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Wings Over Scotland


Standard Wales Check #2

Posted on July 28, 2019 by

We’re being somewhat generous with the numbering here, to be honest, but you’ve got to start the official count somewhere, right?

Alert readers will recall that current Scottish Labour policy is to enshrine in law the right to a free bus pass for all Scots over the age of 60:

This time last year, for example, their transport spokesman Colin Smyth specifically and indignantly condemned any possible suggestion by the dastardly SNP of perhaps increasing the qualifying age from 60 to state pension age (currently 65 and due to rise to 68 and beyond), saying:

“Sadly, the scheme is now under threat with SNP ministers refusing the rule out increasing the age citizens can qualify for a pass in a bid to try and save money. Ordinary people in their 60s should not be paying the price of Tory austerity because the SNP refuse to use the powers of the parliament to fund our services properly.”

A commendably unambiguous and righteous position. Indeed, the North British branch of Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist party announced at this year’s conference that if elected they’d not only keep the threshold at 60, but would extend free bus travel immediately to everyone in Scotland under 25, and then swiftly to everyone of any age.

So we can safely assume that in Wales, where Labour have been in power for all 20 years of the devolved Assembly, all those things will already be happening, because otherwise it’d just be embarrassing.

At the very least, we can be certain that there’s no chance of the qualifying age going up from 60 to state pension age, because we already know that Labour regard that as a scandalous and unthinkable moral outrage.

And sure enough, this week there was an announcement.

Oh. Perhaps there’s been some misunderstanding.

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  1. 28 07 19 12:56

    Standard Wales Check #2 | speymouth
    Ignored

393 to “Standard Wales Check #2”

  1. Inky pic
    Ignored
    says:

    Hypocrites the lot of them!

  2. CmonIndy
    Ignored
    says:

    Stu I was getting worried that you might have spontaneously combusted given the appointment of Michelle Moan (sic) as Unionjackery queen in Scotland by our Boris.

  3. Rev. Stuart Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    “the appointment of Michelle Moan (sic) as Unionjackery queen in Scotland by our Boris”

    Wait what now?

  4. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s so difficult to keep track these days what with *the country* being four countries but being told we’re *one nation* with all the same laws but not really because devolution to these other countries from the big main England country is causing differences between our *one nation* of four countries where annoying people decide to be annoyingly different

    It’s just as well new president Bozo is going to make it all more betterer by medicating us with a dose of optimism from his pantry of 1940s remedies bequeathed to him from the Winston Churchill herb garden of *how to* books

    Prices have increased by at least 15% since 2015 and we’re all poorer for it, we know this because we have less to spend on the same stuff, but the economic *experts* of the UK government tell us we don’t understand the economy because the *country* is actually better off, well thank goodness they’ve told us that because I’m sure people were worried about it getting worse, now we know we can nip out to the garden and dig up some *country* to sell or barter in exchange for stuff

    In the big *country* of England the people have been trained to dislike the other bits of their big country (that’s us in Scotland Northern Ireland and Wales) but they know because there are more of them they can win any voting stuff against the other annoying bits of their big *country* and that makes them right, because as we know a lot is good so more must be better

    These other *countries* of the UK have no right being different because well they’re not really countries are they so it makes more sense to do away with all this different stuff and just have everything run from Number 10 Britains got talent department

    Problem solved

  5. James McLaren
    Ignored
    says:

    Michelle Mone

    3 tits out .

  6. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour’s land of milk and honey usually turns out to be whey and saccharin. Promise them anything. You never have to deliver anyway. Party loyalty will keep them blind.

  7. annie
    Ignored
    says:

    Think the Michelle Mone suggestion came from a parody account on twitter @BrainTaylor.

  8. kapelmeister
    Ignored
    says:

    Tory Michelle Ballantyne MSP says on debate might in March that Johnson “wouldn’t play well in Scotland as PM”.

    Then the other day she tweets her congratulations and says she’s sure “he has what it takes to unite the country and defeat the SNP”. She even posted an old pic of herself and Johnson having a conversation.

    All the Tories at Holyrood must now be positioning themselves for Davidson’s job.

  9. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Rev, we love your unique form of journalism.
    No where else in state controlled UK Media land
    Will such an important and revealing story be reported.

    The North Accounting Branch just continues to give more and
    More humiliating press releases that are not from any core socialist
    Values or belief but just outright lies hoping to capture the gullible voter.

    Every couple of years they tell us they now have some form of autonomy
    And every time their London based Red Tory Party Masters shoot them down in flames.

    I’d say Corbyn does care about the majority but he has no vision, he vacillates, he can’t implement
    and we saw that the majority of Labour MPs don’t want him.

    TV, Radio, Newspapers and organisations like Cambridge Analytics all ensure that any left of centre leader is depicted as an incompetent loony and a scarecrow to the rich tax payers and foreign investors.

    Can I also remind you that Labour are so opposed to Tory Austerity that they abstained from voting
    against it.

    20 years of devolved Labour Government in Wales and they have the worst performing NHS,
    Infrastructure, policing and jobless totals.

    The lie that is Labour is out.

  10. Clootie
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour presents different claims to every audience. It worked well for them when the MSM was the only source of data…but not now.

    Their other primary tactic is to invent a story without foundation ” the SNP are going to do….X” when it didn’t happen the next announcement was ” Labour pressure stopped the SNP doing…X”

    Labour has promised Scotland much and claimed credit for even more. However they delivered little during their decades in power. They are the fence sitters, the abstainers, the party of empty promises. One day they may actually become a Scottish Party and help build a Nation. In the meantime they remain loyal Better Together Red Tories.

    Westminster is simply an institute dominated by the English numerical bias. We get what England wants and that is going to be a Rightwing isolationist (apart from Americal influence) Government for a long time to come.

  11. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    annie

    Baroness Mone of Maifair’s actual twitter account is barely distinguishable from parody … in between plugs for her fake jewelry on QVC, she lets rip with…

    “A massive congratulations to our new PM @BorisJohnson @10DowningStreet I know he WILL be incredible.I personally can’t wait until we are the BOSS of our own incredible country again. Huge congratulations to the powerhouse”

  12. David Searil
    Ignored
    says:

    Minor correction Rev, current state pension age is no longer 65. I turned 65 this April and am aving to wait until the 6th September to get mine

  13. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour rarely deliver significant change. They are part of the Establishment. Feathering their own nests is always a priority.

    What did Labour do in all those years of governement in Scotland? Brought in the smoking ban a year earlier, forced through the Edinburgh trams, and saddled generations to come with PFI!

    The contrast with SNP governance and achievements couldn’t be greater.

    2014/15 … after winning IndyRef1 on behave of the Tories by making promises for a new beginning, what did Labour do in the Smith Commission? They were the most obstructive party of all regarding further devolution of powers.

    Think of the way Labour keep challenging the SNP at Holyrood asking “why aren’t you doing xyz?”, where the devolved power to do xyz was blocked by Labour itself!

    Hate Tories for what they are, hate Labour for what they aren’t!

  14. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Watch Bbc Dateline London from this morning – the last 5 mins.

    Pro brexiters English Journalist Alex Dean gets really annoyed by The North American correspondent asking questions over Scotland leaving.

    It’s our country he says , ain’t going to happen– what! Scotland leaves the UK to join the Euro ? No way…it’s ridiculous

    Pity no time to debate his nonesense further.

    Scotlands future discussed on the BBC by an Englishman, North American, Irishman, and French journalist with an English TV presenter.

    Seems fair to me. After all they could have got Baronees Moany to speak on behalf of Scotland.

  15. Bill Hume
    Ignored
    says:

    Let’s be fair here, all of the unionist parties have different stories for the four corners of the UK.
    They are (collectively) like an ageing lothario, telling different lies to their various ‘lady friends’ and hoping they never talk to one another.

    Thankfully with the advent of this interwebby thing, they are now being caught out.

  16. Gaz Robertson
    Ignored
    says:

    free bus passes for those people who live in an area where the bus service has been dropped due to funding issues…yeah good one!

  17. Clapper57
    Ignored
    says:

    @ kapelmeister @ 12.11pm

    Hi kapelmeister, I watched the Debate show ( pre Bojo becoming PM )…and she was slating Boris..stating he did not care about Scotland…then when I saw her in a picture, on the Boris leadership campaign trail ( Scottish hustings) with other supporters of Boris with placards stating ‘Boris for PM’…with the man himself standing at the front of his ‘supporters’…well I was neither shocked nor surprised…which proves what we all already knew…that neither she nor her band of chancers in the Scottish parliament gives a flying u know what about Scotland…own party, own career and Union uber alles always always always with those brass necked Unionist con men and women that do not deserve to represent anyone In Scotland…indeed they clearly do NOT represent anyone in Scotland…other than those wealthy Scots Unionists.

    Now Stephen Jardine was chairing that debate so will he recall her slating Bojo then doing what Tories in Scotland are renowned for……the now infamous U turns .

    Also worth mentioning her Branch leader Ruth D where it is so obvious that she, Ruth D , is now on a PR exercise trying to convince gullible Scots that she does not want a ‘No deal Brexit’ just a ‘normal’ average Brexit… thus it is being promoted that she is on a fake collision course with Boris…the reality is she is pissed off that he has publicly proven that she is a spent force, lame duck in the UKOK Tory party by proving she has NO influence within UKOK Tory party..never bloody had any either….her wee Unionist spy has been tossed aside and Bojo is doing his best to thwart her plan on deceiving gullible Scots into accepting a UKOK policy of Brexit that will NOT be damaging to Scotland …this fake news by the media is a damage limitation exercise on behalf of Ruth D …..you know THE Ruth D..the FM in waiting Lol….she’s have a long bloody wait…….God it is really falling apart for Ruth and ‘Scottish Conservative and Unionist party’ is it not…popcorn please….Kenny Farquharson should maybe delete some of his past tweets and think twice before writing more sheeite on the saviour of the Union….mind you he might switch allegiance to Jo Swinson….desperate times call for desperate measures when the Union is at stake Lol

    The higher they climb the harder they fall….or rather the more the media promotes your pretendy ascension the more likely they will eventually promote your decline…should you go off message…hey Ruth don’t diss Brexit Boris cause you ain’t going to win…England expects and it will not tolerate a Jock(ess) trying to spoil the party…in more ways than one that is….lovely to watch the Union destroy Ruth D’s arguments…again…how long before she gets with the No Deal Brexit programme….days..weeks…months Lo bloody L.

    As to Labour well ……….

  18. dakk
    Ignored
    says:

    Bill Hume said
    They are (collectively) like an ageing lothario, telling different lies to their various ‘lady friends ‘

    Beautiful analogy there Bill.

    Riddled with genital warts and infested with pubic lice in my mind’s eye, if I may add.

  19. Lenny Hartley
    Ignored
    says:

    Re pensions I turn 65 next april and have to wait a year to get it.

  20. Artyhetty
    Ignored
    says:

    In Gateshead, a LABOUR COUNCIL, north east England, you do NOT get your bus at 60! My brother just got his aged 65.

    Now in Northumberland, I have a couple of friends there, one who has lived there all her life, you do NOT get your bus pass until you are over 65! One who has already turned 60, will not get hers until she is 67. A Tory council far as I know.

    You can look at a councils website and put in a search to see when you would be eligible for a bus pass. in Gateshead, Labour run council, it seems I would likely not get one at all, my birth year just comes up with no bus pass date.

    You see people happily using their bus passes in Edinburgh but voting Tory, Libdem or even sometimes Labour. You still get your bus pass at age 60, on the dot here, you can travel all over Scotland for free with it.

    If Labour, or the Tories were in power, that would be one of the first things to go absolutely guarenteed.

    I read a while ago that London were giving bus passes to people who were out of work so they go find a job. It seems to be up to the council, maybe a survey of which councils in England have removed the bus at 60 from their constituents.

    In Scotland though it’s SNP government policy?

  21. Artyhetty
    Ignored
    says:

    Meant bus ‘pass’ in first para, obviously even if I proof read a comment here it nearly always has a typo when posted! Gah.

  22. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    Off topic sorry , just watched Thursdays Broadcast Scotland prog where Gordon Ross interviews Peter Curran , very enlightening and Peter asserts that many opporchancities have been missed or ignored and as we all know timing is CRITICAL

  23. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t know what’s worse Labour’s eternal hypocrisy or the thought of seeing Michelle Mone back in Scotland on tv and pretending she knows what she’s talking about with regat5to politics.

  24. starlaw
    Ignored
    says:

    Right now Scottish Labour will promise anything which will win a vote, anything goes, none of these promises have to be kept as they are election promises and not legally binding.

  25. Geoff
    Ignored
    says:

    A bus pass in no doubt very useful in Edinburgh/Glasgow etc, but not in the more rural area with no bus service. I am 4 miles from the nearest bus stop, others much further, so I use a car. A quick search seems to show that free bus passes costs some £200m/yr and there are approx 1.25m over 60s in Scotland, so that is approx £160 each. Clearly those in cities and large towns get a good deal, but those in rural, bus-free places get little or no value from it. A scheme that allowed a choice of bus pass or contribution to road tax/MOT or to pay for taxis would be more equitable.
    Also I am not at all clear why those over 60 in employment deserve a free pass but those in their 50s do not (or in their 40s, 30s,…).
    If the reason for giving free passes is that many retired people have poor pensions, perhaps we should address the problem at source by improving the state pension. Then pensioners could afford to choose what ever means of transport best suits their circumstances.

  26. Fireproofjim
    Ignored
    says:

    Well, here’s a thing. OT but interesting.
    The Sunday Times Magazine has an article by Kirsty Lang on the success of the Glasgow Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), which has reduced murders in Glasgow to levels not seen for almost fifty years.
    The VRU is now being examined by the London authorities who are battling with their own knife crime epidemic.
    The final paragraph says,” While the rest of the U.K. was was shutting down youth centres Scotland poured money and people into this. It is difficult to see a toxically divided Westminster following the same path as a small, united country of just five million people.”
    Recognition that we can do things better by ourselves, and in a Unionist paper too.

  27. Meindevon
    Ignored
    says:

    @twathater

    Thank you. Fair cheered me up. “Opporchancities”

    Still laughing.

  28. Derick fae Yell
    Ignored
    says:

    Yeah the ‘Michelle Mone as Union Jack Tsar’ is from a parody account. It’s difficult to tell nowadays

    Incidentally – is there a complete media blackout on the First Minister’s rather successful trip to Shetland yesterday. I don’t see a peep on the BBC website. Not looked at others. The National has it but does any other media?

    The did manage to mention Prince Charles not making it WTF. And our dear dear Princess Anne was in Fair Isle. Sudden interest LOL

    PS don’t mention Clair Ridge

  29. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Meindevon glad you liked it , I always considered myself as an optimistic pessamist , one who hopes for the best but is not suicidal when truth and reality happens.

    As for liebour they are just COMPULSIVE liars , the most DESPICABLE thing is that they don’t have to be , if they only worked to the founding principles of the organisation they would have credibility , but they have been infested by a corrupt cabal of greed driven parasites

  30. Clootie
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour Scottish Branch should remember the old saying ” If you wear a mask for too long, there comes a time when you cannot remove it”
    The are like the “SUN newspaper” a different story for each audience.

    I know many don’t like the term Red Tories. However look who they choose to work with time after time. Perhaps instead of being angry with the SNP they should reflect on why voters switched from Labour to the SNP.

    Why do people suspect that a Brexit deal will go through with Labour votes.

  31. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Geoff and Gaz Robertson.

    It’s a real shame that rural areas are sometimes not as well served as some others, camping at Port ban, just came back from Lochgilphead on the b8024, single track road( passing places ) and what do I see bus stops, and a fantastic brand new primary school, on the the edge of the sea, stunning.

    I note no one has posted numbers for the Campbeltown march. About 2,000, largest gathering ever in the area, best bit, all the young kids waving their saltines and taking pictures. You might not be seeing any but their friends will. Saddest ( apart from the clown in the dirty jaiket, and some rangers guys putting Union bunting up) was the sight of a young dad walking back home with rolled Union fleg followed by his two young daughters.

  32. velofello
    Ignored
    says:

    So, let’s start with the term Public Transport.

    Rural areas are entitled to expect a public transport service, public transport must be obliged to serve all communities. It needn’t be an every 15 minute service for rural areas, but it must be reliable. Cost? The journey incurred cost of a bus, A to B, cannot be much more than a taxi.

    Regards urban public transport, I live in Ayrshire the bus service to Glasgow is excellent, quick and comfortable. Around Ayr not so, there seems to be a bus stop every 100 metres and so the service is exasperatingly slow. Once in Glasgow, Union Street seems like bus chaos, cost effective? Glasgow needs a Mass Transport system. Learning from the Edinburgh tram fiasco – contractors’s dream – unknown location of underground services, so extra work claims – an above ground gantry type system should be investigated.

  33. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    RedLabour, Blue Labour, & Orange Labour.
    The multi coloured Party.

    Scottish Labour attacked over senior Orangeman councillor Ian McNeil

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/scottish-labour-attacked-over-senior-orangeman-councillor-ian-mcneil-53vvr9m8w

  34. Fergus Green
    Ignored
    says:

    A wee bit off topic.

    As Scottish taxpayers, we all contributed to the Edinburgh Tram project.

    However, if you are over 60 and do not live in Edinburgh, you have to pay.

  35. Footsoldier
    Ignored
    says:

    I have searched fairly intensively on BBC and STV and it appears to be another news blackout on the Campbeltown march.

    Anyone heard of broadcasters stifling news they don’t like in a democracy?

  36. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Rural transport.

    when some Greens tell us to stop using planes or cars they do so from a perspective of living in a town with many alternatives.

    Do they know how long and the cost in time and money to travel to the Western or Northern Isle

    Glasgow to Sumburgh by air is 50 mins approx. By car and ferry? Work it out

    Time for the Isles to get more infrastructure.

    As for the ferry from Gourock to Dunoon the service is a complete disgrace yet supported by our Brexit negotiator Mr Russelll.

    So for the SNP government, yes, support green type initiatives but for goodness sake support our islands and rural areas.

  37. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    British politics has been moving to the right for decades, increasingly so since the 9/11 terror attacks on the USA. Reluctant Nationalist is correct, to an extent. New Labour’s approach to immigration has stoked a rise of nitavist and populist English nationalism, which is characteristically Islamophobic in nature. The question is, do you appease and support the radical-right, or do you fight fascism?

    Prejudice and the Brexit vote: a tangled web

    Abstract

    The decision of the UK public in July 2016 to vote to leave the European Union was greeted with surprise within the UK and across the world. However, should we really have been surprised? Surveys of attitudes towards freedom of movement to the UK over the last 10 years have suggested an increasing negativity regarding immigration, and many debates before and after the vote have raised the issue of whether prejudice played a role in the outcome of the referendum.

    It is only within the last 12 months that a number of research study findings have started to provide a more coherent, data-informed evidence-base suggesting that voting behaviour in the referendum may have correlates to prejudice personality styles, nationalism, Islamophobia, and implicit/explicit prejudice. We argue that recent evidence suggests that levels of prejudice towards ‘others’ was a factor in the Brexit vote and that the attitudes underlying this vote must be explored in greater detail through cross-disciplinary scientific research, with legitimate concerns recognised and fallacies challenged.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0214-5

  38. Lenny Hartley
    Ignored
    says:

    Hamish 100 gourock to Dunoon u do know you have an alternative to Cal-Mac which provides a regular service from 0630 until at least 22:40 weekdays , western ferries running from 6 am to 10 pm plus you have a road so the ferries are not lifeline services, i smell shite.

  39. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    OT An interesting selection of thoughtful letters in the Guardian. All from folks in England and Wales who have a clear vision of what Johnson is up to.

    The second letter is probably correct about his plans – engineer failure and call a general election blaming the EU for intransigence. No surprises, it’s what has been discussed here, however it’s good to know some folks down south see the same.

    http://archive.is/iU7m1

  40. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Maybe western ferries should clean oot their toilets! Interesting riposte from mr Hartley.

    They are of course Chaired by Lord Robertson of that ilk. If there is any malodours it’s the one that is trying to undermine calmac

    Declare an interest?

  41. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Dae western fly aeroplanes!,, Read my whole comment Mr Western

  42. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    The ultra unionist STV news doing the Tories bidding, by allowing Adam Tomkins to put to bed stories in today’s papers that Ruth Davidson and Boris Johnson are at loggerheads.

  43. Jock McDonnell
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Footsoldier

    Let the media ignore it – those townsfolk never hear of their towns on the news & when they have a march like Saturday’s, they will tune in expectantly & be just a little disappointed in the broadcasters when there is heehaw coverage.

  44. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    Scotland is on the road to Independence. The task given to PMJohnston is to prevent that happening.
    Prevent is the key word. It does not mean persuade.

  45. Lenny Hartley
    Ignored
    says:

    Hamish 100 in case you need reminded this is what you said about the ferry between Gourock and Dunoon quote As for the ferry from Gourock to Dunoon the service is a complete disgrace yet supported by our Brexit negotiator Mr Russelll. Unquote as well as a road to/ from Dunoon there are approx 72 ferries each way by Cal-Mac and Western.

  46. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Media ignoring AUOB marches.

    Honestly, it’s like what would would happen in some two bit, third rate, banana dictatorship somewhere. All dissent and demonstrations suppressed in the media in case the plebs rise up.

    It never works because everyone who witnessed it knows actually what happened.

  47. H Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    Just been told the BBC weather has given the forecast temperature in Fahrenheit as well as Celsius. If the BBC do this then it’s almost certainly official government policy. The start of a return to imperial (and associated) weights and measures.

  48. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    It is morally correct that this article highlights the hypocrisy of the so called ‘Scottish Labour’, who’s role is to bamboozle Scotland’s voters into thinking they are a political party. They’re not, they are an accounting unit of British Labour and their role is to support British nationalism. This sort of cynical smoke-and-mirrors approach to democracy, is why Scotland must bend to English demands. Always and without question.

    However, it is the minutia of political issues, such as bus passes, that distracts the public gaze from more serious threats (see the full-English Brexit).

    Racism, Crisis, Brexit

    ABSTRACT

    This article offers a conjunctural analysis of the financial and political crisis within which Brexit occurred with a specific attentiveness to race and racism. Brexit and its aftermath have been overdetermined by racism, including racist violence. We suggest that the Leave campaign secured its victory by bringing together two contradictory but inter-locking visions.

    The first comprises an imperial longing to restore Britain’s place in the world as primus inter pares that occludes any coming to terms with the corrosive legacies of colonial conquest and racist subjugation. The second takes the form of an insular, Powellite narrative of island retreat from a “globalizing” world, one that is no longer recognizably “British”. Further, the article argues that an invisible driver of the Brexit vote and its racist aftermath has been a politicization of Englishness. We conclude by outlining some resources of hope that could potentially help to negotiate the current emergency.

    KEYWORDS:
    Racism, crisis, Brexit, empire, Englishness, neoliberalism

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2017.1361544

  49. chocolass
    Ignored
    says:

    Great march in Campbeltown yesterday,
    brilliant atmosphere as always.
    Reported only in the National which ,by the way ,is the new game in our local co-op-hunt the National!
    Today it was totally hidden by the Sporting Life(thought they’d sold out!)
    Usually it’s face down…..

  50. auld highlander
    Ignored
    says:

    C & F temperature is indeed on weather website.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2650225

  51. Willie
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour’s Jackie Baillie as I recall it wanted to introduce a charge for the bus pass.

    Too many millionaires using the free bus bus was the logic so everyone was to pay a fee and the age limit was to go up. No doubt the same Laborite logic that had her supporting introducing a fee to visit the GP.

    But her party have been found out, and found out big style. And with her party having something less than 10% at the last Euro election, I think we can take it that Labour is a a dead duck in Scotland, and a dead duck elsewhere too.

    Bring on a general election. Give the people a choice. And then let us see where we go from there. Thatcher said get a majority of MPs and we go.

    Let’s do it!

  52. chocolass
    Ignored
    says:

    Oops! Meant Racing Post!

  53. Willie
    Ignored
    says:

    A dude in mid west USA goes into a hotel and says he wants to stay the night. But before he does he says he wants to see the room.

    Fine says the barman but you need to leave a $50 deposit, which you can have back if you decide not to stay. So he leaves the $50 dollars and goes upstairs.

    Barman immediately lifts the $50 and runs over to the butcher to pay him for the meat he’d had delivered to the hotel. Butcher then races over with the $50 to pay the farmer for hogs supplied to the butcher shop.

    Farmer, who was a bit of a boy then nips over to the prostitute to pay for services rendered over recent weeks. Prostitute then nips over to the hotel and pays barman $50 bucks forvusevofvhotel rooms.

    And at that, potential visitor comes back down stairs, says he’s decided not to stay and takes his $50 dollars back. And with that every one has been paid.

    Now, not suggesting that the buses are like that, but if the SG did not spend money on encouraging pensioners, very many who are on low incomes, on having the facility to travel by the use of the bus pass, then in great swathes of Scotland there would be no regular bus services.

    At a cost of circa £230m the bus pass subsidies bus routes that would otherwise not be operable. And by doing it through the mechanism of giving a buss pass to folks many of whom have restricted incomes, it delivers economic and social benefits many many times more than the cost of the subsidy.

    Think of the logic of paying none of our pensioners any pension and then think of the economic and social impact of that and you get the message. No money, no economy, no existence.

    Yeh, too many millionaires as Jackie Baillie and her new Labour Party would say taking advantage of the bus pass pass.

    And SNP baad for supporting such an enlightened policy.

  54. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Just think if they go back to using old weights nd measures and money and folk realise they just paid 10 shillings to blow up a tyre at ASDA before they went in and bought a bar of Scottish tablet for 12 shillings then paid £1.12s.9d for about 14 strawberries

    Folk’ll keep their money in their pokes when they realise after all these years they were screwed by decimalisation the first time

    Remember the Mars bar 4d old money then practically overnight became 5p, so from the value of 2pence to 12pence

    Nobody can tell us the EU pulled that one, like when countries joined the Euro each home government ripped off it’s own people, in Spain they had to have two amnesties because folk were hoarding their Pesetas and not bringing them into the banks

    Although LSD could be a great idea….if you know what I mean

  55. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    Dr Jim @ 7.48 pm,

    You are right they can’t blame the EU for decimalisation which happened in 1971 – 2 years before we joined the EU.

    One of the supposed ‘advantages’ was that people would find it easier to divide by 10 than by 12. Well no. A lot of people are no more able to divide by 10 than they are by 12.

    Heaven help us if they go back to a system based on 12.

  56. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    I think if your criticising the infrastructure in Scotland you need to look at those who decide how much pocket money Scotland gets and who were in charge for 300 yrs. The SNP have had just 10yrs with one hand tied behind its back.
    There’s a ferry from Gourock to Dunoon every 20 minutes.

  57. Geoff
    Ignored
    says:

    7:25 pm auld highlander says:
    C & F temperature is indeed on weather website.

    This is not the case. The tab for Monday shows 20 and 13, being the forecast max and min teperatures, both in celcius.
    13C = 55.4F and 20F = a chilly minus 6.7C
    The BBC do much wrong, but to make false claims only makes us look foolish!

  58. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Oops, that might look as if I think bus-passes are insignificant. As someone who freely admits to once working in the Bus Planning Section of London Transport (ace sandwich-year 🙂 ), I’m aware of how important subsidised mobility is to the health and viability of local communities. However, I’m also aware that prevailing political currents suggest, subsidised mobility is likely to become something of a low priority for scarce funding in Brexitania. The land that forgot planning. 😉

  59. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    ….The land that forgot planning and undermined social cohesion and sustainability, through an ideological persecution of the weak and vulnerable, i.e. austerity. Remember, “work sets you free”, as all good Tories will have you believe. Sorry for getting emotive there but I just watched a BBC piece on the new Prime Minister. As described, it struck me that BoJo fitted many of the classical characteristic common to fascists. He’s not thick, though he’s not clever. He’s self-regarding and dangerous.

  60. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Golfnut

    Four!

    The ferry you are referring too does not arrive in Dunoon or Gourock! Just being factual.

    Incidentally my main point is about infrastructure for the Isles and rural areas. The Greens talk about not using cars or aircraft. Easy to do in Edinburgh or Glasgow.

  61. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Hampshire 100
    If we are being pedantic it’s ‘ fore’
    Check the postcode.

  62. John from Fife
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T. A suggestion for a Billboard :- Imagine a Foreign Country controls your Broadcasting and newspaper Media – YES that is Scotland 2019

  63. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    The majority of Scots do live within easy travelling distances on major hospitals and shopping. However, a great many don’t. Remote communities are often more remote than city dwellers appreciate.

    From islands a significant amount of air travel on scheduled flights is taken up by patients going to city hospitals for anything from regular checkups to specialised treatment.

    Are people aware that across the remoter Highlands and Islands, pregnant women are strongly advised to leave home and family and go to stay with relatives or friends in population centres for the final few weeks of pregnancy?

    Buses, trains, and bicycles are an irrelevance across much of Scotland.

    Remote communities need support or they will be abandoned. Do we really want a second wave of clearances in the name of being Green?

  64. Graf Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    Dr. Jim 07.48pm

    “Remember the Mars bar 4d old money then practically overnight became 5p, so from the value of 2pence to 12pence

    Nobody can tell us the EU pulled that one, like when countries joined the Euro each home government ripped off it’s own people, in Spain they had to have two amnesties because folk were hoarding their Pesetas and not bringing them into the banks”
    ——————————
    In Germany it was DM 2 = € 1. Easy 2 to 1.

    Some smart arses just swapped the DM for €…! Most got caught out by the “Ordnungspolizei” and were then fined a lot of money.

    The big thing was rounding-up: widget costs DM 15,32 means
    € 7,66 so sell it for € 7,99 or even € 8,49.

    Folk were very angry and it took about 2 years for everything to settle down.

    The Bundesbank reckons even today there’re still billions of Deutsch Marks tucked away under mattresses…

  65. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry for being a one-trick-pony but Brexit troubles me deeply. Now I’ve got my local planning head on, I can’t forget my local environment is connected to the wider ecology. So my life chances, if I were starting out again, would look vanishingly distant if I lived in non-urban Scotland, no small thanks to the full-English Brexit, mk.

    A NEW LENS FOR EXAMINING RURAL CHANGE

    1. Introduction

    Change, not stability, is the normal situation facing rural communities today. Regardless of the particular focus – social, demographic, economic, political, environmental – rural places are changing and these changes systematically affect life chances of people living and working in rural areas for better and for worse. Accordingly, social science can examine the determinants and consequences of rural changes thereby producing evidence based information to support informed policy and practice to meet challenges of change and to take advantage of opportunities. In this article, we develop a lens for examining rural change in the contemporary world.4

    2. Narratives of Rural Change

    Rural areas are diverse so there is no grand narrative of rural change. Rural communities experience a wide variety of development trajectories, have highly variable social, economic, and natural assets, and have different historical legacies. Moreover, some rural places can be extremely active in shaping their own destinies, while others are relatively powerless. While all places have their own histories, a number of interrelated metanarratives can serve as an heuristic framework for examining rural change, and the competing power-infused ways in which rural change is represented (Copus and Hörnström 2011).

    These alternative explanations of rural change include: (a) an agri-centric narrative, (b) an urban-rural access narrative, (c) a competitive economy narrative, (d) a places left behind narrative, (e) an amenity–based economy narrative, and (f) a narrative of society-nature interrelationships. We briefly discuss each of these narratives and show how they produce a lens for examining rural community structure and change in contemporary society….

    https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/euco.2016.8.issue-2/euco-2016-0015/euco-2016-0015.xml

  66. cynicalHighlander
    Ignored
    says:

    Dr Jim

    Although LSD could be a great idea….if you know what I mean

    “Way out man.” Brian

  67. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Speaking of the buses, ah was wanting to check to see if anybuddy knows what that metal handle-bar is for, situated on the top LHS of the First buses?

    Is it for cleaning or abseiling like?

    Dae ye ken Cameron… 🙂

  68. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    The British public were primed for the full-English Brexit through austerity, then triggered by Farage and the “hostile environment”. So austerity merits deeper investigation, to see if is fundamentally undermining to democracy.

    The depths of the cuts: the uneven geography of local government austerity

    Abstract

    Austerity, the sustained and widespread cuts to government budgets, has characterised Britain’s public policy since 2010. The local state has undergone substantial restructuring, driven by major budget reductions from central government. Hitherto, few studies of austerity in the UK have considered the interplay of national and local policies. We contribute a fine-grained spatial analysis of local authority budgets, highlighting their socioeconomically and geographically uneven impacts.

    We identify substantial variations between authorities in terms of funding, local tax-base, fiscal resources, assets, political control, service-need and demographics. We argue that austerity has actively reshaped the relationship between central and local government in Britain, shrinking the capacity of the local state, increasing inequality between local governments and exacerbating territorial injustice.

    urban austerity, state rescaling, great recession, territorial injustice, local government restructuring, fiscal discipline

    Public finances are one of the best starting points for an investigation of society, especially though not exclusively of its political life. The full fruitfulness of this approach is seen particularly at those turning points, or better, epochs, during which existing forms begin to die off and to change into something new. (Schumpeter, 1918: 24)

    Central-local government relations

    This section highlights the relationship between central and local government in the UK, the prevalence of centralised decision making, recent forms of devolution, and how this affects the implementation of urban austerity at the local level. The UK has a long history as a highly centralised state with only limited and conditional decentralisation (Pike et al., 2012).

    Local government in the UK is highly exposed to the decisions of the national government. This is due to the UK having one of the most centralised local government funding systems in the OECD, with diminished fiscal control and autonomy for local government (Martin et al., 2015). Despite its embrace of neoliberal policies, Thatcherism retained the highly centralised apparatus of the UK state – creating what Andrew Gamble (1994) called ‘the free economy and the strong state’—involving tight control over local government (Pike et al., 2012). By 2009–2010, the top decile of local authorities received 82% of their funding from the central state, while the equivalent figure for the bottom decile was only 36% (Amin-Smith et al., 2016). This range results from a funding formula which largely allocates budgets according to need—acting as a mechanism to redistribute tax revenue to areas with the highest need—but also renders the same areas the most vulnerable to budget cuts.

    Important changes in the institutional relationship between local and central government over the last two decades has affected the structure of British local government in the UK. First, the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies have gained power due to the devolution of certain fiscal and/or spending policies. These new powers and institutional arrangements mean that local government in Scotland and Wales have greater autonomy over spending than in England. The national assemblies in Scotland and Wales, thus, have the potential to buffer their local governments from the full extent of the cuts.

    The UK state continues to govern England in a highly centralized manner, in apparent contrast to the devolution of authority to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (Pike and Tomeney, 2009). The extent of this freedom is seen in the Barnett formula, which is used to calculate the block grants which make up the majority of funding received by Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (Keep, 2018). The Barnett formula ensures that per-person changes in spending are in line with English spending, yet whilst English spending reductions might be allocated to local government, for instance, each devolved government can select where their own proportional decrease would fall.1

    However, the scope for policy innovation offered by devolution is limited by pressures to ensure that measures adopted by devolved administrations do not contradict those of the central state (MacKinnon, 2015). For example, although the Scottish government has tried to position itself as a social democratic alternative to the central UK government and to voice opposition to austerity, they have still had to implement many aspects of austerity. Despite these limitations, Hay and Martin (2014) argue that devolution in Scotland and Wales since 1999 has resulted in a different relationship between local and central state, such that the Scottish and Welsh national assemblies have been able to buffer local government from the worst of the central government cuts under austerity.

    The second important change in the institutional relationship between local and central government since the onset on austerity is that many of the largest English cities have also been offered a form of devolved power. This form of devolution shifts some economic and social responsibilities down to city-regions, and will increase their autonomy to allocate the dividend of local economic growth. However important these changes are, local government in devolved regions and cities is still far from autonomous. Within an extremely centralised system, the power of local governments to change course is highly constrained by the context of public sector restructuring and expenditure reductions.

    The highly centralised system within which devolution takes place, along with the ‘dumping’ of budget reductions leads to the view of these changes as ‘centrally-orchestrated localism’ (Pike et al., 2016: 10). Cochrane reminds us that ‘financial devolution at a time of fiscal stress means the devolution of responsibility without an equivalent devolution of power: decentralised decisions take place within centrally determined (and narrow) budgetary constraints’ (Cochrane, 1993: 42).

    Indeed, the central government has offered local government increased autonomy through a form of fiscal devolution = allowing local authorities to keep a larger proportion of new business taxes. From 1990 to 2013, local business tax was set nationally, pooled nationally and then redistributed to local government. Local retention of up to 50% of business tax began in 2013, and there are plans for 100% local retention by 2020.

    The Conservative administration sees this as a way to incentivise local governments to support business growth and encourage competition for firms. Jones and Stewart (2012) argue that local control over tax revenue is essential for genuine localism. Likewise, local government associations in England, Scotland and Wales have consistently argued that capping local budgets and funding is ‘an affront to local democracy’ (Hay and Martin, 2014, p.234). However, this form of extra autonomy could come at a high price for some parts of local government….

    https://academic.oup.com/cjres/article/11/3/541/5123936

  69. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @Cactus at 9.17pm

    You’re named after a plant. I’m sure you’ll twig what it is for with a bit of thought.

  70. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Ahm intrigued, leave it with me Dan

    Ahh, just clicked… that’s why the treetops get trimmed

    Thought they’d just plough the body of them caurs on thru

  71. msean
    Ignored
    says:

    Maybe it’s too obvious,but checking that your own party isn’t doing the opposite to what you are suggesting might help you to,lets say ,word things better.

    Surely,they must have heard about the internet by now,and how it can reach Wales and everything.

  72. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Hamish100 at 5.58

    “As for the ferry from Gourock to Dunoon the service is a complete disgrace yet supported by our Brexit negotiator Mr Russell.”

    A huge issue in Dunoon and Cowal. Dunoon,the second biggest town in the Scottish Higlands, now has the worst ferry service

    Lenny Hartley at 6.21
    You obviously know nothing about the matter. Western Ferries is not designed for pasengers, does not berth in Dunoon and does not connect with the train at Gourock which is the lifeline commuter service and lifeline to hospital service. The Cal Mac service from Dunoon, off in anything over a knee high swell, was Dunoon’s lifeline and Dunoon is sinking because of its complete inadequacy. Anybody who thinks taking off a service that supplied two an hour vehicle service into a town dependent on visitors was anything other than a disgrace and completely stupid needs their heads examined.

  73. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:


    Legerwood says:
    28 July, 2019 at 7:58 pm

    ….One of the supposed ‘advantages’ was that people would find it easier to divide by 10 than by 12. Well no. A lot of people are no more able to divide by 10 than they are by 12.

    Heaven help us if they go back to a system based on 12….

    I’m not disagreeing, I think in metric, and it’s easy because most of us understand fractions, more or less. But you need to think about that word “divide”…

    I’ll give you one example where imperial makes more sense.

    If you take a ruler with 12 inches, half it, you get 6 inches. Half it again, you get 3 inches.
    With the same 12 inches, you can get 3 inches x 4, or 4 inches x 3. You’re doing your arithmetic in your head with whole numbers.

    In metric, you can half something, but as soon as need to divide it again, (I know, a half is a fraction too, but just roll with it], you are using fractions of whole numbers. A quarter is 2.5. A third is a doozie… 33.333333333333%.

    It isn’t difficult arithmetic, once you understand fractions. But say you’re dividing up bits of wood for sawing, or even better, say putting apples into a bag at the market, an imperial weights and measures system uses whole apples. A metric system starts cutting them into fractions.

    For an example, if you have a dozen apples to share amongst 4 people, they all get 3 each. Or, 3 people get 4 each. Your sums are in whole numbers, or quite literally, whole apples.

    If you are metric, and have a round number of 10 apples in the bag to share amongst 4 people, or 3 people, then you already need a knife to cut up the apples, and maybe the imperial system isn’t so daft after all…

    I wouldn’t advocate going back to Imperial units, but the best solution is to be fluent in both.

    But what I like about Imperial is the attitude… you have a pound cake, made from a pound of eggs, a pound of butter, a pound of flour, and pound of sugar. You just don’t need a set a scales yet somehow it will all be fine. Somehow a “kg” cake feels like hard work that would come out the oven looking like one of those continental Gateaux.

  74. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Settlin down to Aye Daniel Blake, laters

  75. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Go shopping on your bike they say, take the bus they say,
    well OK but how do I carry the TV home that I bought, or anything that weighs more than a few kilos

    The Green and PC brigade talk such nonsense at times making out that everyone can just do stuff as if they have nothing to carry with them on a journey or nothing to carry back, think of the mother with two small kids going into town, she needs all the kit for the kids, which is heavy enough then she has to lug it all back again with whatever purchases she might make, she needs a car and a sheepdug, it’s bananas to suggest a bus, and she might even be carrying bananas as well

    I used to travel up to a thousand miles a week sometimes with a PA system Guitars and two Keyboards in the back seat and boot af my car or van depending on how much stuff I needed with all the accompanying bits of wire and metalwork

    Even a sample rep could be carrying a case weighing thirty kilos or more

    Even if there were tons of lovely comfy buses available to go everywhere 24 hours a day, it’s just on many occasions not practical to use them

    Maybe instead of allowing the oil companies to dictate the use of the stupid electric car because they’re in the rechargeable battery business, they should be forced to make hydrogen cars where the only emissions are water and no toxic batteries to get rid of and all the infrastructure could remain the same because you’d just fill up with hydrogen at the already existing petrol stations which would take the same five minutes as it does now, they’re doing it in Japan and other places, even America!

    We don’t need the new car of the future if it’s the wrong car, the motor car is fine as it is, just change the fuel and delivery system, and the only moving parts are the wheels

    But you can guess why they don’t want to do that £££$$£$$$£$££ that they won’t make

  76. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Golfnut

    There is not a ferry from Gourock to Dunoon every 20 minutes.There is ferry from three miles out of Gourock and the Glasgow railway connection to two miles out of Dunoon,if that’s the one you mean and most of its traffic goes nowhere near Dunoon.

    There are big vehicle carrying ferries right into the centre of Rothesay, Brodick and Campbeltown,all areas with less than a quarter of the population of Cowal(which is also the very busy West Highland route) and they are large boats which are never off,connect with the trains to Glasgow and supply thousands of happy foot pasengers with lovely cafes

    The Calmac service, known as the tiny “bath tub boats” that goes into Dunoon is off 10% of the time which is a critical failing for a supposed commuter service.

    Western Ferries provides a very efficent service – for vehicles.It is also very very expensive for potential visitors. It provides no facilities onshore at either side for passengers,no waiting rooms,no cover, no toilets and no car parking whatsoever which means there are cars parked for the best part of a mile sometimes at either side on the main road. Some commuters now have a car parked on either side of the river.

    The SNP won the A&B seat on a specific promise to provide two large vehicle carrying ferries into Dunoon. An unused linkspan was built and stands today as an indictment of that promise.

    Dunoon now on any reasonable judgement has the worst ferry provision in Scotland.

  77. Alastair
    Ignored
    says:

    Replying to Cactus at 9.17
    The ‘handlebar’ is to deflect tree branches that might otherwise damage the bodywork. The outline of a double decker can often be observed in the shape of trees growing alongside bus routes.

  78. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks @ 9.38 PM

    I would have loved to have seen you stand in front of the 2nd year Life Sciences lab class I used to teach at University and watch the students’ reaction as you went through all of that. That class was the one where a student used his calculator to divide a number by 1. I kid you not.

    People of a certain vintage may move easily between metric, fractions, dividing by 12 etc but believe me an awful lot of more recent vintage would freak out when faced with what you have written above.

  79. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Cactus
    I’m no expert on buses like, I was only a planning student placement. I was expected to wear a suite and shiny shoes and would get saluted sometimes by drivers and station staff, when I presented my travel pass. That was a bit odd.

    I have cleaned buses for LRT, though that was at the Annandale Street Bus Depot in Edinburgh. You certainly had to use all available hand-holds, as even though it was prohibited, you had to clean while the bus was in motion. Some of the drivers simply couldn’t suppress their inner dickhead, and would hare around the depot at great speed. Still, I was working for the Scottish civil service at the time, on basic salary of only 47p per hour above ‘benefit’ entitlement. I took great enjoyment in telling my civil service line-manager where he could ram it, when the job was no longer convenient.

    Working in a bus depot is the only time my snot has resembled the black gunk you produce out of your nose, after walking around central London for a while. Not healthy, frankly.

  80. Lenny Hartley
    Ignored
    says:

    Dave Mcewan Hill the ferries and Trains in Dunoon/mainland are not far from the railway station. On Arran some peope have a thirty minute drive or infrequent buses to get to the Brodick Ferry Terminal. The Population off Arran in summer exceeds that of Dunoon. Nowhere i know on the Cal-Mac fleet provides catering for short journeys such as between Dunoon and Gourock. And as for your assertion that the big ferries are never off, utter rubbish and we dont have the option of a road journey when their off.

  81. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m in my sixties and haven’t used Imperial since primary. Secondary onwards was metric. Never looked back. I never had any reason to think about or use archaic units.

    My engineering career was totally metric.

    I couldn’t tell you my weight in pounds. I don’t know the size of my lawn in square feet, but do in square metres for dosing with mosskiller at X g / square metre. All vehicle bolts have been metric since about 1970. I only possess metric spanners.

    I buy food in metric and cook in metric. I wallpaper in metric.

    A pint of ale, and miles on the road, are the only vestiges I can think of.

    Where could anyone younger than myself have been exposed to Imperial?

  82. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks:

    When you were baking your cake in Imperial measures, did you perchance have to switch from American cups to British lbs and ounces and tablespoons and teaspoons?

    Now, that is nerve-wracking.

  83. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Dr Jim @ 21:47,

    You make a lot of good points but I fear you underestimate the considerable technological challenges of adapting hydrogen fuel to mobile use. (No-one much likes to be driving around with a high-pressure cryotank in the boot, for example.)

    With the right state support in an independent Scotland, H2 might amount to something, but perhaps initially at least in an energy-storage role.

  84. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    Swinson finally asked about her austerity-lovein with the Tories.

    But being a cynical sort

    My impression was of a softly softly interview arranged to help her deal with her political Achilles heel

    https://twitter.com/ToryFibs/status/1155407807719645184

  85. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    I find the tone of this article from Reuters disturbing.

    The thread, throughout, is that the EU isn’t doing enough to somehow facilitate a smooth ‘no deal’ exit!

    It begins with implying there should be a transition period, even with ‘no deal’. Eh?

    “The European Union is less prepared for a no-deal Brexit than Britain, potentially leaving British firms at a disadvantage if there is no transition agreement … “

    Frankly, I would have expected a much higher level of journalism from Reuters.

    https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-economy/eu-must-move-faster-to-prepare-for-no-deal-brexit-risk-cbi-idUKKCN1UN0TP

  86. Lochside
    Ignored
    says:

    Dave McEwan Hill says:

    In total agreement with all you say. I used to live on the Argyll side and witnessed dozens of people stop commuting on the Calmac due to the hopelessly non integrated service… often we’d be standing waiting to disembark as the ferry docked whilst watching the Gourock train leaving the station without us.

    Many the times there would be an unholy charge along the nearest platform to get to the train, only for it to leave half the folk stranded.Or cancellations at last minute leaving you with the big walk to the Western terminal followed by the same trek on the other side of the Clyde.

    Cowal has been sorely let down by the SNP meanwhile ‘Lord’ Robertson , who has done nothing for his home area, is coining it in via his association with the Western Ferries, a non-unionised outfit operating with none of the commercial restrictions which have always hampered Calmac

  87. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    galamcennalath @ 22:29,

    They still persist with imperial in hospital, alas. They convert heights and weights from the metric values! Babies’ weights, for example. I have to tell the nurses that only the metric makes any sense to me.

    The changeover needed a firm hand and got a classical half-hearted British bodge instead. A large part of the problem was (and still is) that UK political leadership has always been backward and small-c conservative, afraid of public reaction (as proved with decimalisation), and reluctant to go whole-hog with a change that in fact they had formally promised in the deal that was made to allocate the meridian in Greenwich instead of Paris. (Yes, that far back.)

  88. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    galamcennalath 10.43

    Reuters article archived.

    How dare the EU not prepare for a no-deal Brexit in a way that will benefit UK companies!

  89. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dave McEwan Hill.
    So on Friday I wasn’t on the ( as advertised) Gourock / Dunoon ( 6 minutes by car from Hunters Quay )car ferry service, it’s not every 20minutes and we weren’t bouncing about because the ferry wasn’t sailing. I just hope I am where I think I am when I wake up.

  90. kapelmeister
    Ignored
    says:

    The BBC reports that Johnson’s visit to Scotland will be at a military base. HaHa. So the fellow is yellow and only wants to come north if he can hide behind sojers on an army base as he delivers his speech pretending to be Santa Claus. Being generous to us with our own money.

    A military base. May had more bottle than him. He’s chicken. Colonel Davidson to meet Colonel Saunders.

  91. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    galamcennalath @ 22:43,

    Of course the article was suffused with the expected English exceptionalism, but Reuters were only (accurately) covering a report issued by … (guess who…?)

    …the CBI!

    So don’t shoot the messenger. It’s Tory-supporting business interests whining that the EU isn’t going to provide them with a convenient safety net for BoJo’s coming Big Drop.

    No more socialism for the privileged. Boo-hoo.

  92. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    @mike cassidy

    I can see the whole ‘cherry picking’ and ‘cake and eat it’ notions reappearing. Not as a serious negotiating position, but as a narrative to project blame on the EU.

    “Why won’t the EU give us this, and that?”

    Firstly it will be used as a propaganda tool to justify a general election. If the result is a ‘no deal’ Brexit majority at WM, then it will become a means of blaming the EU for the chaos.

  93. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Re. metric and imperial. Of course, the later is a Bonaparte-ist conspiracy. We beat them at Waterloo and we’ll beat them again, near Waterloo. Long live Brexitania, the spirit of Wellington and the subjugation of the poor and vulnerable. Better Together, ’cause you know it’s right. Far-right.

  94. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Cheers for an insight into the bus depot shop floor Cameron, ken whit ye mean about the gunk, ah used tae work in industrial ceramics, ah-tissue

    Good movie, real life

  95. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Doh! Can’t even get the logic of my own quips correct. Metric is the dastardly French plot to take over the world, obvs.

  96. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Lenny Hartley at 10.24

    Are you suggesting that an eighty mile journey over the Rest and be Thankful (A83 landslips and blizzards) is somehow an appropriate alternative to a 2 mile ferry crossing?
    As an aside a huge number of heavy vehicles actually do that as despite the huge fuel use it is cheaper than a WF crossing which is a disgrace.

  97. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert J. Sutherland says:

    So don’t shoot the messenger.

    Nope, I don’t see it that way. It’s all written in the form of statements presented as factual, with a “CBI says” tagged in the end. It’s a regurgitate of the CBI’s opinion.

    A genuine journalist would write it quite differently. There is no balance and the obvious bias of the original report is not challenged.

    You can’t blame vested interest parties (or politicians) for trying it on. It should be the job of an organisation like Reuters to present analysis, criticism of dubious assertations, and balance, not facilitation of propaganda..

  98. Doug
    Ignored
    says:

    Is Johnson meeting with our FM tomorrow [Monday]?

  99. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert J. Sutherland says:
    28 July, 2019 at 10:46 pm
    galamcennalath @ 22:29,

    They still persist with imperial in hospital, alas. They convert heights and weights from the metric values! Babies’ weights, for example.””
    …………

    I am surprised at that because it certainly was not my experience when I was in hospital earlier this year or indeed my experience over the 2 years of my husband’s frequent visits to hospitals. Metric was the norm for weight and height. In fact I don’t think the scales or height measurement offered the option of anything but metric

    It would also be confusing for doctors to have imperial units of height and weight, especially the latter, when dosages for drugs etc are quoted per Kg.

  100. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    galamcennalath @ 23:14,

    I take your point. We’re of course very sensitive to that kind of thing here, given our considerable experience of one-sided “reportage” of the likes of the now-humiliated Tory bag lady.

  101. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Current affairs are far too political to be left up to free journalists to report honestly. Reuters is not and never has been a-political.

  102. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Legerwood @ 23:19,

    Maybe in my regular outpatient visits they are just trying to “relate” to me, of course, based on their own experience of the public, but still recording all in metric. (As I did say, they had to translate.)

    It’s been a wee while now since I’ve directly experienced having a wee bundle to help take home, but in all the time since I’ve never heard anyone from around here quote a newborn’s weight in metric. I would be thoroughly delighted to be confuted it that, though. Maybe informal conversion is happening there too…?

  103. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert J Sutherland

    They’re driving Hydrogen fueled motors in Japan now and have been for several years America started looking at them around five years ago and you can buy them there as well now

    It means no petrol stations have to go plus no new thousands of miles of cabling for road charging points, I’m convinced the powers that be in the oil and car industry don’t want this because they will lose on car sales, ongoing maintainence and battery construction, the technology is there to do this because independent companies are doing it

    You know what, as soon as everything’s about halfway through electrification of entire countries they’ll decide that yes hydrogen is the way forward and they’ll be selling us new cars all over again just like they did when they told us diesel was going to be lovely and cheap so buy that

    Just like new phones or TVs that we must have that answer the door and make tea the giant corporations always have another product ready to sell us just as we’ve gotten used to the last one they told us we deperately needed

    Except now the new sales pitch will be, save the planet with this new thing that’s even more better at saving the planet than the last thing

    Not that I’m cynical of course, anyway in around ten years or so I’ll likely not be here let alone driving so it’ll be for the younger lot to figure it out God help them

  104. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Cactus
    A pleasure, though I’ve subsequently realised I’m a bit if a grass. I prefer, low-end (H&S) whistle-blower. 🙁

  105. Clootie
    Ignored
    says:

    I live in Argyll (Kilmun) and Western Ferries provide an excellent high quality reliable service. It is seldom off due to weather.
    Instead of spending millions every year keeping a passenger service from Dunoon running the answer is simple. Use the money currently spent on the passenger service to run mini buses from Dunoon to Gourock station on the Western ferries service.

  106. Jack collatin
    Ignored
    says:

    Divide 144,336 by 1472 using only a pen/pencil and a blank sheet of paper.
    Dare you.

  107. Colin Alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    So Joanne Cherry is teaming up with Lords etc to try and prevent Boris scheduling the two week recess before the Queen’s speech being timed to fall during Brexit day: 31 October. So, off they go to court again to save the Union from Brexit. How nice.

    You never get a pro-independence politician going to court to challenge the legality Scottish Parliament Union with England Act 1707, when all the evidence proves it was an illegal, corrupt, as bent as they come operation.

    You never get an SNPer asking the courts:

    Is the Union Treaty a legally binding document?

    How do courts in the UK interpret UN international law on the right of self-determination? In other words: how does Scotland self-determine to be independent?

    Does Scotland have a legal right to demand an indyref as a means of self-determination or are elections or declarations by elected representatives legal alternatives?

    Simple question: Why not?

    They clearly aren’t shy about going to court about helping the Union or helping devolution or various other matters.

  108. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Dr Jim @ 23:32,

    Hydrogen advocates have been around for decades. I recall having many promising discussions on the subject back in the pre-www days when there was only usenet. I was myself interested in the possibilities back then, and didn’t like the complacency of the petroheads. But I think you’ll find that consumer resistance is the real problem, as I mentioned in my previous posting, as well as the entry costs and low availability for the individual motorist. (People always resurrect The Hindenburg. =sigh= And motive H2 storage is undoubtedly Hindenburg-on-steroids. We’re not going back to the WW2 days of buses with gasbag trailers.)

    Besides, you can’t make an industry like this without wholesale public availability, and a few (producer and user) enthusiasts (which is all that it has amounted to so far) won’t make that happen. As ever, it all comes down to competitive costs and the old chicken-and-egg investment thing.

    Marine use might be another promising opening though. There are already bulk LPG carriers with similar – if rather less onerous – storage means, and size/weight isn’t as much of an issue at sea. Getting rid of those big diesel marine engines would be a good thing. I read recently that cruise ships are being blamed for significantly-raised levels of SO2 in well-frequented cities like Venice and Barcelona, for example. (Though doing something about that might then conjure-up images in the public mind of The Poseidon Adventure!)

    I still reckon though that for us here in Scotia the first serious use of the technology will be as static backup storage for renewables. And even that will need far more support to succeed.

  109. Lenny Hartley
    Ignored
    says:

    Dave Mcewan Hill no im saying you have an alternative, most of the islands dont, you have two ferry companies and a road and it still aint good enough for you, how my heart bleeds.
    Btw Lochside shit happens, folk on Arran cant get a booking for their car with two weeks or more notice to attend a hospital appointment on the mainland where the hospital is Including walking time from Ferry Terminal over an hour away by bus . Nobody in Scotland has an integrated transport system. Several ferries a day to/from Arran dont have bus connections, sometimes it a 40/50 minute wait for a train on the mainland, Dunoon has it good with the links it has.

  110. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Honest,

    I was just trying to point out the need for improved infrastructure for the island and rural communities and showing up the Greens towns bias.

    There are also areas requiring that promises that are made, must be kept. As Dave McEwan Hill has stated with his local knowledge.

    Maybe the SNP will listen?

  111. Hector
    Ignored
    says:

    Kapelmeister 10.57 B C reports Johnson appearing at a military base tomorrow. Just spent 5 hours travelling from Lochgilphead to Dumbarton. A82 closed between Luss and Tarbet. 3 hour detour via Crianlarich, no warning signs from The Rest and be Thankful, Inverary or Arrochar. Nothing until arrival at Tarbet . BBC traffic reported RTA between Luss and Tarbet. Could our new PM be planning an appearance at Faslane or perhaps a village hall in Luss? I’m sure a warm welcome awaits wherever

  112. Lenny Hartley
    Ignored
    says:

    Dmh re eighty mile road journey, Last week Cal-Mac were telling customers who had made and paid for a booking on the mv Isle of Arran between Ardrossan and Brodick which was diverted as cover for a vessel up north to Make a thirty minute car journey to Lochranza, wait in a queue, take a thirty minute sailing to Claonaig , drive 120 miles to Glasgow or further if they were only going to Ayrshire. And people were having to do it as that was the only way they could get off the Island s the Caledonia Isles was fully booked.

  113. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Boris arrives tomorrow with guess what ***A VOW***
    he’s going to share out £300 million between us Scots Welsh and Northern Irish to keep us sweet, but wait, he already gave the DUP £1.5 bilion to themselves, maybe he forgot that eh or maybe he’s forgotten we’re still waiting for the last VOW to happen

    I can practically hear Nicola Sturgeon’s laughter from Edinburgh all the way to my hoose in Glasgow

    Aye bring that on Boris, cannae wait

  114. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Example of small independent nations investment
    https://www.bergen-guide.com/538.htm

    We should promote Such schemes as a plus for promoting independence.

    A mini tunnel for the rest and be thankful. Connecting Arran with Kintyre? Bute with Toward? Open up the west. Now what about the Hebrides, Orkney etc.

  115. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @Cactus at 9:34 pm

    A tree branch can easily break a bus windscreen, and as trees grow and their branches become heavy with sap rising and leaf growth they can encroach into the corridor the bus travels through.
    Back in the day I used to work on buses and had to replace broken windows, some of which were well over a grand.
    We ended up modifying the window apertures so half screens could be fitted instead of full screens to save costs, plus by doing that the success rate of the replacement windscreens actually arriving in one piece was improved! Shipping and handling 8 x 4 feet pieces of glass is not a easy task…
    I recall we were once fitting a top windscreen on a double decker. We used a forklift with a fork mounted platform to work from. After cutting out the bonded in broken window and preparing the new one to go in with several tubes of fancy strong glue, we slowly lifted the windscreen into place. All was going well till the handbrake failed and forklift slowly rolled forward putting the forks through both of the lower windscreens… Whoops!

    Re. The whole metric / imperial subject. A skeptic could consider this is just another way of extracting yet more cash from people.
    As an apprentice I had to buy metric, imperial AF, and British Standard Whitworth spanners so I could work on the different vehicles and engines.
    The situation continues today with design changes from allen headed bolts to bi-hex, torx, then shallow head torx, the latter often becoming impossible to remove by conventional means as the slightest corrosion means they usually just round out because the shallower contact point between bolt head and tool doesn’t have the integral strength to transmit the breakout torque required to release them from their original torqued tension.
    And don’t get me started on the now myriad sparkplug types…

    The metric / imperial situation is still present today in various industries. EG. ROVs in the oil industry often use many different components designed in either metric or imperial.
    I’ve a good eye and as an example learnt to spot the difference between 5/16 BSF, 5/16th UNF, 8mm Metric fine, 8mm Metric standard, 5/16th UNC, and 5/16 Whitworth threads. All of them are pretty much the same size but none are compatible with each other.

    Re. Films to watch. I see The Great Hack is out now.
    The content about Cambridge Analytica won’t surprise many on here, though it might help enlighten less informed folk as to what is going on.

  116. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Hamish100 at 12.42

    Exactly.

  117. geeo
    Ignored
    says:

    Re:ferries.

    On route to Islay via Kennacraig ferry, we stupidly forgot to untick ferries on quickest route to Kennacraig, and bloody thing took us to Gourock.

    Faced with a 2hr 50 min trip by road, we jumped on the wee barge style ferry, and 20 mins later, we were in Dunoon, and saved just enough time (even despite some driving on the fast side) to make the Ferry to Islay by 1 minute (i kid you not).

    Now, i am not saying its a great or even good service, but by feck it saved our arse that day.

    Ironically, any larger vessel and we would not have made it, longer to liad/unload etc.

  118. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Dr Jim @ 12.39
    Wouldn’t it be nice if Nicola made the formal demand for a section 30 tomorrow while he’s here!
    Turning his photo shoot and Vow into a opportunity to put Independence in the news instead …..

  119. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    @Liz 1:16am

    It would give her an opportunity to do something dramatic
    let’s hope she has something naughty and troublesome up her sleeve, we need a bit of entertainment and squirming from the news media

  120. silverbuick
    Ignored
    says:

    Of possible interest by Alasdair Soussi on Aljazeera.com-“What does Boris Johnson mean to Scotland?” It’s under Editor’s Picks.

  121. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Liz g @ 01:16,

    Oh, what a deliciously inspirational thought with which to end the day! =big grin=

  122. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert J @ 3.29
    🙂

  123. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    OT

    “Happy” 50th Birthday Visit Scotland.

    Still promoting the slaughter of Scotland’s wildlife and calling it “sport”.

    https://www.countrysportscotland.com/

    You are morally no different from the murderous African poachers who are blind to the magnificence of an elephant or a rhino, or the fleets of butchering whaling ships who drove species to 99.6% extinction and be happy to see it slaughtered for the cash.

    Scotland is better than this, and I look forward to your demise, and the “first” happy birthday of an agency to promote Scotland without the blood of Scotland’s wildlife on its hands.

  124. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Increase the pension payments. The administration of the pension payout costs nearly as much as the amount paid out. All the extra add on for those in need of extra payment adds on to the cost. Increase the OAP would cut admin costs. Increasing the OAP to £180 or £200 would not cost more because it would save admin costs. Especially in Scotland were there are more elderly (pro rata) but people die younger (historical factors Thatcher).

    Health issues now being overcome with MUP and other measures. Better healthier diet provision. School meals and health information. Scotland could increase OAP payout if Independent. If the Westminster U imbeciles were not engaging in illegal wars, financial fraud and tax evasion. There could be higher OAP payments. Spending £Billion on HS2, Hinkley Point and Trident. A total waste of monies. Cutting NHS, Education and Welfare provision.

    There is a need for better proper total abstinence, one chance rehab. Cheaper than prison. More cost affective. Some responsibility was passed down to Councils under social care. Many U Councils do not provide. Nurses practitioners, who drink wine every night, now keep people on methadone for years. Instead of proper total abstinence, one chance proper counselling rehab facilities being provided.

    Doctors used to refer patients, Now many facilities are closing because of lack of proper funding. Even those paying privately or through insurance can’t afford it or find facilities. The SNHS funded services, Many councils do not. They wanted to put the homeless in prison.

    Many doctors will not prescribe methadone. All drug deaths in Scotland are people prescribed methadone who then take other substances. Anyone with drink/drug issues go to AA or NA for help or information. Even friends and family. There are far less children in care because of kinship payments. More cost affective and better than foster care. Children remain within the family.

    The health of people in Scotland decreased under Thatcher. A recorded fact. People died younger as a result. The OA pension could increase in an Independent Scotland, Paid from current Scottish tax revenues. It is less pro rata than the rest of the UK.

    John Swinney wanted to decrease insurance pension contribution for some public sector workers in Scotland (police/fire). Raised by Westminster Tories. Westminster Treasury would not let him. They threatened to cut payments to the Scottish budget. Many police left when the personal pension contribution was raised. More had to be recruited. More expense?

  125. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Not another Vow. Johnson will not last until October, He will be sent hamewards to think again. Scotland could get Independence out of it. Johnson is reported to have offered the SNP full fiscal powers. There could be a silver lining. Another step to Independence. If Scotland gets better off so does the rest of the UK. A pound raised and spent in Scotland is better than Scottish revenues being spent in London S/E. Or wasted by the Westminster Treasury. Total mismanagement.

  126. Jack collatin
    Ignored
    says:

    Johnson is coming North to review the English Empire’s army navy and air Expeditionary Forces in the Northern Colony.
    Lossiemouth or Faslane?
    He’ll be filmed obligingly by the Jock Fourth Estate Fifth Column at a Microphone splattered lectern in front of fresh face mariners/ squaddies/ airmen and women in the style of his new POTUS, Trump.
    The Red Arrows may even streak across the skies above streaming red white and blue Jackery, the whole menacing little insult to our country Scotland designed as a show of English Might, and a warning to us rebellious Scots; that we are an invaded heavily militarily occupied colony of \England.
    The oil and gas are English, by dint of conquer.
    Any future Yes vote will be slapped down.
    Today’s visit is just to remind us of our chains.

  127. Terry callachan
    Ignored
    says:

    To Ken500

    But full fiscal powers when out of the EU will still be a difficult job because we will still be unable to have our own currency which means the value of our fiscal powers would still be controlled completely by England

  128. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Lifted this quote from Pete Wishart.

    “The Scottish Conservatives have only got themselves to blame for this embarrassing humbling. If they had made it clear to Boris that they would not countenance their authority being undermined then their bargaining power would at least have been worth a role of the dice. Threatening, then withdrawing, repeated resignation threats rendered them ridiculous and Boris rightly concluded that they did not have the bottle for the fight. Instead the only real defiance deployed was having Ruth back every defeated Boris opponent in the leadership contest until there was none left. How Boris must have been quaking in his boots at such ‘opposition’. “

    See any irony?

    If I was a BritNat hack in the mainstream media, I’d cut and paste “SNP” over “Scottish Conservatives”, take the rest of the week off and expect to see a bonus on my wages on Friday.

    Just for you Pete, I lifted this quote frae Rabbie Burns…

    “O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
    To see oursels as others see us!
    It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
    An’ foolish notion.”

  129. doug_bryce
    Ignored
    says:

    So : Mr Johnson to visit a Scottish military base today.
    Couldn’t keep him further away from voting public
    Media wont even disclose in advance if he is being flown directly into Faslane or Lossiemouth.

    Apparently his own party leader (Ruth Davidson) still livid.
    Supposed ‘party of the union’ now strongly rumored to split off a Scottish branch

  130. Undeadshuan
    Ignored
    says:

    Scotlands renewables continue to grow with the opening of Scotlands largest offshore wind farm which produced 588 MW.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-49125399

    The Meygen undersea tidal project continues to grow with a target of 384 MW capacity envisioned.

    https://simecatlantis.com/2019/02/11/meygen-update-3/

    https://simecatlantis.com/2019/07/10/meygen-operational-update-3/

    And has potential to produce 50% more power than coal or nuclear.

    https://www.energyvoice.com/otherenergy/203251/meygen-turbine-generates-power-for-more-than-2000-homes/

    All current planned marine energy projects

    https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/marine/Licensing/marine/scoping

  131. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    Scroll through these Guardian images, anything in particular catch your eye?
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2019/jul/28/volcanoes-locusts-and-hindu-gods-sundays-best-photos

  132. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Priti Patel wants to deport Johnson and most of the Cabinet. Only skilled workers allowed to migrant.Patel is an imbecile. The Tories included foreign student numbers to increase migrant numbers. Johnson is a migrant. The Tories will not last till October. A majority of 2? What a complete and utter shambles. Beyond belief.

    Now people are not coming from the EU. The number coming from Asian, Far East counties has increased.

  133. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    The Tories cut the force at Lossiemouth. No one in Scotland wants Faslane. Johnson ensuring he gets protection in Scotland. Scotland wants rid of Johnson and Faslane. A total imbecile. An embarrassment. More bad publicity for the Tories.

  134. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    Boris ventures ‘north’ scattering largesse to the funny devolved bits.
    £300m, hardly enough to build a station on the HS2 line.
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/27/hs2-still-making-progress-hated-by-some-halted-in-parts-johnson

  135. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    This is a link to the episode of Tom Steel’s ‘Scotland’s Story’ which disappeared from YT for ages. Just found it again.

    The interviews with the descendants of those who signed the treaty are priceless.

    Enjoy!

    😉

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9uav5Je9Kg

  136. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Bojo the Clown seems to have stumbled on not just a magic tree
    But indeed a magic Forrest.

    Here we are in the 11th year of Tory Austerity and heading into a
    Westminster Brexit recession and after 5 minutes Bojo has found
    £1.5 Billion for extra policing a Billion for Education and don’t forget
    The extra £350 per week for the NHS on his bus.

    Now he has a spare few hundred million for the over run on London’s
    Crossrail, £39 Billion for a Manchester Power Rail Link, £1.5 Billion
    Bribe for the DUP, and now he Millions for a No Deal Brexit preparation
    And hundreds of millions spare for the Celtic nations????

    You want locked up if you even listen this buffoon!

  137. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s well past time that Scots assert their legal personality and tell the Tories they can fuck right off with their full-English Brexit. Contemporary (white) British nationalism is harmful to Scotland’s political economy and civil society. Simples.

    Multicultural Nationalism: Islamophobia, Anglophobia, and Devolution

    Abstract

    This book is a pioneering study of how multiculturalism interacts with sub-state nationalism in Britain. It gives equal attention to Scotland’s largest ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ minorities: ethnic Pakistanis (almost all of them Muslim) and English immigrants; and to the Islamophobia and Anglophobia of majority Scots.

    Rising Scottish self-consciousness could have threatened both these minorities. But in reality, problems proved to be solutions, integrating rather than alienating. In the eyes of the minorities, the devolution of power to a Scottish Parliament has made Scots at once more proud and less xenophobic. English immigrants also felt that devolution has defused tensions, calmed frustrations, and forced Scots to blame themselves rather than others for their problems. Muslims suffered increased harassment after 9/11, although less in Scotland than elsewhere.

    Consciously or unconsciously, they continued to use Scottish identities and even Scottish nationalism as tools of integration. Conversely, nationalism in Scotland did not increase the majority’s Islamophobia as it did in England and elsewhere. The book is based on extensive quotations from focus-group discussions with minorities, in-depth interviews with elites, and statistical analysis of large-scale surveys of minorities and majorities.

    Keywords: multiculturalism, nationalism, Muslim, English, immigrants, Islamophobia, Anglophobia, devolution, 9/11, identities

    https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0199280711.001.0001/acprof-9780199280711

  138. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks at 0715am,

    Well said. I was reading the wrote from Wishart, before knowing the point you would make, and I immediately thought, that this was EXACTLY how the SNP/Scotgov have behaved in respect to Westminster. AND, London has rightly concluded that the FM and entire SNP leadership is feart. AND THEY ARE RIGHT.

    Remember when this happened,

    FM to Theresa May: ‘We’d like a section 30 please to hold indyref2’

    TM: ‘now is not the time’

    FM: ‘Oh, well. oh, em well mibbes we’ll wait a few years until late 2020, aye…’

    As you rightly point out, especially for somebody like Pete Wishart, who argues we need yet ANOTHER mandate for indyref2, in the 2021 elections, ‘tae see ourselves as others see us’.

    Pot, kettle black, Mr Wishart.

    We need leadership right now, not just good management.

  139. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Radio shortbread twice having phone line difficulties this morning with guest interviews an ever recurring situation. 🙁

    The ‘constant’ pundit Andy Collier gives a lukewarm nod towards an SNP bounce even rising from 53..ish% to maybe 55& related to the Boris effect. But must have got a nose bleed adding

    “Not enough for Nicola, although maybees she might be tempted” but it’s his own opinion… “I haven’t spoken to anyone” honest!

    PS:
    Prince Charlie in Wick to officially switch on the 4th biggest windfarm in the world.

  140. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    Looking forward to ‘The VOW’, part two, coming from the unelected clown prime minister, on an awayday to ‘jockland’.

  141. hackalumpoff
    Ignored
    says:

    See Nana’s links her:
    https://indyref2.space/category/nanas-links/

  142. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan,

    you should start a movement for world conformity in tooling,

    A.U.O.S,

    All Under One Spanner 🙂

  143. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m reminded of the time when a group of workmen arrived at my next door neighbours property to remove a large disused garage. Access was through double wooden gates. But when closed the gates were a tight fit and not easy to open. Finding them so, the workmen thought the gates were locked and with the neighbour not at home, they gave up and went away.
    England and Scotland are like those two gates. Tight together and not easy to open. But not locked – as many seem to believe and as the daily drip drip drip of propaganda tells us, through the constant use of words like ‘this country’, ‘Great Britain’, ‘British’, and even ‘the precious union’.

    In Scotland it is the generational acceptance of this language indicating we are ‘locked’ together, ‘one nation’, that is so difficult to overcome. But it can be overcome, at least sufficiently, to restore Scotland’s Independence.

    PM Johnson’s task is to isolate Scotland from Europe through Brexit and to prevent Scotland pushing open the ‘unlocked gates’ of The Union, by fair means or foul.

    Johnson is himself divorced. He knows only too well how breakdown of a relationship, separation and divorce works. But he, and Westminster, personifies the bullying abuser husband who covets his wife’s inheritance, and refuses the wife a divorce, and despite his many affairs and secretly stealing her money, he constantly lies to her about his undying love for her, and of how they are ‘better together’, with threats and warnings about the dangers and difficulties of going it alone, especially when you’re too wee, to poor, and too stupit.

    Push, Scotland, and the Independence door will be opened to you.

  144. kapelmeister
    Ignored
    says:

    He’ll be quite at home on his visit north. I don’t mean in Scotland.

    I mean that Bullingdon Bollinger Bonking Boris is accustomed to life in the Faslane.

  145. grafter
    Ignored
    says:

    We have all had enough of these English charlatans ruling Scotland. Here in Aberdeen we have their little helpers in the shape of a shambolic minority Labour council. Their leader – Barney Crockett continues to fly the Union Jack from the Townhouse to show his undying support for this corruption of our democratic right. I would urge the good people of Scotland to join the All Under One Banner / Yes March here in Aberdeen on Saturday 17th August
    starting at Albyn Place 1.30pm.

  146. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    “Britain warned the European Union on Monday it needed to change its ‘stubborn’ position on Brexit if a no-deal exit was to be avoided.”

    Pure unadulterated propaganda regurgitated by Reuters, again.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-brexit-idUSKCN1UO0QY

    It’s all the EUs fault. Blame Johnny Foreigner. Why can’t you just give us what we demand? England is extra special, don’t you know, and should alway be treated as such.

    All bollocks, but millions of English voters are going to accept the chaos is all down to EU intransigence.

  147. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood , thanks for that – thoroughly enjoyed!

  148. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Johnston wants renewal of ties that bind!

    Of course he does BBC, big iron fetters, but some in Scotland want independence.

  149. Muscleguy
    Ignored
    says:

    You don’t even have to 60, there are all sorts of criteria. Such as being a former service person in the armed forces. Go into your local council website and find the criteria for your area, you might be surprised.

  150. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Johnson is a clown. A compulsive, habitual liar. Never trust a Tory, especially in Scotland. Derek McKay has already reputed the £300Million claims. Recycled monies leaving Scotland short. The £160Million CAP payments owed to the farmers. VAT police/fire not refunded. Scottish budget cut 10% a year since 2010. Now £3Billion short. Empty promises.

    Brexit will cost Scotland £8Billion and thousands of jobs.

  151. Footsoldier
    Ignored
    says:

    Grafter 9.26: The problem with all these Proud Scot Unionists flying the Union flag is they are not proud enough of Scotland to fly the Scottish flag.

    All this talk about independence supporters and the SNP hijacking the Saltire is complete nonsense. The Unionist parties should show their pride of Scotland by flying the Saltire – no one has its monopoly.

  152. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Did anyone read Mr McKenna’s article in the Observer yesterday?

    It must be really uncomfortable sitting on that fence eh?

    Buttocks must be bruised.

  153. kapelmeister
    Ignored
    says:

    Is Bertie Worcester of the Scotland Office going to accompany his boss Johnson on the jaunt north? Which one knows Scotland better? By which I mean, which one has been here to shoot grouse more often?

    At Alister’s estate perhaps.

  154. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-49125399

    http://cipartners.dk/about/

    https://www.redrockpower.co.uk/about-us/
    (Red Rock Power Limited is a growing, European energy company based in Scotland and owned by SDIC Power, a global power generation company headquartered in Beijing, China.)

    In this propaganda piece by the British Brainwashing Corporation, the BBC is factually incorrect in that the subsea cables come ashore between Whitehills and Banff, and not Keith which is about 20 miles away and nowhere near the coast.
    But neither does the article say that all the electricity generated will go straight into the National Grid and will therefore be routed to England. The entire Beatrice Wind Turbine field, is a classic asset grab by Westminster, whereby the value goes straight into the British Treasury, bypassing Scotland completely. Be in no doubt, England ‘owns’ Scotland and all its assets. For the details, read on:

    “Scotland’s largest offshore wind farm is to be officially opened by Prince Charles later.

    The Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm, located about eight miles (13km) off the coast of Wick in the far north, can generate enough energy to power 450,000 homes.

    The £2.65bn project, which involves 84 huge turbines, came fully online in May and achieved 588MW of electricity.

    It is Scotland’s single largest source of renewable energy.

    The development, construction and operation were led by SSE Renewables in a joint venture with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Red Rock Power Limited.

    Construction started in May 2016 and SSE said it was completed on time and under the £100m budget.”

    Part of the project involved redeveloping buildings in Wick, the Caithness town where about 90 staff will look after the operations and maintenance of the wind farm over its 25-year lifespan.

    Prince Charles, who is known in Scotland as the Duke of Rothesay, will visit the offices of Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Limited and SSE Renewables in Wick to mark the official opening.

    The two harbour-front buildings used for the Wick base were originally designed by renowned Scottish architect Thomas Telford for use in the herring industry.

    The electricity generated by Beatrice travels along subsea and underground cables before coming ashore near Keith in Moray and connecting to the Blackhillock substation.

    Claire Mack, chief executive of Scottish Renewables, said the scale of the project was “truly staggering”.

    “Scotland has a quarter of Europe’s offshore wind resource and Beatrice represents one of the first steps in tapping it,” she said.

    “As our offshore wind projects continue to build out we’ll see the environmental and economic benefits of offshore wind grow across Scotland, with jobs and investment transforming communities, as they already are in Wick.”

    She added: “With the right support from government, a supply chain which is competitive on price, quality and timescales and the commitment of industry, offshore wind has a bright future in Scotland as we work towards meeting some of the world’s most challenging climate change targets and building a smart energy system with renewable energy at its heart.”

    The Beatrice project is the fourth largest offshore wind farm in the world, with only two projects in England and one off the Netherlands generating more energy.

    However, the Beatrice array is built in deeper water, with jacket foundations each weighing in at about 1,000 tonnes installed in sea depths of up to 183ft (56m).

    Earlier this month it was announced that wind power output in Scotland hit a record high during the first six months of 2019.

    Figures from Weather Energy calculated the energy produced by turbines could power every home in Scotland and part of the north of England.

    WWF Scotland described the trend as a “wind energy revolution”.

  155. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dorthy Devine –

    Cheers. It is a good watch.

    A Twitter contact is stitching together the available episodes of Scotland’s Story for safekeeping – when I get the link I’ll post it here.

    😉

  156. Fireproofjim
    Ignored
    says:

    So Johnston thinks £300 million will buy off the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish. Say £100 million each. A totally insignificant amount in terms of government spending.
    The combined HS2 and proposed Manchester/Leeds rail lines alone are now estimated at £139 BILLIONS. More than a thousand times the likely handout to Scotland and that’s only a fraction of the promises for developments made since he took over.
    All in England.

  157. Graeme
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood says:
    29 July, 2019 at 10:07 am

    @Dorthy Devine –

    Cheers. It is a good watch.

    A Twitter contact is stitching together the available episodes of Scotland’s Story for safekeeping – when I get the link I’ll post it here.

    ——————————————————————

    I recorded the whole series of Scotlands Story on VHS when it first came out many years ago, if anyone thinks it would be of any value I could digitize them and share them

  158. auld highlander
    Ignored
    says:

    The comments tell the truth.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-49146480

  159. RM
    Ignored
    says:

    We have to start getting a proud to be Scottish agenda going, a new national anthem modern for the young people of the modern age something maybe the proclaimer can write, when I hear Sunshine on Leith it makes my hair stand up, get into the modern world.

  160. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    A subtlety our hill farmers and crofters need to be aware of. The CAP payments will stop soon. This money is the difference between maintaining small unit family based agriculture in remote areas, and just giving up.

    And island crafter might get about £15,000 CAP payment. This is their biggest source of income. It’s what keeps them crofting.

    I read on an Irish site recently (regarding NI) that although the Tories intend to paid farmers some subsidies, is probably going to be Barnett based i.e. By population rather than land area. The total amount going to Scotland (and NI) is likely to be massively reduced.

    This could have irreversible effects on our island and upland communities.

  161. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/12/18/scottish-parliament-does-have-right-withdraw-from-act-union/?fbclid=IwAR2IA4h7OxY7EXhiTJ2rEZCmjHTbc8LdiyEMqV7hfh570cXDqLxm_pEb6X4

    The Treaty of Union is where it’s at. Which is why the Westminster Establishment does not want to go there, and why 99% of Scotland’s population know little, if anything, about it, and it could be said sadly, have little interest in increasing their knowledge of it.

    A Google search reveals these and other sites on ‘The Treaty’. What is clear is that there are two very differentways of explaining the Treaty of Union, the English way, and the Scottish way.

    https://m.facebook.com/scotslanguage/ttps://www.scotslanguage.com/

    https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/england-scotland-and-treaty-union-1706-08

  162. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Graeme –

    That’s a kind offer.

    Hopefully you won’t have to go to all that bother.

    But I’d hang onto that tape if I were you!

    😉

  163. Clapper57
    Ignored
    says:

    Apparently Ruth D totally against No Deal Brexit.

    Same Ruth D who was 100% behind Theresa May.

    Same Theresa May who said ” NO DEAL IS BETTER THAN A BAD DEAL”.

    Go figure….

  164. Bill McLean
    Ignored
    says:

    Auld highlander at 1034 – Went over to read the article then……….”Sorry unable to load the comments at this time”!!! The propaganda machine strikes again!!!

  165. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    Doug says:
    28 July, 2019 at 11:17 pm
    Is Johnson meeting with our FM tomorrow [Monday]?””
    …………

    He might be but you would not know it from looking at today’s Herald, and yesterday’s online version, where it is all Davidson/Boris stand-off.

    You would almost think they had planned it – her sudden conversion to opposing no-deal Brexit setting herself up in opposition to Boris.

    Meanwhile FM/Boris meeting nary a mention.

  166. Bill McLean
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry! – comments back

  167. Bill McLean
    Ignored
    says:

    Comments on BBC web site came back then disappeared again!

  168. Bill McLean
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC comments come back then disappear again!

  169. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    There’s a lesson here for Tories in Scotland – Johnson is treating them like all other Scots.

  170. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    I tweeted the link to the Scotland’s Story episode earlier and it’s gone mental. I don’t have that many followers so could others please share it (esp via FB, which I don’t use).

    Aside from being very informative it’s well produced, entertaining, and has a young Brian Cox playing Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. What’s not to like?

    It also gets the blood up somewhat!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9uav5Je9Kg

  171. Bill McLean
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry about multiple postings – i’m so excited about Boris’ visit!

  172. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Bill McLean , milkshakes at the ready???

  173. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC … “Boris Johnson has called for a renewal of “the ties that bind our United Kingdom” ahead of his first visit to Scotland as prime minister. During Monday’s visit he will announce £300m of funding for Scotland “

    What “ties” might these be?

    An armed forces which is deployed mainly outside Scotland? The exception being our ‘shared’ WMDs where we get to house them all!

    Or, a BBC pouring pro Union propaganda into Scotland which we get the privilege of paying for?

    Our UK wide benefits system which is in a state of disintegration, is badly failing those who need it, and is not fit for purpose.

    The UK barely exists now. Gone are the UK wide nationalised service industries and utilities. Gone are entities like the NCB.

    What does Westminster and the Union actually do FOR Scotland now? What useful contribution does the UK make towards life in Scotland? Buggered if I can see anything positive for decades now.

  174. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Ian Brotherhood.

    Here are all the episodes I was able to find. Although I searched umpteen video sites, they only appear to be at YouTube.
    3 in this comment; 2 in the next.

    SCOTLAND’S STORY (Channel 4 1984) Episode 1 – “FEW AND FAR BETWEEN”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1HPPDhIpDE

    SCOTLAND’S STORY – KNOX & THE REFORMATION
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMKTlZvtYMk

    SCOTLAND’S STORY- JAMES & THE CROWNS UNITED
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Q-WBlD5Fo

  175. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    “SCOTLAND’S STORY” cont’d…

    SCOTLAND’S STORY – “KIRK & COVENANT”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l-tVELtVe8

    SCOTLAND’S STORY – THE 1707 UNION WITH ENGLAND
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9uav5Je9Kg

  176. kapelmeister
    Ignored
    says:

    A Yougov poll of Welsh Assembly voting intentions has Plaid Cymru leading such a poll for the first time. Plaid support is 24%, with Labour at 21%.

  177. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    With Johnson’s general sociopathic issues and in particular his apparent attitudes to women, I reckon he is going to be totally intimidated by oor Nicola at their face to face meeting. An intelligent, capable, and assertive woman is probably the stuff of nightmares in Johnson’s head. He is going to find it very awkward and uncomfortable.

    It won’t change his course. He’ll go away and do what he was going to do anyway.

  178. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Has Boris J. the willie waggler shown up yet?

    £ drifts down to as low as I’ve seen it against all currencies this morning.

    All FTSE’s going up. 🙂

    PS:
    Heard ‘little’ Audrey frae Scotland in a sombre voice this morning on Your Call extolling the PM’s visit and denigrating those nasty Nats.

    She hadn’t a clue but was sporting UJ undies for sure.

    Shortbread filters sure can find them in an emergency!

    Scottish mushrooms 50p a punnet in Asda cheap at the price.

  179. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    OT…
    Good news.
    India reports a 30% increase in tiger numbers since 2014.

    Good job India. Fair cheered me up. How could we ever drive something so majestic to endangered status? What is wrong with us?

  180. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Ahead of her BoJo meeting, Nicola says … “The people of Scotland did not vote for this Tory government, they didn’t vote for this new prime minister, they didn’t vote for Brexit and they certainly didn’t vote for a catastrophic no-deal Brexit which Boris Johnson is now planning for.

    Boris Johnson has formed a hard-line Tory government with one aim – to take Scotland and the UK out of the EU without a deal.

    Scotland has been ignored throughout the Brexit process and it is now time for everyone who cares about the future of Scotland to come together to chart our own course and say to the Tories – stop driving our country towards disaster. “

    The attitude is there, can anyone really doubt that resolve and plans to actually do something about it aren’t there too?

  181. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood @ 8.29am.

    Thanks for that Ian, I think. It made me feel sad and very angry in turn. Certainly worth a watch.

  182. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Marie Clark –

    Yep. Same here.

    I hope Rev will consider doing a wee post about it all, especially now that BDTT and others have nailed the other episodes.

    I’ve a vague feeling that we did view that episode before on Wings, but it was via btl links prior to its mysterious disappearance from YouTube.

  183. Scotspatriot
    Ignored
    says:

    Doris entered Faslane at 1120hrs .

  184. Giving Goose
    Ignored
    says:

    Stawberry update from Dingwall Tesco.
    The Scottish Saltire strawberries are selling extremely well.

    The Union Jack strawberries are not selling.
    Stacks of UJ punnets were sitting unsold.

    The UJ strawberries are from a farm in Fife, name of Brown.
    The message is obviously getting out.
    If it’s got a Jack, put it back.

  185. winifred mccartney
    Ignored
    says:

    Same with strawberries in M&S – UJ strawberries from Scotland rotting in their punnets.

  186. Lenny Hartley
    Ignored
    says:

    Re Scotlands story, I should have them all on video, will need to mount an expetition into my loft.

  187. Colin Alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    Holyrood is closed to 1 September 2019.

    UK Parliament closed until 3 September 2019.

    Brexit day is 31 October 2019.

    The FM has been asking for talks about an S30 for two and a half years. Asking for Brexit to be halted for 3 years.

    Now the SNP and others are going to court hoping they can stop Boris having UK Parliament in recess in late October, so Brexit day passes unchallenged by MPs.

    Is there no equivalent in the SNP of a Lord Halifax who gave Hitler the final ultimatum?

    The SNP have already been outmanoeuvred. Scotland’s Dunkirk is coming on 31 October 2019. Does Scotland have a Churchill to take the initiative? OH! No! No! No! It appears not.

    We are stuck with Neville, I mean Nicola.

  188. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    “If it’s got a Jack, put it back.”

    Definitely. A golden rule when shopping.

    If it was an English product, and had a St George’s, of course I’d buy it.

    As far as I’m concerned anything with ‘a butchers’ is making a political statement which is targeted against my views, and those of half my fellow Scots.

    Truth is, much of it is just poor marketing. I honestly doubt it’s political conspiracy aimed at Scots. Across England most customers will see ‘a butchers’ as something positive. The message hasn’t through yet that Scotland is different.

    It is, though, political conspiracy to promote the UK across the UK, of that I have little doubt!

  189. Colin Alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    We don’t have SNPs: We have SN Appease.

  190. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Colin A = Nicola

    We heard you the first time and many times before that.

  191. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Use all platforms you can to get word out – Boris Johnson is expected at the Scottish Parliament at approx 2pm before heading to Bute House.

    😉

  192. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @manandboy says: 29 July, 2019 at 10:36 am:

    ” … https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/12/18/scottish-parliament-does-have-right-withdraw-from-act-union/?fbclid=IwAR2IA4h7OxY7EXhiTJ2rEZCmjHTbc8LdiyEMqV7hfh570cXDqLxm_pEb6X4

    Ah! manandboy, I was preaching that story as a first year secondary school pupil and I’ve grown old still preaching that same story.

    It has taken a long time for most Scots to begin to listen. With luck, (and a bit of help from our SNHS), I just might live long enough to see the story reach it’s ultimate conclusion.

    However, if you believe the SMSM there is no appetite for independence in Scotland – many tens of thousands of enlightened people of Scotland marching on Scottish streets tells a very different story.

  193. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Boris got a thorough beating even with UKaye OK trying her best
    to put our trust in him.

    Serial Adulterer and Liar, Bully,Insulting Abuser among his many attributes.

    His is handing out fictitious sums to everyone he meets.

    Sacked from his journalist job for lying, sacked from the Foreign Office for lying and put in power by the merits of his £350 Million bus banner lie.

    Would you let Boris mind your children?
    Would you go out for a meal and drinks with Boris and his latest gold digger?
    Would you let Boris manage your Pension?

    I would let the man run a bath that I’d go in!

  194. McDuff
    Ignored
    says:

    Colin ALexander 12.25
    My thoughts entirely.

  195. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    PS The First Ministers Independence Petition is just about to go thru the 261,000 mark thanks to WoS followers and friends.

    https://www.yes.scot/

  196. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/dani-garavelli-worst-moment-for-the-scottish-independence-stars-to-align-1-4972371

    Dani Garavelli, doing the Independence Movement a favour by making the differences among yes voters appear worse than they are. She helpfully, though I’m sure unwittingly, reminds the Yes movement that unity in diversity is vital to the cause of Independence, with the emphasis on unity.

    She also reminds us, by her choice of words and graphics, that the Unionist media will never do Scotland any favours whatsoever. Quite the opposite. Any wound, any damage, any harm they can do to Scotland, they will do to Scotland.

    However, with so much aligned in Scotland’s favour, it is hard to believe that the known mistakes made by the SG, the SNP and anyone else in the Independence movement, would constitute a serious obstacle to Independence.

    It is time.

  197. Douglas
    Ignored
    says:

    Fireproofjim says:
    29 July, 2019 at 10:23 am

    “So Johnston thinks £300 million will buy off the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish. Say £100 million each. A totally insignificant amount…”

    Absolutely! To the man in the street, talking of millions of pounds when discussing budgets it does seem a lot of money. However, when it comes to Government Budgets where they are dealing in huge amounts of money, realistically 100’s of billions of pounds, a few million here or there is peanuts.

    I suspect few people can really begin to appreciation that a billion is 1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or ten to the ninth power. Though I am sure it you if you tried to illustrate this by saying it is like two people, but with one having £1,000 in their pocket and the other with £1 in their pocket, then the penny might drop, so to speak!

  198. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Maceever ex Tory adviser in Scotland, remember him, well he’s got the solution which he says is going to happen

    Just like Canada Andy says the Scottish Unionist parties must register as Scottish parties and be autonomous from their London leaders then Scotland would accept them more, and like Canada more power could be devolved to Scotland as a *provincial parliament* and once the people of Scotland saw that happening they would vote more for the other parties

    Now there’s an awful lot wrong with all of that but the main one is he just demoted Scotland from a country of it’s own to a province of England and he thinks Scots will be stupid enough to swallow such utter contemptable pish

  199. Terry callachan
    Ignored
    says:

    If it’s got a jack put it back

  200. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    From Rev’s twitter page.

    “Boris’s no-deal Brexit optimism won’t just land us an even messier divorce, it’ll push Scotland to file the papers too”

    http://archive.is/tTyM1

  201. kapelmeister
    Ignored
    says:

    The BBC’s first pic of Johnson the PM in Scotland is the imposter surrounded by a RN Rear Admiral and a group of other RN officers.

  202. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s link to all 5 episodes of Scotland’s Story.

    (Worth watching for the opening alone – you won’t believe who the very first face in it is!)

    Over 2 hours. Big thanks to Clem Fandango!

    drive.google.com/file/d/10-bPJLhsYFZuzWrJBrtKTgeNfBZ4KXpN/view

  203. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Just realised that can’t be five episodes if it’s just two hours…

    Hmmm…

  204. ScotsRenewables
    Ignored
    says:

    Re. Scotland’s Story

    It could be more widely shared/showcased if it was on YouTube, cojuld it not?

    Good job though, well done to whoever did this.

  205. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi ScotsRenewables at 1:45 pm.

    You typed,
    “Re. Scotland’s Story
    It could be more widely shared/showcased if it was on YouTube, cojuld it not?”

    See my comment of this morning at 11.24am.

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/standard-wales-check-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2476389

  206. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood says:
    29 July, 2019 at 1:44 pm
    Just realised that can’t be five episodes if it’s just two hours…

    Hmmm…””
    ………

    Could be if the archived/catch-up version has omitted the
    advertisements. This would reduce each 1 hour programme to 40 mins or so but still a bit more than 2 hours.

  207. robertknight
    Ignored
    says:

    “The Celts, or There & Back Again” by BawJaws Johnson…

    £300M to rule them all,
    £300M to find them,
    £300M to bring them all,
    and in the Union bind them.

  208. SilverDarling
    Ignored
    says:

    There is a strange dance going on just now between the Scottish and UK governments – think ‘Masquerade Waltz’ by Khachaturian, all joyful facade masking suspicion and turmoil.

    Johnson is now pulling out all the stops with gestures that have no substance to show how much the Union means to him. We know he doesn’t care one bit but it suits him to protest he did everything possible and that it’s demise was not his fault. The same modus operandi he is employing re Brexit, it is the nasty rigid EU that caused us to leave without a deal, ‘we tried we really did’. Mirroring the Scottish government’s approach to saving the UK from Brexit ‘we tried we really did ‘.

    All sides will have to come clean and take off their masks eventually, the sooner the better.

  209. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    So Boris seems to think £300,000,000 split between Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales would persuade us all to be good little, colonies of Greater England.

    Have the English learned nothing in 312 years. In 1707 the English government paid the shareholders of Scotland Ltd – the guys who had lost money on the Darien scheme, £398,085 – 10 shillings compensation, called: “The Equivalent.”

    That sum in 1707 is now worth between £90 and £100 million in today’s terms. Add-on the £4 million-plus (at 2019 values) which they paid-out in bribes to influential members of the old pre-Union Scottish Parliament and it appears they still think Scotland is of the same value as it was back then.

    I cannot see today’s MSPs and movers and shakers in Scotland being bought and sold for English gold; particularly now we know we have oil and whisky, which we didn’t have back then.

  210. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m absolutely raging today over the BBC hiding the news over Boris Johnson’s visit in Scotland
    Anywhere a Prime Minister goes is normally filmed and covered by *journalists* and at this moment in time none so much as Boris Johnson, yet in Scotland there is no sign of any coverage whatsoever except from these same *journalists* being everywhere that Boris Johnson is not and telling us about what other politicians might have to say on the matter but no coverage no footage not even a still picture of events

    So are we to wait until all the actual footage has returned to BBC Scotland to be edited recut and reworked in order so the population don’t learn the actual truth on how this *visit* turned out, but the footage the BBC want us to see

    When Theresa May came to Scotland she just hid from everybody in Ruth Davidson’s scout hut to be interviewed by Ruth Davidson

    It’s time for some truth and principles by *journalists* in Scotland and if they won’t provide it they had better think on about what they think will happen post Independence, because people don’t like being lied to and lied to all the time

    They get angry

  211. Jack Murphy
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC Wales Politics reporting Johnson’s £300 million is over 15 years.

    “….It is not yet decided how much of the £300m, which is over 15 years, will go to Wales……”

  212. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    So the Emperor of the Union is visiting his subjects, a self appointment reminiscent of the Empress of India, to bind Scotland closer to England, by force if necessary.

    It’s a tough time for those meeting him, imagine a personality that is the combination of James Kelly, Murdo Fraser and Willie Rennie and trying to have a rational conversation.

  213. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    galamcennalath @ 11:30:

    It won’t change his course. He’ll go away and do what he was going to do anyway.

    I agree. It’s fairly obvious. Now that we know without any doubt where we’re heading, and in fairly short order, surely time for the SG to follow through on Nicola’s promise to us in her March 2017 Bute House speech, no…?

    Even (or especially?) allowing for the possibility of a UKGE, which might well be carefully timed to cross the “Brexit deadline” and get us out by default, with WM dissolved due to the elections.

  214. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    “Could Boris Johnson’s ‘no-deal’ Brexit crack up the United Kingdom? “

    It’s good to see the world knows what’s going on.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/could-boris-johnsons-no-deal-brexit-crack-up-the-united-kingdom/2019/07/29/b871ebac-b1e6-11e9-acc8-1d847bacca73_story.html

    Braveheart, Outlander …. Boris Johnson? All raising Scotland’s profile internationally.

  215. geeo
    Ignored
    says:

    Johnson meeting his favourite crawling sycophant, Ruth Davidson around 3pm apparently.

    Will she give him hell over severe lack of House Jock tories in his cabinet ?

    Aye, sure…!

  216. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Bute House for tea and scones after all then…and he said he wasn’t going there…but convention and the niceties of protocol demand it.

    Boris yer teas oot, sup it up, and begone!

    Not long now! Win or lose it’s coming.

  217. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    The Pound slides a wee bit further down against everything!

    All the three FTSE’s are valiant.
    (There was film with a similar name)

  218. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    call me dave says:

    Boris yer teas oot

    I thought be might be greeted with “Ye’ll have hid yer tea?”

    Gie Boris whammlums!

  219. PictAtRandom
    Ignored
    says:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-49146480

    It’s a BBC link, but look at the guy on the right (not Johnson). Isn’t this just begging for a “Tick, tock” caption?

  220. Clapper57
    Ignored
    says:

    Not so much the “ties that bind” more like ‘the lies that bind’.

    Much publicity to Ruth D grandstanding over No deal…take it she has no objection to Dominic Cummings, Matthew Elliot and Chloe Westley additions to ranks ….also will say once again there was no big hooha when she was 100% behind Theresa May who stated ” No deal better than a bad deal”…thus setting these very wheels in motion that Boris is only too happy to continue to turn.

    Unionist churnalists desperate to find an angle where she, Ruth D, can still be viewed as having credibility as a ‘leader’ fighting against No Deal Brexit….while they conveniently omit her submissive acceptance of Brexit itself because of the will and power of so called democracy in England….but not where YOU are…Scotland.

    Do I laugh now or cry..or both.

  221. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    I think the picture in that BBC link shows the Captain looking at Boris and wondering if he
    Would be thin enough to fit in a torpedo tube.

    Tube in a tube! Your Fired!

  222. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    call me dave says:

    The Pound slides a wee bit further down against everything!

    Here’s a wee thought for Boris. Before trade talks with the EU get underway, three issues need to be taken care of … money owed, citizens rights, and the Irish Border. It can all be done before Brexit via the Withdrawal Agreement, or done afterwards.

    However, BIG HOWEVER, the money owed to the EU is in Euros and if the pound plummets against the EU because of a ‘no deal’ Brexit, the price in pounds changes significantly.

    Settling up before the probable currency collapse might save £5-10billion!

  223. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    Just though I’d throw this in to show how friendly Boris Johnson is to Scots and will give you some idea of how Nicola will regard Boris while, as always, remaining diplomatic.

    I’d bet, though, Boris will depart in no way whatsoever unaware of how Nicola really feels about the Boris desire to
    strengthen
    tighten the bonds between our two kingdoms.

    Friendly Fire,.

    (As published by Boris Johnson).

    The Scotch – what a verminous race!
    Canny, pushy, chippy, they’re all over the place,
    Battening off us with false bonhomie,
    Polluting our stock,
    undermining our economy.
    Down with sandy hair and knobbly knees!
    Suppress the tartan dwarves and the Wee Frees!
    Ban the kilt, the skean-dhu and the sporran
    As provocatively, offensively foreign!
    It’s time Hadrian’s Wall was refortified
    To pen them in a ghetto on the other side.
    I would go further. The nation
    Deserves not merely
    isolation
    But comprehensive
    extermination.
    We must not flinch from a solution.
    (I await legal prosecution.)

    By James Michie.

  224. Petra
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dr Jim at 2:08pm ….”Normally filmed and covered by journalists.”

    I noticed that too Dr Jim. The invisible man strikes again. No sign of Johnston arriving in Scotland, strutting up and down eying up a sub or two with an Admiral or three at his side.

    The BBC (et al), to my mind, was trying to hide the fact that the clown, with his finger hovering over that Nuclear button, made his first visit as PM to …. surprise, surprise … Faslane showing exactly where his priorities lie. I listened to the news and wondered if they would mention Nuclear or even Faslane at all and ultimately following a few comments about Nicola Sturgeon and longer coverage of U-turn Davidson they said that he would be visiting a naval base….. visits in no particular order. The BBC clearly trying to cover the big (dangerous) galoot’s back for him.

    They don’t want the Scots to see any footage of Johnston at Faslane with his hair standing on end, shirt hanging out and grinning away like a bl**dy maniac. In fact if you think about it the BBC does its utmost to hide the fact that Westminster’s (or more so the US’s) nuclear weapons exist at all, far less that they have them and they’ve been dumped in Scotlandshire against the wishes of the vast majority of politicians and the Scottish population.

  225. Ealasaid
    Ignored
    says:

    Today’s Indycar gordon ross:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA_n2QK4kzo

    Boris goes to Faslane and then Edinburgh by helicopter.

  226. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    @Petra

    Three things happened today on Boris’s visit …

    He meet with the FM of Scotland.

    He inspected the WMDs he now has some control over.

    He met the local branch administrator of his party.

    The newsworthiness and relative priority of each story is obvious.

  227. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Ealasaid @ 15:14,

    Yup, the parallels with Trump just keep on comin’…

  228. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    The Courier … “Boris Johnson sees ‘no reason’ for Scotland holding second independence vote”

    Of course he doesn’t. Just as well his opinion isn’t relevant.

  229. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Colin Alexander at 12.25

    Utter nonsense.

    What has the closing of the parliaments for summer got to do with
    the constitutional activities of our national leaders. Nothing actually.

  230. PictAtRandom
    Ignored
    says:

    @ D McE Hill, 3.26

    Interesting that Holyrood gets back from hols. a couple of days ahead of Westminster. So, possibilities of doing something creative from the kick-off?

  231. Lenny Hartley
    Ignored
    says:

    Auld Bob re poem by James Michie, born in Weybridge but going by his surname (North East of Scotland ) descended from House Jocks . Buy share in Psycho Analylists post Independence there going to be busy trying to figure out how 300 years of brain washing affects the National Psyche.

  232. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    Hot from the netvine, entrepreneur, mentor, speaker, charity queen Michelle Mone aka Baroness Mone of Mayfair, promises free bras, proud Brit, union jack design, for all senior citizens. “Boris was awfa hands on concept wise” chirped Michelle, her lyrical Glasgow East End accent escaping in the heat of the moment. “Nicola Sturgeon would never have thought of that” she purred.
    From her website:
    [It] was a mere six weeks later that Michelle had a ‘lightbulb moment’ that would change her life forever. She was at a dinner dance event and had opted to wear an uncomfortable cleavage-enhancing bra. Through the discomfort, it dawned on her that there was a gap in the market….

  233. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Colin Alexander @ 12:25,

    Your analogy is historical bollox. Halifax was an arch-appeaser.

    It seems we’re about to get a £100M tax-funded “blitz” of Dunkirk-spirit UKGov propaganda to encourage us to rally to Boris through the dark days ahead due to those dastardly Continentals =cough=, but in these troubled times I would choose Nicola any time over a third-rate blond ersatz Churchill (or even the original, for that matter).

    Now is time for unity and purposeful action, not spurous quibbling and counterproductive backstabbing.

  234. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Plaid Cymru make history by TAKING THE LEAD in a Welsh poll for the first time ever.

    http://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/

  235. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Among the so called Boris negotiations with the EU should be
    Scotland’s place in the EU.
    How does that country retain its EU links that it declared
    In false Indy Ref 1 and again in the Brexit vote.
    After all Boris the bluffer you say Scotland is subsidised by
    England well just stop it now.
    I never believe a word you say and I know Scotland has funded
    England for decades.

    Just leave us with the EU and we promise to sell your our Oil, Water, Whisky,
    Salmon, Renewable Electricity, Ships and our morals on society.

  236. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Jings! £ goes below 1.1EUs (1.09)

    Shurley must be news!

    PS:
    “Boris in the Faslane” someone said earlier. Excellent!

  237. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Scary numbers in Welsh Poll as although Cymru head the other parties the
    Tories and Brexit Party could form a right wing coalition and control their parliament
    To suit England’s addenda.

    Even the Red Tories could join in to overpower the true Welsh voice.

  238. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    Scottish unionist are basically those that are content for the crumbs from what they believe is the top table, only to find (as Ruth Davidson has only recently been made aware) that the top table is actually elsewhere and those at it are laughing at them and their subservient ways.

    Do we want to be crumbers begging for the table leftovers or do want our own table and have the full bhoona of what’s on offer.

  239. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Manandboy 10:36.

    Scotland’s case is even stronger in law than the UN stipulations.
    Both England and Scotland have separate legal systems, agreed by Treaty. We would not be in contravention of English constitutional law, instead would be exercising our right under Scots Constitutional law.

  240. Petra
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for the BBC online link , PictatRandom, of the Liar King visiting Faslane. Amazing that they seemed to be lacking in footage when they broadcast his visit to Scotland earlier on today (after he arrived at Faslane).

    If ever there was a reason, just ONE reason, for Scotland to end the Union this must be it. The thought of that warmongering, narcissistic, nutter having anything to do with nuclear submarines based in Scotland is just mind blowing.

  241. Footsoldier
    Ignored
    says:

    A country that hopes to be on the verge of independence should easily take Shetland and East Dunbartonshire and if not, ask why not.

  242. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    From the Guardian. Johnson speaking at Fastlane …

    “It was a once in a generation consultation of the people, we did it in 2014 and the people were assured then that it was a once in a generation consultation.

    I see no reason now for the politicians to go back on that promise … Everybody made clear at the time in 2014, even the Scottish Nationalist Party, I seem to recollect, said that this was a once in a generation vote and I think that the confidence of the public in politicians would be undermined yet further if we were to go back on that and hold another referendum. “

    So says the leader of the Conservatory and Onions Party.

  243. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    Article from the Guardian: Boris does not care about Scotland so is pushing it away.

    Aye right

    http://archive.is/fNrsZ

  244. Blair Paterson
    Ignored
    says:

    I was listening to lbc today and Sheila Fogarty said that her principles did not allow her to accept Boris moving in to No .,10 with his girl friend I phoned in and asked why her principles did she has not allow her to accept a democratic vote I.e. Brexit needless to say I was not called back to confront her her and Obrian do not like the truth it defeats there arguments every time .,they are trying to defeat democracy under the guise of democracy and trying to be so fair about it

  245. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    So, the biggest Etonian English w*nk to ever grace this planet, masquerading as a ‘prime minister’ comes to Scotland today, to patronise the Scots. Another Tory idiot wanting to increase support for the unwanted, undemocratic and corrupt ‘union’ with England.

    If the so-called ‘union’ was any use to Scotland, over half the population would not currently want an end to it. That is the problem. And nobody in Westminster really ever grasps that simple, single fact.

    The ‘union’ does not work for Scotland, it weakens our democracy, takes away our voting rights, removes our decision making powers, allows the daily theft for over forty years of Scotland’s oil by England, it allows our culture and history to be routinely denigrated and ignored, it allows an English parliament and unelected English ‘lords’ to make our laws AND override our democratically elected Scottish parliament and Government, regardless of what we want, it forces Scots to pay for blatant BBC anti-Scottish propaganda if they wish to watch live TV, it squanders Scottish taxpayers money on English vanity projects, that are of no benefit to Scotland (channel tunnel, M25, Heathrow third runway, Jubilee line extension, crossrail and so on).

    But worst of all, this cursed, undemocratic ‘union’ with England, allows an unelected, unelectable, pig-ignorant Etonian w*nk like Boris the clown Johnson, to strut up here on an awayday return, and strut about like king f****ing d*ck, whilst patronising every Scot he meets. And if that alone is not a good enough reason for independence from English rule, then I simply do not know what is.

    Boris Johnson, the unelected prime Minister is not wanted in Scotland. He is despised in Scotland. An insufferable, posh Tory pr*ck.

  246. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Effijy says: 29 July, 2019 at 4:01 pm:

    ” … After all Boris the bluffer you say Scotland is subsidised by
    England well just stop it now.
    I never believe a word you say and I know Scotland has funded
    England for decades.”

    yes, Effijy, You are correct. Do you remember this one from the Wings reference pages?

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-historical-debt/

  247. SilverDarling
    Ignored
    says:

    https://twitter.com/KieranPAndrews/status/1155861042272067585

    Boris getting a warm welcome at Bute House.

  248. kapelmeister
    Ignored
    says:

    Soon Bute House will host a state visit amid cheers but today we had a snake visit amid jeers.

  249. raineach
    Ignored
    says:

    Now there was the BBC telling us today that Boris would refuse to visit Bute House as it gives Nicola too much status. Yet there he is, on the doorstep. Round 1 to Nicola

  250. CmonIndy
    Ignored
    says:

    To me, that looked like a ‘get fuckin in ya c*nt’ moment from the FM at Bute House.

  251. auld highlander
    Ignored
    says:

    You won’t see the friendly welcome that Doris got on the tory propaganda channel tonight.

  252. Colin Alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert J. Sutherland

    I don’t “backstab” the SNP or Nicola Sturgeon; my criticisms are open and specific.

    Lord Halifax, from what I’ve read, was indeed an arch appeaser for years but, eventually took a harder line when he saw appeasement had failed.

    Hopefully that’s a lesson the SNP can learn, if it’s not already too late.

  253. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert Louis says: 29 July, 2019 at 4:47 pm:

    ” … Boris Johnson, the unelected prime Minister is not wanted in Scotland. He is despised in Scotland. An insufferable, posh Tory pr*ck.”

    Now! Now! Robert Louis, don’t hold back, say what you really mean.
    :-))

  254. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Legerwood @ 16:28,

    Another whine from the Graun’s Labourite unionist champion, channelling El Gordo once more. But it seems that even he is now starting down the same road as BoJo, and beginning to give up on us.

    Maybe even Kettle, from all the way back in London, can smell the insincerity of Bojo’s empty expressions of unity up here, and has at least a rudimentary notion that we heard enough of that kind of cheap talk back in 2014.

    (Interesting also that he, just like Theresa May recently, can’t bring himself to wholeheartedly ascribe fair-dealing to the SG, even though Nicola & Co. have “bent over backwards” to compromise, against the natural inclinations of their own support. It reveals just how much the English Establishment fear our leadership.)

    As we (and our essential self-preservation) increasingly prevail, I wonder when it will all go sour down south and everyone will finally see what these people truly think of us.

  255. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    At every election in Scotland, exit polls should be required by law, the ballot boxes should be made of perspex, the count should be made in public in the same room as the ballot immediately the poll closes, and the result announced immediately.

  256. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Colin Alexander @ 17:05,

    OK, so your pathetic attempts to sow disunity are there for all to see. Big deal. They wouldn’t be nearly so tangible if you just sat and fretted alone in your wee room, I suppose.

    At this, the approaching critical hour, we’re still waiting though with bated breath for the revelation of your New Indy Champion.

    (Or maybe not.)

  257. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    RP at 509pm,

    The man makes my blood boil, with his jolly posh buffoon charade. He’s a dunce. A despicable wee man.

    I mean seriously, it might make me sound old, but for heavens sake, if you want to be prime minister, tuck your shirt in, comb your hair, straighten your tie, and stop acting like a pre-pubescent public schoolboy, FFS.

  258. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    This from Andy Maceever ex Tory adviser moments ago

    News coming in from Tory sources at Westminster saying they will keep pushing the Independence question back until 2021 in the hope of the three Unionist parties in Scotland securing a majority against the SNP but at the same time admitting if the SNP win that election then they cannot and will not attempt to deny Scotland their Independence

    I don’t think I’ll wait till then because guaranteed they’ll come up with another wizard wheeze to pull

    The mandate was if Scotland were to be taken out of the EU against its wishes, so the date for me will be 31st October 2019 that I will expect the announcement, or sooner, I don’t mind which

  259. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @raineach says:29 July, 2019 at 5:00 pm:

    ” … Now there was the BBC telling us today that Boris would refuse to visit Bute House as it gives Nicola too much status. Yet there he is, on the doorstep. Round 1 to Nicola.”

    Nicola should have invoked Scots law and had a wee notice at the foot of the steps, “No Hawkers”, or the modern version, “No Cold Callers”.

    There is no English style Trespass Law in Scotland because the people are sovereign. As sovereigns they own Scotland, which is why Scots have legal right to roam. However there are certain restriction mainly for the safety of the people. You can trespass on rail lines, MOD property or other such property.

    What there is, though, are laws to preserve the privacy in close proximity to dwellings. Believe it or not, the police are not legally allowed to access dwellings unless invited to do so. That is unless doing what the Yanks call, “Being in Hot Pursuit”, of a criminal, or with very strong evidence to prevent a crime in the premises or with a properly signed search warrant.

    However, failing a notice of No Hawkers, members of the public can enter in close proximity but only to contact a, “Legal Occupier”, but must only follow the marked paths and make no attempts to leer through windows or otherwise, “Investigate”, anything.

    I’d have wet myself laughing if Nicola had posted a, “No Hawkers”, sign and called the police to remove Boris.

  260. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Louis @ 17:24,

    I don’t give a damn what he looks like, I care about what he does. And he’s just about to unleash a massive propaganda campaign run by Dominic Cummings to convince “the country” =spit= that Brexit, after a short-sharp little test =huh= of “our” mettle, is going to take “us” to the sunny uplands of a Wonderful New World.

    So we had better get our own act sorted and running before all that gets going, and PDQ. Or we’ll be on the back foot with a vengeance.

  261. shug
    Ignored
    says:

    Talk about Boris having a controlled visit!!
    Visits a navy base, no public and no hard questions from the BBC. Just a line of sound bites.

    And where is Ruth – nothing on Call Kaye so the BBC is colluding with the PM to manage the news

    When indy comes it should be jail for the lot of them

    remember Martin Niemöller

  262. Simon Curran
    Ignored
    says:

    Douglas Ross on Radio 5 20 minutes ago, avoiding questions and saying that both Boris Johnson and Ruth Davidson have no real differences over Brexit. Didn’t sound convincing.

  263. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert J Sutherland at 536am,

    I am totally in agreement that things need to get going. The sooner, the better.

    I await the referendum being called. Any day now….

  264. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    Footsoldier

    As well as being a repository for immigrants of the “White Settler” type, East Dumbartonshire is chock full of Scots who aspire to be English, Union Jackasses if you like but you seem to forget that Ms Swinson only recently reclaimed the place for the Evil Empire.

    The Lib-Dems and their predecessors have spent generations ignoring 75% of the seats in Scotland so they can concentrate their scant resources in a few places like the Northern Isles, where they can prey on the locals feelings of being marginalized
    and short-changed by Unionicgst administrators in the remote Central Belt and the fact that 600 years ago they were Norwegians.

    I find it hard to believe that the islanders are any more stupid or timid than the Mainlanders, it is just that there are a couple of extra layers of conditioning and brainwashing they have to see through before they can catch up.

    HOW the SNP campaign at the bi-election, is in the long run more important than the result.

  265. Clapper57
    Ignored
    says:

    @ CmonIndy @ 5.02pm

    “To me, that looked like a ‘get fuckin in ya c*nt’ moment from the FM at Bute House”.

    Hey CmonIndy, I laughed out loud at your comment…so funny Lol

  266. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert Louis says:29 July, 2019 at 5:24 pm:

    ” …. stop acting like a pre-pubescent public schoolboy, FFS.”</i?

    That is a big nail whacked upon its head, Robert Louis, since my own schooldays, (a year or twa syne), I have held the belief that the English Public School system, both male and female establishments, raises deeply flawed adults in more than one way.

    What else could you expect when parents have servants to raise them from infancy then as soon as possible pack them off to boarding prep schools then on to single sex boarding schools. More torture than nurture.

    It is often said wars are won on the playing fields of Eton but it is probably more truthful to say wars are started on the playing fields of Eton.

  267. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    Isn’t it odd, all weekend Brosi and his apparatchiks have been shouting long and hard, that they are planning for no deal brexit, and this is what they expect will happen. Then on Monday, the pound starts to drop, Vauxhall says it’ll move production out of the UK, and suddenly Boris the clown is talking about how getting a new deal would be the goal.

    I think other, sane Tories in London are just sitting back and allowing him enough rope to hang himself.

  268. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC news at six, at it AGAIN. as the started, talking about the PM’s visit to Scotland, the introduced it by saying …’leaving without a deal, which is widely opposed in Scotland…’

    You see how propaganda works. The implication and suggestion here by the BBC liars is that brexit is ok in Scotland, but leaving without a deal is opposed. Total lie. Good old blatant propaganda from the journalists paid liars at the BBC.

    Every single constituency in Scotland voted against brexit. In Edinburgh, 75% voted against it.

    Scotland opposes ANY brexit.

  269. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Boris Johnson has left Bute House by the back door

    STV news at 6pm

  270. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @shug says: 29 July, 2019 at 5:37 pm:

    ” … When indy comes it should be jail for the lot of them
    remember Martin Niemöller.

    Now I very well may be wrong, shug, but I believe by far the most cruel thing to do is just to leave them alone as the old MSM just gets shunted into a siding and dies a slow, painful death. These numpties have imagined themselves to be the elite for so long that obscurity will be the most cruel thing we could wish upon them.

    Imagine them sitting in a run down bar in a run down area, buying drinks for some other down and out while telling the down and out, “I used to be a crack presenter on the BBC”, and the down and out saying, “What’s a BBC?”

  271. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    Col.Blimp IV @ 5:48

    In case you were wondering, nobody speaks Scots or Gaelic in Caithness, Orkney and Shetland.

    Any brainwashing being applied always comes from the south – it’s just a question of how far.

  272. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye Dr Jim…the back door exit not unusual for Boris though.

    However I must say one eye brow was raised a tad as STV told us that Ruthie was not amused and didn’t cave in to the Minister for the Union on the ‘No Deal’ Brexit.
    He hung about for more than an hour before he snuck off!

    She might be awarded a Brownie point later once I reflect on that.

  273. uno mas
    Ignored
    says:

    Welsh Sion,are you there?

    HELLO Welsh Sion are you there??

    Will somebody get Welsh Sion out of the bloody pub and on to this site so that we can all offer him our congratulations 🙂

  274. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    Anyway I’m getting eye strain and a sore head so best go and listen to something and probably get bored to tears.

  275. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    Nothing yet on BBC News site (Scotland) about the PM meeting the FM. Just an old story about how FM and PM spoke on the phone.

    No optics as they say but plenty of photos with naval types and plenty about RD and tricky meeting with PM which of course has been the leading story across the MSM since yesterday.

    An obvious ploy to airbrush all mention of FM out of the picture, literally and figuratively.

    Wonder what will be the lead item on Reporting Scotland?

    Squirrels?

  276. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Col.Blimp IV says:

    Scots who aspire to be English

    Aye. The wannabe English are a particularly sad and deluded group because they will never succeed and be accepted as the real thing down south. When push comes to shove, they are considered just ‘sweaty socks’ like the rest of us!

    I am pretty certain most Scottish BritNats have a quite different perception and understanding of their UK, compared to the ascendant English Nationalists who see the UK as a Greater England to which they are entitled.

  277. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    No mention of the Campbelltown AUOB march on the ultra unionist STV news 6pm programme. However STV news has no problem mentioning Boris Johnson, or Prince Charles, or the fact that nurses can’t park at Glasgow Royal infirmary.

    A backhanded attack on the current Scottish government, of course it was the inept Labour government and its ineptness through PFI that denies staff the possibility to park their cars in the carpark at the hospital.

  278. Confused
    Ignored
    says:

    boris getting shown around that trident boat – ahm touching cloth …

    JUST DONT TOUCH -ANYTHING- OKAY

    I think I saw a yellow postit note on the back of a terminal
    logon password : godsavethequeen
    nukes password : killthemall

  279. Essexexile
    Ignored
    says:

    From BBC radio and website:
    ‘….First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, both of whom have positioned themselves against a no deal Brexit’

    Yeah, because their views on Brexit are the same eh?

    BBC using the dark arts of biased journalism.

  280. Clootie
    Ignored
    says:

    Boris states today that we are not selling the benefits of Trident and that the SNP are trying to remove it from Scottish waters…doh!

    Reporting Scotland – toodleoo the noo spinning the extra money lie.

    Bute House – why no Saltires? Did Boris threaten a huff if any in photo shot?

  281. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Whot! No Saltire in Bute House…shurley schome mishtake FM! 🙁

    Even a ‘Hamish’ on the mantle-piece could have sufficed.

    No mention of a back door on big Auntie News.

    Oh Well! (Fleetwood Mac) 🙂

  282. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Snap!

  283. PictAtRandom
    Ignored
    says:

    Stuart MacKay says:
    29 July, 2019 at 6:19 pm

    Col.Blimp IV @ 5:48

    In case you were wondering, nobody speaks Scots or Gaelic in Caithness, Orkney and Shetland.

    Any brainwashing being applied always comes from the south – it’s just a question of how far.

    Um…

    http://media.scotslanguage.com/library/document/SLC%20Analysis%20of%20Census%202011%20for%20Scots.pdf

  284. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    I see the ex defeated labour MP is defending Johnson.

    Must be guiling for the labour activists who got him into Westminster to realise he was always a Tory.
    Used and abused.

  285. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry Harris- always on the bbc

  286. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Boris says:

    “I think we must keep our promise to the people of Scotland that the Independence vote was once in a generation…and we must keep that promise to the people of the UK as well”

    What’s wrong with this statement….well first nobody made any promise at any time to anybody anywhere about a once in a generation referendum (it’s not in any legal document on the face of this earth)it was an opinion of a politician that such an event might be generational (and how long is that again) even if you were to suggest compliance with such a statement a parliamentary generation is 5 years, well we’ve done that, or as Jacob Reese Mogg oft likes to say “One government cannot bind the hands of the next” so F that for a game of soldiers

    Second…”We must keep that promise to the UK as well”….in this part of the statement he refers to Scotland and the UK as two different places so a clear demonstration of what he thinks the UK is and what Scotland isn’t….plus who or when did anybody make any promises about Scotland’s constitutional arrangements to anybody in any other country and why would they, being as it’s none of any other country’s business

    Boris Johnson opens his mouth and the uneducated gloop of his liquid brain leaks out of his mouth demonstrating his total lack of mental fitness to be a politican on any level

    This man Boris Johnson is a male Annie Wells except with the confidence of a privileged rich upbringing, but nonetheless every bit as incompetent and thick

  287. HYUFD
    Ignored
    says:

    CallmeDave Yet Plaid still well short of an Assembly majority on that poll and Adam Price would need Tory and LD support to become First Minister.

    The Tories lead in the Welsh Westminster poll

  288. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    Reporting Scotland valiantly trying to boost Ruth Davidson as defiant and the Scottish Tories opposing No Deal. Of course no mention that the Ruth Davidson Candidates of 2017 have all effectively voted for No Deal and some are even in Johnson’s pocket.

    Maybe the BBC are going to report honestly sometime, Scotland voted for No Exit from the EU, they did not vote for any other deal.

  289. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Who produces and edits Reporting Scotland? Are they all Davidsons pals?

  290. robertknight
    Ignored
    says:

    @jfngw

    “Maybe the BBC are going to report honestly sometime”

    Don’t hold your breath.

  291. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    @HYUFD

    Aye we can all count North of the Wall!

    PS: After reflection 🙁

    Brownie point awarded earlier removed from Ruthie from the snippet I saw on Shortbread TV (although her statement was obviously cut short).

    I should have known better….(Beatles)

  292. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    As I pointed out in the thread above.
    Archive takes out the graphs.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49156403

  293. Jock McDonnell
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Hamish100

    There is nothing ex-defeated about him, he remains defeated 🙂

  294. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    Back door Boris, it’s the Etonian way, he will probably slink out of Downing Street the same way as his Etonian predecessor did. They do seem to be a snivelling group of self servers.

  295. starlaw
    Ignored
    says:

    Noticed no Saltire in Bute House probably at the insistence of the Tories who would have demanded a Union flag, it was not there either.

  296. Petra
    Ignored
    says:

    Why oh why is no one putting Davidson, the Tory liar (another), on the spot for saying that she doesn’t support a No Deal Brexit? She said nought when her boss Big T kept spouting, “No Deal is better than a bad Deal.” In fact she said not one whit, no complaints, about a No Deal Brexit until Boris Johnston carried out Operation Boot up the Ar*e by turning the tables on her and Mundell.

    I’ve just watched her on Channel 4 news, running (hobbling) up to the mike like bl**dy Oliver Hardy, with that fake grin on her face, and then coming out with the same old, same old not so funny tripe. What really gets me down is that she knows that she’s a sneaky, wee, manipulative liar and that most of the people who interview her know that she’s a sneaky, wee, manipulative lying careerist who is contributing to potentially destroying Scotland and yet they all seem to be able to sleep at night.

  297. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    When comparing currency exchange rates the so called tourist rates should be use when
    We go off on holiday that exactly what millions of us get after handling charges

    Be assured you will get a one for one exchange on the Euro and Dollar with No Deal Brexit.

    ITV news reporting how UK Lamb being exported to the EU would face a 40% tariff and
    Importing EU card will have a 10% tariff applied but fear not Gove is looking to see how this
    Could be minimised?

    No doubt that will mean trying to sell lamb to New Zealand.
    What’s a few thousand miles between friends and they can
    Sell coal to Newcastle.

    Pathetic England, the Tories, Westminster and of course Boris.

  298. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    Looking more and more like NO DEAL, out on WTO Rules 31/10/2019:

    “Johnson refuses to meet EU leaders unless they scrap backstop.”

    http://archive.is/2zJSV

    “Boris Johnson is refusing to sit down for talks with EU leaders until they agree to ditch the Irish backstop, despite invitations to meetings from the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron.”

  299. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    The FMs going to have to keep a lid on some of this now, Yoon tempers are flaring up with their usual violence again, much of it coming from England with the usual suspects in Scotland

    This is not a good time right now and the longer this goes on the more violent the language is from Yoondom

    Ruth Davidson has a big responsibility for this, she has to keep hold of her sectarian bigot support, they’re getting out of control, maybe she wants it that way but it won’t end well

    Davidson’s party needs to have a word with her, well the one or two sensible ones that is

  300. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi peeps.

    RE: “SCOTLAND’S STORY”.

    I checked at the IMDB and it turns out it was a 24 part (half-hour) series, made by STV for Channel 4.

    It would be nice to see all 24 episodes uploaded to a video web site (dailymotion?) with consistent resolution (640×480?) and titling, eg,

    Scotland’s Story Episode 1 “North Britons?”,
    Scotland’s Story Episode 2 “Few and Far”,
    Scotland’s Story Episode 3 “The Auld Enemy”, and so on.

    You’ll see that the episode on YouTube that is titled “SCOTLANDS STORY (Channel 4 1984) Episode 1 – FEW AND FAR” is actually episode 2.

    Full episode list here:-

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1537149/episodes?year=1984&ref_=tt_eps_yr_1984

    I wonder if any Winger (cough, cough) can do the needful?

  301. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Just heard the tragic news that the son of SNP – MSP for Rutherglen
    Has been found dead in Amsterdam.

    I have long admired the hard work and enterprise of Clare.

    I would like to offer my sincere condolences to Clare and her family!

  302. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    Also having seen the footage of BoJo (Last PM of the UK) arriving at Bute House this afternoon I’m assuming he left by the back door to avoid footage of an even larger crowd booing and heckling him as he left.

    On lack of flags in the meeting room again an assumption but looks like BoJo and the BritNats wanted Union Flegs rather than Saltires so the FM gave him neither.

  303. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Johnson proclaimed that he’d want to go an extra Thousand miles…. I thought that was a bit hokey even for him!
    Then I began to think that a “Thousand” miles is exactly …
    500 miles and 500 more !!!
    Is this clown a walking blipvert?

  304. Liam
    Ignored
    says:

    Just got the first UK General Election leaflet in the post – at least the Lib Dems think to think one is one the way.

    Titled ‘Lochaber Needs a Full Time MP’ it features a picture of an empty Commons Chamber – it is, I guess, a swipe at our current MP Ian Blackford’s role as SNP group leader in Westminster. Implying he’s too busy with constitutional affairs to look after his constituents.

    Which makes you wonder just how ‘full time’ one of the previous MPs for the area, Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy, was. He wasn’t just a group leader; he was the Head of the whole party!

    This is the same Charles Kennedy that the local Lib Dems used on their election leaflets for years after his alcoholism-related death in an attempt to exploit local sympathy – he’s mentioned on this one too.

    And the fact that the empty benches in the photo show where the SNP AND the Lib Dems usually sit is another own goal.

  305. silverbuick
    Ignored
    says:

    I suppose Boris didn’t want it to look like he was visiting another country. Flags or not, he was.

  306. chicmac
    Ignored
    says:

    Re the late Tom Steel’s ‘Scotland’s Story’ It would be excellent if this were to be made available. I think it is as important, or more so than ‘Diomhair’ in terms of countering the massaged output the Scottish public have been fed over the last few decades.

    I think it is the last major production on Scottish history before the great BritNat cultural appropriation (correction) extended to history departments, museums and historical sites and the like. Obviously, the MSM was their top priority after the great nat scare of the 70’s.

    I am old enough to have watched it when broadcast. Also there is the book from which I have quoted on here and many other places many times.

    It seems to be out of conventional print but you can get used copies here and seemingly expensive ‘new’ ones which I presume are digitally produced reproductions.

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scotlands-Story-Tom-Steel/dp/0002163519

  307. Graeme
    Ignored
    says:

    “I am old enough to have watched it when broadcast. Also there is the book from which I have quoted on here and many other places many times.”

    I also watched it when it was first broadcast and recorded every episode on VHS I still have the tapes in a box in my attic.

  308. cirsium
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dr Jim, 5.28

    The mandate was if Scotland were to be taken out of the EU against its wishes, so the date for me will be 31st October 2019 that I will expect the announcement, or sooner, I don’t mind which.

    Ditto

  309. ahundredthidiot
    Ignored
    says:

    Re Wales

    An Independent Scotland and a reunified Ireland will focus minds when it really is just England and her Welsh buddy in what remains of the ‘UK’ – Wales may take a wee bit longer, but She’ll get there…….She’s got this far without disappearing and that really is something when you consider Her history and proximity to England.

    The South West of England can forget it though – sorry.

  310. ahundredthidiot
    Ignored
    says:

    I really, really do hope that Bojo’s Team requested the Saltire down on Bute House.

    And if they didn’t, we should still spread it as a malicious rumour to further our cause.

  311. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T…

    Did anyone else notice “English Steve” on The Nine” around five past nine? He was at Campbeltown…

  312. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Jockanese Wind Talker @ 20:05,

    I just heard the same just now on Euronews, together with clips of Boris bobbing onto a boat to bluster that the backstop was dead, and Boris being booed at Bute House. Nicola “meeting and greeting” with an extremely uncharacteristic stony face, something never before seen (in public anyway!). Plus – the icing on the cake – Pete Wishart being interviewed, and even he seemed to recognise the actualité.

    Let’s face it, the game’s up, and everyone knows it. Time to go.

  313. IZZIE
    Ignored
    says:

    Boris left by the back door I wonder why? It lreminds me of the days when Thatcher came North they used to have to edit out the sound from the crowds

  314. Giving Goose
    Ignored
    says:

    Col.Blimp IV 

    I can’t take any Orcadian or Shetlander seriously who claims Viking/Norse heritage and then kneels for their London madters to kiss arse.
    I pretty certain real Vikings would not have been so wimpy and subservient.

  315. shug
    Ignored
    says:

    watching Boris in Edinburgh – who stole Nicola’s flags??

  316. chicmac
    Ignored
    says:

    Graeme,

    I bought a second hand old VHS player about 10 years ago to transfer old family videos on to CDs. It took some experimenting to optimise the process but I think I put note files in the relevant folders (now on an old HD but I think, not sure, backed up somewhere on my backup HD.

    I also had recorded Diomhair back in the day when YT only allowed 10min clips and managed to put it up in 6 10min clips on my YT channel, but had to take it down after being ‘hassled’. However, by then, others had distributed it so it is still watchable on line.

    I think the VHS player is still in my workshop somewhere, whether it is still working ???

  317. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    “Asked about the prospect of a second independence vote when he was at Faslane, Johnson refused to state categorically that he would block a second vote but restated his position that the 2014 vote had been “a once in a generation consultation of the people”, adding: “The confidence of the public in politicians would be undermined even further if we were to go back on that.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/29/dangerous-uk-government-intent-on-forcing-no-deal-says-sturgeon

    Looks like Dominic Cummings has ordered the ‘once in a generation’ myth, to be used extensively. They don’t really care if it’s true or false, just as long as it undermines interest in another IndyRef.

    England is stepping up its propaganda war of lies against Scotland, knowing how crucial it is to ‘win hearts and minds’ even if they have to lie their souls into hell to get a result for the Westminster Establishment.
    It’s hard to ignore Johnson, but he is just a puppet dancing on the strings being pulled by Dominic Cummings. Just as in the EU Referendum, where Johnson was a bit player and Cummings was the puppet master.

    But hae nae doot, Independence is coming – and it will be like a powerful tsunami.

  318. Heart of Galloway
    Ignored
    says:

    Succinct, honest and utterly committed to Scotland. The exact opposite of today’s *ahem* guest at Bute House.

    The FM’s full interview on C4 today.

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1155927401773379586

  319. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    “Jeremy Corbyn, I no longer want to be a member of your Labour party – Alastair Campbell “

    Everyone sees through Johnson.

    “Whatever the denials, Johnson has embarked on a crash and burn strategy deliberately aimed at creating the circumstances for a general election – setting up the EU, parliament and the civil service, in a grotesque perversion of the truth, as the reasons he has no option but to call one.”

    It’s all totally obvious!

    http://archive.is/Xq3SR

  320. Marcia
    Ignored
    says:

    Re “Scotland’s Story” TV programme. The C4 review of the programme at the time nicknamed the it “Scotland’s Tory” because of the people they interviewed for the first programme. I did record the first few programmes in 1984 and a few of us in the SNP London Branch had an evening watching a couple of episodes and having a discussion afterwards. From memory it wasn’t that great of a TV series.

  321. shug
    Ignored
    says:

    manandboy @10.12

    My biggest fear is, we leave Indyref2 to long giving the BBC to get up to full speed.

    Also once announced it simply must be a short run in

    The barrage of fake news and false reports and promises will be overwhelming

  322. Essexexile
    Ignored
    says:

    Liam @8.14pm
    A good man, Charles Kennedy. A troubled soul, yes, but he stuck by his political principles and was widely respected outside his party and his home country.
    The same is true of Ian Blackford.
    Your part of the world is well served by its MPs.

  323. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    BBCs Emily Maitlis says “people can get used to anything over time”

    Oh well duh OK den coth ahm thtupit an we’re aw thtupit tut whit elth ith thur tae dae duh

    Borith fur King well

  324. Phronesis
    Ignored
    says:

    It is completely unacceptable for Scotland, the country, to be dragged out of the EU after Scotland, the country voted in a democratic process to remain- particularly when we can quantify the widespread intentional harm that will result in leaving the EU. Any international court would recognise the injustice of this.

    The pending calamity of a no deal Brexit with the combined collapse of state infrastructure after years of austerity policies (no-one’s fooled by all the promises of baubles and trinkets)will affect all aspects of society and economy across the UK except those who belong to the 0.1% Nation Conservative Party. It has centralised the access to power and wealth for its own benefit and this cabal will be able to short the markets and make a profit out of widespread financial misery and dodgy trade deals – laughing all the way to their offshore digital tax avoiding accounts. They are the least qualified –morally and politically- to hold public office. Now God -who has a better understanding of supply chains and trading agreements- has waded in to comment on the looming crisis and is not on their side.

    ‘…Church leaders say they have been “compelled” to write to the new Prime Minister because of his position that leaving the European Union without a deal is acceptable…The letter states that “At a time when increasing numbers of families have difficulties putting enough food on the table, we believe it is irresponsible to consider a course of action that is expected to make that situation worse”… The UK imports 10,000 shipping containers of food from the EU each day. These containers are part of long and complex integrated supply chains. Even minor disruptions to this chain have in the past rapidly had serious consequences. A no-deal Brexit will cause a huge and potentially crippling disruption. Government and many other reputable sources highlight the immediate risk of shortages and price rises. Over the longer term they point to the costs of new and less fluid supply chains increasing food bills for families’

    The letter is signed by leaders from the Methodist Church of Great Britain, the United Reformed Church, the Baptist Unions of Great Britain, Scotland and Wales, the Church of Scotland, the Salvation Army, Quakers in Britain and the Scottish Episcopal Church, which together have approximately 700, 000 members.

    http://www.jointpublicissues.org.uk/brexit-letter-july-19/

    Boris Trump’s acceptance speech was simultaneously the valedictory speech of the UK’s last PM-‘My job is to serve you the people’,The people are our bosses’. Scotland’s people say that they are staying in the EU, they are the bosses and you must serve the citizens of Scotland in that expression of democratic will.

  325. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    All’s OK, Ruth Davidson has drawn a line in the sand. How long is it till the next high tide?

  326. Essexexile
    Ignored
    says:

    Important to remember (if you’re a Tory):
    The 2014 indyref was a legally binding, once in a generation vote in which Scotland decided to remain part of the UK.

    Despite what remoaners may say, the result of the 2016 EU referendum was an informed democratic choice to leave the EU and the will of the people must be upheld.

    Except of course in Scotland, where the EUref vote was only advisory and they voted to stay in the UK anyway, so tough.

    This is truly what they believe. With absolute conviction.

  327. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    You’ll wait a very long time to hear one of the BBC’s state broadcasting journalists tell it like it is – like this

    https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1155128232322187265

  328. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/29/the-guardian-view-on-boris-johnson-and-scotland-state-of-disunion

    “His visit provided Ms Sturgeon and her party’s formidable media operation with an ideal platform from which to promote their independence agenda in a way that is already gathering some momentum in the polls.”

    Would someone please point me in the direction of the ‘formidable media operation’ of the SNP? I don’t see it.

  329. kapelmeister
    Ignored
    says:

    Back door Boris.

  330. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    I remember a few years ago BritNats tried to make out Farage was booed and pursued into a pub in Edinburgh because he was English. No, it was because he was a fascist thug!

    Now, I see on WoS Twitter there are suggestions that Johnson was booed because he was English. Err, no, it’s because he’s a narcissistic sociopath, is a habitual liar, totally devoid of principles … and we didn’t vote for him.

  331. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Where in the Edinburgh agreement are the words *once in a generation* I’ll give anybody ten thousand pounds if they can find them, because they don’t exist

    Alex Salmond must be the only politician in the world who’s comments are held up as a legal document unlike Boris Johnson and his £350 million emblazened bus or Farage’s pictures of lines of thousands of refugees trooping their way to the UK or no deal is better than a bad deal

    Seems only Unionist morons conveniently don’t remember what they say or maybe it’s just fine and dandy because well, they’re better than the rest of us so they can say and deny and lie about anything they want

    The only Unionists left in Scotland now are the sectarianists just like Ruth Davidson has worked for their vote to stir up the hate and keep it there

    Belfast here we come eh Ruth, get yourself a big drum like Arlene’s

  332. kapelmeister
    Ignored
    says:

    If Johnson’s people did demand a union flag at Bute House then the FM’s staff should have cheerfully agreed…….and had the European Union flag waiting for him.

    Got to think on your feet people.

  333. chicmac
    Ignored
    says:

    Marcia,

    Beg to differ. I did quite a bit of personal research checking the sometimes surprising facts given in the series and found very few factual mistakes.

    OK, it is pre CGI and limited budget, but factually very good.

    On matters of interpretation I found it logical and well Occamised and certainly not subject to the often farcical contortions and gymnastics required to manufacture the Unionist slants of more recent decades.

  334. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Being anti England isn’t being anti English just the same as being anti Boris isn’t being anti everybody called Boris

    If people don’t like something that doesn’t make them anti something

    When nasty people demonise others with this kind of language, remember it’s coming from their minds and mouths first, wee bit of transfer of behavioural thinking there, once again we’ve seen that before, an old tactic, some folk nearly won a war with it

  335. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    “I loathe Boris Johnston, but the idea that him being elevated to PM should be reason to end a union that has endured for 300yrs is lunacy.
    Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP (Tory) tweeted the above. Why, oh why, oh why, is there not a minimum educational standard required to be a politician.
    Almost every other walk of life demands qualifications. It should be the same for elected representatives at this level.

    The Scottish Parliament has far more than its fair share of members who are not intellectually up to the job. This has to stop.

  336. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Just to express my understanding of the backstop…

    The essence of Backstop is that the Good Friday Agreement is explicit and categoric that there is no hard Border in Northern Ireland, and observing the Backstop is not about negotiating the presence of a Border, but simply respecting what the Good Friday Agreement says, or not respecting it.

    Neither the EU nor Westminster can renegotiate the Irish Backstop without altering the gist of the Good Friday Agreement, which neither can actually do.

    To observe the Backstop is a binary option either to respect an International Peace Treaty, or not. There is no negotiation to be done. It is actually outrageous to imply that the EU is being obdurate about the Backstop, because their position on the Backstop is the only position that is lawful to take. By observing the Backstop, they are observing the law. Why would they, or should they, be moved from that lawful position and ignore the terms of the Good Friday Agreement just to accommodate the mental breakdown and delusional demands of the UK Government?

    Boris Johnson is either thick beyond reason, or together with the UK “media”, being wilfully disingenuous and dishonest about the EU’s position and it’s capacity to alter that position.

    The EU must be rubbing it’s eyes in disbelief at the mendacity of the UK Government, and it’s surreal demands for the EU to indulge the UK ‘s fantastic odyssey into political oblivion. If Boris doesn’t abandon this ridiculous narrative, the damage to the UK’s International standing will be incalculable and long standing… the UK, will for the foreseeable future be the petulant, self harming, spoiled brat of International Relations.

    Takes some chutzpah to win that accolade when Donald Trump’s regime is on the scene, but as an act of self harming stupidity, the UK is a clear front runner standing way out on its own.

    The word “pariah” originally comes from “Paraiyar,” the name of a low caste in southern India. Scholars of Indian languages trace “Paraiyar” back to the Tamil word for drum, “parai.” Traditionally, members of the caste had a ritual duty to beat the drums at festivals, but the leather skin used for the drums was considered unclean and thus unfit for higher-caste Hindus even to touch.

    Unclean and untouchable Boris. That’s where you end up when you shake the taboos.

  337. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    THE UK HAS BECOME A BREXIT MADHOUSE

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/29/eu-officials-reject-dominic-raabs-easier-no-deal-brexit-claim

    This article spells out in plain and sometimes stark language, what the consequences of No Deal will be. These same consequences are dismissed totally by every member of PM Johnson’s government, choosing instead to promise a great future – but built on lies and the fantasy of false promises.

    British businesses are said to not be ready for No Deal. Far less ready however is the vast majority of the UK population. Waiting for government instructions and guidance for you and your family after No Deal, will be a complete misjudgement.
    If ever the saying ‘prevention is better than cure’ applied to a situation, it is this one. NO DEAL BREXIT MUST BE STOPPED. If offered the opportunity to vote against No Deal, then do please take it.
    And, if Scotland is faced with the imminent reality of being forced out of the EU by the UK Government, then Independence becomes the ONLY GAME IN TOWN.

    In the meantime, we will continue to be told by this Tory Government, that the future is bright and prosperous outside the EU. Nothing could be further from the truth. Within seven days of a No Deal Brexit, food and medicines will be rationed – but only if everyone stays calm. But let’s face it, that’s not going to happen. It will only take one supermarket to be stripped in a frantic panic by a crowd who have lost control, and all hell will break loose in every supermarket in the UK as people realise that staying calm will result in having no food as the supermarkets are overwhelmed by huge crowds of people desperate to get food and other essentials. That is what No Deal will result in. Prevention is better than cure. So let’s not go there.

    Instead, let’s go INDEPENDENT. It is the normal way for countries to be. You must know it makes sense.

  338. Graeme
    Ignored
    says:

    @ chicmac

    I have a VHS player and the capture cards etc to digitize the videos I also did this a while ago to digitize film of my children,
    Back in the day I had an old Sony C4 (Betamax)with a video camera that plugged into the front I also used that to take video of my kids and stupidly threw it out some years ago so I had to buy the same machine off of Ebay so I could digitize the footage.
    It’s a fairly simple process when everything’s set up although much more difficult on Betamax because I only had RF out (no scart or composite) so I had to use a TV tuner card to capture it, additionally it has to be recorded in real time so a 90 minute video tape will take 90 minutes to record and the raw file size is massive I found it works out at roughly 1Gb a minute

  339. Al Dossary
    Ignored
    says:

    I see that the “we are the 55%” facebook group has photoshopped in two union Jack’s to yesterdays meeting in Bute house.

    Going by the fervent Yoon propaganda and the persistent “well done” posts to the various members of the green ink gang for their letters it is safe to assume that the webpage is a Scotland in Union or Establishment front.

  340. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    Regarding the ‘once in a generation’ lie, getting pushed continual by Tories and their BBC puppets.

    It is not the decision of any single person as to whether Scotland has independence, or a referendum for independence, since the people of Scotland are sovereign. So, if Nicola Strugeon, the pope, Queen Lizzie and Alex Salmond all had sworn a pact in 2014, statingthat the referendum was ‘once in a generation’, it would make no difference. Not even the great Alex Salmond could insist it is just ‘once in a generation’. In Scots law, the people are sovereign, and it is they who have decided to have a referendum, by democratic vote and electoral mandate.

    It is the people of Scotland who decide. It is the people of Scotland who are sovereign. If they democratically decide to have another referendum – AND THEY HAVE – then that is all that matters.

    The ONLY reason London and their Scottish Tory serfs keep brining the ‘once in a generation’ thing up, is simply because they know they will lose indyref2. So when they come out with such garbage, they should be challenged, by ‘if you tories are so confident that nobody in Scotland wants independence, let’s prove it, and hold a referendum. Anything else, is just hubris.

  341. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    The Tories imbeciles want to go back to Thatcher regime. High unemployment. 15% in Scotland. 20% NI. The only place it was under 10% was London S/E. Interest rates 17%. Inflation up to 25%. Thatcher encouraged people to go on sickness benefit rather than unemployment. It was a higher payment. Thatcher secretly and illegally took all the Oil revenues and cut the Scottish budget to the bone. Closed all manufacturing facilities. The violence and riots of the Thatcher years. The Tories believe it was a ‘golden age’.The loads of money bankers who funded the Tory Party. Thatcher deregulated banking and caused the banking crash. Thatcher introduced tax havens,

    Thatcher had to go she did not want closer ties with Europe. Deja Vu. The only thing that improved the economy was closer ties with the EU. The nearest biggest market. Costs £8Billion.out of a budget of £720Billion. Including borrowings. Shared Defence cost and Grants more than cover it. It costs Scotland nothing and brings benefits. Good social Laws and workers rights. Upholding the right to self determination. Scotland just needs to vote for it.

    The illegal wars caused the migration crisis in Europe. The EU has to try and clear up the UK mess. It costs much more than £8Billion. The Tories have fiddled the migration figures including foreign students who are fully funded and go home after studying. They contribute.

    The Tories are imbeciles. A majority of 2. A total embarrassment. A sinking ship of fools. Johnston will not last until October. The next lot of Westminster U imbeciles will be in power. Scotland would be much better off managing it’s own economy. Johnston is reported to have offered the SNP full fiscal autonomy. Independence could come from this mess. Support rising. Ireland could re unite.

    The £300Million con. It is reported over 15 years. It does not even cover the £160Million EU Cap payment illegally taken from Scotland and the Police/fire VAT payment not refunded. Osbourne championed a ‘Northern Powerhouse’. Then the Tories cut the budget. Paying £Billions for projects in London S/E.

    Wasting £Billion on Hinkley Point and HS2. A total waste of money . There are better cheaper alternatives. A tidal project at Humber and Swansea cancelled. Reneged upon. Monies should be spent in the North and Scotland to cut rail times throughout Britain. Rail journeys take 1/3 longer in the North. Increased conductivity improves the economy.

    Johnston booed and jeered in Scotland. No wonder. Sent hameward to think again. People in Scotland want rid of Trident. Yet there was the gormless, dope on a rope, clown at the base.

  342. Graeme
    Ignored
    says:

    I often wonder if Alex Salmond during the 2014 indyref had said something like “it doesn’t matter if we lose we’ll just have another one next year” would that be taken verbatim, would they try to hold him to his promise.

    It was an off the cuff statement it has no legal or procedural weight and it’s time they got over it

  343. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Robert Louis

    Robert, it should be called out for what it is, lies.
    There was never, ever a promise to the people of Scotland that it was a ‘ one off ‘, nor to the people of the UK.
    I refer to Boris Johnston’s comment using ‘ one off ‘ because that is what he implies. The Smith Commission report makes him a liar, Scots Constitutional law makes him a liar, and he should be called out using all three of these examples every time its mentioned.

  344. Scotspatriot
    Ignored
    says:

    With the £ plummeting against the $, Fuel, Domestic Power and Gas, Food and Building Materials will be costing substantially more.

    Sadly, for some, this will be devastating, but for the speculators in the Johnson Government, this is Heaven !

  345. hackalumpoff
    Ignored
    says:

    See Nana’s links here:
    https://indyref2.space/category/nanas-links/

  346. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    manandboy says:
    30 July, 2019 at 4:11 am
    THE UK HAS BECOME A BREXIT MADHOUSE

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/29/eu-officials-reject-dominic-raabs-easier-no-deal-brexit-claim….

    The UK might wish the Backstop descends into an acrimonious blame game, but the need for return of a Northern Irish Border would be the sole responsibility of the UK Government which opted for, and pushed ahead with Brexit with it’s eyes closed, with no regard whatsoever for the consequences.

    When you sign up to a Peace Treaty, then renege on your commitments under that Peace Treaty, the ramifications will be profound, and the International Community will bring pressure upon the UK government to honour it’s word.

    However, once the need for a border has seen one materialise, it becomes extraordinarily difficult, and perhaps beyond it’s ability, for the UK to retreat from it’s position and ‘rewind’ events to reverse it’s way out of the mess it has created.

    What that means in reality is up to the International Community, but it will probably mean sanctions and restrictions to trade, downgrades in status, and maybe seizure of UK assets. And if the Irish Backstop creates a border which leads to the the Good Friday Agreement’s collapse and a return of hostilities, then the UK might be saddled with sanctions it is very difficult to have lifted. This will have major ramifications for any and all post-Brexit Trade Agreements.

    The UK might find itself ostracised and trapped in stasis where the ONLY way out is Irish unification, and the provincial nature of Northern Ireland will be put under the Constitutional microscope.

    It also begs the question what is Scotland doing while all this is going on. I commend Nicola for once, because Johnson would be hammered in a televised debate on Scottish Independence, which is why the gutless wretch will never agree to one.

  347. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Shortbread’s Gary skewering Prof Tomkins there, running rings round him over Brexit, the backstop and Ruth Davidsons No Deal stance. 🙂

    The circumlocution was toe curling as the devious defender of the Scottish Tories eventually ran out of words and was sent home to think again.

    What a good start to the morning!

    PS:
    Peter Duncan Tory hinting that it is inevitable the Scottish Tories will split!

  348. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Tory MSP Adam Tomkins comes on our radios this morning to defend Boris Johnson and says “The UK government is pursuing a deal with *vim and vigour*” Gary Robertson says “No they’re not” Adam Tomkins then went on to say …erm eh humph grr meh er SNP voted against the deal, Gary Robertson says “So did your Tories” Adam Tomkins says “But it was a bad undemocratic deal” Gary Robertson says “Then why did you vote for an undemocratic deal” Adam Tomkins says ” erm eh grr harumph blurb Nicola Sturgeon bad Ruth Davidson good” Gary Robertson says “Thank you for your time”

    Gary Robertson didn’t have to say, *You Tories are such damn toadying little liars*

  349. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Should have said.

    Tomkins actually used the ‘No Surrender’ trope in his interview on shortbread regarding Boris J’s handling of the Brexit situation. 🙁

  350. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    ALL THE BRITISH NATIONALIST HAVE LEFT TO MAINTAIN THEIR ‘PRECIOUS UNION’ ARE LIES & THREATS.

    I see that the “we are the 55%” facebook group has photoshopped in two union Jack’s to yesterdays meeting in Bute house @Al Dossary says at 6:38 am

    Regarding the ‘once in a generation’ lie, getting pushed continual by Tories and their BBC puppets.” @Robert Louis says at 7:35 am

    Al Dossary highlights BritNat social media manipulation whilst Robert Louis highlights one of the “Big 3” Lies which will be used against us in IndyRef2 – the “once in a generation” lie.

    The other 2 other The “Big 3” being:

    2. “Scotland exports more to the rest of the UK than EU and will loose access to The UK Single Market”

    3. “Look how difficult it is leaving a 40 year old Political Union it will be much, much worse unpicking a 300 year old one”

    That’s all they’ve got.

    Scare stories for the less Politically aware and the feart.

    It goes without saying that all are demonstrably false but you’d need an impartial and independent media in Scotland to ensure these “Big 3” are shown up for the bollocks they are.

    Expect both he outright lies and Social Media manipulation to increase with Dominic “Take Back Control” & “£350 Million for the NHS” Cummings as BoJo, Last PM of The UKs Senior Political Advisor.

    Dominic Cummings loves a snappy propaganda soundbite, regardless of any truth behind it and “once in a generation” fits the bill.

  351. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    My late and much-missed friend and rugby-reporting colleague Brian Meek, who when not covering sport for the Daily Express (when it was a good newspaper) and The Herald (when it too was a good paper), was Tory Convener of Lothian Region, and vice president of the Scottish Conservatives, was virtually driven from office in the 1980s, for suggesting the Scottish branch ought to split from London.

    He believed, a truly independent right of centre Scottish party could be a buffer against the rise of the SNP. He also felt, such a party could prevent London simply imposing its will on Scotland. Smart cookie was Brian, however, the “Proud Scots but,” in the Tory ranks preferred to let London make the decisions.

    The Scottish Tories are now harvesting the fruits of their mistaken belief in London – potential wipe-out at the next GE.

    There will be a place for a party supporting old-fashioned “one nation” Tory values post independence, but, that one nation will be Scotland, not the artificial construct of the UK.

  352. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    Any chance of a link (YouTube if possible as I don’t do BBC iPlayer / BBC Sounds) to Shortbread’s interview with Professor “2 Jobs, WATP” Tomkins call me dave says at 8:33 am?

    Especially if he actually uses that dogwhistle Sectarian battle cry of “No Surrender”!

    Peter “Dark Money” Duncan has been a regular ‘talking head’ on Shortbried the last couple of Months.

    https://theferret.scot/former-tory-mp-quits-dark-money-trust/

  353. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    call me dave , well I don’t intend surrendering my country to a bunch of vicious , warmongering , lying fraudsters in Westminster.

    Nor do I intend surrendering it to their cohorts in the media.

    Watching the antics of yesterday and the bumbling explanations by Johnson of his preferred actions I did wonder where he left his trainer and his notes or does he think it is OK NOT to prepare – after all it is ONLY Scotland.

    I’m so glad he got a ‘nice’ reception at Bute House.

    Hey P.M , we voted to STAY in the EU and we said there would be another referendum should circumstances change .

    We neither need your permission or blessing for such and the media has done such a great job in England of telling their followers what a dreadful bunch we are , how we hate the English , don’t support their glorious teams and use their taxes to live on the fat of the land that I suspect they would gladly be rid of us.

    English Independence say I !

  354. Abulhaq
    Ignored
    says:

    New Westminster administration and the same old mess, go and prepare for an autumn general election, the independence general election.

  355. GrahamB
    Ignored
    says:

    call me dave @ 8:33 and Dr Jim @ 8:40
    Also, when GR asked him how Ruthie was going to stop a No Deal he had to use the old “the line’s breaking up Gary” to buy some time to think of a reply. He failed to think of anything and just waffled on about nobody wanting a No Deal …
    Car crash!

  356. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    Westminster is demonstrating that you can walk away from any treaty, they have walked away from the EU which was a treaty (the 1972 treaty of accession) and want to walk away from the treaty known as the Good Friday Agreement.

    Their idea is that any sovereign country can end a treaty, this must also be true for the country of Scotland and its sovereign people. It is not UDI. It is the ending of a treaty, it just needs the people of Scotland to make the decision and Westminster has no right to deny a sovereign people their say any time they want it.

  357. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Jockanese Wind Talker says:

    3. “Look how difficult it is leaving a 40 year old Political Union it will be much, much worse unpicking a 300 year old one”

    You are right, this has already become one of their arguments. However their point is totally invalid.

    Leaving the EU is easy peasy. England voted to leave the EU. If its outstanding obligations are honoured it can have a two year transition period to negotiate a trade deal. This can be anything up to full single market membership and customs union.

    The problem of course is London expects the entire UK to folllow it out. Scotland and NI don’t want to, and a hard Brexit would breach the Good Friday Agreement. The alternative of leaving NI alone in the single market with Irish Sea border breaches the Treaty of Union.

    The difficulty in Brexit comes from trying to maintain the UK Union. BrEngexit would be straightforward if the UK Union were abandoned.

    Theresa May made this point before the EURef and I’m pretty certain it was in the background of all her negotiations. The backstop only exists as an attempted solution to the problem of the incompatibility of Brexit and a continuing UK Union.

    Johnson never says what he means. However, it now seems obvious he will pursue a ‘no deal’ Brexit. The hardest of Brexits is totally at odds with the UK Union. He must know this.

    Paradoxically, the way to make Brexit easy and smooth is to make Irish reunification and Scottish independence referendums easy and smooth. This isn’t quite what the BritNats have in mind when they make your point No 3!

  358. chicmac
    Ignored
    says:

    Graeme

    I didn’t use the 1Gb per minute DVI dump as it required so much memory.

    Instead I used a DVD player/recorder. I recorded on to DVD from a composite link between my VHS player and and the DVD recorder.

    The DVD recorder had two qualities of recording, one double the content per DVD but less quality. From memory you got about half an hour of recording on a DVD at the higher quality which was quite acceptable (c 8 Gbyte for an hour). Being a domestic DVD recorder it was well optimised to digitise and compress the video input. You could select a ‘play on other DVD player’ mode so that the DVD could be read by your computer DVD or other DVD players.

    Various free (then) software packages allowed you to load the AVI content of the DVD recording and allow you to edit and prepare video files in whichever format you required, e.g. for YT.

    You could then extract the

  359. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Seriously though, does anyone truly believe that 13 Tory MPs
    are going to take any notice of what Ruthie wants…it’ll be like herding cats.

    From a yellow submarine to a visit in Welsh dragon territory
    for the PM. No welcome in the hillside there either I think!

  360. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/vote-leave-gang-running-britain-do-not-want-to-govern-they-want-to-win-1.3970693

    Matthew D’Ancona says in the Irish Times :

    “Yes, you will hear plenty over the summer about crime, education and the NHS, accompanied by many populist pledges.

    But all this will be tactical rather than fundamental

    – a mostly cosmetic propaganda plan to keep the voters on side while the main objective is pursued.”

    In other words, PM Johnson’s role is to be a distraction, a squirrel, to fill the screens and be the newspaper headlines, while the imported Vote Leave team, headed up by Dominic Cummings, do the real work of getting the UK out of the EU, preferably with No Deal.

    It will involve a rerun of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, using the same methods viz, data harvesting and micro-targeting, in a comprehensive brainwashing campaign akin to saturation bombing. It’s a technique that works. Every ballot since and including Indy2014 testifies to that.

    The details of the relationship throughout the period
    2010-2019, between the British Government and Cambridge Analytica, run by Tory Party members incidentally, among others, remains one of Westminster’s most closely guarded secrets.

    The Tory Punch & Judy Show, starring PM Johnson as The Clown, and Dominic Cummings as the Puppet Master. Set to run for 3 months only.

  361. chicmac
    Ignored
    says:

    Graeme

    Correcting my memory a bit, it was a long time ago.

    You got more than a half hour on the DVD, because, thinking about it, the DVD’s were more than 4 GB in capacity, but the high quality compression AVI content produced was at about half an hour per 4 GB.

    My confusion being that the videos I created were stored on 4GB CDs since these were much cheaper.

  362. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    @manandboy

    I think this …

    “Why the all-consuming urgency over Brexit? One of the Vote Leave gang’s most aggressively held beliefs is that delay is the rust that eats through success. The longer we dither over leaving the EU, the less likely it becomes.”

    … is a model to copy!

  363. PictAtRandom
    Ignored
    says:

    call me dave says:
    30 July, 2019 at 10:13 am

    …From a yellow submarine to a visit in Welsh dragon territory
    for the PM. No welcome in the hillside there either I think!

    People think he’s going to be saying something agricultural.

  364. chicmac
    Ignored
    says:

    manandboy

    As I posted a few days ago, the key moment for the Coup de Twats will be when they attempt to suspend/ignore/prorogue parliament.

    Will the police/army/judiciary support them or parliament?

    Bribes in the post.

  365. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Jockanese Wind Talker says:
    30 July, 2019 at 9:02 am

    ….That’s all they’ve got.

    Scare stories for the less Politically aware and the feart…

    True, but then they’d precious little of any substance in 2014 either…

    I would add one more thing we should be braced to expect, and that’s the emotional blackmail of our disloyalty / abandonment of old Blighty in its darkest hour. How dare we… yada, yada, yada… Kick them when they’re down and all that guff.

    They’re already starting the transferral of blame for Brexit on to the EU, and when Brexit starts to reveal what a toilet bowl it is, they will blame Scotland’s lack of enthusiasm for wrecking their Utopian Brexit.

    This time around however, there is a much healthier skepticism about the BBC and it’s propaganda, and a lot of the shite that’s flung isn’t going to stick, but lots of shire there will be …

  366. Graeme
    Ignored
    says:

    @ chicmac

    Yeah I suppose there are various ways to do it, I didn’t realise a DVD recorder would compress on the fly but even if I did I didn’t have access to a DVD recorder so I had to dump it straight onto the PC.
    I used VLC to do the initial recording, file size wasn’t really a problem for me I had plenty disc space, compression was fairly straightforward afterwards to get it down to a usable format & file size.
    If I have time at the weekend I’ll maybe dig out these old Scotland Story videos and start digitizing them for posterity if nothing else

  367. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    Galamcennalath, the idea that delay is rust on success is certainly motivating, but is probably best tempered with one of life’s great lessons, namely that ‘timing is everything’. As everyone who, through miss-timing, has gone through a red traffic light and had to pay the £60 fine will tell you.

    When Brexit is legally enacted, the timing of it will be precise. A split second later, and Scotland will be dragged out of the EU against the sovereign will of the Scottish people. A case to answer. However, a split second before, should Nicola jump the gun, there will be no case to answer, because dragged out of the EU hasn’t happened.

    Timing, in the case of Brexit, is everything.

  368. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Johnson yesterday. What the BBC didn’t show ….

    https://mobile.twitter.com/davidschneider/status/1156110670678679552

  369. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    Nice one, Galamcennalath. Right there, the sound of the turning tide in favour of Independence for Scotland.

  370. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    @manandboy

    Johnson then left by the back door. Presumably word had got out and the crowd was larger.

  371. Confused
    Ignored
    says:

    There’s been some arguments on wings about the polls over the years – how much can you trust them, and so on

    – the point has been made that polls and surveys as well as “think tank reports” are often used to SHAPE public opinion, not just report it

    I saw one yesterday that seems to claim :

    LABOUR would win a GE IF CORBYN was NOT leader

    – if you believe that is KOSHER, then you’re a shlomiel – hint, hint

    “hey jeremy why dontcha step down for the good of the party – if you leave, you will WIN”

    (conjures up images of lucy offering charlie brown a kick at the football)

    I have not seen any new polls for independence with Boris + Hard Brexit – maybe they are sitting on this?

  372. auld highlander
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m convinced that the bbc “tinkered” with the volume whilst later that night on Sky the booing and jeering that doris received was a hell of a lot louder.

  373. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    OT

    Did you know that Nicola Sturgeon has just given a TED Talk ?!!

    As we all now expect it was excellent 🙂

    TED Talk and, in lesser news, lets PM in the front door and releases him out the back, all in the one week!

    TED Talk : ‘Why Governments should prioritise well being.’

    I AM SO PROUD OF SCOTLAND’S FIRST MINISTER 🙂

  374. chicmac
    Ignored
    says:

    Graeme

    This was at a time when a big HD was in the Gig range and memory c 16K.

    Final compression wasn’t quite on the fly, when you made a dvd it took longer to make than real time, further compression.

    It only stored about 10 hours of recording, IIRCC, on its, then massive, internal HD.

    Hope you do get it digitised.

  375. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    manandboy @ 11.11am

    Spot on and well said.

    Timing is everything.

    Hold.

  376. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    “That makes me think that whatever Boris Johnson might be saying publicly about his preference being to strike a deal, in reality he is really pursuing a no-deal Brexit because that is the logic of the hardline position that he has taken,” she said
    “I think that is extremely dangerous for Scotland, indeed for the whole of the UK.”
    Nicola Sturgeon needs to get out of this rhetorical rut. The British state is quitting the European Union. Nothing can now prevent that. Securing Scotland’s independent future should be the prime concern.

  377. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    “True, but then they’d precious little of any substance in 2014 either…”

    Agreed @Breeks says at 10:43 am

    But this is 2019.

    They now have Brexit coming up at them fast (most probably NO Deal, WTO Rules Styli) and a larger % of the Electorate aware of their bullshit.

    And fewer of the lies they had in 2014 as most have been discredited in the intervening 5 years.

    They pretty much expended all Ordnance in 2014 thinking they wouldn’t have to either justify themselves or fight a rerun so soon after.

  378. Blair Paterson
    Ignored
    says:

    There are companies advertising that you could be owed thousands of pounds if you we’re misold an insurance policy could the same laws not be applied to governments who break their manifesto promises I am 80 years of age and paid an national insurance stamp all my working life to cover health care etc., but my service has got worse 3 week wait to my doctor big waiting times for hospital appointments and operations etc., and this all due to governments policy on imagration And peoples from abroad coming here and receiving free treatment that I had to pay for it was not free for me I think I should be able to claim to being misold a policy???

  379. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Ottamanboy and Blair.

    Do get a grip.

    What utter nonsense.

  380. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    https://www.rt.com/usa/465296-sanders-campaign-manager-rips-msm/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Email

    OK, so this the USA, and its about “Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager Faiz Shakir who was invited to speak with CNN’s Brian Stelter on air about complaints of media bias against the left, and seized the opportunity to deftly disembowel corporate media.” But, guess what? We have precisely the same problems here in Scotland. In some instances, even worse, given that Scotland is prohibited by England from having its own independent TV and Press.

    The bottom line is it’s a rigged game. Imagine going to a meeting anywhere, to find that only white men over 40 are allowed to use the microphone. That’s how England treats Scotland. We don’t get to use the microphone, ie TV & Press. We have to rely on Social media. And 50 million English people say, ‘what’s wrong with that?’

  381. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    Ms Sturgeon’s TED talk

    https://www.ted.com/talks/nicola_sturgeon_why_governments_should_prioritize_well_being/up-next

    Also, article, part 1 of 3, on Newsnet: Such a parcel o’ rogues

    https://newsnet.scot/commentary/such-a-parcel-o-rogues-1/

  382. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh, nearly forgot, as well as the Scottish Unionist Alliance, the Tories, Labour & LibDems working together to defeat the Sovereignty of the Scottish people.

  383. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Been paddling on a sunny warm Fife Beach on East Neuk all morning before the weather changes for the worst.
    My worries over Scotland’s currency evaporate a little 🙂

    Got in the car to get home and heard Beattie on radio shortbread correct a pundit discussing the plight of the pound by reminding her ” Scotland too” as she referred to England / England as she gave advice. 🙂

    Back to reality in a flash = SNAFU 🙁

  384. Petra
    Ignored
    says:

    You hear so much claptrap, via the MSM, about Ruth Davidson doing so well in Scotland that you’d be inclined to think that she was actually the First Minister. The Tories are now popular in Scotland. The Scots don’t want Independence. Boris is going to unite the Union and so on and yet not one of them from Cameron, May, Davidson or Johnston has ever gone walkabout in Edinburgh or Glasgow, like Nicola Sturgeon (previously without as much as a bodyguard). Boris arrived at Bute House yesterday surrounded by Police and a massive entourage that practically bolted through the door in front of Nicola Sturgeon and then snuck out of the back door. Says it all for me. Time too for Dirty money Davidson to take to the streets if she thinks that she and her message are popular in Scotland, instead of hiding behind her barrage of leaflets. We’d see how popular she was then.

    And I see that they’ve kind of dropped the, “Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t have a mandate to hold Indyref2 as a majority of Scots don’t want it”, not too much being said either, this time around, about the benefits of the “UK broad shoulders” rather they’re focusing on the “once in a lifetime” excuse now. The sovereign Scots were sold out in 1707 by a handful of Scottish noblemen. If they think that we, the sovereign people of Scotland, are going to be sold out again by one comment made by one man (that could have referred to a five year period), they’ve got another think coming. Add to that the MILLIONS of lies, dirty dealings and promises that they’ve broken over time including of course that, if we voted for Independence we’d be slung out of the EU. … followed by them attempting to drag us out. Taking everything into account they’re onto plums now.

    …………….

    Thanks for the links Nana (8:03am). I’ll check them out later when I get more time.

  385. Jack Murphy
    Ignored
    says:

    A PHOTO of a former UKOK Prime Minister visiting Faslane in 2013.

    I can’t help shouting this:

    “DOWN PERISCOPE”

    “CLOSE HATCHES”

    “DIVE”- !
    “DIVE”- !
    “DIVE”-!

    The Record:
    http://archive.is/7Intb

  386. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    manandboy @ 11:11,

    Oh, I just can’t let that conclusion pass unchallenged. It’s like saying that the way to win a football match is to show up a minute after full time! Duh.

    If someone knows they’re going to be evicted (say), do they wait passively until eviction day then start to campaign against it? Of course not. They try their damnedest to bestir themselves beforehand to forestall the evil event before it actually happens.

    This blasted Scottish passivity is so annoying. Hoping somehow that a combination of a UKGov fait accompli and events over which we have no control – the post-Brexit environment – will somehow all align in our favour. As if.

    If this is the best strategy we can think up, we’re done for.

  387. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Having a read back through some older thread posts.

    galamcennalath says:
    28 July, 2019 at 8:55 pm

    The majority of Scots do live within easy travelling distances on major hospitals and shopping. However, a great many don’t. Remote communities are often more remote than city dwellers appreciate.

    From islands a significant amount of air travel on scheduled flights is taken up by patients going to city hospitals for anything from regular checkups to specialised treatment.

    Are people aware that across the remoter Highlands and Islands, pregnant women are strongly advised to leave home and family and go to stay with relatives or friends in population centres for the final few weeks of pregnancy?

    Buses, trains, and bicycles are an irrelevance across much of Scotland.

    Remote communities need support or they will be abandoned. Do we really want a second wave of clearances in the name of being Green?

    Modern day clearances of younger people from rural areas are already in effect. There’s various reasons for that such as being priced out of their local housing market and limited employment opportunities.
    The rural estates often rent out numerous properties. These houses are generally of old stock and often come with the usual issues such as high energy bills.
    Due to the topography of the rural land where I live the temps in winter can be 5 deg colder than 15 miles away in town so that’s extra energy and cost required to keep tolerably warm in that poorly insulated housing.
    There may be a nice garden with a rural house or flat, but because the tenants have to work long hours and commute to work to earn enough to try to cover the bills, they don’t have the time or energy to maintain a garden. So that on top of high rents means staying in the area is not easy.

    Nearly all the estates local to me have installed huge and expensive biomass heating systems and reap the subsidies to heat “the big hoose” while their tenants struggle to stay warm in winter. I understand these biomass boilers need to use a certain pellet to get the subsidy, so the estates transport in stuff from goodness knows where and don’t even harvest the windfall of wood from their extensive acreage of grounds which is often left to rot.
    Landowners are getting subsidies for planting more trees “coz the environment and climate change”, yet cruise liners are continuing to be built that burn fuel at absolutely staggering rates. Pissing in the wind comes to mind, but hey, at least the already wealthy continue to get subsidies…

    The constant turnover of transient residents in these rented estate properties, plus holiday home ownership, means the local community is in constant flux, thus making it difficult to maintain a viable amount of committed people taking on and building aspects of “community empowerment”.
    Community Councils are struggling to keep going and many fold, so power continues to remain centralised in councils and government.
    Locally to me we have a few glimmers of hope with some younger residents moving into the area from elsewhere, but a lot of the positive shoots that we are trying to grow are quite unique as they are being facilitated by the endevours of a couple of altruistic individuals. Hopefully their committed efforts will continue to be a catalyst in developing a new and positive effect in the community.

  388. Confused
    Ignored
    says:

    saw C4 news tonite –

    COME ON THE WELSH!

    – Owen Glendower, ya bass

    Pincer Move?

    – just nane iy yir nonsense ’bout historical claims to Stratclyd

  389. Nigel Stapley
    Ignored
    says:

    There was a march of between 8000 and 10000 people through Caernarfon last Saturday in support of independence. This follows a similar rally a few weeks ago in Caerdydd (based again on the same pattern as your own, your very own, AUOB) which was attended by some 3000 from all over our country.

    I thought I’d mention it because, unless you were taking a wanton deep dive down into the EBC’s and ‘I’TV’s news websites out of boredom, you would never have known.

    The London press ignored it totally, natch. Nary a mention in any of their organs [disambiguation needed]. Not news.

    Something may at last be stirring here, although the factionalism by the left of what still tries to call itself ‘The Party Of Wales’ is evident, from the way that members of their youth wing surreptitiously put ‘Anti-Fascism’ stickers on the backs of representatives of the recently-founded Ein Gwlad party. PC has been challenged on this, and to state specifically why they think that EG is ‘fascist’; but PC has been taken over by the ‘wokeists’ who put sectional and sectarian identity politics ahead of the national interest. This is one reason why their electoral support has flatlined over the last 20 years (the recent poll doesn’t give it much more than it has been getting in elections anyway).

    In any case, if any of you are interested in what EG’s policies and positions actually are, then you can read them here: https://eingwlad.wales/.

  390. David
    Ignored
    says:

    Regarding bus passes the Scottish Government did carry out a review its the cost and numbers eligible .
    The plan was to make changes for new claimers decided to leave as is.
    Labour campaigned to keep the passes as they were



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