The Day Of The Jackals
The parasite infestation within the SNP has sensed its moment has arrived.
The final act of hostile takeover is almost upon us.
As flat statements of fact, yesterday’s tweets from the “Senior Parliamentary Assistant” to SNP MP Kirsten Oswald, the party’s Business Convener (although he’s careful to never name her in public as his “employer”) and a prominent member of the party’s hyper-ambitious cadre of clean-cut young woke drones – are certainly true. The SNP is undoubtedly in a spectacular mess, and the idea that winning a mere plurality of seats represents any sort of credible mandate is definitely a joke.
But the giveaway is the purported solution. Because Carslaw has been banging this drum for a long time before Rutherglen, and way before the party’s current difficulties crystallised. Back in January he took the unusually bold step of attacking the freshly-adopted independence policy of the party’s then-leader Nicola Sturgeon.
He’s part of a faction that includes a number of increasingly squeaky-bummed MPs.
The most significant among them being the SNP’s Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, another vocal critic of the de-facto referendum plan.
And to understand their plan you have to decode Carslaw’s comments. The reason he and the Westminster cohort are so agitated is that they know they’re all likely to find themselves unceremoniously ejected from the gravy train next year. The wipeout that the Rutherglen result signals would dump them all into what would be a bitter dogfight for the available list seats at Holyrood in 2026, and in any event bereft of salaries in the intervening two years.
And while they fear the de-facto indyref strategy will cost them their positions, they don’t actually have an alternative. They simply propose forgetting about independence and concentrating on policies the electorate prioritises.
(They note, ironically, that the electorate doesn’t have independence at the top of its list, which is perfectly true, but all are committed to aggressively pursuing much, much less popular policies like gender reform.)
Their ostensible belief is that being popular with the electorate – as the SNP was in, say, 2015, when it returned 56 MPs, or in 2019 when it got 47 elected – will somehow magically translate into independence or a second referendum happening.
We already know that doesn’t happen, of course. But the key point for Carslaw and McDonald and Flynn and the rest is that they’ll have lovely lucrative employment for another five years while it doesn’t. And come the next election they can use the exact same lines again, ad infinitum, until they have pensions the size of Pete Wishart‘s.
The policy proposed by this site many months ago expressly addressed the problems outlined by Carslaw, and offered a route forward without surrendering.
There should at no time in history ever have been any controversy about the position that a vote for the SNP is a vote for independence. For most people, in fact, it’s already a statement of the bleeding obvious.
But by formally carving it in stone as the front page of every manifesto you also de-emphasise it. You simply don’t mention it at all between elections. You get on with governing the country (or indeed being in opposition), and voters know that when they feel ready for independence all they have to do is vote for you and you’ll actually get on with it, rather than umming and ah-ing and vacillating like Sturgeon and Yousaf, constantly marching weary supporters up the hill and then back down it with big talk that dissolves like mist in the harsh light of day.
We guarantee you that if you asked them – and please do so should you ever find yourself presented with the opportunity – Carslaw, McDonald and Flynn would all glibly decry the Wings plan as “unrealistic”.
But the problem with UDI has always been the idea of declaring it without a legitimate democratic mandate from a majority of the population. Achieving 50%+1 of the vote in a fully lawful ballot won on an unequivocal manifesto position is in fact the core premise of any nation’s independence, and would be recognised as such by the rest of the world, making the UK’s objections untenable, particularly as it had made very clear that every other option for self-determination had been refused.
(Something which was obviously not the case in 2015, when they’d just handed us a referendum on a shiny silver platter.)
We DO need to shut up about independence. Bleating on and on at the UK about its refusal to co-operate has failed for a decade and will continue to fail, and it’s boring the electorate to tears because it’s all waffle and no action.
But shutting up about it is the full extent of the SNP Westminster faction’s plan. They want to shut up about it so they can continue to swan around the corridors of the palace on the Thames, cushioning their fat arses on even fatter pay packets.
(Conveniently, the tricky task of running a devolved country competently is the little people at Holyrood’s problem, not theirs. You’ll struggle to find many SNP MSPs, as opposed to MPs, publicly opposing the de-facto strategy, because independence wouldn’t end their careers.)
The life of a bit-part player in the halls of power, as Wings has been pointing out for over a decade, is a sweet one, and to the likes of Carslaw, McDonald and Flynn, failure is actually success. Independence would put them on the dole – they’re all career politicians with no other skills, and their lifestyles would take a nosedive if the SNP ever achieved its primary goal.
Their interest in preventing that from happening is real and measurable, and their professed concern is fake. Carslaw barely manages to disguise it in his Twitter thread – we mean, he ACTUALLY SAYS “now is not the time”.
The faction will make its move soon, perhaps as soon as later this month when the SNP holds what is likely to be a poorly-attended conference in Aberdeen. A very well-placed party insider told us this week that:
“Only half of the MSPs have signed up for the October Conference. They had it in the middle of recess, it is in a venue they could barely full last year, it is too far away from many, accommodation is expensive plus there is nothing there really worth going up for after getting trounced in the by-election, no indy plan and an unpopular leader.”
Humza Yousaf is a hopelessly weak, out-of-his-depth leader, and a well-planned coup has a good chance of unseating him in the wake of the Rutherglen disaster (whose timing was chosen by Flynn). If it does – whether this month or next year – the devolutionist capture of the SNP will be complete and permanent.
.
[Holiday Boy remains sadly hors de combat]
If the picture of Blackford and the two behind him is not a reminder to everyone of the double helpings of the gravy train that the benchwarmers are on then nothing will change.
The SNP’s commitment to independence is even more watered down than the soup at the siege of Leningrad.
Vote for an independence party that disnae want independence 🙂
For a few months there, the levels of support for independence remained the same and it was just the SNP that was haemorrhaging support. I wonder if that is still the case? There are no other avenues of support open to independence supporters, only the SNP, and so inevitably support for independence will start to drop. That may already be happening. Frankly, I would be astonished if support for Independence was any higher than 35% (and falling).
Secondly, the SNP name has become synonymous with corruption in the same way that the Labour Party name became synonymous with corruption 15 or 20 years ago. Robin McAlpine thinks that no lasting damage has been done to the SNP and if they replace the backroom team, everything will start running again. Maybe it will, but once you get a reputation for dishonesty, that reputation hangs around for decades and you perhaps never recover from it. That’s why the Tories ejected Boris Johnson.
How dare they pretend their failure indicates a decline in support for independence. We don’t need them and they need to get out of the way.
The end of the ‘gravy train’ should be analysed just as much as it’s used rhetorically.
The following link gives an overall idea of the sheer numbers involved in ‘staffing’ MPs’ offices,
link to theipsa.org.uk
It works out at about five staff per MP, many of whom are employed for short periods only; then add in the short money and the staff who are employed by the party as a result; and so what will happen if the SNP dropped to say 10 MPs is that the career prospects of many bright young things will be thwarted instantly. Others may find that they will have to remain Modern Studies’ teachers forever. All those husband and wife teams criss-crossing between the various offices, all gone.
There is also a regional dimension…if the SNP return to being a rural party, even if just for an election or two, with Labour re-taking the big cities, all those gallus city kids will have to find something else to do (or re-discover their professed concern about the working classes) as many, many of these thrusting young guns find they backed the wrong horse.
The blood-letting to come could be brutal. If Flynn becomes leader, his tenure might be shorter even than Humza, THE visionary leader of our Time.
Marcus Carslaw is from Northern Ireland. Another “committed” independence supprter from Norn Iron, just like Neil MacKay? Is there anyone working for the SNP who ISN’T a careerist incompetent?
@DickieT my sentiments entirely!
It is amusing that these cretins think that Independence is the thing that is making them unpopular and an absolute certainty to lose their seats at the very next election (which they will).
Hilarious, aye it is talking about independence that explains all of this…
This collapse is unstoppable and irreversible now, a runaway train that is only going to worsen and worsen. Sturgeon removed all the talent and replaced it with woke morons. There is no one left to save them never mind govern competently in the eyes of the public for two years.
This SNPG government could not run a bath yet we have two more years of this excruciating mess to endure. By the time we get to the next election it is going to be far worse than now.
They have the reverse Midas touch. Everything they touch turns to shit. (Prove me wrong Lorna Slater!)
FFS folks they appointed the author of The Vow as the CEO… they are fucked. Unless Starmer gets caught fiddling with kids or something but let’s face it the odds of that sort of thing happening are probably far higher in the ranks of the Sturgeon SNP as well.
No party carves anything in stone. They all need an ample supply of carrots so people will vote for them. That’s what wedge issues are for. It’s the reason:
1. the Democrats in the USA will never enshrine abortion rights into law.
2. the Conservatives or New Right Labour will never close the door on gender identity and enshrine womens’ right to single sex spaces into law.
For the SNP, independence is the wedge issue of choice. They’ll rail and rail all day, every day about Westminster and the vile Tories but never actually do anything. You just have to head over to WGD to see that “independence is never closer” is the gift that will keep on giving and they fully intend to keep it that way.
“Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’ nights; Yond’ Flynn has a lean and hungry look; But that’s ok, he has no political talent.”
Shakespeare (with apologies)
I’ve never seen a chimpanzee who’s deaf, dumb and blind but the SNP are full of them.
I can’t wait, no sorry I’m F*cking dreading the Sh*t the SNP is going to come out with during their conference with regards to tackling the problems within Yes movement and their own party on policy and Independence.
we’ve all heard the saying “Don’t shout yourselves in the foot”, I’m completing dreading what this useless party is going to come out with at next weeks conference, thats how bad it got.
My F*cking blood is boiling with anger at how useless these morons are, 1 no one is going to talk about Independence because their isn’t a plan or a date to achieve Independence, 2 everyone, apart from the SNP are saying get rid of your daft policies including Sir Thomas Martin Devine.
3 The SNP has to end it partnership with the greens. 4 Leave jury trails along if it ain’t broken then don’t try to fix it.
The problems our people are enduring were created because we are part of this union, to solve the problems we need to 1 Leave, even if it means the back door and 2 get back into the EU as quickly as possible.
The SNP went from 30,000+ to 8,000+ no one came out to vote for the SNP simply because people are sick and tired of being taken for a fool “vote for the SNP is a vote for Independence” or a “vote for the SNP is a vote to remain in the EU” on both these subjects the SNP was at the same poll rating of 48% along with Independence. Why isn’t the message getting through to these tits we call politicians.
The problem is that not enough people will be persuaded that independence is financially viable without an unacceptable disruption. While the SNP was popular it did nothing to demonstrate what viability would entail, not least because they wanted to get re-elected. Even so, in spite of a generous Barnett allocation, Scotland’s taxes are higher than the rest of the UK, threatened to get higher and still a budget black hole. Already there is the start of a brain drain. These are the glimmers of reality Scottish voters see, not an easy life and huge wealth. If the Scottish Government cannot show Scotland and Scots would not be worse off, then even a Yes vote would quickly be reversed when reality struck home. That is what needs to happen under the current constitutional arrangements, or indy will never happen.
“a well-planned coup…”
Ehhh, well planned anything is not somthing I’d bet on being possable now.
Slightly disagree with the Rev on this. We SHOULD be talking about independence but linking it clearly to the issues that the electorate do prioritise like the cost of living and the NHS.
We want independence so that we have the economic levers to tackle the cost of living crisis. We want it so that the causes of the crisis such as the Truss crash and Brexit don’t happen here. We were dragged into it by being shackled to Westminster.
We build support for independence by showing how it can be a relevant and a positive improvement to people’s everyday lives and by getting that message out to them.
That, as much as anything else, is what the SNP has lost sight of.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
You said last week that you were leaving Wings for two years. What happened did you get ordered back to work?
For a few months there, the levels of support for independence remained the same and it was just the SNP that was haemorrhaging support. I wonder if that is still the case? There are no other avenues of support open to independence supporters, only the SNP, and so inevitably support for independence will start to drop. That may already be happening. Frankly, I would be astonished if support for Independence was any higher than 35% (and falling)
Is this what you’ve been order to post? Why not do some research to find out where support for independence stands. The imaginings that go on in your head are not really of any use to anyone.
Secondly, the SNP name has become synonymous with corruption in the same way that the Labour Party name became synonymous with corruption 15 or 20 years ago. Robin McAlpine thinks that no lasting damage has been done to the SNP and if they replace the backroom team, everything will start running again. Maybe it will, but once you get a reputation for dishonesty, that reputation hangs around for decades and you perhaps never recover from it. That’s why the Tories ejected Boris Johnson.
That doesn’t make sense. Why would the SNP be any different to The Tories.
Is Scotland in Union giving you your script? You would probably be best to go on your two year break you are gaining yourself a bit of a reputation here on Wings and not doing your cause much good.
They are really not learning are they.
How does Oswald have time between meals to make the commons. They are really playing the part
A move against Yousaf is a move against Sturgeon, surely. I don’t see her and Murrell being cut adrift from their power base without a fight. Or, do they have individual power bases now?
‘You get on with governing the country (or indeed being in opposition), and voters know that when they feel ready for independence all they have to do is vote for you and you’ll actually get on with it’.
That’s the fatal problem with the SNP now. They have no capability, let alone desire, to get on with governing the country with the aim of convincing folk that they would be able to govern an actual independent nation. Reforming the SNP would mean gutting it virtually entirely and starting almost from scratch. Undoing the cancer that the SNP created and then creating (or recreating) a competent party of independence is pie in the sky.
Sadly, whether another party can replace the SNP in any reasonable timescale seems unlikely, given the need to build the capability to form a genuine independent Scottish government in waiting. Maybe if anything close to the truth about Sturgeon’s SNP comes out or if the current lot start fighting like rats in a sack, then maybe that’ll change things faster. For now though I expect the SNP to implode and will enjoy whatever misfortunes comes their way. The scale of what they have done to Scotland is so massive that they all deserve the shit end of the stick at every turn from now on. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and saved the union. Most folk will now live with the harsh reality of that for a long time.
This is nothing radical but if people are saying that they are struggling to survive with inflation out of control basic food stuffs up 40% and average mortgage up by £500 plus per month, community and health support services closed or on their knees with cut backs.
Can we look at the cause that often leads to the cure.
How about 13 years of the Tory government Scotland never voted for.
10 years of Austerity and cuts followed by recession and a forecast for a full 15 years of suffering.
The richest in the country have increased their wealth by over 25%.
The poor and the working classes are 25% worse off.
The Bankers and Finance companies with their rich cohorts funded the outstanding disaster that is Brexit. Again something Scotland overwhelmingly rejected.
They can launder their money, avoid taxes and use off shore hideaways while the workers make up their shortfall.
Westminster is packed with the corrupt who are in it to fill their own pockets.
Independence in Scotland could only have improved our lives in every way we could compare
Do the SNP realise that there is nothing they can do to help Scots while Westminster has its hand in our pocket and it’s heel on our throat.
OK they say they will focus on giving people a hire standard of living.
What is it they think they will do while being powerless?
Philosophically I am OK with the SNP deciding they no longer stand for Independence. But they will need a Clause IV moment similar to Labour. Put a proposal forward at the SNP conference to amend the party constitution and strip out the primary objective of Independence. That way the voters will be clear on who and what they are voting for. 10 years of playing the Grand Old Duke of York is no longer an acceptable form of politics. It’s dishonest. That will clear the way for other Independence pathways and genuine Independence Parties.
The Scottish government is the British Uk legislated government branch office lest we forget.
It is odd, that people who ‘supposedly’ support Scottish independence, are trying their very hardest to prevent independence. If successful with their current ‘now is not the time’ wheeze, then where exactly do they think the SNP will get votes? Are they so delusional?
To my mind, if the SNP are not pushing for independence, their is zero point voting for them. Do we really want to see another five years of SNP MP’s swanning down to London to live the high life, far, far removed from the problems Scotland faces??
A Salary of 86,584, which works out at just over seven thousand pounds PER MONTH, is very attractive. Just ask Stephen Flynn, or any of the other SNP Mp’s living it up in old London town. Plus free flights to London for them and their family, a free second home in London, with any increase in value accruing directly to them, plus one of the very last generous defined benefits pensions, plus extremely heavily subsidized food and alcoholic drinks, plus any other ‘incidental’ expenses. Oh, and IF people like Stephen Flynn do get booted out at the next election, they get another 32,000 pounds as a lump sum, on top of their regular 86,584 salary, to help them adjust back to not being an MP (and the first 30,000 of that is completely tax free).
Is it really any wonder that folk like Stephen Flynn are soo keen to talk down independence??? Woo wooo all aboard the SNP London gravy train express.
Sinn Fein has the right idea. Sending their MPs to London is a complete and utter waste of time.
Being in a union is not the best advertisement for Scotland being a wealthy nation either,
In fact running the thought of both performances along side each other, for financially well of, of a Union or independent Scotland.
Westminster has run Scotland for over 300 years,= poverty, poor housing, high inflation and loss of industries and economy.
Scotland running Scotland, = not done it for 300 years, not had the chance
But there are people whom wish for a failing Scottish economy under the union, for the last 300 years,
To stay and and ask, “please sir, “can I have some more.”
If you want change in Scotland don’t vote for any of the parties that are damaging Scotland economy and Country,
Why vote for suicidal policies for Scotlands country.
A Coup by Scotland is not restricted to one failing party,
Shug at 1152am,
Quote “How does Oswald have time between meals to make the commons. “
I think that question, without answer nails the problem on the head. ‘For London’s gold, or at least loads of very high quality subsidised dining room experiences, they are bought and sold’…
Even if they purged the party hierarchy I will never vote for them again because, with a few honorable exceptions, every single elected member stayed silent while policies like GRR, Hate Crime, the Bute House Agreement etc etc were brought in against our will. I’m sad and sorry to admit I’m propably going to be celebrating like a bloody unionist when it all comes crashing down on all those grasping, greedy, complicit, twisted grifters. They have infected politics and ruined everything good that was built from 2007 to 2015.
If the SNP is now not the party of independence what is it?
Basically, the masses aka the electorate do not know what they want until they are told they ought to want it. The fundamentals of product advertising no less. In this case the product is national basic. Without it you function poorly.
The SNP’s «advertising» of «it» has been amateurish, even when the collective mind was above the navel.
The yoonful idiots now infecting the party corpus under a new leader worth the name would be out on their comfortably padded arses, presto.
To paraphrase Cicero…QUOUSQUE TANDEM ABUTERE, HUMZA, PATIENTIA NOSTRA?
in other words when will you get the message and and just go.
If the scent of revolution is not in the air it ought to be.
The new way forward for Scotland to enforce and stop the same repeated political mistakes of believing in lies of the politicians we have,
Is the Sovereignty of Scots under a totally legal method of vetoing your votes is to pull a Coup on all the present union parties,
I am not suggesting who or who not to vote for,
Iam simply suggesting that voters can change the political landscape if they wish to in Scotland,
Westminster is far more attractive than Scottish Independence, ISP has got the right attitude.
Stu,
Are there other political parties besides the Snp that are registered as as Unincorporated Associations?
“With no duty of care” and their “own constitution”
Take the last train to Wokesville
and I,ll meet you at the station
You can be here by 4:30
’cause I’ve made your reservation
Don’t be slow
Oh no,no,no……
Let’s just be a shit version of the Labour party is the cry
My mates literally said the other day what’s the point of the SNP if we’re not getting independence?
It’s a good point.
If indy is off the table, do they really think people are just going to vote for them forever in government? Lol
The SNP don’t show any serious inclination to pursue independence, which pushes it way down the agenda, which discourages independence supporting voters from bringing it up when the SNP knocks on their door, which encourages the SNP salariat to say that “independence is not a priority for voters”.
That’s a lucrative little vicious circle the SNP have had going there.
James Che @ 12:08 pm
“The Scottish government is the British Uk legislated government branch office lest we forget.”
Aye James, the precise postcolonial theory template continues to unfold before us, whilst an uninformed population observe events in their confusion. A complicit and deceitful national party of course becomes a colonial administration, and that is the extent of its ‘ambition’ and, along with its repressive laws, becoming ‘an implement of coercion’.
Tae be ‘recast’, Scots hiv tae cast oot the colonial yoke in aw its mankit naitur, and that includes a complicit naitional pairty now holding the movement back.
The only way to do that is to educate the people, which means through anti-colonial literature, to tell them what independence really means and why it is necessary. Only when a people understand the reason for their wretched oppression will they seek to grasp with greater urgency the only remedy – liberation:
link to salvo-cor.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com
I wonder how you would keep grasping, greedy, complicit, twisted grifters out of politics.
It looks like a job tailor made for them.
A job politicians have tailor made for themselves.
We the so called employers have zero control them.
We could get another independence supporting party but that could end up full of grasping, greedy, complicit, twisted grifters.
We should perhaps be looking at more strict rules for politicians. Politicians are out of control.
The SNP are going into bunker mentality. Will this go away if we buy some time. Will the Carrot work if we give it a coat of paint.
If they don’t change then we remove them. I live in Argyll and have a MP and a MSP who are fully captured by TransCult ideology and the “Devolution” argument. The dress devolution up in words of caution but the message is clear.
The first dilemma for me is next year under the FPTP system. Not voting for Brendan O’Hara is not enough. I have to consider the unthinkable and vote Tory. This is not just about Independence. Stopping the drive of TransCult ideology in schools, Businesses, Government, The Police, the Courts, Sport, Politics, etc are just as critical for me. (Not for me but my children and grandchildren and those yet to come)
Voting for the SNP equates to staying in the Union and a GO signal to the Cult
Voting Tory is about the corner O’Hara and Co. have forced me into. (Tories are second)
Don’t bother giving me a lecture about voting Tory. I despise them but I detest the NUSNP even more and they forced the decision on me.
They pushed a by-election on Scotland this week. They gave the electorate a choice
Red Tory
TransCult Devolution
Stay at home
I am unwilling to risk O’Hara staying in by not only abstaining.
A message to Jenni Minto……get your CV up to date.
Independence is about our children’s future but I feel the same about stopping this evil cult from damaging their future, mutilating them, lifetime on drugs, destroying opportunities in Sport and career opportunities.
“Independence for Scotland!
SNP OUT!”
Can anyone get car stickers made up with the above statement/slogan?
Independence demands a «can do» mindset. Obviously.
Without such everything is just piss and wind and doublespeakers like Carslaw.
Independence has zilch to do with «cases», majorities, legalism, Westminster or any other temporizing «cannot do». Everything to do with brazen determination to seize the prize, a prize currently hidden under a foetid brew of genderist slurry in which the producers ought to be invited to drown….
and if not keen, given a firm push.
The SNP are colonial administrators of England’s Empire rebranded as the UK of GB and N. Ireland.
Don’t forget it was Sturgeon who sought the UK Supreme Court’s ruling about the Indyref Bill. The Scot Govt’s lawyer arguing at the Supreme Court that Scotland does not exist only GB. The FM deliberately bringing a case that was very likely to result in a ruling against Holyrood’s right to hold an indyref.
Don’t forget in the earlier Keating’s case that Holyrood’s lawyer / Scot Govt sabotaged that case and argued it’s not for the plebs to have a say in indyref, that’s for the politicians only.
The SNP and Greens and all the WM and Holyrood politicians are sworn-in servants of the UK head of state and sovereignty of UK Crown in Parliament.
The way forward has been shown by Colette Walker ISP – no swearing allegiance to KCIII, no being sworn in to sit at WM. That was the best bit of the by-election, the SNP getting gubbed was just the icing on the cake.
link to archive.ph
Former Rangers star Claudio Caniggia to stand trial for sex assault
Nannis, mother of Caniggia’s three children, claimed that he had raped her on May 6, 2018.
This is another one of these stories where rape is reported years later.
How would they prove rape? Would it all be done using a lie detector test?
Even if it had been reported immediately how could you prove rape against a husband or anyone for that matter?
You could prove domestic violence but that would have to be reported immediately.
Excellent piece, Rev, and tells to like it is. I am quite certain, and have never deviated from that view, that these people deliberately and with malice, infiltrated the ruling party. That’s the point: the ruling party. No other way could they could they serve us up on a plate to both Stonewall and Westminster at one and the same time. The Bute House Agreement with the Greens was the icing on the cake which ensured that independence would never be top of the agenda.
I have always been of the opinion, too, that Nicola Sturgeon, although a fervent member of the ‘woke’ fraternity was a useful idiot, as, indeed, most of the females are in that lot. They just don’t get it. To be fair, neither do a lot of the men. If this coup materializes, all of them will discover just who is behind it all. Too late, of course.
You are right about UDI, Rev in that we do need a majority of the country behind us before we can use that route, and this is precisely what SALVO/Liberation, along with other groups and individuals, intend in the longer term: that we should carry out poll after poll, showing that independence is still high, but decoupled from the SNP.
I, too, would be keen to see the party slough off independence as its core policy in favour of devolution so that we can see the way ahead clearly. Not even Rutherglen will force Humza to agree to Scotland United. This is precisely how the Irish independence party at Westminster behaved prior to Irish independence, although, of course, they were not plagued by an infection like ‘woke’.
We need to leave both the devolutionists and the ‘trans’ lobby behind, stranded in the SNP, while we forge ahead. I really cannot see any other option now, and we must also leave behind aspirations to persuade people to support another referendum, except after independence, which would then be a ratifying/confirmatory one.
Another failed one could destroy any hope of letting the world see that we do need and want independence. Every town and village hall could have people out explaining the reality of the Treaty and Claim of Right – from both our perspective (the truth) and from Westminster’s (the porkie pies), complete with simple illustrations. Once people understand a) that they have been shafted, quite deliberately, b) how they have been shafted; and, c) why they have been shafted, they will come to understand that there is no solution except independence.
As for the parasitical ‘trans’ lobby and their useful idiots, they have done exactly what they intended to do and destroyed the host, and will move on to a new host. Although Labour and the Lib Dems are up to the necks in this stuff, they have each managed to keep the worst of it at bay because they have not been anywhere near power. It would be karma time to see them being overwhelmed by these creatures of chaos whose goals are not independence, not bettering the lot of working people, not the unions, not equal pay or decent benefits, but the destruction of the ‘liberal’ (small ‘l’) society so that their agenda can be set up, in a two-fold pronged offensive.
One prong will lead the fight to bring down every lawful avenue to prevent Queer Theory being put into practice and gobble up our children; the other prong to fatten Mammon by those who have financed this movement: the fat cat global corporatists, particularly the porn merchants, pharmaceutical industry and bio-tech/AI chaps (no chapesses, you gullible females) who will gobble up the infrastructure that is left and create a new, brave world.
Or, as our Scottish bard once wrote: “the best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley…”
From your policy priorities bar chart:
Getting Scottish independence … … 14%
Keeping Scotland in the UK … … … … 20%
How long will it be until those priorities are reversed? Quite a long time, is my guess.
@PWGC says:7 October, 2023 at 11:41 am
Good post.
Your message can be simplified for screen printing on a T-shirt:
Show Us The Fucking Money!
That’s all Indy ever had to do for the voters of Scotland to engage their enthusiastic support. Just as Rev Stu’s graphic above makes absolutely crystal clear.
But now, more than ever, I start to understand just why that was always destined to not happen.
The enduring mystery remains; why the widespread hostility to this simple and universally popular idea?
@Colin Alexander says:7 October, 2023 at 1:21 pm
The way forward has been shown by Colette Walker ISP
207 votes? That’s the way forward?
Take the rest of the weekend aff, Colin. You’ve already posted top comment on this thread. I really don’t see anybody improving on this.
Ruby says:
7 October, 2023 at 12:56 pm
I wonder how you would keep grasping, greedy, complicit, twisted grifters out of politics.
It looks like a job tailor made for them.…
Maybe, just maybe, we should be more nuanced in our knee jerk condemnation or cancellation of people accused of bullying or dictatorial leadership. Remember when “facts” were important?
Those with a “delicate” disposition who don’t like being told what to do, are largely responsible for this whole clusterfk. Makes you wonder if it’s something they put in the water these days.
Let’s rehabilitate the concept of “stigma” and sackability if you’re a talentless whiner or a charlatan incapable of doing the tasks you’ve been set.
That ought to prompt a massive clear out of Government arseholes, at both local and parliamentary levels. Probably be easy to find a parking space in the school car park too, to be honest.
Only problem is what we then do with the “product”. There are only so many jobs available in chip shops and biscuit factories these days.
Apologies to all good people who actually do work in chip shops and biscuit factories. No offence intended. Have you ever thought of a career in politics?
I know that sounds terribly, terribly right wing Dickensian Industrialspeak, but it really isn’t. The jobs still exist, the social support still exists, I just want at least semi-competent people filling them, and NOT being promoted upstairs because they’re so fkg useless on the shop floor.
Bring back the days when people knew what they were doing, and also understood what an apprenticeship actually was.
Ruby – My views correspond with the majority on here. Kate Forbes told you all during the leadership campaign that: “continuity won’t cut-it with the electorate”. That’s what you are finding-out. The dominoes are falling and what is going to happen to the SNP and ergo the Nationalist movement over the next two years cannot now be changed.
Humza is going to have to make a decision wither or not to allow the Westminster MP’s to dictate policy for Scotland. Obviously when Sturgeon was leader she was prepared to keep kicking Independence down the road in order to retain her leadership of the SNP and the support from her MPs in Westminster.
The reality is that if the SNP continue saying no to Indy in order to protect there buddies in Westminster. What will happen is the SNP will lose between 30 and 40 seats and the party with its financial difficulties will make matters even worse for themselves, simply because the funding from the amount of money the MP’s in Westminster brings to the party will make a significant drop in funds that won’t allow them to pay the bills.
If the SNP had followed Sinn Féin lead and never sent MP’s to Westminster, we wouldn’t be in a Cul-de-sac position today.
Scotland is being held to ransom by the Westminster MP’s, its plain to see if the SNP continue down this road of party before country this decision will not only affect MP’s it’ll also affect Councillors and MSP’s the party really do risk losing everything including Independence and the SNP becoming a party that has to dissolve because its bankrupt.
Sisters and Brothers if you thought politics has been boring for the last couple of year its all about to get more interesting for sure.
Bathgate no more.
Linwood no more.
Methil no more.
Irvine no more.
Gabbing with some other ‘friends of Wings’ last night, it was generally agreed that Stephen Flynn is more than just another baldy drone.
A kind way to put it would be so say that he has ‘something of the night’ about him.
It took a lot of us a long long time to accept the reality of what Sturgeon is.
We can have no such excuses with yon Flynn. He looks and sounds like an outright psychopath.
Alf Baird,
I couldn’t agree with you more than I do,
It is a old Colonial system that runs and dictat’s to Scotland through a branch office of parliament sent to manage Scotlands land seas and indigenous people living in Scotland.
The encouragement and advertising of Scotlands country as a place to have land invested property by the colonial system also goes under the radar of those not awakened to the full extent of how Colonies are managed.
It is time to veto all votes that implement that system of Colonialism on Scotland, not just the servants doing the bidding, but vote out the masters of the Scottish Colony,
If we want change and to our save Scotlands Country and people voting for Colonial parties in Scotland would be like wishing pain upon ourselves and self inflicted.
We can change Colonial politics, we just need the will and education to do so.
If snp want independence what they need to do is:
1) suspend the Murrells until the ongoing enquiry is concluded.
2) adopt an abstentionist approach to Westminster. The elected MPs are just laughed at and have no influence. There’s a clear conflict of interest within the party otherwise.
3) fight Holyrood on a defacto ticket with SNP 1 and other independence party 2.
4) after a year of Starmer, it’ll be Holyrood election job done.
Until radical steps like this are taken then it’s clear to voters that they don’t actually want independence.
@Ian Brotherhood 2:14pm
Can I propose an alteration to your comment. It took ‘some’ of us a long time to accept the reality of what Sturgeon was. Flynn is a straight forward bovver boy in the same mould as Swinney. Stamping on people and ridicule of any opposing opinions. Led to a heck of a lot bad law. Swinney and Flynn are two peas in the same pod. Not the way forward. The MSM are beginning to see that as obvious by their reporting of Rutherglen. No longer guaranteed a microphone the SNP will wither on the vine. My bet of at least 39 Labour MPs at
An identikit template of globalist parties to choose from across most of the West.
In the last few days someone on here mentioned Angela Merkel. A few weeks ago I posted about her husband, how he was deliberately kept out of the public eye, sound familiar?, and how he was one of seven Board Of Trustees of one of the richest people in Germany who owns the largest media conglomerate in Europe. In Germany at the moment some members of the AfD party are stating that unless Germany stops looking backwards in guilt and looks ahead into the future it will cease to exist as a nation, people and culture. In response some of the German media such as Der Spiegel have called for the party to be proscribed.
Nationalism is despised by globalists, even civic nationalism, because it stands in the way of the plan. Things are going to get worse before they get better but to get better steps have to be taken because time is running out.
@Ian Brotherhood 2:14pm
Can I propose an alteration to your comment. It took ‘some’ of us a long time to accept the reality of what Sturgeon was. Flynn is a straight forward bovver boy in the same mould as Swinney. Stamping on people and ridicule of any opposing opinions. Led to a heck of a lot bad law. Swinney and Flynn are two peas in the same pod. Not the way forward. The MSM are beginning to see that as obvious by their reporting of Rutherglen. No longer guaranteed a microphone the SNP will wither on the vine. My bet of at least 30 Labour MPs at the next GE is looking good I will donate it to Alba or Stu if he has a fundraiser for the GE.
@Lorna Campbell
“This is precisely how the Irish independence party at Westminster behaved prior to Irish independence, although, of course, they were not plagued by an infection like ‘woke’.”
Apols for the pedantry, but feel I ought to point out that they were never called ‘The Irish Independence Party’, their name was ‘The Irish Parliamentary Party’ (IPP), and, unlike the SNP, they had never been pro-Irish independence. Even right from when they were founded in 1874, they were only ever a Home Rule party – devolution, essentially.
What can become an unstoppable landslide starts with the first drop of rain.
If the wider indy movement adopted Colette Walker’s / ISP’s abstentionist stance, completely rejecting the sovereignty of UK Crown in parliament, it would send shockwaves through the British Establishment and be more effective than indy politicians bending the knee followed by token gestures of protest at WM.
Is that what you believe?
You are a Unionist! Are you telling me the majority of posters on here are Unionists?
My question regarding Katie Forbes was
‘Who were you telling should have voted for Katie Forbes?
I for one had no vote.
If I had I would have had some serious doubts about voting for Katie Forbes. I don’t believe ‘a progressive’ party can win with a ‘Holy Willie’ as a leader.
Sure we have a ‘Holy Willie’ as a First Minister but I think both Yousaf and a lot of people think Muslim is his nationality and nothing to do with religion.
George – I remember watching Stephen Flynn alongside Jordan Peterson, the clinical psychologist on BBC QT a few years ago. You’re a smart guy and so you don’t need me to tell you how that ended.
The SNP has been infested with Brits since its inception: if I’m being honest, the Murrels look like they’ve been Brit spies since 2014 when they were handed the SNP on a plate.
Colin Alexander, at 1:21 pm,
207 votes is an utter rejection of the ISP’s approach. It’s a movement going nowhere
Countries want independence to create a nation where their culture can be protected. They also want to ensure that their traditions and ways of living are passed on to future generations, and that they are not at risk of losing their culture.
They and we also want to be able to maximise profit from our natural resources and to make fairer the distribution of profits from those resources.
We want to be able to manage our own economy so that economic policies that are passed benefit our citizens rather than harming them which UK gov policies do.
We also want to be able to manage for ourselves relations with other countries.
Things might be worse, you could be living in, always on the brink of breaking up, institutionally crooked, Belgium.
from the DM.
«Belgium’s transgender deputy Prime Minister has blasted Rishi Sunak and told him not to ‘join the bullies’ following his ‘hurtful’ speech about gender issues at the Tory conference. Petra De Sutter, the most senior transgender politician in Europe, accused Mr Sunak of ‘fuelling transphobia’ after he said ‘a man is a man and a woman is a woman”
Axiomatic that the person involved looks like a man with a fetish for women’s wear.
I seldom post on Wings, but am a little surpised that there has not been a mention of other insights we can get from the poll results.
57% of responders to the poll thought that the most important issue is The Cost of Living. As Kenny MacAskill has frequently pointed out, high energy costs which we are all currelnty experiencing are a direct consequence of being in the Union.
There are far more economic benefits from Independence than that, of course, such as the economic benefits of the new Oilfield to be developed where the tax goes to the Treasury and the profit of the developer goes abroad.
I wonder if fellow Wings readers have any suggestion of how the electorate at large can be educated into equating The Cost of Living with Independence.
Colin Alexander @ 3:03
Colette also supports SALVO and Liberation.Scot as well as being an Abstentionist. I am a founder membeer of Alba but am now seriously dithering about changing my allegiance to the ISP.
Wouldn’t our experience with Sturgeon & Co not make us suspicious of everyone even if they didn’t have ‘something of the night’ about them.
Once biten twice shy!
Well at least I hope it will.
Personally I am suspicious of every single politician.
Not that I have much power to do anything about them.
Well I guess I have the same amount of power as the Rutherglen 63%.
Effy 12:05 pm
“This is nothing radical but if people are saying that they are struggling to survive with inflation out of control basic food stuffs up 40% and average mortgage up by £500 plus per month, community and health support services closed or on their knees with cut backs.”
All of that and the SCAMDEMIC, Global warming SCAM, FAKE Terrorism is all part of the same AGENDA and is all DELIBERATE to destroy ALL of our economies and steal all of our PROPERTY – We are all going to own NOTHING and we will be happy – as per the puppets of the World Economic Forum and United Nations who are behind everything that is going on along with many other NGO’s all owned and controlled by the VATICAN Mafia and their Mafia minions the Rothschild’s and the so called Queen and now King.
The same things are happening in EVERY country including the EU and has NOTHING to do with Brexit – everything EVERY single political party is doing is to stop Brexit – they have been integrating our military into the EU military ever since Brexit – they NEVER stopped this as the EU INCLUDING Africa is going to be the United States of Europe REGION of the three world REGIONS of the One World Government with a Communist Social Credit System with NO cash only a digital currency and digital ID where they will be telling you what you can and cannot buy and you will NOT be allowed out of your 15/20 minute city area and if you do not do as you are told or try and expose what they are up to they will switch you off. There is NOT going to be any voting at all if these Mafias get away with this agenda. George Orwell was WARNING everyone what was coming in his book 1984.
It is a laugh the people who want independence from these Mafias UK and then give that up by joining these Mafias EU both under their scam banking, legal and political systems etc – as is the US and just about every other country on this planet as well. There is NO debt – it is all a massive SCAM. The solution to this – which should get EVERYONE in Scotland voting for independence – is to tell everyone that were are going to set up a Scottish Central Bank with NO private banks, decide everything that is needing done in this country for that year and then print our own debt and interest and inflation free money and spend it into our economy doing this and then write off all of that money when it is done, scrap off all of the FAKE debt, NO need for any taxes by doing this so tell the people you are going to scrap the taxes. The economy will be booming after all of this with NO inflation – you just print what debt and interest free money you need for that year and write it off after it has paid for what was needing done. This is the way it used to be before these Mafias changed to this scam banking/financial system and the Icelandic people did this as well after arresting and jailing their politicians and bankers involved and they scrapped all of the FAKE debt.
This is TRUE independence and it would only be the stupid who would want to stay part of this corrupt system and the corrupt UK/EU and this should lead to most of the people in Scotland voting for independence but the people need to know this and grow some balls as most people are gutless sheep but as I said even WORST is coming unless everyone does waken up and wants to do something about it especially this.
@Captain Yossarian 3:15pm
Agreed but I can’t blame my premature post on the Cat this time. He is up the stairs having his afternoon nap. Undoubtedly will be all over me during the Scotland game. I placed my phone on the settee and went to the toilet and when I came back the post was gone. But both posts are accurate. The bet is for every Labour MP elected over 30 I get ten pound. So 39 Labour MPs is a 90 pound profit. Struck this bet many months ago. I know your views on Labour as you are a former supporter. But needs must if Labour wipe out the SNP I will take that. We start again and in a political void anything is possible.
Carslaw is wrong. I think enough Scots want indy to run a good campaign, convert more people and get it. Remember the massive increase in YESsers during Alex’s campaign.
But wanting indy is very different from wanting the current SNP to get us indy. My iScotland is a democratic country where women have their rights and the government listens. It’s not the totalitarian state that it is becoming under the SNP.
We need to fix/scrap the SNP before we talk about indy. Talking about it with Humza in charge is pointless and just deters potential YESsers.
If they can’t even handle their own finances then how on earth can we trust the SNP/Green coalition with the massive finances of separation?
Lorna Slater negotiating???
It’s in the interest of the powers that control the SNP (and have since 2014, I suspect) to continue as a zombie party suppressing Scottish independence. Even in opposition.
It’s unsurprising (and useful, but not to us) that the soulless amoral drones of expedient self interest now step up to continue and reinforce this.
I’m not sure what needs to be done, but I suspect that there is no scenario where the continued existence of this party does anything other than hinder progress.
Which sucks, because the only means of its effective destruction as far as I can see is for it to be electorally annihilated, which will at the very least, take time and negatively impact progress to independence.
Anyone got any good ideas?
As if we didn’t know.Reported on Yahoo news.
“According to the model’s central projection, which takes into account the new boundaries that the next election will be fought on, Labour would win 420 seats – equating to a landslide 190-seat majority. The Tories would take just 149 seats and the Lib Dems 23. The results mirror the 1997 landslide, when Tony Blair’s party secured a majority of 179 with 418 seats. The new analysis also suggests that the cost of living and the state of the NHS continue to be the clear priorities for voters.
The huge study, commissioned by the 38 Degrees campaign group, has been carried out by the Survation polling company using a mega poll made up of more than 11,000 voters. A modelling technique called multilevel regression and post-stratification (MRP) has then been applied to reach constituency-level findings. Pollsters using the method successfully detected the swings ahead of the 2017 election.”
Aquarius – The Nationalist movement needs to be represented by serious Parliamentarians, like Kenny MacAskill, as you suggest.
I agree with your suggestion by the way, but until they install serious people into leadership roles, you are wasting your time.
The respected poster Dan made exactly the same points you were making….for years on here.
“It is amusing that these cretins think that Independence is the thing that is making them unpopular”
I am convinced they do not think anything of the sort. They are simply using it as their go-to excuse for, once again, withdrawing their carrot of the day.
Since the political fraud’s capitulation speech in January 2020, I interpret EVERY single tweet, every column, every comment and interview coming from SNP apparatchiks, MPs and MSPs (bar a very few exceptions) as a professional exercise in electorate deception, which uses demarketing to manage expectations and decrease demands for the SNP to make a move on independence. In my opinion, that is precisely what the drone’s tweets included in the REv’s article above are doing.
From that perspective, all the nasty moves we have seen emanating from SNP HQ since 2019 have been with one purpose and one purpose only: to stop Scotland sending another anti-union MP majority to Westminster.
I have wondered for quite some time what was the political fraud’s and her praetorian guard’s real objective behind forcing Ms Ferrier out of the seat and undemocratically overruling her constituents’ choice.
Now I see it clearly: it was their carrot-withdrawing strategy of choice to neuter the threat of having the next GE as a de facto vote on independence. It is yet another attempt from this fake SNP to stall Scotland’s independence.
The political fraud pulled the handbrake on the supermajority in 2021 with her infamous “SNP 1 and 2”. Then she pulled the emergency stop on the referendum with the pantomime in the English court starring the unelected representative of the crown parachuted to Sturgeon’s cabinet to successfully transfer control of Scotland’s legislative body from the people of Scotland to the crown. In other words, it is a move which proves Scotland is a colony where democracy is just an illusion.
When facing the imminent threat of the next GE becoming a de-facto vote on independence, the next move from a political party bent on stopping Scotland’s independence but which has reached the end of the road of excuses, was obvious:
fake problem-fake reaction-fake solution
Fabricate a problem: make the SNP unelectable so you can successfully transfer the seat to labour.
Fabricate a reaction: Send a few drones and useful idiots to amplify the colonial bullshit that this labour win shows “people” (undefined) do not consider independence a priority. Let’s not forget this is the exact same bullshit Kirsty Blackman was peddling a few years back to shut down discussions on independence.
Then present as “the solution” the unsavoury move you had planned all along to impose on the voters against their will. In this case, “the solution”, is to stop the next GE being a vote on independence and to stop discussions on independence.
And “voila!”. Once again, the con-artists in control of the SNP successfully transfer their very own accountability and responsibility for their deliberate failures to act onto “people” at the doorsteps.
These cheaters have been deceiving us using the same regurgitated and recycled bullshit since 14 November 2014. They never had any intention to progress independence, only to lock every route towards it using “people” and their manufactured grievance and problems as the excuse.
We cannot continue to reward their deliberate failure to deliver and their disgraceful contempt for democracy with a seat and an increase in their pension. It must be castigated with the p45 and deserved ridicule by ramping up scrutiny on their futile actions.
9 years of bullshitting us with their fabricated problems must result in zero tolerance to grifters, cheaters and procrastinators. We should demand the next GE to be a vote on independence or refuse to vote.
But,but,but..
From the Independent
“There are also question marks over Labour’s competence. According to YouGov, only 26 per cent feel that Labour are “competent”, little changed from the position in the initial months of Sir Keir’s leadership. In its most recent poll, 34 per cent told Ipsos that Labour were “fit to govern” – less than the 40 per cent who did so before Labour lost the 2015 election. The same poll also reported that 38 per cent reckon that Labour are ready to form the next government – well short of the 55 per cent who held that view in 1997.
True, YouGov’s data shows that the proportion who think Labour is ready for government has increased from 18 per cent two years ago to 33 per cent now. However, much of that improvement occurred in the immediate wake of the Liz Truss’ fiscal event – suggesting that voters had simply concluded that Labour could not possibly do a worse job than the current incumbents.”
Where’s Yossarian?
From 1984
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped.”
From todays Guardian, 1984 has been rewritten in response to the nationalism, sorry, populism, sorry fascism which is apparently sweeping across the Western world.
link to archive.ph
London is now in full control of the SNP, and has been since they got Sturgeon over a barrel due to her corruption. Their blatantly obvious modus operandi is to now sicken and alienate the public away from independence by sweating their assets Humza ugly bloke like a government mule in 1880s Mississippi.
Whether it’s through nonsensical trans crap, or through other deliberately alienating policies, London is in the process of dismantling the SNP.
The trouble is, this untenable situation is storing up a pressure cooker scenario, whereby, London media continually Parrott’s about the SNP being neutralised, and that Independence is somehow out of the question now.
In reality, the number is hovering around the 50% mark. With no representation, due to London taking the SNP down, democracy is undeniably being denied to the Scottish people.
London media types are sticking their fingers in their ears and are going “la la la la la” in an attempt to ignore reality out of existence.
50% are sick to death of London, but have no representation because London has totally infiltrated their main vehicle. It’s not tenable. It’s not democratic, and it is creating a very unhealthy environment where the Scottish people are effectively being held as captives by London.
If the ("Tractor" - Ed)s and the parasites in Westminster think they are so shit hot, what are they afraid of? Let’s go toe to toe, and see who wins.
@Aquarius says:7 October, 2023 at 3:22 pm
I wonder if fellow Wings readers have any suggestion of how the electorate at large can be educated into equating The Cost of Living with Independence
Showing us the money, you mean?
It should be possible.
The first hurdle to overcome is that every Scottish asset, resource, square foot, gust of wind, etc etc is already owned. And the owners are multinationals with turnovers exceeding Scotlands, foreign governments ditto, extremely wealthy individuals, charities, hedge funds, pension providers, etc.
So they are mostly lawyered up to the hilt.
That means they will all have to be fairly recompensed for what they legally own, otherwise the international community will strangle iScotland at birth.
Not saying it’s impossible you understand, just pointing out that some smart people will be needed to see Scotland through on our behalf.
And so far, we have the SNP with the Greens as their supporting act. Hence the zero progress with any of it. Nuff said.
But you’re on the right track. The key to Indy lies in making the economic case, to all Scots, Sovereign and New. Then we will mostly all vote for the party that shows plausibly how they will deliver economic prosperity. It’s genetic for most of us, so we won’t be able not to.
There is some evidence here and there that the economic case penny is finally dropping, but there’s still a long, uphill slog ahead.
First get your independence THEN fantasize about what kind of independence that ought to be: not the reverse.
The social engineering, or ham fisted attempt at social engineering, of the past years is merely an indulgence in fantasy for want of a purposeful objective.
Not so the agents of the British state, their purposeful objective has been well served.
Understand your enemy, first steps on the high road to wisdom.
@sam says:7 October, 2023 at 3:42 pm
the cost of living and the state of the NHS continue to be the clear priorities for voters
Looks like another “show us the money” moment.
Clear enough how Scotland’s fabled riches should help with both of these priorities.
If the SNP won’t show us, hows about Alba?
I assume changes to gender legislation and banning gas boilers is something they get a lot of support for on the doorsteps.
TURABDn: listen to Jon Uhler who counsels and collects data from sex offenders. He is religious, as is Jordan Peterson, but you can ignore that and listen to the data. It will make your hair stand on end. He states that any man who wears female clothing is doing so for sexual purposes, and he bases that statement on the ‘trans’ sex offenders who have told him their motives. Needless to say, he believes that ‘trans’ is neither a delusion nor the result of dysphoria, but an addiction driven by porn. He has dealt with thousands of sex offenders, and he says, quite categorically, that all sex crimes against women and children, boys and young men are entirely driven by more and more deviant porn past the point where the perpetrator can no longer control anything about himself, and more crucially, simply does not want to control himself. Both Peterson and Uhler state that females are very much more susceptible because of their socialization, and they are also more likely to believe the lies of these men, particularly if they are young females. Older females have a resistance based on life experience, and they see through these men much more quickly than anyone else in the population, but it is decent men who have to step up to the plate and challenge these deviants because they understand male sexuality which females do not.
Show us the money.
An estimated 17 million working days were lost due to work-related stress, depression, or anxiety in 2021/22. This is over half of all working days lost due to work-related ill health. (HSE)
“During the pandemic people with mental health problems were:
Three times more likely to have fallen into problem debt than the wider population (15% compared to 4%).
More than twice as likely to have relied on credit or borrowing to cover every day spending — for example, on food or heating (26% compared to 11%).
More likely to have had zero savings to help them cope with emergencies. 1 in 4 people with mental health problems say they have no savings that they could use in emergencies (compared to 18% of the wider population), and nearly half (46%) say they can’t afford to save money regularly.
At high risk of considering suicide when behind on payments. 44% of UK adults with mental health problems who fell behind on bills last year either considered or attempted to take their own life. If reflected nationally, that amounts to 2.5m in people in total.”
From “Money and mental health”
105,000 people in Scotland are on zero hours contracts with no certainty of work. scotland has no control of employment law.
There are over 1,400 Trussell Trust food banks in the UK, in addition to at least 1,172 independent food banks.In 2022/23 over 2.9 million people had food aid from Trussell Trust alone. Probably some 5 million in all.
In October 2021, 4.5 million UK households were in fuel poverty. As of 1 October 2023, there are 6.3 million.
As Stu says, there is no reliable majority for Independence. And little evidence of a Scottish government capable of such a task. Who’s to say the SNP are wrong in their shift of emphasis?
Summed up perfectly with your heading Stu.
Mia,
Parachuting the Crown into the devolved goverment.
To sort that statement out, first we have to ask ourselves ….Is the devolved parliament government a Scottish Government?
The Answer is No,
Does a second, third or fourth parliament in Great Britain breach the treaty of union?
whereby it states there will one parliament of Great Britan.
And it certainly does not state that only the Westminster parliament of England is to become the parliament of Britain.
Yes it Does breach the treaty of union.
The “second parliament under Westminster” legislation sent a Scottish devolved parliament Westminster legislated and already a Crown government of England.
To stop the English Crown laws coming in through the back door of a devolved parliament to Scotland,
We need to stop voting for the “Colonial hangman” putting up his Scaffold in Scotlands territory.
Don’t vote to be hung by the Colony owners.
Have you ever watched the “Jones plantation”
@John Main 4:13pm
Too narrow a perspective John. No point in being a couple of grand better off if low resolution thinking leads to a socio- cultural nightmare. Breaking down social norms is not a price I am willing to pay. I place social cohesion above monetary benefits. No drag acts in primary schools or library story talks wearing a furry outfit. Ditto for women with penises and so on. I would agree that our current cohort of politicians cannot prioritise economic success. I don’t think they have the core capabilities. They just make their mates rich.
Jeremy: I used the small ‘i” and ‘p’. I know it was called the Parliamentary Party. Home rule was the term used at that time for independence. In hindsight, we call it devolution, although it was probably nearer to FFA, which is independence by any other name. FFA is probably impossible within a Union such as the UK. When Sinn Fein came along, they wanted complete ‘home rule’, plus a republic. Had the IPP achieved ‘home rule’, it is doubtful whether Sinn Fein would have arisen as it did. Echoes of ALBA, ISP, etc. They did not get the latter, a republic, until well into the 1930s. Home rule and independence were, to all intents and purposes, used interchangeably and were deemed to be the same thing. Both Labour and the Liberal Party were home rulers, too, in the early 20th century, and they meant independence/FFA, retaining links to the Crown. Independists still exist in all three mainstream Unionist parties.
Fewer and fewer independists in Scotland support links to the Crown these days, and calls for a republic are higher than ever, so we are moving closer to the Irish position. Really, there is nothing odd about this trajectory. It makes perfect sense when the party of independence/home rule fails (deliberately?) to achieve the aim of the party itself. Scotland will also move ever closer to complete separation from the UK and the Crown because it has nowhere else to go. Unionism is dying whether Unionists believe it or not, and the same thing is happening in NI where it is is viewed by many even in its own ranks as an entrenched anachronism. Nothing is inevitable, of course, but very likely, given a certain set of circumstances that have proved irresistible in the past in other countries.
John Main says:
7 October, 2023 at 1:55 pm
@Colin Alexander says:7 October, 2023 at 1:21 pm
The way forward has been shown by Colette Walker ISP
207 votes? That’s the way forward?
Take the rest of the weekend aff, Colin. You’ve already posted top comment on this thread. I really don’t see anybody improving on this.
I was a member of the SNP in the mid-1960s when people laughed at me and mocked me for belonging to such a bunch of no-hopers. Just like you are laughing at the early stages of a party supporting Independence, which we all agree, I think, the SNP have given up.
It seems like a very simple thing to do but is it?
The first question you would need to ask is does anyone want the electorate at large to be educated?
Being educated perhaps gives the electorate too much power. Being busy trying to survive gives the electorate less time to spend thinking about politics so best to keep them poor.
The Rutherglen 63% probably don’t have the time to find out wtf is going on and the political parties probably like that.
You would think they would be embarrassed that only 37% of the elecorate showed up.
Will anyone go and find out why the Rutherglen 63% didn’t vote.
@ Debatable Lands at 4.29pm:
The primary purpose and goal of the SNP is to secure Scotland’s independence, and it’s their job to make the case for it and secure it. Anything else means they are putting their own careers on the gravy train before the needs of the people of Scotland. Well, surprise, surprise: we’re not going to tolerate that.
Can you not see where failing to prioritise independence is getting the SNP? The claim that Scots don’t care about independence is disproved by the result of Thursday’s by election.
If the SNP isn’t going to put independence before all else, it deserves to be booted to kingdom come and replaced by politicians who will actually do the job that we elect them to do.
” What can become an unstoppable landslide starts with the first drop of rain,”
Indeed,
Stop voting for the union hangmen of Scotland building their scaffolds.
John Main says:
7 October, 2023 at 1:55 pm
@Colin Alexander says:7 October, 2023 at 1:21 pm
“The way forward has been shown by Colette Walker ISP
207 votes? That’s the way forward?
Take the rest of the weekend aff, Colin. You’ve already posted top comment on this thread. I really don’t see anybody improving on this.”
When I joined the SNP in the mid-1960s people laughed at me and mocked me for joining such a bunch of no-hopers. Just like you are laughing at a young Independence supporting party. We need someone to stand up for Independence which I think we all agree the SNP have betrayed in favour of lining their own pockets.
Sadly, I don’t expect to see Independence in my lifetime just like a lot of other people will not see a Free Scotland that they worked for. But I have not given up and still do what I can to promote Independence.
Debatable Lands says:
link to wingsoverscotland.com
As Stu says, there is no reliable majority for Independence.
Is that a reason for a independence supporting party to ditch their main policy?
And little evidence of a Scottish government capable of such a task.
Are you asking if the people of Scotland are capable of governing themselves?
Who’s to say the SNP are wrong in their shift of emphasis?
I think they already have hence their problems.
Were they to do what is called a Clintonian Triagulation which Unionist party should they triangulate into?
@ Lorna Campbell at 4.22pm:
“Needless to say, he believes that ‘trans’ is neither a delusion nor the result of dysphoria, but an addiction driven by porn.”
I have no doubt at all that ‘transsexual’ porn (quotation marks because it’s biologically impossible to change sex) has a lot to do with all this men-impersonating-women business, but I disagree that men who dress as or insist that they are women aren’t delusional. Any 6-foot, skinny-legged, square-jawed man in a wig has to be delusional to believe he looks anything like a woman. They need to be told how ridiculous and downright ugly they look. I used to believe in ‘live and let live’, but I’m sick of these creepy weirdos taking the piss out of us all now.
Given that party manifestos state many priorities, the fact is that the top two or three are usually expected to be addressed properly.
By including Independence as a seventh? In priority, and failing to recognise that it is integral to the other priorities, is pure deflection.
Elections as referenda is the way to go.
Meantime, don’t comply.
Can political parties put whatever they want in their manifestos, and have whatever they want as their policies? Even if it might in itself be in some way ‘illegal’?
I’m mainly thinking about when the Hate Crime Act is enacted. Will a party be able eg to say that it is against ‘self-id’ and actively campaign on that as an issue? Or will the police literally have to intervene and prevent that from happening?
Is this another version of ‘show us the money’
Scotland the colony is limited in what they can prove because they don’t have the figures or information.
The 2014 IndyRef was my first experience of politics. In my naivete I was looking for straight answers but there weren’t any because facts were being concealed.
I thought the answer re EU membership would have been simple enough but no.
This is what Lord Forsyth said to Michael Moore:
You said that you wanted the debate to be as informed as possible. One of the things that Mr Swinney said to us last week was that they had a difficulty in establishing what the position would be vis-a?-vis having to apply for membership of Europe or whether they would be allowed to remain in Europe because the Commission would only talk to Governments, and that the British Government were not prepared to engage on this issue. I find it a bit puzzling how you can reconcile saying, “We are not prepared to talk to the Commission as a Government about what the consequences would be”, with saying at the same time, “We want to have a fully informed debate”. Does Mr Swinney not have a point there?
This ant-independence faction has already de facto taken over the party now they have Murray Foote as its CEO. They’ll make a move and sadly, enough of the utter morons who are still SNP members or cheerleaders who aren’t even members, will fall for them talking about independence and Humza being weak, and – once again – completely fail to see or understand what’s really happening. Even as people like Wings and others scream it at them.
I don’t think support for independence has dropped. I think support for SNP has dropped hugely.
Most of those dissafected people unlike myself are not sure where to put their allegiance yet
So we have Alba advocating defacto vote for independence as a party which, is a vote for independence as is ISP.
We need to have these disaffected SNP supporters turn to these parties to see any chance of Independence happening.
SNP is finished as a force for anything. They have become so corrupt and will go the same way as old Labour.
I think that the Alistair Carmichael ‘trial’ established that political lying is legal.
Don’t give them your name, let them prove it is you.
Lorna Campbell.
It is actually the unionist Westminster unjust throttle hold on Scotland and the political Colonialism sometimes racist bias, and financial decisions that it makes towards Scotland that has maintained for hundreds of years the wont in Scotland for independence in over such a long period in history,
If it had been looked and understood by Westminster parliament (old and new ) as a union, rather than the mentality of England owning and colonising Scotland as it had with other nation, things may have been different,
So Scottish independence will constantly and inevitable always be sought and fought for from Englands government,
England can only look itself in the mirror to find the cause and creator of their own problem over a supposed fallacious union,
“there is no reliable majority for Independence”
With support for independence and for the union close to 50/50, there is no reliable majority for the union either. But that is besides the point. The SNP is a political party which has the pursuit of Scotland’s independence as the first article of its constitution.
The fact is the leadership of that party has been showing uttermost contempt for that article and democracy for the last 9 years, and continues to do so. They were voted in to deliver independence, not to stall it, not to hinder it, not to stop it, and most certainly they were not voted in to force gender identity ideology down our throats.
The SNP were expected to progress independence independently of the initial baseline support. They were expected to increase that support, not let that increase happen by osmosis while they enjoyed their fat paychecks and a ride on the gravy train. They failed because they chose to fail and because they chose to find alternative “objectives” to pretend being busy while deliberately procrastinating from attending the main reason they were voted in for.
“And little evidence of a Scottish government capable of such a task”
Oh dear. The next thing you will tell us is that only England can provide a government who delivers Scotland’s independence. I am sorry but that is a rather outdated and debunked colonial mentality which belongs in the bucket of colonial relics. Scotland is perfectly capable to elect its government and steer its own way. We are where we are because Scotland is a colony. There is no better example of this than having an unelected representative of the crown parachuted to the cabinet, handing control of the executive and legislative powers to the crown by the back door. This is a blatant abuse of Scotland’s sovereign rights which is only happening because Scotland is not independent and we have betrayers “representing” us.
It has been YEARS since this blurring of the powers was highlighted at the UK parliament by Mr Davies, but still nothing has happened to amend this aberration because having control over Scotland’s legislative power is very convenient for the crown.
As it was clearly demonstrated with the way this unelected representative of the crown used their position in the Scot Gov cabinet, an English court and English law convention to stop the referendum bill entering our parliament, this unelected representative of the crown represents the crown’s damage limitation gatekeeper of last resort against Scotland’s independence.
“Who’s to say the SNP are wrong in their shift of emphasis?”
I am, like many others are. Why? Because if the SNP wishes to act as labour they can change the fcking name and constitution of the party, merge it with labour and be done with it. It is about time they stop stringing voters along and stop taking the electorate for mugs.
When the only way you can stop Scotland’s independence is by systematically and continuously deceiving voters with infiltration of political parties, fabricated obstacles, fabricated problems, fabricated grievances, fabricated criminal cases to “remove” political dissidents, handing control of the executive and legislative power to the crown violating the people of Scotland’s sovereign right to elect their own fkng laws, and the rest of the self-indulging bullshit we have been enduring for the last 9 years, then claiming “there is no reliable majority for independence” is no longer credible.
San @ 3.19.
Your list of things that independence would bring is interesting. Ireland fought for years for independence, and then what did it do?
It gave it all away by joining the EU. All those things on your list have disappeared. Ireland is now just another European clone of a country which must toe the European line in all respects. It has changed one yoke for another and largely lost its identity; and things will only get worse in the soon to be established United States of Europe.
And the SNP policy is: Join the EU as soon as possible. Why do you think that is?
Do they strike you as fearless ‘let’s go it alone’ people? Or a group who crave to have someone (anyone) setting down the parameters under which they have to operate?
An independent Scotland in the EU would be as big a joke as an independant Ireland in the EU. A complete misnomer. A perfect oxymoron.
The big boys of Europe will rule the roost in the EU, and Scotland would be at the bottom of the pile when it comes to infuence.
The SNP can’t wait to swap one millstone for another. Madness.
The big boys of Europe will rule the roost in the EU, and Scotland would be at the bottom of the pile when it comes to infuence.
Aye, right. Denmark gets a terrible deal out of the EU.
@Scotrenewables 6:48pm
Norway has an even better deal with the EU. Essentially the political position of Alba. EFTA. I have no doubt the an IScotland will be a net contributor to the EU along with our fisheries and just about everything else of value. Why can’t we run our own affairs?.
At the next election, will Scots face a stark choice? Labour or SNP?
Or to put it another, more accurate way, red unionists or yellow unionists?
Is that really how things are?
@ScotsRenewables says:7 October, 2023 at 6:48 pm
Denmark gets a terrible deal out of the EU
The last year I can find figures for is 2021. In that year Denmark was fifth in the list of EU contributors, so yes, Denmark is shelling out for the privilege of being in the EU.
The figures I saw are in Euros, so are not adjusted for size of GDP, so in per capita terms, things may actually be worse.
As for iScotland, shelling out, or hand out?
Depends on whether you believe the mantra that we’re a rich, wee country. If we are, then our place in the EU will cost us dearly. Thems the rules, soz.
Complicated, eh?
Innarestin, too, to read recently that the EU is planning to impose a “levy of 0.5% on the gross operating surplus (GOS) of each country’s corporate sector” on all its members, to support the central spending budget as the bloc gears up for war. The article is on Unherd if anybody is innarested.
That’s going to cost plucky little Ireland plenty. Ouch.
I wonder how an iScotland would fare?
My take on all of this is that there are far too many people still hankering over their fond memories of an EU that no longer exists.
link to youtube.com
Scotland Speaks S1 E13: Scottish Independence – The Way Forward
Worth watching.
Scots Renewables.
Scotland isn’t Denmark, which was able to negotiate keeping its own currency a long time ago. The SNP envisages using the pound sterling until it joins the EU when it would have no option but to use the Euro.
Losing your currency is a major step towards losing your cultural identity as well as defining how you are able to conduct business.
The tide is turning in Europe. The EU has become a monster, a long way from what the original intention was. I have seen first hand what it has done to Ireland. Past relatives put their lives on the line to gain freedom for Ireland, only for the people to be pressurised into giving it away. I don’t want that to happen to Scotland.
By all means work with Europe and sort out suitable trade deals. But to be truly independent Scotland needs its own currency and has to avoid being controlled to the enth degree by people who don’t have Scotland’s interests as their first priority.
I hear lots of unionists (Jackson Carlaw amongst them) saying the SNP will be finished if they go in a GE on a single issue.
That tells you something.
I agree with him if they follow Humzas plan right enough.
If they could just bring them selves to lift the phone the Salmond, they would get a sensible strategy that would work.
Got their raffle tickets in today and they are going directly in the bin
@Merganser
It’s EFTA for me.
Oh, and social democracy. Maximum wage level no more than 3 x minimum. Show me the money.,
Do you need permission from the EU to leave the EU?
The face only a mother could love. He looks like Frank Spence. “Ohhh Betty.”
What a complete wanker he is. Let them have their coup. Fuck them. I wish for the total destruction of the SNP when that happens.
@ Michael Laing
” Any 6-foot, skinny-legged, square-jawed man in a wig has to be delusional to believe he looks anything like a woman. They need to be told how ridiculous and downright ugly they look. ” . Indeed .
What is being attempted is the effective erasure of what humans have , since the capacity to think evolved , understood by the term Woman : hence the assault on reality that ” any 6-foot , skinny-legged,square-jawed man in a wig … ” and full male genitalia in the majority of cases , is not ” like ” a woman , a ” kind of woman ” an ” effeminate ” man etc ; no , they are – under force of law – to be considered exactly the same as natal women .
If * they * can convince people to believe this totally demented falsehood , what couldn’t they convince people to believe ?
Reality-as-such , the nature of it , has been the subject of millennial speculation , scientific & philosophical , some more persuasive than others : ultimately , it’s mystery remains . But humans have of necessity evolved to recognise what’s in front of them , to correctly identify what their eyes are seeing , it’s not infallible , but works most of the time .
If we lose that capacity , or have it forced out of us , we will have * our * * reality * administered to us by others – even more than we are currently , and these ” others ” are unlikely to be acting from altruistic motives .
Lorna is right ; the idea that the cause of Independence can be advanced , let alone it’s goal fulfilled , while this madness is being inflicted on our country , is to underestimate the gravity of the threat , to women & children primarily , also to the prospect of ever achieving our objective .
I wish for the total destruction of the SNP.
The Can’t Do Party.
I wonder what SNP loyalist have got to say about this? That guy the Two Davies. They fucking love everything the SNP say. They love it.
Will they anything?
Will this finally break people like them?
We get the polticians we deserve.
“One area requiring much more measurement and analytical work is the role of inequality in development and national well-being. We say that not only because inequality is such a drag in so many ways on human development and wellness (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009) and not only because our model was most limited in predicting income inequality. We conclude that because we also analyzed Inequality-adjusted HDI as a separate measure of national well-being. It is an indicator formulated to account for the effects of inequality on development or, more precisely, for the uneven distributional inequalities of income, education, and longevity in a population (Hicks, 1997). We did not report the results here, however, because IHDI correlated so highly with HDI, the prediction models were nearly the same. This suggests that reformulating IHDI might make it a more independent and useful measure of human development in the context of health, education, and income inequality. There are also more recent alternative measures: for example, Bilbao-Ubillos (2013) added indicators for gender equality, income inequality, and personal safety to create the Composite Dynamic Human Development Index.”
link to frontiersin.org
In my opinion, Rory Stewart was the best, most honest and accountable politician of his generation. An old military man with decent standards. I remember seeing him interviewed a few weeks ago on Piers Morgan Uncensored. He speaks openly about what he thought of Boris Johnson and Theresa May. Do we have a parliamentarian in Scotland that is anywhere near his calibre? Shirley-Ann Somerville?, Joe Fitzpatrick?, Patrick Harvie?, Stephen Flynn? That’s the problem.
I want to know what the hardened activists think about Independence.
About the SNPs strategy. I hear that Tony Blair the war criminal has a polling company and he’s conducted research.
He was probably asked by that lesbian, Gillian Gilruth. The one in bed with Kezia Dugdale of the John Smith, masonic lodge of destruction.
All lies coming out of the SNP that we don’t want Independence. Fucking morons the lot of them.
I wish for the total destruction of the SNP if this coup goes ahead.
That baldy **** mini me. Dr Murrells evil clone.
Even as a simple strategy this is foolhardy.
The reason the SNP won 56mps , was because they could guarantee the 45% of yes voters were loyal to them. The SNP were indeed their only option. The reason they lost in Rutherglen , was because yes voters are fed up with nothing happening. Not because the SNP talk about independence.
Becoming a Scottish Labour Party, will not save them. Indeed it will make their very existence pointless. Because they can never be in government at Westminster.
The SNP abandoned the Yes movement, not the other way around. At least 50% of Scots want independence. At least half will simply not vote, rather than vote for a unionist party.
The SNP are even dimmer than they appear.
How dare people like Marcus Carslaw and Stephen Flynn tell us what to think.
You’ve been fighting all your life for Independence. For these c**** to deny you.
Fucking get them to fuck. Get them out.
When Murray Foote, Marcus Carslaw and Stephen turn up to conference for the coup. They’ll be no one there to sieze the agenda from.
For those that do go. Tell them. How dare you speak for me.
Fuck off. And join the Labour Party, you selfish lowlife careerist **** starts with a C. Human garbage like them has no respect for the country. So we don’t need to respect them either.
There’s no coup happening. They will be out the door.
Where is captain yossarian!
Think Big Jock has nailed it with his comments at 7.49. Never though I would see the SNP as a unionist party but since their infiltration they are and I want nothing to do with them.
Last thing I’ll say. I watched a documentary last night on YouTube. Popped up randomly. It was about lillybank in 1975. A social activist Kay Carmichael, who lived on benefits in the community for 3 months. She went under cover and in disguise.
My heart nearly broke. I was with them all the way. I was so angry for them in the town hall. They were treated with such disdain.
That feeling cut deep. The town hall in lillybank is the SNP conference today.
How dare they even think of coming to the SNP conference to say now is not the time.
They can get out!
“Captain Yossarian says:
7 October, 2023 at 7:45 pm
In my opinion, Rory Stewart was the best, most honest and accountable politician of his generation”
Craig Murray outed Stewart as MI6 in 2018.
Stewart is also a member of;
Ditchley/Governors, Ditchley/UK, European Council on Foreign Relations, Le Cercle, Trilateral Commission, WEF/Young Global Leaders/2008.
Stewart was Chair of Le Cercle, a secretive shady group from 2013 – 2015.
Captain Yossarian says:
7 October, 2023 at 7:45 pm
In my opinion, Rory Stewart was the best..
Once again, I find myself in agreement with you and remain thoroughly depressed by what we have on offer at Holyrood.
The majority of MSPs are either thick or lacking in any level of credible integrity.
Watchiing Parliamentary proceedings is worse than watching paint dry.
The talent vacuum is glaring.
In all parties.
Here’s Flynn on the hunt for Zionist brownie-points.
Check out the replies.
link to twitter.com
Captain Yossarian says:
He was in the army 5 months. Both he and his father and mi6
The last thing we need in Scottish politics is agents of a foreign power
Old scottish unionists
@sam says:7 October, 2023 at 7:35 pm
Maximum wage level no more than 3 x minimum
So the woman developing the vaccine against malaria gets 3 times the guy lining up the lab bins on the kerb.
The volunteer with the sniper’s rifle 100 yards from the enemy gets three times the conscript washing up the breakfast dishes at HQ.
The neurosurgeon removing the tumour from your son’s brain gets three times the porter who wheeled your son into the operating theatre.
Stroll on! I’m thinking you should have stuck in more at school, then you wouldn’t have this resentment against those whose abilities, education or training deserve substantial recompense.
We’re not allowed to know how many Scots don’t pay the TV license.
We also know that the British State will never ever allow the BBC to go bust because it’s the govt mouthpiece and is vital for national unity etc.
What if the same applies to the SNP?
It’s been bleeding dosh for ages, has hardly any members left but keeps pulling expensive stunts, paying people to leaflet etc.
What if the SNP high-heid yins have been assured that there’s no danger of the party going bust so long as they play ball?
Could it be that crude an arrangement?
@Ian Brotherhood says:7 October, 2023 at 8:15 pm
Congrats IB.
I realised it would only be a matter of time, but fair play, you got in there first.
It takes a special kind of poisoned twistedness to find sneering fault with somebody calling for an end to the violence, so well done again, you’re a master of the venomous art.
Triples tonight is it? Enjoy yourself.
Rory Stewart worked for MI6 (who only work overseas, by the way, on counter-terrorism and all the rest of it). Humza worked in a call-centre and that makes Humza suitable to be First Minister of Scotland, does it?
Highlighting the difference in attitude between MPs and MSPs…that wee 400 miles is the source of all the issues.
Who actually cares about their MP in Holyrood bar the MP themselves?
NHS is way out in front in that Voters Concerns poll…for that everyone looks towards Holyrood ( even those BBC FOI’s).
When do folk ever look towards Westminster? For pretendy Indy rejection outcry or a cute one liner at PMQs now and again?
Westminster is a nonsense to most Scots and SNP MPs are basically the same as those paid Japanese professional Mourners. Stand and Sit and look sad on cue. Wail now and again for extra flourish.
Will Stephen Flynn make a power grab and place himself straight at the top of the List and a guaranteed career…call a Holyrood election same time as Westminster…safety nest are us!…it would be the smart move would it?
Its very sad to see a party hollowed out from within. Bandwagon jumpers used the Indy Adrenalin, got their feet under the table and decided to devour and ditch that righteous cause.
And everyone just stood and watched.
I asked on here a few weeks ago…if Labour appear to be a cert…why haven’t the Trans lobby jumped ship there?
Ah well the gemme is over. Without prejudice to Rory Stewarts political competencies I have to comment on his military credentials. A six month secondment to the Black Watch reserved for Eton, Baillol Oxford types. A route not available to working class gadgees. Designed for future political opportunities. Now a welcome to ‘A Scot Abroad’ to comment. A double mentioned in dispatches. Is Rory an old military man?. Asking for a friend who believes in fairness and performance even in the Army.
“Captain Yossarian says:
7 October, 2023 at 8:41 pm
Rory Stewart worked for MI6 (who only work overseas, by the way, on counter-terrorism and all the rest of it). ”
FFS Once an MI always an MI, the English security service utterly oppose Scottish independence. Your naivety is astonishing.
Captain Yossarian says:
If you lasted 5 months in a job would you list it.
Makes Admiral Mordaunt sound reasonable
Thanks for identifying yourself
Rory Stewart, advisor to the Princes, writer and presenter of ‘Britain’s lost middle land’
Only works overseas, apparently.
Yossarian is a total dick.
Captain Yossarian on 7 October, 2023 at 7:45 pm
In my opinion, Rory Stewart was the best, most honest and accountable politician of his generation.
How was his voting record again:
link to theyworkforyou.com
Generally voted against measures to prevent climate change
Generally voted against transferring more powers to the Scottish Parliament
Consistently voted against a wholly elected House of Lords
Consistently voted against removing hereditary peers from the House of Lords
Almost always voted against slowing the rise in rail fares
& Generally voted against a publicly owned railway system
Consistently voted for reforming the NHS so GPs buy services on behalf of their patients & Consistently voted against restricting the provision of services to private patients by the NHS
Generally voted for the privatisation of Royal Mail
Consistently voted against greater regulation of gambling
Generally voted for restricting the scope of legal aid
Almost always voted for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits
Consistently voted against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices
Almost always voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability
Generally voted against spending public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people who have spent a long time unemployed
Generally voted for a stricter asylum system & Consistently voted for stronger enforcement of immigration rules
Consistently voted for mass surveillance of people’s communications and activities
Consistently voted for university tuition fees
Almost always voted for more restrictive regulation of trade union activity
Almost always voted against increasing the tax rate applied to income over £150,000 & Generally voted against a banker’s bonus tax
Almost always voted for reducing capital gains tax
Generally voted against UK membership of the EU & Almost always voted against a right to remain for EU nationals already in living in the UK
Generally voted against laws to promote equality and human rights
Voted against investigations into the Iraq war
You like Rory if you want, but if someone tells you who they are, best believe them
“Could it be that crude an arrangement?”
Yes.
But of course it would be disguised.
The SNP could have a big fat zero of real members at this point and we would not know it it. Keeping it going, as if it did have members would be an absolute bargain for them. The SNP runs for a few million, it is peanuts. Just find a sneaky way to send them money to fill in for all the missing members.
Like the vote for Yousaf, just bare faced lie about the membership the vote, the funding, well.. everything, endlessly.
No one is ever able to verify any of it. Well are you?
But. but, but…The Media? Police Scotland? COPFS? HAHAHAHAHAH.
@ Michael Laing, Mia & Ruby
The SNP don’t look or sound like a party that has abandoned independence. Your issues seems to be that they are not banging the drum hard enough or moving fast enough.
That’s just a difference in detail. They are the ones in the driving seat, their view is that independence just can’t be forced through in any legitimate way at the pace you demand.
You and Stu think this is all about keeping a gravy train going? Well you liked most of these chancers well enough for the last few elections and lauded them as true believers.
Not many people believe independence is possible in the next few years. The switch in SNP strategy just looks like embracing reality.
As for the specific question of whether the people of Scotland are capable of governing themselves? Obviously, yes.
But the people of the UK are also capable of governing themselves. The UK could have an outstanding government. Sadly, the UK, Wales and Scotland have governments of low calibre grifters and activists acting on behalf of their own warped agenda.
Independence won’t change our ability to vote in muppets. In fact the opportunities afforded by statehood are only likely to attract even bigger crooks. That’s not to say don’t do it, but clamping on the rose tinted spectacles and seeing independence curing all ills, doesn’t help in the real world.
“a well-planned coup has a good chance of unseating him in the wake of the Rutherglen disaster”
Who does wings think would be the leader of such a coup?
Your post made me 🙂
@desimond says:7 October, 2023 at 9:02 pm
Defo some good stuff in there. If you think everything on that list is BAAAADDDDD, you need to gie yersel a shake.
My own favourites are:
Generally voted against UK membership of the EU & Almost always voted against a right to remain for EU nationals already in living in the UK
Generally voted for a stricter asylum system & Consistently voted for stronger enforcement of immigration rules
What is it with people who believe they have the right to go wherever they wish abroad and then refuse to take citizenship, integrate or live legally?
What is it with those who support these people?
Of course, there’s an obvious explanation. The elephant in the room that perhaps explains at least some of those who post online about wanting an immigration free-for-all.
@Livionian says:7 October, 2023 at 9:19 pm
Who does wings think would be the leader of such a coup?
It’s gotta be Kirsty Blackman.
Naw, hear me oot. Think of the boxes that have to be ticked. Oor Kirsty ticks them all.
The really interesting question is by what legal mechanism (within SNP rules) can HY be unseated.
But then, within SNP rules, he was never legally appointed in the first place.
Deeply dispiriting how everybody connives at forgetting that salient fact. But as the rules were flouted before, the precedent has been set, should anybody want to follow it.
I don’t know why every comment I make has to be made so complex? Rory Stewart spent 6-months in the “Bungalow Bill” military and then some period of time (perhaps that’s a secret) in MI6.
Humza spent 6-months in a call-centre. Keith Brown spent time in the “Tenement Tom” military. God knows if he was good or bad or average? Does it matter?
The point I made earlier was that Rory Stewart is in my opinion the best parliamentarian of his generation.
I cannot think of any Scottish MSP or MP that is in the same league as he is. If that is not true…..give me a couple of names of Scottish MSP’s or MP’s that are better?…..or equal.
I can think of Kenny MacAskill; but that’s it.
@Lorna Campbell
I’m not sure that I would necessarily endorse describing C19th Irish Home Rule as “independence in all but name” , although it would clearly have been something closer to it than what then existed, as it would have been more or less the same kind of arrangement that currently exists in Scotland and Wales, with a devolved national parliament holding some powers and Irish MPs still sitting in the House of Commons. It would have been, if achieved, a compromise along similar lines to those. There certainly were full-scale Irish independence supporters in the C19th, latterly often members of groups like the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and in earlier decades, Irish politicians like Daniel O’Connell campaigned for repeal of the 1800 Union in the 1830s. I could imagine that many of the Irish backers for Home Rule in the later C19th may have been settling for it as a compromise because they may have have considered full independence too impractical or or difficult or unlikely a thing to achieve at that time even though they would have preferred that if it had been on offer but I wouldn’t have said that this made them the same thing. From their point of view it would have been at most a ‘second-best’ outcome.
I think there were several reasons for the upsurge in support for Sinn Fein in 1918, probably too numerous to detail in full here, but that in addition to everything that had happened hitherto including the Home Rule political struggles up until then, they would have also included the then-recent conscription crisis, the growing militancy of the Ulster Protestants, with their Covenant of 1912 and receiving weapons to form militias, and the UK government doing in practice little or nothing to stop them (many in the Conservatives indeed quite unambiguously supporting the Ulster backlash against proposed Home Rule), also the reaction of the UK authorities to the 1916 Easter Rising, and large numbers of people being newly enfranchised for the 1918 General Election.
link to archive.ph
Rory Stewart ponders political comeback — at Holyrood
Is it because of this article that posters are talking about Rory the Tory?
Captain Yossarian a Unionist and a Tory who said
Ruby – My views correspond with the majority on here.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
@Captain Yossarian 9:49pm
Captain you are on a hiding to nothing on Rory. Largely regarded as the best politician in Europe at the time was Alex Salmond. Keith Brown was a Marine and served in the Falklands. I don’t accept the tenement Tom categorization. What do you actually mean by that? I genuinely don’t understand the reference. And Yes it does matter. Rory got a route unavailable to most of the population. He is no old military man. Groomed and primed for leadership Rory can be regarded as a failure. And now he is putting himself forward as a Conservative MSP candidate. Holyrood can pick em. Anyhow A Scot Abroad will be along in a mo to correct everybody.
Just because I post shite on this website, why does everybody hate me?”‘Sob!”
Captain Yossarian is the best blog poster in Scotland.
.I cannot think of a poster in the same league.
I am bereft.
I wish he hadn’t left us.
Er…
Ruby – I wasn’t aware of that and in Piers Morgan Uncensored he didn’t mention it. However, that’s good news. We can look forward to Stephen Flynn versus Rory Stewart? (It will be like Stephen Flynn versus Jordan Peterson)
@Cap’n Y 8.41pm
You’re correct and incorrect in what you say about ‘psssttt’…
I would link to the Guardian article which explains the ‘incorrect’ bit but as the white van surveillance seems to have stopped, I’m just going to leave it there…
Captain Yossarian says
I agree with you assessment of theb people but he was born in hong kong he us not british he is chinese. Being white and going to Eton does not make him british.
The tories brought in boris and american and that wend well.
Rory Stewart spent 6 months in ‘Bungalow Bill’
Keith Brown spent time in ‘Tenament Tom’.
Yusless spent time in a call centre.
Is this code?
Oooh missus!
That’s weird! So did you just come on here and start posting ‘Rory the Tory’ is the greatest thing since sliced bread for no particular reason?
Rory the Tory was famous for his cairn building during IndyRef14.
Mad as a box of frogs!
Total humiliation. Independent Ireland 36 Unionist public school boys 14. Colianlism clear to see. What a shoker.
@ Debatable Lands at 9.15pm:
Your comment is so preposterous that I don’t know why I’m bothering to respond to it. Nevertheless, if 50% of Scots want Scotland to be independent, by what sort of logic does it benefit the SNP to abandon its commitment to independence? Besides, politicians should campaign for the principles they believe in, not what might or might not be popular with the voters. The SNP’s primary job is to campaign for independence, regardless of how popular that is as a policy. And where do you get the idea that the SNP are in any way committed to independence in any case? They have spent the past nine years ignoring and frustrating the cause of independence while imposing all sorts irrelevant, divisive and unwanted policies upon us. That is why they are about to meet the same well-deserved fate as Labour’s Feeble Fifty.
Michael Laing: Jon Uhler’s point is that these men don’t care what you or I think. The whole ‘trans’ thing is a delusion, but it is Western society’s delusion that ‘just be kind’ is anything other than a capitulation to a scam. Sometimes they just do what they do for the kicks they get out of upsetting and hurting those they aim their malice at: usually females. Many of them are sadists, the real mccoy and/or psychopaths. It is part of the sexual pleasure they derive from pushing themselves on unwilling females and children. They view society and its laws and conventions and religions and norms as there to be undermined and destroyed precisely because they offer a cohesive way of living.
However, behind them are the money men who do nothing for no reason. Think Hitler and his use of the Brown Shirts and SS to achieve ‘lebensraum’ for Germany, and to destroy those who opposed, in any way, that aim. Those organisations were simply thugs in uniform; this lot wear female clothing, and, very likely, female underwear under that clothing. They are the vanguard.
I am at a loss to understand why independists don’t get that this agenda cannot possibly lead to independence because independence is a coherent and normal thing. For starters, nationalism is anathema to global corporatists whose raison d’être is exploitation, and it is anathema to porn-driven Queer Theorists because it would lead to a society that is heternormative and organized by laws and a social contract. Queer Theory is the very opposite of those. In many ways, it is the philosophical/sexual mirror image of fascism/totalitarianism.
Spent the last 30 minutes poring over the UK dictionary of military slang. You don’t want to go there. No mention of Tenement Tom or Bungalow Bill. It’s 46 years since I served on the front line so I thought I would check in case my memory had failed. They maybe legitimate expressions but I couldn’t find any reference to them. I have had my beefs with Keith Brown especially when he allowed himself to be sidelined by Nicola Sturgeon. But he doesn’t deserve his active service to be denigrated by a toy soldier seeking high office. Captain you are a Rangers supporter. During the BLM protests an ex serviceman protected the war memorial in Glasgow because his mate was there and he died in Afghanistan. He was also a Rangers supporter I absolutely loved him. My active service represented a very small part of my life. But whether you are a Unionist or an Independence supporter you can’t trade active service with a manufactured route for would be Prime Ministers.
Transmania dogma mortally wounded the SNP, a devolution policy will finish the job..
As someone who has never been a member of any political party, can anyone explain why any independence supporting party or politicians of that party would NOT favour, support and insist on a de facto referendum election manifesto
I have supported and voted for the OLD SNP for decades and I was convinced that their policy was if they won a majority of the seats with a substantial vote share and they became the SG that the leader of the snp would move independence
If I am correct in my assumption who changed that policy, and why wasn’t it adhered too, where did the NECCESSITY for a sect 30 come from that allowed england and wm to dictate everything about the 2014 ref
TBQH politicians of ALL parties have sabotaged independence for Scotland and WE are the ones who are suffering, again TBQH I will NEVER vote for any politician or political party in Scotland AGAIN until they ENSHRINE in the first line of their manifesto,
EVERY ELECTION CONTESTED BY A INDEPENDENCE SUPPORTING PARTY HAS TO BE A DE FACTO REFERENDUM
Regardless of all other policies, every vote for a independence party in ANY election will be regarded as a vote for independence
They have all let us down badly by their lackadaisical attitude to forcing independence and ACCEPTING that whatever the english government in wm says is correct
George – “Tenement Tom” and “Bungalow Bill” aren’t military terms. I grew-up in Glasgow are they are expressions used in Glasgow.
You and the others may not like him because he is a Tory, but he is undoubtedly better than anything we have. The only question left hanging in the air was: “Who do we actually have anyone that is better?” I mentioned Kenny MacAskill but nobody’s added any names and so we don’t have a list of names that are better than the toy soldier?
I gave you a name and he’s a Tory and so I must be a Rangers supporting Tory. Definitely a sneaky bastard that no-one on Wings should pay any attention to.
If Jordan Peterson had to spend half an hour looking through the readers comments here, he would reckon most are just chronic complainers.
n England just now, Labour are on-course for a landslide victory. That’s not completely down to Boris Johnson, but some of it is.
It will be the same in Scotland because the public will put-up with a lot, but now with dishonest politicians.
That’s why Branchform is so crucially important just now.
Twathater at 0337am,
I agree with your point that I too was always led to believe that if the SNP won a majority of seats at Westminster, they would move for immediate end of the union. Indeed, that was the widely acknowledged understanding of things – even among tories in Westminster. When the SNP has their thumping election result, whereby they captured every Westminster seat apart from one, I fully expected it. I remember when it happened, many commentators in London believed it would happen too, that there would then be a ‘constitutional crisis’.
Who changed it? Sturgeon did. I remember her stating that it wasn’t the case, and that it wasn’t a ‘mandate’ etc.. It wasn’t the Tories, it wasn’t unionists, it was the SNP who decided not to act. They won all those seats, leaving Westminster stunned, and did NOTHING. And they wonder why indy supporters won’t vote for them anymore. I mean seriously, what’s the point?
Even if, by pursuing such action they did not get full independence, they would have put London firmly on the back foot, and would have secured enormous concessions and powers.
Their is an old mantra, if you are not attacking, you are defending. Under Alex Salmond, the SNP were always on the front foot. Under Sturgeon, and still now, they are always defending. Westminster sees the lack of fight in the SNP, Westminster sees the lack of desire to push independence, and THAT is why they feel enabled to undermine and override the Scottish parliament and government at the drop of a hat. Westminster is truly evil when it comes to Scotland, if they sniff weakness, they go for the kill.
Sturgeon. That is the name. I genuinely think she never ever wanted independence.
Meanwhile, I see elsewhere, that two evil, murderous, religious-dogma driven terrorist groups, the Israeli army (IDF) and Palestinian Hamas, are both knocking lumps out of innocent people with bombs and missiles. Western media only condemns one of them.
twathater @ 3:37 am
“can anyone explain why any independence supporting party or politicians of that party would NOT favour, support and insist on a de facto referendum election manifesto”
Postcolonial theory tells us what is happening here:
– the dominant national party in whom the people have placed their trust ‘fails them at the decisive moment’ (i.e. the election of 56 ‘nationalist’ MPs in 2015);
– the politicians lack the courage to declare independence at ‘the decisive moment’;
– instead they reach a ‘co-operative arrangement’ with the colonial power, and decide to ‘feather their nests’ and ‘build up their pensions’;
– the dominant national party becomes ‘an implement of coercion’ introducing repressive laws and using colonial forces to hold the people back;
– this delay to independence and ‘attacks on radicals’, leads to the ‘rupture’ in the movement;
– meantime the colonial power implements ‘procedures’ to prevent liberation of the people, making ‘any prospect of liberation seem impossible’;
– because the national politicians have never undertaken a ‘reasoned study of colonial society’, the people still have only a ‘rudimentary understanding’ of what independence means – they do not yet know that it means ‘decolonization’ and ‘liberation from oppression’ and escape from the colonial ‘condition’. The people must be ‘educated’ thus:
link to salvo-cor.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com
Can’t agree about Scotland must retain the pound.
I don’t care what the currency name is but at least start off with the pound and leave ourselves the opportunity to rename it whatever and whenever we want.
The Republic of Ireland retained the pound when they became independent.
So did Egypt and Syria.
Other EU countries don’t use the Euro so there is no being forced to use Euros.
I have no problem using Euros in at least 10 countries and would have no problem with it here
I always grudge charges for buying other currencies.
I wouldn’t complain if they were wiped out.
@Robert Louis says:8 October, 2023 at 7:15 am
they feel enabled to undermine and override the Scottish parliament and government at the drop of a hat
They don’t though, do they? So you’re writing mince. They interfere seldom, and usually in the interests of the majority of Scots, truth be told. They work against HR genderwoowoo in the interests of Scottish women and kids, to give but one example.
But most of the time, WM allows the HR eejits and numpties, people like you just can’t stop voting for, freely dig themselves into their ever deepening holes.
The shambles that is the SNP/Green HR clusterfuck is on us Scots voters. The first step to fixing it is to accept that and own it.
Westminster is truly evil when it comes to Scotland
Oh get a fecking grip. Sometimes I strive mightily to avoid wishing true evil on hysterical OTT posters like yourself. It’s probably the only experience that could ever get through your thick heid.
@ Michael Laing at 11.22pm
The word ‘if’ is doing a lot of work in your answer. But 50% of Scots don’t back independence. Or at least not reliably enough to be guaranteed to vote for it when push comes to shove.
Surely you can see this? Do you only look at polling in The National? The SNP know the truth of it. They have campaigned on this one issue and not moved the needle in 10 years. They are losing support because far from all independence supporters have it at the top of their priority list. People are beginning to realise that the world is not rushing to Scotland’s door to be part of the glorious event and the distraction of it all is harming the country. They’d just rather have politicians that got the bins emptied and built ferries.
The independence movement had a platform and gave it to idiots. You are now complaining because people don’t believe that the third generation of independence leaders will be any better than the last two. If the SNP had concentrated more on other important issues and proven itself competent, would the movement have been in this mess.
You do. Fine. Most don’t.
twathater says:
8 October, 2023 at 3:37 am
‘politicians of ALL parties have sabotaged independence’
And that goes a long way to explain the very low turnout in the Rutherglen by-election.
There is a growing disdain for politicians, political parties, and the whole rotten political system.
So, it’s not surprising to see that Salvo now has a burgeoning 7,800+ members, 15 months after launch, Alba has stagnated, and other parties are losing support.
@Alf Baird says:8 October, 2023 at 7:31 am
the dominant national party becomes ‘an implement of coercion’ introducing repressive laws
Care to list some of these coercive, repressive laws, Alf?
I’m thinking the Scottish Income Tax for one.
Maybes the excessive and OTT Scottish Covid lockdowns too, with Sturgeon/Yousaf retaining most of the “emergency” legislation on the statute books – handy for them no doubt.
What you got that backs up your post-colonial theorising, Alf?
link to wingsoverscotland.com
George – “Tenement Tom” and “Bungalow Bill” aren’t military terms. I grew-up in Glasgow are they are expressions used in Glasgow.
What do they mean? Let me guess.
Rory Stewart is upper class so merits our respect. He’s an officer, a gentleman & a Tory.
Keith Brown is working class lived in a tenement so not worthy of respect. He probably went to a state school & then some low class university.
What about call centre is that another Glasow expression?
You don’t seem to know much about your hero. The only reason he’s getting press coverage is because he’s got a new book out. It’s advertised in the Tatler.
It’s one of those exposes where he spills all about his parliamentary colleagues. Gutter press in hardback. Not exactly what you would call the actions of a gentleman.
You ask
“Who do we actually have anyone that is better?”
That would depend what you mean.
Is there not some knighted landowner or something in the Scottish Tories. Not just some ‘Bungalow bill’ he’ll be a ‘Stately Home Quentin Rupert Charles the 3rd’
I think I’ve figured call-centre.
Spent time in a call-centre means your parents didn’t have enough money to send you off for a gap year walking in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, India and Nepal.
Debatable Lands says:
8 October, 2023 at 8:36 am
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Aw bless another of your posts that made me smile 🙂
Debatable Lands @ 8:36 am
“But 50% of Scots don’t back independence.”
Its a bit more complicated than this. Census data and post referendum research suggests perhaps as many as half of ‘No’ voters today are not Scots and do not necessarily consider themselves Scottish. A colonial mindset among native Scots helps explain much of the remainder of the anti-independence vote. In other words, most of the anti-independence ‘No’ vote is due to the effects of colonialism.
Ruby – I asked a question. I note that John Main asks another question above. Engage with the question(s) and don’t allow your anger to spill-over the way it does. “Play the ball, not the man” (or woman). My point has been that parliamentarians of honesty and accountability are rare and that, I think, is what Mr Stewart is. The Nationalist movement have none of those at the moment either at Holyrood or Westminster. The few you ever had are now with the Alba Party. That is the point that I have been trying to make on here since yesterday. Why is everything so complex around here?
@Debatable Lands says:8 October, 2023 at 8:36 am
If the SNP had concentrated more on other important issues and proven itself competent, would the movement have been in this mess
Great post and that’s a great question.
The answer is, of course not, Indy would probably have happened by now.
All the SNP ever had to do was demonstrate quiet, unfussy competence in making worthwhile things happen in the real world for ordinary Scots. If they had done that, they wouldn’t have had to scrabble a coalition with the Greens after the last HR election, and the Greens nutters would have remained a pointless, anonymous group of weirdos on the fringes of HR debates. The modern-day equivalent of lunatics for us to point and laugh at.
And with a solid reputation for quiet, unfussy competence, the SNP could have plausibly and believably shown us Scots the money we would get post-Indy. Instead, not only are they incapable of doing that, having done little or no work in that direction, most of us wouldn’t now believe them if they did.
As somebody said, trust is gained in spoonfuls, and lost in bucketfuls.
Captain Yossarian says:
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Why is everything so complex around here?
I think it might be because you are on the wrong website.
Ruby – I asked a question. I note that John Main asks another question above
I answered your question as best I could considering a lot of the time I haven’t a clue what you are on about.
I noted John Main asked a question John Main asks questions 24/7 usually the same one.
What do you expect me to do about that?
Ruby
To try to answer your question:
Bungalow Bill is easy, a bungalow has nothing upstairs; thus, a “Bungalow Bill” is fairly thick.
Tenement Tom I must admit is a new one on me; but I would take it to be “Everyman” or “The common five-eigths”; your average “Jock” who just got on with the job regardless.
I recall a line from Alistair MacLean’s ‘The General Danced at Dawn’ where the suggestion was: the Jocks, (the ordinary foot soldiers in a HIghland regiment) would follow their Ruperts (Anglo-Scottish officers such as Rory Stewart) anywhere – out of a sense of morbid fascination as to what sort of bother they would lead them into.
@Alf Baird says:8 October, 2023 at 9:20 am
as many as half of ‘No’ voters today are not Scots and do not necessarily consider themselves Scottish
Indeed, and that proportion is set to increase considerably. How many New Scots does HY want – a million I think the Pretendy FM said (and he’s still there, running the shitshow).
Ergo, focusing on the Scots language, 1707, The Clearances or Red Clydeside won’t help you – none of the Ancient Guff will.
Luckily though, you have me to tell you what will work – what will turn those No’s to Yes’s.
Show the New Scots the money they stand to gain from Indy
Fecking obvious.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Cheers socratesmacsporran it’s all making sense now!
1. I went to school in Glasgow, I suspect neither of you did? A Tenement Tom is working class and a Bungalow Bill is middle class. I’m a Tenement Tom, but I have no problem with Bungalow Bills.
2. I asked for the names of a couple of Nationalists we could call “serious politicians”. I gave you one name: Kenny MacAskill. Is that it then? (I suspect it probably is)
Face it folks, all this energy, frustration?, is going to have to go someplace.
Storing it up in self torture and mental anguish is wasteful.
Scotland is by stealth possibly on the way to becoming the Ireland of century 21. That is the way the Brits are going to play this game. That third of territory will not be relinquished quietly.
Certainly the current order is no longer to be given support. Unionism is toxic, no matter how packaged, how «devolved».
The Scottish political paradigm has moved to raw, basic survival mode.
Scottish national aspiration and its leaders must take account of that and change accordingly.
Scottish politics can never return to being a branch of Westminster with its sham democracy, schoolyard political parties and post imperial delusions of exceptionalism.
Many fear or hate the term «revolution» but that is what is needed.
Sarwar, FM? You gotta laugh in the face such conceit.
To Marcus Carslaw –
“Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say “what should be the reward of such sacrifices?” Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!”
Samuel Adams 1776
What about the ‘Scheemies’ like me? Why no mention?
How would you know from posts on here whether someone went to school in Glasgow or not.
Are you making the judgement based on whether someone knows your version of ‘Glasgow slang’ or not?
Referring to Stu’s final paragraph about a coup to unseat Humza, I can’t see it working anytime soon. Like a few other parties, once the lunatics have got the keys to the asylum they’ll not give them up without a major fight. And I don’t see anyone brave enough to launch a civil war and conduct the necessary cull.
No, the SNP would have to lose in a Holyrood election to trigger such a change and the sheeples who vote for the SNP are if nothing else persistent in giving their vote to anyone who waves a Saltire in their face.
Where do prefabs and cottages fit into this dynamic new political theory?
Is there an OU course I can sign up for?
Yesterday i stated this on the other thread: “It is imperative we come up with an entirely different way of taking back our right to self-determination because it is *NEVER* going to happen via a referendum with London’s participation.”
And there, as if by magic, Stuart spells it out once again in the article at the top of this thread. But just like Mains “Show us the fuckin’ money”, Stuarts message has to reach the correct audience – those in a position to make it happen.
I’m well and truly done with the current SNP and i’m quickly going off ALBA and their “Scotland United” insistence simply because the current SNP have absolutely no intentions of sharing any platform with anyone much more savvy than they consider themselves to be. FFS, even the halfwits in the pretendy “Greens” can play the SNP like a fiddle. ALBA need to stand a candidate in every constituency for Holyrood, not Westminster.
Salmond needs to absolutely turn ALBA into something far stronger, far greater, and with a clear objective in achieving indy that *MUST* be completely different to that fraudulent cunning plan offered by the SNP. For me, ALBA need to adopt Stuarts plan, a plan he’s promoted several times now. ALBA need to stop trying to cozy-up to the SNP because, quite frankly, they fear and hate Salmond in equal measure.
We also need to make it very clear that Westminster elections should be boycotted. Prioritise Holyrood elections. It’s a small but significant step in disassociating Scotland from London rule. If ALBA insist on wanting to pursue this “united” route then count me out, i’m done giving votes to self-serving troughers. I want absolutely nothing to do with the ‘Elmer Fudd’ & ‘Three Little Pigs’ mentality of the SNP Westminster front benches.
“The SNP don’t look or sound like a party that has abandoned independence”
We must live in parallel universes because from where I am standing, not only the SNP looks and sounds like a party which has completely abandoned independence as a goal. it also acts like one.
It has been actively blocking the progress of independence for the last 9 years. The Keatings case or the abuse of power from the crown to block the entry of the referendum bill into our parliament are magnificent examples.
The only reason why an unelected representative of the crown is transferring control of our legislative body from the people of Scotland to the crown is because both Sturgeon and Yousaf have allowed and facilitated it.
Remember Sturgeon’s infamous words in 2015?
“A vote for the SNP is not a vote for independence nor even a referendum”.
She said that DESPITE all projections in polls at the time for a landslide win of the SNP in the upcoming 2015 GE on the premise a vote for the SNP was a vote for independence. THAT is actively and quite deliberately blocking the progress of independence and not what you would expect from a healthy nationalist party which has just increased its membership numbers enormously. That is what you expect from a nationalist party infiltrated to its highest echelons.
“Your issues seems to be that they are not banging the drum hard enough or moving fast enough”
No. My issues are that since Sturgeon took over, the party has become a copy cat of labour who has actively and deliberately reneged on the first article of its constitution, has purposely done absolutely nothing to progress independence and done everything in their hand to stall and contain the momentum of the yes movement and to bring the party in line with labour policy.
When the party’s leadership have been deliberately wasting 9 years by manufacturing obstacles for themselves to disguise their self-inflicted stalling of progress, frankly the words “fast enough” come across as an insult.
“That’s just a difference in detail”
No. The difference is not in detail but in purpose. Since Nicola Sturgeon took over the SNP has been deliberately, actively and relentlessly stopping the progress of independence and deceiving voters.
“They are the ones in the driving seat”
They are in the driving seat and pulling the hand brake so hard they have put it at breaking point.
“Their view is that independence just can’t be forced through in any legitimate way at the pace you demand”
The UK is a parliamentary democracy. The only thing you need to end it is a majority of anti-union MPs from any of the two partners, withdrawing from Westminster and repealing the Treaty of Union. The same mechanism used to start the union is valid to terminate it.
“You and Stu think this is all about keeping a gravy train going?”
The Rev is a very knowledgeable and eloquent man who can speak for himself. I can only speak for what I think and what I think is the gravy train seats are only part of the story and a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. Personally I think the SNP was infiltrated long ago and in 2014 the “assets” were activated to pull the lever on the party’s self destruction, starting by Sturgeon’s move to force disengagement of the party from the concept of independence. This was, in my view, the emergency procedure used to neuter the 56 majority.
What we have seen ever since is a “regime change” instigated by a political fraud activating self-destruction of the SNP from within. Just look at the number of careerists, airheads and weirdos entering the SNP ranks under hers and the continuity candidate’s stewardship. What do they all have in common? They can all be brought down rather easily and pretty much on demand. That is not a sign of a strong, healthy party. That is a sign of a hollowed out party subordinated to something else and maintained just as an empty shell that can be crushed at any moment and without notice.
“Well you liked most of these chancers well enough for the last few elections and lauded them as true believers”
Nope. I was duped like many others. At the point I cast my very last vote for the SNP (December 2019), I still thought the political fraud was going to deliver independence right before or immediately after brexit became official.
I realised this would never be the case when I listened to her insulting capitulation speech in January 2022. At that point I just felt embarrassment and since then uttermost contempt, not only for the political fraud, but for every SNP MP and MSP who chose to look the other way and indulge her contempt for democracy and for the yes movement instead of exposing her and chucking her out.
“Not many people believe independence is possible in the next few years”
That does not matter an iota. What matters is what the SNP stands for, what the people believes it stands for, and what they were elected to do and how much that departs from what the SNP is actually doing. At the moment the gap between those is abysmal.
“The switch in SNP strategy just looks like embracing reality”
There wasn’t any switch in “strategy”. There has been a change in guard with a complete switch in purpose, while still actively deceiving the core voters into believing they would continue to pursue the original purpose. Your purpose determines strategy, not the other way round.
The level of dishonesty and betrayal displayed by the SNP is not “embracing reality”. It appears to be a sign of infiltration with the clear intention of keeping the original yes vote on a leash in the short term and to neuter it in the long term by disenfranchising enough numbers of yes voters. This has been, in my personal view, a disgusting attempt at overturning democracy and the will of the people of Scotland.
“But the people of the UK are also capable of governing themselves”
Not while the UK remains in its present form. For as long as I can remember we have never had an example of “the people of the UK governing themselves”. We have had successive England governments governing everybody else and using everybody else’s assets for itself. Just now, how many people with portfolio and representing Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland do you see in the UK gov cabinet? I see none.
“Sadly, the UK, Wales and Scotland have governments of low calibre grifters and activists acting on behalf of their own warped agenda”
You forgot to mention England’s government. I am sure I do not need to tell you that “the uK” is not a synonym of England. They are completely different geographical and political entities.
All SNP actions since Sturgeon took over point to its leadership being on a mission to preserve the UK despite the democratic will of the people of Scotland. That does not denote any “warped agenda”. That suggests active collusion with elements of the British state to deceive Scotland’s voters and overturn democracy.
“Independence won’t change our ability to vote in muppets”
But it will increase exponentially our ability to chuck them out, to subject them to continuous scrutiny and to lock for once and for all that dodgy back door the crown has carved for itself in between powers. This is a door which appears to be used to transfer control over Scotland’s legislative body from the people of Scotland to the crown, just as we saw with the referendum bill case. It is also a door which appears to be abused to neuter “non-compliant” and dissident figures through fabricated charges and even perjury.
It has been years, since the UK parliament was informed of this aberration and break of boundaries between the executive, legislative and judicial powers which should be independent. Yet, nothing has been done to correct this. And for as long as we remain in the UK, you can predict nothing will be done to lock those aberrant doors in between powers because they are proving rather useful to stop or at least delay Scotland’s independence.
@ Ruby
Aw bless another of your posts that made me smile ?
I live to please.
Steven noon enjoying a wee car crash on the sunday show pushing devolution and wanting a labour government.
Do t they realise they failed in rutherglen because they are soft in indy.
If you want devolution vote snp.
If they could only see how weak they look.
I see humza being encouraged by the plants to continue with his daftie plan
Cpt Yoss 9.52am
Lurk and ask and ye won’t receive.
As in “he who hingeth aboot getteth heehaw”.
Much wailing and gnashing of teeth on Wings today. Nothing changes!
Like a fair number of Scots I am not averse to the idea of Independence. Putting the figure at 50% of the electorate is definitely exaggerated. If this figure was not reached in the last referendum it is extremely doubtful if it is anywhere near this level now. Maybe 25% would vote for Independence if a referendum was held tomorrow. People might want Independence but will not vote for it until they have an idea what it really entails.
A year or so ago I suggested that a start point would be voting Labour in any and all forthcoming elections. Not only would this get rid of the SNP but the Tories as well. As expected, I got pelters for this. It may be that the electorate in Rutherglen took this on board?
Whatever faults Labour has and their are plenty, they simply cannot do any worse than the SNP and the Tories. It is generally accepted that we are in for a long haul politically. If Labour mess things up, which the may well do, it would give the Independence movement the opportunity to regenerate with the SNP grifters and troughers hopefully no where near it. 5/10 years would be enough time. Maybe during this period someone/anyone could realistically inform the electorate of the benefits that could accrue, financially, physically and mentally. Or is this too difficult? The status quo of ‘It will all be fine’ after Independence clearly does not wash with the overwhelming majority of the electorate. However, I do accept that it probably does if you are a rabid nationalist who is unable to see the bigger picture.
Politicians, like everyone else on the planet, are hard wired to put self interest first. The only exception to this is a parent, generally the mother (am I allowed to use this word in Scotland?, or should I say birthing parent) who will often put itself in extreme danger to protect it’s offspring. There has to be a process to hold Politicians to account for their repeated failures. Once every 4/5 years at election time is simply unacceptable as we move forward. The Tories seem to be the only Party remotely capable of doing this although Labour is now trying. Thankfully nobody ever does anything wrong in the SNP/Loons coalition!!!
Good to see Billy Carlin again gracing us with his thoughts. It puts some of the other nutters on here in to context.
Try and stay dry everyone.
“socratesmacsporran says:
8 October, 2023 at 9:40 am
I recall a line from Alistair MacLean’s ‘The General Danced at Dawn’…”
George MacDonald Fraser is the author you’re after (all 3 books now available in one volume!).
Tenement Tom is a new expression to me, but then, I’m not Glaswegian.
But for information, a Tom in the Parachute Regiment is your bog standard private, (if you can still describe them as bog standard once they’ve got the beret and wings). Every recruit aspires to be a Tom.
I don’t know the origin of it, quite probably from Tommies or Tommy Atkins maybe. Maybe not. Source of it can’t be very old.
Almost positive that’s not what’s meant in relation to a Royal Marine. They have different vocabulary. Royal Navy jargon rather than Army.
Quite a few Paras were sick to the back teeth hearing about “yomping” all over the Falklands. Paras don’t “Yomp” anywhere, they “Tab”; as in Tactical Advance to Battle.
The other definition of Tom of course is a prostitute.
So Tenement Tom? Probably none of the above.
WM Parliament is the tyranny of absolute monarchs exercised by WM. We recently saw the 21st century medieval spectacle of Sturgeon and Salmond attend the swearing of fealty to KCIII as their sovereign and liege lord.
WM operates on the basis that it has absolute power, not bound by any law or Treaty (e,g the Treaty of Union) unless its MPs and Lords legislate to be bound. That is why Tony Blair’s government and MPs who voted for the murderous invasion of Iraq were not prosecuted for murder. Tyrants are above the law.
WM has the tyrannical power to deny self-determination to the Scottish nation ( but only for as long as we accept WM’s tyranny). All MPs are part of that system of tyranny – including Alba and SNP MPs.
Electing a politician who will swear fealty to the Anglican-only monarch and administer WM tyranny is continuing discrimination and tyranny. This is the case whether you support independence or no.
Derek @ 10.47am
DOH!!! You are of course correct, I always get those two authors mixed-up. My only excuse is old age and brain fog.
Socratesmacsporran@ 9.40 am
George MacDonald Fraser was the author of ‘The general danced at dawn ‘not Alistair Maclean.
I don’t want to Norwich but Fraser was a fine and prolific writer and should not be forgotten
Socratesmacsporran@ 9.40 am
George MacDonald Fraser was the author of ‘The general danced at dawn ‘not Alistair Maclean.
I don’t want to nitpick but Fraser was a fine and prolific writer and should not be forgotten
John Main @ 9:43 am
“Luckily though, you have me to tell you what will work – what will turn those No’s to Yes’s.”
Any political promise of a few dollars more will have little effect on a colonial mindset, i.e. those who ‘positively crave dependence’ and show ‘love and admiration for their oppressor’, whilst on the other side of the colonial assimilation coin lies a deep-rooted hatred of thair ain fowk an cultur/naition.
The only solution is to educate the people so that they better understand their ‘condition’, which thus far the national parties have failed to do.
Alex Salmond says in an article Yousaf the SNP and the R&HW by-election.
“One thing that Rutherglen and Hamilton certainly was not was a defeat for independence. How could it be? Independence hardly got a mention throughout the campaign. Indeed this is the third Hamilton by-election since Winnie Ewing’s earth shattering breakthrough but the first where independence was NOT at the heart of the SNP campaign.
On Friday, the SNP’s day of atonement, as the full enormity of their humiliation sunk in, a new opinion poll put independence back in the lead over support for the Union. But what use is public backing for independence when the SNP are completely clueless about how to get there?
Salmond added.
He has to now treat seriously the call from the ALBA Party and others for a Scotland United coalition to fight Westminster and Holyrood elections on the independence ticket.
Secondly, the First Minister has to show the Green Party the door. Many of the problems besetting his administration are self-inflicted by the daft ideas of his own Green Ministers. It is fine to campaign alongside them for independence but a disaster to put them close to the levers of power. He needs to get his rebels in and Harvie and Slater out.
Thirdly, he needs a coherent strategy to get to independence.
The SNP is an independence party or it is nothing. Right now it is not an independence party and is therefore heading towards the sands.
Unless there is fundamental change Humza Yousaf’s leadership is over, almost before it has begun.”
The SNP who bizarrely had campaigned for the recall petition to force the by-election were thumped.The turnout figure of a mere 37 per cent tells you everything. When the late Winnie Ewing triumphed in Hamilton way back in 1967 double that number of went to the polls in this area. Back then there was something worth voting for. Now the people think neither the SNP nor Labour are much cop .
Alf Baird
I am a Scot and have not been colonised. Why do you continually think that you, together with your like minded nutters, are so intelligent that you constantly have to point this out to those of us who do not have your vast intellect? Are you trying to educate the likes of me?
If you say something 10,000 times does it automatically become true in your warped view?
Show us the money
Plato said that no Athenian should earn more than 5 times that of the poorest. George Orwell thought the gap should be 10:1.
Poverty and inequality both have huge negative effects on society. If a woman does not have optimal nutrition her child will not develop its full potential.
It has long been known that socio-economic status affects health. The richer you are the longer you will live and stay free from disability.
To the distress of those engaged in public health research, life expectancy which has long steadily increased in the UK, except for the two WWs, has declined now among the most deprived. Austerity is the cause, say researchers.
Longitudinal studies of Whitehall civil servants found the same social gradient mentioned above among civil servants. The higher the grade, the longer life and longer period free from disability. The gradient remained all the way up the grades. None of the civil servants lived in poverty. It was concluded that the gradient arose from a psycho-social effect to do with fairness and perceptions of fairness.
Inequality is linked to the following socially negative effects. Greater inequality: worse physical and mental health and life expectancy: illegal drug use is more common in less equal societies: obesity rates are significantly more higher in more unequal societies: educational achievement is closely linked to income inequality: there are more teenage pregnancies in more unequal places: violence is more common where inequality is greatest.
link to twitter.com
“Your name will go on the list”
“Whatever faults Labour has and their are plenty, they simply cannot do any worse than the SNP and the Tories”
It does not matter what labour can or cannot do. Quite frankly, who gives a toss about labour in Scotland anymore? Labour is dead politically and has been dead politically in the UK since Mr Corbyn left its leadership. In Scotland it has been dead for even longer. The only reason why its heart is still beating is because it is being purposely kept on life support by the strategic vote from tories and libdems and by an undemocratic establishment who needs “an alternative” to the tories to maintain the illusion of choice.
What really matters here is that the people of Scotland has been sending continuously majorities of anti-union MPs to Westminster for the last EIGHT YEARS and, if the UK was a democracy, that should have led to the termination of the union.
Yet, because of some undemocratic and self-preserving forces infiltrating the SNP, nothing has happened and nothing will happen for as long as this shell of a party is kept in power. Those forces have made the main political vehicle for Scotland’s independence deliberately unelectable so they can force a transfer of anti-union seats on to pro-union political constructs’ control.
No matter under which angle you look at this, it is, at all practical effects, a subversion of democracy and a blatant overruling of the people of Scotland’s political will.
Who the hell is anybody in Westminster, Holyrood or Balmoral to claim that sending anti-union majorities for eight years must be completely meaningless and therefore we must have a labour government we did not choose and led by a tory we did not elect rammed down our throats?
It is evident the powers that be are desperate to move the dichotomy between pro and anti-independence that has set permanent roots in Scotland onto the same fabricated faux dichotomy that the establishment uses in England to create an illusion of choice: the left vs the right.
It is only an illusion because these are a “left” and a “right” that are so close to each other, so devalued and so hollowed out of meaning that you can only perceive them to be “left” and “right” when you put them next to each other and remove all that is left to the “left”. From the distance, they look like the exact same useless thing.
I do not know about the rest here, but I am sick and fed up of the same patronising political crap over and over again. Always manhana, manhana. Always somebody in Westminster knows best. Always an England political party, an England MP, an unelected political reject parachuted to the HoLs patronising us about what we want and about what our vote means. We decide what our vote means and what we want, thank you very much. Always repeating there is no support for independence when we can see the opposite. How much was the support for brexit before Cambridge Analytica started?
“It is generally accepted that we are in for a long haul politically”
Who has accepted it? I certainly do not accept it. I expected Sturgeon to move her corrupt backside and deliver independence in 2015. I expected the SNP MPs and MSPs to chuck her out when it was obvious she was deceiving the electorate and instead of progressing independence she was stalling it.
I did not cast my votes for the SNP so they could be in “for the long haul”. I cast my votes for them so they could use the majorities to actually deliver independence and not taking us for fools.
“If Labour mess things up”
Here we go. So now, after sending 8 years of anti-union majorities, we still have to wait and see if yet another colonial English labour government “messes up” before “somebody”, “somewhere”, at “some point” in this century decides finally our votes can be counted.
Labour ALREADY messed up by denying Scotland’s democratic will. How many opportunities do we have to give labour to change? And why should we?
“it would give the Independence movement the opportunity to regenerate…”
Sorry, but personally I am sick to the back teeth of hearing the same patronising nonsense time and time again. Manhana, manhana. Wait for manhana. Wait and see what another colonial, undemocratic labour government will bring compared to what they steal from us. No thank you.
The independence movement does not need an opportunity to regenerate anything. What the independence movement needs is a leader with the balls and will to use the anti union majorities we are sending to Westminster to terminate the union. That is what the independence movement needs.
@ Chas at 10.42am:
“Like a fair number of Scots I am not averse to the idea of Independence. Putting the figure at 50% of the electorate is definitely exaggerated. If this figure was not reached in the last referendum it is extremely doubtful if it is anywhere near this level now. Maybe 25% would vote for Independence if a referendum was held tomorrow. People might want Independence but will not vote for it until they have an idea what it really entails.
A year or so ago I suggested that a start point would be voting Labour in any and all forthcoming elections. Not only would this get rid of the SNP but the Tories as well. As expected, I got pelters for this. It may be that the electorate in Rutherglen took this on board?”
Another load of absolute havers from you, as usual.
Where did you pluck your “Maybe 25% would vote for Independence if a referendum was held tomorrow” from? That could be true. But then, maybe 93% would vote for independence if a referendum was held a week next Tuesday. Yes, I’ve just plucked a fanciful figure out of thin-air, just as you have. As far as I’m aware, all recent opinion polls have put support for independence at a couple of points either side of 50%, and that’s despite a total lack of campaigning for it since 2014 by the SNP.
Also, what would Scots gain by voting Labour? We know all too well what the Feeble Fifty achieved for Scotland when our industry was being destroyed and the Poll Tax imposed by Tory governments we had overwhelmingly rejected: the square root of SFA. And, clearly, the electorate in Rutherglen did not take the ‘wisdom’ of voting Labour on board. Their vote in the by-election fell, despite most of the Tory and Lib-Dem voters apparently transferring to Labour.
This is from the House of Commons Library.
“Colonial legislation
During the growth of the British Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries,
various constraints were placed on colonial legislatures. The doctrine of
“repugnancy”, for example, meant that a colonial law would be invalid if it
conflicted with UK laws applying by “paramount force” – ie taking precedence
over all others – or via UK treaty obligations.14
Two other mechanisms which allowed an effective veto over colonial
legislation were “disallowance” and “reservation”.”
Exactly the same process of legislation and withholding of power applies to Scotland today as was applied to Ireland and Canada when they were Dominions.
Dominion
noun
Control or the exercise of control; sovereignty.
A territory or sphere of influence or control; a realm.
A self-governing nation under the nominal rule of the British monarch.
link to researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk
“Are you trying to educate the likes of me?”
Oh Chas, I think that would be a hopeless challenge.
Perhaps even beyond the considerable skills of Professor Baird.
Some things are just impossible.
Sam
I’ll take Orwell’s 10:1 over your 3:1 every day of the week.
We live in the real world, not your fanciful utopia. People need to be recognised fiscally for their superior competence, education and training, often achieved through many years of hard graft, study and sacrifice.
We’ve tried the box-ticking quotas idea and the results are in – it’s a recipe for shit outcomes.
The situation in the Middle East is dire with so many deaths.
I can’t see any sign of a genuine peace process or broker or will to negotiate.
If I can stir the hornets nest here by saying my opinion of what happened to the Jews in world war 2 was the most horrific inhuman act that history as to offer but I cannot see why they were entitled to take Palestine land as their own with the aid of US and U.K. armies.
Perhaps if global funds were sent to compensate Palestinians and grow their economy to give them good jobs and homes things could have been different but military might took the country by force.
We know that the US did give Israel the equipment to make a nuclear bomb in a clandestine operation where the materials required disappeared from an unmanned dock side.
Why would the US do that as if it was used in Palestine who don’t have a serious military capability the radiation fall out would kill many Israelis.
From the last war between these parties of course there could be only one winner.
New key areas of Palestine were captured and as I thought their return would be part of peace negotiations but no they were just stolen and Israeli settlements built which really now looks like the global power brokers are happy for Israel to take anything they want when they want.
I saw a documentary about how Israel totally controls everything that is allowed to enter Palestine including medicines.
Some charity ships with emergency medical supplies were repelled from Palestinian waters by Israeli naval forces.
Can the world not see that losing your country, being totally controlled by an aggressive neighbour and living with little chance of investment that would provide good jobs might just turn people into terrorists.
Yes a Palestinian group attacked innocent Israeli civilians and I condemn that but now it appears that Israeli bombs are totally wiping out entire apartment blocks with residents who have no involvement in these attacks and who would be powerless to stop and cross border attacks if they knew anything about it.
With the US throughout history supporting one side even in ways they couldn’t publicly justify how could they be considered to be peace brokers.
Do the United Nations actually do anything?
Could they form a board of peace brokers with no vested interest of their own?
Could they demand the occupied territories from the last war must be returned.
Could a UN Army peace core be allowed to investigate Hamas and work to ensure no terrorist activists can be organised or weaponised.
The Palestinian people will also need to turn in any terrorists or their living hell will continue for generation after generation.
After thousand of years in which to form civilisation we still have the biggest cavemen with the largest club taking what they want without negotiation or justification.
What solution do you have?
Chas says on 8 October 2023 at 10:42 am: “Much wailing and gnashing of teeth on Wings today. Nothing changes!”
Well if you don’t like it either GTF or change back into your other moniker.
Chas-n-Dave then blurts: “Like a fair number of Scots I am not averse to the idea of Independence…Maybe 25% would vote for Independence if a referendum was held tomorrow.”
And if my aunty had balls maybe she’d be my uncle. Utter unsubstantiated bollocks conjured up from the dark recesses of a halfwit. Absolutely no attempt to explain how the twat arrived at 25%. Are you getting confused with your lotto numbers? Where the numbers never go beyond 49?
And if that wasn’t enough this twat then further attempts to belittle indy supporters on here with: “Or is this too difficult?”
Go back and read through your own comments and then come back to belittle us when you know how to spell. The word is nowhere, not no where. And when you know the difference between their and there.
Wee tip, halfwit, if you want to be taken seriously and for folk on here to absorb your message, cut the arrogant superior than thou approach. You’re in no position to ridicule anyone. And that’s coming from me, a simple uneducated individual. LOL!
I suppose when you risk losing £86,584 plus expenses a year, together with the opportunity to employ… well, let’s just say, friends and family (girlfriend presumably in Joanna Cherry’s case), survival instinct must automatically kick in.
And, mind, Nadine Dorries had the cheek to employ her two daughters at £40,000 part-time.
@ Michael Laing on 8 October 2023 at 12:06 pm:
You beat me to it. You also exerted far more effort on the arrogant twat than i could be bothered doing. LOL!
@Alf 11:23
You continue to dodge the issue.
Even if we Sovereign Scots are colonised as you claim, with a colonialist mindset, I see no reason to believe the New Scots are too.
The claim that New Scots, who have come here for a better life, are immune to the prospect of an even better life, is ludicrous.
Of course, the claim that we ethnic Scots, stereotypically mean and careful with our money, won’t be interested in more money, is daft too.
I guess somebody is going to have to run a poll, with a list of possible Indy advantages, and ask the question:
Which of the following Indy advantages do you rate most highly? The list to include ideas such as ‘Revenge for Culloden’, ‘The right to be addressed in Scots by all public bodies’, ‘More money for public services’ and ‘More wonga in my pocket’.
My money is on the latter two, of course.
@ John Main
I am really glad to hear you think the pay ratio between top and bottom workers should be 10:1.
I’ll gladly join you there at 10:1.
Shall we campaign together?
Would you like an end to zero hours contracts?
What’s your take on this piece of journalism?
“While FTSE 100 CEO median pay witnessed a 16% increase, the median pay for full-time workers only grew by 5%. This disparity resulted in a pay ratio of 118:1 between the median FTSE 100 CEO and the median UK full-time worker in 2022, up from 108:1 in the previous year. This trend underscores the persistent challenge of income inequality. This marks the second consecutive year of CEO-Worker pay gap growth, dampening the optimism surrounding an anticipated economic reset post-pandemic that would include curbs on excessive top pay and reduced income inequality.”
How would you change this level of income inequality?
@John Main
“The claim that New Scots, who have come here for a better life, are immune to the prospect of an even better life, is ludicrous.”
I beg to differ. I know a number of New Scots who do not regard themselves as New Scots. they are English.
Some of the ones I know are very quiet on the subject of Scottish independence. Others say bluntly they will depart Scotland should we become independent.Some emails show the English flag.
I’ve seen polling in 2016 that shows 43% of English people think the Empire was a good thing and Britain’s colonial past a source of pride.
How did you reach your conclusion?
Stoker 12:16
Try to remember where you are: Sturgeon’s & Yousaf’s Scotland and it’s October 2023.
That means that if your aunty had balls, she may well still be your aunty, and for you to deny that may well be a criminal offence.
It’s you and your like-minded compatriots who have turned Scotland into an international laughing stock where a man can be your auntie and a flawed and fraudulent election made Yousaf the current member of the historical sequence that includes Wallace and Bruce.
Some contrition and apology from you would be better than your insulting bluster.
Chas @ 11:36 am
“I am a Scot and have not been colonised”
How do you know you are not subject to colonialism, more especially considering that denial (of oppression) forms part of the colonial ‘condition’?
If I regard myself as colonised, I have recognised my true condition.
If I do not regard myself as colonised, I am in denial.
Challenging to argue with as patronising an assumption as that one.
For those who still think that Scotland would have an equal say as a member of the EU, have a read of what Olaf Scolz is pushing for: ” We need important decisions with only a qualified majority”.
So an end to the need for unanimity. An end to the veto.
If you don’t like what the big boys are doing – tough, we are going to do it anyway, will be the mantra.
The EU is another noose for Scotland to put its neck in. And the SNP is dangling the rope.
Rory Stewart
is a weaselly little p0of and a well-known spook; all doors just open for him
all spooks should fucking die and if I ever met that streak of piss up the hills, there would be an accident; it’s a shame the afghans didn’t turn him into a belt and a pair of gloves
the spooks have corrupted our democracy and if you have been paying attention – you should be angry about it
this is the problem with this place – does no one remember anything? We had discussions about the “Stepford Wiving” of aspiring politicians at “young leaders” programs – this is utterly corrosive of democracy and having spies pretending to be your democratic representatives is innately tr34sonous, at least if you think the people are sovereign. Who are you loyal to? You are breaking your oath as you take it.
– these people are fucking scum and need to be dealt with, not handed every high position that comes across just so they can be a “safe pair of hands” for the status quo.
RS pops up everywhere as “the voice of reason” and people need to watch him and his kind.
@Sven
What you claimed Alf Baird said was not what Prof Baird said,imho.
Sam @ 13.26
And you are as entitled to view as I to mine, Sam.
My previous post to Sam.
Not quite sure where the your* from my post disappeared to. Was originally “your opinion as I to mine”, which hopefully makes more sense.
in other news – NICE ONE, HAMAS – in international law – ITS THE LAW – when you are occupied by a foreign power you have the right to armed resistance; my heart went out to those lads in the hang glider and the motorbikes.
link to cambridge.org
– take it lads …
link to youtube.com
now if the hezbollah come from the north, it might get interesting – the end of another abomination that all comes back to … our “friends” … the fucking english – BALFOUR DECLARATION, come on down – is there any evil thing that happened in the past millenium that wasn’t down, at source, to the english?
– it’s a great historical irony here, if you want to work out how to beat the UK, then the jewish settlers of palestine are the people you need to learn from; no one was as ruthless, well organised and subtle as they were – they kicked the shit out the british, and did shameless, evil things that the stiff upper lips couldn’t handle; hanging squaddies from trees, with the landmines underneath them, the letter bomb, assassination – they invented modern terrorism, but within 10 years of their victory had the british as their b1tches once again, doing their dirty work – suez, the theft of heavy water. And today “friends of israel” infest all our political parties. That is – impressive. That is what it means to be tight.
Scottish nationalism is a fucking shambles by comparison – I am not talking about harsh methods (hopefully it never gets so far) but mental attitude. Also note the multilayered and multidimensional game the zionists played – they were doing terrorism in one place, while doing deals with the americans and outflanking the UK at the UN; they fought on all battlefields and even had their agents as MPs at westminster sabotaging ernest bevin who was trying to take an even hand (- for once, britain was playing it fair!)
I think people fail to understand the concept of having an enemy – I don’t care about my enemy, his opinion, his wellbeing, my relationship with him, I just want to see him smashed and to laugh and taunt his people after …
– the shithole over carter bar is your enemy, you should want no relationship with it. They hate you, you can hate them back – they intend to take everything till you are no more as a people. Get angry, it just might save you.
link to youtube.com
Empires are like shares, great on the way up but having the nous as to when to get out is greater.
Staying put is rarely a clever option. Belt and braces security is for the gullible.
Fortunately, for the political snake oil marchants, there are legions of the latter.
When democracy falls on its sword.
@Colin Alexander;
The Union’s governance is fundamentally unlawful and unconstitutional, making Westminster’s English-based and English-run ‘unlimited authority’ over it utterly bogus. It isn’t even properly democratic, it just says it is.
The UK Parliament’s English establishment basically substituted the formal absolute sovereignties of its two partner kingdoms with a bogus absolute democratic authority, and they did this precisely to confer a major power advantage to itself, as England’s MPs vastly outnumber Scotland’s MPs, so effectively all the authority exerted by the UK Parliament is English authority, which Scotland’s MPs are not permitted to deny if they cannot muster enough votes to do so. Being outnumbered 10:1 makes that damn near impossible.
But that only works if sovereignty truly is irrelevant in the Union, but it obviously isn’t, given that Westminster insists on its own sovereignty all the time.
But Westminster’s stance is fraudulent, since democratic authority does not automatically trump all other authorities, and it certainly cannot trump sovereignty under any meaningful definition of that word. By that definition, the sovereignties of the two Treaty Principals are exactly equal, so neither has the authority to overrule the other on any matter of governance unless the Treaty itself permits specific exceptions.
Also, England’s MPs have NO inherent authority over the sovereign Kingdom of Scotland at all, because Scotland, under the Treaty, didn’t delegate any to them, and it can’t have come from anywhere else, since it didn’t exist anywhere else, so the very concept of them ‘democratically outvoting’ Scotland’s own MPs is constitutional nonsense.
Scotland’s delegation of its governance authority was to the Union’s PARLIAMENT in the form of its MPs, and they owe their full obeisance to the sovereign people of Scotland.
Scotland’s MPs are the sole representatives and agents of the Scottish Treaty Principal, and they are there to treat with England’s representatives and agents in the daily negotiations of the joint governance of the two Kingdoms’ territories, and as such they can owe no obeisance of ANY sort to England or its MPs, democratic or otherwise, and it makes no constitutional sense to suggest that they should.
But that is what the English establishment insists is the case.
@ Chas
“I am a Scot and have not been colonised”
Chas, are there some Scots who are or were colonised? In the Highlands?
Is the withholding of Scottish parliamentary powers by UK gov indicative of colonial status?
How should a Scottish parliament, any colour, best address health and other inequalities in Scotland?
Hi Captain Yossarian.
Rory Stewart first came to prominence in my attention span around the time of the 2014 referendum.
He was featured all over the MSM because he had invented a new geographical feature for Great Britain, namely “The Middle Lands”, located between England and Scotland.
The fact that nobody previously had heard of this newly-discovered “country” didn’t stop the BBC awarding him a 3 part series to spread his invented propaganda.
That was round about the time of his border cairn “event”.
link to 12ft.io
@Captain Yossarian
I think one reason why no-one might be willing to engage in the ‘parliamentarian of their generation’ game is because you arranged the terms so that no-one needs to do so.
If someone doesn’t agree with your RS choice then why bother picking anyone at all?
If one grants your premise of RS as truly outstanding then it could be argued there should not even be a possible choice with which to contest your RS premise, however you yourself provided a possible example in K McA, so again why would anyone bother to engage in such a personal game with you as you seem to be the originator, the owner of the match ball, then you’re playing both sides, as well as refereeing the match, and acting as the Video Match Official as well?
I think you have managed to isolate two parliamentarians who have enough intellectual calibre to write thoughtful books that would appeal to the intelligent layman, sadly politics doesn’t seem to attract these kinds of people any more.
Sam
Re income inequality, it’s a direct result of near 30 years of constantly importing new impoverished who are glad to work for peanuts. As soon as any group of workers try to organise for more pay or better conditions they are undercut and sidelined by the boss class importing some new boatloads.
If I were in power, I’d start with closing the borders, but I just don’t think you will be interested in that solution.
If there were real shortages of labour, wages would increase. The trap many are caught in, where benefits are worth more than working, would disappear for some also.
Of course, there would be much dislocation too, but no state of affairs that has taken 30 years to mature can be reversed overnight.
Effigy @12.16pm.
After around eighty years of murder and persecution one cannot be surprised by events unfolding in Palestine aka Israel a apartheid oppressive military occupying regime.
As expected the foreign MSM in Scotland are utterly pro-Israeli in their reports.
PhilM – All agreed on that. Sadly though, I think that we are in a situation in Scotland where the government of the day has been under Police investigation for corruption, embezzlement and all the rest of it and I’m not convinced that anyone understands how serious that is, and yet all we talk about on here is what happened in 1707. With an intermittent dose of “colonialism”.
I get myself into these cul-de-sacs all the time. Last time it was with Ally McCoist who I thought would make a fabulous First Minister and this time it was with Rory Stewart who I think would make a fabulous First Minister too. However, we have the First Minster we’ve got and I’m sure all are agreed he is fabulous.
Xaracen
As a theoretical concept, your outline of the constitutional position has merit.
As a practical concept, maybes not so much.
Much of law relies on the precedents that have been set in the past. Regarding the Union and the behaviour of WM, we have over 300 years of precedent to overcome.
That’s a very high hurdle to jump. It seems to me that every Scot, from the highest in the land, to the lowest, has for generations connived in acceptance of the status quo just by living within the law. You now want to re-write history by claiming that these laws were always constitutionally void.
Scotland did not agree to the Napoleonic War, Scotland did not agree to 2 World Wars, Scotland did not agree to joining the Common Market. On and on for every political event in 300+ years.
If I’m wrong, please advise where.
Jeezo, the Yoons have been binge drinking on the KoolAid the day….
Scroll on by folks.
@Captain Yossarian
Hold on a minute though. If we’re talking precise criminal offences then we should be equally precise in who might be affected. There are quite a few stones being upturned with this govt under which all sorts of unsavoury stuff has been coming to light, however some of the offences you mentioned can justifiably be isolated as allegations against the SNP party not the govt. Peter Murrell, so far innocent until proven guilty and as far as we know not under any imminent threat of being charged with any offence, is not a govt official. As far as I know, Operation Branchform has nothing to do with any current member of the SNP govt at all.
I agree OB is serious, however it is yet to be determined where it will cause the most damage, but I also agree with others and not with you that a discussion of Scottish history is essential. People can do both. My only wish is that people do both in good faith and accept it when they’re shown to be 100% wrong about something.
PhilM – OB is investigating the erstwhile FM. She resigned her Ministerial when the investigation started post but is still a member of the government and she still votes on government business. So too Mr Beattie. Would that happen anywhere else in the western world?
The point I make about history is that it matters nothing to those who voted “No” and who you need to vote “Yes”. An economic case has to be worked-up, using think tanks and academics. What you read on here is just shoot from the hip stuff that gets batted back and forwards month after month and year after year.
Making an economic case is not easy and it costs money but it has been done before in the Salmond years. Not enough of it was done and that is why he lost. So, ergo, if you want to win next time, you need to do a lot more of that over a longer period of time, not nag people endlessly about 1707.
That’s my opinion for what it’s worth.
John Main said;
“Much of law relies on the precedents that have been set in the past.”
A. I don’t doubt that it does, John, but that reliance cannot validate fraudulent precedents, and worse, it greatly exacerbates the fraud, as well as the grievous harm it has caused.
“It seems to me that every Scot, from the highest in the land, to the lowest, has for generations connived in acceptance of the status quo just by living within the law.”
B. The inability to effectively fight against the unlawfulness of the status quo does not in any way equate to an acceptance of it. You even confirmed my point; “Scotland did not agree to the Napoleonic War, Scotland did not agree to 2 World Wars, Scotland did not agree to joining the Common Market. On and on for every political event in 300+ years.”
“You now want to re-write history by claiming that these laws were always constitutionally void.”
C. I’m not rewriting history, I’m relating it, and in the process showing that these laws were always constitutionally void, and you have accepted that it has merit. Thank you for that. And there’s nothing theoretical about it, Scotland’s sovereignty as an equal partner kingdom with England clearly has been directly denied by English MP majorities on the basis of an irrelevant democratic model of the Union, a model that assumes the basis of the Union is of 650 non-sovereign constituencies which didn’t sign a Treaty, and not the basis of two sovereign Kingdoms which did.
I’m not saying that a democratic model could never work, because I’ve shown on several occasions that a dual majority voting system could be used in Westminster which would properly recognise and respect both of the sovereignties represented by its MPs. Its only weakness is that it would need the cooperation of the English establishment to put it in place, and I can’t see that happening before Scottish independence makes it moot.
“If I’m wrong, please advise where.”
D. I just did. 🙂
Sven @ 12:52 pm
“Challenging to argue with as patronising an assumption as that one.”
Perhaps, then, you might consider who makes all the big decisions for us Scots and our country, and where. Here’s a wee pointer: link to gov.uk
Another clue, this from Professor Edward Said: “The actual geographical possession of land is what empire in the final analysis is all about.”
Hence reclaiming sovereignty / decolonization is about ‘a people’ re-possessing their land and no longer subject to external rule.
Xaracen,
Scotland’s constitution became null and void, as did England’s, in 1707. They were both replaced entirely by the unwritten constitition of the U.K. There isn’t anything else. It’s just utter nonsense to think otherwise.
@John Main; I forgot to mention another point;
“It seems to me that every Scot, from the highest in the land, to the lowest, has for generations connived in acceptance of the status quo just by living within the law.”
We both overlooked the Jacobite rebellions, which were clear examples of Scots denying the status quo by not living within the law. Look where that got them.
What a coincidence that in Scotlands elections the main partis allowed with out quibble are,
Red unionist party,
Blue unionist party.
Yellow unionist party
Green unionist party
And any colour rainbow parties,
Any other national party has problems registering and MSM media attacks.
Stoker,
Boycotting the main union parties is the only way forward out of Colonialism for Scotland in all elections
We need to stop voting for the hangmen of Scots.
@John Main
“Re income inequality, it’s a direct result of near 30 years of constantly importing new impoverished who are glad to work for peanuts.”
That claim has small effect. This is from Migration Observatory.
“Several studies have examined whether immigration leads to higher unemployment or lower wages among existing workers, and most have found either small or no effects.
In 2018, the Migration Advisory Committee reviewed the results of studies conducted between 2003 and 2018 and drew three conclusions. First, immigration had little or no impact on average employment or unemployment of existing workers. Second, where an impact was found, it was usually concentrated among certain groups – i.e. a negative effect for those with lower education and a positive effect for those with higher levels of education. And third, the impact may depend on the economic cycle; some—though not all—studies have found adverse effects on employment or unemployment, specifically during downturns.
Similarly, the MAC review concluded that immigration had had little impact on average wages, according to previous research. Some studies had found a small negative impact on average wages, while others found positive average effects.”
So, you’re wrong about that but what else might be done. Here’s a bit of review from Glasgow Centre of Population Health.Lorna Kelly writes about Prof Marmot’s book, “The health gap: the challenge of an unequal world.”
“Those in the ‘middle’ fare better than those at the bottom, and worse than those at the top. Inequality is not just a matter of rich versus poor, but of differences across the social spectrum which affect everyone.
There are common issues of power and control which have a greater impact than absolute income or poverty. This is a central theme of the book which states: “The gradient changes the discussion fundamentally. The gradient implies that the central issue is inequality, not simply poverty.” In terms of a response then, action is needed which has an effect across the spectrum (“proportionate universalism”) not just targeted activity at the ‘bottom’.”
“Power” and “control”. These are things that have effect at individual, community, local and national government level.
There is a whole range of joined up public policy interventions developed by GCPH at which are the core tasks of reducing poverty and income inequality.
The core tasks can’t best be addressed without more devolved powers or independence.
It’s not money that counts for anything. It is power and control.
Competition time guys, see if you can finish Nikla’s sentence off for her.
link to instagram.com
@Xaracen says:8 October, 2023 at 4:01 pm
We both overlooked the Jacobite rebellions
Aw naw, I wish you had just left things at your first reply!
I didn’t overlook the 15 and the 45, simply because:
1) They were primarily about which royal family occupied the combined thrones of England and Scotland.
2) They were, as a second consideration, about the religion of the throne’s occupier, and hence the de facto religion of both countries.
Since then, the uninformed have managed to turn them into an England versus Scotland thing. Which is not what it was all about. That’s why Scottish families often had different members fighting on the opposing sides. And that’s why Prince Charles Edward Stuart marched as far south as Derby in the optimistic expectation that many English would join him in restoring the rightful monarch.
Soz Xaracen, I’m not letting you have that one!
Still, if nothing else, we have the Old Pretender, the Young Pretender, and in the person of HY himself, the New Pretender. Good to see a thread of historical consistency running from the 18th century right through to 2023.
There is a huge difference between the Scots being compliant in law with the treaty of union,
And
Being fraudulently misled on into Compliance by omission of facts to the Scots regarding the treaty of union.
Westminster/ uk parliament have only recently in 2023 admitted that it never asked the nation Scots to join the treaty of union,
Thus the Parliament of Westminster/uk has held the territory and nation of Scotland in imprisonment under misrepresentation, fraud, omission, with intent to deceive while withholding information from that nation for more than three hundred years.
That is long term intent to deceive and fraud.
Scotlands compliance to the treaty of union all these years?
It was only Recently that the Westminster / uk parliament in 2023 informed the world including Scotlands nation that the 1707 Scottish parliament did not join in union with the English parliament,
But was dissolved from the parliamentary union to create Great Britain or one united kingdom in 1707..
Compliance by Scotland and its nation?
Withholding information or omission of information in any contract or agreement to instigate fraud and financial gain upon the other party is a crime.
Sam
So what you are saying, backed up with quotes from reports, is that the law of supply and demand does not apply in the labour market.
Odd. All those reports of wages rising post-Covid in response to labour shortages (the quiet quitters) must have been lies.
The gradient implies that the central issue is inequality, not simply poverty
Hmmm. Somebody better tell Yousaf. He has vowed to eradicate poverty, not inequality, so he’s missing the central issue.
But I understand where you are coming from, I really do. It’s the equality of outcomes nonsense taken to extremes. Eliminate the gradient, and even if everybody has abysmal health care and drastically reduced life expectancy, everybody’s short existence will be one of blissful ignorance.
action is needed which has an effect across the spectrum (“proportionate universalism”) not just targeted activity at the ‘bottom’
Sure, if focus on those with the worst outcomes doesn’t reduce the gradient, start denying health care and other advantages to those with the best outcomes. Eventually the two sets will coalesce, and the gradient will have been eliminated.
This has already been simplified and put on a T-shirt: “Eat The Rich”.
I thought the world had had its fill of this approach with the collapse of the Soviet Empire, but that was a generation ago. A new generation has grown up and I guess they have to learn for themselves just why this won’t work.
Why don’t you check out life expectancy in Russtiland during the Bolshevik heyday and report back? They prided themselves on largely eliminating the inequality gradient.
The union was and is a lie of deceit, omission and misinformation.
And the party being deceived was Scotlands nation.
Withheld information while entering into any contract even the of hoax of a treaty, is illegal in most Countries, even in the UN,
Lorna Campbell 11.51 pm
I mention George Orwell and his book 1984 in my last comment and someone later made a comment re him and the rewriting of history and news etc and this has always been going on and he was not just letting us know this was going to happen but confirming that it always has been.
In the 1920/30’s in Germany the same things were going on re the Trans, Queer and Porn etc destruction of the family unit as is going on today only worst back then – the way we are heading just now and it was the same Mafia bankers etc that was destroying the German economy. It was Jews that owned just about all of the mainstream media in Germany back then and most of the banking as well and they got the blame by the decent Germans who were sick and fed up with what was going on and the struggles to get jobs and feed themselves etc.
The books that got burned back then were all of the books of this porn, Trans, Queer etc stuff and that was NOTHING to do with Hitler or his party – the people did this by themselves. Same thing when the windows of the Jewish businesses windows started to get put in it was the people that started to do this themselves and Hitler put a stop to that. It was only after the Jews declared WAR on Germany in – JUDEA DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY 1933 – that Germany started to round up the Jews and put them into the TRANSIT Camps to DEPORT them with the AGREEMENT of the Zionist Jewish leaders – The HAAVARA AGREEMENT – to Palestine. These TRANSIT Camps because WORK Camps for the German War effort after the break out of WW2.
The biggest laugh this week was the THICK Celtic fans unfurling an Antifascist banner too stupid to realise that that was a COMMUNIST banner in Germany back then – funded and created by the EXACT same Mafias that funded and created the Communists that took over Russia and who owned and controlled most of the rest of the world as well including the UK and US – hence why the Allies and Communists fought together in WW2 and why all of our jobs were sent to China and why they were involved in the EXACT same Pandemic SCAM as all of our corrupt governments all following the EXACT same script – The New Normal and Build Back Better etc that they were all spouting worldwide.
Hitlers party did what they said they would do and that is they created full employment and made their people the best off they have ever been and got rid of crime and all of that crap that Trans, Queer, Porn etc rap that was destroying the country and they made Germany the richest country after the US in the world. Again they did this by doing what all of our corrupt political parties should be doing and that is they arrested and jailed the bankers and took over their banks and printed their own debt and interest and inflation FREE money and they have lied about this FACT ever since and demonized him and his party to steer people away from that TRUTH.
We will NEVER be independent and FREE until the people waken up to this one FACT that we have to print our own debt and interest and inflation free money – they have divided us by politics, religion, sex, colour etc to keep us easy to control and keep us fighting each other instead of realising what is really going on and who the REAL Mafias are behind it all. It is these Mafias that write the history and “truth” that Orwell was warning about and many ancient wise men before him as well.
I see the THICKO Chas on slagging off others and me as being “nutters” re our comments. Funny he never rebuts anything we say with EVIDENCE of his own – the difference is Chas I can verify everything that I say in private capacity under the charge of perjury in any court of law – and that is because I have all of the EVIDENCE to back up EVERYTHING that I say because I have actually used my brain to do my own research and not listen to the LIES and PROPAGANDA of these Mafias mainstream media and governments etc.
It appears that I have upset some of the rabid supporters of Independence. The people would take it tomorrow with not a clue about what would entail thereafter. Such is life.
I know it is a waste of time but I will try and answer some of the points raised by individual posters-
Mia-‘Labour is dead politically’. Given the result in Thursday’s by election the voters suggest otherwise. ‘if the UK was a democracy, that should have led to the termination of the union’-correct me if I am wrong but I thought we had a democratic vote on that and the answer was NO! I am sorry but that was as far as I got in reading your drivel.
Garavelli Princip-Are the considerable skills the arrogant, lecturing Baird purportedly possesses more than endlessly droning on about Colonialism?
Michael Laing-‘Their vote in the by-election fell, despite most of the Tory and Lib-Dem voters apparently transferring to Labour’. Turnout was 37%. It would appear that Labours vote held up very well compared to their opponents. Do you think that Rutherglen is a hot bed of Conservative and Lib Dem voters? Labour won the seat quite convincingly, just in case you did not notice.
Stoker-‘ that’s coming from me, a simple uneducated individual. LOL!- I am in full agreement with that part of your post. the rest…….not so much.
Baird-‘How do you know you are not subject to colonialism, more especially considering that denial (of oppression) forms part of the colonial ‘condition’?-The usual shite from you. Only thing missing is a quote from a discredited academic few have heard of. You do come across as the school swot who thinks he knows better than everyone else.
Sam-‘are there some Scots who are or were colonised? In the Highlands’? Do you really want me to speak for all Scots? I think that would be a bit presumptuous and arrogant. Alf Baird I am not. ‘Is the withholding of Scottish parliamentary powers by UK gov indicative of colonial status? ‘How should a Scottish parliament, any colour, best address health and other inequalities in Scotland’? As I answered Mia, I think we had a democratic vote in 2014. We voted NO. Health is fully devolved in Scotland-were you unaware?
The inescapable fact running through the posts on every article that Stu produces is that the majority of posters, on here, want Independence today and do not even care about what that Independence looks like, or how it would affect the majority of the populace. Would it be better, would it be worse-nobody knows and there is not one political party in Scotland who is trying to alter existing views held. Posters here simply have to accept they they are in the minority in Scotland, but are unable to do. Their own individual views are all that matters. Sorry but in a democracy, it does not work like that. Change will only come through compromise.
This post must be approaching the length of one of Mia’s novels which she produces on here. Apologies.
@John Main
“So what you are saying, backed up with quotes from reports, is that the law of supply and demand does not apply in the labour market.”
Wrong. What I am saying is that people who know more than you say immigration has little effect on wages.
“Eliminate the gradient, and even if everybody has abysmal health care and drastically reduced life expectancy, everybody’s short existence will be one of blissful ignorance.”
Wrong. Nobody says that but you.
Tackle the causes of the gradient, poverty and inequality, and you have longer life expectancy for many and better general health.
“Why don’t you check out life expectancy in Russtiland during the Bolshevik heyday and report back? They prided themselves on largely eliminating the inequality gradient.”
This is meaningless drivel. I do know about what happened to Russian health inequalities recently.
With the fall of the Wall health inequalities quickly began to decrease. It was hope for the future that did it. As the true picture emerged Russians started drinking heavily and deaths and health inequalities soared.
You are not only wrong, you’re wrong at the top of your voice.
John Main said;
“Soz Xaracen, I’m not letting you have that one!”
Actually, you ought to, at least to the extent that there really was a key expectation by the Scots that victory was expected to end the Union, and many Jacobite swords were engraved with the words, ‘Prosperity to Scotland and No Union!’
So, soz, I’m not letting you not let me have that one.
Also, the new Union taxes were deeply unpopular, too, and as a result, smuggling became a serious Scottish industry, causing much concern down south, so that’s another example of Scots denying the status quo by not living within the law.
Billy Carlin
You do have one or two things right. If we in the UK were to round up and gas several million people, expropriate their wealth to the state, and use their vacated residences to solve the housing crisis, there would be many who would see this as a popular policy.
Right now, the biggest problem I see is how we would agree on which several million we should eliminate.
Given our multi cultural reality, different strands of our population will naturally want the elimination of their pet hates. Rather than us all uniting in oppression of a chosen minority, we may schism further over our failure to agree on who gets the chop.
But, problems aside, history tells us just how repetitively popular pogroms are. They otherwise wouldn’t recur over and over.
Xaracen
Would it be fair to say that in the event of a Jacobite success in the 18th century, the Union of Parliaments would have ended, whereas the Union of the Crowns would have been retained?
Maybes the restored Stuart monarchy would have reneged on the political promise, to keep the landed aristocracy sweet.
It was the ordinary Scots who were opposed to the Union, not those close to the monarch. The aristocracy liked being in London, would they have given up on that (strange how history repeats itself with the SNP troughers at WM).
Or have I that wrong?
Xaracen says:
8 October, 2023 at 5:49 pm
John Main said;
“Soz Xaracen, I’m not letting you have that one!”
Actually, you ought to, at least to the extent that there really was a key expectation by the Scots that victory was expected to end the Union, and many Jacobite swords were engraved with the words, ‘Prosperity to Scotland and No Union!’
Now my memory is a bit foggy, but it was either The Old Pretender James Stuart, or his Charles Edward Stuart, actually repealed the Treaty of Union, and given they were legitimate heirs to the throne, (which was of course the whole point of the Jacobite uprising), then arguably, the Jacobite “Rebellion” wasn’t actually a rebellion at all. The Jacobites were the party with the legitimacy.
The whole tragedy for me about the Jacobite Rebellion was the whole thing was through the looking glass… The Jacobites held that James was sovereign by the English doctrine of Divine right and could not actually be deposed, whereas the Hanoverian Monarchy argued the Scottish Constitutional principle that James had abandoned his throne, and was removed by the 1689 Claim of Right, an instrument and doctrine unique to Scotland’s Constitution.
The Jacobite Rebellion was rejection of Scottish Constitutional principle, which erroneously put sovereignty upon the shoulders of the monarch, and denied Scotland’s Claim of Right which enshrined sovereignty upon the people.
Funny how the UK Government and Hanoverian Monarchy can fully understand Scottish Constitutional principle when it suits their ends eh?
Much less funny that Scotland’s modern politicians, like the 18th C Jacobites, seem unimpressed with Scotland’s Constitutional rights and legitimacy in law. So here we remain trapped in a prison which has no door and which we can leave at any time.
“Rory Stewart first came to prominence in my attention span around the time of the 2014 referendum.”
Brian Doonthetoon.
On Stewart.
“And where does Rory Stewart get this reputation as a democrat from?
He was the unelected governor of two Iraqi provinces under British occupation and then wrote a book about it called “The Prince of the Marshes.”
His own website describes it as a “unique portrait of heroism.”
Chas says: “I am in full agreement with that part of your post. the rest…….not so much.”
Ullo John! Gotta new motor? Of course you wouldn’t agree, and that’s despite the evidence being right there for all to see. Notice my use of “there”? 😉
We also notice your utter avoidance of the percentage shite you spouted. But that’s something we on here have come to expect from you. Yip! A lying halfwit who thinks it’s superior to everyone else. One that can’t back up its shite about percentages. Still, your contributions are good for the btl post count.
And on the subject of Labours vote “holding up”, i think i will opt for Stuarts take on it all over yours.
You started your recent spiel with: “It appears that I have upset some of the rabid supporters of Independence.”
FFS! Really? You’re using that ancient retort? Please don’t tell me that’s your A-game? Once again you elevate yourself to a fanciful height. You couldn’t upset me if there were 1000 of you. Proving you to be a liar and a halfwit who doesn’t know how to use the correct words is hardly the actions of someone who is “upset”. But then i wouldn’t expect some retard who can’t differentiate between ‘there’ & ‘their’ to understand that.
As i said, you’re in no position to ridicule or belittle anyone on this sight. Now jog on, Noncy! LOL!
John Main said;
“Would it be fair to say that in the event of a Jacobite success in the 18th century, the Union of Parliaments would have ended, whereas the Union of the Crowns would have been retained?”
I think the first would be fair, but I’m not at all sure the Union of the Crowns would have been affected or not. Anne had already died in 1714 so the Hanoverian branch took it over as per the Treaty, and I don’t know enough about the lineages to answer you.
I see that Breeks has added an interesting comment on the matter, though.
Food for thought, as always.
“I know it is a waste of time but I will try and answer some of the points raised by individual posters”
“Madness is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.”
You’re wasting your time and ours Chas. Go away.
Hard to see how a decreasing minority will achieve Independence.
All Under One Brolly cancelled their March.
What do we want?
Indy
When do we want it?
When it stops raining
“Mia-‘Labour is dead politically’. Given the result in Thursday’s by election the voters suggest otherwise”
From what angle are you looking at it from?
Did you actually look at the result?
Look again at the beautiful graph presented by the Rev in the previous article that presents the actual result: the number of votes cast.
Where is the surge?
Labour’s absolute vote continues to decline. They got less votes in this election than in the previous one and that is without even considering that the 17,845 figure incorporates a significant number of strategical votes from tories, libdems and some SNP voters pissed off at the stupid direction the SNP is taking. We all know strategic votes are transient and they do not mean conversion to Labour polices.
Look at the number of votes for tories and libdems: if those results are something to trust, they show they lost most of their voting base. Tories lost an astronomical 85% of the vote compared with the 2019 election and libdems 68% of the vote.
If you are to trust those results, both tories and libdems got the mother of all hammerings – proportionally speaking, it was even bigger than the hammering the SNP got. This, in itself, should be front page news. Yet, we do not hear a sound about it in the colonial press, do we? And why do you think that is? Probably because it was expected, suggesting both the tory and libdem candidates were paper candidates to encourage a labour vote and fabricate a labour resurrection.
If Labour was not politically dead in Scotland, you would expect to see the number of votes they got last election PLUS the votes the tories lost, PLUS the votes the libdems lost, PLUS the votes the SNP lost. Where are those votes?
Over 60% of the electorate chose to abstain rather than cast a vote for labour, despite the SNP being shown as a totally corrupt cesspit that needs castigating with a wonderful political slap across its face to wake up (the slapping part is purely metaphorical and not physical, obviously).
Yet, over 60% in that constituency chose to give a miss to the opportunity to deliver such good slapping (metaphorical) rather than bringing themselves to vote labour.
So yeah, I think you can quite confidently say that Labour is dead in Scotland and if it continues in the lists, the same as Libdems, it is only because the powers that be are bent on moving the dichotomy Yes/No in Scotland’s political arena to the (faux) “left”/right dichotomy they use in England to maintain the illusion that the voters are being given a choice.
If you look at the actions for the last 9 years of the SNP, Labour, Libdems, Tories and even the Greens from the perspective of the dichotomy Yes/No to independence, it is obvious they are all on the No side, ergo the Scottish voters are denied real choice. Without real political choice, you cannot say there is democracy. Forcing that dichotomy to a (faux)”left”/right will mask that fact.
“Are the considerable skills the arrogant, lecturing Baird purportedly possesses more than endlessly droning on about Colonialism?”
That is a very, very poor and unskilled attempt at ad hominem, Chas. I am sure you know using “ad hominem” is the fastest and most obvious way to acknowledge you have to resource to discredit the messenger because you cannot offer a single credible counterargument to their message.
“The usual shite from you. Only thing missing is a quote from a discredited academic few have heard of. You do come across as the school swot who thinks he knows better than everyone else”
Your attempt above to use ad hominem to distract from a question for which you either do not have a credible answer or would make you reveal information you do not wish to be known, is so hyperbolic that has also failed. So let me ask you Prof Baird’s question to you again:
‘How do you know you are not subject to colonialism, more especially considering that denial (of oppression) forms part of the colonial ‘condition’?
I am interested in your answer to that question, not your ad hominem. Ad hominem undermines the discussion and your own argument, not Prof Baird’s.
“I think we had a democratic vote in 2014. We voted NO”
Who voted “no”, Chas? The majority of Scottish natives voted Yes.
In what parallel universe it is considered democratic to force in the vote of people from elsewhere in order to frustrate the will of the natives?
Take a look around the world. How many sovereign states invite short term migrants, holiday-home owners and people not naturalised to cast a vote in their referendums so the natives’ vote can be frustrated?
During the 2014 referendum an acquaintance of mine was given a vote simply because they owned a house in Scotland, despite they being living and working full time abroad. Foreign work colleagues who came to work in Scotland just for three years and had no intention to remain in Scotland were given the vote. None of those continues to live in Scotland today. But being fair to them, most of them chose not to vote because they thought it was a matter for the Scottish people, not transient migrants and they saw totally inappropriate for them to intervene in that vote.
I also know a lot of cases of no voters who since then left Scotland for good because they migrated back to England.
So the referendum result was decided by an awful lot of people with no allegiance to Scotland and many of whom are not even living in Scotland any longer.
“Health is fully devolved in Scotland-were you unaware?”
That is only in theory, Chas. In practice, which is what matters, it isn’t. If it was fully devolved the Scot Gov would be able to demand from the UK treasury the exact amount of cash it needs to run it in the way it suits Scotland.
As it is, we only get a proportion of what England’s government decides England’s NHS should get. That equals to a foreign government Scotland did not elect forcing a deliberate economic constrain on Scotland’s NHS. It is also an indirect way to force Scotland’s NHS to follow along the lines of the path England’s government establishes for England’s NHS. You cannot talk about “full devolution” when you are forced to follow a particular path because you are being imposed a financial constrain by an foreign government so your Health Service follows the same path as theirs.
“the majority of posters, on here, want Independence today and do not even care about what that Independence looks like, or how it would affect the majority of the populace”
Did the tory, labour, libdem, voters and their leaders knew or care how much brexit would affect the majority of the populace in Scotland when they forced it on us?
Did the betraying SNP leadership, MPs and MSPs knew how many people would be pushed towards poverty by reneging on our mandates so brexit could be forced on us?
Did any of the above give any consideration whatsoever for how much the majority in Scotland would be affected and how much we would lose by remaining in the union for the last 9 years and counting?
No, they didn’t. So why should we?
I do not know your situation, by my household bills, buying the exact same, have increased exponentially since brexit was undemocratically forced on Scotland by the SnP, the Greens, the Cons, the Libdems and Labour.
My energy bills have become astronomical despite using much less energy. This is outrageous considering Scotland is an energy rich country which is supplying oil, gas and electricity to England for free.
None of this would be happening if Scotland was in control of its own affairs.
Needless to say that I am raging about it all and utterly disgusted at all those political parties for forcing brexit on us and for forcing us to remain in this decaying UK union so Scotland can continue propping with its assets the delusions of a few imperialist warmongers and the transition of England through its brexit folly.
We could not opt out of brexit because Scotland is being treated by a colony by our political representatives (and that includes the SNP and the Greens) who choose to side with the oppressing power and chock Scotland than with the people they were elected to represent.
The only way to exit that disgusting level of betrayal and negligence is with independence. Seeing all those betraying crown sychophants, self-indulgent gravy train riders and pompous airheads out of a job would be good enough reason for me to want independence. But I have also looked at the amount of revenues and freebies England is siphoning free of cost from Scotland on a daily basis, so I have more reasons to want independence than the mere ejecting of betrayers from our parliament.
“Posters here simply have to accept they they are in the minority in Scotland”
And how do we know we are the minority if we are being deliberately denied a a vote to prove it?
Over 60% of the electorate did not turn out to vote in the last by-election. That significantly less than 40% is prepared to vote for the status quo in a context where the party of independence has deliberately refused to engage in real campaigning for independence for the last 9 years, puts very serious questions marks over your concept of “majority”.
“Sorry but in a democracy, it does not work like that”
Rather ironic of you to talk about “democracy” Chas when Scotland is being treated as a colony and deliberately denied democracy on a daily basis. Here are some examples to illustrate this:
1. we have an unelected representative of the crown acting as the gatekeeper of what laws can enter our parliament. In other words through this individual, the crown is actively taking control of Scotland’s legislative body by stealing it from the people of Scotland by the back door. In a democracy power is not transferred from the people to the crown. It is transferred in the opposite direction. Power is only transferred from the people to the crown in dictatorships. For as long as that crown representative is blocking the entry of bills to our parliament, we cannot have a democracy. What we have is the imposition of absolute rule, which is in direct contravention of our Claim of Right and therefore invalidates the Treaty of Union and the idea that this union remains legit.
2. The crown has open back doors for itself that completely trash the concept of “separation of powers”, fundamental in a democracy.
3. Our democratic mandates have been deliberately reneged upon and ignored for the last 9 years and counting
4. We are being deliberately denied the choice of voting for what we want.
5. Party Infiltration is being actively used as a way to subvert democracy and effect the removal of political choice.
6. The voters’ will is being overruled by forcing “by-elections” so a different representative to the one the voters elected can be forced on them.
7. False charges and even perjury is being used to remove “non-compliant” politicians, denying the electorate the opportunity to elect them.
8. A turnout of 37% where the establishment candidate has been propped up by strategic voting and the deliberate making of the main opposition party unelectable, is considered democratic. It is not. This is akin to a “one-party” state.
9. We have to endure England politicians we did not vote for and England political leaders we never endorsed, constantly patronising us and arrogantly telling us what we have voted for, what we can afford and what we can or cannot do. Democracy is the government by the people of Scotland, not by England’s political leaders or establishment drones.
10. We have totally useless representatives in Westminster who, instead of using the Claim of Right to put an immediate stop under the threat of repealing the ToU to the abuse of Scotland by England’s rulers and the Crown, they sit like fried eggs on the green seats, legitimise that abuse with their presence in that parliament and turn a blind eye to the constant violations of the Claim of Right and ToU.
“Change will only come through compromise”
No. 300 years have demonstrated that if Scotland wants change, it cannot compromise any longer. Until now compromise has resulted in betrayal, a serious loss of assets, revenues, powers and rights. Scotland has to impose that change.
For that we need real political representatives, not the spineless amoebas, betrayers, gravy train riders and crown pleasers we have sitting in Westminster (with the notable exceptions of Mr Hanvie, Mr MacAskill, Mr Brendan McNeil and Ms Cherry).
Mia
Wow-Look at the length of that post. A site record-well done.
Hope you don’t expect people to read it!
Brevity my dear, brevity.
Chas @ 3:51 pm
“Wow-Look at the length of that post. A site record-well done.
Hope you don’t expect people to read it!”
I read it, and it is a very comprehensive and accurate contribution.
As Mia rightly notes, in this constituency the rather static pro-colonial vote consolidated behind the best placed colonial party, in this instance British Labour.
Meantime the anti-colonial vote, scunnert by a deceitfu and compromised SNP, maistly steyed at hame, biding thair tim….
Baird
‘I read it, and it is a very comprehensive and accurate contribution’.
It will be unlike your repetitive shite then.
@ Chas 3.51pm your response to Mia’s and Prof Alf Baird’s comments only show the shallowness of your case , Mia AFAIC answered your accusations factually and comprehensively but you attempt to turn her response into derision rather than respond to her points , it also highlights your flame baiting as Ruby points out
Twathater
I would not know if Mia answered my accusations as I was not keen on wading through her novel. It would appear that there are now 2 ‘readers’ with nothing else better to do.
Is AFAIC Mia’s surname?