The debut
Posted on
May 20, 2018 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
To the best of our recollection, today’s Sunday Politics Scotland was the first time a representative from this site has ever been invited onto a BBC Scotland TV show to discuss the affairs of the day since Wings was founded back in 2011. So we thought we better capture it for posterity in case it’s another seven years until the next one.
The bits that didn’t make it to air are below.
(They made clear in advance that only about 30 seconds would be used.)
David Leask talks about newspaper journalists as if they are collectively some priestly caste that is above suspicion and which has some unquestionable right to awed respect. Weird and out of date.
How many extra hits did you get after your appearance?
That may have set a precedent and they can now start quoting this website along the MSM papers each morning. Well one can hope.
I suspect that quite a few Senior bosses spewed out their G & T’s whilst watching that this morning.
I strongly suspect that quite a few furious phone calls will be being made tomorrow closely followed by a few heads rolling out of Pacific Quay … permanently! 😀
I’m not sure the BBC were ready for Stu’s openness and honesty … cue lots of headless chickens running about Pacific Quay. 😀
I’m just surprised we were allowed to hear your voice instead an actor voicing your words a la Gerry Adams.
Much of the yoonstream for eg regards you and Mr Adams as morally equivalent.
The internet may be a virtual world but the thoughts and opinions expressed there are mostly made by REAL people i.e. those that are not plants, bots, trolls etc.
So, what doesn’t the BBC review what WoS is publishing or IndyRef2 site or WGD etc? ‘Papers Review’ So where’s the review of ‘The National’. I think since The National has been in circulation I have seen only ONE of its front pages reviewed on TV. What will they do when the hard press finally disappears and its all only online? What distinction will they come up with then when all views are published in the virtual world?
‘A Review of the Online Publications That Agree With Our World View’ – or something to that effect.
Tick, tock. The end of the Union is coming.
Did anyone else notice the caption on David Leask? “Chief Reporter, the Herald”…
Good job, well done!
😉
I have to say I have seen much worse BBC reports. There were still moments I was shouting at my screen though.
Also, Scotland is worth much more than £200m to the BBC. There are over 2.4m household in Scotland. There’s around 30,000 hotel rooms virtually all will have a TV licence. There’s also tens of thousands of workplaces paying a licence. I therefore make that much closer to £370m potential worth to the BBC.
The media are at it servants of the British Nationalist regime.
We know,they know we know, and slowly the less well informed are getting to know.
The regime will have to pump lots more “democracy” money in to keep the older folk on message.
A very fine debut. No excuses for not returning for more.
Leasky bleating about “freedom of the press”. You don’t get to LIE to people and then play the victim when folk complain.
The auld print hacks are trying to defend a way of life when they were in the privileged position of telling us what to think. That day is gone; it was put on notice the moment Tim Berners-Lee released the HTML specification for web browsers back in 1991. Now we get to fact-check his content, and he doesn’t like it. Tough. This is the new world.
What utter nonsense of an argument made by Prof Philo who says, in so many words, that you cannot, for example, refuse to cover a story of corruption in a political party because you cannot find an equivalent (balanced) story of corruption in another party. That is a complete false equivalence.
The constitutional issue is a BINARY question which has TWO SIDES. The problem is that the MSM predominantly favours and gives voice to just ONE side of that argument – the Unionist side.
THAT’S the problem with the so-called Mainstream Media in Scotland. And they damn well know it.
Darn Stu!
All your answers were priceless and deserved broadcasting on their own right. I wish they have removed that nonsense in black and white at the beginning that added nothing on to the message apart from a bit of good old nostalgia and given you an extra 40 seconds or so of airtime.
Well, Rev. I fear you have become a real threat to them which is why they are now giving you the ‘Haggerty’ treatment. All those dazzling lights, the party invites, trips to TV studios in London yadda, yadda – can fair make a wee Scots lassie’s heid spin and her eyes blinded towards Unionism.
They’ve managed to turn her towards the dark side and now they’re aiming for you.
Poor BBC – they don’t quite realise yet what they’ve done allowing you through the door. A true indy supporter, uncompromising in that position. Let’s see them try and turn you to the dark side.
The telly reporter in the drab sweatshirt thought the important question was to ask Leasky if he is a member of the intel services.
Of course he isn’t a MEMBER. The important question would have been, ‘Are you an intelligence services ASSET?’
That was – OKAY! – yeah, it was fine … I was half expecting them to make you look like a mad, evil cunt with the dodgy lighting and distorting your voice … by their standards it was pretty fair.
But can you become the NEW ALEX JONES … or pewdiepie (please not WoahVicky)?
I, for one, look forward to ordering my Wings-branded water filters.
The boy done good.
Excellent debut Stuart.
Composed,on the ball, with good vision,and presence.
Could be snapped up by big money rival.
Leask on the other hand looked and sounded like the jaded overrated old fly guy he is.
Now he’s been totally exposed he should just hang up his typewriter as his fellow fly guy Torrance did.
I’m sure they will also find a wee job for him in the Westminster boot room.
An excellent debut Stu! As others have said, a great pity your comments were restricted to 30 seconds.
I suspect Mr Brewer will be shocked to discover the pressure he comes under to restrict your appearances on the BBC-at least I hope he will be shocked (he is no Glen Campbell when it comes to bias, it has to be fairly said).
I agree the nostalgia piece of the Daily Express offices in Albion Street would have been better spent on more from Rev Stu, but I took pleasure in seeing the very floor on which my late father worked for decades (and I worked in a summer holiday) in the days when the Express was the best selling newspaper in Scotland, probably because it was prepared to have headlines like the one after the Hamilton By-election of 1967:
“Winnie Wins for Scotland”-a headline totally unimaginable nowadays.
Confused @ 4.20
Alex Jones is a performer,just like Farage and nothing to be aspiring to.
Well done stu – concise, precise and always honest and true. BBC eat your heart out. As for Leask comes over just as you would expect everyone else wrong and he is right – well he can indeed write what he likes and have a ‘free press’ and we can studiously ignore him and vote with out feet and purse. Never again to the Sunday Herald – I stopped the daily Herald at indy but gave the SH a chance – they blew it. Both he and AH are finished.
They don’t need to find corruption story in other party just report the corruption in the Tory party
In tesco,South queensferry earlier and noticed no Sunday Herald on newstand, when enquired,was told none had been delivered hmm.
Well done.
Thanks Stu
Well done Rev. Sterling interview. … hopefully not the only opportunity to get our voices heard
Well done Stuart
Interesting as usual what they exclude
I see call kaye gets paid 20% less than her male colleagues
Not better together there then
Bbc must think she is as bad as she presents the nurses, doctors, police and all jock stuff
Well done Stuart with your points and the others we may have a turn.
Though I doubt UK government will dissolve its propaganda machine.
[…] Wings Over Scotland The debut To the best of our recollection, today’s Sunday Politics Scotland was the first time […]
Good job Rev, that’ll hurt in some circles.
This talk of the license fee reminded me of a story I read in the Guardian a three days before the referendum.
Independent Scotland ‘faces doubling of BBC licence fee’
link to archive.li
Good old impartial BBC, I could just imagine the chaos there would have been last week at Post Offices in Scotland as people desperately tried to pay twice as much for their license as the rUK so as they could watch the Royal Wedding.
Pure pandemonium It would’ve been LOL.
Brilliant!! Wings must be on all the television politics shows from now on now,! Let’s get them all telt!
I’m not surprised they gave you air-time given the pummeling you deservedly meted out last week to one of theirs, a certain Scottish, MSM, chief reporter. This kind of seductive “recuperation” from the Establishment is to be expected, of course.
Wings has a youtube channel – everyone should subscribe. There’s not much on it at the moment TBH but let’s provide encouragement.
Making videos might even be easier for the Rev than writing an article every day or so. The content can, with enough views, become monetised. More funding for the movement.
Some people cannot really convert their writing into a visual performance (Peter Bell, who writes well, failed to eviscerate that pudding, Pia, on telly the other night) – but the Rev seems quite natural.
Having your own full-length videos prevents reliance on the MSM – who will cut you down to 30 seconds and edit you down to what they want to hear.
Stu
Thank you and we’ll done.
It has taken a great deal of effort on you part in our favour…but you got through to them. They will not like it but given that you ALWAYS print the source link then they are cornered.
I thought it would be a difficult task to exceed the contribution that the Blue Book made but you did it!
I love the bright light you have shown on the BBC bias by using theit ploy of quoting the unionist newspapers! The BBC do NOT have the right to quote one side of the debate.
Yes. Yes there is an assault on the mainstream media. A fully deserved one. They aren’t public defenders speaking truth unto power. They are power. They peddle a product. When the product sold is not as billed, the end user (that’s us) are fully within their rights to challenge, complain and demand redress. They are also fully entitled to make these challenges and complaints as public and noisy as they so desire.
I’d say the mainstream media are as broken an institution as Westminster government itself. Pretty apt given the political preferences shown by the majority of their titles and their practices highlighted by the first Leveson inquiry. Leveson 1 left us in no doubt as to the nature of the beast. The binning of Leveson 2 merely confirms it.
The airing of the plight of the SHerald and the press in Scotland as a whole by the Politics show, says to me that we have real clout as to who makes a profit or who loses their jobs, they’re afraid of that.
I think the media in Scotland in general STV 2 going, newspaper sales falling etc, show that a change in mindset in Scots, with regards to how they get their news. We just don’t trust them anymore, and rightly so.
Also I feel we’ve reached a tipping point, where the BBC in Scotland can no longer afford to ignore the independence matter, and that they’re not quite sure how to deal with it.
We shall overcome these obstacles and gain a independent Scotland.
The Sunday Herald deserves priority focus for their betrayal.
Only the BBC have been worse.
Leask said the better mended OH to late it rumbles on well done Rev .
Archbishop of Dork…4-18pm
I think the obvious question that Graham Stewart (BBC) should have asked Leask was … ” ..so IS the Sunday Herald still supporting the case for an Independent Scotland?”
Didn’t happen.
Macart@5.05
Only problem with an assault on the MSM is the MSM will turn it into a “look at us, those nasty indy supporters are trying to sway the media” but in reality it’s the other way round.
Surely Prof Philo must know that it’s perfectly possible to ignore corruption (or whatever) in one party, while making up stories of the same in another.
That’s exactly the sort of thing the media in Scotland does.
Sigh. Seen it all before.
The MSM realise they have gone too far recently and are trying desperately to redress the balance (well, desperately trying to make it look so). Even the BBC realise that the pudding has been over-egged and its all a bit messy. Don’t worry folks, by Monday they will be back to their BritNat selves. Them just can’t help it.
All we can do is keep the pressure on so that every now and again they will present a fair, balanced report on the constitutional crisis. One out of every ten articles by these propagandists is better than nothing, I suppose.
I had a look at the Nicola Twitter clip on Peston’s feed and I noted that the usual SiU types were foaming at the mouth below. This is good, it will let Peston and others see where the vitriol is actually coming from.
On introducing Leask, “With some even accusing him of working for MI5” this lead onto, “An important question I have to ask you; are you a member of the intelligence services?”, quick shot of Leask grinning to cement the point sarcastically
Obviously this was done to deflect criticism as that being made by crackpot conspiracy theorists with nothing said about Leask’s accusations of Campbell working for various organisations from MI5 to Putin and the KGB.
I think you were stitched up good and proper by these people imho!
@Gary45%
They’ve pretty much been doing that for the past five years. The truth of course is that they are not the victims here. They are very much the abusers.
They’re simply not used to their victims biting back.
O/T
Who exactly is this Early Dumbarton people are talking about? Is he from the toon of that name? Is he a Son of the Rock? That would make him showbiz royalty and probably American. Being the son of The Rock. Or is he just the son of someone wi’ red hair. So mebbe he is Scottish.
But no ahm telt it’s his missus who is the Yank and who is in showbiz. Or at least she wiz. I hear her new in-laws will be writing her scripts from noo on and nae ad libbing allowed. She might no like it.
Apparently Early Dumbarton hasnae trodden the boards like his missus and his Uncle Ed. Mrs. Dumbarton was in some stylish telly show called Soots. About the world of chimneysweeps I suppose.
Onyways. Aw the best tae Early Dumbarton and his missus. Och dae ye hear me. His missus. That’s so outdated and sexist. A huge gaffe. Or as we say a Huge Gaffe-ney MP.
With freedoms and rights come responsibilities.
A free press have no requirement to be unbiased, neutral, or balanced. However, they have a responsibility to be factual and truthful. Their freedom should does not allow them to twist the truth, be deceptive by omission, or simply make up fake news.
BBC rubbishing the news that the FM will restart dialogue on indyref after the awaited report this week, and it ends up Maurice f’n Golden saying a Scottish currency would be our in the sky. Sick of this BBC constant lying pish.
Good interview, the black and white bit is iconic and appropriate as a contrast to today when it’s disappearing fast. Black shirt? I used to have one years ago, only it needing to be washed separately stops me having one, the black shirt is quite common in Scotland, smart too.
What Rev said was grand, restrained and resaonable, made the point in 30 seconds, the empire would have been gone if it was 60 seconds!
I was always a bit of a defender of Brewer, one of their better ones. He works within constraints, but does seem to favour those who are not perhaps media confident- I well remember him teasing answers from Swinney some years ago, and good ones too as Swinney seemed a bit hesitant – the quiet man!
I think the editing was fine to get it down to 30 seconds.
Magic!
That was pretty fair all in all. Glad that Stu was given air time because he bloody deserves it. Yoons can greet and moan all they like…
Leask would deny he was MI5, wouldn’t he! 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
Sunday Politics Scotland is just a local opt out..Sunday Politicx North West, East, South East, North East, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, South West…you get the general ‘regional’ picture.
I must say you had excellent product placement. 😉
The Leask – MI5 nudge-wink thing was a bit pathetic.
EVEN IF YOU DID WORK FOR MI5 – YOU AREN’T SUPPOSED TO SAY IT –
SECRET AGENT, DUH!
Anyone can look up Operation Mockingbird which was run by the CIA (“all your journalists they belong to us”) – and in Richard Tomlinson’s memoirs he states that spies often use “journalistic cover” – he even setup a press agency in the Baltic which was just a (highly unsuccessful) spying operation.
There is also the sneaky lawyeristic pedantry which lets you lie happily – the spooks have the people who work directly for them at home base, then there are their assets, associates, contractors, specialists – they outsource everything much like any corporation. Also, strictly speaking “MI5” is not what its called, so you couldn’t work for it anyway, even if you did …
Nationalists – what a nutty bunch!
@TheWasp
Oh I don’t know, I saw that, and there’s Maurice Golden saying the currency plan wouldn’t work, but the report isn’t even published yet containing it. He’s a total knee-jerk Tory Top, and some at least will notice that.
Pity you didn’t mention that the pro indy SNP had only manage 2 representations on BBC QT out of a possible 80, even though they are the third largest party, in that place in London. wonder how many UKIP and hard right spokespersons (bastards) have been on the panel out of that 80.
O/T
Tories planning snap Autumn GE as Cabinet cannot agree on Brexit…
link to archive.is
The ‘establishment’ will only pay attention when Scots come up with something that really scares the life out of them. Playing politics by their rules simply does not do that.
Unionist apparatchik journalists should be made to feel that having their bags packed for a hasty exit would be a wise move.
I suppose if the herald continues on its demise, we could all start a crowdfunder to take it over
The wedge is in and hopefully it’ll open the gap and we will have some balance in the reporting of independence news. The British Nationalist will be incandescent now with the BBC. Well done Stuart
Archbishop of Dork says:
“The telly reporter in the drab sweatshirt thought the important question was to ask Leasky if he is a member of the intel services.”
Like he’s going to say “Yes”
Of course he isn’t a MEMBER. The important question would have been, ‘Are you…[intelligent]
“Oh I don’t know, I saw that, and there’s Maurice Golden saying the currency plan wouldn’t work”
I’d love to see his reckoning. Most tories still think we are on a gold standard.
Whatever the growth commission do it will be attacked. Of course the correct option is to plan a sovereign floating currency. There are number of excellent economists who would back this up and who regularly eat the Tory types and their warped neoliberal crap for breakfast. These are the people we should be hiring.
Only when the Rev is a regular invited guest on political shows would I ever believe that the BBC, particularly BBC Scotland have started providing any semblance of balance between it’s reporting for those that support Independence and those supporting remaining in the Union.
Independence supporters were threw a bone by Politics Scotland by inviting the hated Blogger of Bath onto the show in an attempt to show how unbiased they are.
Same goes for the likes of Lesley Riddoch, Derek Bateman, wee Ginger Dug, James Kelly etc ect. Every time they have a journalist on in Scotland one of the above or similar should be given the opportunity to put forward a counter argument.
OK the Rev got 30 secs this week, but can you remember two weeks ago the day after the March with Paul Hutcheon of the Herald and that obnoxious Katie Grant? I can and today can’t make up for that one episode alone never mind all the previous crap that’s been spouted on that show.
I can one thing good about it and that’s the past couple of weeks stushie over the march and the reporting of it has not gone unnoticed. Desperate attempt now to present themselves as accurate and fair, even Salmond openly calling the BBC out for their bias, that must have stung!
I’ll wait and see how far that new leaf has been turned over.
Proud Cybernat says:
20 May, 2018 at 3:51 pm
So where’s the review of ‘The National’. I think since The National has been in circulation I have seen only ONE of its front pages reviewed on TV.
Radio 4 in its newspaper review actually mentioned the National and its front page in its 6am review during this week! Only the second time I’ve ever heard/seen it mentioned on BBC.
The first time was on ‘The papers’ on BBC 2 a couple of years ago (when I still had a license) – the guests were obviously astonished that a new newspaper had been launched and they’d never heard of it. I think they’ve been ‘telt’ since then.
I thought that was actually fairly well balanced. Well done, our kid.
Well done Rev. Open, honest and straight to the point. Nae waffle. That’s the way to do it. Now the question is, will they ask you back again. No haudin ma breath on that yin.
Proud Cybernat @ 6.33 Tories planning another snap election in the autumn. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least, but I reckon that the SNP will have to make it a vote for SNP is a vote for independence. Nae messin aboot this time, it’s far too important.
Sit’s back and waits for incoming pelters. Ohyah.
Ok Stu, 9/10 for content and 3/10 for presentation. As an ex TV person, how you/the setting looks (lighting, camera angle, background…) is as important l, if not more important than the actual content, I hate it, but that is how it is. Get the boys and girls from Phantom Power (or others) ready to advise on “setting the scene” prior to another TV invitation.
What is great is that the MSM are now completely aware of what is happening and their future relies in short term decision made.
We are nearing crunch time.
Proud Cybernat says:
“Tories planning snap Autumn GE as Cabinet cannot agree on Brexit”
Well, Well, Well! Isn’t it an stupendous coincidence that there are some rumours for indiref in the Autumn too?
Is this Theresa May’s second attempt to kill the fly of Scottish Independence with a tomahawk missile?
Is this the English establishment attempting to finish the job they started in the last snap GE 2017 aiming to decrease the number of SNP MPs in Westminster below half of the seats to make us believe: “Scotland does not want another referendum”?
Is this the reason Corbyn was here in Scotland? to target more SNP seats?
Is this the reason Carwyn Jones sold the Welsh’ powers? What did he got in exchange, I wonder? a seat in the HoL?
Mmmm. How interesting!
Even in a piece about media bias, the BBC can’t help but show bias. So, the set up is talking about Alex Salmond, and “as he puts it” BBC Bias, then along comes the Prof, who uses, bizzarely, “corruption involving one party” but, then says you can’t not report this, “if there’s no corruption in the other party”. Very subtle. So, the BBC isn’t biased when it screams SNPBad, because, you see the SNP are bad. and there’s no need for balance, because obviously, the unionists are not bad. Like the SNP. I wonder if it’s so baked into their genes by now that they don’t even see it…
In all fairness to Leask he’s not good enough to be employed by MI5.
Either that or their standards dropped something rotten.
LBC At 6.45 had the Scottish editor of the Sun on having a pop at Nicola and dissing indyref. Him and the host were fairly ripping in to Scotland – ie how very dare the Scottish tail wag the English dog – and giving Ruth big licks. She’s apparently going to call for things such as part of the British museum to be moved to Scotland. Even the Sun journo said that probably won’t make a difference.
Well done Stu. Keep up the pressure. The trolls are getting agitated. Remember not to feed them. Folks. Let the admirable Catalans inspire us – rise above it and don’t stoop to their level of abuse. That, more than anything else, annoys them.
Excellent piece from the Rev.
What a shock actually hearing his voice. it really brings home how absent Stu and other pro Indy commentators are from broadcasting. Imagine if he were to appear on QT, what a revelation that would be, yet that should be a normal state of affairs.
Newspapers are on their way out and everyone knows it. I was an avid reader of the Scotsman, when it was a real newspaper, and subsequently the Herald. Now I walk past newsstands without a glance unless I’m picking up a National. The Internet for all its shortcomings could be the saving of democracy.
Congrats Stu, one more & you will have reached the same amount of appearances as elected SNP politicians on QT this year…
We will find out on the Kaye Adams show tomorrow morning if the BBC has taken heed of the wise words of Stu,
“The Scottish political media has undermined itself,if it had been doing a remotely competent job for the last 5/6 years i`d have no material,
Wings Over Scotland would not exist”,
will Kaye stick to `Everything about Scotland is Bad` or will she start telling the truth.
it did make me smile how the BBC rejected most references by the Rev to the BBC.
Impartial BBC!! Maybe STV will show the whole clip?………oops
Let them move the Elgin marbles from the British Museum to Edinburgh, we’ll let Greek tourists take bits home with them.
(Terry 7.24pm).. As above.
The Herald guy, David Leask, is worried, he says, about press freedom. But I thought an important point worth exploring further was Lesley Riddoch’s: that the media, almost monolithically, is pro-establishment and anti-Scottish independence. Is that the ‘press freedom’ we are being asked to respect?
Is it not instead the case that press freedom is being restricted by the establishment? when a coherent and valid counter-view is consistently stifled or misrepresented.
Small point: Did BBC Scotland still seem like the 2014 political campaigning organisation it made itself when it contrived to make Mr Leask deal with a silly question, get a laugh at his critics, and be the only contributor given the chance to do so and to smile to the camera?
However, well done BBC Scotland for airing the possibility that Wings might have a legitimate role to play. So to that extent, they’ve managed to step beyond their 2014 anti-independence campaigning – credit where credit is due.
And really well done Rev Stu!!
Av said it before an ah’ll keep saying it GRAB THE HEID OF THE SNAKE THE BBC & the rest of the Britnat Media will shite themselves .
Hope U get that interview Rev with the Bbc & get the message across People don’t like to pay Bbc Tax in Scotland to be told lies .
Ian Lowe @ 7:20 pm
You wrote: ‘… then along comes the Prof, who uses, bizzarely, “corruption involving one party” but, then says you can’t not report this, “if there’s no corruption in the other party”.’
I too found this University of Glasgow academic’s example quite bizzare – completely irrelevant example in this context. If Manchester United is competing in the FA Cup Final I don’t expect equal (unbiased) coverage of Manchester City if the latter isn’t in the final!
Interestingly, the academic, Professor Greg Philo has a particular view of our Scottish nationalism and Scottish nationalists. He argues for a prevalence of anti-Englishness -he writes “Teachers tell me it is quite common for racist comments about the English to be made in the classroom, an attitude which presumably comes from parents.” and also writes “.. a rise in nationalist fervour is likely to intensify a divisive racism. I was in Scotland all through the ‘Braveheart’ period and for some it was a grim time to be English”.
The Professor has also predicted in 2014: “.. the idea of a new socialist politics being born with a yes vote seems to me very unlikely, as a major consequence would be a surge in the worst elements of nationalism ..”.
Source: link to redpaper.net
So, to go with all the other ways we are characterised by opponents – too wee, too poor, too stupid – this Professor seems to think many of us Scottish (constitutional/civic) nationalists are just very ‘bad’!
So, the big event now is the release at last of the SNP Growth Commission report on Friday, and apparent relaunch of the SNP Indy campaign.
But though I’m one who complained about its delay, that’s playing the game we’re supposed to have been playing. The reality is that too much has been happening, and it was important to focus on the EU Withdrawal Bill, and the Continuity Bill, and keep the Labour and LibDem support for it (Greens go without saying). And a report about Indy coming out could have screwed that up big time, putting Labour and the LibDems in an even more difficult position than they actually were, in supporting the ScotGov. They could do that because it was clearly about Devolution, not Indy.
So the SNP did right delaying it, and “Now is the time”.
Which means so far, for “Suspicious Minds”, the SNP are doing OK and keeping the trust, according to plans which have to be very adapatable.
I have no complaints.
Aonghus Don’t pop the cork on the Bollinger just yet one swallow does not ah summer make
The Tories obviously want to lose a GE to get out of the mess they have made. The bind of the poison chalice. Labour unionists are just as useless.
Hopefully 1/2Million in Scotland who did not vote the last time will vote.
“Also, Scotland is worth much more than £200m to the BBC”
Yes, but as well as losing licence fee money they’d also save £100m or so on no longer having to run BBC Scotland etc. The net value of Scotland in the UK to the BBC is around £200m.
ouis.b.argyll says:
20 May, 2018 at 7:49 pm
Let them move the Elgin marbles from the British Museum to Edinburgh, we’ll let Greek tourists take bits home with them.
———
Naw, we can slap them on the front of the old Royal High when it’s reinvented as a music school.
So the Sunday Herald must have lost quite a whack with cancelled subscriptions, which have not been re-instated after the ‘apology’.
Is this a desperate try to get publicity on the BBC to say “See, its all these nasty cybernats fault, not ours!” ?
Well I doubt it worked, despite the MI5 mentions and the talk of ‘confrontations’ with Indy supporters. The subscribers know why they stopped and this does not address it. As mentioned above their bias expert did not even make sense unlike the Rev who clearly did make sense and came over really well.
Ronnie, you made me laugh.
aye; but I thought the fact Political Campaigning Organisation BBC Scotland had looked beyond its union flag was significant. [Not that I plan to be tuning in to them until they can cover the issues honestly, instead of avoiding them by broadcasting football and music every evening.] The Gordon Brewer bit seemed to suggest they knew they had done what they had done; was there not a belated hint of confessional honesty even…?
…or perhaps the swallow I thought was bringing its pals turns out to be a stray….
I too, thought the ‘experts’ view overtly simplistic to the point of being an irrelevance.
Expert opinion = Fudged reasoning.
Scotland’s MSM – ‘Useful Idiots’ to the British Establishment.
One additional copy of the Sunday Herald left languishing on the shelf in my local Co-op today.
The National is also on notice…
Well done Stu. Articulate as always . I know the interview wasn’t shown in full and thanks for posting the full directors cut sections. I can see a realisation that they can no longer ignore the dissenting voices being raised against them for mis-reporting , twisting, altering or ignoring what is really happening within the indy movement. Thanks all wingers , Lesley R, Stu, Derek B , and all speaking out
Mr Leask said it is really just a minority that are the centre of the storm, I’ll wait to see the circulation figures to see how much this minority is. Of course it may be offset by an increase in the anti movement, they had better hope it is as someone like my iss not going to buy another copy of the SH.
As for BBC spend in Scotland, this is pretty hard to be exact about. With the number of labelled BBC Scotland programmes that are not actually made in Scotland, and don’t use any of the staff. Systems that are actually ran from London but cost allocated to Scotland, few of the the staff are based in Scotland, they would still exist in the same numbers without Scotland. You have to look at BBC cash allocation the same way you look at GERS, not all the money allocated to Scotland is actually spent there.
Reading above I know there are many who, like me have ditched TV or at least do not pay a Tv Lic.
Would there be mileage in a survey to establish how many?
1 Have no Tv & No Lic. Due to BBC bias
2 Have Tv but No Lic due to BBC bias
3 Want to join 1 or 2 above but can’t, as its not practical, got kids, got lodgers etc
I would hate to think that there are folk who are in 1 or 2 due to hardship , another aspect of course.
It would certainly be interesting, depending on result, could be very good ammo to fire at BBC before or at start of ScotRef.
What the hell is that guy Greg Philo talking about… It’s like he has a complete mind block to the age old tactic of the media burying bad news for the establishment party. The media propaganda is as much about what they aren’t telling you, as it is they are.
£200 million?
How many episodes of Eastenders would that cover?
Does anyone really believe that BBC editorial policy re Scottish indy is in any way affected by how much dosh is being gathered via licence fee and/or Capita?
Not being sarcastic – genuine question.
FWIW, I don’t believe it for a second. Simply too much at stake for mere dosh to be a serious factor.
On holiday but caught up with this! Well done Rev. Cool, calm and collected.
The Beeb and Brewer catching up, but only a taste and normal service will be resumed tomorrow!
SNP bad, even worse!
Get down to Dumfries for the AUOB march seems to be the right action to take. Make ourselves visible.
The Scottish media, particularly the Sunday Herald – our paper – has screwed up big time these last few weeks.Moving Haggarty from being a columnist, who I never read, to Editor a major gaffe, and does smell of moves afoot as it is reported she is now getting invites around TV newsrooms.
Over to the Sunday Herald on it’s employment policy response to an employee who outs an innocent person on Twitter. Judgement call for you. Stand up with integrity, or just another media rag?
BBC Annual report for 2016/17 has the following figures:
Estimated income 327.1m (based on licenses issued)
Network content 93.2m
Local content 97.4m
Distributions costs ect 42.4m
The loss of revenue to the BBC from the Scottish license fee, stripping out money spent in and for Scotland would be around 187m on these figures.
link to bbc.co.uk
Proud Cybernat says:
I see all the chatter about that.
If the Tories can’t agree on Brexit, how is a GE going to help them?
Now, if they were to split into two factions supporting two widely different styles of Brexit, and stand against one another … that could work … sort of … as their vote split and they lose seats!
The other scenario, I and others have opined, is that it is the integrity of their Union which is uppermost. They must keep Scotland and NI inside their UKOK. Brexit is a side show.
Yet another GE simply kicks the can further down the road and offers an opportunity for BritNats to take more SNP seats.
And I have to say, if the SNP don’t have Indy prominent in their campaign they will lose seats IMO.
I firmly believe they went from ~1.5m down to ~1.0m, 2015 to 2017, because they fought the last GE with no virtually mention of Indy.
If I am right, and the Tories’ actions are actually about preserving their precious Union, then now is the time to take them head on with that issue.
I prefer the out-take, in my febrile wee imagination, where you sit stroking emergency kitten and say, in a deep Slav accent,
‘Ahh. Come in BBC. I’ve been expecting you’.
This is the utube link to the revs appearance
link to youtube.com
This is my comment
This is an honest appraisal of the situation , and exemplifies the misnomer that the BBC is fair or trustworthy , as Mr Campbell explains having at least 6 political programmes per day merely spouting or parroting uncontested or unresearched newspaper articles is not reason to claim impartiality or integrity.
The BBC and in general the msm are failing the electorate of the UK abysmally , in their deliberate lies and distortions of the Westminster government’s incompetent running of the UK , moreover they have also deliberately and intentionally attempted to lie , distort , and minimise the very egregious damage that will be done to the devolution settlement if the POWER GRAB takes place
Instead of explaining the true implications of the power grab they have willfully attempted to minimise the effect this will have on the Scottish Government’s ability to protect Scottish interests , they have constantly reported that the electorate don’t appear to be interested or are not upset , can this possibly be down to the FACT that the BBC and the msm are NOT investigating and reporting this debacle properly?
I hope I live to see an independent Scotland but right up there would be all the Unionist staff who disrespect my country getting their jotters, No more “come away in” on the Hogmanay show. More like “get oot you useles bag of bones”. Jackie Bird your teas oot
“I reckon that the SNP will have to make it a vote for SNP is a vote for independence”.
If that happens I will vote SNP; if no, I won’t be voting SNP.
Unless, they made it: a vote for the SNP is a vote that Scotland’s parliament controls which powers are reserved or devolved( by electoral mandate from the sovereign people of Scotland).
Thus, what the Union Government administrates would be on Scotland’s terms.
I’m sure that would mean the end of the Union very quickly.
I don’t think cash is the primary point for State Broadcaster the BBC.
it’s priority is doing state broadcasting.
How fitting that the head of Scottish University Media Group should himself be so lacking in impartiality. What is the point of Professor Greg Philo? He seems like the usual establishment academic appointee. Nothing is wrong here, look the other way. It’s laughable. What does he watch for in the media? That they don’t deviate from the message?
OT sorry
This is a great idea from incar Gordon Ross if it could be accomplished
link to youtube.com
My comment
Robert T
Gordon what a great idea , also would any company who supports indy possibly like to sponsor this band and their uniforms c’mon guys think of the TAX break , they could also have their logo associated with the band , as does eg Scottish Power , when I was young we used to have the Govan Fair where companies would dress their trucks and vehicles up and have a cavalcade or procession of gaily covered vehicles , a March containing these things would stimulate people’s awareness and as an aside the EVIL msm wouldn’t be able to ignore it?
OT
Great program on BBC1 just now by the way, 3 parter on the Jeremy Thorpe affair “A Very English Scandal”.
Many of us will remember those times, where homophobia was just the natural state for the unthinking and unaware, but for anyone younger who wonders what it was all about, it’s really a must watch, effectively but slowly, paved the way for the moves against homophobia and equality in sexual relationships. I guess but for that we might still live in the dark ages, and several people I know be discriminated against.
Done with humour, from the bits I’ve seen (I’m busy as always), tastefully done.
The next logical step for the British Nationalist regime is to clamp down on the new media watch this space they will be regulating on line content like Wings in their desperation to control information going out to the masses.
Possibly just for seven years or so.
The Professor quoted in the programme added little to the debate. Nobody would disagree that corruption needs to be reported, it’s how it is reported that is the crux of the matter. A small single piece or weeks of the same item with any minor detail change an excuse to regurgitate the whole story. In fact the use of the word corruption was strange, very little of the reporting problems is about corruption.
In fact I believe I have witnessed serious shortcomings in one particular party being constantly under the radar of BBC Scotland.
O/T big treat in National tomorrow on page 14′ an Article on Yes Supporting Jodie Chalk Motorcycle road racing Star. Well done to the National I have sent them emails before criticising them for now reporting on Oban’s John Mcphee winning at World Championship level. So glad to here they are reporting on Jodie’s success.
robertknight at 8.54
And why, Robert, is the National on notice,pray?
Or is it some other National – not the one that weekly gives us Mhairi Black, George Kerevan, Wee Ginger Dug (twice weekly), Kevin McKenna, Pat Kane, Tasmina Ahnmed-Sheikh, Michael Fry, Carolyn Leckie, Patrick Harvie, Ross Greer, Martin Hannan, Lesley Riddoch,Greg Moodie, Cat Boyd,Hamish MacPherson,the National Yes Hub,Alan Riach,Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, Alyn Smith, Rab Wilson, Shona Craven, Andrew Tickell and regular contributions from many other indy folk plus four pages of very interesting readers letters daily and goes about weekly across Scotland sponsoring public WGD independence meetings.
That National?
Have you actually ever read one or even purchased one, Robert?
Proud Cybernat says:
20 May, 2018 at 4:15 pm
“A true indy supporter, uncompromising in that position. Let’s see them try and turn you to the dark side.”
What do you think they will do if they don’t succeed?
Rock (13th June 2014 – “To the editor of the Scotsman”):
“Remember that you are now the 2nd biggest threat to the Establishment and they will do everything in their power to get you.
My advice to you would be to move to Iceland – NOW – and carry on your work from there.”
Update: BIGGEST threat.
OT
Just watched a re run of THE Wedding…
It was amazing..
He was so dapper and she is surely going to set a trend in dresses.
I never thought it could be so emotional,but it was stunning.
Cannot wait for the next instalment…
Sheldon and Amy are definitely a cool couple
@Dave McEwan Hill –
And it has the only cryptic crosswords in msm which could be construed as pro-indy.
😉
“So we thought we better capture it for posterity in case it’s another seven years until the next one.”
How many years before your second article in the “independence supporting” The National?
The most surprising thing in the Politics Show piece, for me, was seeing David Leask *live*. He’s quite young, eh?
I’d only ever seen him in his Twitter picture, where he looks about 75, like the wee dude who always got his head slapped in The Benny Hill Show.
Dave McEwan Hill
I popped into the Forward shop yesterday to take you up on your offer to say hello, if I’m ever passing by in Dunoon….
And you weren’t in!
I just got a couple of YES Indyref2 badges for a donation, so was worth the wee walk past Lorenzo’s, before I headed back to get my chips from Lorenzo’s.
What’s the best way to attach a Saltire to a fishing rod ( for the Dumfries march)?
Marie Clark says:
20 May, 2018 at 7:15 pm
“Proud Cybernat @ 6.33 Tories planning another snap election in the autumn. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least, but I reckon that the SNP will have to make it a vote for SNP is a vote for independence.”
If the SNP most stupidly did that, under Ken500’s beloved “First Past The Post” system, the British Establishment would make sure that was the end of the SNP.
Have you forgotten what happened at the last “snap” election where the unionists made independence the key election issue?
I haven’t bothered to comment on this page because everyone and their dug has congratulated the Rev on a stellar performance on the BBC today. I have nothing to add.
It’s a shame, then, that our favourite anti-National troll crawls out with his negative input.
Perhaps he should look into the philosophy of “get a life” and explore that philosophy. His input has achieved “scroll by” status in the past couple of years; ie, it rarely gets read by Wingers these days.
@galamcennalath
A snap autumn election?
Y’know, I thought the first one unlikely and then ill judged. If I’d been asked last year when they may have proposed such a thing? It would have been autumn of this year and not June of 2017.
Still, so soon after the last one?
galamcennalath @21:27:
I have to agree.
A GE ‘because they cannot agree on Brexit’ only makes sense if they envisage having a new PM in place (and needing a mandate) by that time. You don’t have General Elections to ‘help you solve disputes in the party’ and you don’t go to the electorate (as a party) offering two prospectuses for the same thing (there are these things called referenda for that).
If they are truly squabbling and can’t settle it, then that’s a Tory party internal battle which they should resolve by fighting amongst themselves and supplanting the incumbent PM if they see fit. No need to drag the electorate into that battle.
Just waiting for the unionist to tell us having our own currency can never work, also sharing a currency can never work. In fact Scotland will be the only country in the world where there is no currency arrangement that can work, except off course remaining in the UK and keeping the pound.
Scotland the only country in the world too stupid to have a currency, you will probably hear this first on the BBC.
@Ian Brotherhood
the wee dude who always got his head slapped in The Benny Hill Show
I’ll no sleep the night now for laughing at that image 🙂
Yesinderef
I agree. “A Very English Scandal” was superb. Hugh Grant was terrific.
It was a different world then
Furthermore, if there is a GE in autumn, the SNP might want to be careful about being bounced into any talk of needing (yet another) mandate to hold indyref 2. Stick tightly to ‘already got one, expires in 2021’.
Boring boring boring paid to troll British Nationalists.
Get yourself a decent job guys.
Politics Scotland = British Nationalist chat show. Don’t be fooled by one episode. Propaganda channel.
Don’t buy the British Nationalist newspapers they are just propaganda sheets.
If there is another election soon, then I hope the SNP are ready and set to go, with plans in place for such an eventuality. At the last election they were ignored by the media. Only by having a radical agenda i.e independence, will they get proper coverage on uk wide news.
They need to go on the attack, not defending, right from the start. Let’s get these utterly shameful Tory clowns out of their seats in Scotland. They also need to highlight just how utterly ridiculous Labour are.
Meanwhile, it seems things are moving on even more for independence, according to The National.
Indeed, the SG already has a rock solid mandate from the 2016 Holyrood election.
If there is another snap GE, the media and the BritNat parties will try their damnedest to tie the SNP to a new indyref mandate, but this has to resisted robustly.
“This snap GE is not about IndyRef 2, because we already have a mandate for that”, or words to that effect, should be the standard reply.
A snap election, maybe we won’t need a referendum. The planets may just be in alignment. Although winning more than 50% in a multi-party contest is a tall order, but including the Greens the pro-indy vote in 2015 was 51.3%, can we repeat this, hopefully.
The SNP should have a single mandate for any upcoming GE: a majority of SNP MPs will provide the mandate for pulling out of the Treaty of Union.
SEEMPLES!
Dave Hill
Funnily enough, Dave, I do buy/read The National, every day, and once read make a point of leaving it in a prominent place where others might also pick it up – be that on the train, in Costa, Mac’s, wherever.
My point about being on notice is that should The National go the way of the once trumpeted independence-supporting Sunday Herald, then I will similarly cease to purchase it. Until then I’ll keep stumping up the 80p and keep leaving it somewhere for others to read. Ok by you?
Seriously Lizg, nae spoiler alert? 😉
Ah huvnae seen the weddin’? Have they really married? Are there more episodes on the Netflixywebby place? 😉
O/T Brexit again. I doubt there is anyone more delusional on the planet about the kind of deal the UK can obtain with the EU over Brexit than the total halfwit that is the UK Foreign Secretary, Boris Jonson.
He doesn’t just want to “cherry pick” he expects to be handed the whole tree and cherry pick forever. Madman.
link to archive.li
He should be locked up for all our safety, deranged so he is.
Snap election disnae make any kind of sense, the Tories are Ukip, that’s already been achieved, so what do they gain from this? Is this a ‘referendum’ on Brexit?
I welcome it if it gets rid of those 13 pieces of Tory excrement currently masquerading as Scottish MP’s, and also puts Alex back amongst the lot of them.
Oh and if that did happen (rid of Tories), we’d be back to the siren call of ‘one party state’. Watch this space.
Playing the victim is par for the Unionist M.O. because, like scaremongering, it simply works.
We are dealing with a deranged collective with no sense of self-awareness, no scruples of any kind and no ability to grasp the current truth far less extrapolate into a reasonably probable future.
In short, their influences pertain less to vision and more to supervision.
So I guess that makes them better than us, right?
Why have just vision, when you can have supervision?
The snap GE might be an attempt to head off an autumn indyref.
I can’t see how the SNP can stand on anything else accept independence with a view to staying in SM and CU.
I’m (considering a position of) abstaining from the next Westminster election.
Thepnr,
“I doubt there is anyone more delusional on the planet about the kind of deal the UK can obtain with the EU over Brexit than the total halfwit that is the UK Foreign Secretary, Boris Jonson.”
It’s kinda like that Guy (literally, but Goma not Kewney) who thought he was applying for an IT job but found himself being interviewed live about on line trends.
He had the nous to go along with it but Boris has taken it further, much too far.
Or mibbes like the movie ‘Being There’, Time for Boris to turn round and walk awat across the lake.
Louis
I’m more considering the possibility of staining after the next WM election if we are daft enough to let things get that far.
Liz G – just sprayed my pint – brilliant post ?
@louis.b.argyll
Your choice but I’d hope you would consider carefully as it doubt that would do the Independence cause much good. We need to come at them from a position of strength and if anything that should make us all work harder for every vote.
Yours is needed as much as everyone else’s. Everyone’s is.
@Chick McGregor
Hahaha I remember that interview, your right Jonson is now that guy. For readers who don’t know what we’re talking about watch this.
That’s Johnson pure chancer. It’s an absolute belter 🙂 🙂
link to youtube.com
Ian B
Clue: I’m Tory Plan B (4,5,2)
If there is a GE in the autumn (How can it be called a snap election 5 months in advance?) then the SNP should stand on a ticket for independence but I don’t know how they would do that as it would need to be agreed at conference next month.
Also agree with others that the BBC 1 programme re Jeremy Thorpe was excellent.
– shite article on the Daily Mail online
link to dailymail.co.uk
– comments open and unmoderated. The full panoply of ignorant kipper filth is on there. Destroy these arseholes. Have fun.
(- get 6 burner emails, 6 DM sock puppet accounts, a PDF of the wee blue book and just go on a copy-paste scorched-earth policy.)
Don’t feel guilty about the “ethics” of this – everyone else is doing it – the Israelis even had a program – Hasbara – and built automated software called Megaphone to do it.
For a shit newspaper, the DM has a good comments system – the BBC and Guardian will either not let you comment or shut you down so fast it’s a waste – enjoy the open policy while it lasts.
I love Wings, but we’re mostly agreeing with each other, or getting into minutiae or even unproductive slapfests – and if your nationalism ever wavers, reading the DM online will restore your confidence. The DM reader is what Tory policies are aimed at – the enemy in his natural habitat.
Fighting in enemy territory is exciting – surrounded by enemies, having to be faster, cleverer – and you don’t have to worry about – “did that post go too far” – “was I verging into vitriolic abuse” – and if you outrage some Polly PissPants, then it’s all to the good – you haven’t damaged the movement.
Back to the article – check halfway down – there are unintentionally(?) hilarious pics of Field Marshal Davidson – firing a massive weapon, straddling the mount … grimacing at the explosive force of the projectile … it’a like a 70s comedy with the Carry On team and Benny Hill – and the really funny thing is, some close personal adviser to her, had her doing this as it would “Look Good – send the right message” – Ha!
robertknight at 10.59
Smashing. I think you have nothing to be worried about re the National.
@Confused
What’s the message that your sending with that last post? Who’s it aimed at?
Thepnr @ 12.26
Aye… Colour me Confused… Bizarre!
I think it is most likely that if they call a GE it will be to try to lose the stranglehold that the DUP have them in. Without the need for their support they can go for the sea border.
K1 @ 11.04
Sorry K1… But it was such an exciting unifying experience..
And anyhoo it wiz a catch up episode… Bazinga
It was the Season finale, I don’t know when the next episode is….but my it was emotional..and I was having fun with flags the whole time.
@Liz g
The man’s confused so has the right name as far as I’m concerned.
“Don’t feel guilty about the “ethics” of this – everyone else is doing it – the Israelis even had a program – Hasbara – and built automated software called Megaphone to do it.”
I’ve never felt guilty about supporting Independence for Scotland but that has absolutely nothing to do with any “ethics”. As for Hasbara, I had to look up the meaning of it.
link to archive.li
“Fighting in enemy territory is exciting – surrounded by enemies, having to be faster, cleverer – and you don’t have to worry about – “did that post go too far” – “was I verging into vitriolic abuse” – and if you outrage some Polly PissPants, then it’s all to the good – you haven’t damaged the movement.
You talk shit, fighting and outrage we don’t have to worry about and it’s all to the good in your mind.
We don’t need that here, we have our own battles to win and they won’t be won with the likes of you supposedly on our side.
Thepnr @ 12.55
He’s Definitely no an ilk then?
Thepnr @ 12:55
I’ve never felt guilty about supporting Independence for Scotland but that has absolutely nothing to do with any “ethics”.
I think @ Confused was referring to the ethics of setting up multiple accounts to bombard the Daily Mail comments section with pro-Indy messages – counter-propaganda using methods that some might consider unethical.
On ‘hasbara’, here’s Wikipedia:
The term is used by the Israeli government and its supporters to describe efforts to explain government policies and promote Israel in the face of negative press, and to counter what they see as attempts at delegitimisation of Israel. Hasbara means “explanation”, and is also a euphemism for propaganda.
Trouble is, it’s probably only those whose mind is already made up who’ll bother reading beyond the first few comments, so maybe not the best use of time & effort?
Confused is half right at least, “fighting” in “enemy” territory is fun, and challenging. I haven’t bothered with the Express for some time, but you can achieve quite a lot by – sensible moderate postings.
There are two reasons to go on, first is in the small hope it might convince some to the YES side, but the other is to cut down the anti-Scottish feeling, so as to help tourism now and relations before and after Indy.
Not actually convinced, unusually, that confused’s style would do much harm, the Mail is actually quite disgusting looking at the comments. But rather than join them, point them out – that worked for me on the Express and some of the more moderate non-Scottish posters joined in condemning the abuse hurled at the likes of Sturgeon and others.
And I guess the occasional posting actually condemning some of confused’s suggested style would do some good as well. Confused sets them up, we knock them down – kind of a devil’s advocate role.
It’s funny how sometimes it takes time for something to sink in, to get the significance of it. I did think at the time it reminded me of the German officer with his little notebook in Dads Army and Mainwaring “Don’t tell him him your name Pike”.
link to twitter.com
“Please provide your name and address and evidence my reporting is dishonest.”
in reply to:
“Nobody gives the remotest fuck what titles you choose to give yourself. People are much more concerned about your shabby dishonest reporting.”
This from a “journalist” who could take a photographer and stand outside your house, and write a story about you and ruin your life in a few short paragraphs, with it costing a fortune to clear your name. By default what goes on the internet, stays on the internet in posting terms, unless it’s criminal or (substantially) defamatory.
It’s one of the reasons I no longer post on the Herald – I don’t trust them further than I can throw them, specially after he replied to a posting of mine on that MacAskill race crime thread, a reply which made a false accusation and got deleted after I reported it to the Mods, but no apology or retraction received. That’s a journalist clearly stepping over the line.
@Lynne
The Mail’s default seems to show newest posting first, similar to the Express. So I guess keep posting something similar every 10 or 20 postings and it has a chance of being read by a casual reader. Same as the Scotsman I think, from memory.
And in some off-topic news, the royal family has granted its permission for Meghan Markle to campaign for feminism.
So much for her equal rights in that marriage/family!
OTDidn’t see the Jeremy Thorpe drama , remember it possibly incorrectly , but was there no a wee murder involved ?
Perhaps someone can clarify.
Snap election doesn’t make sense, unless there’s a vote of no confidence instigated by whichever Tory faction May sells out.
Once the never ending stream of Brexit nonsense is forced to confront the reality of Brexit, not the delusional ramblings of Westminster, then I cannot see any other channel for failure other than a snap General Election.
Going by the polls, the Tories would win again, probably without May in charge, but some other Baffoon instead. Saints preserve us from Boris or Rees-Mogg.
There’s a sense that a GE might throw everything into the air to see whether the pieces fit together any better when they land, but realistically, for that kind of game changer to occur, I think it would require a second Brexit Referendum rather than a GE, but just like Labour, Remain seems pretty incapable of winning anything.
So in Brexit terms, I don’t see a GE resolving very much. Perhaps if Labour showed some will to defeat the Tories, with some Tory rebellion they could do it, but in all sincerity, who would want to jump into the Tory shoes when Brexit is all their brainchild?
So, in Scotland and NI, would anything change in a GE? Maybe. A lot would depend on whether the SNP played possum again, or stood on an Independence or Bust ticket. In that respect, I cannot say much more because I have no grasp of current SNP thinking, other than the SNP’s tradition of reactive rather than proactive initiative.
My biggest hopes are for some Constitutional salvation through law, but even here, all sides seem content to let the clock run out. There seems precious little will or intent to push hard for victory coming from any quarter. Even the Continuity Bill is focussed upon a reaction to Brexit, rather than full blown Constitutional battle over existential Sovereignty.
Over to you Alex Salmond… whatcha gonna do?
“ Galamcennalth @0927pm” , agree that the “ precious precious union” is the Tories principal concern and Brexit secondary. It is beginning to look like the “ Establishment” now see the clear and imminent to the union ( hence the multiple defeats for May in the Lords). May originally wanted a hard Brexit and to simoultaneously crush Holyrood with the “ power grab “. ( Job done). However, now it appears that she can’t get away with this . Plan B , could be a general election ( May resigns) and a new “ soft Brexit “ leader ? or possibly if the numbers stack up a Lib /Lab “ coalition” ( soft Brexit plus usual “ Federal U.K.” promise to Scottish voters in an attempt to win votes from SNP in Scotland. ) . This would be the Establishment’s strategy to “head off “our FM’s call for indyref2 . Don’t know how our FM would counter this ? The “ power grab” it could be argued is “ the end of devolution” . Could this possibly be as equally significant in any GE as Brexit from an SNP perspective?? . Could a majority of SNP MP’s be mandated to withdraw from Westminster and for Holyrood to commence negotiations for withdrawal from “ the union” to be ratified via referendum following “ negotiations”? Ie . Have the referendum later?
I realise that you were expecting 30 secs or so to be used, but isn’t it interesting that the bits they cut were “how to do journalism well” and “why the BBC will always be pro uk”
Dorothy Devine,
I hope this helps, Dorothy.
A Very English Scandal is the shocking true story of the first British politician to stand trial for conspiracy and incitement to murder;
link to archive.is
Revealed: Letter that stopped Jeremy Thorpe giving evidence;
link to archive.is
Morning Smallaxe! Thank you for that , I had been guddling about in my memory which frequently lets me down.
I am delighted that in this case there had been , if not a ‘murrderr’a conspiracy to murrderr!
Good morning, Dorothy,
link to youtube.com
😉
It was Stu`s last stint on MSM TV (ordinary mother Clare Lally) that brought me to the Wings Over Scotland blog,
hopefully a few/lot of inquisitive independent minded souls will have a wee swatch at Wings today just to see what it`s all about,
if that is you,
it`s well worth reading the
(Comment – please read `this page` for comment rules.)
biggest comments rule is `keep it short`and use links to back-up your comments,
welcome to fact based journalism.
It’s amazing how standards of journalism can reflect knowledge and human interests;
‘the Norwegian Media Ownership Authority (NMOA) was established in 1999 to prevent concentrations in ownership of the media. This was deemed especially important in light of the fact that only three groups own most of the daily presses and also have substantial interests in broadcast media…century. In 1994, the Norwegian Press Association adopted an Ethical Code of Practice, covering the obligation of the press to protect freedoms of speech and information distribution and the obligation to offer critical commentary and a diversity of views… After a press dominated by political party influence with newspapers representing particular political positions, Norway press has come to value independence and the presentation of a range of perspectives on issues’
link to pressreference.com
‘By taking advantage of the constraints on journalism—especially the time constraints and the fact that journalists need copy— lobbies (as well as corporations and government spokes-people) were able to exert a great deal of influence over how news was presented. As Barnett and Gaber argued, “journalism which is deprived of investment inevitably becomes journalism which is more reliant on the never-ending stream of press releases from PR departments.” Indeed, a large percentage of journalistic stories consisted of rewritten press releases… journalism yields to “Newszak,” or “news converts into entertainment…
Cross-ownership laws, reinforced in the 1996 Broadcasting Act, prohibit media groups controlling over 20 percent of daily newspaper circulation from expanding into terrestrial television. These laws do not restrict ownership of satellite television that is based outside Britain but marketed to British viewers (such as Murdoch’s Sky TV)’
link to pressreference.com
North Chiel @ 7.25
I suppose it is possible for the SNP to run the next election with a mandate to end the Union, with a follow up referendum.
If they argue that we need to get away from the disfunctioal Westminster regime, that’s damaging Scotland, threatens Holyrood and after two years still can’t get their act together.
It’s certainly leagally possible.
And it would definitely be good to have them so distracted while we campaign.
What could they promise us this time…..
More Powers?
Stay in Europe?
Jeramy as our saviour?
Also what would they threaten us with
Nae Pound?
Out of Europe?
A General Election for England only?
That would really threaten turnout, cause we would aw be laughing too much to go and vote!
But they must know that our movement is reforming and we are good to go.
And they know that Scotland can indeed elect an almost total contingent of SNP MPs.
So the question is, if the Union is now their real priority, would they risk it
Smallaxe , not many people make me laugh on a Monday morning – well done!
Scot Finlayson Ah the day’s of the Funicular lift ah wiz getting nose bleeds going up & down lol, & we Wingers took the pressure of Alex Salmond’s ( advisor ) to which he was great full to the `Rev & the contributions of the Wingers . Happy day’s will come again lol .
That wedding, that exercise in ‘English Shinto’ cultism no self respecting Scot should have considered watching, according to the puffed up BritMedia shows how great Ukania is and second to none despite or even because of ‘multicultural’ London being the global centre for money laundering activities.
Multicultural of course does not include Scotland or Wales who are just faded wallpaper in establishment England’s new grand design scheme.
NB. Wowed the self-proclaimed republican and all inclusive, except for that Scottish nonsense, Guardian. How they all stick together.
@Marker Post says: 20 May, 2018 at 3:53 pm:
“Did anyone else notice the caption on David Leask? “Chief Reporter, the Herald”…”
Of course we mostly did because most Wingers are, “Alert Readers”, and those that are not are, (cough!), “Alert”, paid for, “UK agent provocateur”, or perhaps not-so-alert-UK Unionists pretending to be life-long SNP members.
However, within limits, it is not a bad thing to have such views. Wings is an open forum and it would soon fold if it becomes a cost wee clique all agreeing with each other.
Can you see it now if that were to happen? Stu writes an article and the first commenter posts, “I agree with Rev Stu”, and that is followed by hundreds of Wingers posting, “Me too”.
You cannot have a debate when everyone is in agreement.
Links
link to news.gov.scot
link to indyref2.scot
link to thoughtcontrolscotland.com
The threat to our world renowned whisky industry is real and potentially devastating. What are you going to do about it, Scotland?
link to twitter.com
link to peterabell.blog
Trashtogether with their new DUP pals
link to twitter.com
link to friendsoftheearth.uk
link to politico.eu
link to electronicintifada.net
link to politicshome.com
A life ‘completely destroyed’ by one paragraph of immigration law
link to archive.is
link to truepublica.org.uk
link to opendemocracy.net
Brexit: betting the farm
link to eureferendum.com
link to theneweuropean.co.uk
link to politico.eu
The Russians are undermining western democracy, ie the UK, according to the latest government proclamation. How easy to pin Russian subversive on any activist or party challenging the current socio-political order.
All very ‘Soviet’.
Good morning, Nana. Thank you for your links, it’s a lovely day here but I’m away back into my Fortress of Solitude.
Kettle’s on!
🙂
liz g ther’s a Bus being organised from Cumbernauld to Dumfries March tickets £10 , saves U a long drive .
@Truth says: 20 May, 2018 at 3:58 pm:
“Also, Scotland is worth much more than £200m to the BBC. There are over 2.4m household in Scotland. There’s around 30,000 hotel rooms virtually all will have a TV licence. There’s also tens of thousands of workplaces paying a licence. I therefore make that much closer to £370m potential worth to the BBC.”
And there we have the long established, mainly BBC led, Westminster Establishment Propaganda. It is an undeniable truth that the people of the United Kingdom have always been brainwashed that the BBC is funded by the licence payer.
That belief is totally, “Male bovine, rectally sphinctered, waste matter”, a.k.a. “Bullshit”. The Licence fee is exactly what it claims to be, “a licence to view”, transmitted live, (not necessarily performed live), video broadcasts. The organisation that give the holder that, “Licence”, (a.k.a. permission), is Her Majesty via, Her Majesty’s Government.
Here is the Oxford Dictionary two definitions of the term:-
1. noun – Formal or official permission to do something.
2. A writer’s or artist’s freedom to deviate from fact, or from conventions such as grammar, for effect.
But also note that in British English licence is the correct spelling for the noun, and is also an acceptable variant.
So the stone cold, unvarnished, truth is that the Licence Fee goes to Her Majesty’s Treasury and Her Majesty’s Government makes an agreed grant of, (not just licence payers), tax money to the BBC.
The Licence fee money does not go directly to the BBC and we would be hard pressed to find out the exact sums collected. We can find out the level of government grant that Westminster gives to the BBC.
What is more, the BBC have recently began to fund reporters working for supposedly privately owned newspapers in the United Kingdom. Thus taxpayers money is being illegally used to finance private companies in the dead tree press, That, if I’m not mistaken, is not only against EU rules but also the rules of the WTO.
I have no doubt that I’m wasting my time pointing out these truths and the general public will go on demonstrating how well they have been brainwashed by Westminster.
It seems is impossible to undo the Westminster brainwashing and the BBC being funded by the Licence fee payers is just the tip of a very large iceberg of mistaken beliefs.
Good morning Smallaxe
It’s raining here today, so no gardening! Good to know you are taking things easy 🙂
Thepnr 11.55
Yes my friend, when I said ‘consider abstaining’ I was merely taking the LPiS cowards route to British politics. You know, let things happen around you and claim, either way that you’re on the winners side.
Like you say, well have to secure our movement’s ‘impetus’ and support each and every opportunity to display our intentions to ‘win’ independence.
ot re snap ge
it may well change the numbers in wm, enabling the tories to ditch the dup and finally chose one brexit strategy over another. ie staying in the CU. the same is true for labour whose present havers are losing them support. both were elected on a ticket of leaving the eu, the sm and the cu.
so what?
whoever finally cuts the deal with the eu, or whatever deal is made, soft brexit or hard brexit, there is no brexit outcome which will satisfy the 62% of scots who voted remain. neither is there any brexit outcome which will remove our mandate for indyref2.
ge2015 scotland
turnout 71.1%, Increase 7.3%
snp = 1,454,436
lab = 707,147
tories = 434,097
libs= 219,675
total 2,815,355
ge2017 scotland
turnout 66.4%, Decrease 4.7%
snp = 977,569
lab = 717,007
tories = 757,949
libs = 179,061
total 2,631,586
drop of 183,769
the only party to see any real increase was the tories. 50k of that came from the libs.
the real story was the snp voters didnt turn out. when out canvasing doorsteps during that election, snp voters, supporters and even some members, didnt want to hear about indyref2, they wanted to know what brexit would mean. It was as if the issue of brexit was all consuming and interfered with the issue of indyref2.
to that end, i supported nicola’s decision to take indyref2 of the table until the issue and result of brexit is know and settled,
so what do we do if a snap ge is called in the autumn?
well, a platform of sm/cu membership is a certainty. but do we put indyref2 back on the table? i’m unsure, i think that would depend on
1. the actual timing of the ge, will it be before or after the negotiations are completed and the deal is winging its way back to westminster?
2. what will be the position of labour and the tories? the corbyn red flag brexit and treezas red white and blue brexit are looking very threadbare at the moment, they are in fact both tactics aimed at avoiding the issue and confusing the public because neither wants to nail its flag to any mast for fear of losing votes.
bear in mind, the tories will run with the no means no meme, why wouldnt they? but in turning a snap ge into a vote on indyref2, the only winning result for them is if they take more snp seats.
since the 2017 ge, support for the snp in polls has recovered somewhat, from a low of 38 to 42% and the tories may not be so successful in mobilising their support next time. but the snp voters, especially in areas who lost snp mps to the tories will be very energised.
if 2015 ge was a perfect storm for the snp, peak nat if you will, then 2017 ge was the perfect storm for the unionists, peak yoon etc.
we may not win back all 21 seats but i would bet we would win back at least 5, so to rees mogg i say, bring it on.
Robert Peffers,
You seem resigned to the BBC stitch-up.
Don’t you think the abuse of power, by the state funding of private journalism, can be challenged?
And is that a Human Rights issue and therefore another Brexit consequential?
@HandandShrimp says: 20 May, 2018 at 5:36 pm:
” … This is good, it will let Peston and others see where the vitriol is actually coming from.”
If you imagine, even for a moment, that, “Peston and the others”, do not aware where the vitriol comes from then you are seriously deluded. The not only know from whence it comes but have built their careers upon fostering the sources.
@Robert Peffers
Most taxes raised in UK go to the `Consolidated Fund`,basically the main bank account of the Government for general spending, link to tinyurl.com
there is also `Hypothecated Taxes` which are taxes raised for a particular expenditure purpose,link to tinyurl.com
don`t know if the Broadcast Tax is a `Hypothecated Tax` or just goes into the `Consolidated Fund`,
in saying that,the main purpose of tax is to regulate inflation so academic where BBC is funded from.
The State subsidising the private MSM newspapers to the tune of £80,000,000 being against the EU/WTO law is surely a newsworthy topic.
link to tinyurl.com
Fab links Nana, about half way through.
Schrodingers Cat, very good there, above.
Another possibility short of standing on an Indy manifesto is a similar, but lesser stand, such as exercising some limited form of Scottish Sovereignty and do a “mini-Brexit” on the UK… take back powers like Broadcasting and Immigration, and demand interlocutor status in EU negotiations.
Interlocutor status is only consistent with a degree of Sovereign recognition, however, I fear we are too late and too far up the wrang dreel to lobby for a better position on Brexit. We are already in all or nothing territory. If Brexit now occurs, we suffer the humiliating catastrophe of Brext itself, the loss of EU Nationals votes backing Indy, and the obsolescence of our unused triple-lock Mandate for IndyRef2.
Never, in the field of human referenda, has so much Sovereign mandate been given by so many to so few, who then did pretty much nothing with it.
Even that path is contrived however. If we want to provoke a Constitutional crisis that stretches the Union to breaking point, we could scarcely expect a better scenario to arise than the one we already have where Scotland’s unambiguous and Sovereign Remain Majority democratically expressed, but is being subjugated by sub-Sovereign Westminster Parliament. To quote Sundown in Top Gun when Maverick is ducking out engagement, “What do you mean it doesn’t look good? It doesn’t get to look any better than that.”
We have everything we need, probably even a healthy YES majority if it was nurtured and shepherded home correctly, but still we idle, waiting on clarity to emerge from the chaos factory of May’s government.
I am vexed. What clarity, on what topic, are we waiting for?
Brexit is a binary issue. Scotland said No, rUK said Yes, so the Constitutional die has already been cast. If Scotland is now Brexited, it is an act of unconstitutional subjugation which we should not pause to negotiate, but which we should vehemently reject wholesale. What part of that is unclear???
Saw the EU Ref result clip, Dimbleby saying ‘..we’re out!’
But the referendum was advisory.
He had no right to say ‘we’re out’
Breeks, I think waiting to see any detail whatsoever of the UK non-strategy is better than hoping they play fair.
If we leave them opportunity to promise the Earth, they will, and those of a certain demographic will believe them.
They are about to paint themselves into a corner..let them.
“ Liz@0812” , “ if the union is their real priority would they risk it”
Liz, I have always believed that the union was the real priority. The “ snap GE “ was planned and the other London unionist parties were “ in on it” . The Tory millionaires and billionaires really want to go back to “ the good old days” couldn’t care less if the economy takes a major Brexit hit , just so long as the have complete control of UK and all of its constituent parts with no say for the European courts etc. So much the better as far as they are concerned if the plebs suffer and have to go crawling to Tory paymasters for work. ( no inconvenient European workers rights etc.).
However, as I see it, the Tory establishment might have to ditch May if the Brexit shambles comes to a head with Europe playing very hard ball and the possibility of a United Ireland looms together with a possible constitutional legal wrangle with Holyrood . The “ men in grey suits” might appear and a GE could be their way out with “ a soft Brexit Tory” installed promising further concessions on the power grab going head to head against Corbyn led Lab/ Lib coalition ( the Liberals recovered significantly in local elections) customs union/ SM option together with the “ fantasy” Devo supermax Federal usual pish” from the London 2nd eleven government.
Perhaps , the General election mandate for our FM should be along the lines of a majority of Independence MP’s in Scotland would equate to a mandate to the withdraw from the 1707 union and commence negotiations with both the UK and Europe as regards future relationships with former U.K. countries and all European countries including non EU members, the “ Final options” the then be put to a referendum vote ?? I am not quite . sure how this could be progressed?? . However a majority of Independence MP,s ends “ the current union”.
Problem with a GE mandate on Independence is having the same issue some take with our 2016 Brexit majority. Even a large % of Yessers , (and a Holyrood Government), were, and still are, happy to set aside the Sovereign aspect of the Scottish Remain mandate being drawn from a UK-wide vote.
Furthermore, learning from our 2014 NO result, where would we stand Constitutionally in the tragic event of another defeat or ambiguous victory? The issue of Sovereignty would still remain a matter of ambiguous conjecture, with Westminster Sovereignty still being recognised internationally, and probably not even recognised as even disputed.
I wish more people grasped the massive significance of Sovereignty over any and all democratic process, mandate and result. Sovereignty does not essentially require any democratic mandate, but a democratic mandate without Sovereignty to underpin it amounts to absolutely nothing. If you cannot be sure of securing both, then for the love of God make sure its Sovereignty you make safe, because whatever else happens, everything else will work out fine in the long run.
If however you make Sovereignty conditional upon having a democratic mandate backing it, you have taken the absolute condition of Nationhood which nobody can formally dispute, and downgraded to an ephemeral whim of choice, which in Scotland’s case, is a choice that is skewed and distorted by UK propaganda and infiltration.
By all means, yes of course canvass and gather support for a majority backing Independence, but just understand the meat and drink of our Constitutional emancipation from the Union lies with the realisation of our Sovereignty and establishing the legitimacy and ascendency of our Sovereignty over theirs… That’s the tipping point for change. Democratic ratification is just the gravy.
Ronnie Anderson @ 8.59
Thanks for the info Ronnie, but I am already booked on one of the Glasgow Buses.
……………………………..
North Cheil @ 10.30
I agree that the Union is the “suits” top priority,has to be,they know our true value!
The SNP, as I see it,has two choices.
Turn any UK election into a manifesto commitment to end the Union.
Or a manifesto commitment of some kind over Europe ie… take their General Election and turn it into the second EU referendum for Scotland that England are being denied.
Either way they should turn any snap election around to being about Scotland only.
A sort of…. voting for the SNP manifesto is not a vote for no change, but faster better, safer change than the other parties offer!
Two notable achievements –
1. You managed to point out how popular and necessary Wings is in the current Scottish media context.
2. The BBC didn’t cut any of that out.
I’m not sure what Greg Philo’s contribution was supposed to have added to the mix? Maybe he was the one that got his contribution misused and abused. We won’t know without access to the uneditied version.
Back in around I think it would have been 2008 or possibly 2009 when the financial crisis was in full swing and when I still sometimes watched bbc scotland news I remember that Philo guy basically saying that financial institutions and the super rich could, if they wanted to, help considerably to alleviate the crisis instead of having the population at large pay for it and that ghastly old hag Bird just SMIRKED at him as if to say now now you silly boy you should know that’s not how it goes. Talk about bias??
Though what he said up there about not reporting corruption in a “balanced” way made no sense to me.
@ yesindyref2 says:
The Mail’s default seems to show newest posting first
Thanks – useful to know. (You’ll gather I don’t frequent the DM site!)
Breeks says:
The idea of Westminster sovereignty is an english construct that is and has been pushed for centuries in order to have it fixed in Scottish minds that we are inferior to them and must be obeyed.
It is however (surprise surprise)it is far from the actual truth.
This issue does need cleared up, we are not inferior to them in any way. However they duck and dive, and outright lie.
This needs to be sorted and the Scottish people’s sovereignty needs to be brought to the fore. It is there in the Act of Union, and now needs to be asserted. Once that is cleared up, the game changes dramatically, the SG need to get it sorted.
When done it will show we have the power to change our lives however we want to, without Westminster’s cretinous agendas.
The b’tards filmed you from an unflattering angle with a dodgy white balance!!! There should, at least, have been some Vaseline on the lens…
In all honesty, I don’t pay a licence fee to the BBC, but I would be willing to donate the amount it costs for one to create a Wings Over Scotland television channel or TV show instead. It would be well worth the money IMO.