The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland


Spin the bottle

Posted on June 03, 2023 by

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

0 to “Spin the bottle”

  1. socratesmacsporran
    Ignored
    says:

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

  2. SteepBrae
    Ignored
    says:

    Spin the bottle!
    And the puir sowel sees which way this is going…

  3. Stephen O'Brien
    Ignored
    says:

    Save Scotland!

    Recycle Holyrood for fucksake!

    Low emission zone… IndyRef2!

    Absolutely no bottle!

    Pulp SNP!

  4. Ian McCubbin
    Ignored
    says:

    So funny covers all aspects of this NU SNP alliance ,time for change Alba rising hopefully.

  5. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

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

  6. Baxter
    Ignored
    says:

    Yet another cracker, The Geeens a gift that keeps on giving.

    Is it just me that isn’t seeing things or has Harvie dropped off the radar recently since Slater has made a posterior of it?

  7. Beauvais
    Ignored
    says:

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

  8. 100%Yes
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m glad the next Westminster election is over a year away, it allows the SNP to completely destroy its self. My goal has went from achieving Independence to seeing the demise of the SNP, I feel sure the Greens will be absolutely fine and why wouldn’t they be Nicola setup that way.

  9. Dramfineday
    Ignored
    says:

    Hahaha….first class Chris

  10. Den
    Ignored
    says:

    To the point indeed, however incompetent she is and no matter how much taxpayers money she wastes both Slater and Harvey are never going to be sacked as the SNP are shit scared of them, to the point that they have a disproportionate say on government policy. We (Scotland )need rid of them asap.

  11. stonefree
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Den at 9:14 am

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

  12. Astonished
    Ignored
    says:

    Spot on.

    What I can’t fathom is a reason to keep her in the cabinet ?

    Did she go to all the Sturgeon parties ? Or is she an alphabetty (and we’re going to see that question being asked a lot, lot more) ? Or was she part of the plot ?

    Slater more than deserves the sack.

  13. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  14. John
    Ignored
    says:

    100%Yes says:
    3 June, 2023 at 8:57 am
    I’m glad the next Westminster election is over a year away, it allows the SNP to completely destroy its self. My goal has went from achieving Independence to seeing the demise of the SNP

    That could well be a collective view with many of us.

  15. radgie gadgie
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  16. Liz
    Ignored
    says:

    Ha, ha, ha, ha.

  17. Antoine Roquentin
    Ignored
    says:

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

  18. Mia
    Ignored
    says:

    hahahaha Brilliant!!!

    Goodness, it is mess after mess after mess with the Greens in power, which the SNP far more than the Greens will be paying a high price for at the next GE.

    Despite this, unbelievably, the SNP is, knowingly, determined to completely self-immolate themselves politically to keep the useless Harvie and Slater in power and to drive through their incredibly toxic and badly-thought out policies at all costs

    You really have to wonder why. Is it sheer stupidity from the SNP, is it pigheadness and feeling they are teflon-coated, or is it that the Greens might have something unsavoury on SNP MSPs, Perhaps little black books of some of those male prostitutes pushing hard for GRR?

    Until what point all these toxic policies are being forced through via political blackmailing?

    I think we have the right to know.

    What exactly is justifying in the eyes of the SNP this industrial scale level of destructive tail wagging the dog?

  19. willie
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  20. willie
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  21. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Mia 10:35

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

    Simples!

  22. Heaver
    Ignored
    says:

    In stagnant waters scum rises to the top, denies oxygen to all below, looks down on all below with disgust.

    Also, what’s her carbon footprint ?

  23. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    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

  24. Anton Decadent
    Ignored
    says:

    I work amongst people like her and they are extremely dangerous. They have a pathological hatred of all things white and/or Christian which they demonstrate via a culture of nepotism, cronyism and political favouritism under the false flags of altruism, equality and Socialism. I know that I repeat this but seeing it up close and personal opened my eyes to a publicly funded fifth column.

    The Green movement worldwide has been hijacked by these people as a front. Their idea of environmentalism is pushing the trans indoctrination of children etc and handing lucrative contracts and opportunities to their friends, look at how no one was allowed to know who was behind the company set up to run the bottle return scheme. A pox on all of their houses.

    @Mia, I have been suggesting that for years now, that the political class have been Epsteined by the Greens for leverage.

    The way things are going in fifty years time history will record Humza Yousaf as the father of a Scotland fit for the twenty first century in which the hated white minority colonisers were eventually driven into the sea.

  25. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  26. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    Thais are apt to make the case that they never succombed to colonialism.
    Well they have now.
    https://archive.ph/cvEpb
    Good for multi$¥€£ sex tourism apparently.
    Now we get where «they» are coming from.

  27. iain mhor
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  28. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Womens rights are being battered from all angles, it is time to show the evidence that racism and inequality towards women is rife in all of UKs governments,

    A Men ” Claiming”to be be Women can switch back to a mans Pension if they choose not to be a woman when they reach pension age,

    Women born women cannot, they are burdened with this continuous maladministration towards women only from the DWP.

  29. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  30. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    Another cracking expose of corruption in cartoon form

    And to those just highlighting the stupidity and corruption of the greens in what should be an admiral concept let us not forget that NOTHING can be done without the collusion and collaboration of the Sexual Nonce Party who INVITED them into power without the votes of the electorate

  31. A Scot Abroad
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  32. Mia
    Ignored
    says:

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

    Not enough explanation for me, I am afraid. Usually, snouts in the trough have an incredibly acute instinct of survival and are rather quick at ditching and reneging on those who are threatening their sinecures.

    This politically deadly association with the Greens, which has transformed the SNP into the Green proxy to force over the Scottish public toxic and unwanted “green” policies, has a completely different foetid smell.

    Whatever the origin of that smell is, the rot engulfs labour and libdems as well.

    When you think about it, the Greens have been incredibly clever. They got the SNP, libdems and labour to immolate their parties passing toxic policies on their behalf, so, quite possibly, despite the Greens being the engineers of the toxic policies, they may be the ones the electorate punishes the least for them at the next election.

    As I say, either there is a complete idiot designing strategy within the SNP, or they are deliberately bringing the party down by using the toxicity of Green policies, or they are being blackmailed. I for one would like to know who exactly is controlling our democratic structures.

  33. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  34. robertkknight
    Ignored
    says:

    Outstanding ‘toon!

  35. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    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!

  36. Lorna Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    Had to chortle, Chris. The idea of such a scheme was good, but the fleshing out was rubbish. I think I read somewhere that Germany has glass receptacles in its supermarkets. Can’t say I noticed, but great idea. Where there’s a will, there’s a way to quote a cliche.

  37. Lorna Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  38. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan,

    The place is littered with junk even here,
    Our parents, teachers, police and the next door neighbour even used to tell us when we were young used to teach us to tidy up after us, it would seem the the next generation who spout climate change are the last to pick up their own rubbish, for we see a great increase with this litter in that generations time period,
    but the Councils whom used to do litter patrol in vehicles and on foot have cut back on this service while hiking up Council tax.
    The Councils bringing in 15 min cities seem to be right up there in front.
    I also notice the withdrawal of maintaining road sweeping and flower border supposedly meant to be wild flower species full of nought but overgrown grass.
    In fact around by us the filthiest roads are the ones around the council yards and their CA site,
    Littler, plastic bottles, glass and old nappies.
    We pick up some of it when out our walks,

    But we are paying Council tax for these services that have been reduced, while the tax increases,
    Never mind the pot holes in the roads.
    One would suspect that receiving money under false pretences amounts to fraud,

  39. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    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).

  40. Gregory Beekman
    Ignored
    says:

    Classic!

    This is the best one yet – LOL genius!

  41. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  42. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan 12:59pm

    You make a good point, Dan. We were taught to always pick up our litter. I remember me and my pals would pick up broken bottles and such so that the wee ones wouldn’t cut themselves. And we were only 10 year-olds ourselves.

    @Iain mhor

    Wet flys, jungle cock, ram’s scrotum, and ducks arse?

    You and Dan are talking about fishing, right? 🙂

  43. A Scot Abroad
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  44. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Westminster Confidential. July 19th David Henke.
    Parliament and ministerial pension pots,

    THE RAPE OF THE NATIONAL INSURANCE FUND…..Excellent link within the article.

    Low state pension level for the rest us and the reason for raising pension age.

    This was done under,
    Margaret Thatcher,
    John Moore,
    Kenneth Clark,
    Tony Blair,
    Gordon Brown,
    Steve Webb,
    And
    Guy Opperman, ex pensions minister whom fought against compensating Waspl women and raised the pension age

  45. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    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,

  46. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    A Scot Abroad.

    Wrong on nearly every count. The papacy did reply to the Bruce and recognised him as King of Scotland following an appeal against his second excommunication.

    Educate yourself before people suspect you are just an idiot.

  47. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    David Henke, July 19th 2018.
    Westminster Confidential.

  48. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    The unwanted, unelected, really thick, waste of space, Canadian visitor, Lorna Slater. Not suitable for recycling. Living it up in Scotland with her ministerial CAR, whilst telling everybody else to cycle. One rule for her, another rule for us.

    Why oh why are the SNP still letting these list ‘greeny’ clowns dictate policies??? Does Patrick Harvie ‘know where the bodies are buried’, so to speak??

  49. A Scot Abroad
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  50. Xaracen
    Ignored
    says:

    A Scot Abroad said;

    “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.”

    Your understanding of history is woefully inept, if you think the Pope avoided answering that letter; it took a while but the Papacy eventually agreed with it in full, lifting its sanctions on Scotland’s king and people, declaring Scotland a fully independent country, and that England has no authority whatsoever over it. That certainly made a long-lasting difference, didn’t it, old boy?

    And, since you believe the Treaty of Union is also outdated, stale, and old, perhaps you could tell us on which date that happened? Because that stale old outdated Treaty was the sole source of Westminster’s authority to govern Scotland in the first place, and if the Treaty no longer has legal or constitutional standing, then neither does that authority, making that date Scotland’s Independence Day.

    We’d like to celebrate it.

  51. wull
    Ignored
    says:

    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!

  52. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    ASCOTABROAD
    A great uncle married a Scottish lady, their mixed issue now live in Alexandria, the Egyptian one.
    On such a hook my interest in Scotland hangs. I think I am not unique. It is possible to become something you were not born. Plenty might disagree though.
    Re ancient things, I am proud of my genetic links to classical Assyria, Ashurbanipal etc, but I don’t as the expression has it «dine out on the notion». Century 21 needs century 21 solutions not re-enactment.

  53. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    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

  54. A Scot Abroad
    Ignored
    says:

    The Pope actually replied to urge peace between England and Scotland. It wasn’t a direct response to the begging letter. And, in any case, the Pope had no authority over who was King or Queen of either nation. So, like Popes to this day on matters of international recognition, a pretty irrelevant office.

  55. A Scot Abroad
    Ignored
    says:

    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.”

  56. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Xaracen,

    I like our intelligent debate, and so do a few others,

    At least we do not make wild claims without evidence, we do attempt to back it up with references and dates and speeches from politicians

    We may not always agree, but that is why it is good to debates the issue 🙂

  57. George Ferguson
    Ignored
    says:

    @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.

  58. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    ASCOTABROAD
    You are wrong, it actually did matter whether you were «approved of» by the papacy in the Catholic «pre reformation» period. Appeals to the papacy were normative. Also putting a pope on the Throne of St Peter who was amenable to your outlook was part of the floating world of diplomacy.
    In theory, legitimacy of kingship devolved from the primatial see of the Bishop of Rome. Or else would there be a Declaration of Arbroath addressed to a pope, or Henry VIII of England appeal to Rome for an annulment of his marriage.
    The title Vicar of Christ, God’s representative on Earth carried considerable weight.
    Alas, no longer. Nowadays, everybody imagines him/herself a pope.

  59. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  60. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    A Scot Abroad says

    “Others may disagree”

    Never!

    “Couldn’t give a hoot what skin colour somebody wears. They’re still Scots”

    That has a certain facile superficial plausibility about it.

    Until you try the reverse for size.

    Go to South Africa for example, and say “Couldn’t give a hoot what skin colour somebody wears. They’re still Matabele”.

    Garbage on stilts.

    It’s in the teasing out of why one is garbage, yet the other is supposedly self-evidently gospel, that the problems start.

    The problems multiply when you consider that to support the second proposal, in its country of applicability, would soon get you in great difficulties. Yet to oppose the first proposal, here, soon causes all sort of problems too.

    Yet to a logician, either both proposals are true, or both false. I guess we must each individually make up our own minds.

  61. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  62. Galloway Lass
    Ignored
    says:

    Re: Ottomanboi @ 7.59 pm:

    I appreciated your response to A Scot Abroad, who obviously has no idea of the history of these isles! Whatever he may think, history is very relevant in this day and age.

    I often wonder where A Scot Abroad and James Che live – perhaps they’re both still living in the Caves in Cheddar Gorge, where “The Hellfire Club” used to hold their ceremonies! Any day now he will be telling us that we should all be obeying the Magna Carta!!

  63. George Ferguson
    Ignored
    says:

    @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?.

  64. A Scot Abroad
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main,

    taking your South African riposte, I wouldn’t say that “They are all Matabele”, because that would be stupid, and not recognise another dozen ethnicities in modern South Africa. I would say “they are all South African”, and that’s the way the world understands matters.

    Perhaps we should adopt your approach in Scotland? Place everybody back into clans again? Scots clans and African tribes are perhaps not exactly akin, but relatively so, I would think. And the good Reverend, owner of this blog, had better look out for the ire of my clan’s current generation, whose forebears were murdered by his forebears at Glencoe…

    And that would be, by your logic, garbage on stilts.

    No. It is a nonsense to be so tribal or nativist. If you live in a country with defined borders, then that’s who you are.

  65. Zander Tait
    Ignored
    says:

    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

  66. Alf Baird
    Ignored
    says:

    A Scot Abroad @ 9:50 pm

    “No. It is a nonsense to be so tribal or nativist. If you live in a country with defined borders, then that’s who you are.”

    Its not a nonsense at all. You can’t deny that tribes and natives and ethnic groups exist and should be respected for who they are, and their nations likewise. You can’t force people to be what they are not, irrespective of where they now happen to live.

    Maybe you confuse national citizenship with national identity? Until Scotland is independent there can be no (recognised) Scottish citizenship, not even for ethnic Scots who would automatically qualify for it. Internationally nobody is officially recognised as ‘Scottish’, not even ethnic Scots; in colonial terminology we are ‘out of the game’.

    So what you are talking about seems rather academic, at least until independence/liberation of the Scots is secured, which will then establish a Scottish state able to offer its citizenship to other ‘peoples’ (i.e. tribes, natives of other nations/origins etc) who may wish to apply to hold Scottish citizenship.

  67. A Scot Abroad
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  68. Derek
    Ignored
    says:

    Dinnae…

  69. North Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    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 “

  70. Alf Baird
    Ignored
    says:

    A Scot Abroad @ 1:06 am

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

    Many people live in countries that they do not originate from, and they may also pay taxes there, but that does not necessarily allow them a constitutional vote on whether that country should exist or not (e.g. Dubai, Norway, Luxembourg, Ireland etc). First they would need to apply for and hold the citizenship of that ‘host’ country; however, even that may not necessarily qualify them to vote in a referendum on a specific constitutional matter, which is quite different from voting in local or national elections.

    The solidarity and basis of an independence movement is dependent on an oppressed ethnic group (Hechter). In other words, without ethnic Scots there would be no desire for Scottish independence. Which also explains why Imperial powers seek to disrupt and alter the indigenous populations of nations and ‘peoples’ they are in self-determination conflict with. In this respect we might again ask where the recent Scottish census has gone?

  71. Ron Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    “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.”

    https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/humza-yousaf-predicts-snp-wont-lose-seats-at-next-general-election-4168588

  72. Ron Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    “Tories accuse SNP and Labour of throwing the North East “under a bus” over oil and gas
    Labour to block new licences for North Sea oil and gas.”

    https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/tories-accuse-snp-and-labour-of-throwing-the-north-east-under-a-bus-over-oil-and-gas-4168587

  73. North chiel
    Ignored
    says:

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

  74. Shug
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

    Hmmm

    Now she has resigned and left, she is tossing in another wedge issue. Is she related to the chief constable??

    I now definitely think she has been turned

  75. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

    https://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/file-manager/FSHLrelateddocs/overall-costs-fshl.pdf

    “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.

  76. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    A Unionists doleful ramble through the «Brown-scape»
    https://archive.ph/qNmLy
    A journey offering little of interest.

  77. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    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 .

  78. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    Wondering what La Sturgeon is up to? Maybe not, but
    Won a gay award….in London.
    https://archive.ph/y1bXd
    To paraphrase J.M. Barrie, «There are few more unimpressive sights than a Scotswoman on the make»

  79. Joe
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  80. Scotsrenewables
    Ignored
    says:

    From the Economist:

    “The country’s political class has been on a long holiday from reality,” it wrote. “Scotland cannot afford another wasted decade.”

  81. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    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

  82. Ron Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    “Police Scotland chief constable Iain Livingstone defends tent on Nicola Sturgeon’s lawn during SNP finance probe
    Iain Livingstone said the SNP finance inquiry had been ‘proportionate and necessary’”

    https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/police-scotland-chief-constable-iain-livingstone-defends-tent-on-nicola-sturgeons-lawn-during-snp-finance-probe-4168748

  83. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  84. Ron Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    “Humza Yousaf warns UK Government putting deposit return scheme ‘in grave danger’
    The First Minister has written to PM Rishi Sunak today urging a rethink of plans to exempt glass from the scheme in Scotland.”

    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/humza-yousaf-warns-uk-government-30145730

  85. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    @ 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

  86. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    Home made is better than import.
    https://archive.ph/PQ0vi
    The sensible nationalist is creative in every sense.
    Enjoy the sun!

  87. A Scot Abroad
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  88. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sam 10:13

    Read the link kindly posted by Ottomanboi at 9:50. Here’s a wee quote:

    A prolific Twitter user with 1.5 million followers, she only twice fired up her account during this period: once to retweet news of a new bike shed in Shawlands and again to promote a post about child poverty being much lower in Scotland than other UK countries

    So, who to believe, eh? Sam or NS?

    [1.5 million Twats – Jeezo, what possible hope can there be for us Scots when so many of us were prepared to have her every mince spewing fast-tracked to our mobys?]

  89. David Hannah
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  90. Anton Decadent
    Ignored
    says:

    @Joe

    This must have stung, factcheckers having to admit that the FTM transexual designing clothes for gay and transexual toddlers at the US store Target did in fact promote Satanism. What is not mentioned in the article is that she also produced items advocating for the execution of anyone perceived to be guilty of homophobia/transphobia.

    https://archive.fo/kvoP8

  91. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ 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.

  92. David Hannah
    Ignored
    says:

    https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.thenational.scot/news/19196889.nicola-sturgeon-issues-stinging-rebuke-alba-party-alex-salmond/

    Her comments are from 2021 sorry. There’s one person leading the Independence movement now and it’s Alex Salmond not Sturgeon who never did.

  93. SteepBrae
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  94. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sam (10.13) –

    Can I please ask if you have a source for those stats? Just wondering if they’re recent or not and I need to check other stuff which may be referenced in the same place.

    Thanks.

    😉

  95. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @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?

  96. A Scot Abroad
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main,

    my remark wasn’t addressed at anything that you have said, but others are of that mind.

    As to your question, if you were one of those tribes that you mention, then you’d be taken seriously. If you weren’t, then you wouldn’t be.

  97. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    @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.

  98. Scot
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main
    Africa is a good case when arguing the thesis that the history of a country/group of countries can best be understood as a history of population movements.
    You can read Iliffe’s book as a good introduction.
    Africans: the history of a continent (John Iliffe et al)

    You will know that Bantu is not one ethnic group but an artificial amalgam of a whole series of ethnic group.
    Matabele and Zulu are ethnically similar due to the population movement southwards from Zimbabwe to Natal a long time ago.
    The bushmen have there the longest. Sadly there are few left and well scattered.

  99. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  100. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    Is there not some legal challenge that could be taken against the current Scottish administration, the snp/green vichy administration for the Gross FAILURE to produce the recent census figures, these figures are SUPPOSED to produce the information for service requirements into the future, which begs the question did sturgeon believe Scotland had a future or is it just that like everything else she touched it turned to shit

    England,Wales,NI have produced their figures even during covid, BUT Sturgeon added this FIASCO to all her other FIASCOS yet you still have morons claiming she done good

  101. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    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?

  102. John H.
    Ignored
    says:

    twathater.

    I think you know as well as I why the Scottish census figures have never been released. They would waken up the people of Scotland, and we can’t have that can we?

  103. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Galloway lass,

    are you suggesting new trolling Of old independence supporters?

  104. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Ian Brotherhood 11.35am

    Ian,

    The information came from CPAG at the link below. I’ve also given some more links if you are interested.

    https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/effects-poverty

    Children in poverty in Scotland number 24%, 27% across the UK more generally (CPAG) info.

    https://www.healthscotland.scot/population-groups/children/adverse-childhood-experiences-aces/overview-of-aces

    https://jech.bmj.com/content/73/12/1087

  105. Alf Baird
    Ignored
    says:

    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?”

  106. Joe
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sam

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

    Most of the time more than 5 people lived to a room. For weeks at a time meals were rice boiled with green plumbs. The temperature outside would get down to -30 degrees. For all the world it resembled medieval living.

    In more modern times people still have it hard. Once I witnessed 17 different individuals/groups outside the window in -18 degree weather check the bins for something of use in the space of a single morning. Some of them had weary looking horses and some also had wee bairns.

    Unemployment there means you starve, unless you have a family. I watched groups of jobless men, made thin by lack of nutrition, try to assemble their boxes and old tyres around a fire to more properly protect them from temperatures below that of an industrial freezer.

    When you do get a job there it is for life. No matter how bad it is, or how low paying it is (recently it was £5 equivalent daily wage in a place with prices not much below the UK). You’ll take what you can get.

    There are no nations opening there doors to these Europeans (who mostly can speak English) however. Their poverty is not an issue. Unless they get a fake passport most will never leave the situation they were born in.

    What struck me when I started to get to know the place is the lack of crime. The community spirit still exists. The surprising general decency of the people and, not least the high level of intelligence present in many from shepherds to industrial managers. I’m not a stupid man, but I’ve come across many people who are the lowest of the low there who make me seem somewhat dull and slow witted.

    I had to say to my wife that if you were to exchange the population of her country to Scotland, and put the Scots there it would result in absolute anarchy in less than a day.

    So when it comes to poverty there is far more going on when it comes to the effects on people than many in the West would like to think.

    My own observations of ‘poverty’ in the UK and Scotland is that outside of particular occasions of economic stagnation, Thatcher, covid etc that the children in poverty are often more afflicted with problematic parent(s?), themselves victims of a poisonous modern culture that promotes what some would describe as degenerate lifestyles, than by prevailing economics.

    However poverty is a very useful tool when it comes to the equality people. I said tool, what I mean is a mobilising form of propaganda. The idea being that all you have to do is more equitably distribute the fruits of civilisation and things will work out better. Which of course means supporting certain agendas, doctrines and the politicians that ride on them.

    One thing we do in our country that is not present in many poorer countries is push a form of class/wealth envy. The TV, social media and the entire zeitgeist is all about how cool it is to be a childless, sexually active, economically independent, jet-setting useless fanny offset against an equality narrative that just so happens to hinge on handing political power to the those who ‘care’ for the utterly helpless huddled masses.

    I am actually somewhat of a socialist minded person in real terms. I see no glory in being the Sultan of a shithole filled with starving people. In fact I’d say that a nationalist who does not wish to see resources given to help his people in general is no actual nationalist.

    I suppose what I am trying to say is that looking at the effects of poverty absent factors such as societal attitudes (is family and community still held as important, for example?) and other underlying causes is fundamentally incomplete and serves as ideological fodder for the kind of radical left wing ideologies that have done more harm than good in the past, and have ultimately, through societal protest movements, served to erode the fabric of functioning families and communities while blaming the consequences of this purely on a lack of policies that facilitate the ‘equitable distribution of wealth’.

  107. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  108. Den
    Ignored
    says:

    Looks like ole Useless has been caught out trying to stoke a grievance on the DRS that don’t exist. Tennents are going bust my arse.. He is gonna clean up up the SNP he said, looks like he is indoctrinated fully into the SNP lies and spin machine.

  109. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  110. A Scot Abroad
    Ignored
    says:

    Alf,

    Memo was a fictional novelist who started out with some wild ravings about the interplay between France, Tunisia, Jewishness and Islam. He calmed down later in life, writing pieces that rejected his deadlier works. He’s not taken seriously among academics.

  111. A Scot Abroad
    Ignored
    says:

    Memmi, not Memo.

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

  112. willie
    Ignored
    says:

    Exploitation is indeed the yolk under which the colonised live.

    One only need to look around and see how Scotland, a country rich in resources, and with a history going way back, has been colonised and exploited.

    Scotland had water, mountains and glens that gave us cheap hydro electric power. Power from the Glens for the Glens may have been the call all those years ago but in the eighties all our electricity and generation was sold off to now be owned by privateers and profiteers whilst the people go cold.

    And the bountiful wind now blossoming. Who owns that. Not too difficult to say who it isn’t. or oil and gas that frankly wasn’t we were told worth anything at all.

    Our our world famous whisky. Save for a few independents the Scots whisky industry is in foreign corporate ownership. or Scottish salmon. That’s 99% owned by the Norwegians, Icelanders and a few other foreign corporate interests.

    Or what about rock. There’s a huge quarry near Oban where nearly a billion tonnes of rock has been quarried out of a mountain, With deep water access it has sold aggregates to as far afield as Texas, USA. Initially owned by a Englishman and his company Foster Yeoman it is now owned by a Swiss conglomerate.

    Or our ports of Forth, Clyde and Dundee. Once owned by the people, the communities that they served, these were privatised and are owned by who now? And with Freeports on the horizon, they wont even be part of Scotland.

    Our our airports. Save for Prestwick who owns our airports as they relentlessly charge through the nose, charging even for car drop off.

    Or our forestry. Rich picking there for the infamous types like the late Terry Wogan, foreigners are big into our forestry. Or even our schools estate or much of our national road network. Built and operated by PFI investors from around the world Jock now pays out big backs to these oft international investors.

    And so it goes on and on and on. And all the while our Colonial Administrators sell us out for a few glass beads and a bit of ermine.

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

  113. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    @willie 2:21pm

    That was a good post, Willie. Well said.

  114. A Scot Abroad
    Ignored
    says:

    Willie,

    what’s stopping the Scottish government doing anything about the resources, then? They’ve got the powers to order compulsory purchases of energy companies. They’ve got the revenues to buy out the shares in foreign ownership of the whisky companies, the quarries, salmon farmers, and anyone else.

    They did manage to buy out an airport. And in effect, do the same with a boatbuilding company on the Clyde that had the contract to build a couple of ferries. Don’t tell me that it’s Westminster’s fault that those two purchases haven’t gone so well.

  115. James
    Ignored
    says:

    “A Scot Abroad” (lol)

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

    Aye, just like you, sunshine.

  116. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    @A Scot Abroad 2:45pm

    You’ve either not read anything Alf Baird has said about the true nature of Scotland’s colonised status, or you’ve read it and woefully failed to comprehend what that means for any ‘autonomy’ Scotland has over it’s own resources.

  117. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  118. chic.mcgregor
    Ignored
    says:

    As I have pointed out a million times, Off Shore electricity production cost, while it has improved relative to On Shore is still nearly twice the cost. Mainly down to foundation costs and more difficult ongoing maintenance.

    BEFORE Brexit or the Ukraine War, the UK energy policy was already set to make Britain’s electricity bills noncompetitive. I told you all it would add hundreds of pounds to your annual bill compared to if the English had chosen to produce electricity using its vast On Shore resource, like the rest of Western Europe. That is because Off Shore was (until the war driven fossil fuel price rise) one of the most expensive ways to produce electricity, on a par with nuclear, whereas On Shore was one of the cheapest.

    The knock on effect for industrial competitiveness, especially of course high energy users, smelters, steelworks, potteries, glass makers and the like is devastating. A disaster for British manufacturing.

    And that was before Brexit/Covid/Ukraine and it was an entirely political decision of monumental stupidity.

    There is a certain culturally ingrained but totally delusional optic that the English or more especially the English ruling ‘elite’ espy the World through. It is predicated on a historical imbedding by the likes of Blake/Tolkien et al of a reverence for Ludditeism.
    ‘Green and pleasant land.’
    ‘Dark Satanic mills.’

    It is ludicrous because England is actually one of the most overpopulated and least sustainable countries on the planet. England needs a successful manufacturing and exporting sector more than any other European country, just to survive even.

    John Major’s rural idyll of ‘Warm beer and cricket on village greens.’ could only be possible if England’s population dropped to something like 10-15 million.

    Isn’t it lucky that Covid covered the economic disasters of Brexit? Isn’t it lucky that the Ukraine War covered their disastrous energy policies? That is, if you believe in luck.

    Anyhoo, went off on a rant there. What I really came on to say was that thanks to Scottish and Norwegian engineering, there is a glimmer of light on Off Shore wind. They have developed floating off shore wind turbine platforms which means that the huge cost of building foundations is removed. More than that, it means that Off Shore wind farms no longer need to be confined to shallow waters like the Dogger Bank off SE England.

    Furthermore, the ability to use in deep waters means another innovation is possible which should reduce electricity costs even more, but I won’t go into that here.

    Take a look

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hywind_Scotland

  119. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sam (1.00) –

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

    😉

  120. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Willie,

    Excellent post,
    Recognising that Scotland is wealthy, yet many Scots are not, under Colonialism.

  121. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    willie says:
    4 June, 2023 at 2:21 pm

    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.

  122. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    North Code.

    That bought a tear to my eyes,

    Some of us have lived life, experienced life to its full and at its worst,
    We could eradicate most of poverty in Scotland if we were independent by looking at the realities of life as it is by taking a second look at whom actually keeps the world turning.

    And you’re right, in amongst all the hardships laughter at the most difficult times is the best healer.

  123. Xaracen
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  124. dasBlimp
    Ignored
    says:

    Nortrhcode 2.06PM

    That was a good read, Northcode. You have a talent for writing tales.

  125. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

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

    🙂

  126. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    North Code.

    Re Laughter and humour to see you through difficult times,
    I retired as a Cartoonist, and taught art, that was the days before Computers, not sure how I would manage with that issue as such things were not in my education way back then.

    But still humour, and life experiences provided self employment for many a year.

  127. Anton Decadent
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  128. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    David Hannah says on 4 June 2023 at 11:06 am:
    “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.”

    Given her comments being from 2021 maybe he did. He could very well be the reason she, and several other current SNP scumbags, have all walked away. Maybe he privately contacted (or via his legal representative) her after those comments and said something along the lines of: ‘Look, i’ve taken enough of your shite. Here’s what you’re going to do or i reveal X, Y & Z and on top of that you’re going to jail once i’m finished wiping the courtroom floor with you and your nappy-fetish brigade.’

    Note how, prior to her “resignation”, the badmouthing of him by her had almost become non-existent. Even if he didn’t have a hand in her demise, it’s nice to imagine he did. 😉

  129. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  130. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    Material poverty is bad enough but intellectual poverty is pernicious. I fear the latter will always be with us among elements of those who seek to rule or «boss» their fellow humans, and it shows.

  131. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  132. Stephen O'Brien
    Ignored
    says:

    Too much time spent pondering the Treaty of the Union. Abolish the Scotland Act, end of. Self-determination, here and now!

  133. A Scot Abroad
    Ignored
    says:

    Northcode,

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

    What he writes in his paper is arrant nonsense.

  134. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    IAN BROTHERHOOD
    No prob with AI itself, my prob is with those who may manipulate it to suit their own ends.

    Unfortunately you do not find that information «on the can».

    Dread to think what the impact on education and «knowledge» a power crazy AI directed régime would have. Totalitarian systems head straight for the young.

    Prefer the intuitive messy method of learning.

  135. MaryB
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  136. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ian Brotherhood 5:01pm

    This might help you understand some if the processes going on around the world right now as regards to AI.

    It’s a book form 1980 titled ‘The Third Wave’ by a guy called Alvin Toffler. The same guy who wrote ‘Future Shock (1970)’.

    Of course, it’s Toffler’s interpretation and hypothetical vision, but I think it has some merit.

    This from Wikipedia:

    In the book Toffler describes three types of societies, based on the concept of ‘waves’—each wave pushes the older societies and cultures aside.

    The First Wave is the settled agricultural society which prevailed in much of the world after the Neolithic Revolution, which replaced hunter-gatherer cultures.

    The Second Wave is Industrial Age society. The Second Wave began in Western Europe with the Industrial Revolution, and subsequently spread across the world. Key aspects of Second Wave society are the nuclear family, a factory-type education system and the corporation.

    Toffler writes:

    “The Second Wave Society is industrial and based on mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media, mass recreation, mass entertainment, and weapons of mass destruction. You combine those things with standardization, centralization, concentration, and synchronization, and you wind up with a style of organization we call bureaucracy.”

    The Third Wave is the post-industrial society. Toffler says that since the late 1950s most countries have been transitioning from a Second Wave society into a Third Wave society.

    He coined many words to describe it and mentions names invented by others, such as the ‘Information Age’.

  137. Shug
    Ignored
    says:

    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

  138. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    Not all who experience poverty will suffer the effects of ill health or early death. People are resilient and communities do pull together. Across the UK many are volunteering in all kinds of ways to help those who need it.

    People in poverty are more likely than those not in poverty to suffer stress and enough of that will help to damage health.Stress within families can lead to adverse childhood experiences.

    Inequality can also damage health. We can take this from the long running Westminster studies. None of those taking part were in poverty at the time of the study. The mandarins in the highest grades and pay generally lived longest. They lived longer generally than the grade and pay immediately below them who lived longer generally than the grade below and so on to the bottom. The social gradient.

    This suggests a psychosocial effect. Maybe a “kjeeping up with the Jones effect”.

    The social gradient is found everywhere and in many contexts. Socioeconomic conditions affect health. Your post code should not determine how long you live but it does.

    Societies that are very unequal have higher levels of violence and crime than those that are more equal. A reduction of Spanish levels of inequality to those of Canada would see Spanish homicides reduce by 20% and robberies by 23%. Social mobility is also lower in more unequal countries.

    The UK is one of the most unequal countries in the developed world. That’s the Union.

  139. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    @A Scot Abroad 5:25pm

    Eh…naw it isnae.

  140. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ian Brotherhood

    My post @5:43pm

    Sorry about my sloppy first sentence there, Ian. I was typing in haste and didn’t check my work.

    You deserve better. 🙂

  141. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @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.

  142. President Xiden
    Ignored
    says:

    Slater only arrived in Scotland a few years back and now she is running the country into the ground with her fanaticism. How did that happen?

  143. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    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

  144. Andrew scott
    Ignored
    says:

    The glass thing is ridiculous
    Who thinks the french,italian,australian,new zealand, etc wine producers are going to stick some magic bar code just to sell in scotland
    NOT GOING TO HAPPEN
    CANADIAN BIG BIRD GO BACK TO CANADA

  145. Tom
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  146. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ian Brotherhood 6:29pm

    “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”

    I’m fairly sure Sturgeon and crew are pre-programmed machines, Ian. And programmed to talk shite as their highest priority.

    But perhaps they’re the equivalent of the T-800 compared to AI’s T-1000 model.

    We can only hope the T-1000 programmers make talking shite less of a priority.

    But the T-1000 is coming, Ian. It’s coming. 🙂

    For those who don’t know the T-800 was Arnie Schwarzenegger in the ‘Terminator’ movies. The T-1000 being the upgraded liquid metal model.

  147. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Tom (6.50) –

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

    😉

  148. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Tom says:
    4 June, 2023 at 6:50 pm

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

    Ye cannae press Tom. Some people have jobs where employers or customers might take a dim view of “active” Nationalism.

    Aye sure, it’s easy to say have the courage of your convictions, but what about the folk you employ? What right have you to put their jobs at risk by deliberately alienating customers?

    What if they work for Tories? Or maybe they’re employed on a shooting estate in a tied cottage. How long do think they’d last in situ with some of reprobate types running these Estates?

    Some people just need to be discreet with their politics, but it needn’t be turned into a drama.

    Anonymity is a freedom of choice.

    It’s only dipshits like the Judges and the Alphabetties who don’t “get it” that threaten to ruin everything by abusing anonymity.

  149. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @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.

  150. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @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.

  151. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    @James Che 3:39 and 3:59

    I’m not surprised you were involved in the Arts , James.

    You come across as a man with the soul of an artist.

    Aye, and laughter helps when things get dark.

    You’re right, of course. We could get rid of poverty in Scotland entirely if the political will was there.

    And I hope I’m not being too personal here, but I hope your other half is doing okay.

  152. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Joe says:
    4 June, 2023 at 1:15 pm
    @Sam

    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.

  153. Mac
    Ignored
    says:

    Seeing the tweets on sugar…

    In the 80’s the public was told a high fat diet was bad for them and they should change to a high carbohydrate diet instead. Sugar is pure refined carbohydrate and the worst bar far. This advice was horrific and they knew it.

    This advice was done to benefit the Sugar Lobby and Big Food (Unilever, P&G, Nestle etc etc) and it has literally killed billions of innocent people, caused the obesity epidemic, the diabetes explosion, and pushed countless billions all into the hands the equally vile pharmaceutical industry peddling their false cures to their false illnesses…

    Why would they do that?

    Well… For the same reason Covid did not occur naturally. For the same reason it was not released by the Chinese. For the same reason it was not released by accident.

  154. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    @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.

  155. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s all getting a bit emotional on here tonight. Maybe it’s the weather – too many sunny days in a row doesn’t sit well with the Scottish psychic gloom.

    I wonder though, could we really get rid of poverty entirely if the political will was there? What would it take to stiffen the political will?

    The united voices of us Scots, demanding an end to poverty?

    Why have we never united to demand this? Could it be that many of us don’t actually care that much? Or believe it to be utopian folly? Or simply unaffordable?

    How many Scots are savvy enough to have realised that in a world where 1 billion people still live on 1 USD or less per day that real poverty already disappeared in Scotland.

    Maybes we are just realists.

    And Breeks, what stimulates demand for housing is allowing net immigration of 600,000 per year.

  156. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    Mac

    Killed billions of people?

    You sure of that?

  157. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @John Main (8.10) –

    FFS, is that you handing out homework now?

    GTF ya tool.

  158. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ian Brotherhood

    Yes, indeed.I twigged on very early.

  159. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    https://archive.is/OKKoM

    Oh FFS!

    How fkg thick are these lunatics? They’re going to kill us all.

  160. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  161. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks says: 4 June, 2023 at 9:17 pm

    https://archive.is/OKKoM

    Oh FFS!

    How fkg thick are these lunatics? They’re going to kill us all.

    Michael Bay has requested these from the US military for the major scene in his next movie Zalenksy: First Blood Part 2.

  162. A Scot Abroad
    Ignored
    says:

    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?

  163. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s another one for ASA and his ilk, although I won’t address it to him directly because that upsets other commenters who – quite rightly – insist that he should be ignored.

    Let’s imagine I come into a serious lump of dosh via the National Lottery or whatever and I buy a charming cottage in, say, Norfolk. It’s a long way from Ayrshire so I can’t be there as often as I’d like. But I do make a point of spending a fortnight there in July, ten days around Easter-time, and make sure it’s kept available as a base to meet friends who may be coming back from abroad over the Festive fortnight.

    I also block out 6, maybe 8 weeks for my children, some in-laws, close friends and their families to have use of it. They pay me peppercorn rates and undertake to tend the hedges and grass, leave some fresh milk in the fridge. The rest of the time I Airbnb the place, comfortably turning a nice extra income.

    So – I’m going to be there, in-person, for a maximum of 6 weeks out of 52. Does that make me ‘ordinarily resident’? Remember – I own the place. It’s mine.

    Am I entitled to vote in a future referendum on whether or not England should be independent?

    Would that be fair?

  164. SteepBrae
    Ignored
    says:

    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.

  165. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ MaryB at 5.36: “the Beveridge Report..”

    This is an oft-mentioned by me subject – that the Beveridge Report brought about the biggest improvements in our society and was done when the UK was skint due to Second World War.

    And who wrecked it? Conservatives then Labour.

    Also, the Welfare State was supported and implemented in the first place by politicians who were statesmen, not the corrupt, weak, inadequate types who we have as politicians nowadays.

  166. North chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    “Sam@0551 pm the UK is one of the most unequal countries in the developed world, that’s the union” . Agreed Sam and as an Independent country perhaps Scotland should look to our neighbouring small Independent nations eg Norway , Ireland or Denmark to see how they manage their economies and administer their government / . The income per capita of these three is significantly higher than Scotland (as part of the union )and their citizens don’t require to be referred to food banks ( as part of the union dividend ) . Someone upthread mentioned the poor and destitute Irish people having to come to Scotland after the potato famine etc in the 1800’s , however the way things are going under this “ precious precious Union and Tory maladministration the Scots poor will be moving to Ireland shortly ( if they can find an Irish connection ) .
    so apparently ( according to another upthread post) we can’t afford to be Independent . Try telling the citizens of Norway, Denmark or Ireland then that story !

  167. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    I see Livingstone is still trying to deflect any blame away from himself by now saying the whole of Scottish society is institutionally racist as well as Police Scotland that he was in charge of:

    https://archive.is/X3ava

    What a lot of BS.

  168. Andrea
    Ignored
    says:

    Can someone explain to me what the Tennants guy is actually trying to say here?
    https://archive.is/79DCv

  169. MaryB
    Ignored
    says:

    Has any research been done for an anti-poverty strategy for Scotland in the work done on preparation for independence? I’ve seen proposals for a universal income, but I’d like to see a comprehensive approach taking in all the welfare state related issues. Haven’t seen anything from Nicola’s government apart from tinkering at the edges (baby boxes) and some action on drug abuse.

  170. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    It would be difficult to judge who/what would be more daft, Humza or the UK government, were Mr Yousaf to ask for and be granted the running of the immigration service of the UK.

  171. Matt Quinn
    Ignored
    says:

    Andrea says: 5 June, 2023 at 9:30 am

    “Can someone explain to me what the Tennants guy is actually trying to say here? https://archive.is/79DCv

    …That Tennents are entirely content with the roll out of an inflationary scheme that will undermine all the existing recycling strategies and structure we’ve already paid through the nose for – provided that it’s rolled out across the whole of the British Isles.

  172. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    @ North Chiel

    An independent Scotland should,imo, be following the social democratic path of the Nordic countries. There are good reasons for their success as small countries.

    One reason is that UK neoliberalism is bad for population health.

    When Thatcher privatised the cleaning of hospitals, the numbers of hospital cleaners reduced sharply to about half and pay and conditions were reduced. Since privatisation, rats and cockroaches were seen in operating theatres in England.

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/30/nhs-hospitals-pest-control-cockroaches-rats-rentokil

    MRSA and C difficile infections began to increase so much that John Reid had to say in 2004: “I have made it clear that lowering rates of healthcare-acquired infections is a top priority. I expect MRSA bloodstream infection rates to be halved by 2008”.

    About 120 people a week were dying from hospital acquired MRSA and C diff.

    A study by Navarro and Shi 2001 assessed the effects different political systems had on population health They found, from best to worst were social democratic countries, Christian democratic countries, neoliberal countries and, last, former fascist countries.

    Such a study is not really needed to show the malign influence of UK neoliberalism on health and social care. There is worse than rats in operating theatres that goes on in England’s NHS.

  173. Matt Quinn
    Ignored
    says:

    “MaryB says: 5 June, 2023 at 10:05 am

    Has any research been done for an anti-poverty strategy for Scotland in the work done on preparation for independence?”

    No, not really or realistically. Poverty is a big and lucrative business for the ‘Milngavie Mafia’ types; the last thing they’d want to do is actually eliminate it… That would reduce the ‘career opportunities’ available to mince-thick chattering-class dolts with degrees in ‘nothing in particular’.

    What they will have researched extensively it what ‘dog wagging’ vacuous statistics they can generate through virtue-signalling ‘strategies’ that keep the lesser siphonaptera (the above cited dolts) feeding happily.

    As for “Baby boxes” – They make much of the launch of these things in 2017. …But in reality, back in 1996 when my daughter was born at St Johns in Livingston, we were supplied with something very similar – the contents having been provided by various companies. My Mother (who spent her working life as a Nurse in Glasgow) told me that _she too_ had received something similar (a baby basket) in 1962 when I was born at Stobhill.

    …I’m not suggesting for a moment that standardising this and making it something supplied as of right is a bad thing. But it’s certainly not new; and clearly something that health care providers used to be able to do of their own volition. – And from what I’ve recently seen of the contents of the ‘new’ boxes; they tick a few boxes but not necessarily those that someone who is really struggling need ticked.

  174. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sam 9:21

    Soz, but I am not seeing the relevance of what happened in 1847.

    My research indicates that as an average taxpayer, I am shelling out £2000 per year on benefits for others. I asked you upthread if there are any figures for what I should be paying to eliminate poverty, etc. Your reply was that it’s more complicated than that.

    Fair enough perhaps, but I can’t believe I am the only taxpayer who thinks he can’t go on indefinitely shelling out more and more, whilst getting dog’s abuse for doing so. The tax burden is already at an all-time high, thanks to the “evil” Tories and their generous bankrolling of the Covid over-reaction.

    Regarding your greeting over asylum seekers. Would I be correct in assuming you would welcome all comers, whilst simultaneously demanding yet more free money should be handed out to them? Maybes free accommodation too?

  175. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sam 10:31

    Quoting the Guardian as a source for anything on here gets your post ruled inadmissible.

    Everything in the MSM is lies.

    Soz, but thems the rules. No exceptions.

  176. Matt Quinn
    Ignored
    says:

    Sam says:

    “Such a study is not really needed to show the malign influence of UK neoliberalism on health and social care. There is worse than rats in operating theatres that goes on in England’s NHS.”

    My personal experience of dealing with NHS-Lothian’s primary care Mandarins and the Scottish Government at Ministerial office level is of a service utterly corrupted – mired in rote management and backdoor privatisation; it reminds me much of the old ‘ice cream wars’ – turf wars and cronyism. – To the point they are quite prepared to put someone at risk of death from a chronic condition and completely ignore the law.

    This was under the Freeman/Sturgeon regime; and I doubt it has changed; it hasn’t for me personally – Certainly, as someone who suffers from a serious chronic respiratory condition, I have no meaningful access to primary care (I get my prescriptions, but that’s it) or support or concession to help mitigate it.

    If I want to see a trustworthy Doctor at a properly-run surgery I’d need to pay privately for that.

    _All of this_ is, as you suggest Sam, the result of the _malign influence of UK neoliberalism on health and social care_ . – ‘Lower than vermin’ was what Bevan had to say about the sort of moral bankrupts behind this. But, speaking as a dyed-in-the-wool ‘small n’ Scottish nationalist; it’s simply dishonest and wrong to start imagining that things are much better in Scotland…

    The last time I was hospitalised – ‘warded’ – I signed myself out. On a ward at St John’s I went to a toilet that stank of vomit and had someone else’s faecal matter dried into it. Drawing this to the attention of a Nurse there was a quick ‘bucket and mop dash’… which left the said facility really no better.

    …Making any kind of fully-justified formal complaint (from experience) precipitates being ‘marked’ as a trouble maker (and the ‘punishment that goes with that); a stream of vacuous, deflective rote nonsense responses – idiotic, dishonest and irrelevant ‘policy statements etc… but no dealing with the problem!

    Profits – for the private partners, management and political cronies – come before people.

  177. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    @MaryB 10.05am

    I am sure research has been done. Try looking at the website of GCPH, Glasgow Centre of Population Health?

    The Scottish research into health inequalities says the remedy for these and other inequalities is the redistribution of wealth, power and income.

    An independent Scotland should first choose a social democratic system of government.

    The Westminster longitudinal studies are interesting. They seem to show that inequality, like poverty, can be damaging to health.

    Countries that are very unequal not only have more crime and violence than countries that are more equal – their economies are less stable.

    Perceptions of fairness are important to health and much more.

    Scotland’s slightly lower rates of poverty than elsewhere in the UK (except NI) is because more affordable housing exists here.

    Zero hours work is said by research to be as much or more damaging to health than long term unemployment. Scotland has the highest % of workers on zero hours contracts in the UK. Employment law is a reserved matter so we need to have independence to change that.

    We know what people want decent work to look like. In order of importance:sufficient pay to cover basic needs; job security; paid holidays and sick leave; a safe working environment; and a supportive line manager.
    Not extravagant demands.

  178. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    sam says:
    5 June, 2023 at 10:31 am

    When Thatcher privatised the cleaning of hospitals, the numbers of hospital cleaners reduced sharply to about half and pay and conditions were reduced. Since privatisation, rats and cockroaches were seen in operating theatres in England.

    I don’t suppose there’s any empirical data to support it, though comedian Harry “Loads-a-money” Enfield tapped in to it at the time, but perhaps the most sinister aspect of Thatcher’s Tories was a malignancy introduced in people’s attitudes.

    Everybody became greedy, social housing became an asset, and the repugnant “I’m alright jack” philosophy was let off it’s chain and normalised. These days it reigns supreme.

    It was manifest in the Poll Tax, where public debt and incompetence was off-loaded onto the poor who could least afford it, and they were then criminalised and dispossessed of their possessions for their inability to pay, and at the same time robbed and disenfranchised of their rights and unfettered access to democracy.

    The Tories knew their core vote were the greedy profiteers on the make, (as usual), and it wasn’t their core vote crumbling if the poor removed themselves from the Electoral roll.

    “Everything” changed. I remember when you got 14 days grace when your Road Tax ran out, whereas nowadays they’ll fine people at the drop of a hat just for the “sin” of being a bit disorganised or absent minded. It’s not just Road Tax either.

    They now sanction the most vulnerable people for the cardinal sin of sleeping in or missing a bus and not keeping their appointment. FFS, why? Just book another appointment. Why the need for ANY punitive sanction? They don’t have any money!!!

    Name me any sector of interaction between Local Government and the public which has improved in the past 40 years… These days you can’t even get through to the Council on the phone. Try it if you don’t believe me. Who the fk do these people think they are? They certainly don’t act like public servants.

    “Why” do public services need to balance their books as their prime objective anyway? Bring back the days when the sign of a successful NHS Dental system was the number of kids with healthy teeth and dental hygiene. Remember the days when that was the Dentists’ incentive, health mouths for all, not just getting rich?

    Surely the mark of a successful transport network is the number of people it can reliably get to work on time, and get them home again afterwards. Surely the service is more important to the nation than the greedy bastard “shareholders” who contribute nothing towards anything… the very definition of a parasite.

    We don’t insist our Military is run for profit. We demand it wins the wars we set in front of it. Isn’t that the existential point of it? Isn’t the Nations health and transport network just the same?

    Don’t get me wrong either, I’m not a communist, nor am I even particularly Left Wing at all. Whenever Phil Boswell on Scottish Prism describes himself as a Capitalist but a good Capitalist, I get what he means 100%. But a healthy society needs the high fliers to be working in co-operation with the less fortunate, having a degree of compassion and respect, not just sucking them dry of their life force.

    That psychopath Thatcher sowed the seeds of hatred all around the UK, she indulged the bass instincts of the corrupt, and that’s the wolf those bastards chose to feed. We are all now reaping the misery, division, rising xenpohobia and collapse in trust and camaraderie of a failing UK slowly turning upon itself. Take a bow Thatcher.

    The UK runs on “them and us” dynamics now. If they’re not hating on the French, it must be the Germans turn. If it’s not the Germans it must be the Ruskians, or the Poles, or the Albanians… or the Jocks. The only growth industry in England is hating all the other people and it heartily sickens me. Even children, drowning in boats are foreign scum first, and tragic drowning victims a far second.

    Dear god, they’re deporting refugees to Rwanda with all the compassion of those who deported the poor to the Colonies for the sin of stealing a loaf of bread. It’s the same obnoxious barbarity.

    I spent time in London, over three decades ago now, but I was on a motorbike at the time. I got rear ended by a black cab in line of sight with Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square – middle of the day. No great damage or injury, but still knocked on my arse with the bike over onto the ground, and yet of the 200-300 pedestrians who crossed at the crossing stepping aside to avoid my couped bike, not a single one of them asked if I was ok. Not even one.

    I got one witness, and that was the Motorcycle courier beside me, and as God is my witness, he turned out to be a Scot.

    An Independent Scotland doesn’t need to adopt the Scandinavian model. We should look to ourselves, the Scots we are; the Scots who pioneered their own Enlightenment, and our unique, bespoke society way back in the Middle Ages which put the Common Good for all at it’s heart.

    It wasn’t Left Wing or Right Wing, those are English / UK concepts and parameters which have been imposed upon us. It was centuries of a rudimentary popular sovereignty and spirit of common good that has instilled a legacy in all of us Scots; a legacy whereby all of us instinctively see UK Tory ideals and sensibilities as alien to us and ill-fitting to our character.

    I don’t want Scotland full of “Scottish” Tory wanks who’d spit in your eye soon as look at you. I want Scotland raising generation after generation of kind people, Scottish people, who would all of them stop to see if a biker knocked off his bike was ok or needed assistance.

    I want Scotland to be run as our Nation, not England, not Norway. And before you say, “Aye, but look at our seedy wee crooks in the SNP!”, I’m going to point you to our own 1320 Declaration of Arbroath. Even the all conquering war hero King Robert the Bruce himself was warned he’d get a boot up his arse and summarily removed from office if he was bent or wasn’t any good.

    “Devolution” is a totally rank system, none of our doing, and unconstitutional from the rotten DNA up. There’s no way we’d have suffered a fraud and deciever like Sturgeon for eight painful years in true Scottish Administration.

  179. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    PacMan

    The Warthog, though still in service, is considered obsolete by the US Air Force and will be replaced by the F35, eventually. There’s a lot of politics surrounding the air-frame. The leadership in the Air Force want it gone but the plane commands a lot of support in Congress and so it got a stay of execution.

    I think it’s safe to assume that these will end up just outside NATO borders in a couple of months, either to support the upcoming offensive or to fight the Serbs.

    As to who will be flying these is anybody’s guess. However the plane is slow and so probably easy to fly so any capable pilot could learn it in a few weeks. The only problem is that old and slow these days means the life expectancy of the pilots is probably measured in minutes.

    War. Coming to a European country near you.

  180. Matt Quinn
    Ignored
    says:

    On 5 June, 2023 at 11:27 am in response to @MaryB 10.05am Sam wrote…

    “I am sure research has been done. Try looking at the website of GCPH, Glasgow Centre of Population Health?” etc…

    I’m not being ‘funny’ Sam; and I don’t disagree in the main with the points you’ve made. But what Mary actually asked was:

    ‘Has any research been done for an anti-poverty strategy for Scotland in the work done on preparation for independence?”’

    But… other than indulging themselves in a load of old statistical blether, which will no doubt be later used for the purposes of justifying their own existence – what strategy?

    Who is going to do what to actually change this? And by change I mean work to solve the problem rather than just roll out self-serving virtue signalling and self-aggrandisement?

    – As I said in response to Mary ‘What they will have researched extensively it what ‘dog wagging’ vacuous statistics they can generate through virtue-signalling ‘strategies’ that keep the lesser siphonaptera (the above cited dolts) feeding happily.

    You seem to be proving that point. – The question is, what the hell are ‘they’ going to do about it? – Other than fiddle the stats some more!

  181. Matt Quinn
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks says: 5 June, 2023 at 1:02 pm – Pretty much exactly what I might say myself. Nail… Head… Hammer!

  182. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    @dasBlimp 4 June, 2023 3:40 pm

    Just noticed your comment there, dasBlimp. Thanks, very kind of you.

    I could tell you a few more tales.

    Like the time I chatted with Gordon Jackson for half an hour or so in an airport while we waited for our flights to be called

    He told me of the laugh they’d all had filming ‘The Great Escape’, and what Steve McQueen was like to work with.

    Or the time I was pulled out of a car, a white Mercedes if I recall correctly, by armed police at a border checkpoint in Germany. For some reason they thought I was part of the Baader–Meinhof crew.

    Or the tale ma faither told me of the time when he was almost shot in the head by a Glesga gangster toting an old army issue revolver.

    Or the time I…

  183. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    When that bottle eventually falls to the right, the Lorna Slater cork will go pop! She’s full of air and has no substance.

  184. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    So if I am summarising Breeks accurately, a nation of 5.5 million Sovereign Scots, the majority of whom all claim to passionately hate Thatcher, nevertheless has settled down to mimic Thatcher’s most hated characteristics.

    And is still doing it a generation after she was deposed from power.

    And has failed to seize any of the many opportunities presented at the ballot box since then to do anything about reversing the changes her administration brought about.

    Nah, not buying it. Soz.

    Each and every one of us has agency and free will.

    God, it’s hard sometimes to take any of this with a straight face. Always the same old tropes trotted out, in the teeth of the evidence. Take the claims of Xenophobia, for example, and try to square that with the uncounted millions that have come and continue to come to the UK to make themselves free and rich.

    As for the calls to open our borders to all the world’s hard luck stories, whilst simultaneously getting back to generation after generation of kind Scottish people, cognitive dissonance that large can probably be seen from orbit.

  185. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Breeks 10.31am

    “Empirical evidence to support it”, Breeks. Well, privatisation isn’t done to save money or improve patient care. PFI is a great example of what it is about.It was done by Thatcher to line the pockets of Tory supporters and to destroy the Unions.

    @ Matt Quinn 1.21pm

    I think you are right, Matt. I doubt if there is any strategy for reducing poverty on independence.

    Any Scottish government has to do with what money it is given, which is not based on need.

    Much of what this SNP government is doing is trying to mitigate the effects of UK gov policy.

    Of course, the SNP gov could do more.

    I suggested to MaryB the GCPH website.

    There is a piece there (the summary on page 4is enough) where recommendations are made that could be useful in the kind of strategy that MaryB might be interested in.Mostly, it is about harm limitation, though.

    More recommendations are directed to UK government than ours.

    https://www.gcph.co.uk/assets/0000/8723/Stalled_Mortality_report_FINAL_WEB.pdf

  186. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    North Code.

    Re spouses health,

    The decision not to go for the operation offered last year, that had a low success rate, and would have been a massive operation for someone of their age I totally support. Its their life.

    However That leaves us coping with the realities of such a illness, that roughly happens for 3 to five week periods at the moment, many changes of bedding and sheets, even a mattress so far,
    Staying closer to home in case of sudden emergencies,
    Those with colon cancer will understand these issues that surround the illness,

    My mum passed away in November 2022 with the same illness amongst a few others so I know what to expect,
    Colon Cancers and digestive illnesses seems to be steadily increasing for all age groups,
    Perhaps it has to do with additives in our food chain supply or the chemicals used in Our water supplies,
    My daughter has been diagnosed with another similar parallel illness of the digestive system,
    I do not mean to bring the tone down here by any means, but the reality in our household is that we have had five funerals in two years, three of them after having enforced medication or loose their jobs under lock-ups, if you get my drift.

    The perspective of how to handle all these losses comes with thoughts on how many others are suffering and coping with large family member losses during unwarrented wars,
    The climate change ideology that will effect and reduce many families food supply chain in the future perhaps to a point like the Irish famine,
    The little and very young children that suffer from these and other severe life threatening illnesses,

    We all fight for a better world, especially here in Scotland, although the human race is fighting back everywhere now,

    When you think how of the money and contracts thrown at a recent vaccine over the last few years and then look at the genuine effort to cure cancers over a sixty year period from governments,
    It does not tally.
    When you think of the modern technology since Ww2 including getting men on the moon,
    When you think of the billions of pounds, dollars and Euros given to bring death rather than life in the last two years,
    We can see that politicians, and leaders have the wrong priorities,

    First stop poisoning humans in their food and water chain supply, then find money to cure illnesses without the side effects of killing them through the wrong vaccines that have not undergone or completed their tests,

    There is always enough Money for killing people,
    Where is the money for keeping them alive?
    There has been many a scientist, inventors, and entrepenuers from Scotland over the Centuries, We could lead the way once again if we were independent,
    This is just one of a multitude of reasons,

    Scotland needs to be independent sooner, rather than waiting for permission, that will never be forthcoming by a Coloniser.

    To detach from the treaty may save many lives in the future not just five or six,

    I have been catching up reading many a good comment, bringing back memories of when basic electric came to our household, and the story of how my mum and dad blew the whole vally into darkness again the first time they tried making toast,
    When I come to think of it my dad aways used his toasting fork he had made over the fire after that,
    Mmm that toast had a unique taste with fresh melting butter on home made bread from the oven at the side of the fire,

  187. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Stuart MacKay

    Have to correct you. Soz.

    War already engulfing one European country and the European portion of a second country that straddles Europe and Asia. Significant risks of other European countries becoming engulfed. Many other European countries already embroiled, if not yet engulfed.

    Heard about it all on the MSM, but true nonetheless.

    As the current ongoing mega-story, this dwarfs everything else going on and will continue to do so for the foreseeable. But as our host doesn’t want to talk about it, I am happy to comply, other than when others first bring it up.

  188. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks,

    The Thatcher years also took away our pension funds, the (info ) I provided at the beginning of this thread, that Westminster stole and used to give Westminster politicians a bigger pension pot at the publics exspense.

  189. SteepBrae
    Ignored
    says:

    James Che 2.19pm

    The old toasting fork at the fire. Nothing to beat it. Hot, toasted plain white bread with home-made raspberry jam. Once eaten, never forgotten.

    Enjoy memories of the good things, especially with all you’ve been through.

    Lots of excellent comments today – thanks too, Breeks & Matt Quinn.

  190. Colin Alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    Saw a bit of a wean’s Transformers cartoon. A wee lassie was talking to a robot. She introduced herself and said:” my pronouns are she / her. I bet Lorna Slater and the Greens / SNP cultists would approve of the woke script.

  191. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    JOHN MAIN
    There is a war on the continent of which Scotland is a part and week by week it escalates by design. The process is familiar. All it takes is one act of hubris and the comedian with the beard (and his dubious mates and allies) is certainly capable of that.
    It is no exageration to predict, at the very least, the end of Europe were a spark to hit the dry material.
    As with all contemporary conflict the international agencies created to prevent such are seemingly mere window dressing. But of course stopping wars may sometimes not be in the strategic interest of the arms selling rubberknecks.
    In its way this makes it an imperative that an iScotland should have an independent voice on the world stage.

  192. Geoff Anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    The TransCult Police are actually Police

    https://thecritic.co.uk/the-letters-of-the-law/

  193. MaryB
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks @ 1.02

    “An Independent Scotland doesn’t need to adopt the Scandinavian model. We should look to ourselves, the Scots we are; the Scots who pioneered their own Enlightenment, and our unique, bespoke society way back in the Middle Ages which put the Common Good for all at its heart.”

    Thanks for that. I tried to research Common Good re social structures but it mainly applies to land law. However, I found W Elliott Bulmer ‘A Constitution for the Common Good’ and I presume this is the idea that you’re referring to?

  194. robbo
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t see any complaints or whining from John Main and the rest of his chums regards this.

    Just us Scots who cannae afford it eh, cos we’re too poor and stupid and wid only spend it on drugs, iru bru and special brew. !

    Dilemma’s eh

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/people-in-england-could-be-given-1-600-a-month-under-new-basic-income-trial/ar-AA1c8Mnn?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=00a0c1e4095348778ef2af0f0f9afdd2&ei=30

  195. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    SteepBrae,

    Another lovely memory, all that lovely homemade jams, sitting in the pantry at the end of the year,
    And the pickles.
    And my dad going out in his small boat with the outboard motor to catch our supper, to go along side the veg an tatties he grew in the garden.
    Homemade baking from our hen eggs and milk from the cow or goat,
    Seldom at the shop, certainly not at one of the big corporation shops that have taken over.

    A way of life that most political leaders are now restricting into 15 minute cities, parking lots and fines, bug meals and high taxes for very little in return,

    Its lovely to have those memories of a hardworking but very naturally peacably way of life,
    But we also must go forward into a new era to bring people in Scotland more up to date to be more self sufficient in produce, energy, medical advancements, farming and fishing,

    our own banking system, and Council structures no longer milking the system for private Contracts gain,
    Fairer elections, decentralise the police to small communities again,

    From our knowledge of the past with what worked, we can grow our future Independent Scotland, with more empathy and understanding, and to give many stuck in high rise buildings a piece of greenary or garden of their own to be proud of and for their children to have a safer enviroment at home and in education.

  196. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    MaryB.

    Thinking along similar lines to yourself,
    Being self sufficient must be one of our priorities, as we can see from the deliberate global collapse of the monitary system, to go digitally controlled, housing and food supplies, energy.

    Being independent really should mean a great deal of ability to be independent, to grow Scotland in Ship building and other modern energy tecnoligies,

    For when you can walk then you can think about running,
    For we would be nothing, in trades if we cannot stand on our own two feet first. With something to trade with.
    A foundation and a working structure that has varied industries.

  197. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks (1.02) –

    Bravo.

    Brilliant.

    😉

  198. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robbo 3:42

    £1600 PM basic income. Sounds good.

    Get some grown ups to do the sums. How much for everybody? Index linked? Triple locked? Residency qualifications yes or no?

    No conditions – no need to get vaxxed or else, give up the gaspers, stop shoplifting?

    The point you make about drug use is a good one, even though you won’t accept that. I thought addicts are just that – addicts. You seem to be saying that £1600 PM cures addiction. If true, cheapest option ever.

    How’s about the warmth we Scots are supposed to feel for immigrants? Worried that £1600 PM no questions asked might prove to be quite a draw in Calais or Birmingham?

    What you can’t or won’t accept, Robbo, is that I need to be convinced of the route from “Scotland’s a rich country”, to “post-Indy every Scot will have more dosh”.

    If it’s just me, Indy has nothing to fear. If there are lots of us, then the work to show us the money still has to be done.

  199. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ottomanboi 3:20

    Sure, there’s a war on.

    Scotland could be independent. Scottish leaders, and a sizeable chunk of Wings BTL, don’t want us to be.

    They want us in the same international agencies and multinational political federations that are wading ever deeper into the quagmire.

    I’m not going to be hypocritical about this though. The reality seems crystal clear to me. It’s probably 75 years since any country could sit something like this out and hope not to be affected.

    Scotland, independent or not, willing or otherwise, is in this up to its neck.

  200. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    If one didn’t know better we think the degenerate Greens were running the show at Bute House, the tail appears to be wagging the dog.

    What does this say about the treacherous SNP, I don’t think there’s a cigarette papers worth of difference between the SNP and the Greens on many policies especially on the unamended GRRB.

    Get the SNP out at the next GE and replace them with Alba.

    Vote Alba, Join Alba do it for Scotland.

  201. George Ferguson
    Ignored
    says:

    @Republicofscotland 4:36pm
    Before the GE, the Rutherglen Bye Election would be a perfect opportunity for Alex Salmond to test the waters for Alba. I joined Alba I don’t regret it but some of their policy decisions are incompatible with a successful Independence campaign. And currently we have a major meltdown of the Scottish Government. I am drifting away from the Independence movement. Totally and utterly scunnered.

  202. Shug
    Ignored
    says:

    Has anyone got the following dates in order:

    Date all governments agreed to DRS
    Date UK asked for glass to be included.
    Date of internal market act
    Date exemption applied for
    Date UK decided to stop the Scottish bill
    When Ireland included glass
    When Wales included glass

    I heard Slater saying on Sunday the UK were playing silly buggers and I want to check the time line

  203. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    @James Che 2:19pm

    Aye, sounds like you’ve had a tough time of it these past few years, James.

    And I’m sorry you’ve had to suffer all that.

    When you get right down to it there’s not much that’s truly important in our short lives. All the baubles and trinkets are meaningless in the end.

    It’s friends and family and the folk around us that make it worthwhile. Everything else is just a distraction.

    And you’re right. Strappin’ a man’s arse tae a slow release bomb and puntin’ him in tae space is just another waste of resources, resources that could be used to fix what needs fixed here on Earth first. We can go poncin’ aboot space once we’ve done that.

    But let’s get back down to Earth for a minute. You’ve given me a right hankering for a fish supper.

    Freshly caught fish done up in batter with chips made from home-grown tatties and a few pickles on the side.

    Followed by home-baked apple, or raspberry, pie.

    And maybe later for supper, a slice of bread toasted over an open fire and covered in butter or jam, or both,

    What more does anybody need?

    This from your earlier comments:

    Another lovely memory, all that lovely homemade jams, sitting in the pantry at the end of the year, and the pickles.

    And my dad going out in his small boat with the outboard motor to catch our supper, to go along side the veg an tatties he grew in the garden.

    Homemade baking from our hen eggs and milk from the cow or goat.

    When I come to think of it my dad aways used his toasting fork he had made over the fire after that, Mmm that toast had a unique taste with fresh melting butter on home made bread from the oven at the side of the fire

    Now those are fine memories you have there, James.

  204. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks 1:02pm

    Great post, Breeks. Very good indeed.

  205. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Shug (5.10) –

    Dunno if this is helpful but I asked ‘Bard’ for chronological list of the progress of DRS through Scottish parliament. I’m sure it could probably answer your other queries too.

    https://bard.google.com/

    2018: The Scottish Government launches a consultation on a deposit return scheme.

    2019: The Scottish Parliament passes the Deposit Return Scheme for Scotland (Scotland) Act 2020.

    2020: The Scottish Government publishes a draft Deposit Return Scheme Regulations.

    2021: The Scottish Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee publishes a report on the draft Deposit Return Scheme Regulations.

    2022: The Scottish Government publishes revised Deposit Return Scheme Regulations.

    2023: The Scottish Parliament passes the Deposit Return Scheme (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2023.

    March 2024: The Deposit Return Scheme goes live in Scotland.

  206. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    Geoff Anderson @ 3.21pm Thanks for that link to the critic letter, it is mind boggling that these jobsworths are so swamped in their own self importance that they ignore and deviate from the ACTUAL LAW and when they are criticised they refuse to acknowledge that they are wrong and deviate some more

    One of the letters states that the police force is willing to pay compensation for the wrongful arrest, BUT as usual the arsewipe who made the false arrest and the CC are NOT paying anything , as usual it is the lowly taxpayer who will pay TWICE for this incompetence, Once to cover the compensation claim and again to top up the shortfall in the forces budget

    TBH I am sick to the back teeth with paying through the nose for incompetence and mistakes made by senior representatives in all government departments which is inevitably followed by the immortal words ” mistakes have been made and we have learned from these mistakes” but they NEVER DO and there is no recourse and NO corporate punishment

  207. George Ferguson
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ian Brotherhood 5:49pm
    Breaking News, DRS scrapped 6 June 2023. Many millions due in legal compensation. Ah well Ian if only we had a competent Scottish Government like we did in 2007. That was a long time ago. Since the Coronation of Saint Nicola in 2014 we to quote sources, have been living in Narnia.

  208. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    Stuart MacKay @ 1:11

    You are mostly likely right but my original comment was referring to the current one where the reporting is playing out as a parody of the Tropical Thunder film where they are presenting a facade of a real military conflict that doesn’t conform to later verified reported facts.

    An example of this is the recent announcement of NATO supplying F16’s to the conflict. There has been reports that these fighter planes will be useless in that combat zone due to damage from Foreign Object Debris (FOD) when taking off from makeshift runways. This is getting confirmed by Western media outlets.

    There is also the fact that these aircraft will have limited effect on air power as they will be going up against more modern and powerful aircraft. From what I can gather they are more suited to support and reconnaissance roles.

    Are these planes going to be operating from NATO countries which giving their limited impact on the conflict. Given the threat of escalation that would entail, would this really happen?

  209. Matt Quinn
    Ignored
    says:

    You can’t really get a fag paper between the Magenta Tories (Labour), Tartan Tories (SNP) and those who Bevan once described as ‘lower than vermin’… The Cabbage Greens are breathtakingly hypocritical and degenerate; the real threats to the environment and vulnerable groups come from them.

    Alba? – Very few people I talk to have heard of them. And the few that have don’t really know what they’re about; Alex Salmond’s Swansong is the general perception…

    Who is there to vote for when the only names on the ballot paper aren’t fit to lick the streets clean.

  210. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    A Matt Quinn

    I tried to put a post up earlier, Matt, to say you are right.I didn’t answer MaryB’s question.

    The post was lost and so were my replies to you and MaryB.

  211. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    George Ferguson @4.59pm.

    George its up to the membership to guide and steer the Aba party in the right direction look what’s happened to the SNP when the membership meekly went along with what’s on offer.

    The SNP membership couldn’t even vote for the only indy candidate (Ash Regan) in the recent leadership contest, mind you Murrell employed the English security services (GCHQ) an arch enemy of an indy Scotland to thwart any chance of Regan winning.

    Never forget that the English security services are our enemy.

    Salmond has a proven track record on trying to deliver indy.

    As for the Rutherglen by-election Margaret Ferrier might stand she is apparently well known in the area, and has a fairly good reputation among the local electorate.

    Yes I’d like to see Alba stand a candidate in the by-election and win, even coming ahead of a SNP candidate by an Alba candidate would cheer me up a bit.

  212. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    Different definitions of what social democractic government is can be found. For many it is a way of governing that favours the collective. It seeks to promote equality and freedom in organising both the economy and society, in particular by opposing the inequality and oppression of the kind of capitalism embraced by the UK.

    I doubt very much that there is a particular Nordic model to be followed by independent Scotland. We should favour social democarcy, though,imo.

    A recent World Happiness report sought to explore why people in Nordic countries frequently say they are the happiest in the world. This is what the report says:””What exactly makes Nordic citizens so exceptionally satisfied with their lives? This is the question that this chapter aims to answer.Through reviewing the existing studies,theories,and data behind the World happiness Report,we find that the most prominent explanations include factors related to the quality of the institutions, such as reliable and extensive welfare benefits, low corruption, and well-functioning democracy and state institutions. Furthermore, Nordic citizens experience a high sense of autonomy and freedom,as well as high levels of social trust towards each other, which play an important role in determining life satisfaction.”

  213. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Northcode,
    SteepBrae.

    It is what it is,
    life throws these things at us regardless of where we come from and who we are,
    I speak about it openly as there are many others in very similar situations whom perhaps do not, and sit in isolation,
    And many more that have not yet been in any of those situations, and have no idea how to get through struggles.

    At one time, before the destruction of smaller communities there was always someone to advise, to lend a helping hand, or just a good listening ear for the woes of every day life,
    Grannies and grandads used to be a great support system to parents and grandchildren,

    I still have brothers and sisters for support and many of your good selfs are fantastic for lifting the spirits on a bad day, even if you are unaware that you do,

    Along with Stu and the his lovely photographs of wildlife Chris Cairns and his Cartoons, life is still good,
    And a growing community across miles,

    The advice from my granny was to take one day at a time, and if its a difficult day divide it into hours that you can cope with, and accept that no two days are the same,
    And always remember there are those worse off than yourself, so spare a thought for them,

    Another silly tip this time though but works wonders, sit and spend some time pulling faces at yourself in the mirror and then smile at yourself, repeat if nesscerary.
    You will take life a lot less serious after that,
    I do that with my granddaughter when she has had a bad day,

  214. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    PacMan

    I think once the F16s are paid for, or at least added to the tab, then it doesn’t really matter what happens to them – caveat emptor. In addition it’s only good business sense for the European NATO countries to send theirs since they’ll only be replaced with F35s. Trebles all round at Lockheed Martin.

    There was also a rumour that Sweden was going to send their Viggens. Much better to destroy their own aerospace industry so they too, can also be replaced with F35s.

    It’s a win-win situation for everyone except the taxpayers.

  215. George Ferguson
    Ignored
    says:

    @Republicofscotland 6:57pm
    Thank you for your reply. It cheered me up. Some points to consider. The “English” Security Services, actually our own Security Services, don’t have to do anything. We are making our own Bourach. As a member of Alba I haven’t contributed to policy decisions. But fundamental decisions have been made that are detrimental to a successful Independence Campaign. I will talk you through them. In what World do you think Nuclear Weapons can be got rid of on day one?. As an an engineer that worked for UKAEA that is impossible. I say again impossible!. Let’s go for the left Republican perspective now. I am myself believe in Constitutional Monarchy. Half of the Scottish population believe in a Constitutional Monarchy. No consideration of that view by Alba or an attempt to have a Constitutional Head of State Referendum. Alba has a belief that a balanced economy is sub optimal. Left wing progressive policies where the higher tax payers are entitled to be fleeced. Not forgetting the Social Conservatism of the Scottish population. Being an Independence Party requires a total population perspective. Alba going the way of the SNP.

  216. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Stuart MacKay says:5 June, 2023 at 7:16 pm

    I heard a rumour that Sweden won’t.

    It’s bad news all round, because Europe has wasted 20 years thinking that if only we are nice, everybody else will be too.

    Tell me how that’s working out for the Baltic Republics, Poland, Moldova, Sweden, Finland, etc.

    On second thoughts, save your effort. It will just be some convoluted pretzel of “logic” along the lines that Biden is pulling Vlad’s strings and making him do it.

    Or maybes it’s BoJo!

    These Nordic countries eh? What are they like? Free and happy and prosperous and keen to avoid being enslaved, disappeared, raped and murdered. The absolute bastards that they are.

    Scotland should have no truck with the war-mongering, Nordic scum.

  217. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @George Ferguson says:5 June, 2023 at 7:33 pm

    Since Yousaf was fraudulently coronated, I’m finding it hard to believe that many people are taking Scotland, the SNP, or Indy seriously.

    So, not finding much to argue with in your post.

    To happily and carelessly discard major segments of the Scottish population (the realpolitik believers, the monarchists, the hard-working over-taxed) on the grounds of lack of ideological purity, speaks to me of people who are not fundamentally serious about Indy either.

    There is not going to be ethnic cleansing post-Indy, so the realists, the monarchists and the Scottish conservatives are still going to be here.

    Only fools would alienate them and persist in that folly while attempting to build a pro-Indy consensual majority.

  218. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Stuart MacKay 07:16

    The sick joke is that the pilots that will be using these F-16’s will get trained on taking off and nothing else.

    As to the NATO countries taxpayers, it is just going to mean even more austerity measures to pay for the re-arming of these countries military.

    There is no doubt that some will be cheering this until it comes the time when their state pension and other state benefits are cut to the bone.

  219. George Ferguson
    Ignored
    says:

    @John Main 9:18 pm
    Ethnic cleansing I am not sure about that. The first image I saw of Humza in Bute House was a celebration to Mecca. I am OK with that. The people get what they vote for. Intellect or 7th Century values. Welcome to Scotland. Meanwhile nobody can access public services. And Humza is responsible for the deaths of many people He will play the race card. That is his modus operandi.

  220. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sarah further upthread: yes, the Beveridge report: https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/livinglearning/coll-9-health1/coll-9-health/

    My uncle was a minor civil servant (meaning, moved about the UK at will, not a mandarin) who idolised Beveridge and his vision of defeating the Five Wants. Mind you, this may have been because he was an Independent Labour Party man (q.v.). He later specialised in making the language of Social Security forms more accessible to claimants.

    To think this report was largely delivered post-war when the UK was utterly bankrupt and owing a huge sum to the US as a result of the lease-lend programme which was only paid off in The Noughties, IIRC! That is the power of a vision and a determination to deliver for the people. Sadly these noble principles didn’t last long once the Establishment got to work on the new in-take of Labour politicians over the next decade.

    Nowadays, of course, the politicians are universally self-serving and don’t give a flying fruit-bat about their electorate, irrespective of the colour of the rosette.

    One detail which has always rankled with me is the Marshall Plan, that massive dollar injection to post-war Europe. It used to be said when people here looked at the developing industrial and infrastructure powerhouse which was Germany in the 1950s to 60s that it was based on this American money but, if Wikipedia can be believed, the biggest recipient of dollars was the UK.

    Bearing in mind the Tory government destroyed the national rail network post-Beeching and poverty in Glasgow in the 70s was dire and little better than 1945, I wonder where the money went?

    Answers on a post card……

  221. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Correction: that American loan may not have been paid off until 2015. I believe war loans from the Dominion of Canada were either interest-free or essentially grants.

  222. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Tinto Chiel re Beveridge Report etc: thanks for the link.

    Your uncle sounds a good sort. Civil servants that I knew [including myself!] used to be principled people with a feeling of duty owed to the public but of course that couldn’t be allowed to continue so work was outsourced to “agencies”, offices closed, service reduced to an undermanned phone line…

    What you say about Marshall Aid to UK making no visible difference to our infrastructure is very upsetting. If only we knew who had siphoned it off. Those photos of Glasgow in the 1970’s are shocking. And many of the social ills remain which is why we need a different political system and restoration of Scotland’s 1689 Constitution.

  223. Alf Baird
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main @ 4:35 pm

    “Scotland, independent or not, willing or otherwise, is in this up to its neck.”

    Since Scotland entered the ‘union’ the United Kingdom’s forces (or forces with a British mandate) have invaded, had some control over or fought conflicts in 171 of the world’s 193 countries that are currently UN member states, or nine out of ten of all countries. Britain has deployed its armed forces for combat over 80 times in 47 countries since the end of the Second World War, in episodes ranging from brutal colonial wars and covert operations to efforts to prop up favoured governments or to deter civil unrest.

    I suspect that had Scotland remained independent we would not have been involved in most if not all of these wars.

  224. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    sarah says:
    5 June, 2023 at 11:31 pm

    What you say about Marshall Aid to UK making no visible difference to our infrastructure is very upsetting. If only we knew who had siphoned it off…

    In all fairness, I think the funding sloshing around Europe post WW2 was addressing reconstruction of housing and industry flattened by war, and in relative terms, vast areas of Europe and England, were pounded into dust.

    I understand Scotland already had its own rudimentary NHS before England “invented it”, but there were also publicly owned assets like the Railways, where steam was being phased out, Civil Airlines established, Motorways constructed, a Telephone network…

    I believe post war, Scottish Independence was a minority side show because the Union did deliver some things for Scotland with “relative” parity. Although, to what extent that was an illusion, we’ll maybe never know.

    Thatcher’s Tories destroyed all of it. Scotland was stripped of all it’s assets and industries on the whim of London Governments with no mandate to govern Scotland, and destroyed the parts of the Union which made it look equitable. That is when the sea change in attitudes occurred.

    However, I think we need to recognise the importance of a mobilised public opinion forcing through necessary changes and not being side tracked by corruption, lobbyists or corporate interests. Only the people can do it, and back in 2014, the process had been started.

    And Indy Scotland too, in my opinion, would need a similarly agitated populace to affect the root and branch reform of Scotland and the way Scotland should function.

    GRS is totally irrelevant as a yardstick because Scotland will be on a wholly dissimilar economic platform with different ideals. Don’t forget, the UK economy has for decades been driving Public Services to the periphery because under funding them caused them to fail, and failure made them available for privatisation. The UK economy has been a racket for decades, a testimony to greed of Neoliberalism. For the love of god, don’t copy that or take UK standards as our ideal.

    Hands up who wants a Government styled on Westminster?
    Hands up who wants an NHS like Englands?
    Hands up who wants a privileged two tier Education system?
    Hands up who want a state propagandist like the BBC?
    Hands up who wants Tuition Fees barring the poor from education?
    Hands up who wants Hedge Funds owning Scotland’s resources?

    Do you really think an Indepependent Scotland will be a mini-UK or a tribute act to England?

    Give it a few years, with Scotland’s ingenuity empowering our people and reconstituting our Nation to reflect our character and national psyche,and we will hardly recognise Scotland.

    London wants Scotland as a dormitory nation for retirees from the South looked after by Scotland’s NHS which then confounds our economic equilibrium. They are removing our capacity to mobilise. That is the objective.

    We take back our Independence, or we lie down and embrace our extinction.

  225. Achnababan
    Ignored
    says:

    Much as I dislike the Greens and Sturgeon’s SNP I think the story here is the English Parliament vandalism and bullying. What I don’t get is the SNP Westminster groups approach. Laughing and smiling with the opposite side, full of Tory bustards. They really have become part of the scenery down there.

    Troughers!

    They should be angry for us ….if only for the cameras. Useless ejits the lot.

  226. Achnababan
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks…another great post.

    Totally agree but a couple of comments.
    I think we should not forget the nationalisation of industries such as coal that took economic decision making away from Scotland….that was the Labour Party in the post war period.

    The SNP are driving hard with the ‘dont scare the horses’ strategy that implies Scotland s an independent nation will resemble Scotland in ‘the Union.

    I agree with you and want the vision for Scotland post independence to be front and Centre. FFS the SNP dven want to keep the BBC. Alba are not much better!

    Regarding Chris’s cartoon ….do not overlook the role of the ‘Scot)tish’ drinks industry (owned and controlled) by London based financiers and global capitalists.

    .

  227. Geoff Anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    Why do the SNP keep fighting Westminster using policies that are unpopular with Scots?

    https://robinmcalpine.org/scotlands-problem-isnt-democracy-failing/

  228. Geoff Anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    Looks like Ireland will be United while the SNP squabble with Westminster over policies Scots don’t like.

    https://www.irishpost.com/comment/northern-ireland-is-inching-towards-the-exit-door-254409?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=article&utm_medium=web

  229. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Alf Baird says:6 June, 2023 at 12:37 am

    I suspect that had Scotland remained independent we would not have been involved in most if not all of these wars

    I suspect you’re right.

    But I wasn’t writing about the past. I am writing about the ongoing war. Independent or not, it can’t be dodged.

    Independent or not, far too many of the countries we are inextricably linked to are in it – it’s existential for some of them.

    And if it all goes pear-shaped, Hadrian’s wall won’t save us.

  230. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @PacMan says:5 June, 2023 at 9:41 pm

    trained on taking off and nothing else

    Dinna be so fucking daft.

  231. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sarah: yes those Oscar Marzaroli Glasgow photographs remind you graphically that somehow a lot of money passed us by.

    Re civil service ethos, even as a “casual” working in the Bridgeton DHSS in the ’70s I was made very aware of the standards required. I once forgot to tell a superior that an old woman had arrived for an appointment and so she had to wait for hours before being seen. I got an absolute roasting for that and was lucky to keep my job.

    Contrast that with today’s treatment of the public.

    Strange thing is Beveridge was a Liberal, not Labour, but his Cradle to The Grave programme was more of a socialist vision.

  232. North Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    I thought “ Hadrians Wall was to “ save” the peoples of the South ?

  233. Breastplate
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main
    “But I wasn’t writing about the past. I am writing about the ongoing war. Independent or not, it can’t be dodged.”

    Yes it can, the war can be brought to an end immediately by the use of diplomacy.

  234. Shug
    Ignored
    says:

    When is Charlie coming to Edinburgh to claim the crown

    I want to be there with my flag and to make sure the tourists don’t wave union jacks in front of the cameras

  235. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breastplate 9:14

    Hell Yeah! Wish I’d thought of that.

    Just like Indy can be solved by diplomacy too. Scotland can diplomatically agree to remain subordinate to WM.

    The more they lean on us, the more diplomatic we can make ourselves, and thus avoid all conflict and contention.

    Brilliant solution, BP!

  236. Ian Smith
    Ignored
    says:

    I would really like to see a vision for an independent Scotland that was not based around access to free stuff, and basking in virtue of being the first to reach Net Zero in a fully ideologically gender free state.

    No matter how much is pilfered on the periphery by England, Westminster, Brussels, the US military industrial complex or whoever you choose to pick your demons from, a decent standard of personal and social welfare will only be achievable through all fit and able bodied people putting in decent shift to create actual physically useful wealth.

  237. Joe
    Ignored
    says:

    Just a few points to make:

    @Breeks

    I enjoy your unapologetic tone in your posts, that is how it should be. No compromise.

    Your posts based on the big picture macro situation in the world are some of the best I have seen here. I cannot applaud you enough for your broadening of vision.

    Anybody who acts as if Scottish politics, economics and culture exist in a bubble where the only relevant influences come domestically is missing 90% of the picture.

    Without the macro picture you cannot understand the domestic situation. This is true in finance and it is true with politics and unfortunately our culture.

    Why we would deliberately limit ourselves to the analysis of the domestic perplexes me.

    The Scottish Independence movement might be able to exist in a bubble (it still does, unfortunately) but Scotland doesn’t.

    @BTL

    One thing Breeks said that I’d like to add to:

    ‘In all fairness, I think the funding sloshing around Europe post WW2 was addressing reconstruction of housing and industry flattened by war, and in relative terms, vast areas of Europe and England, were pounded into dust.’

    To get an idea of the scale of the difference in what happened to the Germans versus any of the allies, including Britain, we can consider that in one single night Hamburg had more explosives dropped on it than the entirety of the UK during the war. The same as Dresden.

    Not only this but incendiary devices were also used which caused roaring firestorms in those cities, most notably Dresden.

    But not only were the methods of bombing civilian targets with absolutely staggering amounts of ordinance a crime. The timing of the attacks were vicious. Attacks were timed so that after the first wave emergency services would be out trying to deal with the carnage and civilians would be making their way to safety when the next, even larger carpet bombing would take place.

    Hundreds of thousands of people murdered in a single night. Dresden was not even a tactical target and was filled with refugees from the East.

    It doesn’t stop at night bombing. Flights of war planes would be designated areas where the orders were to shoot anything that moved in the daytime over civilian populated areas.

    Of course, we find out that this was justified action against a nation that after it had kicked out the international bankers, eliminated usury and started providing for its people then made the decision to murder millions of other people by gas chamber and then cremating them, heavily utilising a damaged/destroyed rail network that couldn’t even get food and ammo to its soldiers.

    Charles De Gaul, Churchill and Eisenhower are so humble about their heroic exploits that their war memoires, all three of them, decline to mention this complicated genocide the Germans managed to undertake while their entire country was being flattened.

    Why do I find this stuff important? Well this Orwell quote comes to mind:

    ‘Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.’

  238. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @North Chiel says:6 June, 2023 at 8:32 am

    I thought “ Hadrians Wall was to “ save” the peoples of the South ?

    That was then.

    I would say that nowadays, it’s the population movements going north that should concern us.

    It’s already out of control IMO. Factor in predicted climate change, and it’ll be a flood.

    Anyways, I was actually writing about clouds of radioactive fallout. Hadrian’s Wall is no good against that in any direction. Nothing is.

  239. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    If you hold back anything, I’ll kill you.
    If you bend the truth, or I think you’re bending the truth, I’ll kill you.
    If you forget anything, I’ll kill you.
    In fact, you’re going to have to work very hard to stay alive.
    Now, do you understand everything I’ve said?
    Because if you don’t…I’ll kill you.

    Have you ever heard the term epistrophe?

    If you’ve read some of my previous posts you’ll know that I’m speaking of a rhetorical figure of speech when I mention a term like epistrophe.

    When you end each sentence with the same word, that’s epistrophe.

    When you finish each paragraph with the same word, that’s epistrophe.

    Epistrophe is probably at its most natural in the movie ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’, where a gang boss explains his terms to an unlucky guy who’s crossed him.

    That’s where the little friendly speech at the start of this comment comes from, by the way.

    Half the songs ever written are just extended examples of epistrophe.

    Whether it’s Lou Reed trying to hang on to his perfect day, Bob Dylan just blowing about in the wind or Glen Campbell staying on the line up there in Wichita, that’s epistrophe.

    When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore – and it’s also epistrophe, because it always ends with amore.

    In music epistrophe is so common that we hardly notice it.

    We’re all so used to hearing songs that we don’t see that they work in a certain way.

    In most songs it doesn’t matter where you start, because you always come back to whatever you started with.

    No matter where Elton John starts off, he’s always going to be beaten at pinball by that deaf, dumb and blind kid.

    And Annie Lennox just can’t stop those damn angels playing with her heart.

    Epistrophe is the trope of obsession.

    It’s the trope of emphasising one point over and over.

    And it’s the trope of not being able to escape that one conclusion, which is one of the reasons why songs are so suited to the idea of obsessive love, obsessive hate, obsessive jealousy, and other unhealthy…obsessions.

    There’s no reasoning to be had in an epistrophic pop song. There’s no way to seriously consider alternatives.

    Because the structure demands that you’ll always end up back at the the same place, thinking about the same girl, or boy, and forever trying to give peace a wee bit of a chance.

    When the songs have all been sung, though, epistrophe can get a little more subtle.

    It can be just emphatic banging on the table or jabbing a finger at the air for emphasis.

    That’s the kind Abraham Lincoln used when he said “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

    And while that might still be true in America, government for the people has pretty much perished in Scotland.

    Epistrophe is also the sort of threatening bluster when, in ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ (I’m a big fan of Humphrey), a bandit leader refuses to prove that he’s a policeman: “Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badges!”

    But those are the quick epistrophes and the emphasis epistrophes. Epistrophe gets stronger and more powerful the longer you delay its deployment. But I’ll leave that for another day.

    So, Epistrophe. Now you know what it is – it’s epistrophe.

  240. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breastplate (9.14) –

    Yes.

    As Patrick Henningsen of 21st Century Wire has observed, it would take one phone call, from Washington to K*ev – ‘It’s over. We’re calling a meeting in Geneva tomorrow, announcing immediate ceasefire and commencement of talks.’

    But they won’t do that because they don’t want it to end.

  241. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ian Brotherhood says:6 June, 2023 at 10:21 am

    it would take one phone call

    You really, truly, genuinely believe that within tens, if not hundreds of millions of people, not one single one of them has any agency whatsoever.

    Every single fucking person is a helpless puppet dancing on the strings of the man (or woman) with the big telephone.

    Jeezo, not even God has that kind of power. It’s a new variant of the Scottish Cringe.

    It follows logically though, that all that is needed for the creation of iScotland is one phone call.

    That can be put on a T-shirt for us all to wear:

    Just make that call!

  242. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Joe says:6 June, 2023 at 10:13 am

    You often make some good points, but IMO this is one time where you’ve taken things too far.

    You’ll be writing about “rootless cosmopolitanism” soon, if you keep this up.

  243. Joe
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘rootless cosmopolitanism’

    We use the term ‘globalism’ nowadays

  244. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    Toy soldier Main talking his usual pish .

    Now we can’t progress Independence until the Proxy War is resolved – according to cub reporter for the Daily Fanny and avid reader of the Ladybird Book of Geopolitics , Johhny Mainstream . And by ” resolved ” he no doubt means regime change in R and the end of ” Mad ” ” Most Evil Man Who Has Ever Lived ” etc , V.P .

    Ian B is completely correct . This wanton slaughter could be ended today , by the same cunts that provoked it and in whose interests 1000s are dying . As Ian also says , because they don’t want it to end . Too much money being made you see

    Instead we have the insanity of ” the most powerful man in the world ” – barely able to walk a few feet without falling over , and so manipulated by * Interests * the strings are almost visible , seriously being propped-up for an uncontested ( by his own Party ) run at a 2nd term .

    The same muppet who recently stated when asked what the biggest threat to the US was/is replied * White Supremacy * . FFS .

    The US Southern border is virtually non-existent , there are barely enough zeros to describe the US National Debt , the dollar is in serious decline as the dominant global currency , their infrastructure/s is/are in a ruinous state : but , that’s right , the biggest problem they face is White Guys .

    Must be total hell trying to survive in war-ravaged East Kilbride , eh ?

  245. James
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood,

    Ian, I see there’s a ‘Jane Wayne’ sitting poised to post Unionist BS after every article published on the Off-Topic website, 77th or just Tory Yoon, it cheapens the debate. Very depressing.

  246. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @James (11.25) –

    Aye, noticed that meself.

    ‘Jayne Wayne’, ‘John Main’

    ?

    No pain, no gain!

    😉

  247. SteepBrae
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks 5.44am & Joe 10.13am – two very informative posts and much food for thought.

    Joe’s conclusion – Why do I find this stuff important? Well this Orwell quote comes to mind:
    ‘Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past’ is such a great quote and partly explains why holding onto power at any cost – any cost – seems to be what motivates governments. It also ties in with what Breeks wrote:

    ‘I believe post war, Scottish Independence was a minority side show because the Union did deliver some things for Scotland with “relative” parity. Although, to what extent that was an illusion, we’ll maybe never know’.

    Social benefits post war certainly did benefit Scots (eg Welfare State) but while all this was going on, the machinery of the establishment was grinding away looking after its own. So much so that by the 70s, and the Oscar Marzaroli photographs that Sarah & Tinto Chiel mentioned, the desperate poverty that should have been addressed somehow still existed. Not a picture ever painted by the likes of Pathé News of course.

    Yes, we might never know to what extent parity was an illusion during those days but one thing for sure is that sleight of hand works for governments and it’s still being used.

    We think we’re voting for what we believe in only to discover we’ve been been tricked and have actually let the ‘powers that be’ carry merrily on holding all the cards and keeping control.

  248. SteepBrae
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood 11.31am

    ‘No pain, no gain!’ –

    Aye, and ‘The rain in Spain falls mainly down the drain’ so that’s where ‘Jane Wayne’ posts will end up too.

  249. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert Hughes says:6 June, 2023 at 11:19 am

    Hey Bob, clarify something for me please.

    Somebody comes to your hoose, knocks it flat, kills your missus, abducts your kids, rapes your next door neighbours, kills your workmates, flattens your local school and hospital.

    You’re going to be so cool about that, that if somebody else just tells you to forget it and move on, that’s exactly what you’re going to do?

    You have no agency whatsoever? Maybes you have to be told when to get angry? Then told when to chill?

    See, that’s the fatuous premise behind the “one phone call” shite.

    People aren’t like that once they get angry. Really angry I mean. Not the pretendy anger about WM and that.

    Anyways, as you were. Why don’t you spend the afto wishing really, really hard for Indy. Maybes there’s somebody you could call?

    Indy’s out there, just waiting to be handed to somebody on a plate, no questions asked, no strings attached. It could be you, Bob, Just make that call!.

    I mean, if it works for The War …

  250. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    The leader of a state that has sought strategic gain of land and resources only to fail with vast loss is unlikely to want to stop what he is doing for fear of being held to account. He may yet have to pay what he imposed on so many who disagreed. The Window Tax.

    A state that has lost so much after an unprovoked aggression is unlikely to want to concede anything until it recovers what it has lost.

    Seeing this from the outside other countries will try not to destabilise because it may cause instability within their own countries.

  251. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    SteepBrae,

    We think were voting for what we believe in only to discover we’ve been tricked and have actually let the ‘powers that be ‘ carry merrily on holding all the cards and keeping control.

    The devolved government to Scotland and the mythical treaty of Union instantly arrive at the front of my mind,

    I have yet to find Scotland in either,

  252. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    Demagogue (definition according to Cambridge Dictionary):

    “A demagogue is a person, especially a political leader, who wins support by exciting the emotions of ordinary people rather than by having good or morally right ideas.”


    Anyone is using demagoguery who, at an advantageous moment promotes a political or idealogical goal by flattering the masses and appealing to their feelings, instincts, and prejudices; and in a addition, who is guilty of lies and promotes hatred of others, who overstates the truth, or represents things in a grossly simplified manner, portrays the thing that he is promoting as what only reasonable and good people can believe, and the way he puts it forward or proposes to put forward as the only possible way.

    Martin Morlock (1918 – 1983) “Die Hohe Schule der Verfuhrung”
    (The High Art of Seduction)

    It’s almost as Mr Morlock is talking about some of Scotland’s political leaders, past and present.

  253. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @sam says:6 June, 2023 at 1:24 pm

    Good post.

    It’s delusional to believe that either side will heel like a neutered poodle just because somebody tells them to.

    Too much at stake. Too much invested by both sides.

  254. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    The Window Tax is a euphemism for the payment made by high flying oligarchs (literally) who get on the wrong side of The Man. The Man has dished it out to many enough remain and are worried about many things including their money.

    If The Man is judged a loser he may pay the Window Tax himself. He must keep on keeping on lest he be judged a loser.If there is any stoppage time he must have something to show that he is ahead of the game – or he may find himself on the wrong side of the window.

    Read Lawrence Freedman

  255. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main.

    That kind of behaviour has a name, it is called.

    The Treaty of the union.

  256. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Again some excellent commentary today,

  257. Bobbyp
    Ignored
    says:

    Sam, 7,09pm 5th june. ‘What exactly makes nordic citizens so exceptionally satisfied with their lives’
    Probably the fact they had no norwegian ‘unionists’ telling them they would be poorer if they seceded from the ‘union’ with sweden in 1905. Which was approved by almost 100% of the voters, 371,000 votes cast with just 184 against.

  258. Shug
    Ignored
    says:

    I see the most powerful devolved nation in the world has been told it can’t recycle ginger bottles.

    All done under the UK market act where acceptance was taken regardless of how the Scottish government voted.

    All done under Nicolas watch

    What a complete and utter failure she was or was she a plant??

  259. Southernbystander
    Ignored
    says:

    Joe, 10.13am, said this:

    ‘Of course, we find out that this was justified action against a nation that after it had kicked out the international bankers, eliminated usury and started providing for its people then made the decision to murder millions of other people by gas chamber and then cremating them, heavily utilising a damaged/destroyed rail network that couldn’t even get food and ammo to its soldiers.

    ‘Charles De Gaul, Churchill and Eisenhower are so humble about their heroic exploits that their war memoires, all three of them, decline to mention this complicated genocide the Germans managed to undertake while their entire country was being flattened’.

    Not exactly as straight talking as you praise in others, but you seem to be suggesting the violent and murderous actions of the Nazis against the Jews (and other dissidents) in the 1930s was justified and that the Holocaust itself is a fiction. Am I correct?

  260. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    So Peter Bell has closed down his blog – one less voice telling uncomfortable truths instead of comforting lies – some of which were too uncomfortable even for here 😉

    I’m starting to think the whole blogging scene is in need of a shake-up. I admire the people who’ve been at it a while but it’s not really sustainable. How come there’s no new-media outfits on the scale of UK Column, etc. i.e. 2+ person operations where the load can be shared and which will scale much better?

    (Don’t bother mentioning The Ferret. They were ok when reporting on salmon farming excesses but they went off the rails in their quest to reveal Scotland’s extremist militias – which apparently make the likes of the Montana Freemen look woke”)

  261. Sven
    Ignored
    says:

    Off topic, however I see Labour have now started an online petition regarding the recall of Margaret Ferrier MP for Rutherglen & Hamilton West following her suspension for 30 days from Westminster.

  262. Alf Baird
    Ignored
    says:

    James Che @ 1:36 pm

    “We think were voting for what we believe in only to discover we’ve been tricked and have actually let the ‘powers that be ‘ carry merrily on holding all the cards and keeping control. The devolved government to Scotland and the mythical treaty of Union instantly arrive at the front of my mind, I have yet to find Scotland in either,”

    Excellent summation James, of an Imperial hoax par excellence, where the ideology of a governed class is adopted in large measure by the governed class. And by agreeing to this ideology, the dominated class practically confirm the role assigned to them; oppression is tolerated willy-nilly (i.e. normalised) by the oppressed themselves. Colonial society “is one in which the colonized gives his troubled and partial, but undeniable assent” (Albert Memmi), only occasionally wondering what has happened to his nation and people as they gradually perish.

    A worthless violated treaty and deceitfu colonial administration keep the hoax and the racket/plunder going, aye helped along by a privileged and pampered native elite; thon’s the colonial template.

  263. stuart mctavish
    Ignored
    says:

    Shame there’s no covid mask logo on the use less bin.

  264. Oneliner
    Ignored
    says:

    @Northcode

    My favourite figure of speech is the

    (I know you’ll nail it)

  265. Stravaiger
    Ignored
    says:

    @Stuart Mackay 2:55pm,

    Peter had a very blinkered attitude. He was certain that the only way to achieve independence was to somehow persuade the SNP to do a major volte-face and suddenly start doing pretty much the opposite of what they’ve been doing for the past eight years. Now, he might be right (or he might not), but he was unwilling to even entertain any other solution which might be more likely to happen. Which is pretty much any other solution…

  266. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    Stravaiger

    Absolutely agree. I came to the conclusion / understanding that he was referring to the SNP as the voting / campaigning organisation and not the infestation currently warming the seats in the upper galleries. He damaged his case by not really making that clear.

    Ultimately, I think his carmudgeonly thuoghts will be proved correct. There’s nobody in a position to make a difference that has the slightest clue how to make a difference.

  267. Breastplate
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main @12:59pm
    “Somebody comes to your hoose, knocks it flat, kills your missus, abducts your kids, rapes your next door neighbours, kills your workmates, flattens your local school and hospital.”

    That’ll be some of the reasons that the people of the Donbas region wanted to extricate themselves from the installed Kyiv regime, but there’s more.

  268. Breastplate
    Ignored
    says:

    IanB @10:21am,

    You are correct, there’s still a lot of money to be made.

  269. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Southernbystander says:6 June, 2023 at 2:50 pm

    Am I correct?

    I would defo say so. See my post at 10:50.

    I can’t decide if Joe’s post condoning the actions of the original National Socialists appearing on June 6th is just one of those coincidences.

    Or maybes not.

  270. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breastplate says:6 June, 2023 at 5:06 pm

    I would have thought it was bleedin obvious by now that the arguments about who first murdered who, who first raped who, who first massacred who, who first invaded who, who first famined who, will not be going anywhere.

    Nobody outside of the primary school playground believes “well you started it” is any basis for peace.

    Apart from you maybes.

    My point was and is, that there has been enough murders, rapes, massacres, invasions and famines, plus a whole lot of other shit, to guarantee that nobody from outside is going to stop this just by picking up the phone and calling “time gentlemen please – shake hands and make up”.

    I really can’t make this any clearer. Soz.

  271. David Hannah
    Ignored
    says:

    I see the bottle recycling scheme is not to go ahead.

    I’m glad. But I’m also angry at the wasted money Lorna Slater has given her pals.

    She’s been given permission to implement the scheme without glass.

    But won’t.

    I don’t think they ever planned to roll it out in the first place.

  272. David Hannah
    Ignored
    says:

    Time for an early Holyrood election.

    We need one urgently. How can the SNP continue? With GRR legal challenge? Highly protected Marine highland clearances and now the failed bottle recycling poll tax.

    We should be allowed to put a stop to this. These people are robbing us blind.

    Also the school that was built to the wrong size. Pure corruption. Tax payer funded corruption.

    Loopy lorna Slater, travelling first class to the islands. Too good to take a ferry that isn’t coming.

    Limousin lorna. Sending her car 110 miles to pick her up. Too good to take the bus.

    Send her back to Canada. The big Canada Goose. Stuffed like her bottle recycling scheme.

  273. David Hannah
    Ignored
    says:

    Glasgow City Council. Two tier city.

    Green emission zone. Poor people no longer welcome in Glasgow City Council.

    You’re not even allowed an indoor soup kitchen.

    £60 fine. For non existent asthmatics that don’t exist.

    What about the fucking damp flats you clowns with Glasgow’s hungry weans.

    These people make me sick. They really do. I hate them. I really do. I mean that.

  274. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood says: 6 June, 2023 at 10:21 am

    @Breastplate (9.14) –

    Yes.

    As Patrick Henningsen of 21st Century Wire has observed, it would take one phone call, from Washington to K*ev – ‘It’s over. We’re calling a meeting in Geneva tomorrow, announcing immediate ceasefire and commencement of talks.’

    But they won’t do that because they don’t want it to end.

    An individual had replied to my last comment on this subject. Giving the nonsense reply from that individual and other replies the individual has made to others on the subject, I am not even bothering to reply.

    However, I just want to say one last thing.

    You can get your bottom dollar that the phone call will be made next year either before or after the next US presidential election where it will be spinned as a major triumph of US military and political might.

    Of course, NATO countries will have scrapped, I mean donated, most of their old military hardware and their governments will be ‘forced’ to replace them at the expense of more pressing social programmes needed due to the cost of living crisis.

  275. Breastplate
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main,
    I’m sorry if this is confusing for you so I’ll try to explain it so that even Chas could understand.

    If country 404 has no weapons to fight with, there will be no fighting.
    This war has and is being prolonged by outside influences, primarily in the West for personal financial and political gain and to the benefit of weapons manufacturers.

  276. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Stuart Mac & Stravaiger IMO Peter was half right and half wrong and deemed any disagreement of his views as an opportunity to indulge in name calling

    He was right that the Sexual Nonce Party were in power and were the spearhead to lead the YES movement but he was wrong to insist that we had to keep voting for them for independence as to do otherwise would only let in the unionists , my question was how can you tell the difference

    I believed that Peter like so many other ex snp members were unable to grasp that the sturgeon snp were a cabal of ("Tractor" - Ed)s , that with the right approach the snp could be saved , and THAT cult loyalty and desperation to heal a political party has devastated the independence movement, and TBQH the same messianic adulation being bequeathed to Alex Salmond and the ALBA party will most likely lead to the same outcome

    Alex Salmond has STATED CATEGORICALLY that the same unfair biased franchise that led to the 2014 defeat will be used when we vote on indy, a franchise that defeated a 52.7% vote by indigenous Scots FOR independence, where are the dissenting voices in ALBA to tell him that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again but to expect a different outcome

    WHERE is the steely determination that we will win this fight using any and all methods to do so , where is the anger and resentment that we Scots are being denied and ridiculed not only by WM scum but a party of Quis lings who have betrayed us at every turn
    WHY are ALBA fighting by queensberry rules whilst WM and snp deviants are using ANY and all tools at their disposal in their NO HOLDS BARRED WAR on independence

  277. highlander
    Ignored
    says:

    Shug says:
    6 June, 2023 at 2:22 pm

    I see the most powerful devolved nation in the world has been told it can’t recycle ginger bottles.

    ——————-

    do you work for the bbc?

    Nothing is stopping the snp/greens going ahead with glass, it just won’t apply to the rest of the uk

  278. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:

    @Oneliner 6th June 3:46 pm

    Going by your WoS moniker and your brief single sentence, I’m going to guess that your favourite figure is Parataxis.

    Which would make you a a paratactic poster, Oneliner.

  279. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @PacMan says:6 June, 2023 at 6:09 pm

    spinned as a major triumph of US military and political might

    That would be mighty unfair, don’t you think? Aljazeera reports at least 32 countries that have provided military assistance. A travesty of justice to let the Yanks take all the credit.

    Anyways, as you wrote, you’re done with dealing with reality. Off you trot then.

  280. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breastplate says:6 June, 2023 at 6:13 pm

    I’m sorry if this is confusing for you

    Nah, not confused at all.

    There never is any fighting if only one side has all the weapons.

    Sometimes there’s lots of slavery, rapes, ethnic cleansing, famines, etc. Actually to Hell with the “sometimes”, replace it with “usually”.

    But you are so, so right.

    No fighting at all. Hell, if one side has all the weapons, you can even get the other side to dig their own graves, before you machine gun them!

    Yup BP, I see it all very clearly now. Thanks for opening my eyes.

  281. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    Tuppenceworth.

    There is polling on the attitudes of people in the Do***s, done in 2019 and again after Feb 2022.

    As you might guess at once those most deeply affected at front want things to stop at once.

    55% of those polled in 2019 wanted to stay with Ukr.

    You can find this poll googling “the conversation most people in separatist..”

    Gwendolyn Sasse did the polling.

    Then there is a jan 2022 poll some details of which can be found at “wilsoncenter.org public opinion divided Don***”

    There’s more survey research at The Conversation post the inv*****

    Google the conversation most people refuse to compromise.

    Again I recommend Lawrence Freedman.

    If bets are to be made I’ll hold the money. If scraps are to be made I’ll hold the coats.

  282. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @sam says:6 June, 2023 at 7:34 pm

    those most deeply affected at front want things to stop at once

    Then they must do as Breastplate says.

    Lay down their weapons and walk slowly towards those who are shooting at them. Take their wives and daughters with them, especially if their wives and daughters have also been armed. Explain how Biden made them all do it.

    They’ll be absolutely fine.

    Breastplate can explain this so much better than I can. Help me out here, BP.

  283. Joe
    Ignored
    says:

    Southern Bystander & John Main

    Like a couple of teachers out to put their most unruly people in place.

    ‘you seem to be suggesting’

    What an utterly asinine statement.

    The question is ‘is it true, and if so what does it suggest?’

    I won’t waste time giving an answer because any detailed answer (and I could give a books worth) will not be welcome here.

  284. sam
    Ignored
    says:

    Apparently there are around 400,000 Ukr with Rus passports.

    I don’t think much can be had from polling done in w4r time.

    We don’t know who will stand in the next USA general election never mind who will win.

    We don’t know what is happening in Rus. The Man may exit suddenly.

    It seems to me, could be wrong that Rus army is second best army in Ukr and events in Rus border areas suggest it is also second best army in Rus right now.

    What seems certain is the lack of certainty.

  285. Derek
    Ignored
    says:

    “…I see there’s a ‘Jane Wayne’ sitting…”

    It isn’t Jayne/Wayne County, is it?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJYnSMk9seE

  286. Southernbystander
    Ignored
    says:

    Joe, I will take your response to my question that you think that the Nazis’ actions against the Jews (and other dissidents) in the 1930s was justified and that the Holocaust itself is a fiction, as a ‘yes’ then.

  287. Northcode
    Ignored
    says:


    “I ain’t never gonna be scared no more.
    I was, though.
    For a while it looked as though we was beat. Good and beat.
    Looked like we didn’t have nobody in the whole wide world but enemies.
    Like nobody was friendly no more.
    Made me feel kinda bad and scared too, like we was lost and nobody cared….
    Rich fellas come up and they die, and their kids ain’t no good and they die out, but we keep on coming.
    We’re the people that live.
    They can’t wipe us out, they can’t lick us.
    We’ll go on forever, Pa, cos we’re the people.”

    ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ by John Steinbeck

  288. Joe
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘Joe, I will take your response to my question that you think that the Nazis’ actions against the Jews (and other dissidents) in the 1930s was justified and that the Holocaust itself is a fiction, as a ‘yes’ then’

    Alright. I think I must be getting in over my head here. You have managed to equate denying a murder took place with condoning it. Against such an adversary I am lost.

    So I was wondering if you could help me:

    The holocaust museum at Auschwitz in the 90’s dropped its sign that said over 4 million died there and replaced it with the current one that states just over a million died there instead.

    Why has the main figure of 6 million not been similarly downgraded? Pretty much everyone still uses it, even in official literature. Should we remind them to do so?

    Thanks for the help.

  289. Southernbystander
    Ignored
    says:

    Joe, the figures are not difficult to source. You are right that the estimate for Auschwitz is 1 million but the 6 million figure holds. I I am not sure if links might get me put in moderation but the breakdown of figures are at the Holocaust Encyclopaedia site on its main page which one can find in seconds.

    No doubt you will dismiss this as false, but there is little point in discussing this further as I have no desire to try to convince a Holocaust denier of anything (though I do not know how far you really go with that. In my book the documentation of the vastness and utter cruel barbarity of the atrocities is incontrovertible and what matters, along with the window into just how far humans can go in totally dehumanising ‘others’ it offers. And this is not the same as the appalling bombing of Dresden – we are talking about, for example, grown men throwing screaming, terrified children and babies onto roaring fires).

    As for condoning murder, that was clearly in response to your support for the Nazis’ actions in the 1930s (pre Holocaust) which you described as them having ‘kicked out the international bankers, eliminated usury’. I am sure you are aware of the murderous nature of those actions which were largely against Jews? Maybe you are talking specifically about something else but either way, you are clearly being at the very least, an apologist for the Nazis.

  290. Joe
    Ignored
    says:

    @Southern bystander

    Alright, thanks for that.

    There’s a few more things you can perhaps clear up for me?

    – Can you tell me why a gas chamber door would be made of wood, have a single pane glass window and open inward?

    – Why would the lights in a gas chamber that will contain flammable gas have unprotected light bulbs?

    – why would the Soviets have built a big chimney next to the facility and not attached it?

    – how do you cremate 1.1 million bodies with 4 crematoria ovens, taking 2 to 3 hours per body in anything under 70 years?

    – how do you murder 6 million Jews when there were only ever about 3.5 million ever living in all the area’s Germany controlled, especially since you’ve spent the best part of 6 years sending as many as you can to Palestine via the Havaara Agreement?

    – why have theatres, hospital wards, maternity wards, sports pitches and a swimming pool in a death camp?

    – why allow the Red Cross in to inspect your death camps?

    – how come the Red Cross at the end of the war calculated a death toll of 280,000, chiefly from Typhus and starvation, and concluded that they saw no evidence of gas chambers and that inmates were ‘expected to work in and around the camps’.

    – why was that report classified for 50 years, only being released in the 90’s?

    – why is there no mention of the plan to exterminate anybody in the German secret codes the British managed to break?

    – how come Anne Frank wrote her diary with a ball point pen which was only invented afterwards?

    – why is it illegal to question all this in most of Europe?

    – why was the verdict in the Ersnt Zundel case (for holocaust denial) paraphrasing: ‘the truth of the claims are irrelevant, it’s the questioning that is the crime’

    – why would I be risking my job, bank accounts and possible hate speech violations for asking these questions?

    – how many 10’s of billions in reparations has Israel had from Germany while these issues remained unaddressed?

    I have many, many more about all of these real factual issues but I suppose you will have enough work for now and we can hold part 2 till later?



Comment - please read this page for comment rules. HTML tags like <i> and <b> are permitted. Use paragraph breaks in long comments. DO NOT SIGN YOUR COMMENTS, either with a name or a slogan. If your comment does not appear immediately, DO NOT REPOST IT. Ignore these rules and I WILL KILL YOU WITH HAMMERS.




↑ Top