Wings Over Scotland

Aye, she’s toast.

And that’s what we pay you for. Good catch on the graph.

FTP types will still follow follow .
That seems to be a UK wide poll, any ‘regional’ sub-sets Stu?

Well done, Stu.

There is no end to BritNat Tory Media lying and scheming. But then it goes with the English Colonial mentality.

The unionists don’t need Ruth anymore anyway. Not now they’ve got the charismatic, shrewd, witty, clued up and quintessentially Scottish Alister Jack to champion their cause.

Does media coverage track Davidson’s popularity? Or does her popularity track media attention? And is there any reason we should care?

The Tories apparently, think of Scotland’s Independence as an ‘obsession of the Scottish National Party, even though independence is totally normal for a country.
Furthermore, is not Brexit all about restoring England’s independence. Isn’t that what ‘Taking back Control’ is all about.

If it’s good enough for England and the rest of the world, then, of course, it’s good enough for Scotland.

Legally, Scotland is not a Colony. But England has persuaded itself that it is. Much like a thief quickly comes round to thinking that the stuff he has stolen belongs to him. Like all the British Colonies which made up the Empire.

But it’s all coming to an end.

Quite tragic in a sense, like Frankenstein’s monster.
They created her and they’re going to end her career.

I haven’t watched TV for years now, choosing to get all my info and entertainment via the internet. I confess to using the BBC online news on occasion, but I have recently concluded that reading BBC output is a complete waste of time.

I’d sooner buy rotting fish.

When the Times starts talking down Davidson it can only mean there are moves to take over the MSP as tory branch leader

There is half a dozen wee Ermine breathing a huge sigh of relief.

Does this we’ll maybe get ‘Car Crash’ as the new Tory leader, if Rooth is going, going, go…….?

And then there was Swinson.

Even the dimmest in Scotland are going to cotton on some time.

Why would the WM worshipping Tories have a member of Holyrood as leader? Answer, they did when it suited them.

Soon, Holyrood and everything about it will be sidelined to be replaced with power from their ‘real’ Parliament in London.

The Scotland Office ( or whatever it’s called ) has been in planning for years. The Tories only saw Holyrood as a temporary blip. Davidson’s demise may have been inevitable while she remained an MSP. Now they have become more radical under Johnson, the power shift will be accelerated.

It would be in keeping with Johnson’s approach to have an MP rather than an MSP as northern branch leader

I may be wrong here but I suspect the Colonel is being teed up to become the new Political pundit from Scotland for the BBC. 😀

galamcennalath@12.25

In fact the media all but had her down as winning the election in Scotland in 2017, and therefore she was actually First Minister, in their deluded tiny minds. Ah well, they did try, but then they failed.

Had pals in England, Labour voted who ‘quite liked her’ and thought she was ‘funny’. Says it all really.

@ Jack Murphy
Despite bring on this site on a almost daily basis I had not seen that video so thanks for the share. Usual succinct and cutting cartoon from the holiday kid

O/T

Are the National and the SNP trying to pre empt the new WBB? I see a few SNP politicians re tweeting the supplement debunking Yoon myths.

We know how the MSN treated her but not anymore no one to protect her now.

link to youtube.com

I received a letter from the House of Commons today.
It was from the young Labour MP who marginally stole the
Hard working Margaret Ferrier’s seat at the last election.

I had never heard of the boy before or after the election until now.

He proposes that I could make an appointment to see him if he
Can help me with benefits, pensions or National Insurance matters.

Again like Ruth he obviously sees our community as scroungers
Only looking for benefits.

I’m thinking about making an appointment to see if he can offer any
Advice on how soon Scotland could become independent.

I’d let be to see him squirm on why Labour hid the McCrone Report,
The details of the Dunblane massacre, the stolen 6,000 miles of
Scottish waters, the PFI Con and why their councillors.spent
Thousands to stop female workers receiving equal pay.

Could it be that Davidson fall came in two phases, as implied by the graph?

First one last year. Reason? Pass.

Second one in the last few months could this be part of the far right über Brexiteer takeover of the Tory party which has been going over the same period? Like Mundell, Davidson no longer fits.

RE…. Ross Thompson et all
It’s a pet theory of mine that they are being held in reserve to front ” Better Together 2 “.
If true,I look forward to asking continuously how Scotland’s drug issues are better delt with in the Union?
Especially since this is an issue they could speak to 🙂

Thanks Sassenach,

Sounds like the Tory Scottish office IT team are working
Again this weekend.

So many technical faults seem to happen to all things that
Support Independence?

If the Rev doesn’t win by a mile we know it’s been hacked.

Tanking

Can’t get a US trade deal if the Good Friday Agreement is not upheld.
Can’t get a US trade deal if tax evading US multinationals have to pay tax.
Can’t get a US trade deal. US protectionist.

Mad cow came from Alabama. Cost £Billions.

Boris Johnson’s fake radicalism…
link to craigmurray.org.uk

… (what about him isn’t fake?)

Arbroath1320 says:
3 August, 2019 at 1:26 pm
I may be wrong here but I suspect the Colonel is being teed up to become the new Political pundit from Scotland for the BBC. ?

Could be right. After all, the bbc friends of Dugdale ie Smith got her a wee number wi Glasgow Uni/ Smiths Trust

Good riddance, hopefully we never need to see her face again in a generation…or is that a lifetime?

Jack Murphy says:
3 August, 2019 at 4:07 pm
CageyBee said 1:54 pm:

” @ Jack Murphy
Despite bring on this site on a almost daily basis I had not seen that video so thanks for the share.
Usual succinct and cutting cartoon from the holiday kid”

Ah! CageyBee you’re a lurker. [smile]
Well YES and no I post so intermittently that it comes across like that

They had Ming Campbell on lbc this morning spouting his spin this is the man who claimed for two regency bed cabitnents for his flat on his expenses and was part of power sharing with Cameron and the tories Clegg with his no student fees lies and a present leader who says even if a.second Ref., voted again to leave she would refuse to accept it she is refusing to accept democracy she has no place in politics aye liberal democrats if it was not so vile it would make laugh and let’s not forget the liar Carmichael what a shower you must be of low intelligence to vote for them or stark raving mad

‘we’ve fixed it for them’ ….had I a womb and a vagina I would want to have your kids…

I’ve decided I’m going to do a poll in of my lovely English friends.

Asking them 1) who is the SOS? 2) his deputy? 3) who is the leader of the Tories in Scotland and 3) how well is that leader doing?

Actually think it will be a waste of time. They’ll have no clue and no interest.

The colonel & fluffy.
Reminds me of the lines of a Krisofferson song.

“When you climb that stairway to the bottom, no-one’s watching except that mirror on the wall”.

Eddie Mair questions Liz Truss on LBC.

link to twitter.com

The Scottish Renaissance will only begin when the last vestige of ‘Britishness’ is flushed out of the system.
British Unionism is ‘provincial’, cosy, anglo-centric, uninmaginative.
Take a deep breath!

David 6;56pm
Hi David its August . . Hiking season, off you pop.

Perhaps Wingers would appreciate a little culture this fine Saturday evening?

How about this:-

link to youtube.com

Jockanese Wind Talker says:
3 August, 2019 at 6:32 pm
Ming Campbell also sold off the Post Office on the cheap.””
………

It was Vince Cable and it was Royal Mail that was sold off on the cheap.

I stand corrected @Legerwood says at 8:08 pm

That economy with the truth probably qualifies me as a FinDem Candidate

😉

Nice to note that despite some nonsense posted on here the National has today confirmed the fact that it is the only newspaper in UK that is actually increasing its hard copy sales.

It’s front pages have been brilliant. “Back Door Boris” was a cracker.

Today’s copy debunking the myths is a very useful development.

@Ben Starav

The next snap election can’t come quick enough for me either, I also believe the Tories will be reduced to at best a single representative in Westminster.

In the past Fluffy held that role but now that he is no longer SSOS he too could be out leaving no Tories at all as Scottish MP’s.

Just let BoJo or any other Tory after an early election try and refuse a Section 30 order to an SNP Scottish Government with 90%+ of Westminster MP’s when they themselves have NONE.

@Thepnr –

If Mundell isn’t well and truly hoofed come the next GE? I give up.

That’s my fuckin ‘red line’ right there and I swear to all known gods that I will stick by it.

Many of us well-remember the Greens role in helping him hang on last time. Whether it was intentional or not is immaterial – it must not happen again.

O/T Up in the Galloway Hills today my partner and I bumped into a couple of lassies on horses making their way along on old drove road above Carsphairn.

I got talking to one, Misha was her name, who hailed from a town in north Wales about 25 miles across the border from Chester.

Purely by chance I had my Yes2 t-shirt on (de rigeur these days).

“We have only been living here two weeks”, Misha told me, “But we love it here. We moved to Scotland because we knew we would feel at home here.

“You know there’s another independence referendum coming?” I asked.

“Of course I do. That’s one reason why we came. Your Remain vote was another.”

“But how will you vote?”

“Why, ‘yes’ of course! And I know a lot of people who have come up here to do the same.”

I held her hand for a second and smiled and thought “feck me, we are going to win this.”

Then I thought – we MUST make the referendum voting process ours from start to finish – preferably with EU scrutiny.

The Electoral Commission – for many reasons, its failings over blatant Leave campaign cheating in the EU ref and its changing of the indy ref question not being the least of those, should be allowed nowhere near the referendum.

Nor should Idox, the firm of which the loathesome former Tory minister Petert Lilley is senior non-executive director.

The company was heavily involved in managing the postal vote process and in its own statement to shareholders, said it successfully provided “the majority of electoral services” for the 2014 Scottish referendum and that it managed the highest turnout in recent years for a major UK election. Ahem.

Make of that what you will.

I know for an absolute fact that there were ballot boxes in Dumfries and Galloway taken to the count without a police escort – unlike General Elections. This may be completely innocent, but eyebrows were raised at the time.

Voter registration/eligibilty, postal/proxy vote applications, polling day arrangements, the conyeyance of ballot boxes to the count and the count itself MUST be iron-plated to ensure there is no jiggery-pokery.

For there are no depths to which our imperial masters will not stoop to ‘bind Scotland fast’ and it would serve us well to remember that our unionist friends have a declared and dangerous intent to preserve the integrity of their ‘precious union’ at all costs.

There is far more than Scottish independence riding on a yes vote.

A Scotland reborn would be a major catch for the EU, a new social democratic state with an abundance of resources occuying a crucial strategic position in the North Atlantic. And it would have an ovowed aim of ditching nuclear weapons, NATO or no NATO.

There are certain forces who would go a long way to try to stop that happening by multifarious means, including the subversion of democracy.

We must be on our guard to ensure the wishes of our people prevail.

@Heart of Galloway

The only time you can be certain that the individual ballot papers in a ballot box at a polling station are “legit” is when it is still in that polling station.

From 07:00 until 22:00 the ballot boxes never move and members of the public are regularly coming in and out so everything is in the open.

That’s why I believe that before they leave the polling station the boxes should be opened and the votes countes in front of representatives of the political parties and other registered groups.

The votes should then be replaced in the boxes with the count summary, the box sealed and the count is then verified at the central polling station where the result is to be collated and announced. At least that makes sense to me.

@ Ian Brotherhood @ 10.13pm

Yep Ian….after all the Greens stood aside to help the Lib Dems win Brecon election….in REMAIN ALLIANCE….so let’s see if they are as committed to Remain and Indy come next election…

Heart of Galloway at 10.40

Great post. I am concerned that the SNP keeps saying “the postal vote is secure” when the European Commission (and several leading legal figures in England) has described it bluntly as “a recipe for large scale fraud”

I was at the Glenrothes by election some years ago and was never so sure that we had won an election in my life – then nearly 9000 postal votes (against a usual less than 2000)saved it for Labour
The returning officer admitted he had only checked one in six as there was so many though legally every postal vote has to be checked against its application (and he disqualified a substantial number of those he checked) and then THE VOTING RECORDS INCLUDING THE POSTAL ONES GOT LOST when the SNP asked to check them. I thought we might have learned – but no – every time somebody expresses concern about the postal voting (recipe for large scale fraud)system they are pilloried as “conspiracy nuts”.

Anbody that believes that a regime that has armed gangsters to kill people on the streets of Northern Ireland,conspired violently to destablise other states all round the world and carelessly killed millions in the process and has inflitrated all our institutions including the SNP wouldn’t fiddle with the postal vote to prevent it losing Scotland and its huge resources is dangerously deluded and naive.

A&B constituency recorded a 96.7% take up on the postal vote at the referendum. This figure is not in doubt. This is physically impossible as it was in four other constituencies (three of them usually SNP). There has never been any explanation for this.

As an aside about the dangerous insecurity of our voting system I contested Hamilton West and Blantyre for the SNP at a regional election. The day after the result (Labour success)I had a phone call from a Parish Priest who asked me “Mr Hill, how did the Labour Party know I voted for you and the SNP yesterday?” “Because the Labour Party in reality was in charge of both sides of the process” I told him.

Thepnr@10.54.

Sounds iron-plated to me. Such an arrangement would act as a failsafe for the count and would exponentially increase openness and transparency.

However, the eligibilty of folk to be on the register must come under similar scrutiny, as must the whole postal vote fandango.

On the latter, it is my (bitter) experience that the Tories – and, by extension the no side – build up a huge lead in the postal ballot before the ‘real’ votes are cast on polling day.

There have been occasions where that lead has been the deciding factor in who won and lost. Witness Mundell’s escape in 2015.

There were 800,000 postal votes cast in indy ref. A typical 70-30 split in favour of ‘no’ would equate to a 320,000 PV majority (560,000 to 240,000) – pretty damn close to the overall no majority c 400,000.

Some of the PV tallies were scarcely credible – 96 per cent in Argyll and Bute – and led to unsubstantiated claims that the ballot had been in some way tampered with.

For the avoidance of doubt the archaic PV system needs to be overhauled.

In recent years the

“British Unionism is ‘provincial’, cosy, anglo-centric, uninmaginative. Take a deep breath!”

Then let go, exhaling slowly through the mouth, expelling the air from the top of your lungs and ensuring to use your diaphragm to push the air up and out. Concentrate on controlling your breathing and emptying your mind of everyday concerns. Don’t force the concentration though, breathing is natural so your mind should be able relax along with your body. Continue for a few minutes until you feel calm, centered and ready to take on the world, or has passed-out and are now lying on the floor.

Here’s some free advice for Dugdale, in her new post at that British Labour think-tank at Glasgow Uni. She should focus on encouraging Scots to engage with their embodied popular sovereignty. Well, her task is to foster popular political engagement, is it not?

The Constitution of India: Popular Sovereignty and Democratic Transformations

Developing the Relationship between Popular Sovereignty and Constitutionalism

This chapter examines Gandhi’s and Nehru’s ideas about constitutionalism and its relation to popular sovereignty. The idea of popular sovereign power that was conceived in extremist thought became profoundly significant for subsequent political thinkers such as Gandhi and Nehru. However, the way in which the idea was developed as a foundational premise for future political ordering differed significantly in the thought of these two leaders. Gandhi’s ideas of social and political organization, based on direct exercise of political authority by the people and as a continuing act of popular self-governance, was one that later political thinkers such as Nehru had to confront.

Its revolutionary and mass-based form of political activity led to an understanding of the special status of the Constituent Assembly as a body of the people in the process of constitution making. Nehru’s understanding of constitutionalism and its relation to popular sovereignty was powerfully influenced by his engagement in Gandhian politics. For Nehru, the process of constitutionalism had to be legitimated through popular political engagement.

Keywords:
Gandhi, Nehru, Indian constitutionalism, popular sovereignty, Indian constitution, political engagement

link to oxfordscholarship.com

Paul Hutcheon in the Herald has now picked up on this article and the fall from grace of Ruth Davidson in Tory members eyes.

“Davidson, who is appalled by the prospect of no deal, is already feeling the pressure internally. A survey of Tory members by Conservative Home, an influential party blog, found that her approval rating was as high as 84% after the 2017 election. But opposing Johnson has carried a cost. Her rating last week slumped to 14%.”

link to archive.fo

So there you go, Dugdale’s job actually requires her to support self-determination for Scotland, as hell will freeze over before English nationalism accepts Others as equals. The work on the new constitution for Britain suggests it is modeled on Spain or Israel, and offers little potential for constitutional justice for Scotland. So she either supports the development of Scotland’s social democracy, and pushes for indy, or she commits to her ideology and undermining Scotland’s best interests (see the full-English Brexit).

Definition and development of human rights
and popular sovereignty in Europe
Science and technique of democracy, No. 49

The human right to democracy – a moral defence
with a legal nuance

The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body or individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.62 (Article 3, Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen)

(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.

(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.

(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal
and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.(Article 21, Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without any of the distinctions mentioned in article 2 and without unreasonable restrictions:

(a) To take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives;

(b) To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors;

[c] To have access, on general terms of equality, to public service in his country. (Article 25, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights)

link to venice.coe.int

I am really glad at the level of attention wingers are putting towards the voting processes.

I thought in 2014 “something stinks” almost immediately – ruth davidsons smirk before the count began, then the day after, the way people in the streets stared at one another.

– the voting patterns looked statistically anomalous to me, and coupled with the strange rules – no photos, no exit poll, postal votes mixed back in not counted separate – it looked suspiciously like the thing was setup to be rigged.

– the easiest way to do this would be to flip postal votes, 200K to give the right margin.

A couple of court cases in England had the judge remark on the vulnerability to fraud in the postal vote.

In other countries, extremely high postal votes and razor thin margins are usually flagged up as suspicious.

Wasn’t there a court case about fraud in Dundee? – but then the ballots were destroyed, accidentally.

Twitter support for pro-independence was gauged 2:1 in our favour. I also heard, that restricted to native scots, we would have won anyway, albeit on a razor thin margin.

The thing about hard brexit and boris – this is obviously unpopular – but if it puts indy support at 60, then that becomes the level at which postal vote flipping no longer works. In which case they will fight tooth and nail to avoid ever having another indyref – which is why the sovereignty/s30 yay or nay-issue, needs to be thrashed out in a proper court.

Next time, its Jimmy Carter and the UN, transparent ballot boxes with holographic seals, local counts, and a postal vote only if you have had the last rites.

To confused your post at 1.57am

Have a read f the rules for registering to vote.

Some bits say you have to be “ RESIDENT” at an address to be able to vote

Some bits say you have to be “REGISTERED” at an address to be able to vote

The use of the words resident and registered apply to different types of vote ie local council elections , general elections , referendums

Can anyone think why they would not just see the same word for all ?
And why would they se these two different words

Clearly there is a difference between being resident at an address and being registered at an address

I’m suspicious

The postal voting system is lax, as I mentioned previously the loose wording of being
registered at an address or being resident at an address for voting are used in a fashion that to me doesn’t show good enough definition of purpose.

Furthermore the rules on proxy voting are very loose too, you can vote on someone else’s behalf if they are a close relative plus up to another two people in addition to that who are not relatives and all that is needed is a form completed with a signature from those you will vote for, but if they can’t sign it can still be accepted !
I wonder how many people who are unable to handle their own affairs because of loss of faculty loss of memory etc are having their vote made by someone who cannot possibly determine what the incapacitated person would vote for.

It’s impossible to know how well the officers in charge of this whole process do their job.

I always find it hard to get my head round the fact that in a two-sided referendum vote, one side completely controls the voting organisation and count.

Hardly inspires trust in the process, does it?

I’ve no doubt the 2014 Referendum was rigged although I’ve no evidence to back it up, but I live in Dundee and in the lead up to the vote Yes was everywhere,car stickers, banners, flags etc everyone I spoke to was yes,

I remember watching the results on the TV as they came in and although I knew we lost before the Dundee vote was announced I waited to see the Dundee vote believing it was gonna be a massive Yes and I couldn’t believe it was only around 52% as I remember, it just didn’t feel right.

I spoke to a canvasser and he felt exactly the same, he and his fellow canvassers thought it was gonna be 68-70% in Dundee judging from what they was hearing on the doorsteps.

Sometimes a gut feeling is all we have to go by and my gut feeling is telling me it was was rigged

If you check gov.uk rules about voting you will see that it says you can vote by post in
England Scotland wales
But not Northern Ireland for some reason

If you are away from home or abroad

You do not need to give a reason why you are away or abroad

As I’ve said before I think the use of the words
“resident at an address ” and “registered at an address ” in the rules for voting are misleading on purpose

Just how many people think that these two phrases mean the same thing and treat them as such
And just how much checking do the checking officers do to find out if a person registered at an address are actually resident there

I don’t think they do any checks other than send a form once a year to the address asking the occupier who lives there

Anyone living in Scotland would have to be residents for at least ten years before being eligible to vote in an independence country’s vote.

I had to laugh at Bojo the Clown on the news where
He flew in to use his superior intellect in assessing
The situation.

“ We have a dodgy dam that is still holding.
We have to repair the dam to stop the water coming
Out and flooding the homes below”.

Pure Genius only ever equaled by a wee boy in the Netherlands
Who stuck a finger in a Dyke.

Can I clarify that the comment above has no intentional link with a Scottish Tory Leader!
The term Dyke should only refer to a retaining stone wall .

BBC news proclaiming Boris is giving a bonus £1.8 Billion to the NHS.
In the last few days he also offered an extra £2 Billion for No deal preparations
He is to up the £1.5 Billion bribe to the DUP and of course he suggested that
He will pick up the over budget Crossrail costs and split £300,000 with the DUP, Scotland and Wales.

So it seems like Boris in times of austerity can pledge £1 Billion for each day he has been PM.

Rumour Bojo is planing to build a Multi-Story building In Money Forest Way.

With The Tories promises on pretendy “extra money” to everybody under the heading of fiscal responsibility they will need to put the figure on a bendy bus with the extra length.

Oops have the done the bus thing already? ?

R M/Graeme
Like you, no doubt in my mind there was joogery pokery going on in the referendum. Remember we were against at least 3 political parties with a long history of dishonesty in all its various forms. What they did was quite clever (in a cunning sort of way). They to all intents and purposes avoided the smoking gun by using ALL the frauds that different people have since suspected. But they spread the frauds around. Stolen postal votes here, missing ballots there etc. So we couldn’t get a good hit at them.
There were of course the universal ones: The vow! And the entire English political system including Civil Service illegally involving themselves.

@galamcennalath.

The LibDem’s plan B is to leave the EU, they see the Remain position as an opportunity. But it is an opportunity to gain seats, nothing else, their idea is other parties should stand down to give them a free run. They have no intention of doing this in Scotland because they would need to stand down in nearly every seat.

Never trust a LibDem, they are basically Tories that weren’t quite good enough to make it in the Tory party. After Brexit they are more than likely to vote for every Tory policy, just look at their leaders voting record to get an idea of their morals.

SilverDarling says:
3 August, 2019 at 2:06 pm

O/T

Are the National and the SNP trying to pre empt the new WBB? I see a few SNP politicians re tweeting the supplement debunking Yoon myths.
_______________________________________________
It makes sense to have the message coming from as many sources as possible. If it was only Wings over Scotland, people might think “Oh, that Stuart Campbell, he’s that foul mouthed nationalist from Wings over Scotland I’ve read about on twitter. I don’t trust him.” Having it from as many sources as possible might just convince the not yet decided that it must be true.

If you are a true blue one nation britnat, then you would probably throw any WBB straight in the bin, because you would not want to read anything written by a Scottish nationalist. Hearing it from many sources might plant that seed of doubt.

If you are one of the undecided, having it come from more than one direction might get you to start thinking about all those dodgy party politics that you had a wee bit of doubt about, like the rape clause, like tory fiscal policy, like the one nation guff, like the extremists in the cabinet.

If you were a Ruth Davidson or David Mundell fan, you might disagree with their being sidelined and although you have believed the Westminster message in the past, there is now a wee bit of doubt in your mind. The same message from multiple sources might be what it takes to realise that there is another way.

The fact that all the lies have been debunked by many, will make you think about your country in other terms. Make you realise that Scotland is not the only country in the world that would fail at independence.

60 odd other nations have broken free of British rule and none of them have asked to be taken back under the heel of imperial greed and deceit.

The more sources the message germinates from, the harder it is to close that message down.