The Battered Can
When I was a boy at Balbardie Primary School in Bathgate in the mid-70s, football was banned in the playground. Of course we were all fitba-daft laddies, so we sought ways around the prohibition. Occasionally someone would bring in a tennis ball, but those were difficult to control in school shoes and also apt to fly over the wall of the outdoor toilet block if somebody caught one sweetly on the volley.
So most playtimes somebody would produce a tin of Pepsi or Irn-Bru or Cresta, chug the contents, stand the empty container on its end and stomp sharply on it, producing something more akin to an ice-hockey puck that would serve for our kickabout.
But even after being skelped and scudded around a concrete playground into stone walls for 20 minutes, that can was still in better shape at the end of our game than the one the SNP have been kicking down the road since 2016.
There’s an extraordinary piece of chump-fodder in today’s National by the SNP’s pretend “policy convener” Toni Giugliano, in which he says this:
The SNP has had seven years of “space” since the Brexit vote in which to come up with a full suite of independence strategies from Plan A to Plan Z, and its utter failure to have a backup ready years after the unviability of Plan A was obvious is a shameful dereliction of its duty, but let’s let that slide for a moment. Spilt milk, etc.
The party is now apparently pondering just two options: the “de facto referendum” finally belatedly adopted by Nicola Sturgeon after the Supreme Court comprehensively ruled out a Holyrood-generated vote, and… a return to Plan A, based around the utterly hopeless fantasy of being powerbrokers after a UK election.
But look above. The outcome of the “special conference” has already been given away. Giugliano has let the cat out of the bag. Indy strategy isn’t to be decided for real “until after the next General Election”. Which obviously means that election can’t be a de-facto referendum, and will be fought on the basis of Plan A, yet again.
And when that fails again, as it definitely will, everyone will be safely back on board the gravy bus for ANOTHER five years of promising carrots to the infinitely gullible.
(And not forgetting the plain old mental.)
If you want independence, voting SNP at the next UK election is every bit as stupid as voting Labour or Conservative or Lib Dem, because all of them are votes for the status quo. Toni Giugliano is no less your enemy than Jacob Rees-Mogg or Ian Murray are. And at least the latter two are honest about being your enemy.
The building where I went to school is now a luxury housing development. The outdoor toilet block is obviously long gone, and our “football pitch” (just visible at the left of the pic below) now has actual grass on it, where the residents can sit on sunny days.
The school, much of which was left intact in the redevelopment, was built by a bequest from John Newland, an 18th-century businessman who made his money from a sugar plantation in Jamaica, having moved there shortly after the failure of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745.
Newland didn’t trade in slaves, but he did own several dozen, and so just a couple of years ago his name was removed from Bathgate’s annual gala day in the name of (what else) “diversity and inclusion”, and all acknowledgement of his involvement with the town has been eradicated.
If Scotland ever does become independent at some point in the future, we suspect that the once-good name of the SNP will by then have met with the same fate.
It will always be Plan A because someone from the EU, possibly even the Commission has whispered in their ears that a referendum with an overwhelming majority is the only ticket into the bloc. Whether this was done because it is truth or whether it was done mischievously knowing that it’s unattainable is anyone’s guess. The only question is why does nobody have the balls to come out and say it.
Of course, the alternative is they they’ve all being promoted ten levels above their ability and they simply don’t know what else to do. Either way, we already know what will happen. Nothing.
SNP Indy policy….. “It’s frothy man”.
I see soon to be retired, Chief Constable Livingstone has released a squirrel.
There is no majority for independence – that is the key problem.
That will not be changed by marches, flags, moaning or civil disobedience.
It will be changed by convincing your fellow Scots that independence is a better future than they have at present.
And to do that you have to govern well now and clearly show what you can do under the straight-jacket of the union because only by taking the country with you can you have any hope of success.
It is your fellow Scot’s that hold the key to Indy – not Westminster.
Again Sti have the SNP outed.
I don’t think it’s a case of SNP don’t know the true way to independence. I ghink its a case of none if them care to consider anything which will work.
They will go the way the Irish Republican Party did, replaced and diminished.
Alba and ISP are the only route for Scottish Independence.
The moon howlers are so deluded they actually think they’ll be voted back in to Westminster when they’ve just pissed off the entire electorate & they’ve removed any reason for voting them.
They’re so out of touch with reality that it’s actually painful to see the fake SNP Comms accounts trying to play loyal supporter.
They can shove their conference where the sun don’t shine. Those freaks are only interested in GRR – nothing else.
Unless there is a drastic change of management – I’ll never give them my vote again. I loathe them now. Just when you think Dumbza was bad enough – up pops this arsehole whose only input seems to revolve around bullying Joanna cherry. Get him tae fk out the road fae the rest of us..
Thank feck teenyboppers can’t vote on WM elections or we’d have the multi coloured mutant freaks as MPs FFS!
Police chief issues warning over ill “informed speculation over SNP probe.”
I think police Scotland are corrupt.
Scotland does do. We’re not thick.
I also don’t believe the police are institutionally racist, sexist, mysogynistic and homophobic as Ian Livingstone does.
Why does he feel that way? What evidence does he have? Why did he resign? Who is going to replace him? Who will bury the bodies? Who that is competent for chief of police will lose out to a woke government puppet.
Sickening what’s going on in this country.
Many thanks for the trip down memory lane to a similar ‘no football’ schooling. A ruling I had a part in changing, as an opinionated, gobby wean it was an early life victory… thankfully at such a young age I wasn’t to know that victories don’t come round too often.
Cheers for the nostalgia coated bleakness.
We have Joanna Cherry telling us in The National that the SNP will bring us independence. I have the greatest respect for you, Joanna, but, really? We had other party bright sparks telling us that people – Unionists – who do not support independence are put off by the marches and rallies. Is that so
I ask again, why is Scotland uniquely blighted by its heroes and sheroes, its culture, its languages, its constitution, the Treaty of Union, the UN inalienable right to self-determination, the Claim of Right, its own legal system, and every other anything that might give our poor, benighted wee country hope? Why is it that anything not sanctioned by the SNP is not feasible either? We have Unionists and we have Neo Unionists now, as well.
Sorry, Joanna, but if you believe that the SNP is in the best position to bring us independence, you have not been paying attention. This is almost a mirror image of Ireland just before all hell broke loose when the collaborationist Irish independence party of Redmond crashed and burned, on his death
In our case, it is the party that is dying. When are the people in that party going to admit reality? Big headlines as well about the need for a central bank, own currency, etc., etc. Yes, and…? Haven’t we all been saying for years we need these basic state building blocks? I, for one, am never voting SNP again, no matter how many mouldy old carrots they offer. I’ll wait for all hell to break loose – which should not be too far off, I reckon.
“… a wider convention, with the whole Yes movement, should wait until after the next general election”.
Wow. They’re not even trying to be subtle anymore. “Vote us in for another 4-5 years and then we’ll talk about it. See what we can do”. To those that still fall for this guff, here is the latest, shiny SNP bridge to independence up for sale. The best money can buy.
Don’t all rush at once.
If I could make a response to that Livingstone. The public are right to ask questions about the SNP heist of 600K.
I think he’s corrupt. I really do. I think the cabal at head of government are corrupt. From the Crown office. To cabinet. To chief of police.
The failure to deliver indy proves it more on a daily basis that they conspired to get Salmond to stop Independence progressing.
I also want to stand up for the honest officers of police Scotland. Who I know are not institutionally racist, sexist, homophobic or mysogynistic. And who want to focus on law and order and not using equality and diversity as a disguise to elect more corruption.
Unfortunately if you’re a white heterosexual male. You need not apply for the next top job. Your experience doesn’t matter anymore.
Humza’s woke puppet will be elected to clean up the act not backed up with any statistics. Livingstone has burned the house down on his way out.
He is a disgrace. Hopefully a 24 team task force interviews over 400 people about his conduct and the government’s rotting stinking stench of financial corruption and tax payer theft in pain sight.
Steve Lannigan: the SNP or any other independence party could govern like angels, but it would make no difference to the Unionists, which, you, as an avowed Unionist, know perfectly well. Alec Salmond governed well prior to the first referendum. We have to conclude that Unionists will never be convinced because… they’re Unionist in the bone.
So, we have to look for other ways out, and we will find them. Unionists, of course, will dispute international law as well, because… uniquely, Scotland has no right to anything that any other country/nation has. No, we must forever be told our limitations. I wasn’t joking when I said that, eventually, all hell will break loose – not because we want it, but because it is the reward of intransigence, the child of frustration and mounting anger.
What form it will take, I’m not sure, but it will lead to a direct confrontation with Westminster, and all Unionists in Scotland, and a declaration that we are going. Once that kicks off, you will be shocked to learn just how many independence voters there actually are and your cosy Unionist consensus will shatter. The SNP, believe me, is the least of your worries now.
By the way, I’m not making threats or advocating violence, in case you thought of using that against me. If you have any grasp of history whatsoever, you will see the truth in what I’ve said. Nations always reach a lowest point from which they rise and take their independence. Scotland is very close now to that tipping point, and you have the SNP and the Greens to blame for it, along with your own Unionist/Westminster intransigence.
The cops should get back to focussing on law and order. There’s corruption at the top of Scotland’s institutions. It’s in plain sight.
Act on it.
The Scottish tax payer is being ripped apart. We are being taken for fools.
No white married heterosexual males need apply. Ian Livingstone’s words. Sorry 20 years experience the force won’t cut it for you anymore.
You’ve got to be prepared to protect the most corrupt government Scotland has ever known.
F*ck the SNP cabal. They are liars. charlatans thieves and crooks. The conference will have all of those people in one place. Send in the fraud squad to Caird hall.
Re primary school, I remember in Govanhill Mr Superbad would sometimes drive by and we’d run to the fence and shout “Superbad” and wave at him and he’d wave back at us.
On the subject of bald men, when I see people like Giugliano, bald, beard, designer glasses and suit I expect the worst kinds of social engineering. The SNP are quite clearly not a nationalist party unless nationalism now means a global melting pot with certain races and cultures consigned to the dustbin of history.
“It will be changed by convincing your fellow Scots that independence is a better future than they have at present. And to do that you have to govern well now and clearly show what you can do under the straight-jacket of the union because only by taking the country with you can you have any hope of success.”
Unionist nonsense. For one thing, the SNP are not governing competently any more. They were under Salmond, but they’re doing it to badly, so divisively and putting forward such batshit unpopular policies now it can only be deliberate, to trash everything achieved under Alex’s SNP, when it was a genuinely pro indy party.
Secondly, you win support by having a campaign, and to do that you need a date, a route, something the electorate can engage in. I had many, even quite hard, no people despearey to know how independence could help us stay in the EU in around 2017-18. They have long since lost interest because they’re constantly being told there is no route to it and it’s not happening. Even the firmest supporters of independence will give up if there is no route, no campaign, no event by which independence can apparently happen.
All of that is very deliberate *unionst* strategy, being very clearly and openly used by the SNP. And they’ve been using it since 2017. Every year these fakes, frauds and enemies of the independence movement have been left in power has moved us backward. It’s time to call an end to it in 2024. If the SNP itself can’t rid its senior leadership of unionists pretending to be pro indy, the wider movement will have to do it for them.
Anyone seen the Telegraph article about Humza killing independence.
Not just one squirrel released by the retiring CC but a full house of the Scottish BAD!
“outdoor toilet block”: golly how well spoken you all were in Bathgate.
We called ours “the bogs”.
Surround Caird hall with a ring of steel and send in the fraud squad and sniffer dogs.
Everyone is leaving in the back of a van and handcuffs.
Where’s the missing 600K. Where’s our Independence and invite you rat bags?
Send in the feds.
On the other hand you “stomped” rather than “stamped”. Clearly you were hopelessly Americanised.
I don’t see the point of all the Independence talk given that the young already speak subAmerican and are fascinated by American political causes. It would be more logical to try to become the 51st state.
Just think, then you’d have a vote in American elections. True the FBI would ensure that your vote didn’t count but it would be a start, eh?
@Lorna Campbell (12.00) –
Hear hear hear.
Nobody in the history of SNP has blown our chances of independence more than Toni Giugliano.
In 2016 Giuliano, then on the NEC, ousted the sitting MSP of Edinburgh Western, Colin Keir in a nasty and unnecessary coup. Giugliano then went on to run a disasterous campaign in the Holyrood election where he deviated away from the national message and decided to campaign on his mental health issues and his sexuality. He lost what was a secure seat to Alex Cole Hamilton. SNP fell short by 2 seats of a majority, one of these because of the almighty fuck up of Giugliano.
In 2020 he then went on to become the candidate for for Dumbarton which Jackie Baillie was only just holding onto with a slender majority and she had pretty much conceded that the seat was lost due to the polling showing a strong SNP vote and Labour still in the doldrums. Yet again he ran a nasty campaign which just pissed off many activists who just could not stomach going out to knock on doors for him. Yet again he deviated away from the national message and made the election about himself. Needless to say, he again lost a seat which was regarded as an easy win. SNP fell short of 1 seat of a majority. The Tories had already conceded that if SNP had a majority then they they had won the right to a referendum. So it is this man who on two occasions has not only cost SNP a majority, but also a referendum which yes is likely to have won this time.
If it was not for Toni Giugliano we would be independent and not having to live under the SNP criminal enterprise which along with their coalition partners, value self-ID above self determination. He is now the policy convener responsible for probably the worst policies ever in SNP’s history which has distanced themselves further and further away from the electorate and their core support. He should never be allowed on a ballot paper again and if he genuinely wants independence, then he should resign from politics and never open his mouth again.
You do wonder what the SNP have got to hide in the safe space of caird hall.
They want to hide from Independence supporters asking questions about Independence.
He sounds a mafia Member Giugliano. The Bryes Road gentrified mafia that is. A criminal enterprise, the biggest organised crime syndicate Scotland has ever seen.
No ones invited. Talking to themselves. Secretive SNP. Hiding. And conspiring behind closed doors.
You’re not allowed in.
@ Lorna Campbell: Iain Lawson on Yours for Scotland has published today the procedure that will be followed by Salvo/Liberation and the Congress to restore Scotland’s rightful constitution and status as a nation state.
Read yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Everyone who wants independence should find the QR code for liberation.scot, then read and sign the Edinburgh Proclamation – the QR code is on the Salvo.scot site, Resources page, Promotional downloads.
Spot on as ever Rev, with the bonus of two well-written segues at the beginning and end of your article for our entertainment (don’t think for a minute, we don’t notice these literary things…)
Personally, I really don’t know how anyone can be arsed with the SNP any more since 2015, I mean the evidence of their mathematical convergence (ever-reducing infinity: that is, never getting to a point) is staring everyone in the face with the collective headlines of The National front pages. So in a way, they are well-hoisted by their very own petard.
Post-2014 I used to think of Scotland as a cadaver on a table, only now, the stench of its truly colonial corruption has become unbearable.
Instead of kicking the can down the road they should grasp the nettle – mixing metaphors.
It’s easy and quite enjoyable to kick the can as Stu’s piece shows.
Grasping the nettle, however, can be a painful, stinging experience.
But no pain, no gain.
Have a vote for independence in the Scottish parliament after the next elections and if the result is positive, just do it.
In 2014, the UK government offered the Vow where Scotland would have the best devolved parliament in the world.
The SNP rightly asked the Scottish people at the next UK election, whether they believed in independence or not, to lend them their vote and put pressure on the UK government to deliver the Vow they had given.
With every election afterwards, the SNP has asked the Scottish people to lend them their vote with a wink of the eye that a referendum will only be held once the time is right.
The SNP has turned into a devolution party whose only interest is keeping in power for the sake of it. This is just any ploy to do so.
I echoo ib’s hear hear hear! To Lorna Campbells post of 12:00
Meanwhile trannies have been banned competing in british female cycling events, listening to Manx Radio and a trannie there who wants to compete in female cycling races is quoted on the news say the decision are violent acts!
Thank you. Excellent post. Beautifully written as well – your schooldays in particular
Isn’t it even worse – doesn’t it look like planning after the GE means its a negotiation with Yes about how much to concede, once they know how many seats they have…rather than (potentially) negotiating with some UK-party?
Sounds like the SNP only aspires to be ‘powerbrokers’ within the Yes movement. So much for the broad coalition, when held at arm’s length…
The SNP are dead in the water. I will not vote for Drew Hendry.
If the numbers don’t add up for indy, after everything that’s gone before, it’s most certainly due to SNP policy makers. To shift blame elsewhere, for their sad failure, utterly pathetic.
The continuity voters, will eventually dwindle. In any event, with SNP on the verge of financial collapse, I believe the current bluster from Joanna Cherry is exactly that, more hot air, regards SNP delivering on promises. I believe she’s glossing over the truth, in the knowledge, that major upheaval of the party, is immanent. I hope Cherry is merely playing both sides, for now.
Defection to ALBA, certainly by others, will happen.
Any future part SNP plays in shaping Indy policy, will be due to increased leverage from the ALBA party. Both parties will inevitably sit in Holyrood, within a power-sharing deal.
The summer months, should be most interesting. The holiday is over for SNP.
A luxury housing estate in Bathgate?
Entering ‘pea and ham from a chicken’ territory there
The upper echelons in Scotland appear to be completely corrupt. In what free, open democracy with a traditional, well-considered stable legal system can people be given a carte blanche in the form of immunity from prosecution?
Who has the authority to do this, even before the facts are determined and examined? I suggest it should be no one. Moreover it should be that officials and official employees are the most rigorously investigated and pursued. Most particularly the police who are now almost routinely getting away with unlawful killing, in my opinion.
This will not change until we get an administration in power who will act correctly and competently without fear or favour.
It will not be the SNP.
1971Thistle,
Now, that’s clever.
@Ian Mccubbin
They will go the way the Irish Republican Party did, replaced and diminished.
Sadly I cant see this happening in any near future. The Irish had angry folk demanding and exacting change away from the cosy status quo’ers.
For now, Scots are just meek shoulder shruggers and I cant see any other party or parties crashing the SNP bandwagon anytime soon.
A slow death for them seems likely but one that will take another 5-10 years and by that time God only knows what state we will be
in.
Now wondering if Bathgate still has the “Mile of pennies” a former Gala King guy in my work used to champion as a big thing!
Creepy globalist nyaff’s like Tony Gugliano rule because of identity politics. It’s the main enemy we face but it’s linked up with the other globalist policy prescriptions for the peons. I want independence because secession makes politics more localised and accountable but if Alba don’t stand in Rutherglen these shites in suits will continue to rule.
Is that an enclosure being erected around the concept of Independence by the SNP?
They’ll be filing copyright and a patent on the idea at this rate.
Aye the tennis ball was hard to control. It would often break the classroom windaes. Ooops. We couldnt afford a fitba back in the day and what fitbas there were were as hard as curlin stanes. using our blazers as goal posts would get a clip round teh ear from our mothers as well.
The SNP need a good clip round the ear as those sexual deviants like the Brit Tories might like thier arses gettin skelped.
We might have been fitba daft in 1967 as we had humiliated the English at Wembley and there ws no Russian linesman to save them.Oh and that was the year Winnie Ewing won the Hamilton By-election as well. Oh and Celtic won the European Cup playing possession fitba and with 11 Scots. What a year that was. We now have shit fitba teams loaded with foreigners and the SNP is no indy Party any longer. Life sucks.
I wish I hadn’t bothered reading the article, I despair.
“These are people who, it doesn’t matter what the SNP do, it can never be good enough. ”
Unless it Independence of course it’s not good enough, that’s your job, duh!
‘Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.’
Charles MacKay
– see also; gender self ID, C*vid, man made climate warming etc. etc.
LOL.
*East of England is ‘energy capital’ of UK, claims industry chief”
link to energyvoice.com
And then we get this.
link to thenational.scot
If you don’t agree with our stance on absolutely everything then independence is off the table. WTAF?
A new low threatening the electorate, specially when apart from meekly thinking about asking Westminster for another referendum (to which the answer is obvious) independence seems to have been off the table for the last 7 years.
Lannigan…
“It will be changed by convincing your fellow Scots that independence is a better future than they have at present.”
Our fellow Scots voted by majority for Indy in 2014. The non-Scots didn’t. It’s them who need convinced, or their opinion not be asked.
So, Giugliano is still trying to sell us carrots.
What a clown. The nuSNP are finished, and it is ironic that it was the transwomen rapists that finally did it.
Did Humza endorse this nonsense ?
SNP
Approved the publication of membership numbers twice yearly
Tony Guigliano stood in Dumbarton against Jackie Baillie. He appeared all over the place in Dumbarton – big high profile campaign …….. then he disappeared off the face of the earth to a land far away known as SNP Headquarters …..
Giugliano has been parading about with his entourage for years. He is another weather vane Politician waiting his opportunity. He is certainly uninterested in the peasants or Scottish Independence.
The SNP is now poison to the YES Movement. It cannot be saved and it is contaminating the Indy campaign. The best thing we can do is finish it off and get rid of the “professional class” who now infest Scottish Politics.
They have no interest in us or our Nations future….accept that and move on.
Rev wrote: “But look above. The outcome of the “special conference” has already been given away. Giugliano has let the cat out of the bag. Indy strategy isn’t to be decided for real “until after the next General Election”.”
Yip! Picked up on that as soon as i read it. As far as i’m concerned i’ll not be helping the SNP in any way, shape or form. I’m on a permanent boycott of Westminster elections but i will always attend the voting booth to spoil my ballot.
A lot of brave folk gave their lives so i could vote in a democracy (stop laughing at the back). I will not just throw that opportunity away by not voting, i will make my effort count and spoil every single Westminster ballot paper.
Unfit for purpose!
You had a tin to kick around!? Luuxury.
We played “drainie” with a pebble on a manhole cover, kicking it to the goal, which was the lifting recess.
Unless somebody in the Indy movement starts doing some serious policy work now, what would life be like in a mythical iScotland without any trade deals, a currency or central bank of its own, and a crazy habit of spending more than it raises in revenue?
For all of the talk of non S30 route to independence, it ain’t going to happen. Nobody can explain how it would. And the only way that anybody at all in the EU, IMF, WTO or UN is going to take Scottish independence seriously is if it is achieved by a democratic vote, and with the rest of the U.K. agreeing with that.
I have to comment on how reassuring it is to see so many people on here who recognise that our political classes are grasping n’erdowells for whom the laws of the land do not appear to apply. Add their support structure amongst the media, academia, the civil service and law etc.
Re the post yesterday sensing change in the air, here’s hoping and I hope that we can put our differences behind us and secure a future for our truly beautiful country, its people and its culture.
Re differences, some us believe we are being colonised from outwith whilst others believe it is from across the border, I believe that it is both and I hope that both sides of that can work with each other as it is probably the only chance we have of not going under.
Dearie me, the SNP just don’t get it do they. The independence movement, ie us don’t need you in any shape, fashion or form. You’re gone doon the stank to most of us.
All of your lies and foosty carrots, not to mention the £600,000 that is missing, pauchled membership numbers, trans nonsense, on and on and on.
When I hear this rubbish now, I just shake the auld heid and move on. The SNP are beyond redemption, as deid as the parrot in Monty Python’s sketch. Please, we the voters are not as daft as you think, now do us all a favour and gies peace.
Is that rain I feel on my head , NO it is the deviant paedophile party PISHING on ma heed
FFS how can we not get the electorate to REALISE what these arseholes are up to, THEY are worse than the tories and Labour at least we KNOW they are corrupt LIARS, this shower of moronic excrement feeding barstewards need destroyed
Stokers proposal a few weeks ago needs to be formed and it needs to be formed and launched now
WE have to get trending NOW not in the near future or before the next election some catchy SLOGAN that will be adopted by EVERYONE to show the utter disgust and contempt we have for our politicians NOT ONLY THE LYING CORRUPT SNP but EVERY MEMBER of HR which would include the establishment figures
WE have to have a unified declaration that EVERYONE can write on their ballot slip to SPOIL their vote so that the SCUM politicians are aware that we have HAD ENOUGH
I’m sure reading through twatter and other blogs the disgust voters feel is not restricted to just the pervert party , people need to be aware that the other parties are still PROMOTING and voting for the perverts charter, tory voters and liebour voters must realise that their parties are also captured by this sexual perversion and their children will suffer this lunacy
Independence isn’t happening. At least, not because of the SNP as the only big incentive anyone has to vote for them now is the ‘promise’ of independence. Forget the fact a referendum isn’t happening, isn’t planned to happen and the leadership is doing everything in its power to prevent one from happening.
I’ve been oot and aboot a fair bit this week and had the opportunity to chat to quite a lot of folk, and most I have spoken with are now done with the SNP due to all the shit policies and other stuff they have been up to.
Interestingly nearly all these folks are hard working pro-indy indigenous Scots trying to raise young children in these trying economic times, and they cannot understand why the Party they once supported has gone so far off the rails.
Nae footy allowed at school sounds like oppression!
Put in a retrospective damages and loss claim for denial or suppression of a future career prospects.
I’m about the same age as Stu and we were allowed and encouraged to play footy in both primary and secondary schools I attended in Auld Reekie. Caught scouts’ eyes and played for a couple of the boys teams too, then got a trial for Hibs but broke collar bone playing in boys club cup final the weekend before though… Arse! 🙁
Hi A Scot Abroad at 6:22 pm.
You’ve trotted out that crap before.
Can you not come up with a fresh doom-laden scenario?
What Tony Giugliano doesn’t seem to have realised is that many independence supporters have given up on the SNP and are ploughing our own furrow to reach independence. We aren’t waiting for them to catch up with us – we’re ignoring them altogether.
Good luck to the genuine activists still trying to bring about change in the SNP. I know they exist.
However, the days when the independence movement breathlessly waited to see a cloud of white smoke emerge from their “deliberations” have long gone. They’ve let us down too often, and no-one with the brains to work out a strategy is allowed anywhere near a position of influence.
Why don’t we get true indy supporters to protest loudly outside the caird Hall when the closed shop meeting occurs. I’m sure some hard hitting placard statements and YES/Scottish flags should do the trick for national news reporting to emphasise the corruption and disgust at these SNP tractors.
Polls – can’t live with them, can’t understand them. As for an electorate – can’t follow them with radar, but you can hear the pinging all around you
So, grab a drink, and snacks, and here’s a sideways take.
Though I don’t disagree there will be a shedload of electorate sitting on their arses next election, I do detect the SNP losing voters to Labour, and others – that’s going by recent past polls, and Social Attitudes Surveys.*
Importantly, they also say that SNP voters may may be jumping ship to all airts, but they’re staying Indy.
What we seem to forget, down in the murky depths here, is that Labour etc. for Indy is a thing – even Tories for Indy is a thing (no, they don’t meet in a phone box, there’s about 20% of them)
Labour have about about 40% – and why there isn’t a seperate party for them, I have no idea – maybe yet.
The SNP appear to be shipping supporters of every ilk, and what is interesting, is that the SNP voters it is retaining, are hard for Indy – not Devo, not ‘Good Gubmint’ – Indy.
If accurate, that can only mean the SNP slide will come to a hard stop against their voters – Independence, or P45 – on that day, it will be march, or die for the SNP.
The runes do show what should be obvious – the ‘unionist’ party voters in Scotland are not the absolute enemy – we’re in them – bizarre but true.
A couple of things fall out of this; the SNP needed to be have opened dialogue and co-operated a long time ago. They want people to support Indy, to support Scottish self-government – well they are – just that the support is not only flowering in the SNP bed.
Indy support leaking to other parties is not necessarily bad, we know fine well how entryism works, and it may nudge more there to YES, but alienating such supporters risks them being nudged the opposite way – why risk that.
The ‘unionist’ parties needn’t be giggling up their sleeves at the SNP, because trolling half of Scotland (including a fair few of their own voters) and telling them to fuck right off, is not going to fly for long.
More than half of the Scottish electorate (across the political spectrum) support more powers for Holyrood – including the power to legislate for an Indy referendum (yes, even some cross-party) It is as easy, if not easier to lever that upwards, as support for Independence.
Unless those parties in Scotland soften their stance of ‘Hard No! Get back-in-your-box!’ they can look to their parties splintering too.
It doesn’t matter how much anyone points at Indy stalling, ‘Hard Unionism’ is stalled badly also, it’s going nowhere – if anything they’re losing ground, and an electorate will stand disaffection only so long.
The SNP are not going to be calling the shots on anything again, but neither are the other parties. It doesn’t matter how much of an electoral bounce of glee they get taking seats from the SNP (and they will) that’s not Independence weakening, that’s that’s not a desire for more powers for Holyrood waning, that’s not support for Westminster’s hegemony.
Every party in Scotland needs to get its act together, and begin the dialogue, because ‘More Powers’ for Holyrood polls above 50% and not a kick in the balls off 56%, and that’s important.
Where the graphs could meet (and sooner rather than later) the intersection between Indy on say 50%, and ‘More Powers’ on say 56% is our electorate telling them something. That’s tipping point numbers in politics – and ignoring it, or shouting it down, doesn’t make it go away.
The SNP speak truth when they say some stances ultimately become untenable.
Scottish voters know what conservative, labour, liberal & green etc. ideologies are, and many are quite keen on them. What they are saying (in a majority already) is they are keen on the Scottish flavour, and for a Scottish Government to be implementing them. ‘Hard Unionism’ holding Westminster’s jaiket while it gives Holyrood and half of Scotland a kicking is not it.
The penny just hasn’t dropped yet, but it will.
An electorate is always one step ahead of political parties, and there are muddy footprints all over Scotland. It won’t just be the SNP shedding voters and Indy splinter parties appearing – they are all at the same risk.
All Scottish political parties should be very, very wary of the disaffected voter – politics abhors a vacuum.
*no links because I can’t be arsed – it’s the internet – polls, and surveys are a click away – knock yourself out
@Marie Clark (6.31) –
‘doon the stank’
🙂 🙂 🙂
Sarah: have already done all that.
desimond: the Irish before 1916 were compliant and meek, just as we are at the moment. The British hierarchy pushed and pushed until all hell broke loose, and the Irish population had had enough. Yes, it will be different – we are not Irish – but we fight hardest when our backs are to the wall. I can’t recall now who it was who said, during WW I: “when the situation is impossible, send in the Scots”. Apart from being the cannon fodder, we held the reputation of being absolutely dogged in impossible circumstances, and won through against far higher odds. We may not rise in anger in the same way as our Irish cousins, but we will not stop until we win, and when our backs are against the wall, we will move forward. Scottish Unionists, rUK NO voters, Westminster and the SNP/Greens all underestimate our unyielding determination. We need to be independent to take the decisions that will take us forward.
It’s not only the men either: Scottish women will not yield to the ‘trans’ larpers. Never. We will fight till we overcome. Depend on it, larpers and enablers and haters of women. We see you and we’re coming for you.
Anthem , because most will be at Bannockburn – on the other hand , giving them a wee surprise might be a pleasure!
Hard to think of a more cowardly bunch of selfish eejits than SNP politicians and party officials
Clearly it’s now beyond doubt the SNP has zero desire for independence. They are just another Scotland-hating britnat party.
Yet support for indy stays at around 50%.
All it needs is for all pro indy politicians to permanently withdraw from Westminster today and the whole rotten carbuncle that is the so-called united kingdom will topple like a 1960s Soviet Union car park.
Not a good idea, Anthem (7.37pm). Placards and protest? A gift to the mainstream media. No chance they’d report the march if they could report a ‘split’ instead.
Supporting independence is about unity and cooperation, not division. Stay focused on what matters – the march.
The main trouble is that Alex Salmond proved to the Scottish people that his administration was competent and got THINGS dine
Mrs Murrell on the other hand-mmm apart from baby boxes
Where was the dualling of the A9 -inverness to Aberdeen
Dumfries/ayr to Stranrear ferry
Nah zilch apart from GRA that nobody wants
Now we have Useless- more of the same -no vision
Mmmmmm
M
Cresta!
Forgot that existed!
Brian doon toon 6.49pm
How fuckin thick are you?
There have been warnings about conversing with Trolls, and you seem to do it on a daily fuckin basis.
You reply to these clowns as if they are real genuine indy supporters.
A blind man can see they are all part of Main’s collection of “names”.
Where you always this gullible or is it only since you started posting on Wings that you became this thick.
These “names” are on here to disrupt and direct the flow of conversation away from Scotland becoming an independent nation.
Fur fuck sake wake up man.
IGNORE MAIN AND HIS ASSORTMENT OF CHARACTERS.
@Iain Mhor 7:44
Top post of this thread so far.
All over Europe, new faces and new parties with new policies are springing up and getting support from disaffected voters. From zero to holding the balance of power in next to no time.
Quite unlikely that Scotland will be immune to this phenomenon. Whisper it, quite possibly England too will succumb, although it is still looking likely that “traditional” Labour will be getting one last chance first.
But maybes 18 months to go before the WM GE, and a hell of a lot can happen in 18 months.
Haha, unless you’re an SNP trougher. But 18 months to line up your next gig is a much better deal than most of us ever get.
@BDTT (6.49) –
ASA is a hybrid of Private Frazer and Nicholas Fairbairn.
@Wilson McBride 8:31
Aw fuck man. This is, like, so aggravating.
I though Scot Abroad was one of my, like, better creations, and you, like, sussed him straight away.
What a bummer. It’s back to the drawing board for me, and on the, like, weekend too.
Haha, let’s see how smart you are in spotting my next “name”. I recall you’re a, like, betting man, Wilson. Care to wager if you can find my, like, next alter ego?
£20 says you can’t. That’s a litre of, like, half-decent gin.
@IB 8:55
Gie him a brek.
Maybes he inhaled some of that radioactive cloud that is heading our way.
Where is that cloud anyways? Don’t you think that keeping its whereabouts to yourself is a bit anti-social?
@ Lorna Campbell at 7.56: “..have done all that”.
I thought you would have – I was just hoping to inform and encourage a lot more of the Rev’s vast readership to get hold of that http://www.liberation.scot QR code and spread it around. It would be helpful if Liberation’s own website had the code but I think it is only on Salvo’s site at the moment.
BDTT, @ 6:49pm,
I’ve no need to come up with something else, because what I state is the simple and existing truth. No body in the international community is going to recognise Scottish independence unless it is achieved by democratic consensus within the law of the UK.
I’ll further state that there’s currently a majority in Scotland that favour the Union. If that changes, Scotland will get a referendum, if carried, then depart from the Union on good terms and with the best wishes of all, including the UN, EU etc. But until that changes, there won’t be any referendum, and any nonsense guff about claims of right being asserted will just get absolutely nowhere.
Just watched six four.
Very close to the truth
“If Scotland ever does become independent at some point in the future”
That brought back memories from five years ago:
“From the archives #6” (12 February, 2018)
Hamish100:
“Let more doubts enter the minds of those uncertain of independence and they will begin to realise the brits nays have failed.”
Rock:
“They sure will.
In 622 years’ time.
The most stupid people on earth are in Scotland.
Has Nicola managed to flog her dead horse yet – a separate deal for Scotland in the EU?”
Given the massive amount of evidence that exists regarding the untrustworthy nature of politicians, I doubt whether, logically speaking, the minuscule number of honest-brokers amongst them are capable of making any noticeable difference at all within the ranks of their various parties. For no apple in the barrel has a skin sufficiently hard to forever resist the corruptive attentions of the worms, it seems.
Alex Salmond giving the SNP troughers something to chew on. Could cause some division between the safe seaters and the marginals.
The duggers will be out in force soon saying it’s a ruse to keep the two Alba MP’s in a job. The SNP will do anything to keep Alba out so no chance they will go along with his proposal.
Stunning building to be educated in.
Hi A Scot Abroad at 6:22 pm.
You’ve trotted out that crap before.
International lsw disagrees with you by, what the hell, you know better, iye?
Wilson McBride replied to me;
““Xaracen”
ANOTHER “name”.
Fuck off ya Dildo.”
I’m not entirely convinced that your response to my suggestion properly addressed it. Perhaps if you had provided rather more content and rather less ‘punctuation’, that might have helped?
Unfortunately, I believe you may be suffering from intellectual overreach, a rather nasty condition, I hear. Proper study can do wonders these days, though some do not respond well to the treatment. I shall keep my fingers crossed for you. Probably best you desist from further commenting until your nurse declares you intellectually fit enough to do so.
Love and kisses, Xaracen
@BDTT (10.48) –
We are grappling with higher forces brother.
God help us.
🙁
I see Phillip Schofield has been sacked by ITV for lying to his wife for 20 years and cheating with his teenage staffer he groomed.
I wonder if he’ll be applying for a new role at SNP TV. He’ll be hired.
Brian Doonthetoon says:
26 May, 2023 at 10:48 pm
International lsw disagrees with you by, what the hell, you know better, iye?
International law is based on english law, So is the UN.
Nicola: My dream now is to write a novel! What’s she writing? The lying, the witch and the wardrobe? Ahaha.
BDTT,
International law isn’t settled, and is applied in inconsistent ways, and certainly depends on the political judgements of those who apply it.
I spent quite a few years in the Balkan countries during the 90s during the years following the break up of Yugoslavia. Working for the UN, the OSCE, NATO, and for the ECMM. And I saw how the same law got applied differently, according to prevailing international law was “deemed” to apply by the power politickers. The most indicative of that (to me) was when I gave 90 minutes of testimony to the UN Security Council in 1993, but that was only about 8 minutes of me speaking, and the rest taken up with arguing between the countries represented about whether what I was saying was admissible under their rules. So I’d made a flight from Zagreb to New York, spoke for 8 minutes, and then they made no decision because Russia indicated that it would use a veto. People in Yugoslavia carried on dying, but that didn’t seem to be of much concern in the UN.
So don’t be fooled that you’ve got a good case. There’s more than a degree of doubt as to whether any Braveheart assertions of ancient guff is going to fly. That’s just political reality.
A Scot Abroad
WHat you say about the capricious application of international law is certainly true. But you are quite wrong in what that means for Scottish Independence. Because the key point is that, post Brexit, the UK is utterly friendless.
Everybody hates the UK. The EU hate the UK. The developing nations certainly do – halved aid budget, colonial oppression, slavery, defiance of ZN and ICJ over Chagos Islands. Russia and China hate the UK. Even Biden hates the UK because of his long term Irish American support base.
So yes, international law is aplied capriciously as nations identify their interest. But that means the UK is fucked.
OT but felt I had to say, “Emily Bridges” TIM cyclist is a wanker
Ah, so the SNP are back in election mode yet again. As always they run with the tagline;
‘vote SNP, give us a fesh mandate, and we definitely, definitely, definitely really, really, really, honestly promise that this time we will definitely, aim to secure consensus, to deliver a strategy, that will be designed with the aim of setting forward our plans to ensure Scots will be able to make their voices heard in London to progress Scotland as an independent country…or something’
In other words, Boll*cks.
Every single MP seat in Scotland could be SNP, and it would make not one f***ing blind bit of difference.
Even if Humza useless and his team of SNP grifters, were to state today, that they would use the UK general election as a de facto vote on independence, I simply would not believe him. The SNP have had almost one decade of full unfettered power (since 2014), with the weakest, most muddled Tory government in London, and incredible levels of voter support to deliver on independence, and THEY HAVE DONE NOTHING.
Nobody believes the SNP anymore. They and their green creepo pervert pals are toast come the next election.
The SNP, the do nothing party.
David Hannah says: at 12:13 am
“Nicola: My dream now is to write a novel! What’s she writing? The lying, the witch and the wardrobe? Ahaha.”
Oi! It’s hard enough trying to make an honest groat these days without you plagiarising my work! 😉
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Hang on a minute! They demolished the outdoor toilet block!? WHY?
Two more people have been placed on pre-moderation for persistent personal abuse. I can’t be bothered repeating myself.
@Craig Murray 2:16
I have to take exception to you including “slavery” on that list.
No country did more to end slavery than Britain. Fact.
And many ordinary men, Scots, Welsh, English and Irish, suffered and died on the fighting ships that Britain sent out to police the world’s oceans and end that vile trade.
So, the point you are trying to make is fatally weakened by your inclusion of “slavery”.
Not that your point has any substance anyways. Much as it might boost Indy supporters to believe that “everybody hates the UK”, it is self evident nonsense. Countries and alliances don’t do “hate”, just as they don’t do “friends”. Countries have interests. Nothing more, nothing less. Politicians, including Biden, may well pander to the interests of their voting blocs. But the idea that any politician once in office is permitted to be guided by hatred and likes is ludicrous.
Last, but by no means least, you chose a most inopportune day to declare that everybody “hates” the UK. 606k “haters” came here last year, net, the number of immigrants tops 1 million.
In no rational world view can that flood of over 1 million New Brits be interpreted as proof of hatred.
History is all very well, but we should always keep in mind that it tends to be written by the winners.
Robert Bruce, he of Bannockburn fame, was also a murderer, and probably was instrumental in Willam Wallace’s capture. But so what? That’s how politics was done in those days.
It was more than SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO. It was not last week, last year or the like. GET OVER IT.
The past cannot be changed.
Every minute Scots spend looking back and romanticising, is a minute not looking forward.
Charles
David Hannah:
“The cops should get back to focussing on law and order. There’s corruption at the top of Scotland’s institutions. It’s in plain sight.”
I could not agree more. Unfortunately, I have to repeat the view I expressed on another thread here, recently:
“…when the people you appoint to prosecute and uphold the law are themselves possibly compromised, justice will not be served…”
@Lorna Campbell
I voted for Alex Salmond twice – so if I am what you claim then that fact alone shows that minds can be changed.
Had NS governed in the same competent way, bringing folk with her but respecting their differences (as Salmond used to do) then things may have been very different.
The very idea that you can seize independence is silly and belongs in the history books that you are so keen to quote.
Bring the nation with you – there is no other way.
Torbain 12:32
Spot on! He’s not right. People who are mentally ill shouldn’t ever hold office. These arseholes make everything about themselves & not the public they’re supposed to serve. That thing, Fiona Robertson, was the same space cadet. Sturgeon excelled at something after all – attracting an endless parade of self serving weirdos.
I imagine the NEC as the daily group in ‘One flew over the cuckoo’s nest’. Corruption allowed to go on because they were so self absorbed in themselves.
I bet he had a hand in banning routes to Independence from an independence party Conference.
I hope indy parties take note & do not employ these arseholes when they abandon the rat infested ship that is the NuSNP.
Steve Lannigan Even this does not convince Unionists?
link to equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com
link to pure.strath.ac.uk
while Allik et al say that the Scottish government has not done all it could in reducing “deaths of despair”, the origins of which arise in the 80s and 90s it also says this in conclusion. “However, preventing deaths that are so tightly related to socioeconomic status require policy interventions that not only tackle the mental health or addiction problems, but also intergenerational deprivation, socioeconomic inequalities, and a lack of opportunities for upward social mobility.”
To do that effectively requires control of the economy and welfare. We Scots are not going to get that through devolution.
@Craig Murray
Seeing as those convicted for Modern Day Slavery in Scotland and the rest of the UK appear to be a collection of immigrants, travellers and Marxists should the countries of the world indulge in collective hatred of these three groups? Or is collective guilt only applicable to the past and not the present? Are there get out clauses?
SNP the Scot Caboose…….
President Xiden says:
26 May, 2023 at 11:21 am
“I see soon to be retired, Chief Constable Livingstone has released a squirrel.”
======
Which one do you mean?
The “institutionally sexist…” etc.one?
Or the warning to SNP troughers to stop speculating?
There have, arguably, been others-including his premature resignation.
“I see soon to be retired, Chief Constable Livingstone has released a squirrel.”
?======
Which one do you mean?”
*******
On the subject of Livingsone squirrels, my attention has been drawn to a recent post on Livingstone by Caltonjock.
link to caltonjock.com
Is there a clue here?
“I see soon to be retired, Chief Constable Livingstone has released a squirrel.”
?======
Which one do you mean?”
*******
On the subject of Livingsone squirrels, my attention has been drawn to a recent post on Livingstone by Caltonjock.
link to caltonjock.com
Is there a clue here?
Craig Murray,
you know better than most the political realities of international diplomacy. Your assertion that the U.K. is friendless is very wide of the mark, in my opinion. The U.K. has remarkable soft power via being a P5 member, having the largest foreign aid budget (by proportion of GDP) in Europe, being a G7 and G20 member, hugely influential in the WTO and IMF, and through the Commonwealth, which is growing.
Western countries try to follow a rules-based order, and react badly (by imposing sanctions and diplomatic freezes) to chaotic disintegrations of nations. Given that there are rules by which Scotland can leave the Union, Scotland trying to leave the Union by any other process than via those rules is going to end badly for Scotland.
Then there’s politics. There are secession movements of varying strength and influence in 13 of the EU’s 27 countries. The most obvious example is Spain. Can you really imagine Spain welcoming an iScotland into the EU if it had not taken a democratic route to exiting the U.K.? Not in a lifetime, given that Catalunya would threaten the same. Catalunya is rather more economically beneficial to the EU than Scotland is, by the way. All Scotland really has that the EU wants is some fish.
The U.K. has been a power player globally for 300 years. You know that every single lever available to Whitehall would be deployed to frustrate a non-rules based secession of Scotland. And those levers are powerful.
Well JC has shown her true colours, no surprise, as I warned months ago that she was not to be trusted. She covets Party leadership, but unfortunately in league with the huge numbers of LGBT in the Greens and SNP her main goal is to heighten the profile of this group in society and achieve political power.
Basically the same MO as NS, use Scottish Independence as a cover for social change and build a protective wall of unthinking Bravehearts to pass the legislation they need.
We are at a dangerous tipping point and must ensure that only real politicians with a grasp of the bigger picture are elected, people who will throw open the Independence argument to public scrutiny, produce real plans and projections to win the votes of the uncommitted. It will be a long and hard road but the type of social change envisaged by the LGBT controlled SNP will turn Scotland into a failed state, not a sovereign one.
A Scot Abroad said;
“Western countries try to follow a rules-based order, and react badly (by imposing sanctions and diplomatic freezes) to chaotic disintegrations of nations. Given that there are rules by which Scotland can leave the Union, Scotland trying to leave the Union by any other process than via those rules is going to end badly for Scotland.”
Your framing is yet again a dishonest representation of the truth. The ‘rules by which Scotland can leave the Union’ are only Westminster’s rules, and it is not entitled to constrain Scotland’s right to withdraw from the Treaty of Union precisely because Scotland is a fully sovereign Principal of that treaty. Westminster on the other hand is not a Principal of the Treaty but is instead a subject of it and so subservient to it, and therefore cannot command any authority over either Principal.
You are once again overegging the authority of the English establishment which runs Westminster while carefully ignoring the authority of the sovereign Scottish people, whose own sovereignty forms the basis of Westminster’s delegated authority over Scotland, two steps below that sovereignty. Sovereign -> Scottish Parliament and Monarch -> Westminster (via Scotland’s elected MPs). Scotland’s MPs are themselves one step above Westminster in authority as they are all elected directly by the sovereign Scots themselves, thus only one level below Scotland’s sovereignty. England’s sovereignty/authority is completely irrelevant in this matter.
All of the above is true and relevant, and neither you nor the English establishment is entitled to pretend otherwise.
At the international level, there is only one rule, that Scotland’s people democratically chose to reclaim their independence, and can demonstrate the democratic authenticity of their choice. Westminster has no legal, constitutional or democratic right of any kind to apply constraints deliberately designed to prevent Scotland’s people from carrying out that democratic exercise should they choose to do so, just because it fears the answer, and nor for any other reason.
As for “react badly…to chaotic disintegrations”, that is no more than unwarranted wishful presumption on your part, just more of your less than accurate framing; we would be dismantling a Treaty agreement which at root just formalised the sharing of a single parliament to permit jointly coordinated governance of the two Kingdoms under a written set of terms and conditions. The chaos will come from the fact that much of the UK Parliament’s governance of Scotland was ultra vires both under the terms of the Treaty, and in abrogation of its obligation to respect Scotland’s constitution and sovereignty, neither of which were ever given over to the new Union parliament. Untangling all of that is going to be seriously messy, and all of that is down to the English establishment’s utter lack of integrity. They are the ones that sowed the seeds of chaos, and they will reap the resulting whirlwind. Hell mend them!
“You know that every single lever available to Whitehall would be deployed to frustrate a non-rules based secession of Scotland.”
Oh, there’s a surprise, more disingenuous framing! Firstly, Scotland’s independence would not be a secession, because that presumes that the UK is Scotland’s mother country; it patently isn’t. Scotland and England together are the UK’s and the UK Parliament’s parents, courtesy of the Treaty that created them both, and neither ceased to exist. They merely ceased governing themselves separately, governing themselves jointly instead.
Secondly, it would not be non-rules based, it just wouldn’t be using Westminster’s rules, since all of those rules only encompass domestic legislation. Scotland’s independence is a matter of international law, as you well know, so Whitehall’s efforts, in full alignment with your own, are irrelevant, however strenuously they try.
Xaracen
I fully agree with what you write, which is why I wanted Regan to win the leadership position.
I am entirely onboard with the idea that if a majority of Scots vote for candidates who have pledged, in advance, that should they be elected, they will commence preparations for Indy, then that is the first step needed. Matters not if HR or WM elections.
The second step is a fixed term, no more than a year, in which the majority-supported candidates negotiate or otherwise all the T’s & C’s of Scotland’s departure from the UK.
The third and final step is a referendum at which Scotland’s government puts the full terms of what Indy will mean to the Scottish people. Currency, trading arrangements, relationship with the EU, NATO, etc etc.
When I write it out like this, it all seems comprehensible and feasible.
So, why has this never happened? Discounting the usual conspiracy theories, two reasons seem credible to me.
1 Our politicians totally lack the ability and competence to do any of this. Faced with building a first-world country, they wilt at the impossibility (to them) of the task.
2 Our politicians believe that if they did all of the above, then we Sovereign Scots would reject Indy, when it was finally clear just what it would entail.
Note that 2 may be a consequence of 1. Numpties won’t be able to negotiate any kind of advantageous Indy, thus ensuring we Sovereign Scots will reject it.
Ah didnay ken Rev Stu wus fae Bathgate! See the things ye learn on yon web site.
Xaracen, @ 5:52 pm
that’s 17 types of nonsense, in the real world. Not a single part of it is going to happen. For all sorts of practical reasons, but not least because there’s a majority of Scots who don’t want it to happen, to start with.
A Scot Abroad.
Quite the Mystic Meg are you not?
Eh?
A Scot Abroad.
Quite the name of nothing relevant.
Eh?
A Scot Abroad.
Let’s save some finger time and truncate things a little?
Eh?
A Scot Abroad.
A Scab.
There ya go.
Job done.
Nae mare puss from you methinks.
Zander Tit,
I have the right of my birthright, and of free speech, to have a say.
Of course you do Scab.
Trouble is for you Scabby one, is that hiding behind a fake name invalidates everything you waste your time writing on here.
I am surprised you did not know that Puss Meister.
Actually I’m not surprised at all.
A Scot Abroad.
Proven SCAB.
Eh? ?
Zander Tit,
you’ll be one of those actively reducing the chances of Scots Indy then, by being aggressive to the ones with a vote in Scotland who aren’t yet of your Indy persuasion. And you should reflect upon that, but as you don’t have the intellect, probably won’t.
You are being a bit of a muppet. Can’t see the path to a future, because you are wanting a fight today. You are always going to be a never-was.
Now, rev up, and F off.
Except, of course. I am only directing verbals at you Scabster.
The Scab who has no vote and hides behind a fake name.
The truth hurts eh Scaboid??
“that’s 17 types of nonsense, in the real world. Not a single part of it is going to happen. For all sorts of practical reasons, but not least because there’s a majority of Scots who don’t want it to happen, to start with.”
@ A Scot Abroad;
You try to come across as an honest concerned person who would like to know how Scotland can become a successful independent country. But you are clearly not such a person, as your mean-spiritedness, anger, and snide responses keep popping up to puncture that facade.
You solicitously present the problems that we would face as severe challenges, and while we will face those challenges, you constantly divert our attention away from the fact that all of those challenges have already been faced and overcome by many others in the past. You pretend that those challenges are all but insurmountable for Scotland in particular, because of reasons that you never define and never will; your sole focus is to constantly rub our faces in the problems in the hope we lose heart and give up the fight.
But, bright as you may be, we see through you, and many others like you, and that fight we will never give up.
The truth is those problems you revel in are by no means insurmountable, they basically boil down to choosing which of several existing solutions we can pick from, or more probably constructing a bespoke set based on one or more of them, which can be tailored to suit our actually very good circumstances, which can and have been defined. You hate being told how good those circumstances are, and you simply deny their authenticity without refutation, since the evidence, both direct and indirect, just doesn’t support you.
Scotland’s primary problem isn’t going to be getting international recognition, or getting trade deals, or joining international organisations like the UN, the EU, or EFTA, or whatever, it is almost entirely to do with informing our own people that all of those things are entirely doable should we choose to do them;
informing them that their country is not by any means a poor country; for its size it has exceptionally abundant natural and human resources, and that it isn’t the small country it is always being told it is. It is a medium-sized country, there being as many smaller countries in the world as larger, and that’s from the UN’s own statistics division. In fact, if you include Scotland’s UN-mandated EEZ, and you really should, it is about 50% larger than poor wee England with its little EEZ, and our EEZ has almost all of the good stuff in it. The UN stats are actually a good place for Scottish folks to have a peek at, they are very enlightening! (Shout out for Chick McGregor, 5 August, 2017)
informing them of the many very real abuses they have suffered entirely unnecessarily under England’s unlawful governance, (yes, unlawful, as explained more than once);
informing them that they have actual sovereign rights which have been deliberately suppressed by that establishment for no more than its own selfish reasons, and that this has been ongoing for literally centuries and is well documented.
And especially informing them that they really can do something about it! I think you hate that more than anything else.
You denigrate our historical constitutional and sovereign history that has been unlawfully suppressed by your establishment, as being nothing more than ‘hoary ancient guff’, of no modern significance, despite that guff having current and real standing in Scots law and is guaranteed under the Treaty.
The reason for the great difficulty in getting that information out to the Scots who need to hear it is the very powerful but illicit and immoral English establishment which doesn’t give the slightest toss for the sovereign rights of the Scots or their nation or their ownership of their kingdom’s resources, because it sees our huge national wealth and has coveted it for many many decades, and has made itself utterly dependent on it. The establishment’s greatest ally and resource in keeping the Scots in ignorance of their true status and authority within the UK and the wider world, as opposed to what the English establishment pretends, is the British press and the broadcast media, whose impartiality and integrity is legendary, and they are fully comfortable with following the establishment’s line in denigrating and deriding even the very idea that Scotland’s independence could be anything more than a fantasy on a par with the Tooth Fairy.
Between them, they have gone to great lengths to make it as difficult as possible for us Scots to be in a position to extract ourselves, our country, and our wealth from their iron grip. Because if we achieve it, that’s not just a severe blow to England’s economy, which it will be by putting England into even direr straits than it claims an iScotland would be in since it could no longer help itself to Scotland’s resources that it depends so heavily upon, it is also a severe blow to the English establishment’s pride and standing in the world, that tiny Scotland can do much better on its own, without the ‘generous’ support of England.
Sovereignty, constitutions, the rule of law, rights both constitutional and international, democracy, integrity, decency and accountability are all matters of indifference to that establishment, to be discarded or exploited whenever it suits in order to preserve its power, authority and standing in the world. The whole machinery of the British state is deployed to keep the Scots ignorant of their own real economic and constitutional power, and that machinery includes the press and broadcasters across the whole of the UK, which, as a matter of democratic necessity, should be holding power to account, but instead it much prefers to hold those without power to account, because they can’t fight back!
So, ASA, having accurate and relevant information is key to the Scots’ future; it’s available and it just needs to get out to them. As far as the English establishment and we better informed Scots are concerned you are a tool, and you have been doing your very
bestworst to run interference on the propagation of that information, by deliberately muddying the waters with disingenuous and irrelevant bullshit on this, the best informed political blog in the UK, on behalf of your abusive English establishment. You’ve been found out and unmasked.You’ve failed your mission, soldier!
Xsaracen wrote :
“So, ASA, having accurate and relevant information is key to the Scots’ future; it’s available and it just needs to get out to them.”
If the clique running the SNP for the last 15 or 20 years hadn’t done everthing it could to keep the SNP’s ‘relevant information’ and FINANCES secret, especially from its paying supporters, then perhaps the SNP would be in less of a mess today.
Some discretion may be all very well, but to use obesssive secrecy as a tool to deceive one’s own members and supporters is quite another.
Wrong Charles.
The clique you refer to only came about in the last 8 years under the controllership of Nikita Stalin and her side kick Murrell.
Salmond ran a competent SG. Stalin did not.
Well Zander Tait, you may be right – or you may not be.
The deciding issue is this – was AS more successful in hiding any goings-on than NS? Or were there no ‘goings-on’ under AS? Who knows?
NS was so blindly over-confident of her own inviolability as Leader of SNP that she positively taunted us all with fibs and obfuscation, smirking as she did.
AS either didn’t do it, or he did it more discreetly.
One or the other.
Chances are, none of us will ever find out which.
I believe there is no doubt whatsoever, Charles.
After all, AS did not attempt to send an innocent man to jail for crimes he did not commit based on a perceived political threat.
Stalin did and thanks to a Scottish jury, she failed.
Same as she failed in everything else.
Zander Tait,
Indeed. I’m with you there, nearly, but not quite . . .
NS wasn’t a complete failure, was she?
It would be unfair to say that, and we need to be fair to our former FM, don’t we? WE heve our standards, even if she and others do not.
NS succeeded repeatedly to persuade a big chunk of the electorate to vote for her and the party she led.
NS succeeded in fooling a lot of people to pay a lot of money.
Now look at where that has led our country.
Is Humza, “the continuity candidate” going to save the sitation? Selected by NS and PM (a pair of demi-gods), how could Humza not succeed?
Less greeting about the past, and bit more positive and REALISTIC thinking about the future, might be a start-point. We all want what’s best for Scotland, a point upon which I am sure we all agree.
Xaracen,
far too much guff and self-assertion from you. The fact remains that nobody in the international community is going to recognise the ancient claptrap you come up with. All that they are going to recognise is a 50%+1 vote under U.K. law. And you ain’t getting that until you’ve got a demonstrable majority in polling for such a result.
There is probably a majority in Scotland right now for people spouting Indypish to be incarcerated in Barlinnie. Had you thought of that?