Wings Over Scotland

Back of the net – or is it bottom of the bin, Chris.

Save Scotland!

Recycle Holyrood for fucksake!

Low emission zone… IndyRef2!

Absolutely no bottle!

Pulp SNP!

Oh dear. I almost feel sorry for her. Lorna is going to squirm when she sees this, Chris.

She can’t go in the Useless bin. He never has the bottle for anything….except self-promotion.

Hahaha….first class Chris

@ Den at 9:14 am

“Slater and Harvey are never going to be sacked” So true

Scotland cannot afford this smug, British style political stasis and the politicians «profiting» from maintaining it.
The World, even to the most casual observer, is dynamic.
Scottish politics should be likewise.

I wonder if Chris considered using “REFUSE” (in the sense of rubbish) instead of “USELESS.”

“REUSE” and “REFUSE” would be neater but probably too confusing.

A talentless self-promotionalist, screeching in impossibilist woke-spiel.

Not often I comment negatively on a Toon but I think we miss a point on the recycling scheme.

The Greens in government have, as many will agree, been an absolute disaster. But that’s who the Sturgeon, and now the useless Yousaf chose as their bed mates. Not for the SNP fellow nationalist Alba. The Greens were their choice. SNP 1 and SNP 2 was a deliberate strategy to prevent an SNP / Alba super majority and Sturgeon knew fine well what she was getting. So yes, Slater bad but Sturgeon worse.

However turning to the recycling initiative it is absolutely crystal clear that this is a good thing, and absolutely necessary
thing. Scotland was ahead of England, was ahead of setting up an arms length state owned company to deal with waste handling.

A bit like Scottish Water a state owned water company a state owned Scottish waste handling company was an anathema to our neo liberal Westminster masters. And so the UK Internal Market Regulations came into play.

This is an aspect that has not been aired properly in the media. But it should be. Scotland the colony, carved up again, but not recognised for what it is.

It’s Scotland’s waste but it’s for the neo liberal Westminster to profit from.

@Mia 10:35

Snouts in the trough is just about all the explanation I need to explain Scot Gov these days.

Simples!

Chris Cairns.
As usual CHRIS a appropriate and artistically well drawn cartoon, thumbs up,

Completing a excellent weekend of artwork that includes STU’s photography

For the attention of women readers.

Is the Department of Works and pensions displaying Racism and inequality towards women with a repeated Maladministration practice cover many years.

The first group of women, those of the oldest group that retired before 2016, and would be roughly around their 80s and older,
Out of the pensioners that have now been underpaid £1. 46 billion mainly effects women.
Many of these women queried this at the time and was told there was no issue by the DWP, with many of those women enduring financial hardship,
Many of this group have now passed away,
The DWP have now identified six groups of women that errors had been made with, to the tune of more than a Billion pounds,
This was maladminstration that mainly effected Women.

Fast Forward to the Waspi group of women pensioners that were not informed of changes to their State pension age, leaving many in this age group under financial hardship as well today.

The Ombudsman has judged that the DEP were in error again concerning womens pensions and was Maladministration.

Although men seldom fight this cause for Repeated Maladministration for women and their pensions, they should, because this maladministration causes short finances for a married Couples as well, not just women pensioners.

Are the DWP repeated long term errors of Maladminstration towards women beginning to appear racist, discriminating and pushing the boundries of the wrong kind of equality?

While men “claiming” to be women pensions stay more financial steady

Perhaps the DWP racist and inequality card should be shown up for what it is, a deliberate Maladministration towards Women.

The country that grew up with returning ginger bottles, can’t work out how to return ginger bottles.

The failure is primarily because someone smelled money, and put an NGO in the middle to rinse bank accounts, and not bottles.

Left to their own devices, major players would have happily instituted it, and gradually everyone else would want in on the action.

The Euro stores such as Aldi, and Lidl already know how it works – our continental cousins have been doing it for years over there – they will just go ahead with it regardless of Scotgov.

Eventually, the rest will get in on the action after losing custom, and maybe, down the line the schemes will become joined up writing.

Scotland could have had her streets, and hedgerows cleaned overnight – but fuckwittery, and greed wins again.

Sorry for dyslexia sentences I hope you are able to understand the gist of the message, that long term DWP errors covering years are displaying racism towards women at a much higher percentage level than towards men, including men Claiming they are Women.

Not just in Scotland, but across the world, there’s an in-built fault in democracy when politicians supported by only a tiny minority can gain so much power by being the 1% that tilts the overall balance. Worse, the reason they are such a minority is because their politics are so extreme that most people reject their causes. And yet, being that 1% that tips the balance, that’s what everybody gets.

iain mhor says: at 12:12 pm

“The country that grew up with returning ginger bottles, can’t work out how to return ginger bottles.”

Future academic studies may show that this phenomenon was caused by multiculturalism and immigration, with all these NuScots rocking up to oor bonnie land and not understanding or adhering to, but diverging, from the indigenous nativists’ evolved practices that were drummed into young Scottish bairns minds in days gone by.
Just back from a wee motorbike ride to checkout some potential fly fishing locations, and can confirm the bonnie colours of the hills and heather aren’t particularly well complimented by the red, blue & silver, and black & lurid green of the multitude of Red Bull and Monster energy drink tins discarded along the road verges.

LMAO! The first thing i thought as soon as i seen the toon was that old saying, thicker than shit in the neck of a bottle. LOL!

Thanks, Chris!

A Scot Abroad: they bring with them their own private army of ‘woke’ activists who will do all their dirty work for them, threatening people who speak out and destroying their livelihoods – total fascism/totalitarianism. I don’t blame people for being afraid because their ranks are full of misogynists, sadists, psychopaths and sundry other mentally-ill people who know, and have, no boundaries. However, the German Greens have been fight back, I hear, as have other Green parties elsewhere. The fear of what these, usually young, monstrous children (their strings pulled by corporatism) could do is now more pressing than the fear they engender, no pun intended. The SNP will be wiped out if they continue with this more or less one-sided alliance.

Slater is only following in Sturgeons footsteps.

1. Think of policy

2. Make it unpopular.

3. Do not think it through for potential errors before applying.

4. Refuse to make changes to aforementioned errors.

5. Mount some sort of doomed legal challenge.

6. Consign policy to Bin. ( like bottles).

A guy called Gordon wants to «reform» the yewkay, make it more democratic and accountable, getting rid of the foul thing would be an excellent reform but some people just like tinkering with out-dated, stale old things.

Ottomanboi,

what outdated, stale old things? Matters such as the Declaration of Arbroath, which is little more than a begging letter to the Pope, which he deftly avoided answering? The Claim of Right? The Treaty of Union? Those sorts of outdated, stale old things?

You are correct. Some people like to waste a hell of a lot of time tinkering with those outdated and stale old things, as if anyone important in the U.K. is concerned about that sort of ancient guff.

Scot Abroad,

I knew you would come around to my way of thinking,
That treaty can be discarded a heap of old trash and nonsense, it means nothing.

Cheers,

David Henke, July 19th 2018.
Westminster Confidential.

James Che, for what it’s worth, I think the franchise in any future Indy referendum should be:

All 18 year olds and above living in Scotland, plus all 18+ Scots (one or more fully Scottish grandparents) living in anywhere in the UK, plus all 18+ Scottish normally resident in Scotland currently working outside of the UK. Others may disagree.

Couldn’t give a hoot what skin colour someone wears. They’re still
Scots.

At present, there are still 7 Green Bottles hanging on the (Holyrood) wall…

A question and answer from somewhere or other on the internet:

Question: ‘What does the phrase 10 green bottles mean?’
Answer: A police officer. A term popular in the 1950s and still heard. It has been used in Britain since the 16th century, well before policemen wore uniforms, and indeed existed in any organised form, which suggests that the original reference was to an annoying pestilential presence.

‘Annoying pestilential presence’ sounds just about right.

‘Apply pesticide, Remove pestilential presence’ might be an appropriate slogan for the next Holyrood election. If people could understand the reference.

Or else (this is the present nightmare alternative, which could still happen again, only even worse): ‘Vote SNP, get the Greens!’

Who will rule over you with their Green (and Woke) Police Force, baton charges and jackboots to the ready.

Up tae the voters at the next Holyrood election tae smash the remaining 7 Green Bottles… Till there’s nae green bottles hingin’ on the (Holyrood) Wall.

An’ nae ‘hingers-oan’, eether!

Every political party will pair up with any other political party to be in power.

Lib Lab Pack, Remember Lib Dem Clegg getting his 5 years in the sun as lap dog to run away Tory Cameron.

If SNP didn’t make the deal it’s a Labour Tory Colonialist coalition that we be running over the top of us rejoicing in Scotland doesn’t want independence.

If I can vote Alba I will.
I will not ever vote for an English party as long as I live.

Much of the SNP Dross will be kicked out and I’d hope lesson learned a new independence coalition party will be formed start again with the highest percentage of Independence votes already on the books

Meanwhile, it seems that our very heritage (not just in Scotland, but across the UK) is now being questioned, with the University of Cambridge now – to my interpretation of their remarks – implying that we are all a bit racist, and have been so for a millennium. I’m no admirer of woke academia, particularly when even Professors are certifiably bonkers, but this is possibly yet another offshoot of this trend.

I couldn’t give two hoots what skin colour someone wears, or who they worship, but it does seem to me that wearing a white skin colour myself, that some see my like as being part of the problem. What problem, I don’t know, but definitely part of the problem in modern U.K. I’m make, as well, which probably makes me worse.

(Extract from the Daily Telegraph article)

“ Information provided by the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNC) explains its approach to teaching, stating: “Several of the elements discussed above have been expanded to make ASNC teaching more anti-racist.

“One concern has been to address recent concerns over use of the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and its perceived connection to ethnic/racial English identity.

“Other aspects of ASNC’s historical modules approach race and ethnicity with reference to the Scandinavian settlement that began in the ninth century.

“In general, ASNC teaching seeks to dismantle the basis of myths of nationalism – that there ever was a ‘British’, ‘English’, ‘Scottish’, ‘Welsh’ or ‘Irish’ people with a coherent and ancient ethnic identity – by showing students just how constructed and contingent these identities are and always have been.”

@A Scot Abroad in general
So many posts I can’t answer them all. So you have so many medals. I simply served in the time I was allocated. 3rd Battlion The Royal Green Jackets Northern Ireland Spearhead Battlion 2nd Loyalist Strike 1st of May 1977. I was an Independence supporter until recently but your posts don’t recognise the polarity of the Scottish debate. I fear 1977 is to return in Scotland.

The treaty of union may be old, but it is very relevant. Other countries are full of very old documents that are still in use – a good example being the US constitution.

What makes the treaty of union (the relevant acts from Scotland and England) still relevant, is that it is quite literally the ONLY legal document giving Westminster authority to legislate over Scotland. Without it, Scotland is independent.

Of course, it is an old yoon/british Natonalist strategy to mock those who talk of the treaty of union, ‘oh, it’s old’, or oh, ‘it’s meaningless now’ etc.. yet in England the Magna Carta is revered, and the English Bill of rights is still very relevant (and it is from the same year as the wholly different Scottish claim of right).

I should have thought that would be obvious.

Another big fire in central Edinburgh. That’s no 5 or 6 isn’t it?

Hope Auld Reekie doesn’t have a firebug.

Haymarket Hotel 2023, (ok small fire in a room), George IV Bridge 2021, Jenners 2023, Starbucks Royal Mile 2023, North Bridge again today…

Call me suspicious if you like, but that’s a lot of fires for a small inner city area.

@Robert Louis 8:41pm
Sure treaties of the Union are highly relevant when we lose thousands of lives every month. It’s a 2 tier Scot NHS already. The Scot NHS is devolved but the Scot Gov is promoting private solutions by default. I am myself have to go private there is no alternative. I have A and E and GP Doctors, Nurses etc serving in my family.
Goodness me how are the rest of you coping?.

A Scot Abroad…

Abbreviated:

A SCAB.

What lies under a Scab?

Puss.

Yellow and putrid. Stinky too.

I’d ignore the infection if I was you.

ZT

Alf,

I’m a simple (ex) soldier. So forgive me.

If you are living in Scotland legally, and above 18 years of age, then you should get a vote.

I’m not interested at all in the frankly very many WoS BTL commenters who hint that they don’t like immigrants getting a vote. Not being Scottish enough, as though the intellectually sub-normal nativists on WoS could ever define what being Scottish enough actually means. And bigoted, to boot.

All that argument does is to expose the nativists’ insecurities. They don’t feel confident enough in their own position, so wish to restrict the franchise down to like-minded fools. A self-licking lollipop of idiots.

If you pay taxes in Scotland ( to include Scottish based income tax ) then surely that should be the criteria or at least an important aspect of the criteria as regards the vote . ? “ No taxation without representation “

“Humza Yousaf predicts SNP won’t lose seats at next General Election
Humza Yousaf has accused Scottish Labour of “hubris”, claiming they believe they have already won the next general election.”

link to scotsman.com

“ Alf Baird @0743” Also perhaps there should be some residency family historical criteria/ period as regards constitutional votes ?

It is a dreadful thing that,worldwide, poverty and inequality cause unjust, premature deaths and lives longer lived with disability. It is true to say that the trajectory a life will take can be determined before conception. Unless a woman has optimal nutrition, none of the organs of her child will develop their full potential.

In Scotland, the cost is not just what is borne by the poor (and poverty can be felt at all stages of life). It is the loss to all of us of our human potential.

For the Marmot Report of 2010, Frontier Economics did an estimation of the economic cost to the UK of health inequalities.

link to instituteofhealthequity.org

“Our work has examined the costs imposed by health inequalities by comparing the present to a world in which everyone had the same health outcomes as the richest 10% of the population. We find that health inequalities lead to: Productivity losses of £31-33 billion per year Lost taxes and higher welfare payments in the range of £20-32 billion per year Direct NHS healthcare costs of £5.5 billion (note, this figure relates only to costs associated with acute activity, prescribing and mental health activity, which represent approximately one third of the NHS budget. In consequence, it is likely that this figure under estimates the full impact of health inequalities on direct healthcare costs). Most stark, however, are the impact of health inequalities on premature death. Looking at the nearly 700,000 children who will be born in 2010, we find that if policies could be implemented to eradicate health inequalities, then each child could expect to live two years longer. This represents approximately 1.3 million total years of life currently lost to health inequalities. An additional 2.8 million years of disability-free life could be added by removing health inequalities. It should be noted that the aim of these figures is to illustrate the benefits that would be achieved were inequalities to be eradicated immediately. Obviously, there is no world in which this could happen, but the figures are helpful for providing an indication of the likely scale of the costs of health inequalities.”

This estimation, if done today, would have much higher economic costs because of austerity effects on poverty and inequality. The estimations also do not take full account of the health sevice costs or costs of social problems linked to poverty.

Shug says:
4 June, 2023 at 9:01 am
” I see Nicola is saying alba is the cause of the SNP vote crash and it is because of Salmond’s love of the limelight. I see pots and kettles dancing in front of me eyes. ”

Aye , n that worthless cow will be swanning about still imagining she’s some kind of ” elder statesman ” , despite having * achieved * the square root of fuck-all for our country – on the contrary , done nothing but harm : blaming everyone but herself when the SNP vote collapses completely ; though , by then , she’ll probably have secured a seat on the Globalist Gravy Jet , from which elevated height she can continue flushing her shit all over Scotland .

A truly repellent individual ; yet , unbelievably , there are still people in what was once known as the ” YES Movement ” who lament her panicked departure and will attribute the forthcoming electoral slaughter of the SNP on her absence . Ha ha fucking ha

Superb cartoon , CC .

RE: Alf Baird

I would like people to take a moment to consider what Alf represents.

He is outside of politics so his reach is not dependent on political success, which means pandering to already established acceptable parameters.

Instead he influences public opinion from outside the system and thereby can shift those parameters which politicians are necessarily bound by.

Also due to his academic strength his ideas can go toe to toe with any of the establishment narratives or pushers of those narratives.

He is fundamentally more powerful in the long run than any supposedly pro-Scottish politician due to the above factors.

He is in effect one of the cognitive elite, an intelligentsia, that we need who function for the benefit of Scots for which I have been trying to suggest we need more of than any new party.

The people we are up against know all this of course and use it to their own advantage while making sure our efforts are as limited to putting an X in a box as possible.

It is just one example of how sticking purely to politics you put Scots in a wheelchair and expect them to win the race because while the understandings and limits of debate are set by our opponents there can be no hope of substantial victory.

I could have spoken of the same things; about the need for recognition of our ethnicity, culture and language in our national political debate for 30 years and not have had 1/10th of a percentage of the effect of Alf.

On the same line I personally have a child to be educated in the next few years and would love to have an organised effort by pro Scots teachers to help parents educate their children outside of the satanic rainbow school system in-line with required legal syllabus with a strongly Scots slant.

That’s just one example of how Scots can put their people first without the need for state power through elections.

Children who have lived in persistent poverty during their first 7 years have cognitive development scores on average 20% below those of children who have never experienced poverty. Poverty affects brain development, shrinking those parts to do with memory, planning, decision making.

In the most deprived areas, boys can expect to live 19 fewer years in “good” health and girls 20 fewer years, than children in the least deprived areas. Poor children are 4 times more likely to develop mental health problems by the age of 11.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are strongly associated with poverty. The more ACEs the greater risk of poor health in adulthood, alcohol and drug abuse, obesity, early deaths. Scottish research found 10% of Scottish children had at least 3 ACEs with boys being most at risk.

We need political change in Scotland. Urgently

Alf Baird nails it:

You can’t force people to be what they are not, irrespective of where they now happen to live

A Scot Abroad backs out of thinking about the example I gave earlier, by disqualifying it on a technicality. So I will rephrase:

Supposing I go to the African continent, and, depending on my location, claim to be Bantu, Matabele, Masai, Zulu or San. Would any of my new neighbours treat my claims with any seriousness whatsoever?

How many ordinary Scots would think I was deluded (at best) or an exploitative colonist who deserved to be run off?

It is by thinking through these questions, and then applying them to the situation in Scotland, that we can maybes begin to see clearly.

One final point. By definition, immigrants have a uniform (and different) view to natives, purely because they often feel they are on the defensive in their new nations. They have a vested interest in justifying the idea that nations are mutable things, and that there need be no limit on the amount of incomers a nation can absorb, yet still remain the same nation.

In the final analysis, it is only the preservation of that belief that allows a Scot, any Scot, to go and live abroad.

So we can’t really expect immigrants/emigrants to see eye-to-eye with stay-put residents on this subject.

@ Joe

Agreed .

Alf Baird should be held in the highest respect & esteem , and it’s a mark of his deep commitment to our country that he continues to engage with fckn idiots BTL here and elsewhere . Buffoons who display their moronic ignorance with every comment they make .

One page of Doun-Hauden is of more value than the collective dribblings of every Nu SNP apparatchik and the woefully shite * Papers * they insult our intelligence with

It’s beyond ridiculous to think that in any future Indy vote that the franchise would be restricted to ethnically pure Scots, and exclude anyone legally in Scotland who isn’t deemed as Scottish. Nobody at all would accept the result, even if somehow an impartial arbiter could rule on who counted as Scottish or not.

So for those who are indeed thinking of such matters, dream on.

Just reading Nicola Sturgeon’s horrendous comments about Alex Salmond.

I think he needs to address them. She is a disgrace. She’s up to her neck in the failed conspiracy. Big Eck should come and out and tell her to fuck off.

@ sam at 10.13: “Poverty affects brain development….Adverse childhood experiences are greatly associated with poverty…We need political change in Scotland. Urgently.”

This is one of the clearest examples of how regaining our country and its assets will improve the lives of our people. It sickens me that the politicians in Scotland are content with the current state of affairs.

Well said, Joe 9.57am and Robert Hughes 10.37am. Voices like Prof. Baird’s are much needed. Where are all the academics now? There were some good contributions ten years ago…

These are very depressing statistics, Sam 10.13am, and clearly no political will to do anything about them despite the rhetoric. Yes, political change can’t come soon enough.

For this reason alone, the SNP needs to ditch the inward-looking ideology and embrace the opportunity to present a united Independence choice at every future election. Virtue signalling with the baby box is no answer. Full control over spending, managing resources properly, getting rid of austerity – at least then the root cause of poverty could be addressed. After independence.

@A Scot Abroad says:4 June, 2023 at 11:03 am

It’s beyond ridiculous to think that in any future Indy vote that the franchise would be restricted to ethnically pure Scots, and exclude anyone legally in Scotland who isn’t deemed as Scottish

Nowhere in my posts do I write that, or imply that, but a good try at deflection.

Third and final time of asking.

Do you have any response to my question from last night, clarified and repeated at 10:22 today.

Supposing I go to the African continent, and, depending on my location, claim to be Bantu, Matabele, Masai, Zulu or San. Would any of my new neighbours treat my claims with any seriousness whatsoever?

@Robert Hughes says: 4 June, 2023 at 10:37 am

I’ve learned more about the reality of Scotland’s ‘precious union’ with England from Alf Baird over the past few weeks than from any other source I’ve come across in my entire life.

He has clearly identified and articulated the true nature of Scotland’s bane.

That he is, for the moment, a lone voice amongst his peers only reinforces my implacable belief in the veracity of his teachings.

History has shown us time and again that great societal changes are almost always preceded by a few brave and fearless souls. Souls who are willing to stick their heads above the parapets and cry foul at the injustice and cruelty and suffering they see.

At this most critical point in the history of Scotland as a sovereign nation and the Scots as an indigenous people, all true Scots should rally behind Alf Baird.

Because if there was ever a Scotsman needed hauners more – it’s him.

Galloway lass.

I have been fighting for Scottish independence for as long as I can remember, Leafleted for the old Snp and up to date for Alba, had personal meetings and conversations with AS,
I live in Scotland, children and grandchildren born in Scotland,

Still look at legal ways to gain our independence that won’t get Scottish people attacked or beaten up,
I cannot go on as many marches as most do, due to being only carer carer for my partner
I have been on here Wings fighting for independence since the early days and learnt a lot from many old commenters.

How on earth do you can you link me as the same as A Scot Abroad,

Your name is relatively new, here in comparison. So perhaps learning back ground and history might be advantagous.

Galloway lass,
Alba suggested I run as a candidate for Alba, and I was considering it but my spouse was ill and then diagnosed with Colon Cancer,
So I had to back out,

But it is important to do the political fight for Scottish independence through other methods, and one of those is a serious study on the Treaty of the union,
A second way to strengthen Scottish independence is to recognise that recognising Wales’s and Ireland are also politically fighting for independence, that Scotland is not on its own.

Why on earth would you be suggesting this is the road politically that, A Scot Abroad is on the same path?

Galloway lass,

are you suggesting new trolling Of old independence supporters?

sam @ 9:32 am

“In Scotland, the cost is not just what is borne by the poor (and poverty can be felt at all stages of life). It is the loss to all of us of our human potential.”

The 3 candidates for leader of the Scottish colonial administration recently stated that their top priority was to eradicate poverty in Scotland. The major difficulty with this is that, as the ‘human balance sheet of colonization’ tells us, poverty in such a society is broadly ‘equivalent to the economic plunder’ that the colonial administration itself exists to maintain (Albert Memmi).

As Memmi also wrote: “Colonization is, above all, economic and political exploitation. If the colonized is eliminated, the colony becomes a country like any other, and who will then be exploited?”

Looking at a map of Scotland’s communications infrastructure and the peripheral nature of the country within the BritState set up becomes obvious. So much of it is an unnecessary «real pain» to access but Scotland in the last ten years has become a beacon of progressive development in «Gender Dynamics».
It takes genuine imagination to do that.
Caution. You Are Entering A Perplexed Priority Zone.

I had just turned sixteen and for the first time in my life I had a wee bit cash in my pocket – nineteen pounds and fifty six pence, to be exact, my first proper wage. They’d no long done away with the shillings and the tanners and the thrupenny bits.

I was fit and I was healthy and I was strong and I had a girlfriend, a bonnie lass called Mae, and my whole life still to come was a mystery yet to reveal itself.

The gang I had joined, just a week or two earlier, was made up of men much older – apart from another lad who had a year or three more on me.

Hard men. Tough men. Men who looked older than their age should tell. Men whose skin had been etched a dark tan by years of toil in the sun and the rain and the snow and the cold wind. Men whose features had been ravaged by alcohol.

They were, every one, thin and taught, their muscles woven like steel wire around the bones of their arms.

If they’d been born four centuries earlier they would have been the swarthy crew of a pirate ship.

On one of those long gone and faraway days; on a bright summer’s morning. The heat was already soaring and the clock had yet to strike nine.

I remember the smell of the putrefied corpse. Oddly sweet and musky it was.

I remember the thick black syrupy liquid that had once been the coffin’s occupant.

I remember the horror I felt as the corruption that had once been a man oozed closer and closer to breaching the top of my wellies.

And I remember the laughter of the ‘crew’ as they stood above me, silhouetted against a bright blue rectangle of summer sky.

“Ach, wheest wi yer whinin, boy. Wi put yon man in the groun a whiles back noo. He’ll no dae ye ony harm.”, said big Jim.

It had been a cheap coffin and the lid had collapsed as I’d been preparing the grave for a new occupant.

We called them re-openers because the lair could take more than one coffin. There are many factors involved in how rapidly a corpse decomposes. I was just ‘lucky’, I guess.

And that was my first job on leaving school. I was a digger of graves and barely sixteen.

No shipyards for me. I wanted to work in the open air, away from the clamour and clang of the yards.

And it’s peaceful, quiet work – burying the dead.

Often, at lunchtime, I would seek solitude in a remote part of the graveyard. And I would eat my sanny perched on a headstone.

And for company there’d be Jenny and Brendan and Wullie and Joe. The long silent and long dead occupants of adjacent graves. But still good company nonetheless. I won every argument we ever had between the five of us.

The ‘crew’, of course, was a team of gravediggers and we worked for the council at the local cemetery. Graves were all dug by hand back then, at least they were in the cemetery where I worked.

Despite their hard lives they were forever laughing. They held to no taboos about the dead.

The only time they’d fall silent would be when a tiny white coffin came our way; no jokes for a life ended before it had barely begun. And, because they saw their own ending, I think, when a pauper burial, as the ‘crew’ called them, came along.

A solitary priest or minister and a claggy mud hole in the sodden ground up the back of the cemetery. No headstone. No mourners. And only the crew of a pirate ship to send the departed on their way.

It’s not so long ago folk were dying of poverty and despair and lack of hope.

And it seems they still are. And it makes me angry.

Because we have everything we need, right now, in this 21st century, to fix that travesty.

I support an independent Scotland for many reasons. One of them, though, and call me idealistic if you want – I don’t give a damn, is that I believe us Scots are friendly, caring and selfless souls when given half a chance to be our true selves. As are most ordinary folk around the world.

And I believe we could maybe do better watching out for each other and making sure everyone has the same chance of a better, happier, longer life.

Lo, do I see my brothers and my sisters, and all that good stuff.

We’ve buried enough paupers in the back-ends of graveyards.

It’s about time we stopped.

Memmi, not Memo.

I hate auto-correct, because it’s almost always wrong.

@willie 2:21pm

That was a good post, Willie. Well said.

“A Scot Abroad” (lol)

“..I hate auto-correct, because it’s almost always wrong.”

Aye, just like you, sunshine.

Joe,

Many points to mull over and remember when it comes to society break down,
It comes in many colours and disguises
But the overall causes in history for poverty of food, and resources, wether employment or homes is often instigated by foreign actors Colonising a Country through governmentsl departments,

The top down method of governance makes the laws, and industries for good or bad,
It is without doubt that many of Scotlands problems are governed, not by their own Country, but by the controlling method of a coloniser that ensures there will be a failure in society.
This can be seen in the gender issues introduced in Scotland by a devolved from Westminster for a legislated secondary government,
This position is not unique, it is a pattern of Countries that are Colonised,
It is is recorded history that one of the many acts to achieve this breakdown in Society was the deliberate introduction of alcohol and drugs for indigenous people
This was purposely carried out on many indigenous people around the world, Scotland has been treated no different in that respect,

As I mentioned earlier on in the week the poverty like you speak of is here, it just that the control of Msm is very strong in GB,
And a lot of that poverty is often hidden in the Country side rather than in your face, and in Britain no one questions when the Streets are cleaned up of homeless people, where they go, the homeless shelters are already pretty full,

As I mentioned we knew a family that had small children still in nappies, or rather rags as nappies, the were dirty, penniless and still working hard as a couple to look after their children, and in employment that paid for little but their daily bread, with no butter,

They had to move because the house they lived in was sold as a holiday home, they could not afford the price,
The council offered to put them on a housing waiting list,
Which meant they were homeless,
To prevent the social services from dragging their children out their arms they lived in the forestry in secret, under a makeshift house/den,

This couple had been let down by the councils services, inappropriate laws on tenants rights, and a company whom’s main share holder was a Westminster politician) the company sporadically paid them a irregular wage,

Not druggies or alcoholics, just a family under a broken system of governance.
That were Welsh by birth for generations,

I see this happening in Scotland now,
The deliberate breakdown of Society and families to weaken any resistance as part of / and towards Colonisation.

You keep the people poor , you divide families, you break down the bonds and communities. Introduce problems, such as acohol drugs gender dysphoria, lack of employment choices and degeneration of communities.

My family mother and father had moved from Scotland on the promise from that company of a good wage and a house would be provided that went with the job,
When we arrived three other couple had been promised the same house, the same job, the same conditions

That split our family up,
The girls were put to our grannie and the boys and dad slept in the van in the forestry.

We got out as the older boys went to work else where locally and some of the older girls worked as young waitresses, we saved and pooled our money to return to Scotland homeless,
The Government run Council put us on a waiting list and offered various alternate foster home for the children,
So we all slept the van for six months in the winter time, while the older one’s looked for work after having washes at public toilets. would ask for a adress, we did not have one, police used to move us on from lay byes
We began to pick up work,
We then got a caravan, then a house, younger ones returned to school,

We had left Scotland originally to ensure that all in such a big family would have employment in a bigger populated area as we grew up and left school,
We returned to Scotland more impoverished than when we had left,

Since then I have been an ardent supporter for a independent Scotland, to break away from this system in Britain that is broke and works only for the benefit of the politicians and elite from the top down,
It was the small communities of Scotland that helped us get back on our feet, that I will never forget.

Poverty is is Britain, is going unnoticed by many, until it suddenly befalls on them, and that can happen in a flash, as my family discovered,
Britain deliberately creates that Colonial system of maintaining that system.
And the best way to stop that happening to all families and communities is to break down that system and divide that system of Colonialism,,

That means Scotland needs to become independent. For the sake of Scotland and the future of all Scots.

@Sam (1.00) –

Just what I was looking for. Much appreciated, thanks.

😉

Peasants in our own land where as the cartoon this week shows we cant even get a bottle return scheme right…

Aye, it’s depressing right enough Willie, but I would also say there are worse things in life than peasants. Just look at the turncoat bastards calling themselves Scots, while wishing for more of the same shite to heaped upon Scotland.

See yon wretch of a man, Cole-Hamilton by name, dressed in Highland regalia masquerading as a Highland gentleman while brazenly declaring Scotland should never exist. What a creep.

The self same wretch who lobbies for the return of a stain upon Scotland, the bestial cruelty of fox hunting with dogs, and all for the chance to dress up in the red coat of a redcoat, and sook up to his bloodlusty masters who get their jollies slaughtering innocents for fun. Butchers all.

Or the British squaddie kidding on he’s a credit to Scotland while all the time, his prancing about in a “Scottish” Regiment with a kilt and “Scottish” pipe band in his ear, as he toddles off to kill whatever foreigners London tells him to. Dinnae kid herself yer daein’ that for Scotland lad. With precious rare exceptions we are shamed by it. We revile the politicians bought and sold for English gold, but how are you any different?

When I’m dead and buried, and it comes to us all, I’ll be at peace and satisfied I did all in my power to see our dignity as a nation returned, and Scotland restored to its rightful place amongst honourable nations… if there are any left.

Aye Willie, your point is well made, but allow me to point out, there are much worse things you can be than a peasant.

A Scot Abroad said;

“It’s beyond ridiculous to think that in any future Indy vote that the franchise would be restricted to ethnically pure Scots, and exclude anyone legally in Scotland who isn’t deemed as Scottish. Nobody at all would accept the result, even if somehow an impartial arbiter could rule on who counted as Scottish or not.

So for those who are indeed thinking of such matters, dream on.”

You’ve overlooked a key and critical distinction here, ASA; it’s not simply the ethnic purity of Scots that is important in itself; it’s also because the native electors of Scotland are the actual true owners of Scotland’s national sovereignty, and have been since day one of Scotland the kingdom.

That sovereignty means that whatever their majority collective decision is, that sovereignty is engaged, and as such it cannot be lawfully countermanded by any majority collective decision by non-sovereign voters in any form of plebiscite.

Sovereignty really matters!

But having said that, I also accept that some form of longer-term residency-based franchise should be considered to permit long-standing new Scots to partake in such a referendum, but it can’t permit the kind of wide-open franchise we had last time, because, fair’s fair, Scotland really does legally and constitutionally belong to the Scots, and it should be very hard for new Scots to sideline them on such a matter. For arguably the most serious constitutional matter as Scotland’s very independence, Scotland’s sovereignty absolutely must take precedence.

Some cracking comments today, too many to single out one.

🙂

What also exists in Scotland is a poverty of opportunity. In my field I have the student debt etc but can not get off the ground floor, I’m not even there, I’m kept locked in the basement, due to running into a brick wall of positive discrimination by and for minorities and in many cases middle class examples of these. They appear to be suffering from generational trauma, look it up, it’s a thing, probably came out of Colombia University.

I had someone at management level laugh whilst telling me how they falsely manipulated a scene of supposed imported poverty and used this to apply for extra funding and self promotion. I had a New Scot tell me that they were building a career not out of merit but by the political contacts they were making within this group, the person they were at that point working for was an SNP spouse.

I have been looking at the money and have identified an eight figure number being awarded amongst these groups, all of which are connected but not to the uninformed onlooker and all of which use charitable status. It is a monopolised racket, poverty pays extremely well for certain people whilst people such as myself are left outside the tent and that is why I am now pissing into it.

Any young relatives looking at a career in the creative arts I advise to learn a trade and learn it well.

I personally do not think the treaty of union exists in the etymology and context that one could.

However for those that still believe it has any merit, it has to be recognised that the treaty of union has itself has Colonised by Westminster.

Anton Decadent / Ottomanboi –

Won’t be long before the very fact of being human will be more precious than intellectual ability.

Students of anything non-manual will be using AI to do all their work and their tutors will be using AI to mark it.

Northcode,

I have read Alf’s paper, but not his book.

What he writes in his paper is arrant nonsense.

Sam and Sarah
Inequality is complex. The Beveridge Report (1942) paved the way for the Welfare State. It identified five great evils which are still relevant today. They idleness, ignorance, squalor, disease, want, to be remedied respectively by work, education, housing, health and income support. They need to be tackled simultaneously to improve the life chances of the entire population.

If the UK parliamentary committee investigating the pandemic demands and receives all of Boris’s whatsapp messages I expect they will do the same for Nicola. That will be a very interesting read.

I am sure there will be a few lovely fragrant ones delighted to know their conspiracy against Salmond will come to light yet again and the Scottish judge, lawyers and crown office will be helpless as.their much more important masters will control what is released.

Watch for SNP head quarters putting in a large order of imodium

@A Scot Abroad 5:25pm

Eh…naw it isnae.

@Northcode –

🙂

Perhaps being governed by AI wouldn’t be so bad. Machines aren’t ‘greedy’ are they? Or vainglorious? And they don’t make off with money donated in good faith?

Perhaps most importantly of all, they don’t talk shite all the time and target the most gullible and ignorant with their mental policies.

Some pals have started a new place and want help getting word out.

Here’s the link.

(They’re keeping anonymous. And yes, I do know them and yes, a lot of you know them, and no, I’m not telling.)

🙂

offtopicscotland.com

Ian Brotherhood 6.37pm

“(They’re keeping anonymous. And yes, I do know them and yes, a lot of you know them, and no, I’m not telling.)”

Did you copy that statement straight out of Nicola Sturgeon’s handbook on how to turn people away from supporting you?

Cmon, spill the beans Ian,,,who are these “anonymous” characters?

You just might increase the interest in it.

@Tom (6.50) –

A promise is a promise, so, no can do.

😉

@Breeks –

Hear hear.

Did you ever see the programme about the ‘real’ Max Headroom?

Fascinating stuff. I won’t ruin it if you haven’t seen it but it’s well worth a watch, just a short film, maybe a podcast, I’ll see if I can find it.

@Sam 5:51

I am interested in what you write. Maybes you can answer a few questions.

What’s the minimum yearly income that will lift all Scottish adults out of poverty?

What’s the additional cost in benefits that will lift all Scottish children out of poverty?

What does that aggregate to as a cost to the Scottish exchequer, assuming we are independent?

What’s that as a percentage of iScotland GDP?

What does that mean for iScotland tax payers, i.e. what’s the iScotland income tax rate.

I am quite familiar with the ideas that to solve homelessness, give everybody a flat or house, and to solve poverty, give everybody some money.

But in the real world, these things have to be paid for. My belief that they are unaffordable, and that’s why they have never been achieved, may be fundamentally wrong.

But to prove me wrong, numbers are needed, so please provide them.

Thanks in advance.

My wife’s father and mother were raised in little cottages with dirt floors and shutters rather than windows…

Nice post Joe. Makes a change to read something that resonates. I was born into a rural household just 2 years after it got mains electricity.

I remember there was a 5 amp round pin circuit for lights and light duty appliances… old school, but kinda ahead of it’s time too, as we’re in the process of putting in light duty 12v led lighting systems… very clever, but we’ve actually been there and done that decades ago.

I look at housing, the racket which started with Thatcher’s Tories; the rotten Ponzi scheme which drives up house prices to ludicrous excess, and does it by stimulating demand, and stimulates demand by restricting supply, and making the poor suffer with less opportunity of having a home. Like I say, it’s a racket.

Ever wonder why we’ve so many homeless, but yet no shanty towns or favelas?

I suppose what really gets into the nitty gritty of my own Nationalism, is the injustice of it; the endemic underachievement forced upon a nation once renowned for it’s talent. Scotland’s people have the same right to thrive as anybody else, but parasites have got every opportunity compromised; gatekeepers on every opening.

Scotland is like having a classic vintage car, a true, timeless, marvel of engineering and an absolute beauty in style, but it’s sadly neglected, filthy and abused, the engine won’t start because the bastards piss in the fuel tank so they can tow it around like a wagon, “their” wagon.

I’d take my country back from them in a heartbeat and give it one god-almighty overhaul and service until it was gleaming and roaring like a classic supercar. Not the donkey-nag pulling a trap, but the high spirited thoroughbred it was always meant to be.

I really, really, really don’t give a flying fk about ANY Unionist’s spiel about how great it is to be a donkey. They’d be better saving their breath because I’m a million miles away from ever listening.

Those bellends don’t even know what a thoroughbred is, and just look at the misery and dystopia they reek in their own country and wherever else they go in the world too. They just don’t see it, do they?

Scotland can be saved. It’s inside of us, just dormant. But who will save England from the English? That, I really don’t know.

@John Main

Wrong approach, I think. There are billions to be saved in unpaid welfare, taxes received, savings in NHS funding by reducing health inequalities.There won’t be a healthy economy without a healthy population

Make taxes fair and fitting the values of the country.

Mac

Killed billions of people?

You sure of that?

@Ian Brotherhood

Yes, indeed.I twigged on very early.

In 1847 parts of Scotland and Ireland suffered starvation. Today, food banks struggle to provide enough emergency food and the Food Foundation reported in September 2022 that 9.7 million people in the UK experienced food insecurity.

In 1847 many Irish and Highlanders moved to Glasgow. Housing for many of them became slums. We still create slums today.High rises many built of poor materials.

There is now (and long into the future) a public health crisis in Scotland as in 1847. Both shaped by UK government policy.

In 1847 as now the poor and vulnerable were made scapegoats. The racist Treasury Minister, Trevelyan, made food aid conditional on working for it, condemning the weak and sick. He held the Gaels to be inferior and that they should not depend on public charity.

Here, the aim of benefit sanctions is to help or force people into work. They fail in this aim and are harmful, pushing people futher into poverty and causing distress. They are punitive and, like Trevelyan, cause more harm to those already in trouble.

Newspaper campaigns, supportive of Tory policies, demonised the disabled on benefits as “scroungers”.

Cameron spoke of “a swarm” of immigrants and Braverman of an “invasion”, language described as “dehumanising”. Both words were used in 1847 in the Glasgow Argus to describe the presence of destitute Irish.

One response to the crisis in 1847 was the forced emigration/deportation of some, for example in Barra. This continued the long process of Clearances. Today, people seeking sanctuary here may be deported to Malawi against their will.

It’s the Union.

Sam,

nothing to stop the First Minister standing up and saying to Westminster “don’t send asylum seekers to Rwanda, send them to Scotland, where we will look after them in conditions of care and dignity”.

But he hasn’t, just yet, has he?

Mac at 8.46pm mentioned the tweets on sugar (Revd. Stu’s anguished tweets this afternoon about artificial sweeteners in certain fizzy drinks).

Not only do some of these sweeteners affect flavour but it’s been known for years they’re actually associated with obesity, with cardiovascular disease and even diabetes. ‘Diet’ drinks? Seemingly not. Something to do with altered gut bacteria and brain chemistry.

The sugar industry itself was involved in developing some of these artificial sweeteners and profits handsomely from them. Meanwhile we guzzle the stuff and feel virtuous that we’re avoiding sugar.

What’s this got to do with Scotland? Well, Irn Bru has done it too, because of the sugar tax, and folk are not happy.