The 24 Official Genders Of Scotland
Are listed below:
Click the pic to enlarge, if you want to lose the will to live.
The list, updated last week, comes from the Scottish Government’s guidance on data collection and publication which we located here (it’s in the Excel document) after it was reported by Daniel Sanderson of the Telegraph, and it’s just the most ludicrous, embarrassing, muddle-headed mess.
Alert readers may have already spotted that boring old “male” and “female” – or “man” and “woman” – are not included as gender options. (We wouldn’t be entirely surprised if they were actually now hate crimes.) Non-trans people are now swallowed up by the single definition “cisgender”, which makes no distinction between the sexes.
Nor is an option provided for people who don’t have a “gender identity” at all, and who simply recognise the biological reality of their sex. Everyone must participate in the new religion, and most of the population will presumably be assigned the category “Agender”, the gender identity for people who don’t identify as having a gender.
Worryingly, the gender woowoo gibberish (which is littered with a quite extraordinary number of typos and spelling mistakes – “framwork”, “shortend”, “referes”) – is also interspersed with actual medical conditions, including the increasingly problematic and controversial term “intersex”, an inaccurate umbrella description for a wide range of chromosomal disorders, many of whose sufferers understandably find being lumped in with a crowd of attention-seekers, sex offenders and the mentally-ill highly offensive.
Every single “intersex” condition, or Disorders of Sexual Development (DSDs), affects either male or female people. There are no “inbetween” sexes, and you cannot identify out of having a DSD. (Well, you can try, but your chromosomes will stubbornly refuse to co-operate, the fascists.)
The document also uses the nonsense phrase “assigned female/male at birth”, a hotly-contested term (the sex of babies is observed long before birth, not pulled out of a sorting hat) and a meaningless one in the context of the document. What is actually being recorded here, sex or gender? (Ostensibly this is guidance for recording and categorising self-descriptions from trans people, in which case what are medical conditions and terms referring to biological sex doing in there?)
And of course, we’re forced to ask why there are only 27 subcategories of trans people, when we’ve known of the existence of at least 178 genders dating back to September 2022, and goodness knows how many more since then.
The document is frankly evidence of disgraceful, and doubtless genocidal, bigotry and prejudice against Abimegender (“A gender that is profound, deep, and infinite; meant to resemble when one mirror is reflecting into another mirror creating an infinite paradox”), Abussogender (“A gender identity for those who feel their gender identity is completely incomprehensible. Similar to anongender. Synonymous with staticgender”) and 149 other categories of extremely special people, as well as – obviously – all those Scots who are defiantly, bravely and proudly Adamasgender (“A gender which refuses to be categorized”).
We’re also not sure how the poor hapless clerks entering all this stuff into databases of drivel are meant to tell the difference between a “Trans woman” (“A person who was registered as male at birth but who lives and identifies as a woman; a transgender woman”) and someone who is “Trans feminine” (“An umbrella term that referes [sic] to people who were assigned male at birth but identify more with a feminine identity. Often shortened to “Trans fem”).
How are you supposed to know whether someone is “living as a woman” (a phrase we already know the Scottish Government refuses to define) or merely “identifying more with a feminine identity”? Can you do both at the same time? Sadly the guidance offers bewildered administrators no assistance.
Our favourite bit, however, might be the definition of “Genderqueer”.
Wait, a combination of the how many genders, did you say? You don’t even LIST male and female as genders in this steaming bucket of horse droppings, so how can they be the only two that exist, AND simultaneously have a “continuum” between them? Surely by definition EVERYONE in ANY of these categories is “genderqueer”? Aren’t you just basically using “transgender” and “genderqueer” as synonyms, in such a way that “genderqueer” is therefore a subcategory of itself?
(And how does this reconcile with the First Minister’s stated view that there are only two genders – the ones not included on the list?)
“Pangender” is also a chuckle:
So let’s see if we’ve got this right. “Pangender” means that you’re all of the 24 (or 27, or 178, or however many it is this week) genders at once, even though there are only two, although those two aren’t actually on the list, and even though it can also in some unspecified circumstances mean “three genders”; AND it means that you don’t have a gender at all (“Agender”, remember), AND it means you’re also intersex (because that’s another one of the listed “genders”), AND it also means you’re “cisgender”, and that you’re both a transwoman AND a trans man, AND that you’ve detransitioned, AND that you’re not sure about any of it (“Questioning” and/or “Neutral”).
Jings, imagine how confused everyone was BEFORE the guidance came out.
And all this, it pains us gravely to inform readers, is what the Scottish Government is spending time and resources on while the country falls to pieces around your ears.
Still, as long as there are serious people in charge, we’re sure it’ll all work out.
Oh.
Just as this video is trending out there too~
link to x.com
Brilliant!
So funny , yet so sad , not really just pathetic , may I share this ?
Hope I’m not the only one to notice here no mention of gay or lesbian in that ‘scheme’? Sounds like three groups whose rights had to be fought for — women, gay men and lesbians — the winning of which brought us closer to a world of tolerance and respect, are being completely airbrushed out of the picture by a government that claims to be standing up for liberal values. Interesting.
THIS is how they intend to lead their flocks towards the 2026 elections?!! sheesh. mega fail.
UK Labour will be so hated by 2026, that no matter how corrupt and incompetent the SNP are here, they will do OK.
The Big ender will be popular in some quarters.
Are we thinking sliced or unsliced here?
My favourite thing is this might actually be discriminatory on grounds of belief and race (not plain language for non-native English speakers). Hopefully someone will challenge it.
That’s an interesting point, do the words exist in other languages that would allow this document to be translated? For example, were this document to be translated into Cantonese, would there by any evidence of the words used having been adopted into the Cantonese language.
I’d love to see it translated into Arabic etc for all the Muslims in Scotland!
Not sure how any of these genders would survive long in Islamist/Muslim countries
Surely this twaddle foisted on the public, at the financial cost of the public, amounts to misfeasance/malfeasance? A complete waste of money and time. And also harmful in that it debases the proper use of language and renders communication of information impossible.
Plus, hope I’m not the only one to notice here no mention of gay or lesbian in that ‘scheme’? Sounds like three groups whose rights had to be fought for — women, gay men and lesbians — the winning of which brought us closer to a world of tolerance and respect, are being completely airbrushed out of the picture by a government that claims to be standing up for liberal values. Interesting.
Every MSP who signs/signed up to this should have to display their preferred gender prior to this absurdity being foisted onto the Scottish people.
74% of cross-party MSPs voted for self-id
#DontVoteWokeSNPLabourGreenLibDem
I’m not so much questioning my gender
As questioning my will to live
I lost the will to live before I even started reading the post!
The SNP must be destroyed. Completely and forever.
Along with the Greens, the Libdems and the Labour Party Scottish office who also subscribe to this deranged bat guano.
Agree. There has to be consequences for this nonsense. We have to deal with what we can achieve, and right now that is the SNP.
Dear God that is more than pathetic.
With so many cut backs and people living in abject poverty can you imagine how much was spent concocting this crap.
I couldn’t bring myself to read more than a few lines but have they discriminated against the people of have sex with animals?
Do they need a classification for horses, donkeys, dogs etc?
If a party wants to rule Holyrood, just promise to wipe this out and remove it from embarrassing Scotland’s history.
I really, really dislike being defined by reference to the range of lunatics claiming to be “trans”.
Thankfully, reality allows you to love being yourself -while defining the lunatics…
Against Me!: Transgender Dysphoria Blues:
“Your tells are so obvious
Shoulders too broad for a girl
Keeps you reminded
Helps you to remember where you come from
You want them to notice
The ragged ends of your summer dress
You want them to see you
Like they see every other girl
They just see a fa**ot…
You’ve got no c**t in your strut
You’ve got no hips to shake
And you know it’s obvious
But we can’t choose how we’re made…”:
link to tinyurl.com
Define:
“To say what the meaning of something, especially a word, is:
Be defined as In the dictionary, “reality” is defined as “the state of things as they are, rather than as they are imagined to be”.”:
link to dictionary.cambridge.org
This brain rot has to stop. I, for one, will not be complying
I don’t imagine we’ll be alone.
I do hope the nuSNP and labour are destroyed before 2026, I simply can’t stand much more of this.
This is going to be popular. There is now no doubt that the agenda is to completely destroy the SNP.
Whose agenda? Mine? I’ve been very clear about that fact.
Its the SNP`s agenda. They must know this insanity will drive more voters away. So why are they persisting with it.
Its an American directive. All governments are to adopt this shit or face consequences (via withholding funds or being sanctioned by IMF)
Hungary is refusing to take part & the knives are out for Orban. Slovakia too & a few other countries. They rightly describe it as an attack on family & their family values. Especially compulsory teaching this nonsense to children.
The Western wealthy elite must have more than a few deranged lunatics to
pay copious amounts of cashforce governments to impose this gobbledygook bullshit on every country. None of it passed with public consent either.Things are going to get ugly. There’s a ‘continuum’…
Surely that’s ‘agendeR’.
would contend that the ‘agenda’ is to have the SNP limp along like the howling clown car that it is while ‘representing’ Scottish independence.
The sooner it is comprehensively removed from the face of the earth, the sooner we can all get on with building a clear and unequivocal voice for the single, un-wedge issued, non-partisan, clear and single focused objective of getting this country out of the ‘union’.
An Irish senator read out 170odd genders in the Seanad Eireann last week. A punishing task to complete without breaking down at some point in it hysterical with laughter. And a wild listen it was. We have only 24! Ha ha ha!
Probably completed it with the aid of a very large spliff beforehand.
We really should introduce drug testing in all government buildings.
Imagine reading that shit out in parliament. She must’ve drawn the short straw after her liquid lunch lol..
The senator was against it, as are many in the Irish Senate. She was highlighting how ridiculous and dangerous it is. Nontheless it was some effort. Maybe laughing at this shite is all we need to do?
The “guidance” is all tosh of course.
If I had to pick a favourite numpty descriptor it would be ‘bigender’.
The Scottish Government probably intend that this category be pronounced ‘bi-gender’.
However, I think folks should insist on the phonetic being ‘big-ender’.
Hahaha! I’m hearing Shirley Bassey singing (Hey) Big Ender
FOI to find out how much this all cost?
I am sooo f’cking sick of this. Sometimes I wonder whether the Scottish government is trying some sort go weird IQ test of the Scottish public.
By the way the term ‘intersex’ is a genuine phenomenon that does occur and is recognised in real science and medicine.
Please excuse my typos. That’s what happens when the blood pressure goes sky high.
The term Iintersex is considered outdated, the preferred terms is Disorders of Sexual Development DSDs
BIGOTS!
It’s surely a hate crime that my #SuperStraightTransSpecies has been omitted and doesn’t have a recognised category. 🙁
Oor First Minister of Scotland is as much use to Scots as he is to advertising shampoo and conditioner for L’Oréal.
Fuck it….
Male/Female end off fuckin subject
Sexuality is however you fancy fuckin, who cares, it’s your decision who you want tae get aff wi.
Honestly, how the Hell did the fuckin planet reach this stage?
Exactly!
Blackrock,Vanguard etc? Control by social credit scores? Inner Party gives the orders out and the Outer Party (politicians, uni admin wanks,top public servants, ceos) carry’s them out?
I don’t know but I have come to realise that there are a large number of absolute wankers in every society willing to do anything at all for money and status.
Correct. We’re a plutocracy.
The wealthy dream up this shit & governments are paid to make it policy. A lot of money & threats are involved because this crap is implemented without public consent everywhere.
So some wee saddo gang of incel billionaires have serious Issues & needs to step away from government policy.
Wrong. Idiot leftists dream up this shit.
The same idiot leftists who govern Scotland.
The same idiot leftists that the Scottish people sent to Holyrood.
Wrong.
World Economic Forums & American think tanks dream this shit up & instruct IMF to implement it across all of their dependencies.
The UK, EU, Canada, Australia, New Zealand & some of the Global south are all American dependencies & where this shit is prevalent.
This gem is for population control. Voluntary sterilising program to remove undesirables (their biggest uptake is the mentally unstable) from the gene pool & they’ll get rich from big pharma corporations in the process.
Those who refuse are sanctioned or investment/loans are withheld from the World Bank/IMF. They weaponised the $ across the board.
A silly wee leftist political party can’t implement a Global contagion & why this shit is automatically implemented through parliaments everywhere without public consent.
Aye, the politicians and their parasites are the ones taking the orders here.
Would Scotgov be allowed to push one religion onto the public over all others?
Of course not, so why are they doing this? It’s all so very offensive
Gender identity ideology seems a new form of cultural imperialism, in effect a colonial procedure imposed on people, the intention of which appears to be to diminish or perhaps even totally remove peoples sense of national identity.
You’ve taken that too far, Alf.
Yes – it was the U.K. government that forced gender self -ID on Scotland wasn’t it . .
Interestingly, it was accepted by the military and the civil service in England under a Tory government before I knew what it was.
and there is no doubt that it is foreign ideology imposed on us (and damn near every other country in Europe from N. America). It replaced the pursuit of Independence as a policy by the SNP leadership. I think it is worth a hearing Alf.
Yes – lots of institutions accepted it out of fear/guilt at the terrible way gay people had been treated in the 70’s and 80’s. But if there’s a traffic jam on the M8 or it rains then Alf blames it on colonialism or imperialism, so don’t expect a sophisticated response.
Don’t trash Alf, especially when he is being discriminated against by the most non-inclusive (supposedly Scottish) Government in the world. He’s an Alfa-male, and they don’t even get a mention. You, of all people, should be able to sympathise, because there’s no place for a mAidan either. When is all this discrimination going to end?
The Government waants tae pit me in the nick;
It willnae gie me a box ah can tick!
Ah cannae fit in, tae their in-clusive plan
That prevents ony Scot from bein’ a man –
Or a wummin, for a’ that; for we’ve a’ been excised
Frae the gender we’re born wi’, for it’s been despised
By oor nin-com-puke rulers, wha’ waant us tae cower
An’ bow doon in front o’ their twenty-fower…
Which expand to infinity, but never include
The twa’ we a’ ken, for that would intrude,
And destroy, the make-believe world,
To which they waant Sco’lan’, for aye, tae be thirled.
‘Awa wi’ your freedom, your sex and your gender,
Forget independence, suck up oor agenda
Which we duly flagged up, and lang since unfurled,
The day, pair wee Scots, ye were mugged and got Murrelled!’
‘Ye didnae ken?’ That’s nae excuse: it willnae dae:
The response is clear: ‘Whaur did ye come fae?
Whaur hae ye been?’ “But ah hadnae a clue!”
‘Wha’s faut wis that? … Ah weel, ye ken noo!’,
It’s ever so late.. Are we left to our fate?
Or a reckoning day? Then hasten the date
When that will tak’ place, an’ we will re-make
The Scotland of old, of free men and women
Where illusion is vanquished and sins are forgiven,
False hatreds are banished that caused our division:
Two Genders Restored, True Scots will have Risen…
Not by diktat of law, but good common sense
Which rises within us, to our defence,
So we see through the clothes of our make-believe rulers
And discover they’re naked and naught but Tom-Foolers
And Uglies to boot, with their wicked agendas
Which mutilate others, and leave them ungendered,
Disfigured, unhappy, and only for profit…
Which our tyrants and others put squint in their pockets
Or straight, if you want, but that’s not what they are,
These devious wretches that robbed us from far:
They saw us a-coming, took our goodwill for granted,
And exploited it richly, for their own advantage,
But riches will pass, and they too will perish,
For Hell, not our Scotland, is the place for the Hellish
With fiends there a-plenty, with whom to plot trouble
To march others down there, so quick, at the double:
Just lie and deceive, confuse and destroy.
Tell boys they are girls, and girls they are boys,
And anyone can be whatever they want:
Tear Scotland apart, put them all out of joint.
Scots Men and Scots Women entirely berate:
And start with the young, so they can’t procreate.
What our Masters are after is ‘Scotland No More’:
They plan our destruction from their every pore:
The birth rate must sink, and the old disappear
Scorched earth is the means, till no Scots are here.
The Scotland they dream of makes Scots people history,
Their future reduced to fossil-like mystery.
Survivors there may be, but only a few,
And as they die out will have nothing to do
Except look for their genes, and seek out its code
Peer into a past that is over, for all over-rode
By the pure Selfish Gene which the SNP swallowed
When independence they ditched, and Woke-ism followed:
They hollowed out Salmond, and their own raison d’etre,
Filled up themselves, and left their people to fester.
Begone with them all! Scotland arise!
The time is short! Seize quick the prize!
Don’t be UnManned! An’ don’t be UnWumanned!
Stand up erect! Be fully human!
Love as ye should! An ha’e yer braw bairns!
Scotland arise! Be true Scots again!
The country is oors, if only we seize it!
Wha’ daurs wins! And only thus frees it!
Nane should walk ower us! We’re made to be free!
Cry it oot loud: ‘Wha’ daur meddle wi’ me?’
As did Bruce in the past, an’ Wallace, an’ a’,
An’ freeman rise or freeman fa’
Freedom rests thon bonny thing
Thon fact o’ facts that winna ding
Thon Truth to which a’ guid fowk cling:
Rise, then, an’ sing.
The auld song, that really hasnae de’ed
And never wull, till we – an’ a’ – be freed.
Brilliant, wull. My goodness, you’re a very fast poet an a’!
Yes, it was actually. You can start with the Labour government in 2016 & search Lily Madigan mtf ‘womans officer’s & also with Westminsters appointed Holyrood permanent secretary, Leslie Evans who imposed it on the Scottish parliament & her obsession with Stonewall.
SNP, under Sturgeon, couldn’t come up with a policy in ten years. You think she could mastermind this shit on her own? LOL!
Behave yerself!!
> Scottish Government’s guidance on data collection
If ever you needed evidence that the Scottish Government is F****d Up Beyond All Recognition, then this is it. How on earth are 24 subjective descriptions which form a fuzzy spectrum ever going to be communicated effectively, never mind answered consistently. They’ve just trashed decades of institutional data collection. Information that’s essential for any form of policy or long term planning, etc. etc.
Unless the interim, junior, associate intern, third-class with the green hair, piercings and high on ritalin was given this assignment, this is a deliberate act of wanton destruction. And they self-identify as elites.
The imposition of a belief system on the people is not a function of the democratic system.
Also, I thought that Sturgeon said ‘rapist’ was a gender. Why’s that not on the list?
Mod in the heid..
Gender/Transfluid really needs more subcategories, because you’ll be in a totes world of shit if you fill a VW semi-auto DSG gearbox with Hypoid EP90.
If enough folk identify as potholes would this mean we could get more funding to sort oot oor roads?
All these nutters need sacked ASAP
oooft, Just read The Overview by Roger Halliday, Chief Statistician
Where he appears to have done the exact opposite of what he says he’s trying to do while stating the inspiration is a book that has as it’s main theme … male and female bodies are different.
Now read a TRA’s review
“The book presumes only two sexes and two genders exist. This take is completely uninformed and damaging. It erases intersex, transgender and non-binary people.”
By “erases” they mean – It does’t mention them.
oops!
“On the first day of Gender
my true love asked of me.
“Whaaat’s your pronouns….?”
……………!!??
Do you ever feel you’re living in the last days of Ancient Rome and that it won’t be long before a horse becomes leader of the SNP?
LOL.
Is that a horsey horse or a freak of nature self ID-ing as a horse?
Serous question..
A horse would do a better job.
Aye. A horse would die tae the death protecting its offspring. The American Empire slaughters thousands & turns the rest into mutants with this diabolical mind bending nonsense. Obliterating, mutilating & maiming whole generations in the process.
Its a travesty. Yet another geno-cide towards the young & vulnerable & an idiot media cheerleading it on.
Those barstewards should be up on charges for yet more crimes against humanity.
From the latest SG Consultation Updates email – how babies can understand and assert their rights.
“Of all the participation resources that we came across in our research stage, nothing was aimed directly at including babies in work on their rights. We felt passionately that this was a significant gap. Babies have the right to be included! The method should empower babies to develop an understanding that they are rights holders and to show that babies can understand complex ideas like rights when they have experienced them. This way we could ensure all children were included and that it was realistic in terms of developmental appropriateness.”
“The method that we created is interactive: a gentle discussion and observation based method to gather children’s views on their rights. We talk about the language of babies, infants, and young children. How it is made up of so much more than their words. We encourage practitioners to talk about rights, using the language of rights in day to day practice, to empower children to exercise their rights, treating them with respect and dignity so they can be empowered to expect respect and dignity.”
link to blogs.gov.scot
I’m not quite sure what is being meant by ‘rights’ here but, given the way children are being targeted in schools, including primary school, is it another aspect of the ‘trans agenda’?
I refuse to learn the vocabulary of this nonsense.
As JKR calls it, The Endarkenment. What an embarrassment to Scotland Scotgov is.
Where is “Believer in biology”? Asking for the 3000 people who entered this in the recent census.
Oops, silly me, that was under “Religion” on the census. But an easy mistake to make!
Good grief!
Why are there no listings for DEVIANTS or PERVERTS or FUCKWITS because Holyrood seems to be infested with THEM
The BIGGEST PROBLEM is that none of the broadcasters or newspapers will publish this FULL LUNACY across their channels to let the voting public view this ongoing fuckwittery whilst all around them these sex obsessed perverts and paedos are spending massive amounts of TAXPAYER money financing this debauchery instead of sorting out societies problems
I’m reminded of the response to Gaby Johnson’s speech in Blazing Saddles…”authentic frontier gibberish”.
Good to see NuSNP with their finger on the pulse of what’s important. Love the “not transgender” bit in the CIS definition. Almost like we’re no longer the norm.
What a bunch of fkin halfwits.
This “Guidance” is not the law!
What will it take to stop all this shite?
I suppose removing the Green and SNP Perverts from Holyrood would be a good place to start.
““A gender that is profound, deep, and infinite; meant to resemble when one mirror is reflecting into another mirror creating an infinite paradox”)”
Well that’s Harry Haller from Herman Hess’s Steppenwolf accounted for then.
Is that where this quote comes from ? I read that book – and all Hesse’s books – in my early teens ; loved them , though years later I reread some of them and found them unbearable ! Haven’t reread Steppenwolf , maybe that would hold-up better : always thought it was his best .
Utter madness – it would be almost funny if it wasn’t so frightening – some of titles and descriptions must’ve been drawn up whilst the writer/s were high on crack – or Spice.
I especially like the Bigender one – and the Auitgender to do with Autism – does that mean anyone with any medical or mental condition – can have a gender named after them?
We really need to get the SNP government out of office come 2026 – along with the degenerate Greens – we can vote Alba for Alex ( now there’s an election slogan if ever I saw one) or we can vote ISP – or for any other indy party that might show up on your ballot paper in your constituency (but not the SNP they are NOT an indy party anymore).
The Chief upstairs (Alex) must be scratching his heid at aw this nonsense.
Going o/t a bit
i know the funeral next week will be a private family affair ( thank goodness ) but is there any way we could have a quick fundraiser for a wings floral tribute ?
FFS! Lets not be too hasty here …
So we blew the chance with oil and gas. It got stolen, and what’s left the SNP are racing to be first to leave in the ground. Making sure Grangemouth closes too.
And we gave away the wind for a pittance.
But this could be finally, third time lucky. Scotland is leading the world with the gender woo woo. We’re up and running better and faster than anybody else. We have an unassailable lead. For the first time since the Scottish Enlightenment, we have something that nobody else has.
And look at the market! It’s fucking ginormous! There are literally billions of people, all around the world, who have been mis-gendered since birth, and they don’t even know it.
These people need help, and they will pay for it. They just need to be telt. Once they’re telt, they’ll be beating a path to Scotland’s door, begging to be correctly gendered, and begging to pay us bounteously for our help.
The potential revenues from these innocent, unaware billions will make oil & gas look like sweetie money.
So don’t you lot of nay sayers and gloom and doom merchants fuck it up. Just for once, embrace the opportunity to put Scotland in at Numero Uno.
Au contraire, my dear Hatey.
Scotland does not lead the World in gender woo woo.
Malta owns that honour followed by Portugal with Canada coming in at third.
The UK is fifteenth planet wide with Scotland a no show since Scotland doesn’t exist.
Here’s the source:
Asher & lyric’s global trans rights index.
Always happy to help, Hatey.
I should’ve added – that the outside world must be looking in at auld colonial Scotland – and laughing their f*ckin heids aff – at the sheer stupidity of oor ain colonial government – its an utter embarrassment.
This is of course the plan – to f*ck Scotland up so badly that – folk will be too buy just trying to make ends meet – and avoid opening their mouths – incase they fall foul to the preposterous Hate Crime Laws – that independence won’t even come into their minds.
We MUST when the time comes get the SNP and Greens out of power – or this madness will only get worse vote Alba or ISP – never vote for a Britnat party either.
Nah, folk are too busy trying to find a way out of Sturgeon’s she/her madhouse, but thanks to Brexit’s little-Englanders it’s increasingly difficult.
Brexit! Good one.
“15 years ago, the size of the European economy was 10% larger than that of the US, however, by 2022 it was 23% smaller. The GDP of the European Union (including UK before Brexit) has grown in this period by 21% (measured in dollars), compared to 72% for the US and 290% for China.”
But yeah, everything is all the fault of Brexit, eh?
Isn’t EU membership still the twofer plan? Vote Indy and get the EU thrown in?
We can race to integrate with an economic zone that is declining into irrelevancy.
But who cares if you will be happy!
Scotland’s GDP per capita is the lowest in NW Europe and zero growth a long-term norm. That’s not the fault of the EU, its due to our economy being plundered by England. The UK ‘colonial corset’ is costing Scotland at least £150 billion a year:
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
You’re not making your self clear, Alf.
Are you saying that the plunder started the day after Brexit was enacted?
Or are you saying that the plunder has been going on for 300 years or so?
If the latter, then obviously our being in the EU made SFA difference on the plunder front.
You’re always going on about your two masters theory. Well, we had three, but at least we are now down to just two, having got shot of Brussels.
Get shot of WM too and we will be independent. Get back under the thumb of Brussels and we won’t be.
We’ve voted socialist for 70 straight years, despite all the evidence that it is catastrophic everywhere all the time.
The evidence is stark North vs South Korea, East vs West Germany, Singapore vs Cuba.
There is an ingrained mentality that it is somebody else’s responsibility to provide us with a standard of living.
There is no need to look beyond our borders.
Total garbage. There is no reason whatsoever why a few greedy individuals should own this planet’s land, resources and wealth while the rest have nothing or next-to-nothing. Everyone is entitled to and deserves an equal share. Also, it’s a simple fact that economies perform best when there is greater social equality, as demonstrated by the Scandinavian countries. And what do you know about North Korea? Everything we are told about that country is propaganda. China is also a communist country and it seems to be outperforming every other country in the world.
Once upon a time there were 27 countries in which you could live, work, study, retire to even, and not a single trumped up little immigration officer, civil servant or politician could say boo.
Then along came Nigel with his crombie coat and German wife and German passport and persuaded the weak and feeble minded xenophobes that England didn’t win the war to be told what to do by guess who? The Germans!!!
Buyers regret? They’re choking to death on it and I’m laughing my ass off watching them doing so.
And aside from the freedom of movement, or absence therefore… The post-Brexit UK economy???
“Britain has dropped out of the top ten rankings for manufacturing for the first time ever, new research from an industry body revealed. In the most recent standings, which analyses 2022 performances, Britain slipped to 12th place, down from eighth in the year prior,”
“Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed the government’s outstanding debt pile reached 100% of gross domestic product in August, the highest level since 1961”
Karma’s a bitch!
Has anyone discovered it the two kids who identify as “wolf” are somewhere on this list?
Shocking ommission!! Ruff ruff.
Well, that’s insightful. I wondered why we didn’t have our independence. But then there are clearly more important matters that have to be attended to, aren’t there?
I think all these categories are deliberately designed to confuse, disguise and distract from the biological realities of male and female.
This is very cruel and deeply insulting to the very few people who are born intersex.
It would be interesting to know what percentage of the entire population does this actually affect? And how many categories will be put on the next census? All of them??
The War On Reality continues . We’re losing .
If distraction/destruction ( of Reason ) is the objective ; this shit is the weapon .
Very difficult to defend against , ’cause if we ignore it the lunacy will continue unchecked ; if we fight it we’re allowing ourselves to be caught-up in an argument of bottomless stupidity against people not amenable to Reason .
Be good to think ridicule alone would be an effective defence ; not sure it is .
Think it may come down to a rule-of-thumb scenario that any politician , pundit or prattling ponce promoting/accepting this weaponised idiocy is automatically consigned to the ” Dafty . Ignore ” category : + relentless scorn . ( n don’t forget , laughter )
People need to say it straight out: gender isn’t a thing. It’s an invented ideology with no objective basis. It’s nothing but mumbo-jumbo, like believing in fairies or the Abominable Snowman.
Indeed , Michael ; it would also help if it was more widely known/discussed how much of this crap is being promoted by Big Pharma . For those monsters this is just another massive revenue stream , eg lifelong necessity for pharmacological ” assistance ” + the side-benefit of future revenue from the damaged bodies & minds of people who’ve been foolish enough to believe in the lunatic tale of human ” fluidity ” to point of being able to change from male to female and vice-a-versa : literally .
I recently seen a broadsheet of current and projected profits from ” Transitioning ” surgery and attendant treatments , medications etc within the US Medical Industry – they are vast , and expanding rapidly . It was described as a ” very significant growth area ” . These Corporations couldn’t care less about the damage they’re facilitating and consider the $millions they pay-out in damages annually no more than a pesky tax , which makes barely a dent in their overall profits . If you’ve seen the Documentary – Dopesick , you’ll have seen the utter ruthlessness with which these Companies promote their products , even when they know the damage their causing . Profit before Everything . Again , literally .
I’m going to cut to the chase through all this crapola and remind the world that gender is for nouns and sex is for people and other animals.
Thanks, Rev, for reading all the way through that drivel for us. Coincidentally, I’m reading The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies by the Rev. Robert Kirk of Aberfeldy (17th century) and it makes a whole lot more sense.
Meanwhile our country circles the drain but at least John Swinney has a nice wee rainbow on his semmit.
The good reverend himself was taken by the fairies on an enchanted knoll somewhere in the Trossachs. Would it not be a massive stroke of fortune if John Swinney had been captured by the fairies?
I have harped on incessantly about people stop using the term gender , ONLY ever use the term SEX for male or female, consign the term gender to the dustbin of history, using it only excites these deviants and plays into their hands, whereas ONLY referring to SEX gets them angry
Here’s a wee quote from Kirsty Blackman, MP, dated June 2023:
“I have no idea what my chromosomes are. I have an assumption that they are probably XY but I don’t know”
Ms Blackman is on record as having twice given birth to a child. Yet she is happy to admit on the public record that she doesn’t know if she is male or female.
Ms Blackman was returned to WM as an SNP MP in July 2024. She has in fact fought four successful election campaigns in a row for her constituency.
Not much sign of your ”Dafty . Ignore ” category : + relentless scorn” there from the ordinary Scottish voters who keep her up past her uncategorised crotch and further past her mysterious chest feeding apparatus in gravy.
Supportive video evidence that Kirsty Blackman actually said she assumes she probably has XY chromosomes.
XY is male, so it makes it all the more ridiculous that somebody who has given birth twice does not assume she has XX chromosomes and is female, and that she is deemed fit and knowledgeable enough on matters to be representing the electorate and implementing policies and laws.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
A decade ago Scotland was discussing how best to use tax raised here to rebuild local communities, it’s NHS & raise people out of poverty. Now the Scottish Government is discussing how many ‘genders’ there are.
Here’s the answer. Zero. There are no genders. Just as there’s no God, Allah, Yahweh, Zeus, Odin or any cosmic deity. One might have faith they exist but in 2024 nobody has the right to impose their faith upon anyone else. Sure, I’ll respect Christian, Jewish & Muslim friends who know I’m not a subject for conversion, but for the Trans lot it’s an essential part of the ideology for it to impose itself upon people and society. They know they can’t do it slowly or respectfully, so for 20 years they’ve been about to
inveigle their ideology into society & when people kicked back, they went down the route of influencing lawmakers.
So we have an insane situation where the Scottish Government pays quangos to tell it what it wants to hear. These quangos are stuffed full of activists and mates/partners of newer MSPs who then work on rubbish like this.
There’s a cost of living crisis. People are struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Education is in decline. The NHS is struggling. Public services are being cut back but somehow the Scottish Government wastes time, energy & money on this and wonder why voters are abandoning them?
Thing is even the slightest bit of critical thinking shows up the mess of genderism hence why TRAs want unquestioning acceptance. Any questioning makes their ideology fall apart.
100% with you. Couldn’t agree more.
re. “Here’s the answer. Zero. There are no genders. Just as there’s no God, Allah, Yahweh, Zeus, Odin or any cosmic deity.”
New Zero God: Fun Is A Four Letter Word: Lap of the Universe:
“A million stars
Outside your window
A thousand light years
Away from home
The milky way looks
Kinda strange now
But you’ve already found…
You’re on the lap
Of the universe
You wanna know
The biggest secret
Answer the questions
In your mind
Don’t look around ya
The answer is deep inside ya…”:
link to tinyurl.com
20 decades ago, and more, Scotland was Enlightening the World with its wisdom.
Now, the World likely laughs, that is if it can find us on a map.
Red meat to the backbenchers to allow them from doing any real work. Has consequences for future criminal law though.Take the consultation on the proposed Misogyny Bill. 5 new criminal laws planned without a classification of what constitutes women or girls in the consultation guidelines. These two policy positions are mutually exclusive. Another backdoor to push these imported ideologies. Reality will intervene again!
Genius has its limitations, stupidity is not thus encumbered. Anon
Looks like the mindless fuckers are sticking firmly with the “Plan” to collectively throw themselves back on the dole, come the next SGE. Unfortunately, their ill begotten pensions will see that they neither become homeless nor go hungry.
2 eskimos are on their smartphones, laughing
– and it says here : “eskimos have 80 words for snow … ”
(guffaws)
then the other one is flicking away and says to the other
– do you know, in SCOTLAND, they have 24 words for
POUF
We don’t deserve to survive as a species, do we? Where’s a fucking meteor when you need it?
If they show you who they are , believe them.
When they are incapable of good governance they resort to smoke screens .
The whole thing is deranged, it’s just plain insane.
There seems to be a class of person obsessed with this stuff to the exclusion of everything else, who are determined to force it on everyone else whether they consent or not.
The sight of those Stonewall-sponsored shoe-laces in Holyrood evokes the gruesome image of our Scottish body politic as willing host to infestation by voraciously parasitical multicoloured worms — the arrhythmic heart of government riddled to near destruction and the short-circuiting brain screaming under terminal attack…
Said it years ago but it’s all just a load of utter shit being doled out as a clearly successful divide and rule tool to what appears to be an increasingly brain dead society that has lost the ability of critical thinking.
It has similarities with other prominent emotive subjects being pushed onto us with the saving the planet and re-wilding narratives.
When I go shopping I see the prevalence of so much processed and highly refined additive packed food on the shelves that it makes me think it’s some chemicals prevalent in the food chain that are compromising so many people’s mental and physical health and well-being.
If anybody feels out of kilter or has a general malaise then try dropping as many processed food stuffs out of your diet as possible.
I know it’s tricky to break habits and make that change but things like making a basic muesli out of oats and adding your own fruits is easy and eliminates all the extra crap and sugars in ready made muesli.
Make a big pot of homemade lentil soup or a veg broth and it will last a few days, and have it with a proper oatcake (many contain gluten) with a bit of cheese for lunch.
Drop quantities of carbs like pasta and spuds as it’s likely most folk aren’t doing anything like the physical exercise required to burn them off.
Cheaper breads and other products with gluten are another thing to avoid, and well worth eliminating for a while if bothered with joint pain and see if symptoms reduce.
Avoid coffee (especially first thing) if bothered with gastro issues.
I observe everything that is being pushed hard onto us and avoid it like the plague.
We know BigPharma and related chemical industries have a big hand in pushing the genderwoowoo nonsense, do you really think this is their first rodeo of making folk ill and pushing cures?
I totally agree. I am veggie, grow my own veg, buy from the local farm shop, have just learned to make bread. 99% of the supermarket is stuff I never buy.
Quite apart from the fruit-loop element, imagine being so self-obsessed that you spend hours and days and months trying to work out exactly what you are, as if anyone gives a toss.
There’s money in them thar identities.
As or the SG, it is malfeasance/misfeasance, not to mention the worst misogyny and homophobia on the planet.
The men – the women are just eejits, incapable of forming an independent thought, and the bairns are victims – are paraphiliacs/fetishists. It is here that they have to be attacked if we are to bring them down at all.
By the way, they haven’t included zoophilia but I suppose sheep shagging is not ‘sexy’ to the impressionable young. This is the result of an addiction to p**n taking over lives, with the impetus of mega bucks for Big Pharma.
It’s no use attacking them for being insane or money-grubbing these days, but show them up for what they really, really are, and that is sex addicted fools who are completely in thrall to their pee-pees and who will go to any lengths, including co-opting damaged and neurodiverse children and unwilling females into their public fetish. Take it all down to brass tacks and put the spotlight on what is nothing more than grubby self-pleasuring in the public arena.
What I wonder is does anyone actually try and work out what they are? Where does the list come from (let alone the much longer one)?
I think we are dealing with a minority of a tiny minority here which makes it even more incredible such a list has got so far. The number of persons saying they are ‘Bigender’ could literally be one, or even none!
In normal circumstances such categorisations would undergo scrutiny, and evidence demanded for their validity. I suspect there is none here but it just accepted and that alone is reason to label this ridiculous.
Yes, they are a tiny minority, the dyed-in-the-wool ones, but more young men are being recruited daily. We are living in an age of almost insurmountable stupidity and wilful psychopathy and narcissism. We either give in to this s**t or we don’t.
Worth noting that there are more young so-called transmen than women.
Of course they do not pose the same physical threats but I assume many still buy into the ideology, and are part of the same thing as the transwomen, and in terms of damage to themselves, it is potentially far far worse than what happens to men.
I baulk a little that it is narcissism or psychopathy that encourages a young woman to permanently mutilate her body to look more like a man. This suggests to me that reducing the trans phenomenon to such labels is not anything like the whole story.
It is a cult.
Methinks the cult is going to be evaporated in the USA.
Trump’s just finished talking complete pish to the Arizona faithful. Except for one oft repeated diamond in the rough.
He’s gonna cancel Trans, completely.
You know what? Trump will win on Nov. 5th.
Just because he knows babes are babes and blokes are blokes.
Simples eh?
These SNP policies are insane. And everyone here is right in mocking them. But I’d wager most of those commenting here also voted SNP at some point in the last 20 years.
These SNP voters should take some of the responsibility for putting these crooks and idiots in office.
You’re getting who you voted for.
Don’t be ridiculous. As is obvious and has been pointed out to you before, Scots voted for the SNP in order to bring about Scotland’s independence, because that was the SNP’s purpose. By what logic does it become the voter’s fault if the politician does something they were not elected to do?
CC does have a point, in that “SNP voters should take some of the responsibility for putting these crooks and idiots in office”, and many seem intent on voting for them still.
Despite the fact it became pretty obvious after the 56 ‘roaring lions’ were elected in 2015 and took the oath tae the Englis Croun that the SNP were never intent on liberating the people.
Don’t be ridiculous.
These silly rules were made by the SAME PEOPLE SNP voters elected. The FM today is the same John Swinney who’s been an SNP leader in the past, and has been in SNP leadership positions for over 20 years.
And here’s a revelation to you–an SNP government in Holyrood… runs the government. All aspects of government, not just “independence.”
I can understand why SNP voters would want to disassociate themselves from what the SNP has become. But they can’t.
Right after you, sunshine…
Little England is bust. No one else did that.
No one is buying their
debtsbonds anymore.They were told to stop printing money but wouldn’t listen. Kept funding wars they were continually losing.
Oh deary. Now the Piper wants paying..what is one to do?
Sell something?
Nah, can’t. Already sold everything they own to foreigners..
Go to war?
Nah, can’t. Keep getting gubbed & we’ve no military & industrial capacity.
Just steal it. Invade someone rich in resources, y’know- like always?
Hmmm, trying that one now but it’s went tits up & Mr America says we can’t play with big boy toys without their permission. We’ve to sit down & STFU that we used to be an empire..whhaaa!
Ask a mate?
We have no mates. Not even France.
Let’s ask BoJo – he’ll know what to do!
Bojo – by jove we have technologies like Google, AI, Amazon, Apple..
Nah, they’re not yours. You have Betfair FFS!
Try austerity max, max ++++
Nah, tried that too. It drove families into poverty & killed at least 150,000 others we forced of benefits.
Tax the super rich then?
*Faints* Fuck off & get real!
There’s yer Union. Successive failed governments & bust. Not a pot to piss in & services as shit as they’ve always been.
There it goes tumbling down the rankings. Add complicit in Geno-cide, crimes against humanity & being an overall colonising barsteward to the rest of the world including the new world order & its goodnight UK. Bye, bye. So long, farewell…
I think a wee bit of gender pish pales into insignificance eh? In the grand scheme of things.
You also stupidly assume repeatedly, despite being told otherwise, that yoons vote SNP too. They rather like the free socialist stuff. So I dunno why you keep trying to take a swipe at Indy supporters. Change yer record..
YOU and your fellow unionists have a fucking cheek trying to shame anyone for voting snp
The arsehole unionist parties that you and your fellow fuckwits vote for, no matter which one is in power every one of them has led to more poverty than the last one , the uk is now more than 2 trillion down
Two trillion down sounds like a good night at the swingers big party – gender roles optional.
But to be serious for a mo. The smart money is on an SNP resurgence at HR in 2026. The Tories are going nowhere. And as we can all see, Labour are going down too – ooerr!
Which leaves the good old Scottish electorate just one place to go – hope over experience – SNP.
Sure, the turn out will be abysmal, but that won’t change the result.
Of course, a few motivated activists could get the Plebiscitary Elections For Indy party up and running, but then I guess we’re getting too close to Christmas now. And besides, endless online bickering is always going to be one hell of a lot easier!
“fucking”, “arsehole”, “fuckwits” – yes, most kids master this vocabulary by the age of 10.
The trick, twathater, is to progress beyond it. 🙂
Are friends electric? No, that’s my transistor, but she identifies as a diode that goes both ways…
The Crispin Flintoff Show – You Tube – Craig Murray – “Nicola Sturgeon was behind the plot to destroy Alex Salmond”.
Here’s the link.
link to youtube.com
Should be watched. Well done Craig yet again.
I met a beautiful tictac today that wrapped herself in rainbow colours, I found it difficult to resistor…
Top tip for electronic engineers.
#DoNotLetTheSmokeOutOfTheStripeyTictacs
There are only four genders.
male, female, mentally ill and fetishised.
If you are male or female good effort.
If you are mentally ill I am sorry and hope you get the assistance you need as soon as possible.
If you have a fetish good for you hope you have fun.
However to the mentally ill and the fetish group don’t expect me to confirm your beliefs and stay away from woman’s spaces and sports.
Male and female aren’t genders, they are sexes. Masculine and feminine might be genders, if you believe in the absurd mumbo-jumbo that is gender ideology.
Gender is a thing in the sense we do fulfil gender roles consciously or otherwise. Till relatively recently it was regarded as a social construct but there has always been a school of thought that some of it is sex-based. Logically it is a mixture (sex does affect what kind of job role you might take on due to physical differences for example and most people would think child minders of the very young are more suited to women due to their motherly connection).
That is all quite different to saying you are born with a gender that is distinct from your sex and that gender is the more important of the two.
I have always been of the opinion we should be more open to different gender expression, so a man who feels right wearing a dress, is still very much a man but one whose gender expression is a long way from the traditional construct. People who exist on the end of such spectrums have always existed. It is how they are and who knows, they may be ‘born like that’. You might accept this person as a trans woman but it is the idea that person is a woman with no meaningful difference to a woman defined as a sex class, the heart of much gender ideology, that is absurd mumbo-jumbo and leads to so much of the trouble.
Yes, we should really ignore gender roles unless they serve some purpose that is benign. Mostly, they don’t.
Anyone who has followed this rubbish will be left in no doubt that big money is behind it – big money and whopping libidos that are perverted and voracious for ever-more expanding areas of perversion. The young women and children are just human shields for the real culprits who are the paraphilia and fetishistic men, the money men and the enablers, many of who are women.
Follow the money, as they always say and they are rarely wrong.
I did a very quick advanced Google search using the term “Genderqueer”, pdf file format only.
Back 2012, there was a collation of works documenting the same sort of guff as published by the Rev.
It was all coming from Universities. Mostly the USA and Canada.
However, prior to 2012, a poll was conducted by some academics in Scotland discovered that 25% of those polled identified as “non-binary”.
Now as we all know, that is a load of deranged bat guano.
So, who was paying the Universities for all this so called “research”?
We’ll my guess is Big Pharma.
Could be wrong though.
Statistical rigour , you know the type of mindset you need to reliably collect census data replaced by the stark raving silliness of Stonewall. It seems Scotland is being run by two sets of cults. Stonewall, literally doing what their name says to sanity, and Sustrans, doing the same to mobility. It’s got to stop.
All this and She who must not be named would have us think she’s straight?
About as straight as the back road to Shotts and even more dangerous..
Who makes up this pish,GTF
A simplified version would have three entries;
Male
Female
Confused, seeking help.
This whole realm of Transgender depravity and corruption is a fire which keeps burning without fuel, heat, or Oxygen. It shouldn’t exist but it does.
Nobody needs it, nobody wants it, and the internet is awash with Companies and Institutions, from Bud Light to Disney, suddenly in a tail spin on the route to going broke because they were stupid enough to embrace this corrosive horseshit. We can add Scotland to that list.
Nothing is sacred to the deranged footsoldiers who mobilise this pish, and that creates a paradox; how can such mentally feeble imbeciles create such an effective mechanism to install themselves in positions of power? How?
“Oh nobody’s going to listen to this toxic balloon”, then suddenly this toxic balloon gets a high profile job in government or quango on a six figure salary. It stinks.
It stinks, and it has created a mechanism which has derailed Scottish Independence, so don’t expect the UK State or broadcasting Establishment to lift a finger to address it. They’ll be “purring” like their deceased Queen was, when their corrupt manipulations worked for them in 2014.
Who needs sectarianism when transgenderism can supply the requisite number of nutcases to destabilise or misdirect political momentum?
Quite so , B . ” Transgenderism ” IS the new sectarianism : except this time it’s not about competing/conflicting * religions * , but competing versions of Reality . It should be a walkover for our side , that it’s not indicates the amount of political & financial capital the other side has on it’s side . Sufficient it seems to override the fact that the overwhelming majority of people who are aware of this lunacy think it’s the biggest pile of steaming shite they’ve ever encountered , yet we are unable to pull the plug on it and flush it down the toilet .
Think we might need a bigger plunger
Reality hammers are effective.
The old question of “who benefits” may provide an answer to why we have this problem.
There is the stench of paedophilia behind this.
There are just two biological sexes as far as human reproductive physiology is concerned but you may «identify» with as many novel «genders» as your narcissistic* mind may fabricate, as reproduction is now so old hat. ?*Narcissism, a self-centered personality disorder characterized by an excessive preoccupation with self often at the expense of others.
«Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said. ‘One can’t believe impossible things.’?I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes reality again!»After Lewis Carol
They forgot one. What about “Prefer Not To Say.”
Confirmation of the Chiefs (Alex Salmond) funeral date.
“It has been confirmed the funeral will take place on Tuesday, October 29.
A service for close friends and family is to be held near his home at Strichen Parish Church.
Reverend Ian McEwan will conduct the service before a private burial at Strichen cemetery.”
Roz Adams who won her tribunal claim against Edinburgh Rape Crisis centre has returned to the tribunlal in an effort to force a reluctant ERCC to adopt tribunal recommendations.
She wants a clear apology to herself, staff training in the Equality Act, recognition of gender critical views and a definition of women that enables service users to choose a real woman as support.
Link link to threadreaderapp.com
Talk about bat shit crazy. If I were the opposition I would be looking forward to FMQ.
But of course they have been briefed to miss the open goal in order to keep the gaping wounds open and festering as long as possible.
Imagine the fun you could have drafting an election leaflet mocking the SNP with this.
Swinney is well gone
What on earth is keeping him there thinking it is all working are they putting something in his tea.
Swinney has been installed for a reason: he’s a proven failure and vote-loser. Does he seriously believe he’s the best man for the job?
Oh the pitfalls of Identity Politics. Across the Celtic sea the prospects of Sinn Féin in the all too imminent General Election are circling the drain over the scandal of Nial O’ Donnghaile, ex Mayor of Belfast. O’ Donnghaile was caught sending explicit texts to a 16 year old boy. That would make him a pederast in Northern Ireland and significantly worse in the Republic.
This is scarily redolent of any number of SNP scandals (Derek Mackay, Patrick Grady, Jordan Linden, … ). As was the case here, Sinn Féin’s problems are amplified by orders of magnitude by the coverup.
Uncharacteristically I don’t attribute blame here to the Security Services. The Permanent State created the environment but the SNP and Sinn Féin did the rest of their own volition. Why do the hierarchies of political parties see some kind of magical virtue in individuals outwith the heterosexual majority? Probably for a variety of reasons I have speculated about before, and the fingerprints of the Permanent State are detectable in this.
The group dynamics of the cult, the need to appear culturally “Progressive” (a hideous imported phrase from America), or the desire to build a broad spectrum electoral appeal that incorporates “the kids” (Sinn Féin’s strategy in the Republic).
Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill may be the outward face of Sinn Féin, but behind the scene the “big scary fuckers from South Armagh” still apparently run the show. If these hard men and women raised for generations to spot the malign influence of the Security Services can be captured by the Siren call of Identity Politics, what hope the rest of us?
The moral pitfalls of a nationalist party seeking to compromise and opt for ‘an accommodation with colonialism’. We can see how that worked out in Scotland.
On the matter of identity replacement, we know that language, culture and national identity intersect to form our belief in ‘who we are’. When a people become incorporated into a more dominant imposed language and (alien) culture that has subsumed them, they stand to lose their heritage and identity, and their way.
link to grousebeater.wordpress.com
Vivian: you are spot on. I have been saying for the past couple of years that Sinn Fein are as captured as the SNP. I don’t know what is wrong with so many people that they do not understand how this ‘trans’ lobby works. They are an offshoot of the hard left and post structuralists who wish to destroy society as we know it and take it back to Year Zero a la Pol Pot. Independence and nationalism are anathema to these people and they WILL destroy Sinn Fein as they have destroyed the SNP, Greens, Lib Dems and Labour. In dependence supporters just do not get that they are ideologically opposed to nationalism. The NI and Irish might rid themselves of them, but they will probably have to resort to the old methods, and we all know what they are. The other impediment is Big Pharma which stands to make billions out of it, so I wouldn’t be holding my breath that even Sinn Fein will be able too shake them off. It will be only when we are the point that people can see clearly what they are that things will swing back again.
” If these hard men and women raised for generations to spot the malign influence of the Security Services can be captured by the Siren call of Identity Politics, what hope the rest of us? ” . None . No hope whatsoever .
Mary Lou McDonald , in many ways a truly admirable/formidable representative of the fight to restore Ireland to full nationhood , ie Reunification , as well as holding sound views on Global events , makes her equivalents in the SNP look like the weak-kneed , feeble-minded idiots they are : except , potentially disastrously for her cause , when it comes to the bafflingly stupid/socially fragmenting issue of Identity Politics . This may well prove to be her/Sinn Fein’s Achilles Heel , because , assuredly , the * Trans * wing of Identity Politics will prove to be it’s Trojan Horse .
It’s possible the ” big scary fuckers from South Armagh ” will realise in time the viper they have invited into their midst has no interest in anything other than inserting it’s venomous fangs into whatever * host * is naive enough to allow it in ; but such is the degree of uncritical – of what passes for – thinking on the issue it remains to be seen if they will .
In our case , we don’t even have the possible corrective of ” big scary fuckers ” to spot the danger – and eliminate it . Rather , ” we ” have a succession of dribbling , ball-less , clueless drones , totally bereft of the capacity for critical/independent thought devising , signing-up for & nodding-through evermore ridiculous/damaging policies without giving even cursory consideration to what the people they are meant to represent think/feel about such policies . Not to mention the impact of these policies on how people perceive Scotland would be post-Union .
Sinn Fein – like SNP – seem to be labouring under the delusion that the whole D.E.I /Identity Politics farrago is universally agreed to be a ” good thing ” . The public protests in the Republic , eg against the attempt to redefine things like marriage , what a woman is ;as well as the issue of mass immigration show this assumption to be false .
At least in Ireland there are such public protests : here in Scotland passive – if grudging – acceptance seems to be all that’s available .
They say when an animal , eg dog , cat , is neutered it loses it’s ” elan vital ” , it’s ” animal spirit ” , becoming not much more than enervated shadow of it’s former self
The SNP are leading the campaign to have the whole country spayed , and with each cut are stripping away a little more of what makes our country distinct , along with the energy that will be required to preserve it’s distinctiveness .
Which distinctiveness will ONLY be preserved by Independence .
Some missed opportunities there. Where are transpot, bawfeminine, squintgender, radgender etc. identities ?
Please, please, Scotland – just vote them into the bin.
Always loved that movie. “The invisible cisgender”
Cisgender on the Moon – REM.
Love Hungry Cisgender – AC/DC.
Nowhere Cisgender – The Beatles.
Solitary Cisgender – Neil Diamond.
Street Fighting Cisgender – The Rolling Stones.
The Milkcisgender of Human Kindness – Billy Bragg. Or maybe that should be The Milkcisgender of Hucisgender Kindness!
I’m sure there are plenty more where those came from.
The band Ottawan sang about a women who was
DC I S C OPeople are free to be whatever they want, it’s no one else’s business including the State. Those that are unsure about who they are should be left in peace.
Welcome news as SG gives in to FoI requirements regarding legal advice it received relating to the Hamilton report: Scottish Government to publish Sturgeon FOI legal advice | The Herald
Archived link…
link to archive.is
So going to need a whole new box of thick, black redacting pens for Mr Swiney’s use …
What is the betting on how redacted the disclosure of Scotgov legal advice will be?
And on how clear the explanation for the Scottish public of the ins and outs will be by the MSM? It is very easy to make it all so dull and complex that the gist will be obscured. Of course, the Rev will make it crystal clear but the MSM will finally report properly in about 50 years time.
Previous article to read as a primer if folk missed it.
(Note in the text there are plenty clickable hotlinks in blue for further info)
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Thanks for the link, Dan. Mind you, even reading the Rev’s brief summary made my head hurt.
Not long too wait. 26th October is the deadline for a Scottish Government response to the Information Commissioner. Instruction. Otherwise they have 42 days to appeal to the Court of Session but only on a point of law. Given the Court of Session reaction the last time I.e. a 2 minute Celtic Huddle to deliver their response. It would be incredible if they repeated this mistake. But this is the Scottish Government we are talking about incredible situations is par for the course.
Why are we being forced to accept the term CIS? Language only seems to matter to trans folk, I’m deeply insulted by that term but they feel they have deemed it acceptable for use.
This gender stuff needs binned. Can’t carry that into a Scottish Parliament election.
You have to prove you can make good decisions to be allowed in Government,this rubbish says any party that adopts it,canny make good decisions.
Anyone who thinks that the COPFS – will prosecute with regards to the multiple Operations Police Scotland has on the go – with SNP machinations in mind, is kidding themselves on.
For me the COPFS staff are in it up to their necks, as is the current and previous LA – and that’s why these Operations have been dragging on and on, for years.
The COPFS isn’t going to be hoisted by its own petard – by allowing all the machinations of the SNP – and what the COPFS office did to aid and abet in them – into the public domain – Christ the then Crown Agent when all the underhandedness was going on was/is a Mi5.
I think the only casualty will be Peter Murrell and even there a light touch on prosecution will be applied.
My fear is that if or when any of them is/are prosecuted, COPFS will (deliberately) make such a pig’s arse of the case, that acquittal will be the only possible outcome.
God knows, they are incompetent at the best of times – all they will have to do is to be as good at what they do (i.e.be utterly incompetent) as they can be.
The media whores – in what passes for the media in Scotland – are at it again, bigging up the Colonial Games – which are coming to my home town of Glasgow – because no other nation on Earth wants them – but the mayor of Scotland John Swinney, is more than happy to comply with London and foist them on Glasgow.
I call Swinney the Mayor of Scotland – because he was deeply willing to act like one, when he presented himself as the Mayor of Scotland at the Nations and Regions meeting organised by the English Labour Government.
Swinney – looked more than delighted at rubbing shoulders with mayors of England’s regions.
I suppose calling Swinney the Provost of Scotland would be a bit too Scottish for him!
I am none of the above. I am a heterosexual make. I am not cusgender, which is a trans tag for straight people.
If you want more of this madness, strive for Scottish independence. Surely? Oh, but you’d vote for better politicians then, right? Where are those saviours?
There are many independent countries that operate with this lunacy. Being a colony just means that we are poor as well.
Is the UK inflicted with the same madness?
Yes. Hadn’t you noticed how the Labour Party treated Rosie Duffield MP? Their women’s prisons take males who say they are trans.
I am none of the above. I am heterosexual, which isn’t on the list. Cisgender is a trans term for straight people.
Ironic given how outraged trans people get when someone tells them what they are……
The Royal British Legion (RBL) is a member of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions program.
Tell me this in this new age but where does the old individual who used to be called ” fanny bawz ” fit in today.
There used to be quite a lot of these individuals. Usually there gender was preceded by the call of ” hey you, yes, you…fanny bawz ”
I was never quite sure of how the caller knew the gender of the ” fanny bawz ” because they always all used to look like men and it was always other men who recognised them as such.
Indeed I used to get the impression that a ” fanny bawz ” was a bit of a ” diddy ” . That of course makes sense because in the old language a ” diddy ” was a ” tit ” which as we all know of course is a mammary gland. But then again nowadays you can get ” man boobs ” which makes things all bit confusing.
With all this erudite knowledge I feel that I would be well placed to join the SNP.
Moreover on the same vane, how does the old expression of ” sit on your fud ” align today. I mean ” fud ” and ” fanny ” used to have a similar meaning. But again how does anyone know that the individual being requested to sit down had a ” fud ”
Maybe with the observations that I have just made folks might consider me a prime candidate to join the SNP . I could be the fanny bawz witch finder general. But lastly, what about the phrase ” shut your hole ”
Off to howl at the moon now!
For linguistic interest, the linked webpage below provides Celtic language gender terminology for Scottish (Gàidhlig), Irish (Gaeilge), Manx (Gaelg), Welsh (Cymraeg), Cornish (Kernewek), and Breton (Brezhoneg) —
link to celticstudents.blogspot.com
Another important omission is the failure to define the word ‘gender’ in itself. I understood gender as a socialisation process attributed to us girls (although boys also for different reasons) as a deliberate trap to ensure we were never equal with men at any level. We were treated as second class citizens, not encouraged to have big ideas about life love or work adnauseum. Nothing has changed. Just a few extra terms to confuse.
How many types of independence are there?
There are at three main forms of national independence/ decolonization:
Political independence/decolonization;
Economic independence/decolonization;
Cultural independence/decolonization.
One without the others is not really independence, it leaves colonial oppression in place, as many former colonies discovered.
link to wp.towson.edu
Agree with Alf. Of course in these globalist times, constant negotiation or recalibration is required, international exchanges being enriching at best, isolationism not being optimal. A key aspect of cultural independence for Alf is, as we well know and as I agree, linguistic (with historical continuity of literature and freedom of consciousness implicit in that).
Language has hardly begun to register as an important factor with Scots as a nation, our arguments for independence being almost exclusively economic. (It occurs to me that Scots actually do have a linguistic mannerism which gets staunchly vaunted as our distinctive Scottish “thing”, ie the liberal peppering of discourse with demotic anglo-saxon swear words.)
As I have written elsewhere, “Our language thinks us”. Which of course brings us back to Stuart Campbell’s gender list at the top of this article. Those of us of a more mature age react to it as patently insane. Not so school kids who have been caught young and implanted with it all. For them these categories are default reality because school said so. School also primes them to expect opposition from parents, school therefore becoming safe-haven against such argumentative backwardness. Home resistance is especially stressful when the young suddenly become desperately aware of their (perceived) need to stop their puberty clock ticking forthwith.
This all jumps my mind back to John Swinney’s nefarious “Named Person” plan to usurp parental prerogative by interposing a state appointee for every child, with power accorded the bureaucratic interceder to amass a clandestine dossier on parental thoughts as reported by the child. Despite the failure of Swinney’s incipient pernicious project, the comprehensive invasion of schools by State-think has since of course been realised, with every door being flung wide open to Stonewall, allowing them and like organisations to influence, even write, the curriculum at every educational level from P1 (if not nursery itself) upwards.
The Supreme Court (of Greater England) of course stymied John Swinney’s original scheme. And we must be grateful for that even through clenched teeth. A key ruling by the Court was the following:
« Individual differences are the product of the interplay between the individual person and his upbringing and environment. Different upbringings produce different people. The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is to get at the children, to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families, and indoctrinate them in their rulers’ view of the world. Within limits, families must be left to bring up their children in their own way. »
I caught part of a radio discussion the other day about the ongoing dreadfulness of children in Africa being kidnapped and turned into brutal child soldiers. Of course totalitarian regimes like Nazism and Maoism also had youth activists who were indoctrinated against their parents. The radio contributor referred to the hideous Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot when children tortured their own parents.
Philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd, who lived through the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, wrote:
« We have witnessed the unspeakably bloody and reactionary regime of nazism. Moreover, these totalitarian ideals were backed by the military power of a mighty modern state. Science and art, child rearing and education, industry and technology, labour organizations and philanthropy – all were made subservient. »
Nicola Sturgeon and her lieutenant John Swinney were, thankfully, not in a position of being “backed by the military power of a mighty modern state”, but Sturgeon’s entire approach to statecraft became increasingly totalitarian.
Another mark of a totalitarian bias in a country is the refusal to countenance any regard for international law. Dooyeweerd in the late 1940s, writing his critique of Nazism, perceived a crisis within humanism itself at work, a fraught shift from its objectivist (scientific law) polarity to its subjectivist (free personalistic) polarity. I see this as perceptively valid, and think we are indeed still experiencing the out-working of this tectonic upheaval in Western thinking. It has plausible explanatory power for how we have arrived at the replacement of validated biological laws with such child-tantrum foot-stamping as is evident in the list of indefinable genders above.
Again, linking totalitarianism to all this, Dooyeweerd writes (c 1946) –
« Rationalistic humanism (in its view of mathematics and modern natural science) turned into irrationalistic humanism, which rejected all universally valid laws and order. It elevated individual potential to the status of law. […] When the Historical School attempted to understand the entire culture, language, art, jurisprudence, and the economic and social orders in terms of the historical development of an individual national spirit, it elevated the national character to the status of the origin of all order. […] Historicism robs us of our belief in abiding standards […] If everything is in historical flux and if the stability of principles is a figment of the imagination, then why prefer an ideology of human rights to the ideals of a strong race and its bond to the German soil?’ » (Herman Dooyeweerd, ‘Roots of Western Culture: Pagan, Secular, and Christian Options’, Paideia Press, 2012, pp 52, 63, 74, 87)
Off topic
Alf Baird – would you like to pass on some information about Scotland’s colonial position?
“In our Oxfam reports for Davos each year, after revealing shocking facts on the state of inequality, we identify one particular cause of growing inequality and one particular solution. In 2023 we focused on taxing the richest. In 2024 we focused on corporate monopoly power. In 2025 we will focus on colonialism and the historical and modern day colonial economic structures that perpetuate economic inequality.“
I sent Max Lawson at Oxfam a wee note:
link to equals.ink
Well done, Alf. keep us posted, please?
Everyone here slagging it off – but the Scottish electorate voted for these numpties.
All the parties’ candidates were numpties. All the parties vote for criminally dangerous policies. That is probably why the turnout was down in the last general election and all the council elections since.
People voted for the SNP because they wanted independence and the SNP was supposed to be the party of independence. Voters are not responsible for what parties do or fail to do in office. We have no way of holding them to account, other than by not voting for them at the next election. And even then, the d’Hondt system will ensure that we get lumbered with unwanted MSPs and policies.
Ach, that’s why my proposal that offers far more accountability and control of elected officials by their constituents seems a no brainer to start to resolve the many issues with Party politics and Scotland’s constitutional status.
But alas folk appear far more focused and content to stick with whining about the issues with the status quo rather than actually doing something about it.
Ho hum, let me know when someone (preferably another 56 folk, one in each constituency) actually muster the gumption and will to stop playing a clealry fixed game of Scotland getting perma-shafted.
I’ve stated many times on here to rebuke the narrative that “There’s nothing going on in Scottish politics”; If that’s what you think then that’s because you’ve got fuck all imagination or will to make something happen.
Step up to help or step the fuck aside.
Don’t be ridiculous.
People are electing a GOVERNMENT, not a “cause.” And 99%+ of what MSPs do is related to roads and streets and ferries–not causes. If SNP voters don’t know that or don’t care (as you seem to suggest) then you’re making the case that SNP voters are, and have been in the past, incredibly stupid.
And the fact that the voters kept voting for the SNP shows they chose NOT TO hold them to account.
Away and bile yer heid, man.
So by your logic Conservative voters voted for Johnson to party during lockdown..
Don’t be ridiculous.
Did you even read my comment?.
The voters didn’t vote for that, and that’s not what I said. The voters must, however take some responsibility for what the Tories did IN office–in line with what I wrote.
Sophistry..
<i>”Don’t be ridiculous.
People are electing a GOVERNMENT, not a ’cause.'”</i>
Nope! People elect representatives to represent them, because in an actual democracy, the people are supposed to be the rulers, at least in principle. Since they cannot govern in practice, that task is delegated to a full time body along with sufficient powers to enable them to carry out all the relevant jobs a government is supposed to do on behalf of their country/nation/kingdom for the best interests of their country’s people. That means <b>ALL</b> of them, not just a tiny favoured subset, ie, the ones with the most money!
Voters hope their party of choice might form a government, and that they might then carry forward the manifesto policies they were supposedly voted in for. But for the sovereign Scots that will <b>never</b> happen.
Even when the SNP had 56 out of Scotland’s 59 seats, they hadn’t the faintest hope of forming a UK government. Under Westminster’s current rules Scotland will never elect a Scottish government in the Union parliament despite owning 50% of the Union’s two sovereignties. That’s an English-only privilege, and one not formally agreed in the Treaty or Acts of Union.
This is yet another of Scotland’s many democratic deficits, all of which occur because England’s establishment refuses to recognise Scotland’s sovereignty as being fully equal to England’s in their Union, and in their poxy over-entitled parliament!
Sorry, my comment above was supposed to be in response to Campbell Clansman.
No offence taken!
Pontifications about “democracy” (and stupid pontifications, at that) from someone who doesn’t have the brains to figure out how to reply to the correct comment.
About what we expected….
There’s nothing like a pathetic personal attack to demonstrate the strength of your argument, eh?
Soz Stu, I’m acutely aware I’m risking death by hammers again…
But it’s two days since I made a post that hasn’t appeared as it got held in moderation because I made a one character error filling in my details.
Execute me and I’ll be gone should you see fit.
——–
In response to both Sarah and Michael Laing.
Ach, that’s why my proposal that offers far more accountability and control of elected officials by their constituents seems a no brainer to start to resolve the many issues with Party politics and Scotland’s constitutional status.
But alas folk appear far more focused and content to stick with whining about the issues with the status quo rather than actually doing something to address and rectify the situation.
Ho hum, let me know when someone (preferably another 56 folk, one in each constituency) actually muster the gumption and who are prepared to wake up and stop playing a clearly fixed game of Scotland getting perma-shafted.
Or just sit idly by expecting a political class full of grifters to supposedly represent Scotland with no mandate from Scots in all sorts of dubious organisations.
I’ve stated many times on here to rebuke the narrative that “There’s nothing going on in Scottish politics”; If that’s what you think then that’s because you’ve got fuck all imagination or the will to make something happen.
There’s huge potential to fill the current vacuum and if we don’t offer something credible for Scotland then the likes of Reform will fill the void.
It’s well past time for folk to step up to help or step the fuck aside.
And we experienced all the “beneficial” results of the closed list variant of the D’Hondt voting system imposed by Labour’s messrs Dewar & Bliar.
Together with the costs of the white elephant which is the Holyrood building … a precursor to the Ferries disaster if ever there was one.
You’d think that we had no native Scots architects or experts in marine engineering only to willing to provide professional expertise and goodwill.
So has nicola moved in with her pal
Scot Govt instructs public bodies to gather data on ‘24 genders’
« Public bodies should categorise gender identity using 24 separate definitions, the Scottish Government has claimed.
« In updated guidance for data collection on sex and gender, its Interim Chief Statistician Ally McAlpin advised Government-funded bodies to document “trans status” under a variety of contentious headings, including “Agender”, “Demigender”, and “Gender non-conforming”.
« Government guidance states that data collected in this area should enable bodies such as NHS Scotland, Sport Scotland and the Scottish Prison Service “to design, plan, monitor and evaluate services that are sensitive to the needs of all of Scotland”.
Definitions
« According to the new coding framework, “Agender” denotes or relates “to a person who does not identify as having a gender”.
« “Demigender”, it says, refers to “someone who only partially (not wholly) identifies” as either a male or a female “whatever their assigned gender at birth”.
« And the category “Gender non-conforming” is defined as someone “whose behaviour or appearance does not conform to prevailing cultural and social expectations about what is appropriate to their gender”.
« Among other definitions offered are those for “Pangender”, “Bigender”, “Detransitioned”, “Genderfluid” and “Androgynous”.
‘Subjective categories’
« Dr Kath Murray, of the policy analysis group MurrayBlackburnMackenzie, said: “Data collection by public bodies should serve a clear function. It is not a validation exercise.
« “It is difficult to see why any public body would spend resources classifying data on trans status into multiple subjective subcategories, many of which are circular, hard to understand, and/or contested.”
« A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The point of the survey is to collect information on the respondents’ trans history and how they would define it.”
Gender self-ID
« In May, Scotland’s First Minister claimed that men can be defined as women.
« Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland, John Swinney stated: “I believe a woman is an adult female born as a woman, and I also accept that transgender women are defined as women.”
« The Scottish Government’s gender self-ID Bill, which the SNP intends to revive if the UK Government lifts its veto, would allow 16-year-olds to change their legal sex by self-declaration without a medical diagnosis, and reduce the waiting time for adults from two years to just three months. »
link to christian.org.uk
They could do away with the waiting time altogether if they accepted the fundamental fact that it’s impossible for humans to change sex.
Hmm… Executive Committee of UK team of BAP.
link to britishamericanproject.org
Turns my stomach seeing that flag. And please don’t tell me that is a Scottish bridge on their home page..
I think its the Golden Gate Bridge – anyway I know that Kate Forbes and Anas Sarwar are BAP members – and there will surely be other Scottish politicians who are also members.
British-American Project – Wikispooks
British-American Project – Wikipedia
Sturgeon the Judas, is a Trilateral Commission member – you don’t join the TC – they invite you to join them.
Trilateral Commission – Wikispooks
Kate Forbes is such a disappointment (to put it politely). She could have exerted pressure and solved so many ferry-related problems, saving hundreds of millions in the process. She could have served Scotland’s cause and the people by not signing us up to freeports and SEZs. But she has instead dealt massive economic blows and also anti-independence blows to us.
Kate Forbes – during the SNP hustings for the leadership in which Humza Yousaf won – said that the only way Scotland could hold an indyref – was with the permission of Westminster – Yousaf said the same.
Infact Yousaf, said at one hustings – that if Nicola Sturgeon couldn’t deliver Scottish independence – NO ONE COULD.
These people are not interested in ridding Scotland of this illegal union.
Is the Scottish taxpayer footing the bill for their memberships, travel and expenses…..?????
That we’ll never know.
Seriously?
You claim to know where the biolabs are.
You claim to know the locations of the “secret” military bases in the Negev.
You claim to know that French and Polish troops are fighting in Kursk.
Heck, you even claim to know where “scotland” is!
Is your crystal ball at Timpson for repairs?
While we are on the subject, I think you should also look at the Scottish North-American Business Council (SNABC)
link to snabc.org
It was founded by (among others) Andrew Fulton – who remains on its Board.
link to snabc.org
Very modestly, its website describes him thus:
“Andrew Fulton spent over 30 years in HM Diplomatic Service with postings in Saigon, Rome, East Berlin, Oslo, the United Nations in New York and finally Washington DC”.
Very ‘diplomatic’, one might say, for Andrew was in fact the MI6 in-house spy in all of these postings- and was in fact MI6 Station chief in Washington.
link to wikispooks.com
He was appointed law ‘professor’ at Glasgow University (despite having no academic credentials) apparently for the sole purpose of heading the Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit – from which he had to step down when his cover was blown
link to heraldscotland.com
As we know, GU is still appointing dubious professors for God knows what purpose:
link to johnsmithcentre.com
SNABC was in fact run from Glasgow University (No10 Professors Square) when it was first established in the early 2000s.
I think Glasgow University’s contributions to the Brit secret state ought to better recognised!
You did notice Kirk J Torrance is listed as being on the Executive Committee of BAP too.
You know Kirk, friend and confidant of Alex Salmond, once Alba lead candidate in 2021 for Highlands and Islands, and was an advisor for Ash Regan during her run at SNP leadership campaign.
Yes , D , I did . WTF is any ALBA ( or any other so-called Independence Party ) rep doing being part of this Atlanticist Project/Front ; and is such participation down to naivety or collusion ?