Wings Over Scotland

Laughed my ass off reading that – superb analysis coupled with suitable levels of caustic wit 🙂

The trouble with triangulation and nicking the other parties policies is that the political process ends up like the ouzle bird and disappears up its own arse. This is happening in England where the vote share of the “three main parties”, so beloved of BBC Scotland, is steadily dropping and will soon be in the region where a major upset like 200 UKIP seats could happen.

This is why the SNP should cause to come into existence a political party, the Northern League say, affiliated to the SNP that will campaign in England on British SNP policies like end austerity now and anything else that suits the English, like lets build our own Northern powerhouse rather than wait for Westminster to deliver!

The thought of the SNP whipping 256 rather than 56 votes in the HoC would have cold shivers looking for spines to run up.

The “Labour Party” is an misnomer. Entirely false, they in no way represent the working man/woman nor the unemployed, disabled or otherwise disadvantaged.

Simply put, they are no more than another neo-liberal party working to deliver the agenda demanded by the establishment. That even one current Labour supporter is ignorant of this can only make me despair.

I’ll hold my hand up and admit I left it too long before abandoning my support of Labour. This was entirely though ignorance of what they now stood for and an allegiance based on tradition.

Yes my father voted Labour!

I’ve changed though and so to will many others when they peek behind the curtain and see that Labour now have been totally infiltrated and are now run by Tories wearing red ties and blouses.

They are beneath contempt and are destined to spend a long time in the wilderness as they move ever further to the right in search of votes that will not ever materialise.

My question though is where and when will another party appear to fill the void in England & Wales that Labour capitulation has created?

It constantly surprises me Labour singing the praises of Tony Blair and describing themselves as Blairites when the Chilcot inquiry has still to report. At the moment noone has any idea which way the report will paint Mr Blair but if it goes against him then whoever is leading the Labour Party at that time cannot be seen to be a supporter or have been a supporter of Mr Blairs ideals.

It could look like the only reason the right wing press are supporting a Blairite was to totally destroy the party.

One of your best Rev – an absorbing read, pulls no punches and wastes no time in getting to the point. How you managed to write it without once mentioning John Smith, though, is a mystery!

Will be sending this to my local (English) Labour Party office.

On the other hand do I want them to see the light? No, no worries I’m sure it will still go over their heads and it will still be all the snp’s fault.

Looks like Burnham’s their man. Go right, act the part, wait for that UK cycle of government’s that die eventually, opposition at Westminster’s a cushy number, Labour will get their turn eventually. Our imperial masters need an opposition that looks like one, without actually being one.

In Scotland, SLab are on their way out and they know it.

There are reports Corbyn was nominated to let Burnham win. (split the vote)

Andy Burnham was Health Secretary when the North Staffordshire hospital scandal occurred. The patients were being neglected and sone of them were dying as a result. Patients were uncared for and not getting water. They were drinking water out of vases. People were complaining but nothing was done. Eventually a Report was done.

If a Health Secretary can’t run a Hospital and patients were dying. They can’t run a Government. Another useless trougher, wasting public money which could be better spent.

Blair/Brown should be in jail, not swanning round leading a Millionaire lifestyle. Millions of innocent people were maimed and killed by them.

Where is the Chilcot Report, years late. Illegally protected by civil servants.

Labour are another sad western society party that bought into neo-con fantasy economics, and once shown to be devastatingly lethal, lost their way, politically and morally. They don’t know what they believe in or who they represent, only that they want what the Tories have. Power.

Historically, all political parties go through a period of radical change coming out the other side for good or for worse. It was the Whigs once, and then the Tories. We live at at a time Labour is morphing into something other than the party of the masses.

Unfortunately for Labour, the electorate are not prepared to wait to see what it is they will become.

@ Labour Party Vote in UK General Elections

What about increase of population – more voters as (%)

Affect of SNP vote in Scotland. (taking votes from UK Parties) over years.

Cracking dissection Rev and couldn’t agree more.

Absolutely jaw dropping tweet to begin with. So they’ve spent most of the past forty years demonising the SNP and its membership during their rise to prominence. All to avoid owning responsibility for their own duplicity and betrayal of their then PM, their founding ideology and purpose and the Scottish electorate during the first devolution referendum.

The past four of those in particular throughout the recent referendum campaign saw their narrative expand and gain a momentum all its own as the wider independence movement became a viable target in Labour’s eyes. Labour voters, Libdems, SNP voters, folk who’d never voted for a party in their life. If they intended to vote for independence they got covered in parliamentary Labour’s slurry of smear.

The weight of the other establishment parties and the efforts of almost the entire UK media saw this demonisation expand exponentially, alienating almost half of Scotland’s electorate FGS.

This narrative now having gained a life of its own was then hijacked by the ‘blue’ tories, expanded into fully rampant anti Scottish racism and used as a weapon to defeat its original creators in a GE.

Is it just me or this beginning to resemble an episode of Dallas?

You’d think by this point and after the calamitous hemorrhaging of their vote that somebody, somewhere inside Labour HQ would have had a f**king lightbulb moment and think ‘mibbies this telling fibs aboot people and getting plebs upset wisnae such a great idea’. But no, colossally arrogant, ignorant and mindlessly destructive to the end these halfwits reckon they’ll spread yet more pain and societal division by quoting chapter and verse from the big bumper tory book of scapegoating, deflection and back stabbing.

2016 lets finish the job. They’ve made their mind up. They won’t split from UK Labour, they are on a rightward spiral which ends in only one way and they are bound and determined to continue the politics of fear, anger and recrimination.

We’re done with that bullshit and we’ve got people to help.

What is the implication that there’s something wrong with the Chuckle Brothers? I think they’re great.

We’re done with that bullshit and we’ve got people to help.

You are right Sam but the SNP cant stand in England; thats why they need an affiliated English party. It also beefs up the quotient of MPs talking sense in the HoC and gives the “three main parties” something to worry about

Excellent analysis.
Ken500: unfortunately you’ve swallowed the mid-Staffs myth; Burnham was not Health Sec when it happened, and vases on wards had been banned for around 2-3 years before it all kicked off. Heads should roll, but don’t swallow the Daily Mail/Times/Telegraph lies.

John Smith changed the rules of the Parliamentary Labour Party, to give the Leader more power. That’s why Blair could act as a dictator. Otherwise some of the cowards could have stopped him.

The existential crisis of Labour-type political parties.

link to bilbo.economicoutlook.net

They’ve bought into a fiscal Conservative narrative. Hook like and sinker because they believe we work from a gold standard. Nothing could be further from the truth and we need to challenge the gold standard household budget zoomers.

The Labour party have lost their meaning and purpose of existence and everyone knows it. They have bought into the free-market myths and demeaned the role of the State. They now only argue about how much fairer their version of fiscal austerity will be relative to the conservatives. They stopped challenging the underlying lies that drives the austerity agenda in the first place.

Traditional class conflicts between Labour and Capital within the Capitalism production system are alive and well. Especially when Capitalism has morphed into some international slave owner. With financial capital now dominating over industrial capital. The desire for individual freedom to do what we want does not undermine the role of the state which can discipline capital so that it benefits the many and not the few.

The idea that the battles between ‘left’ – working class versus the ‘right’- capital are finished is nonsense. It is an idea that is propagated by those with a vested interest in developing the ‘free market’ myth where we are all, essentially, traders at heart who agree that market forces produce the best results. The vested interests ignore the on-going suppression of real wages growth, the redistribution of national income towards profits, the enormous executive salaries which have all combined to generate rising income and wealth inequality over the last thirty years.

Labour Governments became ‘pro-business’ as neo-liberalism gained ascendancy among policy makers. Prior to that – in the full employment era between 1945 and the late 1970s – governments acted to mediate the class conflict and recognised that without intervention the capitalist system was prone to creating entrenched mass unemployment and stagnant economic growth. All the orthodox neoclassical remedies that had been tried during the 1930s largely failed. These are the same policies that are being proposed by neo-liberal economists now. We have short memories.

In the 1980’s The policy debate became increasingly concentrated on deregulation, privatisation, and reductions in the provisions of the Welfare State. The so-called structural or supply-side remedies. We went from Unemployment rates usually below 2 per cent between 1945 – 1979. To Unemployment being persist at high levels and soon, underemployment entered the scene.

The Party was built on the back of the trade union movement and supported an extensive welfare state and worker protections. It was committed to the nationalisation of the banks and major income redistribution. It was not a free-market party in any way. The ‘wealth creators’ were the workers, for without them, there is no production. Previous Labour Governments introduced a range of income support measures and job protections to ensure the workers were adequately rewarded for their work – a practice that allowed consumption growth to be maintained with little recourse to household debt.

Because the Labour Party’s main role now was only to argue about how much fairer their version of fiscal austerity will be relative to the conservatives. They had fully bought into neoliberalism and the free market myth. At that point, the Labour party was faced with a crisis of existence. And the path they took almost everywhere only served to quicken their lack of meaning existence, which has finally translated into electoral wipe outs. They neither serve the working class (in its various states of employment and unemployment) nor capital and are thus expendable by both. The no money left note left in the Treasury just shows how much they bought into the neoliberal deficit reduction myth.

By the time Labour was elected in 1997, they had firmly embraced the neo-liberal agenda and eschewed direct government manipulation of the economy and promoted the pursuit of fiscal surpluses to a number one priority. The Labour governments became increasingly full of university educated careerists rather than people who had worked their way up through the trade union movement. That changing demographic is highly significant in the way the Labour party has deteriorated and embraced anti-worker, neo-liberal policies. Lawyers replaced people who had worked more directly against capital.

The emphasis was no longer on ensuring a fair distribution of income, which in part required that real wages grow in line with labour productivity growth but on pursuing an ever bigger economic pie irrespective of how it was distributed. The claim was that workers would become better off in absolute terms and that it didn’t matter if some people became spectacularly rich in the process.

They rejected the traditional Labour policy to maintain full employment and provide those without work for whatever reason with adequate income support until they could get jobs. Instead they bought the full employability myth and deliberately kept the unemployment benefit below the poverty line and inflicted meaningless training programs and pernicious work tests on the recipients.

They also bought in – some might say were trapped into accepting – the priority of the ‘aspirational’ voter who had been hardened into believing that the unemployed and poor were different to them because they didn’t work hard or were not motivated enough. They also perpetrated mass infringements of basic human rights – with respect to our own indigenous population (the ‘intervention’) and refugees (locking them up and torturing them on remote Pacific islands).

This was so far removed from the traditional roots of the Party, which was splintering into green groups and other coalitions. More importantly, by buying into the neo-liberal macroeconomic myths about fiscal deficits and spending, the Labour-type parties only served to legitimise the public’s perception. And once they had bought into the ‘we will run fiscal surpluses too’ narrative, they lost the scope to articulate coherent social policy because the debate would flounder always on who will pay for it.

Their embrace of the aspirational consumption dogs who had been indoctrinated by neo-liberalism to be selfish first and selfish last meant that any question of making them pay (given the taxpayer-funds everything myth) was toxic. They trapped themselves and steadily became undifferentiated from the conservatives and their reason for being was gone.

The same existential crisis is creating havoc in the Labour Party. They lost the plot when Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson pushed the ‘New Labour’ mantra. There are those who claim that Miliband lost in Britain because he was too ‘left’. That is a ludicrous assessment. Miliband also bought into the fiscal myths- Supported austerity and further cuts and by doing so legitimised them and gave himself no room to articulate a coherent path.

Chuka Umunna who is also a lawyer says he knows why Labour failed.

Labour was wrong to run a deficit before the financial crisis.

Condemned “Ed Miliband’s attacks on wealth creators.

Labour can regain power within five years if it is ‘pro-business’ and makes clear no one is too rich to be part of our party.

You can’t be pro- the jobs we want to see unless you are backing the people that create them and Labour must appeal to middle income voters in England who have ‘ambition, drive and aspiration to get on and do well.

He also argues about how much fairer their version of fiscal austerity will be relative to the conservatives.

It sounds as if the labour party have not learnt from their mistakes. It does not understand they have no existence if they continue to think that capital is the wealth creator and workers get the benefits of that endeavour, that a political party has to be ‘pro business’, that mass consumption and individualism is to be prioritised over decent work and collective well-being.

The Labour Party has no reason to exist other than a vehicle for political careerists. It certainly has no claims to its traditional purpose any longer and now actively undermines the aims that defined its creation. Until these parties contest the macroeconomic myths and educate the public accordingly they will never be in a position to articulate a socially-progressive and inclusive agenda.

The English working class have always voted Tory. (statistically) They voted for Thatcher. They know their place. It might be the English Education system or lack of it. They thought Thatcher was great some of them still do. Even in the North of England. Look at a map of the election result. She let them buy their cooncil hooses and live now pay later. Loads of money.

Nige didn’t quite make grade. Even with the free publicity the Tory Grandees and the Beeb were pushing.

{ ; >)

Who in their right mind would vote for Dugdale and Matheson? Beam them up Scots’ye

Come in Labour/Uhionists your time is up. Put them out of their misery.

London votes 50/50. All the same anyway. Boris/Miliband. Clowns.

Hi Rev Stu.

I’m always impressed when you write an article like this. The way your brain works leads you up paths that mine would probably miss. Maybe a godsend that DC Thomson didn’t take me on as a trainee journalist when I was 17.

Onnyhoo, the mention of John Smith leads me to wave the flag for David Penhaligon, probably the best leader the Lib-Dems never had.

Who puts on the best show, Who looks the part, Policies?…Who cares..Give em something to vote against, that’s the winning formula

Labour party presents in “Jockstrap Miners Club” The Act of the night, every Saturday, and nobody cares they just pay the £2 and go anyway until the membership all dies or gets bored to death

SNP “YES!! it’s SATURDAY NITE at the Hydro” with the FABULOUS Nicola Sturgeon and complete supporting show
We’ll give you Colour Music Patriotism Flags all the fun of the Fair
AND!!! Aren’t the Labour Party rubbish and you don’t have any fun Eh?

Wow! wouldn’t want to be a member of that Labour lot even if they were any good ……..( which they’re not )
Anyway, fingers in ears la la ala la

Apart from the obvious that the Tories are Evil Incarnate
And the Labour Party are just doing their best to copy them while trying to look like they’re not ( Oh and they’re rotton liars)

The SNP offer Freedom mixed in with compassion and a dash of Fiscal responsibility
Who wouldn’t want to lap that up

Only the people who still go down to ( Jockstrap Miners )
hoping for a better Saturday nights entertainment before they die
Ahh Dear

You maybe should have had a box for ROFL in the Labour leader 2020 question. I was surveyed for the Royal Bank recently and the guy doing it said a lot of the people questioned laughed at some of the questions.

The absolute number of voters may not stand up to objective analysis. The turnout and the number of voters varies at different elections. The UK population has grown from 56 1/4 million in 1974 to 61 3/4 million in 2009 for instance ( ONS ). And the reality is that there are only ever a handful of swing seats in play.

The reasons the Cons will win in 2020 are firstly, boundary changes in their favour. Secondly, UKIP will be spent. And thirdly, the economy will have returned to reasonable growth by then.

The reasons they could lose are down to economic competence – or perception of. Or to Falklands round 2 being a crushing defeat ( my hot tip ). Or their party disintegrating over the EU.

I suspect that while their economy would miss the resources they rob Scotland of, they know politically that our Independence will benefit their own party in the end. So I suspect we are in for a rough wooing, and for us to leave the union soon. And for all their protestations they will be happy for us to go.

@ Grouse Beater

The link or source is at the top of my post.

It goes into more detail and is brilliant !

The thing is with the three top contemders and even, to a lesser extent Jeremy Corbyn still determined to lecture not listen they are doomed tp repeat the same mistakes as before.
The current odds show Burnham as clear favourites and Corbyn at around 10/1 HOWEVER
Two things make me think that Corbyn is vastly overpriced
1. As the Rev says he is by far the most popular
2. From what I am led to believe, Gorgeous George has commissioned through cowd funding a one and a half hour documentary entitled ‘The Killings Of Tony Blair’ due for release quite soon.
If this film does even half as well as predicted, the Top Three could be left with egg on their collective faces.

‘One of the worst things about running this website is that eventually it causes you to doubt the existence of reason.’

That would be funny if it wasn’t so serious, and true. It also helps explain the state of denial which characterises so much BTUKOK behaviour. It was the great American playwright Arthur Miller who observed:

‘Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.’

Tony Blair is walking, breathing proof that the world appears to be ‘mad’ – that a sociopathic narcissist can prosper, and be ‘celebrated’ by folk who simultaneously claim to be ‘socialists’ is about as barking as it’s possible to get.

And Miller was spot-on in his use of the word ‘intolerable’ – people who have emerged from the denial cannot and will not tolerate the madness, despite the initial shock when they realise how vast and all-pervasive it is. That’s why the independence movement generally, and this site in particular, draws such ire from the Establishment – we have woken up, and we’re not going to nod-off again any time soon.

Thanks, Rev Stu, for this analysis. It’s pretty much what I and many, many other intelligent (WoS) people have arrived at.

I think you’re describing the death of democracy by vested interests and big money. Not only the particular case of the “British” Establishment versus Scottish people’s desire for self-government – democratic and by the people and for the people and all that kind of nonsense.

The US and the UK puff up and bombast about freedom and democracy. Put up military parades/jubilations at every opportunity. What a lovely war! Ordinary folk won’t dare to object to illegal wars if they’re presented with union-jack-clad coffins of “war heroes”.

These two countries are the most undemocratic and belligerent in the modern western world, invading countries and causing “collateral damage” (=dead civilians) in the name of “freedom” (=their neo-lib world view and trying to institute it in other countries).

Sometimes I wish I’d lived several decades earlier when the world was simpler and global finance didn’t rule all our lives. But I’m here and now so must make the best of the hand I was dealt. Sigh.

I’m feeling down enough as it is. Yesterday Andy Murray lost in one of the best matches ever played on Wimbledon grass. Roger Federer said it was one of the best and most competitive matches he’s ever played. Today Jamie Murray and his Aussie partner Peers lost the doubles final. And Australia lost the first Ashes test. 🙁

I first got into cricket – test cricket – when I lived in Australia. During the Shane Warne era. Ah, what bliss to watch an important international sport event when hungover and sleepy! Nothing much happens while you drop off… I’ve been reared on fast-moving ice-hockey, you can’t miss a second. Cricket is deceptively slower but then it can get very hectic. Most WoS readers won’t probably understand much of this but I love test cricket.

I always cheer for Oz, especially at the Ashes. Never “root” for them because that’s Oz/Kiwi slang for “to fuck”.

Oz lost the first test (in Cardiff, Wales! England was playing abroad!) and some England fans are already talking about a whitewash (what they got in Oz at the last Ashes, 5-0). Won’t happen. I think this Ashes England will take 3-2. They’re 1-0 now. Come on, Australia!!!

Scottish Labour AND London Labour are now surplus to requirements both sides of the border.

If an English voter wants to vote for a Party who’s right wing policies include austerity and propping up the banks, then they don’t need to vote Labour anymore, they can vote Conservative.

And North of the border, The SNP have all the boxes ticked that a true Labour voter can relate to.

Vote Labour, why?

Endangered species.

link to newsnet.scot

I think every poll I have seen shows Liz Kendall at the bottom, yet she gets favoured support from prominent Labour MPs, e.g. Chuka Umunna on bbcqt.

Labour MPs are really starting continue to show contempt for their own declining membership.

If Labour had the gumption to move to an anti Trident policy, take on the resulting media backlash and stick to their [conventional] guns they may actually get people to notice them.

If any fiscal or monetary lever goes up it takes currency out of the system.

If you raise taxes it takes currency out of the system. If you raise VAT it takes currency out of the system. If you raise National insurance it takes currency out of the system. If you raise interest rates it takes currency out of the system. It takes our spending power away.

This currency is not stored or saved in some shed somewhere ready to be used. It is just taken out of circulation by being subtracted from government spending on a computer screen in the Treasury. Effectively it is destroyed.

The Bank Of England has told you this many times.

Think about it. Why on earth would the Bank of England want to save pounds ? It is the monopoly issuer of them if they need any they type what they need on a keyboard and credit current acounts. It is created from nothing from thin air. We do not work from a gold standard anymore.

You have the monopoly on widgets. You make them and nobody else is allowed to make them and only you can sell them.

Why would you want to save widgets ? You don’t need them if you want any you just make them.

For you to want to save widgets in some shed somewhere is insanity ?

Same for the Bank Of England why would they ever want to save in pounds ? If they need any they just type them into someones account.

We all know what happens when currency is taken out of the system ( that is taken away from the non govermental sector ) which is you, me and our wealth creating private sector. it is not rocket science. It decreases agg demand.

If any fiscal or monetary lever goes down it adds currency to the system.

If you cut taxes it adds currency to the system. If you cut VAT it adds currency to the system. If you cut National insurance adds currency to the system. If you cut interest rates it adds currency to the system.

We all know what happens when currency is added to the system ( that is added to the non govermental sector ) which is you, me and our wealth creating private sector. it is not rocket science. It increases agg demand.

So knowing these simple facts what is the only thing governments that have a soverign fiat money system ( that is not a gold standard anymore) worry about ?

Inflation ? What is inflation ?

Think of the economy as one big department store full of all the goods and services we all produce and offer for sale every year. Inflation happens ( apart from the oil cartel monopoly rigging the market) when we are at full employment. When we all have too much money chasing to few goods and services in the store. Our wealth creating private sector cannot produce the goods and services quick enough to meet the demand . The demand being everything the government and non government sectors need to buy from the store. Therefore prices go up.

So what do we need to do when this happens ? The government needs to take our spending power away. How does it do that ? It takes the currency away from us. How does it do that ?

Look above. We have many tools to stop inflation.

However, when we are not at full employment and the government takes currency away from us non govermental sector total spending isn’t enough to make sure everything in the store gets sold. When businesses can’t sell all that they produce, people lose their jobs and have even less money to spend, so even less gets sold. Then more people lose their jobs, and the economy goes into a downward spiral we a recession.

What should be happening is the government should be adding currency to the system. How do they do that?

Look above we have plenty of tools for that.

So knowing we have all the tools we need to stop inflation ( take currency out of the system, thus reduce our spending power) we could easily achieve full employment as long as it didn’t happen too quickly – making sure our wealth creating private sector could always supply the goods and services we need in line with the drop of the unemployment rate.

The reason this has not happened since the 70’s is because our deficts have been too small. The size of our deficts have created unemployment. As a sovererign fiat currency country we can increase the currency into the system as much as we want as long as it does not cause inflation.

This process has been hijacked by the neoliberals.

Crazies will say what about the debt ?

What debt ? We don’t work off a gold standard anymore that finished long ago.

Debt in a modern sovereign fiat money system Simply ADDS to the non govermental sector savings (to the penny). This is an accounting fact, not theory or philosophy. There is no dispute. It is basic national income accounting.

The £1.5 trillion national debt is really and equates to £1.5 trillion wealth ( financial assets) in the non government sector to the penny. Me, you and the private sector have this £1.5 trillion in our assets or bank accounts which in reality are saving accounts in the Bank of England. If HM Treasury paid off the £1.5 trillion debt the non govermental sector would be broke.

Debt is a stock not a flow and this is how it is shown on the BOE accounts.

link to neweconomicperspectives.org

So what is the right size of defict we should have I hear you cry ?

The one that creates full employment full stop, end of story. Just like between 1945 and 1980. It’s so much easier now as well because no matter what fruit cakes tell you we don’t work off a gold standard anymore.

And believe me there are millions of fruit cakes in this country that think we do, because they are taught economics to believe that shite.

Then all we need to worry about is inflation and make sure our wealth creating private sector can create enough goods and services that both the government and non govermental sectors need.

Are taxes needed to pay for any of this ?

No ! – Taxes are and always have been used as a tool to either take currency out of the system or put currency into the system when needed. To either slow the economy to avoid inflation or speed up the economy to provide growth. Always have been. It is also there to make people work to give value to the currency so we can meet our tax liabilities. End of story.

Taxes are goverment spending in reverse accounts are debited instead of credited.

This is going to create economic growth our infinite resource planet can sustain I hear you cry ?

There are many growth-inducing activities that have a small environmental footprint and many that actually enhance the healt of our natural systems. All should be targets of public sector job creation and spending – economic growth will result, less inequality will result, more people will be materially better off, and the Greens will be happy! Which would advance human well-being, protect the environment and allow workers with lower levels of education to fully participate in meaningful work and earn a solid living.

The job guarentee. With the goverment as the employer of last resort.

Am I right in assuming that during the course of the current Parliament, changes to constituency boundaries will happen, and that it will also negatively impact on Labour? Unlikely to hear D:Ream again any time soon then!

I’m not a regular poster, Rev, but had to write in to congratulate you on this scintillating piece. One of your best, and that’s saying something!

Couple of (minor) comments:

Firstly, the ’92 “Kinnock” election: that result stunk to high heaven and I’m surprised nothing more has been made of it (to my knowledge). There are those who doubt the validity of the referendum vote (and perhaps with good reason), but back in ’92 I recall getting ready to celebrate the certain re-election of a Labour government and the utter disbelief and grief when the result came through – and don’t give me any of that “silent tory majority” crap. It was a bloody stitch-up.

Secondly (OK, I’ll take off my bacofoil hat now.) Thanks for the Sideshow Bob reminder which is the second best ever Simpsons episode : Obviously “Screamapillar” is tops (look it up if you can be bothered – I can’t do these link things.)

Thirdly, thank you too for the Stewart Lee link. I was about to lambast you for it: A while back I saw him do what I thought was a very iffy anti-indy sketch and immediately took him off my Christmas card list (alang with Izzard, Cleese and other like-minded “comics”). But now, having reviewed his stuff on Youtube, I realize again what a genius the man is – Strongly recommend folk to have a look at his Glasgow gig. Warning: may be offensive to Bravehearts!

Fourthly, and finally, as someone who is obliged to read mountains of so-called “academic” witterings: it was a pure pleasure to read an article that was so well referenced – might well take three lifetimes to follow them all up, but that’s beside the point – if only the mainstream was half as assiduous.

Brilliant! More power to you, Stu.

The labour party is finished in england because they’ve been outflanked by the tories. Tories are in bed with the big businesses, who support them financially, and the press, who give them good publicity. There’s no way out now.

Labour are finished in Scotland because they are run from another country, for another country, just like the other uk parties.

Sometimes politics is easy!

Smith the Myth? he was another Tory replacement. His most notable earthly achievement was leaving it.

I feel a bit sorry for Jeremy he does not deserve the monstering he is getting,yes i agree he is not PM material but then none of the rest are either,but he could move the Labour party back to the left,out of all of them Jeremy is the one who could connect with their core vote.

But they must understand they have lost Scotland there will be no miracle comeback too much water under the bridge,plus we have our own political party Scottish through and through they just cant compete with that.

If Labour vote for any of the rest they are finished in England as well,i have said it before and i will say it again the only way forward for them is for the right and left to split or they will continue to infight.

But then this is the thicko Labour party i am talking about so its not likely they will do the right thing and will probably continue to blunder about in the dark looking at the past for a solution and blaming everybody else for their own problems not realizing they are playing right into the tories hands.

Hi David S Briggs.

Get a life? Thanks, I have one, imperfect as it is but, I remain true to my pedantry!

😎

@ Derek Hendry You,ve gave us some lenghtly Quality informative posts. Im one amoungst several Wingers who copy/paste to other Indy sites.

BrianDTT is correct Derek, if you could submitt them to Stu in ah shorter version,I,ll certainly share them with other sites ,with your approval.

Hope to read more from you.

Haven’t been able to keep up with all the comments – I must’ve missed all the post-budget apologies streaming in from BTUKOKers who now have no legs to stand on with their ‘Better Together’ pish.

Can anyone point me to where those apologies may be found?

Where’s Henry ‘Reluctant No’ McLeish these days?

And what about all the folk who took part in this embarrassing rubbish?

Are they all happy about what’s happening?

No Borders, ‘Why Build Another Wall’ –

link to youtube.com

Sunday Herald front page;

link to twitter.com

@ ronnie anderson

Thanks and advice taken.

Fell free to use what you like.

I post under jimmurphybrassneck on the Guardian there is years worth of work there if you want it. Just click on the username and take what you like.

We need to work together to get the facts out there.

The Bank of England has a new blog now called Bank underground there are some real nuggets on there that nobody notices.

They tell the truth but nobody listens.

For example :

Read this Ronnie

Banks are not intermediaries of loanable funds – and why this matters

link to bilbo.economicoutlook.net

These guys get to the crux of the issue and show what Scotland could really do with a system that has not been hijacked by the neoliberals.

Just like we all did between 1945-1980.

Ian Brotherhood,

“Tony Blair is walking, breathing proof that the world appears to be ‘mad’ – that a sociopathic narcissist can prosper, and be ‘celebrated’ by folk who simultaneously claim to be ‘socialists’ is about as barking as it’s possible to get.”

The people who have been running Labour since Blair don’t have any Socialism in them.

They are career politicians with no principles at all.

They abstain rather than make a stand.

The only thing that matters to them is victory.

They “celebrate” Blair as the successful head of their cult.

Maybe he should have founded a new cult instead of becoming a Catholic after lying that he didnt do religion.

@ Marcia They must be getting ready to create real black holes wie that picture lol.

I too am sometimes driven to distraction by the foaming mouthed idiocy of labour. Revs article reminds me of the thoughts that run through my head. Then I remembered someone else had the same epiphany a while back…and sums it up far better than I ever could.

The Strangers’ Cafeteria, House of Commons:

Joined at lunch by a Yorkshire MP, a mild-mannered fellow, incensed by The Man’s [Blair’s] latest foray into education. “We’re opening the door for selection. Whatever safeguards we put in place, whatever assurances we give will be absolutely worthless once the Tories are in power”. And then: “I think we will lose the next election. The Tories will come to some sort of understanding with the Lib Dems and we’ll find that we’ve opened the door to the market in health and education. And when we protest, they will reply, “But this is your policy; you started it. We’ll be vulnerable for years. Our benches will be full of ex-ministers who won’t have the stomach for the fight”. As he talked his anger mounted and most of it was directed at The Man. A straw in the wind.

Its from a book called a View from the Foothills by Chris mullin. The excerpt was used by the erudite Mr Peat Worrier in a brilliant post on this very subject way back in 2012.

He concluded it with this paragraph:

“Becoming adept in a secular sort of mental reservation is critical for the tyro triangulator. The tragedy of such strategies, however, is that most of the time, they’re simply too clever by half. Instead of burglarising your opponents’ political house while keeping your own ideological soul intact, more often than not, that soul very quietly, often imperceptibly, transmogrifies into theirs. The dismal fact is that triangulation is a way of letting your opponent win, whether you retain office, or they boot you out. It is a recipe for an asphyxiating political consensus, for conceding your opponents’ “common sense”, and not for victory on something like your own ideological terms.”

That one passage sums up labour and Scottish labour in a neat little package and ties it off with a pretty bow. Watching labour go through its death throes, be in England or Scotland…is to watch irony devour itself…day in day out.

Armando Iannucci could only dream of writing stuff this surreal.

@ Rock:

You say of John Smith “He lost the 1992 election for Labour by having a victory celebration party before the election”

Sorry, but Neil Kinnock was the leader at the 1992 election and it was he who had the premature party!

scottishindependence.com/2015/07/scottish-firefighter-billy-milne-wins-550million-pensions-bonanza/ it catches up with them sooner or later. Well done that Man.

@ Rock

( ; > ) }

Dr David Kelly

This is the model we use – Norway and sectoral balances

link to bilbo.economicoutlook.net

We can’t make the same mistakes as we did before the last referendum.

Some truths and myths that we need to own next time around.

link to 3spoken.co.uk

And if nothing changes then it will be this again

link to bilbo.economicoutlook.net

Harry Shanks,

“You say of John Smith “He lost the 1992 election for Labour by having a victory celebration party before the election”

Sorry, but Neil Kinnock was the leader at the 1992 election and it was he who had the premature party!”

John Smith was responsible for organising it, as far as I know.

Conspiracy Theory

That wee bissom Nicola wis at the tennis

Abodie would think she wis a Celebrite

@ Tennis

Aye with her shades on as weel

What will M15 say? They might lose sight o’ her.

@ Derek Henry (10.05pm).

Your post addressed to me at aforementioned time has only just become visible to me but that happens on here from time to time.
Some posted comments are delayed for various reasons, especially when the site is very busy.

Just in the interests of clarity, Derek, it wasn’t me who suggested you put your posts into shorter versions, i think that was Brian.

I suggested you write an article for WOS and submit it for the Rev’s consideration and if it meets with his approval he will post it on WOS for us all to read and comment on.

He encourages articles from other sources and it would certainly help us lesser mortals to have all that info in one article rather than having it lost among the zillion comments which have went before.

I was merely making a statement to Brian that i have a very short attention span when it comes to reading post comments but would also add that is not the case when it comes to reading articles and books etc.

I also wasn’t trying to imply that your comments screamed ME ME ME, nor anyone else for that matter, it’s just how they can come across at times, especially when one poster has plastered the thread with such epic saga’s.

Hopefully you’ll compile that detailed article for us all and load it with appropriate links etc because very few are going to learn your teachings if your work is spread all over the place.

Good luck and i look forward to seeing the article, hopefully!
😉

Right, okay, fess up – which one of youse bought Queen Victoria’s knickers?

Oh Ian @1:05, sorry pal if i knew you were really wanting them i would not have made a bid. But hey i will accept a 5% profit on them LoL. P@P free.

@smithie –

Hey pal, no worries.

I just heard on the news (yeah, for real, the fucking national news via BBC Radio Five Live) that the kegs in question are 45-inch waist.

No way would I get into them.

Hoots the noo,

Big Ass Ian

Fantastic article, Stu! I managed to get nearly a third of the way through it by jabbing myself repeatedly in the forearm with a cocktail stick.

I love the way you start with the suggestion that if when the Labour Party considers a potential new leader their opponents laugh and clap their hands with incredulous joy, then that is a good enough reason for them to drop that candidate… and then a few paragraphs later, talking about Jeremy Corbyn, you imply the exact opposite! Irony?

A tour de force of journalism.

But there is something that you are missing. For many people my age who saw our dafter childhood friends head off to Iraq or Afghanistan to bomb the buggery out of people who didn’t deserve it Labour are the political baddies of our generation.

Factor that in and their befuckedness grows.

Below a certain age, we actually hate them more than you do.

Fireproofjim@11.24

Jim, for the sake of accuracy, which is so important on this site, and to scotch any conspiracy theories to the contrary, I feel obligated to inform you that the giant scaly lizards come from the Pleiades, not Mars, and they tell me that the Pope is not one of their operatives.

I could tell you who their sleepers are, but then I’d have to kill you, and everyone else on Wings. 🙂

They could campaign to remove gross inequality if they are casting about for some sort of policy people might support.

link to rt.com

The latest documents to emerge from the 1970’s show.

“An Under Secretary at the department of energy, Graham Kear, wanted Orkney and
Shetland to be hived off from Scotland and the Orkney and Shetland movements for autonomy were to be encouraged.

This new map of the North Sea was presented as having sound legal basis by a denim clad young Tory ‘economist’? (who doesn’t understand elementary Maths) called Andrew Neil on BBC TVs Tomorrow’s World which at the time was watched by millions every week.

The Treasury also stopped assigning oil and gas revenues to the relevant UK economic regions,
mainly Scotland and East Anglia, and created a new offshore economic region.

The Labour government was then determined to ensure that the proposed Scottish Assembly
would have no control over energy or any North Sea Oil activity.The civil servants also suggested
to a willing Labour government that they delay a referendum on devolution for as long as possible
while undertaking a campaign of misinformation to pay down the extent of North.”

2009

Scotland loves English people but

especially Kasabian C’mon

@Nana

About 30 years ago, I was in a Territorial Army unit. We were on an exercise in Germany and were carrying out a foot patrol at night when a light aircraft flew quite low over us.

A short time later, to a man, we were having mild hallucinations. Trees uprooting and walking along beside us, patterns on and in buildings became faces coming out at us and some guys were on the ground vomiting and having diahorrhoea in their trousers.

Experimented on? Fuck yes.

caz-m 9.54
Aye.If the BBC don’t have something bad to say about the SNP they say nothing about them at all.They’ve been using that tactic for a long time now,but more and more people notice these days.They can’t turn back the clock.They can’t hold back the tide.

Another day in teamGB middle class media wetfartdom.

link to archive.is

Mhairi Black, MP at 20, Ist from Glasgow and rancid the Graun sez

“It’s a textbook answer, which from anyone else might sound phoney, but when she says it in her broad west coast accent – she sounds like a Glaswegian docker, basically – she does it with an authenticity that I actually believe.”

She’s sounds like a 20 year old Scot, if only because the last Glaswegian docker job disappeared 40+ years ago thanks our red and blue tory masters.

Know your place young Scotland. No wonder so many try to get as far away from our imperial masters as humanly possible.

Democracy?

link to politicshome.com

Stuart, thank you for that first rate, forensic analysis. If only the MSM had such thorough journalism as you bring, week in, week out. Excellent work chief.

The irony is, that if the MSM/Red/Blue/Yellow Tories had any idea about the Scottish psyche, and the tendency of so many Scots to study politics before they vote – subsequently resulting in this…

7th May 2015 Scottish Electorate Votes Cast:

SNP 50%
Labour 24.3%
Conservative 14.9%
Liberal Democrat 7.5%

…then they might stand a chance at recovery. Instead they all fail to listen. Repeatedly.

Stu., out of curiosity, do you have a considered analysis and view on the what, when and how of the end-game for Scotland in this political turmoil?

Just asking like.

Heedtracker: Vintage Bettertogether Britnat BBC Andrew Neil, Nick Clegg love in right now

Playing on in background as I wait for Federer-Djokovic match, compose essay … Clegg is no longer relevant even to Clegg. A useless politician. Tim Nice but dim.

Nana Smith; Scottish people have been cannon fodder and guinea pigs for this “empire” for centuries, but such is the mass brainwashing by the bbc and state-friendly press, many of us ( thankfully a diminishing number ) won’t accept it.

I read the other day of the last survivor of a Scottish commando unit sent over the night before d-day behind enemy lines to take strategically important bridges, etc. The likelihood of dying on such a mission doesn’t need much analysis here; suffice to say subsequent tory votes weren’t affected. My father was in that unit. For the rest of his life he voted labour, because although he was a proud Scot, the war and all connected propoganda wouldn’t allow him to accept the SNP.

Hopefully a growing number of Scots won’t accept the “british” con. Heard a snippet on bbc news a few minutes ago where Andy Burnham stated that the bbc is part of being english – then corrected that to british! We don’t need Freudian wit to glean the true nature of this ” union “.

Well worth a read.

link to archive.is

Grouse Beater says:
12 July, 2015 at 11:40 am
Heedtracker: Vintage Bettertogether Britnat BBC Andrew Neil, Nick Clegg love in right now

Better get used to it GB. Five years of “we lost to horrid Scottish nationalism,” LibDem and Lab.

or as rancid red tory Graun says

“It’s been a brilliant rebranding exercise, the new-look SNP. They repackaged nationalism as social justice, and delivered a message of optimism and hope that the electorate bought. ”

The electorate, you, “bought” the SNP fraud you see.

I wish I was a red and blue tory sometimes. Life must be so simple between their collective rule Britannia ears.

heedtracker at 11.51

“If another referendum was held tomorrow, the Yes campaign would still lose”

Is there any evidence provided to support this assertion?
It required one vote in twenty to reverse the “result” last year. I would say we have one in ten at the moment.

A dose of pessimism we can do without.

“Robin Cook Murdered?” Google it and see what you think folks! Whoever it was it wouldn’t be the British security services, you’ll be accusing them of bumping people off in Ireland next.

As for scaly lizards & the Pope, this is of course an absurdity but Brian Wilson?