Wings Over Scotland

All the F@ckwits like Macpherson in the SNP aren’t even Free Staters.

They are simply British Unionists who want to hold, and enjoy the trappings of, power forever. At our expense.

We know they are Fraudsters. And now they are bold enough now to tell you that they are fraudsters.

“This next chapter of devolution.”

Why even bother saying anything else? What a smug, smarmy, arrogant, ignorant cunt.

Tragic. Unbelievable that the wonderful positive revolutionary movement of 2014 has been tricked into the position where nonentities like MacPherson can talk of devolution being the aim, and 25 years the timescale for anything more to be achieved.

How are these SNP and Green allowed to busk along as if everything is fine and dandy with them “in charge”?

Meanwhile females and children are exposed to these same people pushing paedophilia and fetishes of all kinds on to the populace. What a swamp our society has become, aided and abetted by police, judges, prison service, Councils.

Sorry, can’t even laugh at it any more.

The last sentence of Rev Stu’s article is wrong. The SNP is already another cheek of the Unionist arse.

Almost all of the party’s self-serving MSPs and MPs are more interested in protecting their personal gravy trains than achieving indepedence. Fuck ’em.

When the SNP membership voted in Yousaf with the help of Murrell and GCHQ that said it all really, in my opinion the SNP became a party for devolution when you exposed Sturgeon in your Betrayer thread, from there on in the SNP on the indy front went downhill rapidly.

We’re left with the Alba party we must give our votes to them.

vote Alba, Join Alba do it for Scotland.

The SNP do not think Independence is achievable, or indeed desirable. Clearly they wish to retain the safety net provided by being part of the UK and are playing the stalling game to ensure that remains.

What are the prerequisite conditions for the SNP to leave the UK? Whatever they are they will never be met. People have literally given up their lives for Independence.

The SNP can’t give up suckling at the teat of Westminster which laughably gives us nothing more than doling out to us our own money in any event.

Cowards every one of them.

I wonder what the progressives in the SNP who didn’t want independence but instead wanted to carve out their socialist niche in Scotland are starting to think. With a “closer relationship” between the SNP and a Labour Party that is sliding to the right that would all seem to be in jeopardy.

It’s the same story with the Europhiles. Unless Sunak and then Starmer are intent on the long game of getting the UK back into the EU then all those that pinned their hopes on an independent Scotland getting readmitted are going to come up empty handed.

So the unionist, neoliberals are in charge of the SNP and are doing their best to reintegrate Scotland into a future lead by Johnson or Truss.

There’s still a large faction of the Tory Party who believe in the Singapore on Thames model for the UK. All those incompetents who think that Better Together is the easy path to a life overflowing with gravy had better think again, lest they be first on the chopping block.

Everything he said was effectively coming straight from Humza Yousaf.

Humza is not a nationalist and has already told ‘white people’ he doesn’t like them.

What does he have to do to get the message across, spit on Greyfriars Bobby?

Does anyone know for sure whether or not the SNP does analysis with typical voters to assess reaction to this type of thing before saying about it publicly.

You know, ‘market research’? I got asked to do it once, was invited into the McLellan Galleries, got asked about 30 questions about a new design of container for Jaaps Health Salts, then got a free Mars bar.

Reason I ask is that I don’t believe the SNP are even bothering with that type of thing (if they ever did) for two reasons, the first being that it costs dosh they don’t have and secondly, they really don’t fuckin care.

They’re just making it up as they go along and they’re getting away with it because we let them.

Sarah, upthread, nails it:

Does anyone remember being stopped in the street and asked questions about all that stuff either? Or promises in the manifesto promising ‘a guy wearing his old dear’s kit, for every library and school‘?

They sound desperate.
Btw if MacPherson would put on some lippie and steal some ladies’ luggage he could pass for Sam Brinton.

That bloke’s my MSP. I haven’t a clue what he’s done since being elected, other than junior ministerial jobs and a couple of unconvincing, anxiety-ridden appearances on Debate Night. I think he’s less use than a chocolate fireguard.

Tartan Tories (SNP) Magenta Tories (Labour) Cabbage Greens and that which Bevan once noted is “lower than Vermin” …

“And for The National to be quoting SNP sources in such strong terms really is a big red flag, if you’ll forgive the term.”

If only… the Red Flag was torn up for floorcloths a long time ago. Certainly; the SNP long-abandoned social justice as any kind of genuine objective long before they got power. It’s hardly surprising that independence has also become something inconvenient to their real purpose… Which is, like all the other parties to keep the noses of an elite few firmly in the public trough.

Disaffecting and alienating voters is a ‘good’ strategy for such types. The childish cross-party sniping and posing; virtue-signalling and self-aggrandising… these thing repulse most ordinary people.

…The ‘designed to fail’ projects and policies such as the DRS exist only to create conflict and (as a side process) line a few cronies’ pockets.

It’s all nothing more than circus… performative politics… no panem though; except for the chosen few and a few crumbs for those that pay homage to the self-appointed tin gods…

OF COURSE THE SNP HAVE ABANDONED AND BETRAYED THE CAUSE OF ACHIEVING INDEPENDENCE just as the pitiful shadow that once was the Labour Party has abandoned Socialism and social justice. And indeed just as what once was the Ecology party has morphed into something very queer (in the sense of being just peculiar and dysfunctional) with no real concern for the environment… ‘the sky is falling’ they say; and they are the sole manufacturers and distributors of pit props.

What did y’all expect them to do?

Politics generally; it isn’t just a load of old bollocks – it’s HYPERBOLLOCKS. Democracy (in any meaningful sense) left for the coast a couple of generations ago.

VOTE BLANC! – None of these people deserve the steam off your piss let alone your vote!

Plenty of people wanting charge ahead for Indy. And none of them with a plan for what that would mean.

Trade? Write off the EU and EFTA for trade deals unless there’s a S30 referendum. And write off rUK unless Scotland does it with a S30 referendum, and takes on a proportionate share of U.K. national debt.

Currency?

Central bank? Write off the Scottish financial sector without one of those, and that’s 8% of Scottish GDP you won’t see again.

Credit rating? Watch your mortgages go to eye-watering levels without a currency, central bank, and a reputation for walking away from your debts.

About 55,000 UK public sector jobs disappearing without trace.

International recognition? Write that off as well from all serious countries, unless there’s a S30 referendum. You might get Yemen, South Sudan and North Korea onside. But that’s about it.

It’s going to take about 25 years to come up with a serious plan.

Perhaps the SNP have it right?

Scot abroad/sensible Dave

Go and fing a unionist site where you can shine

I expect a considerable number of establishment types ensconced themselves in the party at the beginning of the Murrell dynasty. No doubt they’ll all communicate across party boundaries – hence Gove’s prediction. I’d say there is very little chance of the SNP standing under a YES banner at the GE. The once in a generation myth may well come to pass 🙁

AnneDon says: 8 June, 2023 at 2:01 pm

“So what is the SNP actually for? They have acted as colonial administrators since Sturgeon took charge.”

And for long before that… Who was it presided over the long-planned decimation of the Scottish FE sector? Made a revenant shadow of what it once was after more than a decade of firefighting.

Who crawled like a bubble-headed schoolgirl up Trump’s arse to the detriment of Aberdeenshire?

Who presided over that infantilised lunatic Stephen ‘Supercop’ House (well-connected Private-schoolboy) becoming Chief Constable of Strathclyde then Police Scotland?

I can remember sitting in the pub with my old Head Of Department at the MCI Department of Stow College in the June of 2007, as we broke up for the summer… How hopeful we were that all the years of trauma we’d experienced since the turn of the century were over; and the we could look forward to getting on with building a world-beating Creative Industries department…

“Social justice Matt, that what I want and that’s why I voted SNP” spake my esteemed colleague – I nodded in firm agreement, as I had too for the same reason.

The next five years saw the department descend into a toxic hell – destroying people’s lives, livelihoods and even their sanity as the political wrecking ball swung; turning colleague against colleague. I resigned in 2012; it was literally killing me… by 2013 the entire college was gone!

I think you actually answer your initial question yourself. – Colonial Administrators… The Holyrood Raj!

ASA @ 15.02
25 years to achieve workable solutions ? Surely you jest.
In the space of some 7 years a certain Mr Salmond ran, initially, a minority government, balanced the books, achieved competent governance and built up support for independence from around 8% to around 48%.
Dare I suggest that had we a competent devolved administration, more interested in building an equitable and fair society than in political posturing and nest feathering,
along the lines of the executive run by Mr S we would by now have achievable goals to address the issues you raise.
Even more importantly, such a demonstrably non extremist and competent administration would have every chance of influencing the “soft no” vote who would require to be convinced to vote yes in a future referendum or plebiscite election.
Here in Scotland we do not lack resources, talent or ability; what we have lacked for the past 9 years has been an administration willing to forsake headline grabbing, grievance making and self aggrandisement and profit.
Bring back the type of local councillor and trades union steward we had when I left school in 1960, men and women to whom public service and the betterment of their fellow citizens were more than soundbites and just see what could be achieved.

For those wondering where ‘The Sturge’ has been hovering, they gave her some crayons to write a piece (of what you may well ask) in the ‘Glasgow Times’ the other day. I thought it worth addressing…

link to glasgowtimes.co.uk

“In fact, a clear pattern has now emerged in Scottish politics. ”

Yes it has Nicola… One where the entire political landscape is dominated by self-serving, self-aggrandising and deeply dishonest people. People who more often than not lack real-life experience or useful education. Instead they are products of a ‘closed loop’ – an elite. Quite often from private schools… assured places on ‘degree’ course in ‘nothing in particular’ then parachuted directly into equally-assured ‘career politics’.

For the record – I happen to be a dyed-in-the-wool ‘small n’ Scottish Nationalist. – One who ‘can’t understand why we let someone else rule out land, cap in hand’. – And one who is sickened by what the SNP has become; just another Unionist party… Tartan Tories in sheep’s clothing. Who do you vote for when you cannot get a fag-paper between them, the Magenta Tories (Labour) and those who Bevan once described as ‘lower than vermin’ .

Democracy is a myth… and it’s people like you Nicola, and your cronies that have made it so; you don’t reflect the will of the people – you attempt to dictate what it is.

“We are increasingly seeing policies deigned to tackle serious issues – in this case air pollution and climate change”.

No… we are increasingly seeing policies designed to ‘turn the screw’ on the working classes in the interests of a Rentier elite. Part of the ‘pattern’ in Scottish (and UK) politics being the Siphonapteric relationship between our politicians (of all shades and grades). – You and the party you run is and has been very much a part of that. – In fact recent events surrounding your party indicate that it has become bereft of basic integrity at any level. – The rats currently deserting the sinking ship would do well to at least be honest about why the are going.

Big Margo must be turning in her grave!

“It has happened with the proposed Deposit Return Scheme”

… A scheme that is designed to undermine the council-run (publicly owned) recycling schemes that have already been implemented; and divert what money can be made from waste into the pockets of (a select few) big private concerns. A scheme that would require an increase in the transport of waste by motor vehicle; and the abdication of responsibility for that transport – foisting it upon the already hard-pressed ordinary public. A scheme that can only drive food inflation, at a time where, in living memory, people have never struggled to much to put sustenance on the table.

It’s simply dishonest to compare these proposals with what happens in Germany or elsewhere… or what used to happen with ‘Ginger bottles’ or Milk. Because ALL these proposals do is further-privatise the potentially profitable bit of waste collection. – If you were serious Nicola, you’d be investing in more jobs for Waste Collection and Recycling operatives on the public coin. – Putting SERIOUS recycling initiative in place that repurpose these materials locally.

– But no… that doesn’t benefit the cronies, does it?

“and now on the Low Emission Zone too.”

… ‘Social Cleansing’ Zones which further pressure and exploit those who don’t happen to be high earners. You’re banning Euro 5 diesel vehicles many of which are so ‘low emission’ in nature that they are exempt from road tax. – These aren’t ‘old cars’ or ‘most polluting’. Of course as ‘social engineering’ policies go, this well-suits the ends of the Spivs and Speculators of the Rentier set so beloved of (and often forming) our political overlord-class (of all grades and shades!) … their cronies, and their self-serving interests.

The aim of the ‘LEZ as implemented in Scotland is to encourage people to SCRAP vehicles that not only meet very high emissions standards, but are not even a fraction of the way through their natural lifecycle. – The wider environmental implications of that are horrendous. And who else benefits?

In its ultimate form all this nonsense has nothing to do with protecting the environment. – It’s about large mining corporations seeking to replace the finite fossil fuel resource (and the lucrative feeding frenzy they’ve enjoyed for generations) with another; that of exploiting rare earths and metals… This, together with keeping consumers tied to the debt cycle (big finance corporations) through the constant replacement of goods with relatively short service lives.

The more often you have to replace your car; the better it suits them! God-forbid somebody should produce something actually sustainable and serviceable that could be kept on the road for 30 or more years; upgraded along the way. It’s entirely possible; just not in the Rentier’s interests. – Likewise look at the resistance to alternative (sustainable) fuels etc.

The strategy adopted by the Scottish Government is to price the working poor out of personal transport and/or bind them to the debt-cycle. – Such schemes are FAR more profitable for the Rentier classes and their cronies than investing in proper traffic management… re-routing, satellite parking etc. which would operate in the longer term; and allowing cars to ‘become cleaner’ through the more organic process of mandating for improvement in the manufacture of cars and allowing older vehicles to simply ‘pass away’; as they inevitably do.

“Early evidence also suggests that it will be effective – on the first day of the LEZ coming into force last week, it is reported that levels of nitrogen dioxide in Hope Street fell by a third. ”

It was reported Nicola yes… but it turned out to be a croc based on misreported statistics and has been debunked. The Herald claim that NO2 in g/m3 was (at 09:00hrs on each day) 64.8 for May 30th… 61.7 for the 31st… 45.13 for the 1st of June and 45.9 for the 2nd.

In fact DEFRA’s chart tells us that the figures were 66.34 for the 30th, 63.41 for the 31st, 46.28 for the 1st and 41.11 for the second. – So the figures don’t tally – But surely the general trend is still proven? No… More telling are the peak figures over the day.

On the 30th of May the peak was 70.05 at 07:00am
On the 31st it was that 63.41 at 09:00am
On the 1st of June, when the LEZ was introduced it was 72.48! – just an hour after the ‘headline’ 9:00am figure
On the 2nd of June peak NO2 was 101.28 at 19:00hrs… the morning peak having been 58.71 at 08:00

And so it goes on… 72.86 on the 3rd, 42.84 on SUNDAY morning (the 4th) 61.58 on Monday the 5th…

WELL in excess of 99% of all real-world businesses in the UK are actually sole traders and/or microbusinesses… most suffered badly during the COVID crisis many with little or no meaningful support. – Many people were shut down for three years without a blind penny in cash nor kind! Those people are on no politico’s radar. – Nor really are the ordinary workers and consumers this will drive away. – Just remember Weegies; Glasgow no longer belongs to you!

My company has a very simple response to the LEZ and similar schemes: We will not be taking any vehicle of any kind into any kind of congestion charging or low emissions zone whether the vehicle is ‘compliant’ or ‘exempt’ or we can ‘pay a fee’ to enter or not. They can shove their no-go zones up their flying Aspidistras! As these places clearly don’t want vehicular traffic, we’ll happily help them meet that objective!

This effectively means of course that we won’t be doing business at all within the Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee or Aberdeen LEZs. – To be fair, we actually withdrew service from Glasgow city-centre last October; having finally become sick and tired of the ‘Hazzard County’ style traffic management schemes… given the experience of which, we’re not coming within a country mile of the LEZ boundaries because we really don’t trust the City of Glasgow to signpost them properly.

And yes; we do believe ‘entrapment’ is something GCC would do in order to raise revenue and that this is about revenue raising; regardless of the denials.

In fact; by way of example take the old Stow College building which itself is actually outside the LEZ. The very short section of West Graham St behind it, Scott Street and Shamrock Street are however inside the ‘no-go’ zone! – Meaning it’s physically impossible to access this building (which is outside the LEZ remember) without entering the LEZ – and potentially getting fined!

That one leapt out at me as I know the place particularly well; but if there’s one example of this sort of thing there will be others.

Another place affected by this carelessly drawn boundary is the PDSA… where the clientele tend to be less-well heeled and if they own a vehicle at all, more likely to be driving something older; distraught impoverished pet-owners being used as cash cows sums up the GCC mentality. – Chinatown no-more too! – The once-lively industrial estate around Kyle St; another place that is being figuratively razed by a policy that is about nothing about stats-fiddling and revenue raising.

Rote management… C Northcote Parkinson outlined it back in the ’50s; and I dare say it wasn’t a new phenomena then. – The tail of vacuous and often falsified statistics wags the dog of function.

… And while the ‘Little Neros’ of Castle Greyskull (Glasgow City Chambers) an the ‘chummies’ at Holyrood continue to fiddle the figure merrily; Glasgow – in commercial and business terms – continues to be razed. Soon to be followed by Edinburgh which is putting a hospital and the university behind a ‘paywall’

I wonder how long it will be before some or other of them floats a proposal to reintroduce wild Boar to the City Centre?

“a healthier environment, and the creation of city spaces that are more liveable,”

Liveable for who? – What are you going to do when you can’t get the streets swept, the tables wiped nor the lavvies cleaned in your elitist Utopia? Because people cannot afford to take jobs in the City Centres!

You’ve already created the situation Nicola where many an honest and good trades person CANNOT AFFORD to provide service, or to buy or to sell in Glasgow. Where already established businesses in places that aren’t really near the City Centre are being forced out of business! Were tourists are expressing shock and dismay and planning NEVER to return to Glasgow, Edinburgh or Dundee (such is the paucity of information)…

I’m not particularly supportive of yet another ‘drive thru’ run by some megacorp either. But then we need to see your comments in terms of your track record. It might well be the case that businesses forced out of the City Centre will gravitate to places like the Gorbals, Springburn, Bridgeton etc… ‘Just like Boris & Co’ – might it be the case that you’re actually planning on extending the ‘no go’ zones such that they creep like a cancer ? What was it those ‘conspiracy theorists’ were saying about 15-minute ‘prison cities’.

Who do you vote for when there isn’t a candidate on the ballot paper that is fit to lick the streets? When all we get are madcap virtue-signalling, stats-fiddling schemes that so anything but ‘response to real problems.’ but more often than not are the CAUSE of real problems!

I’ve been saying for years that what we need is a meaningful ‘vote blanc’ option which, if returned as the majority in any electoral ward or region, BARS all the candidates from holding public office for at least 6 years. And maybe we should also put a limit on how long these clowns can serve – two terms maybe? – Put an end to these ‘parachuted in’ nonentities with degrees in ‘nothing or use’ for whom politics is a cushy gig.

Which voters are the SNP now openly appealing to? Would be handy if we had reliable figures from a well managed ‘recent’ census to help out.

Excellent piece, Stu! Looks like we’ve hit-the-wall; a wall that many of saw coming quite a while ago. That’s not defeatism, it’s the only rational conclusion. By voting Alba and placing Salvo/Liberation.scot at the centre of the movement and working amongst the public in a dedicated and imaginative manner, the vacuum bequeathed us by the now openly-devolutionary SNP can be quickly filled.

Alf Baird’s analysis, as laid-out in his shamefully neglected book Doun-Hauden, predicted the colonial administration’s capitulation, and is so obviously deserving of many more readers within the movement. The realisation that we’ve hit a brick-wall can be viewed either with despair or, as an opportunity to completely revitalise the movement; this time without demagoguery, and in a form of our own choosing.

Shug 3.20 pm, i read that quickly as ‘go and find a unionist shite where you can shine’.

Matt Quinn 3.47pm. Great post Matt.

Buttery Ben finally, inadvertently, does Scotland a service by making it completely obvious that nuSNP are 100% unionist.

This oleaginous chancer is so like Tony Blair in the early years. Next, like Blair did, he’ll be talking about a Big Tent politics.

Unionist A Scot Abroad keeps asking for all the details of how Scotland could manage to remain a viable country… whilst seemingly oblivious to the reality of being in this supposedly great union when we can’t even buy eggs in the shops!
To paraphrase John Main “Show me the fucking eggs”

link to dailysceptic.org

Antoine Roquentin @ 4:14 pm

“Alf Baird’s analysis, as laid-out in his shamefully neglected book Doun-Hauden, predicted the colonial administration’s capitulation”

Thanks Antoine. We are fortunate to have the decolonization template from postcolonial theory enabling us to follow so many other liberated peoples on the long road to freedom. As you imply, this predicts the collapse of the dominant national party that colonialism has co-opted and corrupted. It also informs us that we are now shifting, thanks to better understanding of what independence means, from an independence movement to a liberation movement: link to liberation.scot

link to salvo-cor.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com

Dan,

plenty of eggs in the shops here. Perhaps you need to tell your favoured shop to sort their supply chain out.

Will Alex Salmond/ALBA now , finally , stop trying to find common ground with the Labour wannabe SnP . How much more apparent must their ( SnP ) worthlessness become before they ( ALBA ) declare war on them , and do to them what his SNP did to Scottishish Labour ?

Someone upthread said he’ll vote for them ” through gritted teeth ” . FFS , why ?

Why would ANY Independence supporter vote for that mob of useless treacherous bastards ?

I will never vote for any Unionist Party . Nu SnP are nothing more than a rainbow tartan version of one of those Scotland Last entities . Even worse , in fact , as at least Lab/Con/Lib are openly anti-Independence ; whereas the Nonce Party pretend to be pro-Independence whilst mere using the pretence to harvest votes

Anyone who by now can’t see for themselves what that Party has become deserves to have their intelligence and faith insulted and will have zero right to complain when their lives are further negatively impacted by the demented clown show of Nu SnP * governance *

Economic viability as a state has little to do with being an independent state.
It seems only Scotland must fulfil the former requirement, the diabolic «case for independence» which no other state on the planet has been required to.
Independence of a nation needs no «case» to be made, only those opposed might think it necessary.

I wasn’t too long out of nappies (learnt to use potty and toilet trained as a toddler so not one of those weirdo nappy fetishists!) when this was going on.
Years late and 200 million over budget sounds familiar.

link to en.wikipedia.org

Lorna Campbell,5.25pm,well said!

Does anyone,the nhs perhap’s provide a treatment for politicianitis?

Indydepressant is free i hear,if there’s enough demand!

Roughly 70,000 people signing up to Salvo (they need 100k signatures) have been diverted to a cloned fake page of Salvo by the English security services.

link to thehub.scot

Watched the longer version on youtube and a more positive take from it would be Pat Kane’s enthusiasm for AI.. especially if we can find a way to fix the broken politics and leverage Scots Rockstars into regulatory positions rather than the type of supranational orgs that (still!) appear to have no remorse over trying to give the worlds populations a mental illness over common cold.

link to youtube.com

How do you go down a gear from reverse?

What kind of vehicle is Hum Haw Youz Ef driving?

And is it insured?

Or even insurable?

Who will insure a liability like that one, with what must be not one but two reverse gears?

Is the extra reverse gear designed to allow high-speed backward movement, with quicker-than-ever acceleration?

If so, will the Hum Haw vehicle in which it has been fitted crash?

And when it does, how many victims will it take with it?

These are the questions which need to be answered. So – finally – Why did Question time never ask them?

Republicofscotland,

“ a cloned fake page of Salvo by the English security services”.

Honestly, you do make stuff up. First about GCHQ meddling in the SNP leader election, when all they did was to provide via the NCSC their standard support to any political party (a legal duty laid upon them), and now somehow the “English” security services trying to fakeSalvo’s support away from them.

Zero evidence from you. Zero credibility on you.

@WingsScotland
·
3h
Ben Macpherson is just a baldy Gordon Brown.”

Hope not.

Brown is known for his light touch regulation of the banks that allowed them to engage in risky mortgage loans being taken out in the USA. The increase in interest rates there caused massive defaults on loans. The collapse spread to the UK. Brown and Darling bailed out the banks, exited and the Tories gave us austerity.

Brown also imposed light touch regulation on Foundation Hospital Trusts. The Trusts are semi-autonomous and could engage non-NHS doctors and nurses without paying NHS rates of pay, The Trusts were intended to compete with each other and with private hospitals. Light touch regulation with this kind of competitice set up carried risk for patients.

Light touch regulation also carried risk for patients when doctors causing harm were ignored. The whistle was blown on Ian Paterson more than once but he was allowed to continue to harm his women patients. Paterson worked for the NHS and privately and over 14 years did unnecessary surgery and incompetent surgery on hundreds of women. Many died and around 750 have had compensation

One of the great scandals of England’s NHS is that of the Mid Staffs hospital. The BMJ carried an article on it and there’s plenty online.

Management reduced nursing numbers to save funds. Patients were left without adequate care. Doctors and nurses had inadequate training. Receptionists did the triage of patients.

Food and drink was left out of reach of patients and was then taken away uneaten and undrunk. Patients resorted to drinking water from vases of flowers.

One patient had no bath or shower in her stay of a month. Because no-one was available to escort patients to toilets they were told to “go” in their beds.

All of this happened over years despite complaints from family members, one of which related to an elderly woman whoc contracted a C difff infection in the hospital. Her daughter said she had often to remove faeces from her mother’s hands.

Despite the complaints the level of care of the hospital was judged to be adequate, and later good by the bodies charged with doing care assessments.

There have been other desperate scandals in England’s NHS.

How degraded by governments has the UK become.

I had been thinking for some time, that the entire reason for the Sturgeon/SNP go slow and delays over indy were down to one thing, they had already quite a few years ago done a deal with Labour. Sturgeon was a devolutionist, so the plan would have been that as soon as Labour got elected to Westminster, they would kick into action a devo max option, which the SNP leadership have already agreed to. In essence, agreeing to a plan by Gordon Brown.

This explains the dithering over brexit. They full expected Labour to be elected at Westminster last time around, or at the least for the Tory government to fall. This explains the failure to actually change tack following the English ‘supreme’ court decision.

This also explains why they tried to frame Salmond, and to this day, keep bad mouthing him and the Alba party. They know he would not ever agree to such nonsense.

This ALL now fits.

Of course, due to English voter attitudes, Labour could never say they had a deal in place with the SNP, indeed I think they doth protest too much on that point.

Once Labour win in Westminster, however, then it will be played as ‘The vow’ 2.0. Sir Starmer will tell English voters he will ‘fix’ the Scotland problem for good. It will be the union 2.0 locking Scotland to English colonial rule forever. They will tell us, ‘look we’ll give you all these new diddy powers for your wee pretendy parliament, but London will still rule’. The SNP will just sit and nod their heads.

The SNP, the ‘please let us stay in the union’ party.

A bunch of charlatans, an absolute parcel of rogues.

At the next SNP conference they will be singing rule Britannia, instead of Scots wha hae (which they used to sing).

Matt quinn at 347pm,

Excellent post regarding the utter bullsh*t called the low emission zones. You are right, the only way to deal with them is to boycott any and all businesses and services within those areas, even if you have a ‘compliant vehicle’.

Let’s be clear, they will need to generate revenue to keep all thos ULEZ cameras running, so year upon year, they will increase the restrictions. You might be compliant now, but they will soon change that.

People need to wise up at the lies they are getting told by the greeny loonies/SNP. For example, Edinburgh has among the very best air quality in the entire UK, and then there is Dundee, where most of the city centre is pedestrianised anyway, so what is the point of even adding a ULEZ, especially in such a tiny city centre. Absolute nonsense.

Oh, and the number plate recognition cameras for the ULEZ? Give it a year or two, and they will be used for tracking people – you know the 15 minute cities green fascist nonsense, where you will be forbidden from going from one side of Glasgow or Edinburgh to the other.

Ha, this could be Edinburgh in the near future! Classic cars and a 2 stoke on The Mound. Back to the future ya bass!

Big Country – Restless Natives (3 min clip)
link to youtube.com

@Lorna Campbell says:8 June, 2023 at 5:01 pm

If independence is genuinely too difficult for ANYONE to achieve, without plunging into an abyss of war, then, for the love of god, tell us in no uncertain terms

Knock out comment of this thread so far (Sorry Dan, the eggs is good, but just not good enough).

A sneaky little thought that has crossed my mind, more than once. Why invent all of the tractor, colonisation or sabotage tropes when Occam’s Razor suggests that maybes the simplest explanation, it’s just too fucking difficult, explains everything?

Another sneaky little thought follows. Have Sturgeon and the SNP been telling us this all along? What about AS? Did he resign simply because he realised the job was beyond him? Beyond anyone?

NS: I’ll answer the question. You want answers?

Wings BTL: I think I’m entitled to them.

NS: You want answers?!

Wings BTL: I want the truth!

NS: You can’t handle the truth!

Hollywood (Hollyrood) Fiction! Or is it reality?

Hi Dan.

The section with the sheep…

Couldn’t make up my mind whether it was SNP ‘da management’ trying to herd their members, or herd the wider independence movement.

link to youtube.com

@ BDtt

If it helps: Once you are awake, it’s hard to go back sheep…

Ooh, looky here, I’m sure I’ve seen those stats somewhere before.

link to twitter.com

Political manipulation has always gone on, but more recently the
‘Left’ has been diverted from economy to identity/green/WOKE politics, first in the US, then across Europe. – it sure looks like a global agenda.
Until folks admit to themselves that their media lies to them, then there will be no progress.
Start with 911 – How does a 47 story building, not hit by a object, collapse at free fall speed into it’s own footprint?
Therein lies the basis of the coming fascism.

Why are so many of the “Devo or death” fundamentalist folically challenged?
Ben Macpherson, Peter Murrell, Patrick Grady, Toni Giugliano, Marco Biagi, Martin Docherty-Hughes, Stephen Gethins, Kevin Stewart, …

New pro-indy blog Off-Topic Scotland aims to complement the work of other independence-supporting websites had a great first article from Campbell Martin, The State – Who does It Work For. Put up on June 3rd. Another piece by Eva Comrie on the 5th. Today there is coincidently? an editorial by L Bertrand, “It’s propaganda Jim, but not as we know it” that is about John McAfee and his wee video that Ian Brotherhood was asking about a few days ago! link to offtopicscotland.com

Republicofscotland, at 8:11pm,

don’t worry, whenever I notice you post yet another lie about GCHQ or the “English” security services, or lies about other things, I’ll be here to call them out.

Living in Clydesdale constituency I have never had an SNP MP so hopefully will be able to vote Alba or Isp in next election

I have mentioned it before, but more devolution can be – in fact must be delivered by whatever party governs in Scotland – even the Tories.
So effectively, by backing Devo Max, the SNP just killed itself off in its entirety.

We can get Devo Max from the Tories – really, we can. If it’s polls, and surveys we’re after talking about, Scotland unequivocally wants Scotland governed from Holyrood, and wants more powers for it, short of full Independence.
Any party in power in Scotland which doesn’t deliver that, will be swiftly out on its arse again, and there really is no special reason it should be the SNP delivering it.

A sad demise, but just sad for us. The rest of the world is used to parties coming, and going, and filling voids, we have just been a bit bereft of that. If it’s 25 years yer wanting, plenty of time for the SNP to be a footnote in Scotlands political history.
Bye, nice knowing you once.

“If they back the capitulation policy in Dundee later this month, the SNP will become just a third cheek of the Unionist arse. Let’s hope they wake up in time.”

Do you seriously still have any hope in them?

The SNP has been corrupted beyond redemption, the process starting from the day Sturgeon became leader.

@Radical Cartoons who said at 12:45 pm:
“I’ve often thought that Toony Benn’s “Commonwealth of Britain” was the best idea.”

Ireland will not join any “Commonwealth of Britain”.
With Sinn Fein the leading party in Northern Ireland and the Republic, Ireland is moving towards Reunification. NI will be integrated into the EU, not any “Commonwealth of Britain”.

Scotland must do as she wishes.
I hope (have always expected) she would (eventually) opt for Independence. But if a “British Commonwealth” and “devo max” is the sum total of Scotland’s ambition/vision for herself, who can gainsay that?

As a former member of the SNP (I resigned on the Saturday after the launch of Alba and joined Alba), I can say that I emailed my MSP and MP (Fitzpatrick and Law) about the state of the party in February 2021, with no reply.

The SNP has lost the “joining up” they had with their membership they had in past years. The cabal at the top of the SNP management think they know best, about whatever agenda they are pursuing; the remaining membership is merely cannon fodder fed with carrots, to achieve that agenda.

The good independanistas have already left the SNP for ISP and Alba. It’s up to us, the grassroots independence movement, to campaign to educate the Scots who aren’t politically aware, about the real truth about the SNP – particularly regarding the tray-tors to the independence cause known as “the alphabetties”.

We all know who they main perjurers were – tell people!

@BDTT (11.17) –

More power to ye mister.

😉

Galloway Lass,

not aware that I’ve been banned from anywhere.

And you clearly aren’t aware that the nature of politics is that there’s debate of all sides. If you want a “safe space” because you can’t cope with someone who thinks differently, then maybe you’d better find one by closing out the outside world.

Ted Moult,shot himself in 1986,depression they say!He was english!

Maybe it’s the english who hate themselves!
they do seem to respond well (or is it badly?)to hating…(see tories)…

Why do people hate the English ? | Devolution | British Politics | Take Two | 1975

Good grief!

link to youtube.com

“Better to go down a gear and take the journey at a reasonably safe speed, than crash trying to rush things”

Really? How can you go down a gear when you have been in neutral for the past eight years?

Forget about your precious devolution. If you don’t move fwd you end up going back, which is effectively what’s now happening. We have been in reverse gear since the SC decision. Nowhere to hide anymore. But hey ho, keep up the pretense. Some of you might just hold on to your seats, but not all of you will.

This from the ScotsLanguage website.

“From the end of the 1920s the advent of talking movies, radio and television, from which Scots was excluded, ensured that Scots speakers were now regularly exposed to the English sound system and, in particular, the American form. In 1948, for instance, the writer Naomi Mitchison claimed of Glasgow children They do not speak any real variety of Scots, but a blurred, debased English, or since 1942 American. The Third Statistical Account described the relationship between Glasgow Scots speakers and the media in 1958:

They are inclined to be intolerant of city produced programmes and they are practically unanimous in running down the Glasgow accentin the cinema a Glasgow audience responds with laughter to any use of the Glasgow accent from the screen.

Having said that the same writer commented further although Glasgow cinemagoers laugh at the Glasgow accent on the screen, they tend to dislike what they call the English accent. On the other hand, the same Account described the flourishing state of the Glasgow dialect in the theatres and music halls in which it is possible for English visitors to spend an evening there and not understand one word of the comic sketches. What these accounts describe is the way in which the education authorities had succeeded in conditioning Glasgow people to self-censure their own language in favour of English and to self-denigrate Scots generally.”

This from the Irish Times, 2018. Worth a read.

“Last month, some video footage went viral in Ireland of a group of English men verbally abusing young women at a Dublin housing crisis protest. The men, it turned out, were part of a stag party from Bristol and seemed to be dressed intentionally to look like a cartoon of landed gentry, in tweeds and the loudly coloured trousers widely beloved by braying men of a certain kind.

It would have been a strange incident in any case, these English men who look like relics of the landlord class shouting at young Irish people rendered desperate because of skyrocketing rents, but it was to become more absurd still. After calling the women “scroungers” and demanding to know whether they had jobs, one of the men took the decapitated head of a pigeon out of his pocket and threw it at them.

That particular fact won’t make any more sense the longer you look at it, and yet it goes on being true. I watched the video footage over and over, looked at earnest news headlines that simply read, “The footage shows a man verbally abusing protesters, before the head of a decapitated pigeon is thrown”, but no explanation was forthcoming. Why did the man throw a pigeon head at the protesters? More important, why was he carrying one in his pocket, ready, seemingly, to be launched as soon as a worthy adversary appeared?

But stranger still – or perhaps, upon reflection, not strange at all – was the gap between the English and the Irish when it came to interpreting the Pigeon Incident. While Irish people complained on Twitter about these brash bird-head-wielding English tourists coming to our country and performing their odd little colonial pantomime, sensitive Britons were eager to ask why it mattered that the men were English. They’re just louts, they said. Why does it matter where they’re from? After all, all that occupation business was so long ago.”

I ate it. Washed the blood oot the breeks. Didn’t read the piece in the Irish Times, did you? Maroon.

Getting a bit fed up with Wings Indy polis on here trying to shut down posts from @ASA, because he points out some obvious road blocks to Indy etc, The site moderator/owner does not ask what side your own before accepting subscriptions. You pay your money , you make your points. So to anyone suggesting @ASA goes elsewhere , STFU or goes elsewhere .

@John Main

I’ll make it simple for you, you mean, dour, Scotch sweaty sock.

ygUDuh

ydoan
yunnuhstan

ydoan o
yunnuhstand dem
yguduh ged

yunnuhstan dem doidee
yguduh ged riduh
ydoan o nudn

LISN bud LISN

dem
gud
a.m

lidl yelluh bas
tuds weer goin

duhSIVILEYEzum

e e cummings

geddit?

@Anton Decadent

Just wanted to say that it was a pleasure to finally stumble across someone commenting on this blog that is able to put 2 and 2 together on many subjects and not just a few pet ones. A fellow Noticer.

I hope you find more of us in the real world for some support.

I have to consider the impact versus the risk of saying the kind of things we say here, even though my hands are tied on some issues, and ultimately the situation is like talking to a brick wall while potentially violating hate speech laws.

The above comment from Sam at 7:31AM pretty much sums up the real disconnect – an Irish times article about some idiot English from 2018.

2018.

As if nothing has been going on in Ireland since that time on the subject of the Irish losing their country.

We have about 14 or so reasons to continue doing what we do, so I will, but not here.

Just as an aside – I wonder who could have been responsible for Gemma O’Doherty of the Irish Light becoming such a despicable radical?

Good luck.

sam @ 7:27 am

“What these accounts describe is the way in which the education authorities had succeeded in conditioning Glasgow people to self-censure their own language in favour of English and to self-denigrate Scots generally.”

The effect was/is Scotland-wide. ‘Self-hatred’ of indigenous native culture is a key part of the cultural conditioning process in colonial societies. We call this phenomenon the ‘Scottish Cultural Cringe’. It is closely linked to the theory of Linguistic Imperialism (Phillipson), as well as the ‘cultural obliteration’ objective of colonialism (Fanon). The ‘condition’ is also referred to as Internalised Racism, or Appropriated Racial Oppression.

Awbody shuid hiv telt oor daeless SNP Cultur Meenister Robertson, an thon Scottis caibinet wha shoud pertect Scottis langage an cultur. Thay rogues dinnae e’en lairn oor bairns in schuils oor ain braw Scots mither tongue.

As MacDiarmid said, oor ain Scots mither language gie’s us Scots oor ain naitional identity – it is therefore central to the quest for independence: peoples in self-determination conflict are always linguistically divided, and; independence movements depend on the solidarity of the oppressed ethnic group (Hechter).

As Yeats said: “his language is his before it is mine”.

link to grousebeater.wordpress.com

I’m afraid that the cautious posters like ASA are correct. The waving of flags and outbursts of hatred towards other nations will result in a continuation of the sort of representatives who have achieved nothing politically and wrought destruction socially to our country. Our problem is that we tend to believe the propaganda that Independence now will repair all the damage, but it’s patently obvious that is simply wishful thinking, we need a political and economic plan which is believable and which will alter the social balance of power to appeal to the present and future Scottish electoral demographic.
Taking into consideration that this will mean a long and painful battle against 90% of the media and the rooting out of the certifiable pressure groups who represent LGBT+++++ a free workable Independent Scotland seems at least a decade away.

@sam says:9 June, 2023 at 9:24 am

Aren’t you going to call Joe at 9:49 a mean, dour, Scotch sweaty sock too?

Don’t tell me you’re face down on the floor, gnawing at the carpet!

An alarming Telegraph report today on how NHS England & Wales patients may find themselves guilty of discrimination if they refuse the care of a transgender medic. Even people who have dementia could be challenged and their families even asked to leave the premises.

No doubt it will just be a matter of time before something similar is attempted in Scotland too. If so, the charity Alzheimer Scotland would hopefully stand up against it.

link to archive.today

“Our problem is that we tend to believe the propaganda that Independence now will repair all the damage, but it’s patently obvious that is simply wishful thinking,”

Akenaton.

Dross of the highest order there from you as usual, independence allows Scots to choose which direction the country should move forward on, diverging from a foreign countries governments ideology (England) would be the first step, retaining our assets and shipping out US/English nukes would be a priority as well.

Economically we could join EFTA which would allow Scotland access to the EU and UK markets, at present Scotland is in a preposterous situation, a prime example is England making a trade deal with Australia and New Zealand and Scotland had absolutely no say in it.

The above is just a starting point a central bank and our own currency, I favour it being called the Merk would also be top priorities, allowing a foreign country to strip our assets and make important decisions for us such as on immigration has left Scotland in a sorry state, of course Sturgeon sold us out which hasn’t helped the cause. The right FM in place at Holyrood would move Scotland forward quite rapidly I think.

sam says:
9 June, 2023 at 7:31 am
This from the Irish Times, 2018. Worth a read.

In similar vein. In 2005 the Sun reported on a kilted Scottish groom who sat on his new brides lap to pose for photos and left a skidmark on her dress. Hilarious!

The Sturgeon/Yousaf/SNP fanzine the National running an article showing where to go to sign the petition to remove MP Margaret Ferrier.

What a shitrag the National is.

link to 12ft.io

It’s pretty simple. If the SNP are pushing independence to the margins of a 25 year plan, then they are not the independence party at all, and therefore have no purpose other than gaining power under devolution. They should then change their name to what they are – the Scottish Devolution Party, or similar. They have exploited the desire for independence for years, in order to feather their nests. At least Macpherson admits it, with his timid doffing of the cap to Westminster.
But let’s put an end to the misrepresentation of the people by this party of middle class managers and chancers, who have shown how inadequate their skills are even for those limited ambitions. And then we can have a proper transparent debate about independence v devolution with parties which represent those positions honestly. Until then, the whole thing is a charade, conveniently propped up by people whose personal gain is paramount, and who are steeped in deception to maintain those gains.
Time for the SNP to split into parties which actually say what they intend to do, and give people real choices, not phoney promises and never-ending deferrals.
The chaos and incompetence of government in Scotland is a direct result of the concealment by the SNP of their subterfuge and dishonesty – everything stems from that. So let’s get it out in the open and regroup, so we can have honest debate and honest representation.

dasBlimp 10.44am

“On past form, it’s not likely is it”.
Sadly, many would agree with you.

“Mia is prepared to just roll over and accept the corrupt and criminal status quo”

?????

Which part of my comment above makes you think I “accept” the status quo, never mind its corruption and criminality? Please do not put words to my pen.

I appreciate it was rather long, but did you actually read the comment? Because I think you should read it before going on to make false assumptions.

I am saying I have ceased to trust the official result of elections concerning Scotland pretty much since 2014. In other words, I am saying what we are presented as democratic elections/referendums are in my view staged events to ensure “the correct” result (for the crown) is delivered. How is that “rolling over” and accepting the status quo?

I am expressing my personal opinion the British establishment colluded with elements of the SNP in the attempt to imprison Mr Salmond to preserve the status quo. How is that accepting it?

I am expressing my personal opinion Scotland’s main party of independence was hijacked by the powers that be so the status quo could be preserved. Again, how is that “rolling over” and accepting the status quo has any legitimacy?

I am implying that, in my opinion, there are no longer political parties, but just different brands of the same corrupt product controlled by one single entity for its own interest and moved as you can move pieces in a chess board. How is that accepting the status quo?

I have stated many times in here that, unless there is a political party that fields candidates on a manifesto to not take the seats, to not swear allegiance to the crown, to revoke the Treaty of Union and to start immediately negotiating Scotland’s independence, I will add in my own option to the ballot because I am determined to vote for independence no matter what. How is that “rolling over and accepting the status quo”?

I am saying what we call SNP has effectively stopped doing politics and all what they are now doing is now marketing for the union. How is that rolling over to the status quo?

As per Yousaf, when exactly have I ever accepted this man as leader of anything? Did you read my comments on this blog at the time the leadership election was taking place?

There were, in my view, around 8,000 votes with single preference for Yousaf that I found very suspicious at the time and said so in one of the threads of this blog.

They were very suspicious because it is those votes what determined the “victory” of Yousaf on the basis of first preference and ensured the contest did not go to second preferences. Had the contest moved to second preference and Yousaf would have lost.

Those votes were suspicious to me because they were issued after several party apparatchiks were trying to claim the vote should only be on first preference. They were suspicious because when you removed those 8,000 votes and looked at the numbers and proportions of the second preference vote, there were not much of a difference between those who voted for Yousaf and those who voted for Kate. In other words, those 8,000 votes without second preference were totally at odds with the trend of the rest and certainly with the proportion of single preference votes for the other two candidates. These votes looked to me as planted.

There was also some miraculous coincidences between the predictions of the percentage of overall votes they would receive. The first predictions were issued BEFORE it was announced a drop in the membership, so those were predictions made on a falsely high number of members. Yet, despite 50,000 members less, the actual proportion of votes received compared to the overall membership was spot on. It felt like that proportion of the vote was not really a variable but rather the determinant. That is not what happens in a democratic vote.

Not for even a second I have accepted that election was legit, in fact I am convinced it was rigged. I was convinced it would be rigged the minute I watched Hosie making a complete arse of himself on TV with that maniacal laughter and the horse-box man full on gaslighting to attempt to remove legitimacy from the concerns about potential rigging of the leadership election.

Of the three candidates Yousaf was the only one for whom the crown have the certainty he would bend over and let the stone go. Ms Reagan had already explicitly said she would not allow the stone to go.

Yousaf was the crown candidate. And we all know that, with the vacuum for brain occupying the SGov cabinet, the hungry troughers in Holyrood and Scotland’s MP seats in Westminster, and the political frauds within the SNP, what the crown wants, the crown gets because to roll over is what all those are there for. Hell, they even let an unelected representative of the crown sit in the middle of the cabinet so the crown can continue to laugh at us and make a complete mockery of democracy by vetoing from entering Holyrood any piece of legislation it does not like. A magnificent example of this is the Independence referendum bill.

In other words, Yousaf, just like Sturgeon did before him, is allowing the crown to indirectly control the legislative body of Scotland, against the interests of the people of Scotland, to ensure the status quo remains. That is not a democracy. It is absolute rule.

In what parallel universe have you ever heard me accepting the present “status quo” as legit?

@ sam says:9 June, 2023 at 10:35 am

Thanks Sam.

Can you other Joe now. He didn’t seem to rate or understand your post either.

Seems to me that partial or selective othering is no kind of discrimination whatsoever. It’s just good, old-fashioned personal rancour dressed up to look sophisticated or intellectual.

Thanks in advance.

Oh, and BTW:

It underlies the stop and search of some UK police

That’s certainly an interpretation. Another interpretation is that as some segments of society are more prone to criminal behaviour than others, it is merely efficient practice for the police to focus on those specific segments.

sam @ 10:35 am

“Crude forms of othering the Scots are to label us as dour, skinflints, lovers of fried Mars Bars.”

The colonizer’s stereotypes employed to ‘debase the colonized’ form an essential part of colonial societies (Memmi). Dependency culture means that even the native joins in; hence ‘Appropriated Racial Oppression’ whereby the oppressed native ‘appropriates’ certain negative features about himself. He accepts his poverty, deprivation, lack of opportunity, and hopelessness as deserved due to his group’s ‘obvious’ inadequacies and inferiority, which the oppressor group constantly remind him of.

Aime Cesaire summarises the basis of the colonial relationship:

“colonial activity, colonial enterprise, colonial conquest, is based on contempt for the native”.

@ Mia at 9.59 a.m.: “Personally, I think the entity we still call “SNP” chose to give up already in early 2015.”

Yup.

@Mia –

Hear hear.

There’s a long way to go before we get this all unpicked.

If, as seems to be the case, Yousaf is just a tool and the Murrells are using him, we need to know why he’s following orders and who those orders are, ultimately, coming from. Who’s been ‘handling’ Sturgeon et al all these years?

Just because certain characters are feart of asking the hard questions doesn’t mean we should stop.

We all now know ( thanks to Stu), just how devious and betraying the SNP have become since Alex stood down.

Its part of the plan for them to ditch Independence and become pro devolution.
The sadness and anger at this betrayal is crippling to so many who gave so much for that party, believing it would deliver independence when it could.
It can, it wont!
Time to expose them and back Alba.
The SNP as we knew it is dead.

@A Scot Abroad 2:21pm

Not fiction.

I am not from your time. I merely sent an extract from a future treatise already written forty years from now.

And by ‘now’ I mean your time, not mine.

So many other factors are about to come into play in your near future (my distant past) which you are unable to foresee, or even begin to contemplate.

Humankind is standing at the threshold of a new and golden age of enlightenment and freedom – especially for the Scots.

If only you could see humanity’s bright new glorious future from where I am in the space-time continuum.

My, how we’d laugh together over a friendly cup of mead at the insignificance of our previous (previous for me – current for you) disagreements.

@Mia 12:32pm

Yousaf is (in name only) the “leader” of the SNP. Not because the membership elected it or heaven forbid, because he has the talent for it, but because the powers that be want him there and therefore put him there.

We all know the real leader of the SNP is somewhere down in London when not in one of the castles nearby. This of course also applies, in my view, to all the other UK parties.

Exactly right, Mia. The SNP, and the ‘Scottish Government’, is unravelling before our eyes.

It’s unedifying and disturbing to watch, but I’m afraid the ‘fight’ for independence was never going to be a clean one.

In some ways we who support an independent Scotland should, although it’s hard to bear right now, be thankful that the conniving and scheming that has been going on in the shadows for so long is now beginning to emerge into the light for all to see, and not just the few who have seen the truth of it for some time now.

I get the sense that Scotland’s struggle to free itself from the crippling chains of the ‘union’ is moving into a new, more urgent, phase.

More from The Conversation.

“Stereotype threat effects are very robust and affect all stigmatised groups. A recent analysis of several previous studies on the topic revealed that stereotype threat related to the intellectual domain exists across various experimental manipulations, test types and ethnic groups – ranging from black and Latino Americans to Turkish Germans. A wealth of research also links stereotype threat with women’s underperformance in maths and leadership aspirations.

Men are vulnerable, too. A study showed that men performed worse when decoding non-verbal cues if the test was described as designed to measure “social sensitivity” – a stereotypically feminine skill. However, when the task was introduced as an “information processing test”, they did much better. In a similar vein, when children from poorer families are reminded of their lower socioeconomic status, they underperform on tests described as diagnostic of intellectual abilities – but not otherwise. Stereotype threat has also been shown to affect educational underachievement in immigrants and memory performance of the elderly.”

“There’s a big difference between those elected into a position in accordance with a pre-existing and scrupulously followed constitution”

???????

Constitution? In what constitution is acknowledged as legit to character assassinating a current leader because he was “too socialist”, insuficiently neoliberal and not pro-Israel enough for the British establishment?

What on earth are you talking about?

“The SNP is in a uniquely fraudulent position when compared with the Tories and Labour”

You must be having a laugh. When was the last time the UK had a legit party leader election where ALL members of the party and only party members without external intereference were included in the vote?

Take a look at Sturgeon’s case. She was unopposed. Looking at how uterly useless she turned out to be, doesn’t that strike you as rather odd?

Now look at the way Truss was removed from power after a few weeks and billionaire Sunak was elevated to the podium. If that ain’t a fraudulent fudge, what is.

“The honour of Scotland, to use an old fashioned concept, is impugned”
The honour of Scotland has been systematically impugned since 1706 every single time new Scotland’s MPs and peers are sent down to Westminter and instead of acting for the benefit of Scotland they act for the benefit of the crown and the preservation of the union at all costs.

Mia

Have it your way.

According to you, Yousaf will do because in the final analysis, you don’t agree with “billionaire” Sunak (an out and out lie – he is not a billionaire) and you didn’t agree with Sturgeon either, or so you now claim, years after the memories have faded.

Whatever, have it your way.

I don’t doubt you speak for a minority of Scots. I greatly doubt you speak for a majority.

Yousaf is an order of magnitude more unacceptable as leader of the Scottish Independence movement. Huff and puff all you like, engage every whataboutery you can think of (Israel, WTF?), but that won’t change.