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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A tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
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
Back to the Future:
“I may well be feeling giddily optimistic today but I see a shimmer on the horizon that shows a United Ireland and an Indy Scotland in the EU”
link to twitter.com
(via Indy-supporting Angela Haggerty’s timeline twitter thing)
Did someone mention Neil Oliver.? Please desist. Mad Mel, British Neil, it’s historical revisionism gone mad!
link to thenational.scot
Tomorrow’s “National” front page:
Alan Mackintosh @11.05.
As soon as I posted it I realised I had heard nothing re Jean Urquhart so I didn’t expect her to be against EU membership. Thanks for providing the name.
The “National” twitter pages:
link to twitter.com
If you read her description of what she insists “Britain” is it doesn’t include Scotland or even the entirety of England and Wales. It sure as hell doesn’t Ireland. She says Britain didn’t come in to being when Scotland united with England but existed well before then repelling incursions over Hadrian’s Wall. It’s Britannia in the period outwith a couple of decades when the Romans managed a toe hold in Caledonian territory.
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?
link to muse.jhu.edu
Introducing Social Semiotics
link to e-edu.nbu.bg
@heedtracker
where`s this bigger stone built wall in Africa ?
do you have a link?
Hootsman widdles down the tory drain but does it have to die a tory death for the UKOK zone of Ruthie Babes reign?
FT
UK newspaper industry
Metro becomes UK’s most-read daily newspaper
Free morning paper that avoids partisan approach overtakes Sun and Daily Mail
6 HOURS AGO by: Henry Mance and David Bond
The Brexit debate has intensified the stereotype of Britain’s tabloid newspapers: unruly, irresponsible and absurdly partisan. But there is at least one exception.
Metro, the free morning paper, is unique in remaining neutral on the big political issues, from Brexit to the Budget. It has now overtaken The Sun and the Daily Mail to become the country’s most-read daily print paper, with an audience of 10.4m a month, according to the National Readership Survey.
Metro has no leading articles, opinion pieces or even a reporter based at Westminster. “When you don’t have a leader, you don’t have to take a side,” said one former
Conan and Cearc:
Oh goodie – can we not have another street party this summer. I so enjoyed not going to the one in our street.
It’s quite easy not having a party on the main bus route, but I’m sure the committee will try their best to not plan one again, especially when it was so noticeably not attended.
I really can’t wait to see everyone else’s pictures shared. Oh joy!
How dare those unelected reprehensibles – sorry, representatives in the House of Lords create problems for THeresa May- and her such a nice woman too… Good for them, I say!
Metro – the paper that the DUP used for a 4 page pro-Brexit spread paid for by a gift of £200,000+ from the CRC, Tory wealthy crackpot club.
Not bad for a neutral newspaper that clearly took sides as it didn’t do a 4 page anti-Brexit wrap around spread.
10.4 million copies – that’s massive! How much does that cost to produce?
Scot Finlayson says:
7 March, 2017 at 11:35 pm
@heedtracker
where`s this bigger stone built wall in Africa ?
The Hadrians wall we know was part of a wall network that circled the whole of the Roman empire.
link to whc.unesco.org
Hammer of the Scots, Dan Snow explains the African wall
link to youtube.com
heedtracker says:
7 March, 2017 at 10:44 pm
“”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.””
Yes it does. He worked on archaeological digs during his degree and as a freelance archaeologist after he graduated. You completely misrepresented him when you said he was an actor thus suggesting he had no qualifications as an archaeologist. Just as you misrepresent the African wall.
The African wall was not a continuous wall like Hadrian’s Wall but consisted of sections of varying lengths depending on the area to be protected. It was certainly built along a greater length than Hadrian’s wall but was not continuous. Where the desert provided a natural barrier there was no need for a wall.
Your lack of accuracy does your arguments, such as they are, no favours.
Your lack of accuracy does your arguments, such as they are, no favours.
Oh no!
heedtracker @ 23:21,
Just read that catalogue of woe about my old home city. It makes me want to weep or scream, I can’t decide which.
SLab’s expertise in maladroitness and stupidity writ both large and small simultaneously. Serial catastrof**k concentrated into a few square kilometres. (Just think what they could have done if they had had a whole country to run! Better not…)
If only I still had a vote there! But if there is any rightful nemesis coming SLab councils way in May, the portion coming to Aberdeen City should be coming
in spadesby the shipload.(Oh, did the auto spellchecker get that last word right?)
Re the Metro….. it may not run an editorial but you don’t need to dig deep to find the bias, just glance at the daily letters for a lovely dose of Yoon-selected/edited SNP-Baaaaadness…..
Dave McDave @ 1.17am
I think we all know the Metro is owned by the Daily Mail – perhaps it is their ‘toned down’ version although I hae ma doots.
Mibbe I should pick up a copy next time I am on a bus for a quick swatch.
From my previous observations, many people pick it up for the crossword and the puzzles in the same way as the Record – they don’t actually read it.
I’m no expert on the Roman Empire, but there is something fundamentally inconsistent about 73 miles of stone built ramparts built to cut off Scotland, to be subsequently repeated with the 39 miles of Antonine wall.
If it was just a marker of the extent of the Roman Empire, then why would it need forts at every five miles?
And the argument that it simply wasn’t worth conquering Scotland is undermined by the Antonine wall; quite clearly it was.
There are two fundamental questions for which I have no satisfactory answer. Why build it at all? And why build it there? I don’t see the sense of it. There are multiple possibilities, but a gnawing doubt there is still something missing in the narrative.
The Chinese build their Great Wall to keep a vast Chinese army occupied doing something constructive and holding back the rampaging Mongols. Apply that model to the Romans, whether in Africa or mainland Europe, and you have an excess of idle Roman troops available, together with a potent threat to be repelled.
It is overkill for demarcation of boundary, control of smuggling, or even to prevent raids by militia, unless those raids were big and regular raids.
I can only reconcile the wall, make that walls, with some kind of potency in Scotland; either a potency of fear or fearful perception in the Romans, or an actual potency in terms of Scotland’s capacity to attack and plunder Roman territory. Across Africa, mainland Europe and the Middle East, I can readily accept the vastness of unchartered continent beyond, and the point where manpower of the Empire falters, but neither of those seem entirely applicable to Scotland; or at least the Scotland we think we know.
Gordon Wilson is a man blinded by religion. He’s a religious zealot.
I believe he is very bitter regarding same sex marriage and this is clouding his vision.
I’m an atheist and view all religion with derision.
Sillers is just a massive ego to be ignored.
You could make a plausible argument that having a threat beyond a big wall could have been a tool the Romans used to keep the peace at the periforal extremes of the Empire where manpower was thin. As in, don’t rebel against the Romans, because they’re here to protect you, and their presence is what keeps the Barbarians behind the wall. The danger was perhaps exaggerated to suppress dissent inside the wall. Quite literal divide and conquer philosophy where a small force of Romans inside a walled fort holds the balance of power.
But that can’t be right either, because the Antonine wall, with forts every 2 miles, then makes no sense. These had to be military fortifications to sustain ongoing invasion against ongoing resistance.
Links
link to indyref2.scot
link to autonomyscotland.org
link to news.gov.scot
link to thoughtcontrolscotland.com
link to scotlandfoodanddrink.org
link to rbs.postach.io
link to news.gov.scot
link to ericjoyce.co.uk
link to thecanary.co
For the first time in my life, the prospect of a United Ireland is not only credible but inevitable
link to archive.is
link to irishtimes.com
How Brexit could break devolution
link to archive.is
link to ukconstitutionallaw.org
link to politicshome.com
link to blogs.lse.ac.uk
Brexit: UK public overwhelmingly oppose Theresa May’s plan to leave EU with no deal in place
link to archive.is
Nana: Good Morning,
A wee bit overcast this morning, but the Sun is trying to come through, links for breakfast. Kettle’s on.
Peace Always
Tried posting 3 times yesterday,1 not complete and the other 2 disappeared.
So here goes.
Very interesting thread regarding the make up of the British isles, the DNA findings seem to fit into a pattern developing in the Britnat narrative, Melanie Phillips drivel from yesterday being a case in point. Anglo Saxon Yorkshire people being the most British, wow. Actually, it could be argued that it demonstrates how little the impact the Anglo Saxon genes have had on the gene pool of Britain.
The Roman Empire was built on slaves and plunder, conquest was required to keep the Empire going. Scotland had many desirable assets, not least it gold, pearls, silver, but mostly its grain production. You have to look at the treaties Rome entered into, Fife and Lothian were the largest grain producers and they entered into treaties with both these kingdoms, Orkney was actually one of the first Kingdoms to enter into a Treaty with the Romans, though the reasons are unclear why.
As far as Hadrians wall is concerned, the legend of the disappearance of the ninth legion is in there somewhere. Britain was the most troublesome part of the Empire and required the largest concentration of legions of any part of the Empire. The threats from the north and Ireland were very real.
“Off you go Chummy”, mild mannered Melanie Phillips responds to online critique of her assertions about Ireland.
Nana, thanks for the laugh of the day in the Irish Times.
Ot
listened to some of our MP’s recently on radio and in Westminster.
They have got into the bad habit of saying “this country ” when referring to The UK. Goany no dae that. This country’s is Scotland. As for the rest
Golfnut:
The ninth legion got massacred when they chased a lone Scotsman up and around Ben Nevis and were surprised when they realised that he was not alone.His pal was lying in ambush and so the two of them took care of the ninth.:-)
Peace Always
Good morning Smallaxe. Damp & dark here right now, hoping it clears soon.
Heseltine sacked as government adviser over Brexit rebellion
link to archive.is
Worrying thread here
link to twitter.com
Sillars the grievance master. Listen here
link to indyref2.scot
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
@Capella Lol something went wrong!
link to irishtimes.com
I like to think Sillars is suffering from a broken heart and lost most of his marbles when Margo died. I wonder if she is turning in her grave listening to the silly old fool doing the Yoons’ work for them.
Melanie Phillips OTOH is a gift to the independence movement. Her deranged rantings are to be encouraged as even the blindest will be hit square between the eyes by her wilful ignorance.
The location of the Antonine wall is where the distance is narrowest from coast to coast. It’s construction was either in the preliminary stages or changed. The intent might have been for a stone structure and given the evidence of foundations underneath there may even have been a start made on it. What the completed was actually an estimated 3m high earthwork with a ditch on the northern side. There might have been a wooden palisade on top but nobody knows.
All in all it wouldn’t have been much use against a determined assault. Especially as there isn’t very far between the coasts on either side so getting men round either end of the wall would be fairly easy. It’d be more use as a method of controling the passage of bulk goods and driving so taxation. Even then questions might be asked as to whether the taxes gained paid for the cost of manning it.
There’s suggestions that the building of Hadrian’s Wall indicated the end of the major expansion of the empire. The Antonine “Wall” might have been a political gesture to show the Empire still had it and could still expand. If that’s so then it was a failed attempt.
All you Gentlemen remember that this is International Women’s Day.
Here’s to our wives and girlfriends.May they never meet!
🙂
Peace Always
Seems Mr Sillars has started quite a debate upthread.
Bit of a thorny problem you’d think. That whole voted YES, then leave, now torn over YES/NO thing.
Y’know, for those who voted both YES and leave, it’s worth mentioning that if an independent Scotland ever wanted to leave the EU, then you don’t need to ask anyone’s permission. Certainly don’t recall Westminster seeking an EU equivalent of an S30.
You don’t need to debate in a parliament NOT your own. You don’t require an S30 as I’ve already mentioned. You don’t need special committee’s agreements or votes in Commons and the Lords. You don’t need to go cap in hand.
Passing the buck onto the next door neighbour’s vote to achieve an aim also strikes me as not simply undemocratic, but unworthy. If we want independence, then we have to be better than that.
All you need do is vote for a party that proposes same and give them a mandate. The EU won’t prevent the action. They won’t intervene. They won’t unleash the collective media of their fellow members against you. They won’t interfere at all. The decision would be between you and the government you elect.
How vile is that?
Personally, I have no bone in this EU/EFTA argument. Near as I can tell, they all have their pros and cons. I am pretty much a Europhile though and I do want Scotland’s electorate to be outward reaching, progressive and internationalist. No protectionism, no isolationism. No using people, human beings, as bargaining chips in some demented negotiation process. No discarding peoples rights because… foreigner!
If a future independent Scotland decides the EU isn’t for it, then fine. Scotland’s electorate should vote for that. But it should be a decision for Scotland’s electorate alone and NO ONE else. I’d hope that in such an event we’d show more common decency and humanity than the appalling brexit process we’re witnessing today. I’d also hope any such debate would be better informed and conducted with something approaching civility and honesty.
Mind you, you’d need a fully empowered government of your own to do that grown up stuff. Have choices. Make decisions. Have grown up conversations and such. A government you vote for and which responds to your mandates.
Sounds cool t’me. 🙂
@Smallaxe
😀 LOL
Hey Smallaxe Consulted that great Scottish Historian Matthew E McGinn, and here’s the definitive version of what happened to the missing Roman soldiers:
link to youtube.com
Hey, Smallaxe,
Just consulted that great Scottish Historian and philospher Matthew E McGinn. Here’s what he has to say about missing Roman soldiers
link to youtube.com
Nana says
After walking out of negotiations Mayhem would back up her position by calling a snap general election IMO. And she would win.
None of this surprises me. I have found it difficult to see how Mayhem could get a massive divorce settlement past the hardcore Brexiteers and media. I have been thinking there was always a real chance of never getting beyond the divorce settlement, never mind into trade discussions.
On Romans, weegingerdug has a very good summary of that history on his blog. It would appear Hadrian wanted to consolidate the Roman Empire and built a lot of barriers, the more normal ones were turf and wood, or series of forts, the Limes in Germany was palisade fence with forts I believe.
The stone wall Hadrian had built from Solway to Tyne seems like an expensive enterprise, but if you want to make your mark, be remembered in history & show your power, maybe it is reasonable. Strangely, we accept it was Hadrian had the wall built now, but it was thought of Severus’ Wall up until a hundred years ago, or so.
Antonine came after Hadrian and possibly wanted to make a good show of power by moving out the edge of empire by building his wall from Clyde to Forth. But there is also the Gask Ridge, the series of forts that march up through Perthshire, the most northerly evidence of Roman fort is up by Inverness – Hadrian’s wall lasted the longest as a northern frontier, but was by no means that most far north they ever got. They believed the edge of the world was north of Orkney.
England was rich in resources they wanted; tin, silver & crops I believe, and so a good prize, but it is expensive maintaining an occupying force – so after battering a region, they would install administrators to collect taxes and control the area – this was likely a lot more difficult in the wilder more sparsely populated regions in now-Scotland, and it wasn’t as rich in their desired resources – the same reason Ireland wasn’t much of a prize? I only realised recently that ‘Chester’ in a town name indicates a Roman town. Seems to have been good for your career, for those higher up the ladder, to serve in north frontier & there was quite a lot of power playing going on here – bizarre when it was so far away from Rome – senators and emperors were made & broken here.
Anyway, it is what empires do – artificially divide lands and cultures. Who knows what might have developed without the Romans destroying civilisations? Same with the British empire in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh for example. Nasty things, empires.
Sorry. Forgot to remove the http. Post went missing first time and kind of hurried sending the second version and forgot. Await hammers descending.
Have to confess I don’t fully get why folks want to leave Europe.
In a nutshell, I see years of anti European rhetoric, mainly from the BBC smearing everything continental, from the Froggies to the Poles, and any number of dull stereotypes. When I see a Europhobic person, the first thought in my head is here is someone who has bought the stereotypes. I mean I’m sure there’s a lot more to it, and reasonable arguments I’m sure, but the whole subject is thoroughly tainted with UK propaganda.
In order for May to have an early election she would first have to put a Bill before Parliament to amend the fixed term parliament act introduced by Cameron. This may take some time in the current political climate.
It is therefore dubious she could call an election until this fixed term Act was overturned.
Hung by their own petard perhaps ?
@Nana
“Sillars versus Sillars”
James Kelly shows the absurdity of Sillar’s position perfectly.
” I’ve decided to give my absolute sovereign power back to London, because I’m anti-EU and I cannot accept the Scottish people’s overwhelming majority decision to remain in Europe. If Brexit needs to be imposed on Scotland by the votes of another country, so be it. Getting out of the EU is more important to me than national sovereignty.”
This is a much wider issue than just Sillars. Polls suggest a large number of NOs have switched to YES because of Brexit.
However, another chunk of YESs have gone the other way, allegedly because ‘national sovereignty’ is less important than leaving the EU.
What James paraphrases above is exactly what YESs who have switched must be saying. They need to think long and hard about what really matters.
Manx Radio news saying that Hammond is expected to put up taxes in today’s budget.
What was Miz Harrison saying about Scotland being the highest taxed part of the UK?
Bob Mack says
It can be overcome ….
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
” Section 2 of the Act also provides for two ways in which a general election can be held before the end of this five-year period:
If the House of Commons resolves “That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government”, an early general election is held, unless the House of Commons subsequently resolves “That this House has confidence in Her Majesty’s Government”. This second resolution must be made within fourteen days of the first.
If the House of Commons, with the support of two-thirds of its total membership (including vacant seats), resolves “That there shall be an early parliamentary general election”. “
…. it would seem possible to engineer an election.
Apologies, I wrote ‘Antonine’ instead of Antonius.
The division was made in Roman times, but it is what it is, England has had such a different history from Scotland since, and there really does not seem to be any consolidation possible between the different constitutions, and there should never have been any Union in the first place – it is nice to know that Scotland has not been destroyed by that union, but then, British imperialism never got the hang of assimilation like the early Roman Empire.
It is entertaining the number of folk that think Hadrian’s Wall is the border, I keep hoping their ignorance will spread and Scotland (i) will gain huge swathes of land – Kielder forest, Northumberland national park, Berwick, a third of Newcastle, lots more – not much chance, but it is amusing to imagine.
Is this fake news? Apparently from JK Rowling:
link to twitter.com
Contrary says:
8 March, 2017 at 9:38 am
Scotland (i) will gain huge swathes of land – Kielder forest, Northumberland national park, Berwick, a third of Newcastle, lots more – not much chance, but it is amusing to imagine.
Scotland would also gain a large swathe of Leave voters!
I think calling an election now would have inherent risks. There are 16 odd million voters who lost Brexit ,just itching for some comeback. I believe the would be some surprise results ,not necessarily in favour of the Tories who are seen as the main protagonist in taking us out of Europe.
I do not think May would risk that without being very sure indeed of her position
It may help the Lib Dems more.
It’ genuine> Here’s JKR’s original tweet (paraphrasing Mad Mel):
link to twitter.com
Seems JKR may be coming away from the Dark Side. Mibbees.
@Breeks
=============
Your arguments have a tinge of Scottish exceptionalism about them. You have to remember that Scotland was at the edge of the empire, and the Highlands would have been difficult to access and would have included heavy wooded area and marshland back then. It’s possible (and in the lowlands probable that there were areas worth taking over – but the question is were they worth enough to make a huge effort. All the Celtic tribes (including those in south Britannia before they were conquered (or as the Borg say assimilated) were fierce warriors but the Pictish tribes of north Britannia had a wilderness into which they could disappear and then come back to fight again. Another thing I had forgotten was the suggestion that the Picts had connections with Celts further south and the Romans feared their influence might stir up rebellion further south. It’s suggested this may have been another reason for building their wall – to control who got in and out of the pacified part of Britannia.
@Proud Cybernat 9:51 am
I think her intention is to equate the Leave arguments with Yes arguments. She is pro-union and pro EU. Thats the way I read it anyway, although she has laid herself open to being quoted.
@Naina Tal @Smallaxe
Matt McGinn`s `The Heilan Man` was my dads party piece,
loads of great songs but for a great bit patter and a laugh `The Silver Screw` is worth a listen
link to youtube.com
@Glamaig,
The crucial bit of Rowling tweet comes at the end where she cites a partial George Orwell quote on Nationalism. She then edits the piece to reflect what Nationalists believe. Trying to be satirical.
What she fails to mention of course is that in the same Orwell quote right at the end, Orwell does indeed acknowledge that there is a correct or acceptable for of Nationalism if it is for the betterment of a country’s governance.
In other words she as they all do ,uses partial quotes whilst avoiding the entirety like the plague. Deception is the name of the game here.
@Proud Cybernat
“Scotland is a nation with a right to rule itself” – JK Rowling
That’s a good enough quote for me, I can just ignore the rest of the sarcasm. I may even use it at the bottom of every post now.
stu mac says:
8 March, 2017 at 9:57 am
@Breeks
=============
Your arguments have a tinge of Scottish exceptionalism about them. You have to remember that Scotland was at the edge of the empire,”
That’s not right either. Hadrian’s wall effectively chopped the British isles in half. The Romans had already mapped the land mass, they knew what they were doing, building a massive wall where they did. They kept building it too, not because devils make work for idle hands but because they were defending themselves from serious threats of land invasions.
All of the archaeology we have in Scotland is of continuous land and sea military invasion or attempted colonisation of the British isles that was all stopped dead, right in the middle of Britain.
This not by chance, its not because it wasn’t worth it, it wasn’t the weather, it wasn’t the midgees, its not because Rome didn’t give it a go and just give up, its simply because they were stopped dead.
Once they were stopped at the Wall, they clearly kept on trying to conquer and colonise Scotland. The Antonine Wall was as close as they got to some permanence but they were again forced out and back to Hadrians wall.
So its certainly NOT exceptionalism to say that our forefathers, the first Scots, repelled and defeated the might of Rome.
Even a cursory look at how the Romans got their arses kicked out of half of the British isles, is a astonishing story matched only by the Scotch cringe that’s wrapped all round a glorious beginning of Scottish history today.
Also, there is very clear evidence that the Roman 9th Legion were wiped out somewhere in Scotland. It was probably where the Roman gave up, for another hundred years a least.
Excellent archaeology here,
link to bbc.co.uk
Get off your knees Scottish archaeologists:D
Glamaig says:
We read the second modified version of Phillips’ text and think, that sounds not bad.
It is however in a nationalistic tone which I wouldn’t use. And that is JKR’s anti nationalism point. She certainly doesn’t mean it!
A genuine No to Yes convert wouldn’t say that either.
@Proud Cybernat
‘Scotland is a nation with a right to rule itself’ – JK Rowling
That’s a good enough quote for me, I can ignore the rest. I may use it at the bottom of all my posts now.
I especially liked:
Nice one, Jo!
As that BBC article says, and if you want to take anything at all from our contemporary unionist blah blah bleh about Scotland’s wonderful past, this is great advice on all of it.
“But, contrary to this view, there is not one shred of evidence that the Ninth were ever taken out of Britain. It’s just a guess which, over time, has taken on a sheen of cast iron certainty.”
@Golfnut
================
Sources for these treaties, please?
JK’s problem is that whether she likes it or not, UK is leaving the EU. So she has to decide which ‘nationalism’ to reject and which to embrace. Given her apparent beliefs, logically she would have to embrace the larger, peace-loving, broadly progressive and social democratic community of 500m, and vote Yes to Scottish Independence and continuing EU membership, and reject narrow British nationalism and exceptionalism.
Or will she embrace British nationalism while continuing to claim nationalism is bad?
Theres alot of people going to be going through the same mental gymnastics.
Angus McNeil mp on ‘a pause for thought’
link to twitter.com
@proud cybernat – no it’s not fake news but anything Jakey says is against Scottish independence.
I know a lot of us have said we can’t fathom her but she is a BritNat and will never change.
She’s still spreading guff about Claire H’s ‘abuse’ which has now been published in a US newspaper.
I’ve come to the conclusion that she gathers people around her who may be a bit damaged.
She gives them credibility to spout their nonsense.
A bit odd to say the least
Naina tal: Bob Mack: Macart:
I’m glad that I taught Matt those songs (He lied!)
Anithir’ wan?
link to youtube.com
🙂
Peace Always
Former Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill unfurls his frustrations with the UK government’s Brexit strategy.
link to politico.eu
Yes, but my hints of Pictish exceptionalism are tongue in cheek…to a point. But my main argument is the popularly accepted version of Scottish history just doesn’t ring true. I don’t mean to say that means it’s untrue, but it just seems to me short of definitive. It’s still only one interpretation of history, complete with doubts and speculation. You just get the feeling there are surprises to come…
Like hunter gatherers who took the time and effort to build vitrified forts. That’s where the notion exceptionalism is maybe not so tongue in cheek, but asks some very poignant questions.
Dads, the reason the price/bbl has dropped in the NS is because they have stopped all rig and well mmaintenance, usual story, but it is an artificial and short term saving which in the long term will cost more
re jim sillars, stu’s last opinion poll showed that yes is static cos although 14% nos2yes cos of euref, 13% have moved yes2no. dissappointing yet encouraging that not all nos are staunch nos and that to win indyref2, all we need to do is convince the to switch back 2 yes. if we dont, we lose.
jim sillars represents the 13% who are our target demographic, i dont pretend to understand them, but rather than insulting jim and those who agree with him, im more interested in finding out what it will take to convince them
ie, would jim vote yes if indyref2 eu target was, out of the eu, no eu membership, but efta/eea membership, taking back control of fishing and agriculture, but maintaining access to the single market?
add in the caveat that any further integration into the eu by an indy scotland would require another euref.
if jim accepts this Norway option, proposed by Farage during euref1, then there is a good chance the other 13% of yes2nos will too. And we win indyref2
nb, EFTA/EEA NOT EFTA membership, which is a non starter
Great video and nice to hear this young lad but beware.
My cousins daughter and her husband who are in their early thirties moved to the SE of England last year to take up new jobs.
On meeting the husband recently at a family funeral in Scotland he told me in another Indy ref he would register to vote at his Mums address and vote No as his wife and family did last time. I know this isn’t legal to do but look at what went on at the last Indy vote with postal votes etc. We need to really tighten up on who is allowed to vote in the next Indy ref to avoid such discrepancies.
Neo fascist Voice of The North Press and Journal, trumpets Hammond very loudly today, BetterTogether 2 wise,
Chancellor to make overtures to Scotland in first Budget
by LINDSAY RAZAQMarch 8, 2017, 4:42 am
The Tory frontbencher is also due to outline plans to consider how reforms to the tax system could assist the sale of oil and gas fields with the aim of maximising production in the North Sea.
The move is likely to be viewed as an overture to Scotland with the prospect of another independence referendum back on the table.
Theresa May has repeatedly insisted there shouldn’t be another vote, but the signs suggest the UK Government is preparing to fight a second campaign.”
Rejoice, UKOK tory style.
Not O/T Relevant,
Matt McGinn
link to youtube.com
Peace Always
If you look closely at the marchers, I’m the one smoking a Woodbine.
did ye see me? 🙂
@heedtracker
===============
I’m afraid your post drips with Scottish exceptionalism, all in your own mind of course since Scotland then didn’t exist and our ancestors include many others, not just the Celts of that period.
In my arguments (which are imperfect of course and I’ve found it interesting reading some comments here on this which have made me think more about it) have always accepted that the Celtic tribes in the north gave the Romans a hard time but my point is that there were other factors as well such as the geographic difficulties which meant that effort to overcome them wasn’t worth what they would get in return. It was not because us Scots – though we didn’t exist then – were tougher and fiercer and somehow superior to the folk that got assimilated down south.
Oh I should add, Sutcliffe’s Legion of the Ninth was one of my favourite books, since I was kid. However (and the BBC article was interesting) nobody really knows for sure what happened to it. We don’t in any way know for certain.
INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY!
Oor Rab, on the subject.
While Europe’s eye is fix’d on mighty things,
The fate of Empires and the fall of Kings;
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention
Peace Always
@Breeks
agree with you,there has to be a more appropriate explanation to building an 80 mile dressed stone wall at the very edge of their Empire,
i think it had a lot to do with losing the 9th legion,
on very few occasions did the 1000 year Roman Empire lose complete legions,
there was the Battle of the Teutoburg where 3 legions were destroyed,
and the 7 legions lost at Carrhae against the Parthians who were of Nomadic Sythian origin like the Scots,
i think fear of what/who was in the North was the reason for spending so much effort and astronomical cost to build the greatest single structure ever constructed at the edges of their Empire.
It’s quite obvious what happened to the lost legion, we beat the crap out of them but this was hushed up and thus fake news was born.
Italian Job, whilst I completely share your disquiet at the prospect of “tourists” registering here simply to vote, I doubt the cross checking with tax records would allow that. If the person you mention is working down south then he won’t have an “S” tax code(Scotland) and when he tries to register it will get rejected.
@Alan Mackintosh
Oh good. Thanks for that piece of reassurance.
What’s dissapointing for me is here is a couple of young voters who voted no last time, are both well educated in Scotland (wife has a medical PHD) and take no account of their higher education which was free of the high tuition fees they would have had if they had studied in the rest of UK.
Whilst you guys are talking about Romania Legions, have any of you heard about the phenomena of people walking through the Highlands witnessing a battle between Romans and Scots that actually took place centuries ago.
A friend of man ,a very eminent Psychologist actually claims to have witnessed this event and with it ,all the sounds of the battle. He is not alone in this experience.
Re tourists voting.
Is there some way this could be checked using the Council Tax registration?
People taking the chance of losing there single persons rebate which in turn may lead to a loss of other perks i.e. free grass and hedge cutting/rent rebate etc may not be so keen on allowing others to use their address.
Easy to remove these but not so quick to re-instate.
@Legerwood says: 8 March, 2017 at 12:16 am:
“Mr Oliver has a MA degree (2.1 hons) in Archaeology from the University of Glasgow”
Indeed he has. However, that does not qualify him as a learned professor of history. While the two subjects are related they are quite factually rather different.
For example the Romans recorded history. The Incas did not. Yet we know, mainly by archaeology and logic, that the Roman recorded history is contradictory depending upon the person recording the events. We also know, by the work of archaeologists, that the Incas do have a history. They just did not record it.
We can only deduce the Inca History because of the artefacts they left behind. However, just digging up artefacts does not qualify the digger as a historian.
Oliver is thus not an expert historian. Yet that is what he has chosen to claim to be. He is thus the one misrepresenting himself.
Matter of fact many important artefacts were discovered by people who are neither historians or archaeologists. Of more recent times much important artefacts have come to light due to people doing building works, or people with metal detectors, sonar surveys of underwater areas and ground by Radar.
As to Roman walls. There is much controversy on that subject. The theory the walls were just for defence from attack really does not hold much water.
For example, why would the North British Tribes attack the well armed and better equipped Romans in the South?
After all the North Britons had chosen to inhabit North Britain long before the Romans arrived. This because North Britain provided everything the native north Britons needed and they had more than enough land as the population was small and the northern area large?
The alternative theory holds much more water for the Romans did not rule directly. They Romanised the former Briton leaders to do that job for them. The Romans, throughout their empire, used a system of Customs & Excise and taxed the local people, (this was the reason Mary & Joseph were travelling to a Roman census when Jesus was born).
Thus the Romans had main cities, such as Londinium, as main centres and ports and taxed the imports and exports from each country in their Empire.
It is thus logical that the Roman walls were more to prevent smuggling and thus preserve the collection of the excise duty of each Roman region.
Much, in fact, just like the present Heathrow airport does today. Another basic fact of Roman life was that they dealt in slaves and the slave dealings were a lucrative trade that also required customs & Excise barriers.
So, Legerwood, the modern EU and WTO with their trade agreements are nothing new and were probably invented by such as the Romans who obviously needed the equivalent of Trident to enforce their trade agreements. That Trident equivalent was the main job of the Legionnaires and the Roman Walls.
BTW:
Here is a very strange and significant fact in relation to the Gask Ridge & Road.
There has been no archaeological evidence found of there ever being Roman burial grounds along the whole length of the Antoine Wall.
As the average lifespan of Legionnaires was relatively short and the theory the wall was for defence against the savage hordes of the North, does not compute.
This indicates that the Roman troops were regularly changed from further south. Otherwise, there would have been casualties from attacks, deaths from disease and accidents and just old age.
Yet there was also no archaeological evidence of the normal Roman lifestyle of bathhouses and recreational buildings.
The absence of which indicates there was no defensive use of the Gask Ridge and no permeant troop barracks.
Like the doubtful Roman story of the major battle of Mons Gropius, that has also never yielded anything by way of human remains or weaponry, the recorded history and the archaeology are at odds and make no logical sense as stated by either historians or by archaeologists.
Common sense and pure logic, though, does offer a logical explanation. Quite often the far too limited sheltered life of the academic can prevent the understanding of things very much apparent to the outsider looking in. Roman walls were probably just customs barriers to discourage smuggling.
@Breeks
============
All history – as in many if not all academic subjects – is “true as we know it at the moment” – and new information comes out now and again which can give us a new perspective. It doesn’t always undo what we thought we knew but will usually give a new slant or fill in details that were previously vague. It’s an ongoing process – even in physics as you can see from the competing ideas about how the universe works.
In the past though history was sometimes presented as a hagiography for the country rather than a true “warts and all” picture – there are a few guys, like David Starkey, who still try to maintain hagiographic like history but in the main there are a wide range of views. I understand that for children history has to be somewhat simplified but I often feel doing so shouldn’t exclude showing that there can be competing views – even when facts are certain the whys and wherefores can be argued about. It might help youngsters realise they should never accept what they’re told without checking and thinking carefully about it.
Bob Mack, not personally but I know of a case where someone came across a host of Highlanders heading for battle on the road near Loch Duntelchaig south of Inverness.
As a child (pensioner now) I heard that the Roman Nose was more common in the Stranraer area due to the disappearance of the ninth legion the survivors being taken prisoners by the locals and kept as slaves.
stu mac says:
8 March, 2017 at 11:05 am
@heedtracker
===============
I’m afraid your post drips with Scottish exceptionalism, all in your own mind of course since Scotland then didn’t exist and our ancestors include many others, not just the Celts of that period.
That’s needlessly nasty and a bit creepy too.
No one is saying that Celts on one side of Hadrians wall ” – were tougher and fiercer and somehow superior to the folk that got assimilated down south.” Its just stuff what happened.
What is perfectly clear is that they, whoever they were, first Scots maybe, Celts, Picts, were able to defeat the might of Rome and in doing so, founded the Scotland we have today. This is not dripping exceptionalism in any way, again its what’s happened.
So because of their success against the might of Rome, Celts of Pictland? immediately became a separate country entirely from Roman England. And not only were they able to keep on defeating Rome for at least another 300 years, they were clearly a serious invasion threat to the whole of Romano England. Thus the wall.
Its not as if defeating continuous Roman invasion of “Scotland” is unique either. Vikings successfully invaded and conquered well over half of England, but they were repulsed or assimilated in Scotland. You can do this all day, like say the earlier land invasions like the Battle of Nechtansmere, Picts defeating Northumbrian invasion, that probably would have seen the end of Scotland too.
Hope that cringe gets better though stu mac:D
Coming back late to the thread – has anyone mentioned Stephen Oppenheimer’s DNA research which traces the routes of migration from earliest human times?
link to bradshawfoundation.com
It’s more complicated than we used to think!
@ Stu Mac
Evidence of treaties, ok, many a year since I read all this stuff, but I’ll see what I can find.
Treaties and client kingdoms were the prefered route to Roman conquest, bloody conflict only when necessary.
At 12.30pm today, The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Richard Hammond MP, will deliver his Big Lie, aka The Budget. He will basically tell everyone that Austerity is still essential for the UK – except for the 600,000 members of the Most Wealthy Club. He will tell us this is so in order to reduce Britain’s National Debt. This is The Hammond Lie, inherited from George Osborne, who since 2010 nearly DOUBLED the Debt, lying all the time about it.
The reason for the lying is simple. Austerity is another neo-liberal scam for the transfer of national wealth to the elite 600,000. The first of these scams was Privatisation, followed by Private Finance Initiative. Now, since 2010 and Cameron and Osborne, it is the turn of Austerity. Thatcher, Blair/Brown, Cameron /Osborne, May/Hammond, all obedient to their neo-liberal financial Masters.
Hammond will be careful to be sincere and serious about what he as Chancellor has to do. Tough decisions must be taken, but he will not flinch from doing his duty to ‘the country’. (Someone should tell him).
Hammond will strain to ensure that he is believed so that we can all pull together to make Britain great again. In this endeavour, it is vital that Britain gets the BEST possible deal for the UK from the EU, while taking every measure to make sure that Britain’s most needy get the WORST deal possible from this TORYUKIP Government.
At the same time, lowering the Debt and building a new Global Trading Empire, cannot be accomplished unless the Union is maintained, and therefore must be kept intact no matter the cost. So, sacrifices must be made, and Scotland and Northern Ireland are going to make them.
It will be a surprise if Hammond makes much of the EU and Brexit. He may try a little more brainwashing about it. He will have to, and for some time to come, as Britain begins its lonely walk away from the EU – with its boots on the wrong feet.
Ultimately, this is May and Hammond’s difficulty, viz., the EU referendum was a monumental mistake by Cameron & the ToryUKIP Party, but they can neither admit it nor turn it around. All they can do is LIE about it – but make sure that however bad things get, the Establishment is maintained in the manner they have become accustomed to, which they will be as long as Scotland knows its place and Austerity remains in place.
And right there is the unspeakable truth which Hammond will not utter today – the Union will very soon be no more.
Time is drawing near.
@stu mac
not only children but most academics could learn the lesson that nothing is known and all is conjecture when dealing with any history,
i don`t think their is any contemporary evidence that Hadrian had in fact anything to do with the Wall,
there is also no contemporary evidence about the year of the Claudian invasion of British Isles or where they landed.
Robert Peffers:
Mr Peffers, sir, I wonder if you have a definitive account, I hope of,
“The Romans, throughout their empire, used a system of Customs & Excise and taxed the local people, (this was the reason Mary & Joseph were travelling to a Roman census when Jesus was born)”
QUOTE;
Luke 2:4-5 states: And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child
QUOTE;
The objections we will answer here are 1 and 2 – (1) the claim that nothing is known in history of a general census during the time of Augustus, and (2) that in a Roman census Mary & Joseph would not have had to travel to Bethlehem to register.
QUOTE;
Objection 2 listed above states, that in a Roman census Joseph would not have had to travel to Bethlehem, but would have registered in the principle town of his residence, and Mary would not have had to register at all.
I would be delighted if you do have an answer as this subject has been of interest to myself, although I am a Humanist I do believe that jesus may have existed as either a person or perhaps an amalgamation of several different entities.
QUOTES; From:link to crossexamined.org
I hope this finds you well, sir.
Peace Always
@ Smalllaxe – the best explanation I’ve seen is in The Star of Bethlehem Mystery by David Hughes who was a Professor of Astronomy at Sheffield.
He thought that the triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Pisces in 7 BC was most likely the event recorded. This marked the start of a new “Great Year”, 25,000 years, which occurred because of the precession of the equinoxes. The conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn marked out the changes in the Earth’s orbit of the sun, well understood by ancient people in the Middle East.
Kepler drew a beautiful spirograph style illustration of this phenomenon.
There was, I think, a census in the Roman provinces in that year.
manandboy at 12.20
Great comment. Hope you don’t mind if I use that?
@ Alan Mackintosh at 11.18 and TheItalianJob
With Individual Voter Registration, National Insurance numbers are checked against name and date of birth; I don’t think tax codes come into it.
Maybe they should, though, because as you say that would enable “S” codes to be a requirement – some people might not have a tax code though, if they’ve never been in paid employment (16 and 17 year olds, for instance).
I was only issued with an NI number when I started my first job, but I believe they are given to everyone at 16 now.
Cappella:
Thank you, for your post and link I will certainly be interested in studying the information that you so kindly provided.
Peace Always
crazycat, Yes but also the address of the individual that is held by HMRC, not just the NI no. and DOB.
As regards the “S” coding, it was to do with their “tax address” which wouldnt tally with their spurious registration and should trigger a refusal. Thats how I understand it anyway.
@ Smallaxe
You might be interested in “Zeitgeist – the Movie” if you haven’t already seen it. It describes the Jesus myth as one of the many Mediterannean myths of the dying and resurrecting Sun. Good graphics.
Of course, none of this means that there wasn’t a real person. or people, who said those wise aphorisms.
Judge not lest ye be judged.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath etc.
Pity so few Christian churches took his advice!
link to youtube.com
@Capella
“Zeitgeist – the Movie” is nonsense that has long since been debunked. It made the mistake of not checking sources and quotes and the backgrounds of those macking the claims, the same mistake that the fans of it like you make. It’s one of those “I want to believe” internet movies that people cling to and swallow whole that makes a mockery of the viewer in the end and those who fall for it more than those they feel they can mock for holding the beliefs attacked in the movie. Bottom feeder stuff. Especially as there are millenia of philosphy and theology to read up on as well as many high quality academic sources in the past and in the modern age to investigate the topic from every angle with decent academic rigor.
Pushing that garbage film makes you just as bad and shows you up as just as gullible though.
Robert Peffers says:
8 March, 2017 at 11:37 am
@Legerwood says: 8 March, 2017 at 12:16 am:
“Mr Oliver has a MA degree (2.1 hons) in Archaeology from the University of Glasgow”
Indeed he has. However, that does not qualify him as a learned professor of history. While the two subjects are related they are quite factually rather different.””
……………………………..
He does not present himself as a ‘learned professor of history’
He presents programmes which deal with various periods of history where the research has been done by a raft of researchers, a script written which he then speaks to camera.
He does not present himself as a ‘learned professor of history’
Legerwood, Oliver would only be an archaeologist if he was an archaeologist, by trade or profession.
He is neither. He’s a journalist turned tv presenter/actor. He’s an author too but whatever you say, he is still NOT and never was and archaeologist as soon as he left uni.
He still could be though. Happy?
Smallaxe says: 8 March, 2017 at 1:10 pm:
”Mr Peffers, sir, I wonder if you have a definitive account, I hope of,
“The Romans, throughout their empire, used a system of Customs & Excise and taxed the local people, (this was the reason Mary & Joseph were travelling to a Roman census when Jesus was born)”
Sorry I’m late in replying, Smallaxe. I have a problem with some of my on line connections and the main one is with Wings. First of all the speed of the connection is very, very slow and then it just disconnects from the router.
I don’t seem to have any virus or other external interference and the router remains connected to the internet. I’ve swapped the cable between the computer and the router and tried using wireless but the problem persists. My ISP is BT and they say there is no line problems, (Mind you I do not believe them). Anyway I’ll answer off line and see if I can then manage enough time online to update the Wings page.
” … I would be delighted if you do have an answer as this subject has been of interest to myself, although I am a Humanist I do believe that Jesus may have existed as either a person or perhaps an amalgamation of several different entities.”
I also am a humanist, Smallaxe. I believe that Jesus did indeed exist. There are far too many references from far too many sources for him not to have existed. I believe though that to try to use the Bible as a history book to be a totally useless exercise. First of all it has been rep-translated through for too many different languages and secondly has been written far too long after the events.
Then, of course it was written to be read and understood by people who did not have the scientific knowledge to be able to understand much of what needed to be explained. For example – how could the authors be expected to understand the science behind the creation, or otherwise, of the Universe? They mostly believed the Earth was flat.
My take on history is that it is mostly a matter of attempting to see any particular event from the point of view of someone alive then and with the knowledge current at the time.
For example the claims that the population of Britain after the ice ages had only come across the Channel and spread through Britain on land did not make sense to me. Then, in the wake of the North Sea Oil & Gas boom the intense surveying proved what I had long suspected.
The land was covered in dense forests and thus the most likely routes to spread through Britain was by sea and other waterways. So it has proved and the archaeology has proved that to be the case. Yet still we have people, even those who should know better, claiming otherwise. Very recent archaeological work has shown that artefacts found on now uninhabited Scottish Islands and hard to access Sea Stack pre date those found in Ireland. This bears out the common sense view that, for example the Scots, were a tribe or tribes that inhabited the lands all around what became the Irish Sea. Which rather knocks on the head the popular notion that the Scots are immigrants from Ireland.
So, to return to your question. I think the doubts expressed as to the details about the birth of Jesus are rather attempting to dig far too deep into something that is best looked at in more general terms.
There is no doubts about how the Roman Empire operated. They most certainly relied upon Romanising the native leaders to run their own areas but had them remain as underlings to the Roman Governor. There is also no doubts they taxed the people and no doubts they dealt in slaves. Which means there can be no doubt they had to hold census in order to run a tax system. We just cannot trust the small details of the writings of the Bible.
Here’s an example for you – various different sects of the Christian Church interpret certain things differently and much of the differences come from translations. The common expression, “The ship sank with the loss of all souls”, is just such a basis for controversial opinions.
Some will say the soul is the lifeform and is unable to be destroyed and the fact is the word, “soul”, has been translated different ways by different translators. Some say it is the body and some say it is the spirit and in fact there is differences between the languages being translated and the two words in some ancient languages are quite similar.
Personally I subscribe to the same belief as expressed by my old Grandfather, “When yer deid yer aw deid. Yer no gan tae hae ony wings tae tak yer spirit oot o yer carcase an up intae the sky”.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” – or, alternatively, biological substances for the worms…
@ McMac – for example?
McMac:
Without meaning to offend in any way possible, and knowing that Capella is well able to debate the subject in question more than adequately.
I must ask you to please refrain from the “Pushing that garbage film makes you just as bad and shows you up as just as gullible though”comment, to someone who very kindly endeavoured to satisfy my curiosity on a matter that greatly interests me.
I am willing to consider anyone’s beliefs and am more than capable of making my own mind up on the veracity or otherwise of any reply to a question asked by myself but in doing so I would never decry anyone unless I thought that their beliefs were likely to incite violence or some other danger to others.
Thank you for taking the time to hopefully read and take notice of my opinion of the reply so kindly proffered by Capella. I wish you a pleasant night.
Peace Always
Just a further thought!
Addendum:
philosphy = philosophy and macking = making and millenia =millennia
According to the Gospel of John, the Pharisees, in an attempt to discredit Jesus, brought a woman charged with adultery before him. Then they reminded Jesus that adultery was punishable by stoning under Mosaic law and challenged him to judge the woman so that they might then accuse him of disobeying the law. Jesus thought for a moment and then replied, “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.” The people crowded around him were so touched by their own consciences that they departed. When Jesus found himself alone with the woman, he asked her who were her accusers. She replied, “No man, lord.” Jesus then said, “Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more.”
This does offer us deep insight into how Jesus dealt with questions such as this, and in that sense is a great illustration to live by.
Peace Always
@ Smallaxe – I agree, and thank you for your very thoughtful response.
I would also mention Pasolini’s “Gospel According to St Matthew”. There are many beautifully shot scenes where the Pharisees are trying to catch Jesus out over doctrinal matters. For example, on paying taxes to the Romans. Take a look at the coins, he says. Who’s picture is on the coins? Caesar’s. Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.
Now Pasolini was a gay Italian communist film director. But his version of the Jesus story is brilliant. Sadly, he was murdered by his political enemies.
The Pharisees and Caesar are always with us!
BTW I’m quite certain you are very capable of deciding what is relevant to you and what to ignore. I have read a great deal about ancient mythology and how it informs the world view of our ancestors. I find it a fascinating topic.
In “Hamlet’s Mill” by Giorgio de Santillana (a professor of the history of science at MIT) and Hertha von Dechend (a scientist at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität) they propose that much of mythology encoded scientific theory of the ancients e.g. the precession of the equinoxes.
Synopsis here link to en.wikipedia.org
Peace always to you too!
Capella:
I could not help but be offended by the unnecessary and extremely rude unwarranted attack on yourself and our conversation, what is it with some people?
Thank you, for the further information so kindly given. I think that some so-called experts have a very blinkered view regarding ancient mythology and writings, eg Egyptian and Mayan, even indigenous knowledge passed down orally by aboriginal Australians and “Indian” tribes throughout the American continent.
I find the subject fascinating and thank you again for your kindness in giving me more to digest.
Peace Always
@ Smallaxe – yes it was a rather aggressive attack. Strange.
I noticed that the wiki piece includes a link to Hamlet’s Mill which is online so no need to buy a copy (though personally I like to have the hard copy). The illustrations are worth seeing. That’s where I came across Kepler’s beautiful diagram of the conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn.
link to bibliotecapleyades.net
Capella:
To quote “The Desiderata” “Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are a vexation to the spirit”.
Thank you, again for your help, I soak this subject up like a dry sponge.
🙂
Peace Always
Quite so. You have probably noticed my moniker. Capella is the bright star in the constellation Auriga – the Charioteer. It was said to be the guiding star for the Celts as they navigated the northern seas. It is one of the “eternals” because it always above the horizon in the Northern hemisphere and points to the north.
I like the North!
link to earthsky.org
Capella:
As my Astrology sign is Capricorn, my constellation lies in the south but visible from the north which of course I also hold close to my heart. I did not normally put any faith in Astrology until an African Shaman read my “character” and raised the hair on my head by a spookily accurate description of my life and way of thinking.
My wife took the description after translation, to a practitioner of Obeah (Jamaican Voodoo)leaving out any obvious identification of myself. The Obeah woman made a doll representative of myself before she the (Obeah woman) met me and it blew me away with
the accuracy of the likeness and also what the Shaman saw me as.
I will take a photograph of the doll and post it soon to let you see it, anyone who knows me and has seen it, can immediately see the physical resemblance to me.
There are some strange and inexplicable things in this world that people dismiss out of hand but since my wonderfully weird experiences, I pay more attention to some things than I would ever normally have done.
“I await some person to now come online and call me a loony”
A title which I shall wear Proudly!
🙂
Peace Always my Friend
@ Smallaxe – well that will make at least two of us. 🙂
Capella:
🙂
Loony’s Rule OK!
Peace Always