didn’t manage that and has become a very bitter man ever since.
Since his wife, Margo Macdonald, died he has become a thorn in the flesh of the SNP.
Who listens to him?
Jim Sillars has been befuddled by bitterness against Alex Salmond for a long time. Add regular cheques from the BBC and the Unionist press, and bingo! I give you Sillars & Griffiths anti-independence with both barrels.
This is good. 🙂
link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
@ Scot Finlayson: “…DNA…”
That’s an interesting article. Scots are almost as Irish as Northern Ireland!
___________________________
@ heedtracker: “If she was a radical polemicist of the left, she would sit there and say stuff like the actual reality.”
Aye, the real left, not the conflation with virtue-signalling neoliberals. A rare thing. But as the saying goes: ‘only children, drunkards and fools tell the truth.’ I do believe that is Westminster’s mantra.
Jim Sillars. Does he actually prefer Scotland to be part of neo fascist Brexit UK, or to be a sovereign nation among nations in the EU?
I know a third of Scots would prefer not to be in the EU, and not all are loony right BritNat nutters.
However, the choice that we will have very soon means we can make decisions for ourselves, is that not more important than anything else? That is, for those who aren’t actually loony right BritNat nutters.
Jim Sillers. You have to laugh really. He joins a rather tawdry list of those who set personal agendas before the greatest prize of all. We discussed this very thing over the last few days. Loki, Haggerty, Moyes, Gordon Wilson and now Sillers. .The list is a long one.
Unfortunately Scotland has always suffered such people. From the Darrien scheme right through till today, there are those who put personal needs before any other consideration.
Scotland will be free in spite of them,not because of them.
I just ignore M.Philips, her political point is view is governed by one simple over-riding agenda and it’s nothing to do with Scotland.
But now she shares the same platform as George Galloway on Scotland. Best of enemies?
I will also be amending my ballot on the basis of our James Kelly’s article on STV elections. Could we as many as are able spread the word to friends, family and other independence supporters not on social media, to place the yellow Tories on the last in numerical order of our preferred parties, so that we don’t inadvertently allow either blue or red Tories to gain places on the councils.
I too was going to just have snp and other Indy voting parties and leave off any of the Tories, having not understood the aspect of ‘abstaining’ leaving the field open to red and blue tories to form part of councils’ makeup.
Since 19th September 2014 ma sole aim has been to wipe the Red Tories from the political map in Scotland. To a great extent this has occured as both ge and se have borne out. This is the last refuge of those that remain as gatekeepers of our public services. Most especially in Glasgow, where the Labour mafia controlled council that to their shame have been party to some of the most corrupt practices that have kept this city as ‘the sick man of Europe’ for decades whilst lining their pockets on the back of PFI and other dubious deals that secured them and their families access to public funds whilst poverty remained unchecked on their watch.
I want them annihilated in Glasgow. We voted Yes in this city, time to reflect the changes that we wish to see in how our public services are run…and to have the party that supports an independent Scotland representing and reflecting our outlook in our city council.
Capella says:
7 March, 2017 at 3:16 pm
@ heedtracker – I had a look at the Claire Fox twitter feed.
But its a great life style of the rich and famous of the BBC. If you’re not a socialist when your young, you have no heart, if you’re not a tory when your old, you don’t get lashings of dosh from all kinds of loaded tory propaganda outfits, that will treat you like a little god of tory genius.
Look at Sharmishta Chakrabarti, Baroness Chakrabarti, CBE (born 16 June 1969), commonly known as …. She was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom in 2013 by Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4, or just another faux establishment leftie.
To be fair, Clair’s only one example of just how hard most English people do not want to see Scotland not being run by England. Its their country, they cant bear to see the Highlands and Islands going or Edinburgh, even. That was Rory the Tory explaining his NO to the Ligger, pre Sept 2014.
Grand old territoriality and lots of other stuff about how you perceive you’re Englishness.
@Nana
Thanks goodness for that, it’s about time Sillars came clean. You can be dishonest by pretending to be one thing, but really being another. Or you can sit back as he did and let the media be dishonest in his name: “Jim Sillars, ex-deputy SNP leader, a high heidyin in the YES movement, says blah blah blah” as the media have been doing for months.
All he had to do was say he placed getting out of the EU above a YES vote, and he could have held his head up high. Now?
He’s not the only one being devious that way, allowing their previous YES credentials to get them publicity for their real cause which they put above YES. It damages the YES movement and is plain, outright dishonest.
I can’t find the words to condemn such dishonesty enough.
I may be wrong here,but did not Jim Sillers describe the Scots as” 90 minute patriots”, which led to his ultimately leaving the SNP?
It would appear the term applies to him more than anybody.
Sillars.
Oh, you know, I don’t want Scotland to be independent if it means we will automatically join the EU because if we join the EU then they’ll give us a veto like all the other EU countries have and I just don’t think I’d know what to do with that kind of power. I mean, the UK would NEVER lumber us with such a power so why should we join the EU and have it?
To think I once had respect for Jim Sillars when he told us all that with that 2014 ballot paper in our hands we were sovereign for the first in over 300 years.
Let us now tell YOU, Jim – with an EU VETO in your hands (like all other EU sovereign nation states) you will be more sovereign than you ever will be in a UK that is OUT of the EU.
Stop being a narcissistic arse, Jim.
Something I saw somewhere, can’t remember where exactly, sums up Sillars for me.
“Aw sit doon granda, yev pished yer troosers again.”
Wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out it actually was about him.
Scotland is a place fictional TV show people from England sometimes go to on holiday. Where in Scotland? Who knows. Who CARES?
@Nana
===========
From his antics (not just the latest you quote) one would assume Sillars has never really been pro-Indy but it was just away to try to achieve some prominence after failing with Labour. Stunts like that are really just the attention grabbing actions of the infantile personality who if they can’t get everything exactly as they want it will tear it all down. That wasn’t criticism, which we are all entitled to make but an attack both on the SNP and the idea of Independence.
If he really was a socialist as he’s always claimed he would take note of what’s been happening in the UK regarding attacks on the NHS, education and the weakest in society, and be more careful and considered in his criticism of the SNP who have tried to ameliorate the worst effects of the Westminster misgovernment. But then maybe he was never really a socialist either.
It just occurred to me seconds after I posted. Sillars has always wanted to be the leader of something and never really got there. Is he maybe hoping to split the SNP over Brexit and be the leader of an anti-EU SNP group split off from the main party (with maybe anti-EU Labour add-ons)?
@Reluctant Nationalist
With tourism being about 10% of Scotland’s GDP and a more than equivalent employment, and with English tourists making up about 50% of that tourism, a lot of people around Scotland DO care.
Including me.
Re Jim Sillars, he was pro Indy , I saw him give a speech at the SNP spring conference at Govan Town Hall in 1990′ what an Orator, incredible. I also listened to him in the run up ti the referendum in 2014 and he was pretty good but not inspiring, think he is just losing his marbles.
Reluctant Nationalist says:
7 March, 2017 at 3:39 pm
@ Scot Finlayson: “…DNA…”
That’s an interesting article. Scots are almost as Irish as Northern Ireland!
The whole problem is with British nats and Scottish history is that much if it is based on virtually nothing at all. Like how the Scots apparently invaded from Ireland and invented Scotland. There is nothing in the “sources,” as archaeology calls it, to suggest that a Scottish tribe even existed in Ireland. Its a name plucked from one word in one of the very few written docs that survive today, from over a thousand years ago. No one is even sure where the Angles and Saxons came from, or who they were really.
The one thing we can all be shit sure about today is, when it comes to British history and archaeology, everything is framed to make sure that everything we do not know, is certainly not past Scots, Scotland then and now or anything to do with the people of Scotland today, who did actually exist and still do too, or Irish DNA my arse.
You can probably see why Neil Oliver is a BBC archaeology sex god and not me:D
@Flower of Scotland
I’m of the opinion not many people do listen to him other than unionists and the media. He seems to want to be in the spotlight too much, all about him? I will admit to being disappointed though as he made such a convincing case before indyref. I particularly liked the hospital ships idea, but now as far as I’m concerned he is done.
@Bob Mack
From the 21st Sept 2014
link to archive.is
It’s funny (but no laugh) that these big-talking “former yessers” who supposedly want Scottish autonomy, suddenly U-turn into “ardent no’s” after the Scottish people tell them in no uncertain terms that they want to remain in the EU.
They need to be confronted: “do you believe in the sovereignity of the people of Scotland or just your own?”
If we were already independent, just what would they do? Flounce off to Brexitania?
I could get really exercised about this. Self-serving parasites!
@stu mac
I don’t believe he was a socialist, to use the modern phrase he is a pound shop George Galloway, it’s only about himself. Maybe he still dreams of being the first First Minister of an independent Scotland.
I heard that Sarah Smith programme on the R4 last night.
link to bbc.co.uk
Of all the 56 SNP MPs and 63 MSPs and 1 MEP and 120,000 members Smith could have interviewed – she chooses Jim Sillars. I was half expecting Gordon Wilson to chip in with his opinion. But the BBC must be saving him for the next in depth analysis.
No agenda here.
When is Donalda going to modernise the BBC and let them know that there is an SNP government at Holyrood, 56 SNP MPs at Westminster and soon to be a SNP clean sweep in the Local Authority elections?
From the above article at 3.19
“Former Glasgow Govan MP warned that Nicola Sturgeon risked alienating SNP supporters, a third of whom voted to Leave, by framing a second referendum around EU membership”
Ah but Jim lad, what about the leavers who have now changed their minds. I know two people who admit to having made a huge mistake in voting leave and they will vote yes next time. By giving people the right information and not the media crap and lies written on the side of a bus folks come to different conclusions.
I could be nasty, and compare the re-writing of “British” history to exclude Scotland’s aboriginal Picts with the Nazi’s demanding that academics should re-write German history and archaeology to promote the myth of an Aryan/Nordic master race in prehistory.
But hey, we’re not nasty. Are we?
Not an archaeology sex god, or not not an archaeology sex god, you’ve taught me something new there, heed.
O/T
Mitch Kilbride
2 hrs ·
HARRY SAMH CASE ADJOURNED UNTIL NEXT MONTH
Harry Samh (49) whose real name is Stephen Lyall had his trial diet adjourned until April 25 next month in court 16 at Glasgow Sheriff Court today.
The court was told an essential; police witness was on holiday.
The charges allege two assaults – one involving a police officer and another man. The third charge claims he conducted himself in a disorderly manner and committed a breach of the peace at the time.
We’ve been making Yessers aware of this CONMAN for 2years his new ploy is collecting clothing for the Homeless. If anybody wants to donate anything to the Homeless there are plenty of official Homeless charities / Streetworkers.
Regarding Sillars in particular, if the man were a true Scottish patriot, statesman and democrat, he would stick by his guns, tell everyone that he remained personally convinced that the EU was a bad idea, but that he also recognised the expressed will of the Scots*, and that he would continue to champion Scottish independence and seek to persuade others of like mind that it was still the right course to take.
Sadly, he is none of these things, it seems. He could have stood tall. Instead, lacking any mandate, he prefers to depend on the BBC as megaphone to spout BrexitNat propaganda. Lord Naw-Naw.
*(As opposed to the People of Scotland, since many were carefully disenfranchised by the Tory UKGov, or the result would have been even more overwhelmingly pro-EU.)
Nana said at 7:30am today:
“….link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk ”
Thanks for that,the more we know about the Express and it’s Stablemates the better.
From Wikipedia:
“Political alignment Hard Euroscepticism
Far-right politics
Right-wing populism
UKIP” !!! 🙁
Capella @4:19
With Sarah Smith involved I decided to ignore it. I knew it would only annoy me.
@edtracker says:
7 March, 2017 at 4:09 pm
Scottish history is that much if it is based on virtually nothing at all. Like how the Scots apparently invaded from Ireland and invented Scotland.
====================================================
I think you are a bit confused. True, early history sources can be difficult as there are fewer of them than later (from a British point of view, less true of the Classical world) but you can with care take something from them.
Invaders from Ireland did form a kingdom in Scotland (as we now call it), Dalriada. They themselves didn’t originally think of themselves as “Scots”. “Scotti” was a Latin name applied to Irish raiders – how the new invaders/settlers took the name up themselves is unknown – probably they never called themselves by one name (being alliances of families/tribes) and what the Latin writers called them stuck – just one of these chances of history. We might easily be calling ourselves something quite different today (Dalriadans?). They merged with the Picts (another Latin name given by others and not what they would have called themselves) and later absorbed Angles from the south and Norsemen from the West and North Islands.
Hard as it may be to believe there’s a chance that any of the presumably anti independence presenters at the BBC might reach breaking point and switch. Either they go public and risk being replaced or they get subtle or verge into blatant unionism to an extent that some of the audience go “haud on a moment”
That’s when I’m told that someone advises the next time we have an economic case without the oil I’m not entirely certain which side they’re on now. On one hand it might be better to do a basic case and one with oil to compare and contrast. On the other the, partial at least, recovery of the oil sector does illustrate the common sense idea that we save at least some of the revenue in an oil fund for times when we need to invest or even when it finally runs dry. So good advice to help win the next referendum or an attempt to hide evidence the No side were bullshitters, you decide.
“We’ve been making Yessers aware of this ALLEGED CONMAN for 2years his new ploy is collecting clothing for the Homeless. If anybody wants to donate anything to the Homeless there are plenty of official Homeless charities / Streetworkers.”
Ammended that Ronnie. It’s sub-judicial.
Capella 4:19
So much of our current affairs and news media consists of people holding forth who dont represent anything or anybody apart from their own opinions, or more accurately, the opinions they know will continue getting them into the studio earning them a few quid and keeping them in with the right people.
As you say, they ignore the 56 MPs, 63 MSPs, 2 MEPs, 50% of the voting population, the 120000 members, the most successful, youthful, energetic political movement for a generation, the government of the last 10 years elected through a proportional system, and instead interview a lonely washed up old has-been, or in fact never-was, just because his alleged opinion is useful for the establishment agenda of reducing the Yes vote.
What utterly disgusting and transparent propaganda. I wonder if anyone in the EU is aware of the media situation here in Scotland?
@ yesindyref2: “…tourism…”
Christ, you tellt me! But our wires are a wee bit crossed, I think. The ‘who CARES?’ was my guess at the thought process of the metropolitan english writers of those TV shows (usually soaps) that I mentioned.
I love tourism, me. Mmmm mmmm mmmmmmmm.
@orri
Indeed, it’s hard to tell. I’ve always thought Brewer a bit dodgy by which I mean a possible yesser. And there are other strange things too. Wouldn’t surprise me if Brian had a quick look over his shoulder and stuck an X down in the right box.
I wonder if we’ll ever find out – perhaps when they retire!
Got me thinking actually. I wonder what the true essence is behind England’s historic antipathy towards Scotland.
Is it “just” a millennium of bad feeling and conflict? Vengeance for Scotland’s stubborn intransigence? Why didn’t Britain ever “gel” into a single entity? I mean, it isn’t totally illogical to think it might have, so why didn’t it? I mean, the Normans assimilated with the Saxons, the Angles, Jutes, Celts etc became more or less assimilated in a melting pot that would become England. By the same token, you had Picts, Celts, and Norse and Normans assimilating in what would become Scotland. So why didn’t these two melting pots with so much in common ever gel into one?
I genuinely do wonder whether the “us” and “them” that would later become Scotland and England respectively, quite literally was an ethnic distinction, something a notch up on tribal; where the Picts we’re not just another tribe, but unquestionably distinct from southern “Britons”. Perhaps Hadrians wall wasn’t just an arbitrary boundary invented by the Romans, but already an ethnic/cultural boundary which already existed. A bit like the old black and white Tarzan movies; skulls and voodoo dolls to mark the boundary of the badlands. This is the line where everything changes…
Makes you wonder eh?
There could be generations if not centuries of Pictish history in Scotland, wars with southern neighbours, which pre-dated the Romans for centuries; but all of it lost forever. If the people of Briton were ethnically the same, why would the Romans artificially divide a broadly similar culture with a great wall? Isnt that a persuasive argument that the “us” and “them” was already well established well before the Romans turned up? And I don’t mean a routine tribal boundary, I mean the Romans swept those aside all across Europe. There must have been “something” that made Scotland altogether different.
“There must have been “something” that made Scotland altogether different.”
The pish weather Fair Fornight in Glasgow?
A few years ago while goldpanning near Wanlochead I happened on an odd lump of metal, obviously bronze but what was it. Took it up to the museum and, long story short, it turned out to be a bronze age axe head. Went though the correct procedure of Treasure Trove and I believe it now resides in the museum at Dumfries.
Thing is, this axehead is circa 3,500 years old. Impossible to say for certain Who or where it was made but possibly Irish but there was much trade and interconnectivity at that time. Scotland was also heavily wooded and a fair bit warmer than now.
So who is to say who these hunter/gatherer/metal ore workers were. What can be said is they were in modern day Scotland and must be considered intelligent, skilled and Scots with links to the wider world.
We haven’t changed!
Breeks @5.11
When it comes to INDY to hell with stopping at getting Berwick back – let’s go for Hadrian’s Wall as the new border with perhaps a bit added on for those south of the Tyne. We can have Carlisle as well together with its hinterland and perhaps also The Lake District.
I’m sure that the Geordies would be far better off in an Independent Scotland.
The only snag would be to mutually forgive and forget the goings on in the days of The Border Reivers.
@cappella.
“Of all the 56 SNP MPs and 63 MSPs and 1 MEP and 120,000 members Smith could have interviewed – she chooses Jim Sillars.”
That question should be asked of Jim Sillars.
Is he being set up as an abuse target to vilify the Yes movement? A false flag Spook action?
“Vile secessionist cultists attack former SNP leading light!”
Invaders from Ireland did form a kingdom in Scotland (as we now call it), Dalriada.
Where are you getting your info though stu mac? Need to back up your work with viable sources. Must try harder:D
So much is concocted by Anglocentric guesses on Scottish archaeology and tiny fragments of the usual Neil Oliver levels of Scotland doesnt exist stuff, most of what we know is hokum, dressed up to look like not Scotland Britishness. Their usual thing is merely to say Roman Britain, or Irish DNA for the Scots. But why, is the easiest question going. Scotland is being erased from our collective psyche, at all kinds of levels.
The other end of this is that you can see this in the way the word Celt is now almost completely erased from contemporary British archeo stuff, tv shows to their museums exhibits.
It works on all kinds of levels. “Dear British Museum, please may we have back our Lewis Chessmen now, be great for tourism alone?” No, they’re not yours Scotland, they’re Scandinavian so shut it you slags.
link to britishmuseum.org
The word Scotland pops up once here, “They were probably made in Trondheim, Norway, about AD 1150-1200. At this period, the Western Isles, where the chess pieces were found, were part of the Kingdom of Norway, not Scotland. It seems likely they were buried for safe keeping on route to be traded in Ireland.”
There is absolutely nothing to suggest that the Lewis Chessmen were made in Norway, nothing. Everything about them actually says Celt or Pict Scotland. Its all just been concocted between the ears of the BM crew.
Interesting read on the Brexit/Devolution conundrum
link to archive.is
Jim Sillars well hmmm?
He was the one warning of MI5 involvement in the first Independence campaign. Who pays his wages anyway, just another soor ploom with a grievance or worse?
link to archive.is
@Scot Finlayson
When then they have the most British group being Anglo Saxon Yorkshire, then you have to think there is an agenda. The Scots and Irish DNA may well have been pretty close if not identical, so why not Scots/Irish instead just Irish.
The word British is of course a Roman Latin version of Gaulish word Pritani, picture people possibly referring to the tattoos, which is the name given to inhabitants of this island. The Romans later named
Jim Sillyarse the Hingeroan tae the pettycoat of Margo McDonald. Sail away sail away.
Nuff said.
Just as long as Sillars was pi–ing out of the tent The SNP were prepared to tolerate his actions.
Now that it is obvious that he is pi–ing into the tent and actually trying to sabotage Indyref2 it is time for him to be on the receiving end of the old heave-ho along with Gordon Wilson.
Edward 1 did not only take The Stone of Destiny when he pillaged Scotland he also took all the historical records and ancient artefacts,
who knows what manuscripts, treaties, histories that could have told the story of the beginnings of the country of Scotland were destroyed,
what was left Oliver Cromwell took away after he slaughtered the citizens of Edinburgh,
what little knowledge we have is from the Irish annals,
The `Annals of the four masters` has this part at M3500.1
In this battle fell Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, wife of Milidh; and the grave of Scota is to be seen between Sliabh Mis and the sea.
link to ucc.ie
Heedtracker, @ 5.33 totally agree, although dna does collaberate the creation myth in the declaration of Arbroath , however I think the Picts were the indigenous population of Scotland and have been so since the last Ice Age retreated. It’s utter nonsense to claim the Celts only came to the British Isle c500 Bce , some historians commenting on Megalithic builders call them Proto Celts as they cannot get into their head or they have an agenda to spread the lies that like the English the Celts were invaders of the British Isles.
Ps on Sillars was it not him who came up with the Independence in Europe slogan?
“Invaders from Ireland did form a kingdom in Scotland”.
Stu mac, I recommend you read Stuart McHardy’s ‘Scotland’s Future History’ for an interesting discussion of this topic and many others.
Thing that has always struck me about Hadrians wall, even as a small boy looking at it, was reconciling the sheer volume of work required to build it, with the assertion that always went along with it, that the Scots were hunter gatherers; cave men really, too busy chucking spears at deer, chasing woolly mammoths over cliffs, and eating berries to worry about rudimentary civic government and societal infrastructure, and filling our primitive furry breeks at the sight of a man in shiny armour and a suntan.
Hunter gatherers eh? Err, how many hunter gatherers does it take to justify 73 miles of stone built ramparts and forts??? It was 23ft high in some places FFS! And they did it twice!!
I’m telling you, if that’s the right story, then Scotland must have had some of the most fecking epically formidable hunter gatherers this planet has ever produced.
“Hey Luigi! Call out the guard! There’s one of those mad and deadly hunter gatherers coming this way. In fact, feck the alarm, everybody just run away. There’s two of them”.
In regards to the creation story in the Declaration of Arbroath,
the Irish, `Annals of the Four Masters` an ancient history of Ireland,
it has written,
The Age of the World, M 3501
`In this battle fell Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, wife of Milidh; and the grave of Scota is to be seen between Sliabh Mis and the sea`.
link to ucc.ie
Breeks says:
7 March, 2017 at 6:26 pm
‘Thing that has always struck me about Hadrians wall, even as a small boy looking at it, was reconciling the sheer volume of work required to build it, with the assertion that always went along with it, that the Scots were hunter gatherers;’
Interesting point. We had brochs, stone circles like Calanish etc, Maes Howe, pre-dating Stonehenge and the Pyramids, stuff like the big fk off carved Pictish stone at Forres. Then a massive battle which the Romans claim to have won, but then stratigically withdrew. In accounts I’ve read, Hadrians Wall was built to stop smuggling. Hmm was this a problem anywhere else on the Empires vast frontiers? And if Scotland was too poor to be worth invading, what were we smuggling? Did they build walls anywhere else?
Was the terrain too hostile? What about Switzerland, the Alps, the Pyrenees?
They did actually visit Ireland, but why didnt they stay? Nice fertile land, plenty of tax to be gathered. Maybe too hostile?
The climate was more benign in Roman times too so it cant have been the weather.
heedtracker, stu mac et al:
You may find this interesting.
link to electricscotland.com
The author has not changed his views since 2000 (I e-mailed him quite recently to clarify that point).
As Albert H mentioned, Stuart McHardy’s book is full of iconoclastic stuff.
In other news: Jim Sillars? Sheesh!
I bet Melanie Philips is a fan of “Empire 2.0”
There’s Norse and there’s Norse.
In the main Scotland and Ireland got Norwegians and England got Danes. Not sure if the Welsh held out. The Swedes headed east and probably shagged anything that moved.
When it comes to the Normans the picture gets even muddier as at least some of them were descended from Hiberno Norse and Gaelgellad. The further north and west you went the more probable it was the Normans had family ties. There might be a bit of dubiety about some of Robert the Bruce’s Norman ancestry being Scots but the certainly married in to Scots nobility.
England was conquered by them , Scotland assimilated them. For a while until the advent Protestantism Ireland managed to assimilate English colonies too.
Mis Reporting Scotland coverage of latest NHS stats failed to mention the A&E waiting times which are now over 12% better than in England under the Tories.
Also coverage of Named Person issue failed to mention continued public support for the scheme by Dr Barnardo’s and other childrens’ charities.
More editorial bias to keep viewers in the dark about the true position in Scotland.
Apparently bbc interview with ‘volunteer aid workers’, the white helmets tomorrow.
@capella 4:19
You hit the nail on the head, they kept Wilson for Rep Scot interview. Either you have second sight or they are entirely predictable.
O/T
Seems Louise Mensch, ex Tory MP, has become involved in the Trump wiretapping controversy.
link to washingtonpost.com
O/T.
link to facebook.com
Us bad for attending a Public building lol.
@Breeks
Perhaps Hadrians wall wasn’t just an arbitrary boundary invented by the Romans, but already an ethnic/cultural boundary which already existed.
=============
Forgive me but that seems to be bordering on “blood and soil” nonsense we try to distance ourselves from. The Roman Empire spanned many cultures and ethnicities (with even an African Emperor at one time) and would not have been swayed by any cultural/ethnic differences of the kind you suggest. Not to mention the border you mention is artificial in that way as at different times you had a Strathclyde kingdom that stretched into part of Cumbria and a Northumberland kingdom that stretched up to Edinburgh. The modern border is there partly due to historical accident and partly due to it being a natural place for a border geographically (there are big firths, rivers and hills along there).
It was Celtic tribes/nations that inhabited pre-Roman Britain: no doubt many dialects and variations of culture but dialects of Celtic and variations of the same culture. The probable reasons why the Romans stopped at Hadrian’s wall (and for a while at Antonine’s wall) is that they already controlled the richest parts of Britain and what could be gained didn’t seem worth the effort in view of the resistance. Hardian’s wall is where it is because it was the best place to build it. The other wall, Antonine, didn’t last long. No one can be sure why. Perhaps attacks were so fierce they had to fall back or perhaps they managed to make deals with tribes south of the Antonine to act as buffers.
watching Channel 4 news, English grammar school funding etc, opportunities for the less privileged to get into Grammar Schools.
Am reminded of a Social Psychology study, Reicher and Haslam 2006. One of their conclusions was that if social group boundaries are fixed, the less privileged group start working together to effect change.
However, if the social boundaries are permeable i.e. it is possible to move to a higher status group, then the lower status group are less likely to work together for social change, but will take any opportunity to move to the higher status group.
This is the Tory strategy for staying in power. Create, or appear to create, just enough opportunity for individuals to hope that they can improve their social status, to defuse any collective unrest while preserving inequality and patterns of privilege.
Compare and contrast the SNP policies of actively working to reduce inequality.
O/T Just posted this on FB
Just seen Ch4 news, that new Wikileaks stuff about the Samsung Smart TV that can be turned into a covert monitoring device!!! We will all be like Winston Smith hiding in the corner in case Big Brother is watching!!!
Now I wonder why it is only Samsung TV’s that can be used for surveillance of the general population by the CIA/GCHQ . wonder if Samsung have designed that particular device so that there is a backdoor? Just Saying, there was speculation that the Korean Flight that got shot down over Russia in the 90’s or late 80’s was deliberately flying in Russian airspace in order to get the Russian Air Defence network active, that way the alleged shadowing USA 707 could monitor all the nodes in the network. So possible collaboration between Korea and Western Intelligence resources before. Im sure now the news is out that sales of Samsung Smart TV’s will plummet
The probable reasons why the Romans stopped at Hadrian’s wall (and for a while at Antonine’s wall) is that they already controlled the richest parts of Britain and what could be gained didn’t seem worth the effort in view of the resistance. Hardian’s wall is where it is because it was the best place to build it. ”
stu mac, but but but, south of Hadrians wall, the north of England is not very different terrain and resources wise, from southern Scotland and the Highlands, all the way down to Leeds and Sheffield. At which point England does flatten out into lovely English rolling countryside.
The only likely reason for Hadrians wall and the end of the Roman Empire was clearly because, a. They couldn’t defeat and enslave the Picts, or b. they couldn’t make a political deal with Picts, as they did throughout much of England.
Roman warfare was at its best in siege warfare or shock and awe. What’s more than likely in Pict land is that they couldn’t find major Pict centres to lay siege too, or any big Pict army to defeat. Clearly Pict armies were there but if they had any knowledge at all of how successful the Roman armies were, especially after last decisive and failed Boudica rebellion stand, they did not take them on. The last Boudica battle may cost over two hundred thousands lives, at the hands of maybe a five thousand strong Roman Army.
Which also may explain the great Roman Mons Grampius defeat of the Picts myth, that the Romans probably cooked up for consumption back home. It never happened but they wanted it to, just like our chums in the south do today.
@Brown666W on Rev’s twitter feed
Is this what you are looking for?
link to wingsoverscotland.com
@stu mac
`Scotland wasn`t worth the effort`,
but it was worth the effort to build the largest structure ever built ever in the history of human existence up until the Chinese Great Wall,
civilisation goes back 8,000 years before the Romans turned up here and not once did any of the Great Empires ever build such a massive structure,
80 miles of stone built wall,more stone than all the pyramids put together,
and you are saying they done it because they couldnae be bothered wae us.
pish.
@
heedtracker says:
Where are you getting your info though stu mac? Need to back up your work with viable sources. Must try harder:D
==========================================
And yet you don’t back your own statements up with sources. You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about Oliver. Twat he may be but he is an archaeologist and he doesn’t make stuff up (though of course a lot of archaeology – and history too where sources are scarce or contradictory – is down to interpretation and one may disagree with his interpretation).
I didn’t quote a source because I had a clear memory of the story of Dalriada and the “Scots” coming to what is now Scotland. I really thought this was basic history to be found in any history book. Just for you though:
link to en.wikipedia.org. This wiki entry has a good number of sources quoted so you can double check it. Any number of general books on early Scottish history will tell you about this. I have a book on my shelf which I just checked and which confirms the Scots/Dalriada thing – Tim Clarkson The Picts.
You seem to be confusing the names of things with the things themselves. Talking about “Scotti” coming from Ireland isn’t denying the existence of Scotland/Scottish culture. It’s just showing part of our origins and where the name probably came from. Claiming the Lewis chessmen came from Norway isn’t denying Scottish culture – the chessmen were made at a time when Norsemen inhabited and ruled parts of what is now Scotland so it would be natural for them to have trade with Scandinavia.
This is all part of the story of Scotland and it isn’t denying anything about Scotland’s history’ it’s just telling you something about things that contributed to it.
Hmm, that map of ancient cultural/tribal shift,
MUST BE A JOKE.
Surely, somebody, ANYBODY…. At The Times, could have had a peek at it’s provenance.
Unless that’s what they teach in English Schools. Like creationism it’s history that only starts when it’s their guy in charge.
Bampot elitists, the lot o them.
As my axhead post suggested we should not define ourselves by the Romans. They had the written word and like the D. Mail they had an agenda for the folk back home.
We have an unwritten history that far predates the Romans and we have an as yet unwritten future. We should become scribes to that future.
Just because the Romans could write it doesn’t mean they could count in a meaningful way. That needed Arabic science and traditions.
Every NO to YES counts!
@heedtracker
==========
I should have added that there are things that suggest that the chessmen were made in Norway:
link to en.wikipedia.org
The link mentions others have claimed them, like Iceland so there can be an argument but the point is if you read the article that there are good reasons to argue for Norway and Trondheim in particular.
@Orri
=============
As you say, the Danes found it easier (for geographic reasons) to invade England. Norway’s best route for trade/raiding was via Orkney/Shetland down the west coast and into Ireland. The Orkneyinga Saga is worth a read about this. Though not too much detail the writers were mainly interested in battles and raids and got bored with the day to day stuff.
I just for the life of me, cannot fathom why Jim Sillars and Gordon Wilson, both take it upon themselves to rubbish something and a party they both claim to support.
Is it ego? Is it because they feel irrelevant? Seriously WTF is wrong with them. Over and over again, rent-a-moan Gordon Wilson and Jim Sillars are in the papers, telling everybody how bad independence is, and how bad the SNP is. Jeezo, talk about glass half empty.
Then today we have the petulant Jim Sillars stamping his feet, and telling us he won’t vote for independence unless it is EXACTLY in the form HE demands. Grow up, FFS. Grow the Feck up.
@heedtracker
7 March, 2017 at 7:48 pm
==========================
Some good well argued points there. I will mull them over.
I suspect that Sillars and Wilson have developed old mens’ cold feet and are looking for an excuse not to vote for independence.
Their ‘mojo’ has long gone.
@Scot Finlayson
====================
No, I’m saying they did it because they met resistance and other difficulties and it was not worth the effort it would have taken – which would also have to be paid in the blood of their own soldiers – in relation to the gains that would be made. If the Pictish tribes had been peaceful they no doubt wouldn’t have needed a wall.
This is a discussion of course which many scholars have had down the years and we’re not likely to prove it one way or the other. I don’t like however the idea that Scots (or as called then Picts) were somehow better/tougher than other peoples. It was just a combination of circumstances that led to it happening.
@Robert Louis
Very well said IMO. Somebody needed too.
I don’t want Independence anymore
Unless there’s Penny Dainties with it and mibbees a Jubilee
defo Soor Plooms is the least I demand
An a drink!
@Clootie says: 7 March, 2017 at 8:25 am:
” … The suggestion to ignore oil revenue is utter madness.”
It most certainly is madness, clootie.
First of all the Yoon propaganda has always implied that the fluctuating price of oil mainly adversely affects the Scottish economy. Nothing could be further from the truth simply because Scotland never sees a penny of it as it goes through the Treasury books as being extracted from the United Kingdom’s, “Extra-Regio-Territory”.
As only the country of England is funded directly as, “The United Kingdom”, (a.k.a.England), while the rest of the, “United Kingdom”, (a.k.a. England), countries are funded by Block Grants made to them by the United Kingdom, (a.k.a. England), then Scotland gets nothing directly from the oil & gas extracted from the United Kingdom, (a.k.a. England’s), extra-Regio-Territories.
There are effects for Scotland, though. In the sense that Scottish Employment figures decrease and the business rates raised by the local councils from the on-shore properties used by the oil industries takes a nose dive.
In effect it is the United Kingdom Treasury that takes the big hit when oil prices go down just as it is the United Kingdom Treasury that creams off the revenues from the oil & gas sectors at all times. In truth, even if the revenues earned by an independent Scottish treasury were two pence a barrel it would be a clear gain for Scotland.
The point that makes it madness is not about who makes the profits, though. It is that the average Joe & Josephine Public on the street have never grasped the simple fact that Scotland doesn’t gain anything from the oil & gas revenues.
If you doubt me then ask them when you next go knocking doors or manning stalls or constituency offices. Or even just talking to people anywhere.
The Westminster Establishment Propaganda Machine has well and truly fixed that particular fixation into Scottish voter’s brains.
The majority have never really thought things through and just accept that the revenues go to Scotland. Just as most Englanders just unthinkingly accept that Scots are all subsidy junkies and that it is English, (a.k.a. United Kingdom), taxpayer’s money that comes to Scotland via the Block Grant.
The United Kingdom=England and England=The United Kingdom so in their minds it is England subsidising Scotland.
It never is calculated correctly as being – The Scottish average per capita GDP is Higher than The English average Per Capita GDP and thus Scots on a per capita basis are each contributing more to the United Kingdom Treasury.
That means we must show them that we must do the sums as, “Revenue, (not including Oil & gas), raised from Scotland minus the Block Grant Returned to Scotland = The subsidy Scotland pays to The United Kingdom, (a.k.a. England).
Once that idea gets into Scots voters heads the next Indy referendum is won.
@ Glamaig says
“In accounts I’ve read, Hadrians Wall was built to stop smuggling. Hmm was this a problem anywhere else on the Empires vast frontiers? And if Scotland was too poor to be worth invading, what were we smuggling?”
Wood my dear boy, wood. Good Scots Pine.
The Romans needed it for housing and heating but they couldn’t get it because the Wall was in the way.
So the Scots cut it in to 10foot lengths (Pictish = caberus) and secretly hurled the trunks over the wall.
This was where the smuggler term “Tossing the Caber” came from. 😉 🙂
Caramacs and MB bars returned to their ‘original’ size…the ‘only’ reason I’m voting Yes in indyref2. Even if MB bars are no longer available…ah waant them reinstated in an independent Scotland! Freeeedum!
*returns to mirror to finish aff daubing up face wi blue paint*
(May as well start listing our ‘real’ reasons and aspirations for self determination…looks over at Dr Jim, penny dainties is it…hmm, low aspirations Jim, c’mon sherbet wi liquorice and thon wee white chocolate mice, stand our ground! We want it all!) 😉
@K1
White chocolate mice and MB bars I’ll vote for that!
@Nana says: 7 March, 2017 at 11:31 am:
“Here is the Philips piece in the times. Cor blimey!
link to archive.is“
Ach! Nana. It is just the poor sod has had a very poor education.
There has never, in the entire history of the British Isles, ever been a nation called, “Britain”.
Mind you each and every nation in the British Isles is, “British”. By the way – there are eight of them.
These idiots just cannot get their heads round the very obvious truth that the terms, “England”, “United Kingdom”, and “Britain”, all mean something different.
o/T and whilst we are discussing historical incidents, it is said that 600 men from Bute lost their life at the Battle of Falkirk. Contrary to recent practice, Back then Brandane referred to people from Bute and Arran. Somebody on Arran is trying to design a flag for the Island, I have suggested if the Island has any flag it should be the Brandane Flag, only thing is nobody knows that it is, Im sure most folk back in the day went into battle behind a Standard or Flag, anybody know if the Brandanes had a flag?
Hey Rev –
Think I know why nutter Siobhan had been off twitter.
Did you see her on as an expert (?) on ‘The Windors’
About Queenie & the dirty bid Castle ??
Check it out ?
Its easy to get bogged down stu mac in any dark age history especially, so Dalriada we know today is all based entirely on a song, The Duan Albanach. Why not? Gaelic was and is an oral culture, that wrote very little at all.
Hadrians wall is not unique either, Rome built a far bigger one across their north African frontier, for probably much the same reasons they built Hadrians, security, Trump style.
You say, “Claiming the Lewis chessmen came from Norway isn’t denying Scottish culture –”
But its not base on anything though. Lewis Chessmen have no Scandinavian characteristics at all. They are clearly Scottish but they’ve whipped by the British Museum, who are making the assumption that we all take what they say at face value, that they are Norwegian en route around the country that they belong to. Its not by chance.
Such is the UK today.
Also Neil Oliver is a BBC actor and journalist, not an archaeologist. Everything he says is lensed through his unionist stuff, coz that’s where the dosh is. Fair enough.
@ jfngw – ha ha – re Gordon Wilson, well spotted. They are entirely predictable!There aren’t many renegade SNP members they can interview. I’ll make a wild guess that Alex Neil will pop up at some point!
Then there are the resigned one’s to invite into the studios – I’m not so familiar with them but there’s a chap Bell who has a bit of an axe to grind.
heedtracker @ 10.13
“”Also Neil Oliver is a BBC actor and journalist, not an archaeologist. Everything he says is lensed through his unionist stuff, coz that’s where the dosh is. Fair enough.””
Mr Oliver has a MA degree (2.1 hons) in Archaeology from the University of Glasgow.
Mr Oliver has a MA degree (2.1 hons) in Archaeology from the University of Glasgow.
But an MA does not make you an anything, in the MA subject Legerwood.
HandandShrimp,
“Britain, by contrast, is an authentic unitary nation. It didn’t begin with the union with Scotland but as the British Isles, an island nation defending itself (or not) against invaders from across the seas.”
Robert Peffers is in 100% agreement with that statement.
Re SNP renegades: there can’t be that many so if they keep wheeling out the same weel-kent faces then the public will become a bit suspicious.
Apart from Sillars and Wilson, there is Alex Bell and former MSP from the Highlands, Jean somebody who stood for Rise.
Alex Neill may rock the boat but I don’t think John Finnie (?) will as he is now a Green MSP.
Still positive, think you mean Jean Urquhart who along with John Finnie stood down over NATO. I very much doubt you will hear Jean being a dissenting voice such as Sillars etc.
@Breeks says: 7 March, 2017 at 2:30 pm:
“Britain, by contrast, is an authentic unitary nation. It didn’t begin with the union with Scotland but as the British Isles, an island nation defending itself (or not) against invaders from across the seas.the Times…”
Sheesh!
The first recorded British history was a few brief mentions by the ancient Greeks that really did no more than record there was an group of islands with white cliffs. Then came the Romans.
Their records often contradict each other but all are agreed upon one fact.
What the Romans all agree upon is that the lands they invaded were peopled by a great many different tribes all with their own areas and every one of those areas had many factions within it.
As for the more northern tribes, the Romans adopted a generic name for the many tribes and called them all Picts.
Roman Britain was, from around 54 BC until around 410 AD. but never encompassed the entire British Isles.
So that is around 454 years where we have certain proof Britain was NOT a unified country and it has never been a single unified country ever since.
What is more the United Kingdom is a union of two Kingdoms that between them contain four distinct countries. It is not now a unified country and it never has been.
So much for the English education system.
Gobstoppers for Sillars
In an Independent Scotland there shall be sweeties as consumed by our ancestors and revered as once they were when we were a nation united against the common enemy of us all to every man and woman, at a time when all loyalties were to Scotland we fled the cinema as one people at the end of the big picture as soon as the British National Anthem started
Many were injured in those escape flights for the bus and the chippy
I can still smell the vinegar now through the fag smoke upstairs
The smell of Scotland
Hadrian built walls in North Africa too
link to youtube.com
to control transhumance and protect agriculture. Maybe was the same in Scotland, the potential revenues from conquest and strategic value werent going to be worth the military effort. Logical folk the Romans. Still a huge cost to build a wall though.
OT. re. JKR’s latest intervention, quoting Orwell’s view of nationalism as reason why Scots should not seek to access their inalienable human rights. OMG, where to start?
@JKRowling
Really? Don’t take this the wrong way, as I’m sure you have good intentions, but I don’t think you have the relevant knowledge to defend a state of colonialism in the 21st century. British nationalism and English Socialism are so passe and a bit too
paternalisticchauvinisticcolonially English for my tastes. A Scottish differential oppositional consciousness is where it’s at, no the musing of old Etonions.link to gold.ac.uk
link to jstor.org
link to goodreads.com
link to muse.jhu.edu
Introducing Social Semiotics
link to e-edu.nbu.bg
Legerwood: “Mr Oliver has a MA degree (2.1 hons) in Archaeology from the University of Glasgow.”
What was the archaeological specialism he wrote about?
He talks as if he has a PhD Hon in the “History of Scotland – 1100 to the Present Day”, and unchallengeable knowledge of “The Politics of the Scottish National Party in Modern Times.”
More likely he has a certificate in blow cuts from Charlie Millar Salon.
Robert Peffers,
“The Irish, whether they like it or not, live in the British Isles and are thus British. If they choose to claim not to be British then, like you, they have conceded their right to be British to the United Kingdom.”
Melannie Phillips,
“Britain, by contrast, is an authentic unitary nation. It didn’t begin with the union with Scotland but as the British Isles, an island nation defending itself (or not) against invaders from across the seas.”
Robert Peffers is even more “British” than Melannie Phillips is.
Hhmm…Heseltine to be sacked for being revolting, oops sorry, for rebelling in Brexit vote in HoLs.
With council elections looming, Aberdeen’s great Wullie Dont Call Me Stupid Young, has published for delivery to every Aberdeen household, his own list of achievements what he’s done for Aberdeen, as the owner of ACC, all paid for by the council tax payer, whom Wullie is going hell for leather to try and bankrupt.
This is one answer crowd funded counter to Sir Wullie’s electioneering at our expense, probably also due to the local rag being very pro Wullie, and very pro the tories in general, very very pro.
link to drive.google.com